English is Like an Ocean Tide

A century ago, writes Richard Cohen, his ancestors were squeezed into the Lower East Side. They “did Kosher” and spoke Yiddish. And historian Henry Adams, descendent of presidents, was sickened by all those Jews. But now, of course,

The grandchildren of those who did Kosher there have scattered throughout the country and the English their grandparents did not speak has been mastered and enriched by Bellow and Roth and Chabon and Ephron, not to mention Irving Berlin.

Now, as then, we worry about the immigrants learning English. We shouldn’t. The pull of the English-speaking culture is “like an ocean tide.”

In Los Angeles, for instance, radio station KDL shifted in 2003 from Spanish to English because the Latino audience it wanted -- the young -- was increasingly bilingual and what's called “English dominant.” English was cooler, hipper and younger, younger, younger. Spanish was the language of mom and dad, and nothing could be fustier -- or, in some cases, embarrassing.

That is just what Cohen thought when he refused to speak Yiddish to his grandmother. Sooner or later, everyone is sucked into English speaking.

The richness of Shakespeare's tongue, its universality in commerce and business and, above all, in entertainment, makes it unavoidable. Few things in life are certain, but death, taxes and English certainly are.

We should have faith in the power of our language and our culture.

Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling: Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

That is a British colloquialism, if you were wondering, and that is what capitalist cheerleader Larry Kudlow is saying as he commends the vital work of the Justice Department prosecutors in bringing corporate crooks like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling to justice—and hopefully to jail.

And, we hope, scaring a million other businessmen who might be tempted. For who is as pure as Caesar’s wife?

I’d say that a major motion picture jail term for major motion picture fraud ought to send a message.

But in the glow of our continuing Reagan economy, now restored after the crisis of confidence in the wake of the Enrons and their frauds, let us not forget, says Kudlow, the nadir of our great US economy.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the murderer’s row of economic morons &mdas; LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter — in allegiance with their liberal Keynesian advisors, concocted a socialist policy mix that ultimately led to wealth-destroying big-government stagflation.

Yeah, thanks for nothing, pals. But then came the reign of Ronaldus Magnus, and the US economy “became the envy of the world.”

Since the early 1980s, more than 46 million new jobs have been created, with inflation-adjusted GDP increasing $6.2 trillion, or 120 percent.

And stock prices are up 900 percent since 1980.

There’s a downside to all this, of course. That giant sucking sound you hear is the sound of the blindingly successful US economy sucking workers in from all over the world, and in particular from Mexico, an unhappy land of corruption and incompetence in economic governance.

And there is no excuse, not any more, for economic incompetence. The chaps in Estonia read Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, implemented its policy recommendations, and shortly thereafter became e-Stonia, doubling GDP in a decade.

Of course, they made one little mistake, the silly naifs. They thought that the west had actually implemented Friedman’s ideas. Little did they know, as they implemented a flat tax, that they were the first, after Hong Kong, to try it out!

Pentecostals Experiencing Possibilities and Breakthroughs in Nigeria

We hear a lot about the lovely Muslims doing a spot of genocide on the Dinka tribes in South Sudan. And we hear about Muslim gangs burning Christian churches in Nigeria. But we don’t often hear about the Christians themselves.

Here is a report on the Pentecostals in Nigeria, led by “Daddy,” Rev. Enoch Adejare Adeboye. His church is about 5 million strong, and its growing. In Nigeria, in China, and in South Korea.

Here’s how it feels to attend a service of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, reported by Brian Murphy of the Associated Press.

It's eight hours into the service, and the congregation is still dancing. Shout, they're told. Yell out to the Lord. Their cries melt into a muggy night with the odor of sweating bodies, jasmine and the tropical musk of the Nigerian bush land.



"Hallelujah," rumbles the head pastor as the church band kicks into a new number. "Hal-le-luuuuuuu-jah."

Yes, it’s not really approved of by the World Council of Churches, but Christianity is alive and well in Africa. There were an estimated 300,000 people at that all-night service.

What is the attraction of Pentecostalism, now estimated by some at 500 million out of a total of 2.2 billion Christians worldwide?

Eve Akindabe, a 35-year-old seamstress who was raised as an Anglican, does some hemming work as she waits to worship. She's been giving a monthly tithe -- worth about $10 -- for five years.



"Why did I join Daddy's church? Take a look around," she says, waving her hands at the crowds. "Daddy inspires. Daddy tell us Jesus is right here to help improve our lives. The Anglican church was all about, 'Don't do this, don't do that.' Daddy is all about possibilities and making breakthroughs. It deals with heaven, but also the here and now."

Possibilities, breakthroughs. You chaps familiar with modern American pschology like Spiral Dynamics will know what that is about. It is the orange world of creativity, beyond red power gods, beyond blue discipline and purpose, to orange creativity, and life as a game to be won.

The thing is, it’s almost miraculous. Why would the struggling masses in third-world cities be responding to a Gospel of Prosperity? Not red victimization, not blue rules and roles, but possibilities and breakthroughs. It is a testament to the eternal hope breaking through in the human spirit.

On This Memorial Day...

