02.20.12
Posted in Society at 11:43 by RjZ
Back in 2005, Christian conservatives were on the rise. Back then I struggled with this idea that abortion rights advocates and pro-life advocates couldn’t even begin a conversation much less have a real discussion about this difficult issue.
I proposed, imagine this, a middle ground, simply by reviewing the definitions of life during pregnancy.
There is something special about the ‘life’ inside the womb that distinguishes it from a newborn baby. The fetus inside the womb is utterly and exclusively dependent on the mother. Once the baby is born any human would be capable of taking care of it. The mother, a midwife, an adopted parent, anyone. Before it is born, it is quite literally part of the mothers body. And here’s the sticky part: as an integral part of her body, she has complete domain over it. Are we denying the rights of this unborn baby? Yes! For it is not an independent life like the mother’s. This is not without precedent. Once the baby is born it still will only have limited rights until it is 18 years old. The parents can’t arbitrarily end it’s life or even make the child perform undue labor but the baby and teenager do not have the same rights as adults do.
The idea is that, at least during some period of pregnancy, we could acknowledge that, propaganda to the contrary, there really is a difference between conception and birth. With this in mind, we might be able to make some progress in this debate.
Pro-life advocates are on to me. For years, a referendum has been voted down in Colorado for “Personhood”. It would have granted all the rights of a person to an unborn fetus, regardless of when it was conceived. Now Virginia has made even more progress on the concept of “Personhood”, and a law is working its way through their legislature.
“Personhood” laws are obviously only a backdoor to limit women’s rights and do nothing to address any of truly pro-family arguments that discourage societies from having unwanted children. Furthermore, such laws are inconsistent with our laws now (ascribing, quite possibly, more rights to a fetus than a child. Finally, they are just plain difficult to actually implement. Just imagine doctors fear at even providing pre-natal care, now that they’re liable for two not one individuals, one of whom has a tenuous hold on independent life and may seriously endanger the other. It turns out 2012 isn’t so much different than 2005.
![]()
112 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
02.06.12
Posted in Society, Travel at 18:39 by RjZ
Voluntourism is emerging as an important and growing alternative to traditional tourism. Wealthy and priviledged people are now flying half way a across the world armed not only with cameras, but with hammers and nails. They are building houses and trails, schools and sanitation sanitation systems. These journies enable busy people to become more connected with their world and the people in it; even if they’re not in our backyard.
Like a Peace Corp volunteer just two-weeks at a time, doing morally good and rewarding work; it’s pretty cynical to search for a downside in such an endeavor. Yet there is room for concern. Author Paul Theroux writes at length in his book Dark Star Safari of the harm honest charities do to societies they are only trying to help. The sheer volume of wealthy westerners searching for rewarding, short term experiences must raise a questioning eyebrow.
How many simple, two week, tasks are available in any given region? Are these activities replacing earning opportunities for the locals with free labor from the well-off? Religious charities may be confident that, even if they’re not effective in helping people, at least they are offering them the opportunity to see the light of their chosen religion. That seems like a good idea until the helped return to proselytize the missionaries. How will the people of Louisiana feel when wealthy Iranian muslims come to minister to them while rebuilding hurricane damage?
When Charles Darwin first visited the naked, nomadic Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego, he thought of them as “miserable, degraded savages”. He wrote “I could not have believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilised man” The ship’s crew took three Yaghani back with them to Merry ol’ England, taught them English and enlightened them from the Good Book. They were returned to the tip of the world with new clothes, and given a huts to live in, hopefully to minister teachings of civilization to their people. A later visit found our English speaking Yaghan happily naked, his hut deserted and in disrepair. It seems that even after a year of English luxury, they had even been introduced at the royal court, they preferred their original, ‘primitive’ lives. Offered the chance to return England the native is reported as saying he had “not the least wish to return to England” as he was “happy and contented” with “plenty fruits,” “plenty fish,” and “plenty birdies.”see page 216)
According to Voluntourism.org, most participants return from their journeys feeling that they were the “benefactor, altruist, servant…whereby ‘riches’ flow to the recipient from” those they had come to help. Voluntourism is described by participants themselves as “life-changing”, “transformative” , “they changed my foundation.”
