"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Idiot du Jour

Bryan Fischer, who I don't really think is an idiot -- he's just an asshole who will say anything as long as it's derogatory and inflammatory. Today's pearl of wisdom:

Fischer was upset over a report saying that more than 50 percent of Los Angeles residents between the ages of 18 and 34 speak a language other than English in their homes while speaking English outside of it.

“You know what this means, ladies and gentlemen — we are losing the ability to talk to each other,” Fischer complained. “We’re losing the ability to communicate with each other. And this means that we’re on the road to no longer being one nation under God, indivisible. No longer one nation, no longer indivisible, and in many ways no longer under God.”

Instead, he said, the idea that people could speak more than one language was fracturing the U.S. into “subcultures.”

Don't look for logical consistency or any sort of coherence in that -- there isn't any.

Once upon a time, when I was in high school, you had to take at least two years of a foreign language -- it was a state requirement. And being conversant in another language was considered the mark of an educated person. (When I graduated, I spoke four with varying degrees of fluency. I continued German in college -- another requirement for graduation.) Now, it's cause for suspicion.

I should also note that in my neighborhood, one is likely to overhear conversations in Russian, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, any one of several African languages, and Vietnamese -- but English is still our lingua franca. (And I find that statement itself inexpressably funny, given that it's Italian -- English is not what you'd call a "pure" language.)

I wonder if Fischer has ever read Beowulf in the "original" English. I did.

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