Beautiful Horizons

Monolingualism

Michael Erard had this op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times questioning the use of the Census Bureau's question as to whether a language other than English is spoken at home really is sufficient to determine whether someone is actually bilingual:

But a moment’s reflection reveals that the bureau’s question about what you speak at home is not equivalent to asking whether you speak more than one language. I have some proficiency in Spanish and was fluent in Mandarin 20 years ago. But when the American Community Survey (an ongoing survey from the Census Bureau) arrived in my mailbox last month, posing that question, I had to answer no, because we speak only English in my home.

I know I’m not alone. There are countless Americans who speak languages other than English outside their homes: not just those of us who have learned other languages in school or through living abroad, but also employers who have learned enough Spanish to speak to their employees; workers in hospitals, clinics, courts and retail stores who have picked up parts of another language to make their jobs easier; soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan with some competency in Arabic, Pashto or Dari; third-generation kids studying their heritage language in informal schools on weekends; spouses and partners picking up the language of a loved one’s family; enthusiasts learning languages with computer software like Rosetta Stone. None of the above are identified as bilingual by the Census Bureau’s question.

Ignoring the obvious fact that he doesn't know if anyone cited in the examples does or does not speak it at home, he ignores the basic question of what constitutes multilingualism. I don't believe that speaking a few words of Spanish to someone makes me bilingual. I speak a few phrases in French to some native French speakers I know, but wouldn't say I know French, can still speak enough German to make my way around without having to say "Sprechen Sie Englisch?", but wouldn't be able to read The Tin Drum and the only problems I really have with Spanish is in not confusing it with Portuguese.

But the second language I feel most comfortable with is Portuguese and it's precisely because we speak it at home. When I committed myself to Mércia, I did not believe it was fair to put her in the position of having to translate for me with her family members and friends who did not speak English. Accordingly, I also committed myself to gaining fluency in her language. The cornerstone of that effort was that we speak Portuguese as much as possible at home.

I'm grateful to her for her assistance with this, and while any second language - especially one learned as an adult - is always a work in progress, I'm glad that my conversational ability in her language is solid, my ability to write in Portuguese is good and my only area lagging is reading, primarily because I read quickly in English, but not nearly as fast in Portuguese. I feel that I make up for this by the fact that I often think and dream in Portuguese.

It's precisely because I speak Portuguese at home that I'm fully bilingual.

My Recent Sparse Appearances

When I started this blog in 2002, I hoped to make regular contributions on a daily basis. As those of you who know me know the challenges that we have faced this year, so I won't bore the rest of you with details. I merely sincerely intend to appear here more often: comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Happy new year to all.  I'm truly hoping that 2012 will be better than 2011.

In Case You Were Wondering . . .

Some dick hacked my Yahoo and this account. Everything should be okay now.

Luis Suarez

There is little question that race is a complicated issue in Latin America and there is little question that racism is a problem in football (aka soccer). I do not know the specifics of the accusations against Luis Suarez, the Uruguayan forward for Liverpool. I have heard rumours such as that he called Patrice Evra "negrito", which is a common expression in Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America.

I have also read that this provides much of the basis for Suarez's defense: that this is not an insult and the issue speaks more to cultural differences than racism. I find this explanation alternately understandable and perplexing. Several years ago, I was having lunch with some friends at their apartment in Brasilia. They are attorneys who are politically center-left, who came from humble beginnings and, I believe like many Brazilians who can trace their lineage many generations back in Brazil, very likely have Afro-Brazilian ancestors.

Yet they called their housekeeper/cook "Neguinha," i.e., "Blackie." They explained that this was common. I was tempted to ask them how many whites were called "Branquelo", i.e., "Whitey" by Afro-Brazilians.

This is one place where Suarez's argument falls apart for me. I have no data to back this up, but I would find it difficult to believe that there are lots of Afro-Uruguayans who refer to whites they know as "Blanquito."

But beyond that, I find this argument compelling:

Also, people are making out that Suarez has an ignorance of how one is supposed to behave in Northern Europe, like he's just come off the boat or something. He hasn't — he spent five years in Holland (which, the last time I looked, is pretty well developed), including a season playing alongside Edgar Davids at Ajax.