Phrases like that ought to be red flags. Not because there is anything wrong with getting a personal benefit from our actions or that there should be anything at all wrong from having selfish reasons for your trip. Indeed, I think these may be the real and valid justifications that will someday make voluntourism a successful endeavor for everyone. Like Theroux, I don’t question the sincerity of travelers or charities. Instead, I just wonder how carefully we’ve analyzed our intent to do good compared with all the unintended consequences of our actions. The real work of the budding voluntourist must begin long before the journey begins; doing one’s best to weed out the ethically dubious tour operators, ego-stroking guides, and western biases from the growing choices that will enrich our lives and share our wealth. It might be easiest to start at home.
![]()
162 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
01.02.12
Posted in Society at 18:32 by RjZ
Thirty years ago, Commodore announced the world’s most popular computer, the Commodore64. I had a VIC20 at the time and the Commodore64 was as huge an upgrade as any gadget upgrade today. The screen had twice the resolution, and more colors; you could program your own sounds, and, with unbelievably laborious effort, one byte at a time, create animated sprites which would be the building blocks of your own, homemade video games.
Kids had game consoles, like the original Atari, or later, Nintendo, and they were fun. The C64 had plenty of games too, and my thumbs were pretty sore after hours of Loderunner, but I learned to type by repeatedly entering in programs in BASIC. I still type commands like RUN or LIST as fast as if they’re single letters on a keyboard. I wasn’t a particularly good programmer, but there was something amazing about getting the little beige box to do things for you. I programmed it to play little tunes on its built in synthesizer and eventually to play tic-tac-toe. I remember sometimes getting so swallowed up in a programming problem I would be thinking about adding features or how do to something new when I was supposed to be doing homework; and this thing was supposed to help me in school!
Still, I was a low-level geek at the time. My own programming masterpiece , a skiing game where a little skier could be moved left and right to avoid trees rushing up toward him from the bottom of the screen, received a little play at school. Other kids were scanning assembly code from cracked commercial games like they were reading the matrix. I think all those kids must be rich now, long retired, traveling the world with their gorgeous wives and donating large sums of money to cure malaria.
But now, there will be a new personal computer, the Raspberry PC, which, like the old C64 requires you to attach it to your own television (and worse, you’ll need an extra old mouse and keyboard). The Commodore was cheap, but this new PC will be available for a mere $25. Like the C64, all you’ll see when you turn it on is a lonely little prompt, probably a flashing colon. That lonely prompt is an invitation; a challenge, waiting for you to turn the lump of bits inside into your own masterpiece.
I want today’s kids to create their own programs, from scratch. Programs that don’t really do much at all. Programs that say “Hello, world.” or print their names in flowing patterns looped down the screen. Some of kids will take this tiny computer and do amazing things with it, maybe making their own robots, or who new devices. I can’t wait to see it.
Except, when I started writing this, I was afraid all we’d never see it. Kids today, and adults too, have so much opportunity to be entertained, they find little time to create. And the remaining creative ones have such a big hurdle to get over. How can they impressed by my little skiing program, after playing Wii sports for a half an hour? How are they going to feel being stared down by that menacing prompt, and the initial, unimpressive results, with an XBOX or PS3 in the other room?
Of course, distraction and demotivation will, sadly, be true for many, but I know, from the literally millions of apps at the Apple and Google application stores, from the music sharing sites, deviant art and flickr, that, thankfully, creativity is not dead. Given the tools, some of us will go on to make amazing things. At only $25, many more kids will be able be able make their own digital magic, even if they are only simple text adventures, or maybe their own version of asteroids.
Too bad. though, the Raspberry PC won’t have a pi key like the Commodore.
That was cool.
![]()
113 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
12.22.11
Posted in Society at 13:34 by RjZ
The Democrats, U.S.A.’s liberal party, have been handed an election year gift. It seems that after bi-partisan efforts by both political parties in the Senate, an overwhelming majority managed to agree to “kick the can down the road” and ensure that U.S. Americans get to keep a pay-roll tax break and unemployment benefits for at least another two months. In order to accomplish this, the Democrats made a huge concession and there will even be a vote on a pipeline to bring natural gas from Canada to the United States; even though this is a rider on a bill; has nothing to do with what’s being voted on, and is almost as bad as all those earmarks we always hear about.
Meanwhile, even after no indication of such resistence from Speaker of the House, John Boehner, the conservative party in the house of representatives refused to vote on the measure. The senate had already gone home for the holidays but conservatives we’re demanding they return and go into conference, to find some compromise which won’t require yet another vote in two months.
