SENATE VOTES ON NATIONAL LANGUAGE

... his Pulitzer is a prize. Big whoop. Doesn't give him one extra ounce of credibility on the issues involved in English as an official language.

It's another point where "enlightened" liberals can point fingers at others and call them names is all. Nativist is now the latest slur from your ilk.

it's still a really foolish piece IMHO. See my commments below.

Pulitzer has been devalued practially to zero by the way.

... actually knows about the disadvantages that immigrants who don't speak the common language of this country face. That even the majority of the Hispanic immigrant population supports English only education and English as an official language because they see and understand first hand what bilingual programs do to keep them down.

Pulitzer schmulitzer.

Evie

...Pulitzer and even a PhD but that alone DOES NOT make him an intelligent and worldly person. That mainly has the propensity to teach you and realize how much there is ''out there'' that you DO NOT know...an attribute that has obviously passed you by...the amount of formal education you have is inversely proportional to how much in totality you REALLY know. And if you don't believe that last statement, just ask a Middle or High School student just how smart he thinks he is.

If they thought someone was cool then the clingers also thought that, and many of the uncool strove mightily to be "talked to" or included in something, ANYTHING, that the cool kids did.

Never been one for going as the popular wind blows.

Evie

...indelibly burn into their memory...and a basic axiom of the animal kingdom...Eagles DO NOT soar with Buzzards...Lions DO NOT "hang out" with Hyenas.

So, a comment on, "Never been one for going as the popular wind blows", my Mother told me many times, Jackie, (I was 'Jackie' in the family), you are a 'loner'"

He doesn't look at the other side. Different languages are sure to fragment and divide.

Using his example of blacks and whites, the fact that the case of the underclass could be argued in a language the society as a whole understands is extremely effective in changing minds.

Contrary to his claims, NO ONE is trying to stop Telemundo from broadcasting or to stop anyone from speakng Spanish, French, Urdu or whatever. No one thinks English is going away in this country, but it IS going away in some places and that is a problem. People NEED to be able to understand one another.

No one is trying to legislate language; just to make it clear that the language of business and commerce and civic functions in the US is English. It is much better for everyone for there to be one language for these purposes and in the US that language is English. There's nothing "nativist" about it; it is just sensible.

Too bad the writer is more intersted in being clever and critical than actually providing a thoughtful analysis.