To decry Senator Obama's statement as heresy against the informal "right way" of communicating, is sheer arrogance. He wishes for Americans to just be more accepting of learning a foreign language, in which to enrich ourselves, our understanding, and economic possibilities.

We can't sling s&%$ and piss forever..

Well, I live perhaps 200 miles out of Quebec, and have been there many times, so I find it amusing you tie onto that particular argument.

I don't recall many of the French Canadians coming here and being angry about speaking English.... though they do make lots of angry nosies about how everyone else needs to be speaking (their version of) French while in Quebec.

I would suggest a visit to Montreal as an educational trip. Try sticking to English while on said trip. Get back to us with how you fare.

Democrats: This is your nominee. Starting to wonder if Dean-Axelrod-Pelosi-Reid-Brazille have taken you down the wrong path?

A brief cursory glance shows me that all of the north-east, from Maine down to Georgia -- plus the mid-west, covering Michigan, Illinois and the Ohio Valley -- is within a thousand miles of Quebec. Unless I'm mistaken, most of those Quebeckers speak French.

Similarly, the entire states of California and Texas -- and most of the south-west -- is within a thousand miles of Mexico. Unless I'm mistaken, most of those Mexicans speak Spanish.

We don't have to like those Frenchies and Mexicans, but we needn't keep pretending these people don't exist. The reality is most Americans live within a thousand miles from distinctly foreign cultures and languages. They're our neighbors.

What is the foreign country where Obama went "to talk about how Americans suck" ?

Not that it's my job to do your research for you, but back in January, Barack Obama gave a speech addressing the "immigrants must learn English" issue, which was criticized by Clinton supporters at the time:

Fine, Alex. I found one or two myself. But notice, please, the sparse, almost non-existent coverage such events got from the news media, even those showing all the signs of being in the pocket for Obama. Or, come to think on it, CNN< either, which was as usual the CLinton news Network. I mean, nothing at all was made of it. Why? Well, for one thing, it'd tick off Democrats, no? No problem, though, spreading this one around.

When I was in high school, I was told I needed to study a foreign language and had a choice of the standard three at the time: Spanish, French, and German. I was a few hundred miles from the Mexican border and thought I might one day go to Tijuana, so I spent two years studying Spanish.

By the time I was in college, I was in Beirut, Lebanon where everyone spoke French so I spent two years studying French (with great difficulty I might add).

After graduation, I ended up in Dubai, working for a German company where all the execs sneered at me because I couldn't speak their language (even though the company conducted its business in English as most other companies did at the time).

Having continually made the wrong choice of foreign language to study, I gave up trying. But I was able to travel the world, speaking English everywhere I went, with no trouble so I don't feel inadequate in any way.

That being said, there's a great advantage to knowing more than one language, and it's well, well beyond "conversing with workmen in Spanish" when looking at where I expect the global economy to be in 20 years. We got English/Spanish board books for our sons just to get them versed early with the idea of the need to know more than one language (and they get a few early foreign words in the vocabulary to boot).

July's 2004 Reason sat open on my kitchen table yesterday, and my during lunch I thumbed to an article about globalization and the myths of the global economy's drain on American jobs. It posited that the America jobs have become higher level as a result of outsourcing some of the more menial tasks (as well as those that are classified as menial tech - like pure code monkeying) have made greater, more challenging jobs for those of us who are stateside in the same fields. If the trend continues (more global trade, more shifts in the types of jobs we're doing), there's more international business. More international business means more need for both understanding of other cultures and the ability to at converse and/or read another language. And with a weaker dollar and a glut of free trade agreements with many countries (The US has NAFTA, CAFTA (Central American), Chile, Australia, and Peru's in the works...and that's just off the top of my head), exports are more attractive.

I'm at an awful loss in part of what I do professionally in speaking only one language and being able to glean root words and meanings in a few others.

Heather

Not that it's my job to do your research for you, but back in January, Barack Obama gave a speech addressing the "immigrants must learn English" issue, which was criticized by Clinton supporters at the time:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/12/231431/542

Also, Barack Obama's own website has this in its issues section.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/immigration/#out-of-shadows

By the way, I found these things using a sophsticated computer program known as "Google".