OK, it’s a fair point; two months wasn’t much of a compromise, but hey, they got something done at least. This alternative says ‘we don’t want to just kick the can down the road; we’d rather do nothing at all!. I guess the Republicans haven’t heard that U.S. citizens are fed up with bickering?
Liberals are notorious for their guilt. When elected officials on the liberal side of the aisle do something ridiculous; folks run away, embarrassed. Heck, Obama’s weakening support stems from the fact that he hasn’t done enough to please liberals; compare that with conservative’s view of him as an outright socialist.
Conservatives are different. They stick by their team, often making up crazy excuses like how wrong it would be to vote for something just to have to vote on it two months later, even though not voting means that absolutely nothing get’s done and taxes get raised!
So, let’s watch the fun…will the conservatives rally behind house Republicans or will the recognize that this was a ridiculous bit of posturing after they’d already won the battle? Will they figure out someway to support even Mr. Boehner, who’s job it was to signal to the Senate how his Republican representatives might vote so that compromise is even possible? What contortions are they likely to go through just to toe the line? I’ve heard conservatives complain about yoga, saying it’s anti-Christian. What do you think these new poses will be called as the likes of Rush Limbaugh bends over backwards to support the conservatives in the House of Representatives?
![]()
135 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.31.11
Posted in Society at 11:27 by RjZ
I spent quite a bit of time last year alone. Alone on airplanes, alone in my tiny apartment in Frankfurt for weeks on end, alone running along trails passing fellow joggers with earbuds in their ears, running to their own inspirational soundtrack. To fill all that alone time, I watched a few more movies than normal, I read many more books that usual and stuffed my own ears with podcasts that I found interesting. I tried running with music or more podcasts, but I didn’t like carrying my iPhone (too heavy) and found the distraction took away from just listening to my struggle for breath while running.
A great deal of my time was spent silently reading, yet I still think I am typical of the information overload that modern western society is guilty of. We’ve seen the evidence: connected smartphones dunked in toilets because their owners couldn’t bare to be without them for a few minutes; constant texting among friends who might very well be standing right next to each other; netflix streaming movies from iPad to TV without a break in the action. People travel everywhere with earbuds in ears, blocking out sounds and communication with thier environment and filling their heads nearly non-stop with information or entertainment, even to the exclusion of interraction. Reading a few extra books doesn’t look so bad, but I was exhibiting the same symptons.
So who cares? Well, after drinking all this information from a firehose for three weeks at a time, I’d come home to friends and open the nozzle on them, sharing all this new found knowledge. Of course, I hadn’t taken any time to figure out what all meant, and no one listening to me could either. Instead of making communication more interesting, I’d made it more cumbersome, drowning in all that media. One solution is summed up in a bumper sticker: Kill Your TV. I don’t agree. TV is often very good, and even the mind-candy we find there often contains some pretty fascinating nuggets. (I’m amazed about how much people seem to know about crime scene investigation these days.) “Kill your tv” gets to only part of the problem.
In order to deal with this onslaught of knowledge, thoughts, ideas, and entertainment, we’re faced with a choice, we either limit, or just skim the surface. Why are people seriously having a text message exchange that goes “what r u up to?” “nothin. sitting on the couch?” Perhaps because have room for little else. Our brains are so busy with video games and netflix queus, news casts, and planning dinner, there just ins’t much capacity to have a conversation managed by the tiny keys of a smart phone. Why is most everything on television be so shallow? Why are movies so repetitive? Why are the most popular youtube.com clips no more than 30 seconds? Could it be that, faced with all this information, we only have the bandwidth left to process the bullet points?
Back in university one of my favorite courses was electro-magnetic theory (E&M). (I hear it’s cool to be a nerd nowadays.) It was a two-semester course and I remember being absolutely amazed at how lowly equations for volts and magnets could somehow, magically, yield the a constant for the speed of light. (Come on, isn’t that an unexpected result?) Anyway, at the end of the first semester, I hadn’t done very well. I’d been to every class and found it interesting and all, but I barely passed the final and couldn’t seem to actually understand all the math. Next semester came around, and, ready or not, E&M 2 expects a thorough understanding of whatever you learned in E&M 1. In spite of my sub-par performance a few months ago, I found myself actually following, somehow knowing what we’d been taught lo a semester ago. It sank in. I simply needed some time to process, analyze, synthesize, and there it was, a below average final exam in E&M turned out to be a pretty good base to keep learning more.
