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School Budget Cuts Derail English Language Program By Dean Gray and Jackie Devereaux Coachella Valley, CA – An important English reading fluency program is threatened to end due to severe budget cuts to this year’s school budget. The Valley Partnership, is at the end of a three-year program, funded by an annual grant of $329,000. Without the matching funds the program is at risk and over 20 people lose their paid volunteer positions. Fundraising efforts are still trying to raise $55,000 by August 3rd to meet the target start-up date. The sponsors are asking for donations by philanthropists and charitable...

A roulette worker at Foxwoods came up the big loser when he bet that nine women gathered around his table - including an NYPD sergeant, FBI special agent and Long Island cop - couldn't understand the gross comments he was making about them in Spanish. It turned out the party also included Michelle Marigliano, a businesswoman who used to teach bilingual education and was able comprende every disgusting word. After complaining, the women were invited into the high-rollers' lounge, given free drinks, a free breakfast and two free rooms for one night at the Connecticut facility. They were told at...

Three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have lost an attempt to ban the use of the word "lesbian" to describe gay women. The residents argued that using the term in reference to gay women insulted their identity. But an Athens court ruled there was no justification for their contention that they felt slighted, saying the word did not define the islanders' identity. Greeks often refer to the island as Mytilene, after its capital. "This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere," Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters news agency. Court expenses...

What else is there to do on Tuesdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

(Side by each, "above the fold", on their site's front page) If you are a regular DiversityInc reader, you know telling a Black coworker he's "articulate" is a no-no. But does that mean you keep it to yourself when you think he nailed his presentation? Not if you know the things 'to' say to Black coworkers. ... ----------------------- This time the N-word has the Rev. Jesse Jackson in hot water. After calling for a boycott of the word in the past, how much heat will the civil-rights icon get for the gaffe?

What else is there to do on Fridays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

PROVIDENCE — Federal immigration agents and state police raided six Rhode Island courthouses yesterday, arresting dozens of people employed by two contractors hired by the state. The detainees are all believed to be maintenance workers. The raid led to a noisy demonstration by at least 100 people outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 200 Dyer St. last night. Police officers arrived as the crowd grew; at one point the police pushed a line of demonstrators across the parking lot. Some in the crowd were relatives of the arrestees. Others included clergy and at least one state representative, Grace...

Chalk it up to cultural insensitivity, a lack of understanding or simple ignorance, but there are a number of cultural landmines that otherwise-earnest employees can stumble into when attempting to interact with coworkers of different ethnic backgrounds. Much of the ground covered by DiversityInc's Things Never to Say series over the past several months included comments that reflected stereotypes, such as that Asians are passive, are disproportionately found in technology sectors and are not risk takers. Many people who find themselves making these remarks have no intention of being offensive, but that doesn't make the comments any easier for the...

Immigrants will be forced to show they can speak English and understand the British way of life before they can gain citizenship in future. Under proposals to be put before Parliament next week, new arrivals will also be required to contribute to a fund to be spent on lessening the impact of sudden mass immigration on local public services. Ministers are keen that recent arrivals prove they can integrate into general British life, rather than just their own close community, before they are allowed to apply for a British passport. They are concerned that many young women in particular arrive...

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon. County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole." That prompted Judge Thomas Jones,...

NBC News may actually be more pro-Obama than Barack Obama himself. Back in March, a celebratory NBC Nightly News story about Obama’s childhood in Indonesia described the future candidate as “mastering the Indonesian language.” But Obama — who this week has voiced displeasure that many Americans do not speak a foreign language — admitted on Friday: “I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing!” he said. On Tuesday, Obama voiced regret over Americans’ lack of language skills. He revisited the topic on Friday, this time admitting that he speaks no foreign languages himself. Via Jake Tapper’s “Political Radar” blog: At...

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price is sticking to his comments that the term "black hole," which a colleague used, is racist.

Barack Obama has questioned, implicitly, the value of English as a primary language. Why shouldn't the rest of us learn to speak Spanish? What is so "special" about English? Pandering to Hispanic voters is at the heart of this latest swerve in Obama's insubstantial campaign, but picking on English is a very silly and very dangerous tactic towards a vital national and international issue. Obama himself is the best argument for a black in America learning to master English. The candidate speaks English perfectly and that has made him the first viable black presidential candidate. If he spoke English like...

"We're talking about an emergency situation," said Richard Grounds, a speaker of the Euchee language and co-organizer of the meeting, held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. The youngest person to grow up speaking Euchee as a first language is now 78, said Grounds, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The rest are in their 80s... Languages seem to be going extinct like species of plants and animals. That comparison holds up pretty well, except that languages can occasionally be brought back to life. Growing up in Ohio, Daryl Baldwin said he was told that...

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre Tuesday afternoon. County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole." That prompted Judge Thomas Jones,...

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon. County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole." That prompted Judge Thomas Jones,...

London: The English language is set to reach a very important landmark within the next year – its one millionth word. A new English word is created every 98 minutes, and the current number of official words stands at 995,844. With the way things are going, experts believe that the language will cross its one millionth word mark within the year, more specifically 29 April, 2009. More news, analysis | More Science and Medicine news "English is different to most other languages in that it absorbs words like no other language in history. Language boils up from the people and...

