Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Thanks, Dad
Tomorrow, my father will watch his beloved Detroit Lions play their traditional Thanksgiving Day game.
The Lions last NFL championship was in 1957. But Dad hasn't given up on his team. His faithful rooting each Thanksgiving of my life was a lesson in the importance of persevering even when no one expects your side to win.
Some people write to me and say "why don't you give up? Official English is a lost cause." That's not how I was raised as I watched my father's faithfulness to his team, his church and his family. Thanks, Dad.
|posted by Jim on 1:13 PM|
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Some People Hate Thanksgiving
As I document for National Review Online.
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Thursday, November 21, 2002
Thanksgiving Schedule
There will be far fewer updates here from November 22 - November 30. Congress leaves tomorrow (Friday, November 22) and I need to clear up the rubble of things undone. I will resume a more frequent posting schedule beginning Monday, December 2nd.
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My Analysis of the 2002 Election
Republican control of the federal government means both dangers and opportunites.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002
New Analysis of the 2002 Hispanic Vote
From the San Francisco Chronicle. Two interesting items:
(1) "In 1998 and 2000, Latinos made up 14 percent of all Californians who voted, Baldassare said. Comprehensive exit poll data for last week's election are not available because the Voter News Service, a media consortium that conducts the polls, ran into technical difficulties, but according to an exit poll by the Los Angeles Times, Latinos were only 10 percent of the electorate this time."
(2) "Democrat Dennis Cardoza, who won Gary Condit's Modesto seat and is of Portuguese descent, has said he will join the Congressional Hispanic Caucus."
|posted by Jim on 1:28 AM|
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Sunday, November 17, 2002
Supporter Praises Slimy Colorado BE Campaign
A bilingual education supporter, O. Ricardo Pimentel, actually praised the slimy campaign to derail English immersion in Colorado:
In Colorado, a big part of the message was, essentially, that Spanish-speaking children would be mainstreamed too soon. The implicit message: Your own kids will suffer because they will be in classes with kids who don't speak, read or write English well. . . . Yes, "chaos in the classroom," as the commercials were tagged, probably wasn't intended to appeal to Colorado voters' sense of fairness. They had the effect, however, of broadening the issue. Bilingual education was no longer just a "Latino problem." And it also helped to broaden this issue that important opinion leaders in Colorado opposed the initiative because of the facts.
This "it doesn't matter how you play the game" approach to politics is proof of the desperation and the intellectual bankruptcy of the pro-bilingual education side. They have learned that facts are not their friends. They claimed repeal of bilingual education would hurt California children. Test scores increased. They claim immigrant parents support bilingual education. Oops, wrong again.
So Colorado's pro-bilingual education forces turned a blind eye as a car owned by an anti-bilingual education leader was firebombed while it sat parked in her driveway. They filled the airwaves with false claims. And they played the race card for good measure.
Pimentel suggests Colorado is a lesson for bilingual education activists nationwide. There is another lesson from the 2002 elections they might profitably consider: a demonstrated willingness to win by hook or by crook is not a recipe for long-term political success. As Sally Quinn notes in another context:
The Dems, by contrast, cast themselves as the party with the big hearts, the integrity, the inclusiveness, the compassion. They were the we-may-lose-but-we'll-still-be-able-to-look-at-ourselves-in-the-mirror crowd.
Bill Clinton ended all that. He promoted the notion that morals didn't matter. Winning mattered. The Democrats were so eager for a big win they decided to play by Clinton's rules, and for a while it worked. . . .
And then the Democrats started losing, including most of the candidates -- including Democratic gubernatorial candidates Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of Maryland and Bill McBride of Florida -- for whom Bill Clinton campaigned. Sure, the election result was about the war on terrorism and Iraq and patriotism and the tax cuts to some degree. But mostly it was about the Democrats not being what they once said they were.