The alternative to dumbing down, is simply to turn off the spigot now and then. Fight the boredom. Maybe being alone with your thoughts (in the bathroom) isn’t so terrifying. When faced with all this downtime in Frankfurt, I felt almost desparate to keep the inputs going, even if they were low key, reading style. Reading, watching, listening, they’re addictive habits for our big brains, brains that demand stimulation. Except, feeding the habit winds up being counter productive; causing us to stimulate with less and less interesting stuff, just to keep the neurons firing. Instead, we can keep our neurons happy just as easily if we jet let our brains alone for a little while. Maybe, go for a run (or whatever you do that requires very little mental effort) without the earbuds in and just listen to your breathing and the stamping of your feet. You might just learn something.
![]()
80 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.20.11
Posted in Society at 12:49 by RjZ
Not that this blog has much of a theme, but this thought is so off-topic I thought it deserved a warning. Still, I’d like to hear any comments or if someone could suggest other research done on this.
Recent research has shown that the behavior of domesticated dogs has evolved to match and be dependent upon humans. The relationship between the species has been a profitable one for dogs who have, as a species, exploded in significance on the planet. The same can be argued for nearly every species that has adapted to and been adapted by humans, from sheep to corn.
I’d like here to posit two adaptive behaviors and suggest some evidence that their prevalence is thanks to their relationship with humans.
Dogs wag their tales and cats purr. In both cases, these behaviors indicate pleasure to the creature in a way that is easy for a human to interpret, satisfying and thus gives the human a signal of how to please the animal further. Other pets, either do not exhibit such characteristics or they are not easily read or acted upon by humans, perhaps, because they have not been domesticated as long or as intensely as dogs and cats.
Easy to read/Hard to miss
Even without prior association, it’s easy to guess what wagging means. The behavior is similar enough to an excited child, barely able to contain his own movement. I propose that early humans could easily guess the meaning of this behavior among their new found camp guards. Animals may show signs of joy, pleasure or contentment, but few are as easy to read, even with little prior experience, as the tail wag. Purring of cats is both more difficult to evoke and less immediately obvious, yet purring is consistently, and strongly associated with cat contentment in a way that other animal behaviors may not be. When purring , cats close their eyes and relax their bodies in such a way that it would be difficult to misread even without instruction.
Do other animals show their feelings?
Parrots grind their beaks, often muttering to themselves when content, but this behavior is difficult for humans to invoke, happening usually not in response to interaction, but rather before going to sleep when the animal feels safe. Rats brux, or grind their teeth, often bulging their eyes simultaneously in an expression that is both odd, and humorous and certainly something a rat owner can identify and enjoy, but unfortunately not as easy to elicit as tail wagging or purring, and, well, unless you have a pet rat, not all that attractive either. Rabbits grunt, but rarely in response to human interaction, and many other exotic pets have equally exotic signals, but, and here is the big question for you the reader, nearly all cases these expressions are either:
- Difficult for humans to elicit
- Difficult to read or unappealing
- Inconsistent (applied both to fear/aggression and happiness such as tail-wagging in rats)
Wagging and purring are adaptations that have evolved from existing animal behaviors but have been consistently selected for because they ensure that the animal gets what it wants from its human hosts. Dogs and cats, having spent the most time of any animals as human companions have evolved the most noticeable behaviors that are easy for humans to see, understand, and act upon.
So what’s up?
Can you suggest other animals with such obvious behaviors? What about horses? They’ve spent a long time with humans. Is this connection causal, that is, is wagging so darn obvious because of the dog-human relationship? Certainly wolves and other wild dogs wag their tails, but, I understand this behavior is not expressed the same as it is in dogs. Is this true? Perhaps readers could add their thoughts or links in the comments.
