Monday, May 22, 2006

Commentary:

A National Language.

The country is at war, universal healthcare is a joke, no one has a solution for the immigration "problem" and the economy may be in the crapper, but all this is on the back burner because we spent half of last week debating the designation of English as the national language. Hooray for our venerable Senate leadership! When our public high schools continue to under-educate the young and 'native' young english speaking students can't read or write, our Senate is busy trying to eliminate the 'press two for Spanish' option. Where is the focus on what is really important? Cynicism dictates that this initiative is just another highly effective ploy to direct the citizenship to an attention grabbing flag waiving topic so we miss the real lack of attention and effort directed at what should be really important. To me, it is just further confirmation of our political leaderships' continuing lack of initiative and confusion on how to deal with the immigration 'problem' and all the other major issues impacting the country today. Deflecting attention by suggesting a national language or assigning an inadequate contingent of National Guard troops to the Mexican border sounds good but won't fix the problem at hand. There was also talk about making understanding of English a pre-requisite to citizenship which sounds practical but isn't and anyway all citizens know that to excel in the US they need to learn English. Hey, if we are going to pre-qualify our immigrants screw English; how about chemistry, electrical engineering, software engineering or physics!

There is a Satan!

Apparently, there were strong feelings at this years Eurovision Song contest (aka The Competition Taste Forgot) where the entry from Finland boldly banished the mousy teeny bopper bubbly pop music in favor of some fun loving satanic inspired metal. Hard to believe this didn't start as a bar bet over the winter solstice but nevertheless against the odds and calls for their banishment the Finns won the contest. I want to know how they would have stood against such prior winners as ABBA - perhaps a battle of the bands would solve it. On the other hand, will we witness the Broadway hit musical Lucifer Now! sometime in the next ten years? During a pre-finale interview the band - in full regalia sitting beside a hotel pool in Athens asked the interviewer to hurry the questions because they were freaking hot in their outfits. This I found amusing given who some thought they represented. They refuse to remove their outfits and {presumed} make-up in public and as a result no one has seen who they are. (There was probably a group of Finish postal workers suspiciously missing from work last week).

Here they are in all their finery thanks to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py5Of-4kJ70.
Doubtful I am looking to buy the album...

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