Ends matter. So do means.
|posted by Jim on 1:04 AM|
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U.S. Government Faces Up to [Some] Translation Issues
The U.S. intellegence budget passed Friday morning contains two interesting items, notes the Associated Press
It also would establish a National Virtual Translation Center to help intelligence agencies quickly translate foreign languages, and would provide $10 million for scholarships to encourage the study of languages needed for national security reasons, such as Arabic, Korean and Farsi.
The bill also calls for developing a standard method of transliterating names from other alphabets. Information sharing is sometimes impeded because agencies use different spellings for the same name. For example, hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar's last name can also be spelled al-Midhar or Almihdhar.
|posted by Jim on 12:29 AM|
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What's Wrong With This Picture?
"[Guatemalan immigrant] Mayra Lopez talked to students about the frustrations of few Iowans knowing how to speak Spanish," Cedar Rapids Gazette. "City High freshman Sami Soukup said she enjoyed the presentation because it helped her with her Spanish translation skills.
'With so many different cultures coming into the U.S., it's important to understand them,' said Soukup, 15, of Iowa City. 'You feel better if you know how to translate.'"
|posted by Jim on 12:18 AM|
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Saturday, November 16, 2002
Washington Post Cites English First's Drive to Repeal E.O. 13166
"Perhaps These, Too, Shall Pass"
English First, an advocacy group, wants to end "mandatory multilingualism" by repealing President Clinton's executive order that requires government agencies and recipients of federal funds to communicate with non-English-speaking residents in their native language. On the other side: immigrant and refugee rights groups.
|posted by Jim on 5:04 PM|
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Friday, November 15, 2002
Rules for Recruiting Battlefield Translators
With thanks to Glen Reynolds of Instapundit for spotting this article first.
|posted by Jim on 3:33 PM|
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My Contribution to the Georgia Foreign Language Debate
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Thursday, November 14, 2002
New Republic on the 2002 Texas Hispanic Vote
"Talk to any political consultant who regularly works with Hispanics and they'll tell you again and again that the Hispanic vote isn't monolithic. That's especially true in places like Texas, where some Hispanics' roots in the state precede most Anglos'. It isn't hard to see how these people might get turned off by attempts to lump them together with recent immigrants," The New Republic @C for November 11, 2002.
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Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Thune Concedes Senate Race
|posted by Jim on 8:41 PM|
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Carter, Like Arafat, Speaks With Forked Tongue
Last night, PBS aired the second of a two-part special on former President Jimmy Carter. The program showed Carter addressing Castro and other dignitaries at a meeting held in Cuba and boasted that Carter's speech was aired on Cuban television. Carter appeared to read a speech calling for an end to the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba and then turned to Castro and, according to the narrator, urged Castro to do more about human rights.
Problem: Carter's anti-America speech was in Spanish, a language which Cubans understand. His alleged remarks about human rights were in English, which meant that even if those remarks were allowed to be broadcast, far fewer ordinary Cubans would understand what was said.
Yassar Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has perfected this trick. His speeches in English call for peace with Israel and are meant for American and European ears. Arafat's speeches in Arabic demand that every Jew be driven from Israel into the sea and are meant for other ears entirely.
|posted by Jim on 1:36 AM|
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No Choice on English in Democratic Leader's Race
Congressman Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are battling to become the next leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. The media is treating Ford as more moderate than Pelosi. On official English issues, there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them.
In 2001, both Ford and Pelosi voted against an amendment to defund E.O. 13166 and thus against saving every recipient of federal funds from providing translations into anyone's choice of language on demand.