![]()
181 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.17.11
Posted in Liberty, Society at 13:36 by RjZ
Is Occupy Wall Street (OWS) an antidote to the Tea Party? Really, they may want the same things. Both groups have formed out of dissatisfaction with the government action and interaction with a world economy in a shambles, while bankers and financial professionals grow richer and richer. Just as many of the fiscally conservative, small government core of the Tea Party have been shouted down by loony social conservatives who aren’t satisfied with the power they already wield in the U.S. republican party; it’s unclear exactly who OWS really is, and is not. For some, they are the latest crop of counter-culture hippies, and surely a great many are just that. As youth around the globe are faced with a world where they won’t likely make more money than their parents, even if they are lucky enough to find a job, it’s not surprising that idle hands have picked up signs in protest. Bill Buster claimed to speak for fellow protesters while he was a guest on the Charlie Rose show. He declared that the media is focusing on the youth, but that the movement comprises nearly anyone who feels disenfranchised by the economic situation.
Just as the independent Tea Party has seemingly been taken over by extremists, the OWS is in danger of being taken over by Guy Fawkes inspired unemployed. Their anti-capitalist née anarchistic ideals express more anger than alternatives to the government, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Bill Maher and the Left perhaps shouldn’t have dispensed with “Tea Baggers” so quickly. Now, they’re faced with having to support anarchists, or poke fun at same, while they wave signs with slogans Maher’s writers could have written themselves.
It doesn’t take The Economist the wade through the issues to know what’s going on. People are angry and they no longer believe they can rely on the existing system to right their perceived wrongs without raising their voices. The Tea Party is unhappy with conservatives who failed to live up to their financial promises and OWS is made of people who feel their liberal leaders have failed to lead and solve their problems.
Libertarians can see how they’re both right. It’s too easy to ignore OWS as just unemployed anarchists, young people who’ve grown up feeling so entitled that when the government starts cutting down on handouts they’ve got nothing better to do than complain. Bill Buster claims OWS isn’t anti-capitalism, it’s anti-corruption and collusion. Hard to argue with that. Noted liberal Paul Krugman admits that it’s not really the 1% vs. the 99%, rather it’s closer to something like one tenth of one percent who haven’t earned their wealth in some John’s Galt ideal, but through legal loopholes and political connections. Meanwhile, the Tea Party’s extremists haven’t made any libertarian friends with their barely veiled desire for a U.S. theocracy, but the core message, forcing government to reign in spending and mis-guided control of economic policy is one that makes one wish they hadn’t been so derailed by the religious right.
OWS is finding fertile ground around the world, especially Europe, where their liberal anti-capitalism message can take easy root. Europeans, after all, are finding it hard to have faith in their politicians while they watch, and have to pay for, the failure of the Euro-experiment. That anti-capitalism Guy Fawkes stuff is a disappointing distraction, because if Bill Buster is correct, the Tea Party and OWS could get together, (kick out the religious extremists) and actually be a party for the rest of us. A political force that recognizes both the opportunity and the limitations of capitalism and holds politician’s feet to the fire when they cannot maintain system that is just and free of corruption.
![]()
128 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.14.11
Posted in Society at 16:14 by RjZ
I lived in Europe right before the turn of the Euro. Travelling all around the continent and doing business with several nations it was pretty clear to see what some of the advantages of a single European currency, the Euro, would be. After speaking to people from each different country, however, it was almost as clear how difficult it would be to manage. A single currency unifies a group of people in ways that aren’t easy to see immediately. European policy makers weren’t blind; there were examples from the past.
Over two-hundred years ago another group of countries started their economic experiment. They would sacrifice some of their own sovereignty in exchange for economic security. It wasn’t an easy sell, but the countries had a common language, mostly; a common enemy, maybe; and fairly similar backgrounds. During the treaty period they were very reticent to give up very much of that sovereignty to some central government so they wrote a document that would limit the powers of the government and ensure certain rights always remained their own.
We can argue about how successful this United States of America experiment was, but this concept of exchanging control for economic security was tried again more than a decade ago. This second Euro experiment is facing the a real possibility of failure.
To be fair, the United States had it easier, especially when it comes to giving up rights, but it’s doubtful that the 13 original colonies saw it that way at the time. They had much more in common with each other and dramatically less personal history than European nations have, but they were each struggling, fledgling economies and each was concerned with its personal future more than some United States ideal. Industry, farming, urban vs. rural lifestyle, slavery, and religion, divided these early nations-to-be. Somehow, they chose to sacrifice their individual futures and join the union.
What today’s U.S. citizens fail to notice as we look on at the Euro-meltdown is that we would face the exact same problems as Europe if the colonies hadn’t submitted to as much federal control as they did. Where the big difference between the United States and Europe lies is not so much our history, but in the, quite understandable, reticence of the European nations to give up control over their own policies for the sake of the Euro.
