Saturday, June 29, 2002
National Anthem Booed in Washington, D.C.
Today's Washington Times sports section carries a short article, "United Faces Hostile Fans at Home". This caught my eye: "Tonight's match is the second annual Hispanic Heritage Festival at RFK. Last year, 23,704 turned out and promptly booed the national anthem before the game." The D.C. United soccer team is based in Washington, D.C. Perhaps its time for an American Heritage Festival in our nation's capitol.
|posted by Jim on 5:45 PM|
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Want to Read Some Great Writing?
I have enjoyed reading Dr. Harry Covert's The Covert Letter for over a decade. Now you can do the same on his new web page.
Dr. Covert's writing style is reminiscent of H. Allen Smith. Covert, a real journalist of the old school, has met many interesting people. He once interviewed a couple doing a popular puppet show for children on local TV who the rest of us would one day know as Jim and Tammy Bakker. Covert has also been a baseball team owner, a missionary to Africa and a Virginia State Senate candidate. The man has stories to tell and tells them well. Enjoy!
|posted by Jim on 5:32 PM|
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Friday, June 28, 2002
"Flying the Saudi Flag"
A New York City salutatorian wanted to give her graduation speech solely in Spanish. National Review columnist John Derbyshire, who spotted this on his local television news, explained today exactly what the problem is with this sort of linguistic political correctness:
This is a free country, and citizens are free to speak, study, give speeches in any language they please, so far as their private exchanges and associations are concerned. A public school, however, is public. It serves, and is paid for by, citizens in their capacity as citizens, not as private agents. In all its doings, therefore, a public school should cleave strictly to the common denominators that define citizenship: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the nation's flag, the nation's language. For a public school to authorize a graduation speech in Spanish is equivalent to it flying the Saudi flag. As a private citizen, you can fly the Saudi flag if you feel like
it; but this nation, in its public affairs, only knows one flag, and one language. If you don't like that, don't send your kids to public school.
There is one other problem with a Spanish-only speech delivered to an English speaking audience: communication is lost. The speech giver can preen in her political correctness. What will most of her audience remember of the substance of her talk?
Derbyshire adds that "the next night, looking mighty pleased with themselves, [the local FOX station] invited the moronic brat on to deliver her speech, in Spanish, to the Fox audience. The presenters fairly glowed with multicultural virtue."
You can e-mail this particular FOX station, WNYW here. English First will be asking for FOX's side of the story, too. "We report. You decide."
|posted by Jim on 8:51 PM|
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Two Schools of Thought
The Pledge of Allegiance controversy is yet another reminder of the great division in American politics. One one side are those, like Derrick Z. Jackson, who see the United States as an assortment of flaws unworthy of anyone pledging allegiance to it (or condescending to learn our national language, English).
Thankfully there are those on the other side, like the new American citizen John Debyshire who remind us that we are all "one nation" after all.
|posted by Jim on 5:58 PM|
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Anti-English, Anti-Pledge Judge Married to ACLU Official
In an earlier blog today (scroll down to Anti-Pledge Judge Anti-English Too ), I reported that one of the two 9th Circuit judges who voted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance was Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a man notorious in official English circles for his one-man efforts to destroy our nation's linguistic unity.
It turens out that Reinhardt's radicalism goes over big at the family dinner table. Jack Dunphy reports in National Review Online today that Reinhardt is married to Ramona Ripston, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the ACLU.) The ACLU is vehemently opposed to official English and heartily endorsed Reinhardt's ruling on the Pledge.
|posted by Jim on 12:10 AM|
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Thursday, June 27, 2002
We Prefer, So You Pay
Orange County Florida yesterday settled a bilingual ballot complaint brought against it by the U.S. Department of Justice.
James Auffant, a lawyer and a member of a Hispanic voting-rights group that handled voter complaints after the 2000 election, complained to the Orlando Sentinel: "What do you do about a 90-year-old lady who's lived here her whole life and paid her taxes and she prefers to speak Spanish?" Auffant said. "The law says they need to be provided for. It's not a favor" (emphasis added).
Bilingual ballot supporters used to claim people needed them. Now they are saying people want them. In either case, the taxpayers get stuck with the bill. The story notes that "at Cowles' office, there were recruitment fliers in Spanish. 'Hispanics helping Hispanics vote,' read the fliers, which also offered $100 to $200 for bilingual poll workers on Election Day." English-speaking poll workers, by contrast, earn just $80 in Osceola County.
|posted by Jim on 7:26 PM|
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Anti-Pledge Judge Anti-English Too
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Pledge of Allegiance was the product of a 2-1 vote, rather than the full court. The two judges who voted to ban the pledge were Circuit Judge Alfred Goodwin and Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
Reinhardt is notorious in official English circles. He has shown himself to be a consistent pioneer at the frontiers of judicial activism.