In 1998, both Ford and Pelosi voted against the "English Language Fluency Act", which would have replaced eliminated bilingual education nationwide. Ford and Pelosi also voted for the Puerto Rico statehood bill which passed by one vote that same year. As a state, Spanish-only Puerto Rico would have two Senators and seven Congressmen, all vehemently opposed to all English legislation.
|posted by Jim on 12:46 AM|
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Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Some Immigrants Get It
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an immigrant to Holland from Somalia, is a leading opponent of the Dutch "government's support for multiculturalism, programs costing millions of dollars a year that she considers misplaced because they help keep Muslim women isolated from Dutch society" and seeks to "end teaching the immigrants in their own language," reported the New York Times on November 9th.
|posted by Jim on 11:54 PM|
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Friday, November 08, 2002
Internet Interview on South Dakota Vote Fraud
I discussed South Dakota vote fraud on FCF News on Demand this afternoon. You can hear the interview on your computer if you scroll down to "Vote Fraud in South Dakota?" I'm told you should be able to hear it all weekend.
|posted by Jim on 4:21 PM|
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While You Are Waiting . . .
"Diary of a Poll Worker" is worth a look, especially this part:
Supposedly, poll workers must meet three requirements to work on election day in Los Angeles County: They must be citizens of the United States, registered voters and at least 18 years old. To my knowledge, none of these requirements was ever checked in my case. During the training class, the speaker reiterated these stipulations, prompting a woman in her 40s to call out from the back of the room that her 13-year-old son had worked during the gubernatorial primaries in March. "He must have been a great helper and volunteer!" the trainer responded."No, my son got paid by the county!" the woman exclaimed. Given the desperate need for bilingual poll workers -- and poll workers in general -- in a city as geographically massive and linguistically diverse as Los Angeles, the country registrar appears not averse to letting some requirements fall by the wayside.
|posted by Jim on 4:14 AM|
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Where's the Election Analysis, Jim?
I promised readers of my English First e-mail alerts an election analysis by today (if you want to receive these free, infrequent and short alerts, you can sign up here). On Election Night, I was asked to report on the bilingual education votes in Colorado and Massachusetts for National Review Online. The developments in South Dakota (see below) have also required watching. I am sorry for the delay.
I will have more to say about the impact of the 2002 election on English First issues once I run some numbers (and get in a nap). Look for it Wednesday, November 13th. And thank you for your interest in English First.
|posted by Jim on 4:04 AM|
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Thursday, November 07, 2002
Suspicious South Dakota Voting Patterns
says Byron York this morning. Did vote fraud, possibly aided by bilingual ballots, cost the GOP a Senate seat? It seems so.
York suggests the GOP is not eager to challenge the South Dakota election. To fail to do so would be a GOP mistake for both moral and political reasons. The moral argument: if neither major political party cares about honest elections, why should the American people bother to hold them? You know, all that stuff about "we the people" and "consent of the governed."
The political argument is twofold. First, while South Dakota is not the first place vote fraud decided an election, South Dakota is a place in which the vote fraud has been exhaustively and legally documented on behalf of Democrats. GOP focus on Democratic Party efforts to illegally pad its candidates' vote totals would be beneficial, given the likelihood of future close elections. Second, the GOP should not disdain the notion of picking up an additional Senate seat in a body which still contains both Arlen "guilty but not proven" Specter (R-PA) and Lincoln "if the GOP only has 50 Senators, I may switch parties" Chafee (R for now-RI) .
And if the GOP is hesitant to offend Native American voters, well, Native American voters are already offended -- at the Democrats.
|posted by Jim on 9:38 AM|
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Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Media Update
I am scheduled to discuss Tuesday's bilingual education votes on the Bob Grant Show, WOR-710, beginning at 6:05 p.m. tonight.
|posted by Jim on 5:11 PM|
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South Dakota Vote Fraud Revisited
Thune (R) is ahead of Johnson (D) by less than 1,000 votes in the South Dakota Senate race. One woman, accused of forging 15 Indian absentee ballots in South Dakota, may have been involved with "as many as 1,750 absentee ballots." Do Joshua Micah Marshall and Tapped (scroll down to "You Want Dirty Tricks? Voila") still think the South Dakota vote fraud scandal is overblown?