When a disastrous hurricane hits New Orleans, the economic damage is felt throughout the nation. Colorado will never suffer from a hurricane but it has to pay its share just the same. When banks on Wall Street fail, the pain ripples across the plains. That’s OK, every year, New Yorker’s pay taxes to subsidize farmers. U.S. citizens are not given a choice about bailing out one state or another, regardless about how we may feel about the logic of building houses in a flood plain, making risky loans to corporations, or planting yet another field of corn. The majority of our tax dollars are spent for federal programs, which spread the wealth to states that suffer from disaster or poor decisions. You may wish for reduced federal spending, or wonder if we really should be part of a union of states, but this share-the-wealth/share-the-pain strategy has been key to the survival of the country.
People living richer northern European countries, on the other hand, are a little less clear on just why, and how much, they have to spend on their profligate neighbors to the south. If Greece couldn’t manage their money, why are Germans forced to pay? The European experiment faces this tough choice and as long as it actually is a choice, the financial markets will reel. If Europe cannot hold the experiment together, they will surely face a recession which will affect the world economy, but the richer nations won’t have to foot the bill for mistakes they had nothing to do with. If they share the suffering for the failures of some nations, they will also have to face a terrible lesson about how much individual sovereignty they can afford without going through this again a decade hence. The data is in and it shows one cannot expect to manage a single currency, without strictly enforceable rules about how money can be spent. Like the 13 U.S. colonies, there will be no middle ground.
![]()
126 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.12.11
Posted in Society at 12:46 by RjZ
U.S. conservatives, and their core of evangelical Christian voters, may now have to face up to the question of where we get our morals.
Can we trust Mitt Romney if he is a mormon, and not a “real Christian“? Christianity, along with the other monotheistic religions tells us that only God can see what’s in our hearts. Even the self-proclaimed lable of Christian does little to tell us how a person feels or believes. The best we can do is resort to what we’ve learned works over centuries of development: reputation. A Baptist preacher may wish to slander a popular religion by saying they do not share his faith and therewith imply they do not deserve our trust, but his slander is empty when applied to an individual. To name just one glaring example among so many others, Ted Haggard is a prominent Christian, but judging him on his declaration of faith alone leads us to believe he’s a good, reliable, family man. Looking at his reputation gives us a different, more accurate, story of a troubled drug dependant, repressed homosexual.
We know about as much about the Baptist preacher Jefrees.
Conservatives may choose Mr. Romney as their candidate for president in 2012. A good choice, as the middle will have little trouble with his religious views, and, unlike some of their more extreme choices, he may actually be able to win against Obama. The way the field looks today, if the republicans instead select someone else, like Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, the middle will likely abandon them, just as they abandoned McCain after his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate. Palin appeals to the evangelical base, but the middle will pick the president.
In order to choose Romney, though, the party will be forced to reconcile their silly assumption, that they can know the heart of a candidate by his religion, with reality. Reputations can be faulty and we can never predict exactly how someone will behave, but reputation is vastly more reliable than simple claims. Actions must speak louder than words; even if politicians hope it’s the last thing you will judge them by.
![]()
84 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
10.11.11
Posted in Society, Travel at 9:56 by RjZ
After living in Germany for a couple of years I made a return visit to the company I had worked for in California. It was a heart warming experience to be welcomed back so sincerely by the team there.
When people learned that I had learned to speak German, their eyes opened wide and several asked me to speak a few phrases. A few turnedto mutter to each other approvingly in Spanish about how impressed they were.
Spanish and the Spanish-English hybrid Spanglish is spoken as often as English in Chino, California. I never really learned Spanish, although, whenever I visit a Spanish speaking country, I am surprised by how much I picked up, presumably by ordering burritos from the counter at El Pueblo Meat Market (English spoken, but only begrudgingly).
For folks in Chino, even bi-lingual ones, German was exotic and they were inspired by my accomplishment. Which, I told them, is completely silly. I’m glad I was able to pick up German (and, later, its close linguistic neighbor, Dutch), but really it’s just not all that impressive at all. Ask around, in spite of our reputation, U.S. American regularly speak at least a couple of languages. How about you?
![]()
76 views Permalink
(no ratings yet, click a square to vote)
Loading ...
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »