Forked to "Read Along" on March 5, 2010
Changes = font color and LRC data
Forked from....
Simple LRC player. Can easily go out of sync online.
@author makc
@license WTFPLv2
// forked from makc3d's Simple LRC player
package {
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.ProgressEvent;
import flash.media.Sound;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.utils.setTimeout;
/**
* Forked to "Read Along" on March 5, 2010
* Changes = font color and LRC data
* Forked from....
* Simple LRC player. Can easily go out of sync online.
* @author makc
* @license WTFPLv2
*
*/
public class LRCPlayer extends Sprite {
private var tf:TextField;
public function LRCPlayer () {
var s:Sound = new Sound;
s.addEventListener (ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, start);
s.load (new URLRequest ("http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/learningenglish/dalet/se-econ-corp-history-5mar10.Mp3"));
s.play ();
}
private function start (e:ProgressEvent):void {
if (e.bytesLoaded < 1) return;
e.target.removeEventListener (ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, start);
tf = new TextField;
//tf.width = 120;
tf.textColor = 0x000000;
tf.autoSize = "left";
addChild (tf);
var lines:Array = lrc.toString().split("\n");
for each (var line:String in lines) {
var a:Array = line.match (/^\[(\d+)\:([\d\.]+)\](.*)$/);
if (a != null) {
trace (a)
setTimeout (function (msg:String):void { tf.text = msg; },
parseInt (a[1]) * 60 * 1000 + parseFloat (a[2]) * 1000,
a [3]);
}
}
}
private var lrc:XML = <lrc>[ti:How a Corporation Is Like a Person]
[ar:Steve Ember]
[al:Economics Report 2010-03-04]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English
[00:03.32]Economics Report.
[00:05.29]Recently the United States
[00:07.57]Supreme Court decided a big case
[00:10.49]about political speech.
[00:12.37]The question was this:
[00:14.79]With political speech,
[00:16.83]do corporations have
[00:20.09]the same rights as people?
[00:22.52]By a vote of five to four,
[00:25.10]the conservative majority
[00:27.12]on the court decided yes.
[00:29.75]Companies, labor unions
[00:32.27]and other organizations
[00:34.24]may now spend as they wish
[00:37.12]on independent efforts
[00:39.15]to elect or defeat candidates.
[00:42.53]The ruling is based
[00:44.35]on the idea in the United States
[00:46.93]and many other countries
[00:48.91]that a corporation
[00:50.58]is a legal person.
[00:53.10]Historian Jeff Sklansky says
[00:55.67]a slow shift to personhood
[00:58.71]for American companies
[01:00.32]began with a Supreme Court
[01:03.36]ruling in eighteen nineteen.
[01:05.43]It said states cannot interfere
[01:09.53]with private contracts
[01:11.59]creating corporations.
[01:14.28]In the ruling,
[01:15.65]Chief Justice John Marshall
[01:17.71]described a corporation
[01:19.28]as an "artificial being"
[01:21.80]that is a "creature of the law."
[01:24.99]The ruling was unpopular.
[01:27.27]It came as Americans
[01:29.29]resisted big corporations
[01:31.82]like the First Bank
[01:33.73]of the United States,
[01:35.36]chartered by Congress.
[01:37.33]Some states passed laws
[01:39.91]permitting themselves to change
[01:42.29]or even cancel corporate charters.
[01:46.68]After the Civil War
[01:48.20]in the eighteen sixties,
[01:49.81]the Fourteenth Amendment
[01:52.88]was added to the Constitution.
[01:55.15]It provides that no state
[01:57.93]may "deprive any person of life,
[02:01.02]liberty or property,
[02:03.55]without due process of law ... "
[02:06.48]If a corporation is legally a person,
[02:10.22]then states cannot
[02:12.14]limit corporate rights
[02:14.11]without due process of law either.
[02:17.19]At first, corporations
[02:19.52]were not fully recognized as persons.
[02:22.40]But Jeff Sklansky
[02:25.15]at Oregon State University
[02:27.12]says that changed.
[02:29.14]JEFF SKLANSKY: "The general
[02:29.80]direction of the Supreme Court
[02:31.67]and the federal courts
[02:32.78]in general was to recognize
[02:35.36]corporations as persons
[02:38.34]with the same Fourteenth
[02:40.36]Amendment rights as individuals."
[02:41.83]Yet corporations have a right
[02:44.71]that real people do not:
[02:46.73]limited liability.
[02:48.96]For example, a corporation
[02:51.13]can face civil or criminal fines
[02:54.26]and individual lawbreakers
[02:57.19]can go to jail.
[02:59.17]But limited liability means
[03:01.69]the actions of a corporation
[03:04.12]are not the responsibility
[03:06.40]of its shareholders.
[03:08.32]Jeff Sklansky says
[03:10.23]the nineteenth century development
[03:12.51]of limited liability
[03:14.59]helped shape the modern corporation.
[03:17.72]JEFFREY SKLANSKY: "That is also crucial
[03:20.04]to allowing corporations
[03:22.17]a kind of independent personhood
[03:24.89]and separating ownership
[03:28.23]from control or ownership
[03:30.56]from management.
[03:33.08]So [the idea is] that I can invest
[03:37.10]in a corporation without becoming liable
[03:40.38]for all its debts.
[03:42.25]That's a really big deal.
[03:43.52]Without it,
[03:44.57]anything like the modern stock market,
[03:47.81]I'd say, is impossible."
[03:50.09]And that's the VOA Special English
[03:53.17]Economics Report,
[03:54.84]written by Mario Ritter.
[03:56.65]Next week, more on corporations
[04:00.71]and the law. I'm Steve Ember.
</lrc>;
}
}