Attorney Barnaby Zall reminded me that Reinhardt wrote the opinion striking down Arizona's official English law (Yniguez). Reinhardt also wrote at least two other bad English rulings: the first upholding a "suspect class" consisting of recently registered foreign born voters who requested bilingual ballots (Olagues v. Russaniello) and the only major case to ever strike down an English-on-the-job rule (Gutierrez v. Municipal Court).
Reinhardt also dissented from denial of rehearing en banc in the Spun Steak case, saying that the EEOC's rule against English on the job policies were O.K., despite the lack of any protection for language choice in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Had the Pledge of Allegiance been offered in Spanish, Reinhardt might have approved of it.
|posted by Jim on 6:03 PM|
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Wednesday, June 26, 2002
"T is for Terrorist"
Just eight days after September 11th, Richard Rothstein, an education columnist for the New York Times, reminded his readers that "[a] big need is for [classroom] materials that help explain terrorists' motivations."
The Education Development Center has already issued a 35-page curriculum, available in both English and Spanish, entitled "Beyond Blame." Despite its title, the villain of this document is -- you guessed it -- the United States of America.
Alfie Kohn, better known for his opposition to all forms of student achievement testing, offered his views of the matter in "Teaching About September 11th" for Rethinking Schools:
The historical record suggests that the United States has no problem with terrorism as long as its victims don't live here or look like most of us. In the last couple of decades alone, we have bombed Libya, invaded Grenada, attacked Panama, and shelled Lebanon - killing civilians in each instance. We created and funded an army of terrorists to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua and when the World Court ruled that we must stop, we simply rejected the court's authority. We engineered coups in Iran, Zaire, Guatemala, and Chile (the last of which coincidentally also took place on Sept. 11). . . . We are not the only nation that has done such things, but we are the most powerful and, therefore, arguably the most dangerous. . . . Schools should help children locate themselves in widening circles of care that extend beyond self, beyond country, to all humanity.
In the interest of "hearing both sides" New York State's education commissioner Richard Mills referred educators seeking information to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination website. Chester Finn noted in his article, "Teachers, Terrorists and Tolerance" for the December, 2001 issue of Commentary (not available for free) that the president of that organization praised the terrorist group Hezbollah as "the heroic resistance."
While it is always good to understand the motivations of others, it would also seem worthwhile to educate children on the virtues (instead of merely the vices) of their home country, the United States of America.
|posted by Jim on 6:56 PM|
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Pledge of Allegiance Unconstitutional in CA; Banned in WI
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
Now in the wake of the September 11th attack on America, a University of Michigan survey found 90% of those questioned felt proud to be an American. The survey must have missed the many advocates of bilingualism and multiculturalism who make decisions regarding what all children are taught in our public schools
A second-grade teacher in Madison Wisconsin told the Associated Press that the Pledge of Allegiance was "a comfort" to her students "even if children don't understand all the words."
Neither patriotism nor comfort deterred the Madison School Board from voting on October 8th last year to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from all public schools and to offer only an instrumental rendition of the Star Spangled Banner in classrooms.
Public outrage forced another meeting on October 15. The tenor of that meeting may be gathered from the reporting of Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive. He quotes one citizen " who described the city as 'The People's Republic of Madison,'" and called the board members a bunch of 'arrogant, elitist, heavy-handed, radical leftovers of the Vietnam era, who in your great zeal to protect the minority have stifled the expression of the majority.'"
The Oregon education department even issued a memo reminding school superintendents that under state law, "school buses may not display flags." Lehigh University ordered American flags removed from its buses as of September 14th "so non-American students would not feel uncomfortable." Public complaints thankfully forced Lehigh to withdraw its order.
Who would have thought it would be illegal to be patriotic during wartime?
|posted by Jim on 6:43 PM|
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Justice Dept Mandates Costly Bilingual Poll Workers in Osceola, FL
The Department of Justice settled its voting rights lawsuit with Osceola County, Florida, and is likely to settle a similar lawsuit with Orange County later this week, reports the Orlando Sentinel today.
The settlement requires Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Donna Bryant to, among other things, "hire one or two Spanish-language assistance coordinators to investigate complaints against poll workers." The cost of hiring one Spanish-language coordinator is estimated to be $50,000. (Poll workers, by contrast, earn but $80 per day.)
|posted by Jim on 6:26 PM|
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002
GA: DUI Warnings Need Not Be Given in Spanish
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled yesterday that "police officers do not have to translate warnings to non-English-speaking drivers charged with DUI." Omar Rodriguez vows a U.S. Supreme Court appeal.
|posted by Jim on 4:16 PM|
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Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Washington Post: Poor Mexico
One would think that a major American victory in international competition would please the good folks at the Washington Post. Think again. The paper ran, as a page-one story, "A Kick in the Teeth", a tale of how once again the ugly Americans had offended our touchy neighbors to the south. The article begins by bringing up the 1846-1848 U.S. - Mexico War and builds from there:
"To Mexican eyes the United States has more than its share of everything, and instead of sharing with Mexicans it builds walls along its border and treats Mexicans looking for jobs as an invading army. Now, they say, taking soccer superiority away from Mexico is piggish, unfair -- and typical."
|posted by Jim on 6:26 PM|
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The Last Acceptable Form of Nationalism?
