Tower of Babble.
I used to have a collection of 'Multiculturalism is a bad idea" type books ...until I realized it was like having a collection of "the earth is round"books taking up space on my bookshelf. Anyway, one of them, i can't recall which one - remarked of the absurd lengths we go to here, including teaching Creole as a second language...the book remarked that creole isn't even taught in schools in Hati. And low and behold I stumbled on a rather extensive collection of Creole web pages at nyc.gov. How many different people are in this city of Babel now? Do we have to provide languge services for everyone? If we're providing it because otherwise it would be discriminating against minorities, do we provide it for all minorities, do we provide Scottish gaelic translations for the two or three people here that speak it? What about Breton? Or Basque? who and what qualifies for PC treatment?
4 comments:
two questions:
"multicularlism or multiculturalism?
because the second I know what it means but if the first is real I have no idea what it is.
and the second one:
if the word was multiculturalism (so the book's collection was about that ) what is the relationship you stablish between that and the concept of a collection of book about "the earth is round"?
Basque would be interesting, to me specially patou, that was the dialect of the French Cote Basque were part of my family is from.
But definetly this city needs to use its resources for more important education issues than those.
culturalism -sorry typo.
relationship having a collection of books that say multiculturalism (and its ugly cousin, political correctness) is a bad idea is like having a collection of books that say the world is round -its pretty obvious.
Is europe a better place because of it? Let's take the example of France- violence is now nearly out of control - my old girlfriend lives in Proveance- she said old ladies are afraid to walk the streets they grew up on.
I hear the same thing from all over Europe - Florence is now extremely unsafe, Paris has 'no go' zones for police (yes police)
Is this an improvement?
i would add what makes the world really interesting is true diversity- ireland is irish, spain is spanish (and within that andluscia is different from castille.)
trying to make the world one big happy version of disney's its a small world is a not only a dumb idea, its' a dangerous one.
you are absolutly right,diversity makes life interesting and tasteful.
About violence, is all over.
Buenos Aires used to be very safe until 7 years ago,now,they can kidnap you in exchange for a large TV.yes as you hear, I mean as you read.
We and everybody knew that Rio was dangerous and I used to go on vacations only to the south of Brasil because it was dangerous for a woman with a little daugther to go to the north, but now is hitting places you would never think was possible.
Poverty,dangerous quemical drugs,and the crazyness of the big cities is a huge issue.
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