As the United States continues its Long War against the axis of petroleum-fueled warlords, the USS Kearsarge trains for another tour in the Middle East and a wife mourns her fallen husband.

The USS Kearsarge is an Amphibious Assault Ship, really a converted aircraft carrier, that is “designed to put troops on hostile shores.” As Rear Adm. Garry Hall tells Bob McManus: “There’s no beach beyond our reach.”

It’s a ship with over a thousand sailors and 2,000 marines, and the crew is holding up “amazingly well” according to Hall.

But this Memorial Day, writes Jennifer Fermino, Sharon Engeldrum is getting ready to celebrate the first birthday of her daughter Kristian, who was born seven months after her husband, National Guardsman Christian Engeldrum was killed in an ambush in Iraq.

The widow said her heart breaks every time she hears of another casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan - which means another family shattered.



"It's hard, absolutely," she said.

Sharon is participating in Memorial Day celebrations in Washington DC, which this year will be the first year that the parade will honor the GIs returning from the war on terror.

Later today, Sharon said, she'll lay flowers on the Arlington National Cemetery grave of her husband, whom she met in 1983 when he worked at a Bronx gas station.

And so the nation honors those who serve and those who have fallen. And it also honors those who have lost their loved ones in the nation’s service.

After Bush and Blair We'll Still Have to Fight Terror

With Prime Minister Blair on his way out and President Bush on his way down, some folks think that pretty soon we can get back to business as usual in international affairs.

Not so, writes Janet Daley.

Maybe it was OK back in the Cold War that “We kept our sons-of-bitches under control and they kept their sons-of-bitches under control.” But now it is the sons-of-bitches that are the problem. And they insist that we pay attention to them.

It is the little dictators and the rogue states, with their access to nuclear weapons and their terrorist networks, who are the threat now.

So after Bush and Blair are gone we will still have to deal with the sons-of-bitches.

What really went wrong in Iraq was a failure of the US to grasp that not everyone would seize the gift of freedom with both hands and make it work...

...

[Americans] just don't get it when nations, given the choice, opt for dictatorship, theocracy or the tribalism of warlords.

That is where Europe comes in, Daley advises. Europeans understand about “ancient hatreds and peoples who fear liberty.” But so far, except for Tony Blair, the Europeans haven’t stepped up to the plate. They have prefered to barrack from the sidelines. So what is the answer?

In the West, we have learned how to eradicate mass starvation and gross inequality. There is no mystery: the answer is liberal democratic government and free market economics.

In the future the United States is going to need some help from its friends in the effort to export this answer to the oppressed peoples of the world.

SAT Scores Down This Year

Colleges are reporting that SAT scores of students are down this year, and David S. Kahn, who has been tutoring kids for the SAT test since 1989, confirms the drop in OpinionJournal.com.

[T]he scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math and verbal portions of the test (each on a scale of 200 to 800).

So what is going wrong? Is the test different? Are the kids less prepared? What’s the problem?

The test has been rejiggered, Kahn explains, and is probably more difficult. It includes a longer reading section. the result is that

Studying vocabulary lists before the test--a long-favored shortcut to lifting scores--just won't cut it anymore. Students who read widely and often throughout their elementary and high-school years develop the kinds of reading skills measured by the new SAT. Students who avoid reading don't--and can't develop them in a cram course.

The math section is also more challenging, including some pre-calculus for the first time, as well as arithmetic, algebra, and geometry it tested before.

Quite simply, this is not the same SAT. Students, anxious parents and college admissions officers... need to adjust our expectations accordingly.


People complain that the SAT is biased and that the bias explains why students don't do well. That's true--it is biased. It's biased against people who aren't well-educated.

So maybe people will start to sit up and pay attention. They might figure out “that their children are not getting good educations.”

That would be a start. Then we could all decide what to do about the great big flabby education system we have tolerated these many years.

Why do we put up with it? Is it because it really doesn’t matter to us if the school system is a mess? That kids can sleepwalk through their school days and it doesn’t make any difference?

Immigration Bill Will Expand Welfare State

Some of us are wondering why the United States Senate seems to be in such a hurry to shower the nation’s illegal immigrants with forgiveness on back taxes owed and credit for Social Security taxes paid. And why rush to normalize their status? There are tons of immigrants who have crossed every T in the immigration regulations who seem to be relegated to the back of the line.

Maybe Robert Rector has the answer. Only not quite in the way he thinks.

By his reckoning the newly regularized immigrants will be eligible for a feast of benefits. And when they bring their parents in, they will be eligible for benefits too.

In the long run, the Hagel-Martinez bill, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.

So that’s what it’s all about. Jobs for liberals. Imagine. The stunning success of welfare reform has thrown millions of people out of poverty. And that threatens the jobs of millions of liberals who depend on the existence of millions of helpless victims for their livelihood.

What could be more beneficial than to find a whole new stash of helpless victims, people with little experience of thriving in an advanced economy. They would be just what the doctor ordered. They could give the welfare state another lease on life.

So liberals will get bigger budgets and Democrats will get more votes. Why do Republicans put up with this stuff. Aren’t we supposed to control Congress?