Listening podcast

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fooc/fooc_20071013-1341.mp3

I have chosen podcast which was for native English speakers. Its length was about thirty minutes. The report was weekly news from BBC correspondents. The first news was about Russia’s president Vladimir Putin who has to be replaced. But, correspondent states that, despite his resignation next year, his influence will be around quite long. For the last two years the biggest question for Kremlin and duma was: who will replace president Putin. And as a matter of fact, his resignation is a must. There were reports that he will replace his old friend from KGB A. Medvedev. But these news changed dramatically. V. Putin openly suggested that perfect candidate to replace him would be the Prime Minister V. Zubkov. Besides, he, V. Putin, would be great Prime Minister after his retirement. So, BBC correspondent argues that for real, the man who will replace V. Putin will be exactly V. Putin and his reports about his heir were only misleading speeches. Correspondent sees evidences for this in V. Putin’s promotional tricks like photos during his holidays, where he can be seen as a strong and relaxed man. But according to some persons close to duma, V. Putin’s epoch is not ending but just beginning. The question is just how he will remain in government. By the way, correspondent sees another big danger- will Russia become authoritarian society again, while Russian people are relieved that country is again stable. Another report is about Chinese investment in Africa’s natural resources. Correspondent was doing her investigation in Angola. She thinks that it is Chinese government’s impact that fabrics in Chinese do not employ workers from Angola, country which is suffering from unemployment. More over Chinese workers are sent to work in Angola despite that hiring native people. The project that the most interested BBC correspondent is reconstruction of eight hundreds long railway that was the most important for transporting the minerals from Congo to Angola. Chinese are blaming Angola for money, involved in this project, disappearance. But Angola’s government is not likely to talk about important questions like: how many workers are involved in this project and its finishing day. It is difficult to understand cash flows and the relationships between Chinese and Angola. What is clear, that decisions about Angola’s politics are taken by a very small group of people who are close to president. In next report the BBC journalist investigates the icy Northwest Passage around Canada which can become the shipping route because of impact of changes in climate. This passage is invincible when the sea is frozen. By the way, correspondent mentions J. Franklin, the first man who begin trip through this road to find North passages, and get stuck into an ice for several months. But journalist presses the point that this summer has broken the records of melting in the Antarctic. The warming was so intense that melted some toughest ices in the North Pole and they are moving to the south. Journalist remembered that because of moving ices J. Franklin had spent two winters in the traps of an ice. And his expedition’s disappearance is still big mystery because there was no way for communication. After all, the first successful expedition which reached the North Pole had been lasting for four years. Next report is about problem of unsafe abortions that are done because of the banning them. Correspondent met some women in Nicaragua who has faced this problem. There is huge number of pregnant teenage girls. But in this catholic country abortions are banned. Unfortunately, in this country women are often sexually abused by men without any respect. Still, there is a little chance that law will be changed because government is not interested that women are still going to do abortions. The last report is about flights. And not the simply one’s but those who are really comfortable. Speaker was impressed by the flight. Advantages during flight with Zeppelin were these: speaking without efforts, dining and sleeping rooms, wonderful sight cause height was not like flying with planes but much nearer the earth. Besides, after the flight you can get off refreshed and relaxed. Summarizing everything up, speakers speeches were understandable. But I have found difficulties in understanding specific terms. That's way, I have put across only main idea of the last report, cause there were too many terms of planes and navigation. Of course, the same problem appeared in previous reports as well. As far as my opinion is concerned, it is problem not with my listening skills, but with dictionary. So, listening to podcast as useful, because now I know what part of my English I should improve.

