Dept. of Watch Your Language

[kaffy_r]

 When You Just Can't Get Enough Stupid ...

... I'm here to point you in the direction of more. With much thanks to Anu Garg's delightful A Word A Day, who pointed this out; one writer's contemplation about the reaction one school community had to hearing the Pledge of Allegiance spoken in Arabic.

This entry was originally posted at http://kaffyr.

Comments

[supergee]

Blogging this; thanx

[kaffy_r]

De nada!

[eaweek]

Thank you for sharing that brilliant article! In particular, this wry observation made me almost snort coffee up my nose:

And it won’t dishonor those Americans who died in Afghanistan, in part because the principal languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari, not Arabic.

I've been reading a lot of Tudor-era history and fiction these past couple of years, and I think many people in the US would be surprised to learn that at one time in Europe, it was illegal to own a Bible in your own language. It was illegal to translate the Bible into vernacular languages, to print up your translation, to distribute it to other people. If you were caught doing any of those things, you'd be burned alive. Literally.

A little historical perspective can sometimes be a marvelous thing.

[kaffy_r]

Oh, I love hearing about this! But don't you know that if you believe in historical perspective, you'll let the terrorists win? *eyeroll*

[eaweek]

LOL, oops, forgot about that!! ; )

[a_phoenixdragon]

*Sigh*

*hugs you*

[kaffy_r]

Yeah, it's worth more than a few sighs, isn't it? Gah.

[flowsoffire]

…that link is sending me to a (pretty interesting) article about Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech. User-relevant? XD (More likely updated, since I'm getting here so late… well, it's still kind of odd.)

♥

[kaffy_r]

Hi there - try the link now. I went back and found it in his archives; he doesn't seem to have a permalink function, but that's something I should think of looking for when I link to things. And yes, this guy seems to write some interesting posts.

[flowsoffire]

Thank you! This article makes very nice, very sharp points. I just wanted to laugh hysterically through most of it at the sheer stupidity of people. Thank goodness there are clever minds to set them straight with knowledge, humour and a message of rationality.

[kaffy_r]

He writes very well, very intelligently and with that dose of humor, very slight, very wry, that improves almost any comments.