Monday, May 22, 2006
National Maritime Day
[1813 - Wilhelm Richard Wagner, composer, born in Leipzig, Germany]
[1819 - SS Savannah sets sail from Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, England]
[1843 - First wagon train departs Independence, Missouri, bound for Oregon]
[1844 - Mary Cassatt, artist, born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania]
[1859 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, physician, writer, born in Edinburgh, Scotland]
[1907 - Sir Laurence (Kerr) Olivier, Academy Award-winning actor, born in Dorking, Surrey, England]
[1968 - USS Scorpion (SSN-589) is lost at sea with all hands]
Officious Language
This being an election year, the nitwits who make up our Congress are trotting out some timeworn pieces of legislation designed to pander to an increasingly cranky electorate. One of these is the old, "let's make English the official language" number. If the worthies who are now camped on Capitol Hill had taken the time to notice, they would know that for some time now English has been the universally accepted language of commerce and diplomacy. This occurred not because of any act of Congress, but rather because our great nation came to dominate the global economy and emerged victorious from the Cold War.
It is ironic that some political leaders who now seek to mandate the official language for the United States of America are those who profess a belief in the free-market economy, and say they stand for individual choice and liberty. If they really believed in these concepts, they would trust English to prevail in the free marketplace of ideas. Yet another act of US xenophobia and thinly disguised racism, steeped in the post-9-11 hysteria, may only serve to persuade the rest of the world that perhaps they should be studying Chinese instead of English.
William's Whimsical Words:
William's paternal grandmother, who spoke broken English until the day of her death, helped raise three grandsons. Among them are four undergraduate degrees, a master's degree, a law degree, and a Ph.D. All of her grandsons have some facility with the English Language.
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