Psychological abuse

Psychological abuse is very wide area that compose various emotional violence. It could be alloted into female, child abuse, verbal, alcohol, drug abuse and so on. Speaking more generally, it can be defined as an emotional or psychological abuse that involves any behavior, verbal or non-verbal, that negatively impacts another person's emotional or psychological well-being. If someone thinks that it is uncommon phenomenon, it would be totally incorrect, because it occurs everyday in a various relationships such as between spouses, intimate partners, parents and children, peers, siblings, and toward the elderly or, in general, where a power differences exist. I would like to mention some main causes of psychological abuse. I suppose, that the biggest cause is seeking for superiority. People who want to take the control under others always find someone who is weaker. And there will always be a lot of persons who sees it difficult to fight, say no or maybe just to try finding helping from others. Let's think deeper about this issue. It goes without saying, that people's social state is not the same. Really, we can see a huge differences even among different countries. Unfortunately, there is rooted opinion, especially in Western culture, that economical, material well-being is the most important thing. More over, it is the indicator for appreciating others. Though, not forgetting psychological point, the most famous psychoanalytic Z. Freud says that chasing prestige and money means persons fixation of the second, anal stage, of development. Besides, a lot of psychologists, like A. Adler, C. Horney and many others, state that wanting to be better, taking control under others, showing strength by using psychological abuse means nothing else but inferiority complex. So, people want compensation for their selves weakness, problems, fears through abusing others. Also, I would like to press the point, that C. Horney was the firs psychologist who begin speaking about women psychology.She argued that male, who used to were completely dependent on their mothers envy women's virtues that are impossible for men ( like breastfeeding, pregnancy). If we believe in C. Horney, men in all over the world abuse their colleagues women, wives or just unknown women because of envy and inferiority. But it's a pity, all these findings do not change situation because to overcome psychological abuse ( not only female, but all kind of abuse ) we need changes in all civilization's point of view, more serious consideration about it in governments that can help creating help-centers and spreading information about it.

Psychology of handwriting

I would like to begin with saying, that psychology is trying to deepen knowledge about person not only through verbal communication but also through body language, the style of how we behave. That's why it should not be strange that even psychology of handwriting exist. So, what can handwriting show? As psychologists interested in nonverbal behavior suggest, it can say a lot about personality's traits, interpersonal communication, characters and so on. This idea can be explained by structure of personality which is composed not only of traits, minds but also different style of behavior. By the way, one of the pioneers of psychology Binet thought that one of the ways to determine characters is to analyze writing. After a lot of experiments he found correlations between handwriting and gender. Binet stated that male writing is always more original than female. Graphologists suggest that it is possible to interpret characters from such a graphic signs: 1) ascending handwriting which is associated with self-love and pride; 2) handwriting composed of a thin lines, saying that it is very shy person; 3) personality's strength is associated with a thick letter "t"; 4) long "t's" stem means toughness 5) writing letters "a" and "o" roundly shows reserve, reticence. But on the contrary to these findings I would like to mention research done by psychologists Mongomery and Hull to support or deny this idea. Firstly, they grouped sample of seventeen students, for example, by pride. After that, they were asked to write some paragraph. Than all students exchanged their sheets and had to group colleague's by the level of pride, which should be seen through ascending lines. Unfortunately, there wasn't any correlations between handwriting and real traits of students characters'. Still, it goes without saying, that we all behave,and also write, differently. Calm person writes without hurry, legibly, in the contrary, A behavior type people write illegible, fast, impatiently. So, after all, it would be too brave stating that handwriting is not important field of psychology. Besides, a lot of psychologists, like A. Adler, C. Horney and many others, state that wanting to be better, taking control under others, showing strength by using psychological abuse means nothing else but inferiority complex. So, people want compensation for their selves weakness, problems, fears through abusing others. Also, I would like to press the point, that C. Horney was the firs psychologist who begin speaking about women psychology.She argued that male, who used to were completely dependent on their mothers envy their virtues that are impossible for men ( like breastfeeding, pregnancy. If we believe in C. Horney, men in all over the world abuse their colleagues women, wives or just unknown women because of envy and inferiority. But it's a pity, all these findings do not change situation because to overcome psychological abuse ( not only female, but all kind of abuse ) we need changes in all civilization's point of view, more serious consideration about it in governments that can help creating help-centers and spreading information about it.