Anne Applebaum's column for Slate today, "Soccer, the last acceptable form of nationalism" is truly must reading. A sample: "Certainly there isn't anywhere in Germany you can go to shout, 'Deutschland! Deutschland!' except a soccer stadium."
Of course, this last refuge for patriotic sentiments does not apply to Americans. Washington Post sports(!) columnist Sally Jenkins, who lectured her readers "about anger over what is perceived as the stubborn American refusal to recognize what matters to other people -- be it steel tariffs, soccer or an injustice in speedskating."
|posted by Jim on 6:13 PM|
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Monday, June 17, 2002
World Cup Soccer, the Search for Independence and Bilingual Education
Watching the United States - Mexico soccer game this morning, I was struck by the opening shot of the stadium, with its name evidently permanently listed in both Korean and English. Also caught up on press reports on how the World Cup games have divided immigrant parents and their Americanized children: Dad roots for Korea or Mexico while the children cheer for the U.S.A.
This sort of thing is not new. Children of a certain age insist on being different from Mom and Dad. So it has been and so it will always be. Unfortunately, bilingual education activists may now feel compelled to add "rooting for the Old Country" to the curriculum along with preventing these children of immigrants from learning English: "today, children, we will memorize the traditional soccer cheers used in Mexico City's Azteca stadium from 1990 to the present."
|posted by Jim on 6:49 PM|
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Thursday, June 13, 2002
Georgia Debates English in the Workplace
The Hall County Health Department asked its employees to speak only English while on the job. The ACLU complained. The Georgia Department of Human Resources ordered the policy reversed.
Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorializes in support of the state's action. My dissenting view was published as well. You can weigh in on this debate here.
|posted by Jim on 5:32 PM|
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Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Troublesome Arabic Translation
The Guardian's piece, "Lost in Translation," describes some of the real problems in translating Arabic. (I also wrote on this topic last year for English First Foundation, "Translation, bin Laden and E.O. 13166".) The FBI deserves a break from its critics on the translation issue.
|posted by Jim on 5:46 PM|
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More Windtalkers
An Associated Press story on Windtalkers notes that "Some of the words used to create the code have fallen out of use in Navajo society." Meanwhile, "many Navajos wondered: How can a movie about the Navajo code talkers star Nicolas Cage, a white man?" The complaints stopped after "[p]roducers met with the code talkers' association and hired one code talker as a consultant."
|posted by Jim on 5:24 PM|
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$1 Million to National Council of La Raza
|posted by Jim on 5:20 PM|
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Boris Yeltsin is Taking English Lessons
|posted by Jim on 5:15 PM|
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Friday, June 07, 2002
Windtalkers
The movie Windtalkers, which opens next weekend, is a fictionalized tribute to the Navajo "code talkers" of World War II who translated American military communications into the Navajo language, thus creating a code the Japanese were unable to break (even as the United States broke the Japanese codes).
Advocates of bilingual education point to the code talkers as justification for bilingual education. They forget that the code talkers also had to speak English, which is something all too many "graduates" of bilingual education are simply unable to do.
It also turns out, (thanks James Robbins in National Review Online today) that the Germans anticipated such an American strategy and sent spies to learn Indian languages.
|posted by Jim on 1:45 PM|
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Speaking of National Review Online
A short piece I did explaining why wealthy residents of Spanish-only Puerto Rico support statehood for the island even though it means paying U.S. income taxes ran in National Review Online yesterday
|posted by Jim on 1:26 PM|
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Personal Note: Back to Our Normal Posting Schedule Next Week
The renovations on my apartment are supposed to be complete today. This means I can begin unpacking my home over the weekend, set up my home computer by sometime next week and return to the more round-the-clock posting style readers of this blog are entitled to enjoy.
|posted by Jim on 1:21 PM|
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So How Many People Visit The English First Website?
The blogosphere has been debating the question of how many folks are visiting certain websites. During May, there were 1,257 page requests each day at this website (38,987 total). I am told "page requests" corresponds pretty well to "unique visitors." While a visitor is not always a person, if this site is used by roughly 1,000 folks each day, English First is doing something worth doing.
The Alexa.com search engine ranks English First at 649,101 among the users of their search engine and finds 237 links to this site. (The far more famous National Review Online site is ranked by Alexa.com at 4,384 while U.S. English is ranked at 601,125.
|posted by Jim on 1:15 PM|
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Monday, June 03, 2002
The Sacramento Kings Are Disillusioned Too
Seth Sandronsky, an editor with Because People Matter, writes: "Consider the official hype around standardized testing. Proponents claim that it is a valid measurement of student learning.
"Many parents, students and teachers think otherwise. Yet their voices are rarely heard versus those who officially support standardized testing. Moreover, imagine the disillusionment among students who score poorly on the tests."
Keeping score means there will be winners and losers -- just ask the Sacramento Kings.
|posted by Jim on 2:15 PM|
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