This article on Reuters.com caught my attention today. I thought it was an interesting way to deal with a tricky problem and couldn’t imagine many other world leaders coming up with such a solution.
There is some interesting vocabulary in the third paragraph:
prompting an outcry from police groups and a resulting media blitz.
A ‘media blitz’ is when the media give one event an abnormal amount of extra coverage.
The next interesting expression comes later on when Professor Henry Louis Gates is quoted as saying:
“I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige,”
If we do something to ‘further an end’ we do it to help reach a goal or target. In this case, the target is to use what happened to Professor Gates as an example to stop similar things happening in the future.
The next expression, ‘happy to oblige’, means he is pleased to take part in this activity.
I think I would like to have a beer with President Obama. Which political leader would you like to have a beer with? What questions would you ask him/her?