Would he speak to Davids that way? Or Clarence Seedorf? Or any black Dutch player? I doubt it somehow, particularly given how annoyed a lot of Holland's black players have been in the past about perceived racial bias, let alone overt comments.

I do not know what Luis Suarez's intent was, if any. I have no interest in getting inside his head. I just wish that this was not an issue for this sport - or for the world.

What Am I Thankful For?

The following:

That despite some initially alarming situations, Mércia and my health is good.

That I was blessed with parents whose love and generosity of spirit was in inverse proportion to their financial means and imbued my existence with the right priorities: tolerance, compassion, empathy and an unquenchable thirst for wisdom and justice.

That my families, American and Brazilian are very special, and that the Brazilian side has embraced me as one of their own.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Green Portugal

I haven't written much about our recent trip to Portugal, but plan to drop a few notes about it in the meantime.

I was impressed by the cleanliness and general environmental consciousness I witnessed. Here's a fine example. This first photo is the Quisque de Refresco in the Praça Luis Camões in Lisbon. It's the oldest refreshment stand in the city:

Here's the cup containing my tasty and thirst quenching horchata that I purchased there:

It says "This is not an ordinary cup [note the historically traditional use of the word "vulgar"]. It's made of cornstarch, so that when composted, it will disappear in 180 days. Put it in organic trash."

Nice! More like this, please.

A Brief Rant

My God, is there anything more lazy in our discourse than the constant overuse of sports metaphors in conversation? I swear I think I'm going to flatten the next person who uses the term "slam dunk" when they mean certain.

A Lesson Still Unlearned

One of the inexplicable characteristics of the right these days is the fetishizing of CEO's, especially as potential political leaders. It's patently absurd: there is no system of checks and balances in the business world. CEO's need not depend on congress to implement policies. They do not have to forge consensus and compromise if they do not wish to do so; they need merely decree in most instances.

If that is not sufficient to convince anyone, I have two words for you: Silvio Berlusconi.

What Matters

I'm not bothered by the fact that Mitt Romney used a gardening firm to cut his lawn that employed undocumented immigrants, nor should anyone be bothered by that.

What they should be bothered by is the fact that a family with five sons did not have one who would deign to cut grass. Is there any greater proof of Romney's elitism?

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Fidel Castro once said "All dissent is opposition; all opposition is counterrevolutionary."

Herman Cain believes that peaceful protestors are "Un-American."

They're two sides of the same coin.

Occupy Wall Street- It's About Time

While there is an argument to be made that Occupy Wall Street has inspired some protests around the world, in some countries it's probably more accurate to say that they have reinvigorated protests.

When Mércia and I were in Portugal in May, we noticed any number of encampment style protests and organized demonstrations. Here's an encampment in Praça Rossio, one of Lisbon's main squares:

While this photo does not show the encampment (it was taken from a moving vehicel), the sign says it all. It's in Porto near a government minister's residence. The sign says "You won't let us dream, so we won't let you sleep!"

Organized rallies took place in strategic locations designed to draw attention. This was the tail end of one in Porto's Ribeira district, a popular area by the Douro River filled with bars and restaurants:

I work at 120 Broadway, which as you can see is across the street from Zucotti Park:

 

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I walk by the area two to three times a day. I have not been harassed, intimidated or otherwise interfered with. I have not seen any acts of violence or anything uncivil.

What I have seen is a great deal of frustration and anger, which is finally being channelled into something however imperfect. For the past several years we've been fed a steady diet of panis et circenses. The circuses are no longer distracting us and the bread is running low. Time for some new beginnings.

The Limits of Hyperbole

A note to Ann Coulter, Hank Williams, Jr.and anyone else who bandies about the term Nazi with alacrity: It is not those you insult by calling them "Nazi" who suffer the most grievous harm, but it is those who actually suffered under these fascists: the millions of Jews, French, Danes, Dutch, Poles, Norwegians, Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Yugoslavians, Belgians, and British who suffered genocide, occupation, deprivations and countless humiliations during that era.

You trivialize their suffering by linking it to something that is not by even the stretching of hyperbole to its ad absurdum limits remotely similar. Shame on you.

