Jon Lowder

The Anti Book List

Fec's done it again.  His list of books he'll never read is hysterical.  Well, it's hysterical if you've been paying attention to the crapstorm that is the Iraq War and the Bush Administration.  My favorites:

Laura Bush’s My Husband is a Fink

Barbara Bush’s It Should’ve Been Jeb

John McCain’s Retreat With Honor: 100 Years in Iraq

Dick Cheney’s War Crimes Are Your Friend

Doug Feith’s War Crimes for Dummies

Donald Rumsfeld’s War Crimes Illustrated

Americanese for America

You know how some folks in Congress have been trying to pass legislation declaring English the official language of the United States?  You don't?  Well check out H.R. 769 National Language Act of 2007 and H.R. 997 English Language Unity Act of 2007, they provide some light reading on the matter.  For those of you with better things to do let me tell you that these bills basically attempt to mandate that government business be done in English and to deny naturalized citizenship to those who can't exhibit enough proficiency to read the English language text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

I'm wondering why our Congress is under-reaching?  I mean hell if you're going to create an official language do it right.  Here's what I'd add:

• Declare that the official language is American.  Why continue to bow to the people who's butts we whipped over 200 years ago and who we rescued in WWII?  Besides if we declare English as the official language then we'll have to screw up all our spelling: "organization" would become "organisation" and the like.
• Once we establish American as the official language then we should make sure that all citizens, even those born here, can read and speak it properly if they want to vote.  If you can't read then how can you hold these truths to be self evident?  And do you really want a bunch of illiterates deciding who's going to lead our country?  I mean look where it's gotten us so far.
• I also think we should add a minimal language requirement for those who want to seek public office.  We already have a minimum age requirement so why not a threshold for communication skills?  We probably want to add a clause for speech impediments too.  We can only take some many leaders who say things like "nucular".

Yep, I think we have a winner here.