On 11/11/2010 1:50 PM, Jon Danniken wrote:
Red Green wrote:

Stranger for lack of a better word. Guess I don't have the "fantastic
vocabulary" credited for. Not sure what that was all about. Doesn't
matter.

I initially thought it was SPAM until I noticed it was you.

Then I was going to click it, but since it's for Lowe's Mexican Hardware, I
decided not to.

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4...panishcomp.jpg

**** Lowe's. This is America, we speak English here. Enabling individuals
who refuse to assimilate into our culture, the most basic expression of
which is a common language, is a culturally destuctive act, and I will not
give any form of support to them.

Jon



Well, up north here my jerking knee kinda sympathizes with your POV, but
not enough to get my BP spiked over it. But in some parts of USA (all
the way from western LA through middle CA, and parts of FL too for that
matter), I'll point out that Spanish was there before English was. Not
to mention ancestors of many families still living there. They never
moved, the border did. And although mass media never made much note of
it, their culture has been continuously practiced there far longer than
the area was part of USA, even as a territory. So who is pushing out
who? Cultural and genetic borders seldom line up with the lines drawn on
a map. Most of the areas mentioned above that were settled in
pre-Anglo days revel in the their Mexican/Spanish heritage. Northerners
are not that different- even 230 years later, it is clear mainstream US
culture is a product mainly of English heritage. Most of our language,
most of our laws, the way our military is set up (right down to the
'noble class' officers vs. the 'commoner' enlisted ranks), the way our
universities work, and so on and so on. And since we outlawed Official
royalty when we kicked King George out, we created our own surrogates.
(You could go back 100-some years and switch the Windsors and Kennedys,
and both would have felt right at home.)

I'm the son of immigrants from far northern Europe, and although they
kept speaking the mother tongue and pining for home, they didn't make us
(8 kids) speak it, or participate in cultural events related to our
heritage. They wanted us to assimilate, and not be 2nd or 3rd generation
refugees. Of course, they never thought USSR would collapse, and their
home country would regain any semblance of a free government. Boy were
they surprised. My mother moved back and reclaimed the old family
properties. I went to visit once, and kind of regret how cut off I am
from all that. But even as a kid, I never could learn languages worth a
damn, so I won't frustrate myself by trying.

--
aem sends...