The South Dakota scandal has, thankfully, encouraged more bipartisanship on Indian reservations. Russel Means, founder of the American Indian Movement, vowed to "do my best to convince my people to vote Republican."
|posted by Jim on 7:51 AM|
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The View as of 6:20 AM
Some wins for the pro-English side: Steve King, the leader of Iowa's official English effort, was elected to Congress. Bob Riley, a great friend of official English in Congress, may have won the Alabama governor's race after all. More later.
|posted by Jim on 6:24 AM|
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Tuesday, November 05, 2002
AP Makes It Official: English Wins in Massachusetts
Voters end bilingual education, shoot down Clean Elections: "Julie Garcia, 50, a certified nurse assistant from Springfield learned English in school after her family moved to New Mexico from Mexico. 'It's a hard thing, but this is America,' Garcia said. 'You have to speak English.'"
|posted by Jim on 11:13 PM|
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English Trailing in Colorado
Colorado's English immersion initiative is trailing in early returns 46%-54%.
Keep in mind that Colorado now has provisional voting which may delay final results up to twelve days.
|posted by Jim on 11:08 PM|
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Good news on BE in MA
With 25% of Massachusetts precincts reporting, English immersion is winning 71% -- 29%.
The popularity of the Unz anti-bilingual education initiative was demonstrated during the October 29th debate when Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for governor said "we need English immersion in our state" during his closing statement. Romney is currently up 52%-43% over Democrat Shannon O'Brien.
|posted by Jim on 10:16 PM|
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This Was Inevitable
"English-speaking voters said they were handed Spanish-language ballots" in Florida.
|posted by Jim on 1:57 PM|
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Friday, November 01, 2002
November 5th Unlikely to Settle Matters
USA Today does a good job explaining why Election Night parties are likely conclude before we know which political party controls the Senate and, perhaps, who controls the House. A sample: "In 17 states, including six with very close races, narrow margins trigger automatic recounts."
In addition to likely litigation over the result of the Minnesota Senate race and a possible run-off in the Louisiana Senate race if none of the four candidates receives 50% of the vote, Colorado's Senate race may be decided in court. The Denver Post reports that "Two-thirds of the 91,000 absentee ballots sent out by Jefferson County contain a typographical error that some experts say could open the door to a court challenge of election results next Tuesday. . . . The Jefferson County ballots tell voters to 'mail by Saturday, Nov. 5.' Saturday is Nov. 2, and Nov. 5 is Election Day. Ballots that are mailed on Nov. 5 will arrive too late and will not be counted."
|posted by Jim on 7:10 PM|
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Colorado: Anti English Lobby Admits $35 Million Mistake in TV Ads
English Plus TV ads say Amendment 31 could cost school districts $66 million annually. But at the news conference, Stanford said the amendment would cost districts $30.9 million a year. . . .
Teichgraeber did not know of any study that has nailed down costs stemming directly from [Arizona's] Proposition 203. Costs do seem to have been minimal, she said.
|posted by Jim on 6:53 PM|
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At Least 500 Fraudulent Absentee Ballot Applications in SD
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Why South Dakota Vote Fraud Matters
An Argus Leader/KSFY-TV survey of voters conducted Friday through Sunday finds Johnson leading Thune 47 to 45 percent with 8 percent still undecided.
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South Dakota's Clueless Attorney General
South Dakota's Argus Leader proclaims "No Illegal Ballots Found", thanks to statements by Attorney General Mark Barnett. The Argus Leader is itself not so sanguine, noting that "Barnett has smothered discussion of widespread voting irregularities."
Barnett also seems clueless as to how an Indian-vote-fraud scheme would work: "So far I have not found that [a woman at the center of the scandal] had any ballots that have been illegally voted.” She had no reason to carry ballots simply because vote fraud is easier on Election Day, as I explained in NRO. A person presents himself as an Indian voter falsely registered earlier. He gives the proper name and address. He gets a ballot. He votes. His fraudulent ballot is placed in the same box with all the others, unable to be located again, unlike an absentee or provisional ballot.
|posted by Jim on 5:09 PM|
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