What else is there to do on Thursdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE? Especially on 4th of July eve?!?!Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

If Kim Jong Il plays charades, his hand gestures might look just like George Bush's, a new study suggests. It seems that, regardless of the sentence structure of their native tongue, non-verbal communication is the same across the globe. English, Spanish and many other Western languages build most basic sentences around a simple blueprint: a subject followed by a verb and object; for example, "mice eat cheese". Other languages, like Turkish and Korean, tend toward subject-object-verb construction, or "mice cheese eat". "There's something pretty fundamental about these orders," says Susan Goldin-Meadow, a linguistic psychologist at the University of Chicago, who...

Helllllllllllllllllllllo INFIDELS!

Any discussions about the terms used to describe African Americans as a group must begin by understanding the historical context within the United States in which these terms were used. It is a history that encompasses more than 300 years, when Blacks were brought to the United States against their will. During the subsequent three centuries, many terms were used to describe African Americans as a group in the United States. During the 1950s and 1960s, common terms "negro" and "colored" were used, often disparagingly. Today, these two terms are unacceptable and are almost never heard, with the exception of...

Marketers increasingly use commingling of languages for ads A billboard on U.S. Highway 77/83 reads, "Our huevos are bigger." The bigger huevos are the subject of a Stripes' convenient store advertisement for its in-store restaurant, the Laredo Taco Company. The sign's clever use of bilingual double entendre has caused quite a stir on this stretch of the Texas-Mexico border, in addition to being a source of amusement for some. The success of the sign hinges on the Spanish word huevo, which literally translates as egg and figuratively refers to a part of the male anatomy. The commingling of Spanish and...

Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

Council bans brainstorming By Nick Allen Last Updated: 2:06PM BST 20/06/2008   A council has banned the term "brainstorming" and replaced it with "thought showers". Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent was accused of taking political correctness to extremes after instructing staff to make the change.The move came as council chiefs feared the word brainstorming might offend mentally ill people and those with epilepsy.The buzz term is often used by executives to generate ideas among their staff. But memos have been sent to staff asking them not to use it and some have been given training which encouraged them...

The Enemy Has a Name   By Daniel Pipes FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, June 17, 2008 If you cannot name your enemy, how can you defeat it? Just as a physician must identify a disease before curing a patient, so a strategist must identify the foe before winning a war. Yet Westerners have proven reluctant to identify the opponent in the conflict the U.S. government variously (and euphemistically) calls the "global war on terror," the "long war," the "global struggle against violent extremism," or even the "global struggle for security and progress." This timidity translates into an inability to define...

Judges are banning terms such as 'rape' and 'victim' as prejudicial to defendants Call it the age of the Loaded Word. A steadily increasing number of courts across the United States are prohibiting witnesses and victims from uttering certain words in front of a jury, banning everything from the words "rape" to "victim" to "crime scene." Prosecutors and victims' rights advocates nationwide claim the courts are going too far in trying to cleanse witness testimony, all to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial. Concerns and fears over language restrictions have been percolating ever since judges in Nebraska and...

Today's Savage Nation Show thread. Borders, Language, Culture.

Today's show thread. Borders, Language, Culture.

Today's Savage thread.

Today's Savage thread.

Immigrants to Sweden should be able to become citizens within two years if they learn Swedish quickly, a new report has proposed. While current regulations stipulate a five year minimum for anyone wishing to become a citizen, researchers Dan-Olof Rooth and Per Strömblad recommend shortening the waiting period for newcomers who manage to become proficient in Swedish at an earlier stage. In a report commissioned by the government's Globalisation Council, the researchers stress that the proposal would not lead to stricter rules for anyone seeking a passport, but would provide an incentive for those wishing to speed up the process....

Good news: the war on terror is over! Charles Allen, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior intelligence official, said last week that American officials should stop calling this conflict we’re in a “war on terror,” far less the president’s term, the “global war on terror.” Why? Because it offends Muslims, of course. When they hear “terror,” you see, this hurts the feelings of peaceful non-terrorist Muslims. “[It] has nothing to do with political correctness,” insisted Allen, straining credulity well past the breaking point. “It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don’t need this.”...

The west needs a more comprehensive strategy to counter al-Qaeda propaganda and the US should stop using the term “war on terror”, according to a top intelligence official. Charles Allen, the senior intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security, says the phrase is counter-productive because it creates “animus” in Islamic countries.

A question arises time and again from prilgrims visiting the Holy Land: What was the language that Jesus spoke? They ask: What was the language of Palestine in the times of Jesus? What languages did Jesus speak? Were there any indications found in the Gospels? Palestine, given that it was always a crossroads for entire peoples in their spontaneous, and often times forced, migrations, was by necessity a multi-lingual land. It was a place where they spoke several languages at the same time. That is, in the times of Jesus, there were no less than two local languages spoken and...

New York, NY (AHN) - A survey of 2,520 executive made by a New York-based online job search website said office cursing topped the reasons why bosses fire employees. According to TheLadders.com, 38 percent of the respondents to the online survey pointed to violation of office etiquette, primarily using cuss words, as their number one reason for terminating workers. The was followed by drinking on the job, which came second with 35 percent, and excessive personal calls during office hours as third, with 28 percent. But from the worker's perspective, there is a worst sin than cursing. TheLadder said 81...

THORNTON, Colo. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama said U.S. students must learn a second or even third language or the country will struggle to compete in a global economy. "We as a society do a really bad job teaching foreign languages, and it is costing us when it comes to being competitive in a global marketplace," the Illinois senator said at a school here Wednesday. He said India has a "huge advantage" because most people speak English besides their native language. Obama speaks a little Spanish and some rusty Indonesian from his childhood, aides say. "Understand that my starting principle...