According to the Korea Times, "the candlelight protests [are] becoming a fading fad"; but I've heard that one before, just before they flourished again. (And OhMyNews continues to post great photos, like the one above.) The same KT article goes on to say that "the government seems to be getting bolder in what is shaping up as a war against the broadcast media." That will probably just make more trouble for President Lee, who seems convinced that he's really Chun Doo Hwan. Spraying water on peaceful demonstrators is one thing, but trying to strongarm the media is another; when even a corporate publication like the Korea Times is critical of the President, you know he's overreaching.Back here in the Land of the Free (As Long As You Pay For It), people are still fussing over the New Yorker's Obama cover. Tom Tomorrow has resorted to posting a free lesson on satire for the clueless. And here's my contribution, another one of my satirical essays, the one which annoyed a full professor. The rhetoric this time came less from the Born-Again Christian Right than from Born-This-Way Gays and Lesbians, though as I've pointed out before, the two aren't that far apart.
CONFESSIONS OF A CONGENITAL ANGLOPHONE
After thinking about it carefully for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that I was born this way. I've spoken English all my life, ever since I was a tiny child. I can't remember a time when I did not speak English. So I just believe it must be in my genes.
Some people try to claim that language is "learned", but that's silly. No one taught me English. If you try to teach a child to speak, it will refuse to speak at all. I never had to learn English, it's not a choice, it just always came naturally to me. My parents both speak English, so it clearly is something I inherited from them. The latest scientific evidence backs me up: language is innate.
In high school and since, I have tried to learn other languages. (This was in the "Swinging Sixties", when people were trying to turn the world upside down, mixing races so you couldn't tell the boys from the girls.) Even after two or three years of study, I could only stumble along, consciously and clumsily assembling sentences from a list of memorized words and grammatical rules. That's not how I speak in English, which just comes naturally to me. This fact alone should be enough to prove that English is not learned. Any child is more fluent in its native language after three years. My attempts to change my language went against my nature, and were therefore wrong. God made me this way, and God doesn't make trash.
Which is why I've come to agree with the "English Only" movement. Teaching foreign languages in our schools makes English seem to be just one more "alternative" way of speaking, when I know it isn't. It's language. It's common sense. It degrades the English language to pretend that every complicated gibberish spoken by a bunch of foreigners is as good as plain, simple American. That's why this country's in trouble, if you ask me. A bunch of Politically Correct "multiculturalists" have taken over our educational system, and they're trying to make our kids talk "Spanish" and "Japanese" and "Russian" and lord only knows what all, forcing them to go against their nature and feel like there's something wrong with the tongue God gave them. If you ask me, it's a plot to confuse our children and make them feel inferior. It isn't right.
I know that some people claim to be "bilingual," but I don't believe in that. First, they always have a clear preference for one language or the other. Second, since we are clearly designed to have just one native language, it's an unnatural perversion to be "bi". I say these people should get off the fence and make a choice.
All you have to do is read the Bible story of the