This Will Make Pamela Geller's Head Explode

Nothing like a little historical truth to fight racists:

The stories of the Holocaust have been documented, distorted, clarified and filtered through memory. Yet new stories keep coming, occasionally altering the grand, incomplete mosaic of Holocaust history.

One of them, dramatized in a French film released here last week, focuses on an unlikely savior of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France: the rector of a Paris mosque.

Muslims, it seems, rescued Jews from the Nazis.

I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning.

OMG

Rick Perry: he's like Bush without the brains.

Steven Taylor explains exactly why this is such a wretchedly bad idea.

Mimi Swartz has some background on some homegrown antipathy towards Perry.

Troy Davis, yes. al-Awlaki, not so much.

It seems that a large number of Americans can recognize an injustice when it's been done, and the public reaction to the recently executed Troy Davis is a point strongly in favor of this thesis.

But this sympathy, in fact even simple knowledge, seems to be confined to our borders, or our religions, or perhaps even our colors as we perceive them. Yesterday the Obama administration succeeded in their long-sought objective of killing Anwar al-Awlaki.

Obama tried to stop the execution of Troy Davis, but there was no legal course for him to take. But the fact that al-Awlaki is an American citizen tried by no court, charged with no crime, and thus protected by the law from any kind of punishment, let alone assassination, did not deter Obama for a second. Just the opposite, in fact. It seems that in matters of national security, American administrations regard the law as, at best, a suggestion.

There is no way to sugarcoat this. The US government, at Obama's direction has engaged in extra-judicial murder.

I have absolutely no knowledge of al-Awlaki's activities, treasonous, terroristic, or utterly peaceful. But I don't need to know. Assassination without trial is not how we're supposed to do things. If he committed crimes, then he has a right to be charged in a court.

Obama has an appallingly bad record on these matters, and the DOJ contention that such things are beyond the courts on the grounds that they are "state secrets" is a vicious tear in the fabric of our laws.

The fear of seeming soft on terror has made us weak about our values.

More Shame

There's some interesting items worth noting in this article in Monday's New York Times, but here's what jumps out at me:

Mexico alone spends about $120 million buying Herceptin to treat women with breast cancer, which is nearly one-half of 1 percent of all government spending on health care, said Dr. Alejandro Mohar, general director of the Mexican National Cancer Institute. In 2007, Mexico guaranteed access to Herceptin for all women with breast cancer through a public insurance program.

“We would love to have better access to better drugs,” Dr. Mohar said. “This debate is going to heat up.”

Hermillia Villegas, a 47-year-old mother of two in Jalisco, Mexico, recently learned that she had a virulent form of breast cancer that responded well to treatment with Herceptin. Her husband is a janitor, and her doctor initially told her that each of 17 treatments with Herceptin would cost her more than $3,000.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said in a telephone interview. The new health insurance program, which pays for the whole cost of the drug, has saved her life, she said.

Imagine that: Mexico supplies this drug to citizens who cannot afford it, but those without insurance in the USA are out of luck.

For Shame

Raising the Retirement Age? I Don't Think So!

Apologies for the long absence; my life had been intruding.

I consider myself to be pretty fit for someone in his mid-fifties. I hit the gym at less five times a week, can climb a number of stairs without feeling winded and am in generally good health.

Yesterday, Mércia and I had to move our old sofabed out of our second floor apartment, wedge it into the elevator, and bring it out to the curb, all while wrapped in plastic. We then had to bring in our new sofabed.

I was completely exhausted for a couple of hours. So the next time some right-wing economist/politician/think-tank "expert" -  who never has to lift anything heavier than a laptop or their own luggage on a regular basis - says that the retirement age should be raised to seventy to ease the social security "crisis", they should be forced to work as a stevedore, construction worker, gardener and/or furniture mover. They should be made to do so wearing impediments to give them the sensation that they are in their mid-sixties.

Then they should shut the hell up.

Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart has a better understanding of Rick Perry's strengths among GOP voters than any other cable "news" anchor

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Oh My God, Rick Perry Is Going to Be Our Next President - Second Installment
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Who Needs Sticks?

Several years ago I read an interview with Billy Cobham in Downbeat in which he said that he didn't want to be known only as a timekeeper. That was never a problem for him, nor was it ever a problem for Papa Jo Jones:

 

 

Hat tip to Roberta Gambarini.