Say what?

I think all Americans should be required to learn a second language (at least) in school, starting at a young age. The fact that Americans, as a majority, only speak English is a bit of an embarrassment, especially as we now live in a global economy. Speaking a second language is something I think all parents, as well as the school system, should expect out of their children.

I also love that this country has so much diversity and that it is accepting (usually) of people from all walks of life and from different backgrounds. It's neat to walk in a city and hear different languages being spoken.

Saying that, I also think that America should step up and claim English as its official language. Sometimes I feel that we are so scared of offending someone, of being politically incorrect, that we end up not having a backbone and, as a whole, we suffer as a result. I think those who choose to live in this country should learn to speak English - whether that's an initiative supported by government, religion organizations or personal responsibility. That doesn't mean giving up their own language, culture and customs - but it does mean being able to interact with others around you.

I was in Target the other day and couldn't find an item. So I went up to a sales associate working in the aisle and asked for help. She brought me to a second sales associate, because she couldn't speak English. The second sales associate spoke broken English. My husband was at McDonald's the other day (don't ask me why) and had to literally point to the value meal he wanted because the cashier didn't speak English.

If I was in France or Mexico or Kenya, I wouldn't complain about these incidents. The oneness should be on me to know the language of the country in which I'm visiting. And if I didn't know the language of the company, I wouldn't mind being shuttled as they found a sales associate who could speak my language.

But I'm in an English-speaking country. It is poor business practice for Target or McDonald's to have non-English speaking associates helping customers, unless they are there for the explicit purpose of helping non-English speaking customers. But I guess I can't complain because, after all, English isn't the official language of this country.

Now the LPGA is under fire for requiring all its competitors to know English proficiently in order to compete in its tournaments. The LPGA is a US-based tour, with sponsors and fans and media who primarily speak English. From a business standpoint, it seems to make sense. It will be interesting to see how it plays out legally.

Sweet Home Chicago

About two weeks ago, Scott and I took a jaunt to Chicago to see our friends Abby and Nathan. It was quite an exciting weekend. Between experiencing a Cubs game (vs. Pirates, Cubs won), walking around the Magnificent Mile, laughing at Second City, gambling at the Arlington Heights horse racetrack and stuffing our faces with sushi, we saw a lot of Chicago and had a great time!

A few pictures from the weekend. The sign in Japanese says (hopefully) Fukedome, which is one of the Cubs' players and whose shirt I was wearing. And the giant polished steel structure is what, I am told, Chicagoans affectionately refer to as "The Bean." You can see the Chicago skyline reflected.

Thank you, Abby and Nathan, for such a fun weekend!

Olympic Fever

I am totally addicted to the Olympics. For the past week, I haven't gone to bed before 1:00 in the morning because I've been glued to the TV. Things that have gone out the window this past week include working out, reading and talking to my husband. All because I am obsessed with the different sports.

I'm a pretty competitive person, so there has been a lot of jumping around the living room and general yelling, hoping that I can send some karma across the world to my American counterparts, propelling them through the water or pushing them to run a few hundreths of a second faster on the track.

Mostly, I just want us to get more medals than China. Preferably, more gold medals than China. Call it ethnocentricity, call it national pride. There's something about getting those medals that helps to shine our tarnished international reputation.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that almost every non-US competitor resides in the US? They are either going to college in the US or just chilling out here. I think there should be some kind of requirement that you have to actually live in the country which you are representing. By that count, we are totally kicking it in the medal department...I think we can take credit for just about every medal that those other countries have earned.

Of course, I'm totally kidding.

Kinda.

It's a doggy-dog world

My local Starbucks is running two donation drives.

Donation #1: For our troops - donate a pound of your favorite Starbucks coffee (or donate a box of tea) to help caffeinate the troops. As a special treat, you can write a message to the troops on the bag. This donation has been running for about three months now, and there are 6 bags of coffee and one box of tea in the donation basket.

Donation #2: For the Orange County Animal Shelter - donate any items (food, toys, grooming products, etc) for the animal shelter. As a special treat, when you make a donation, you're entered into a raffle to win a (1) free Starbucks drink. This donation has been running for about two weeks and there are three baskets overflowing with doggy items.

It seems a little sad that the dogs get all the love and our troops get a few measly pounds of coffee. I was talking to the barista about this and she thought it had something to do with the fact that the pound of coffee costs about $10 and a dog toy could be purchased for about $1.

I hope that's the case...I'd hate to think that we value our dogs more than we do each other.

A picture says it better

I came across this editorial cartoon in the paper this weekend, and thought it nicely summed up my previous post.

The collective media - a soapbox rant

Can I just step on my soapbox for a moment?

Let me preface this rant by saying that I don't like to be told what to do. Ever. Just ask my parents.

I am sick and tired of the collective media making the election decision for the American public. Obama is on the cover of Time Magazine this week, with the caption "And the Winner is...". Fortune's cover has a picture of Obama with a headline about the two candidate's positions on the economy (where's the picture of the second candidate?). CNN seems to only report positive stories about Obama and negative storis about McCain. What happened to telling both sides of the story and letting the people make the decision?

Answer: the media is tired of Republicans in office and have decided not to trust Americans to make the decision at the ballot box again. After all, the American public had been given a second chance and blew it, electing GW into office a second time.

But that shouldn't matter. How is what the media doing any different than when developing countries/dictatorships stuff the ballot box? Or intimidate people when they go vote? Or just having a dictator make the decision himself, without the hassle of an election?

News Flash: we haven't had one debate yet between the candidates nor do we really, truly know what these candidates stand for. All of it is rhetoric at this point, on both sides. How can the winner already be determined if we don't even know where they stand on the issues?

I'm not suggesting that we should swing the other way and glorify McCain. But I am suggesting that we give the relevant information to Americans and let them vote based on the facts and figures. It makes me so angry - physically angry - that the media is essentially making the decision for us. Yeah, our freedom gives the media the right to say whatever they want. But now they are just being irresponsible and a bully.

It's almost enough to vote a certain way, just out of spite.

Tour de France

So I finally got around the uploading this video. I spent this past weekend in Paris, as I previously posted, and was lucky to get a front row seat of the last laps of the Tour de France. The whole experience was truly incredible.

It started with a parade around the city, with the most fun car floats I've ever seen. The whole thing was very campy and very tongue in cheek. Then about an hour later, the cyclists started to arrive into the city. Near one end of the Champs Elysee, there's a huge jumbotron that showed the cyclists entering the city. At that point, we started to walk down the line of people and find a spot where we could squeeze in. People from all nationalities lined the streets of Paris for miles, holding country flags, foam hands of their favorite teams and emitting an buzzing energy.

The cyclists do about eight laps around the city, before finally ending at the Arc de Triomphe. So we were able to see the cyclists whiz by about six times. On the first lap, they were just one big clump. By the second lap, they had begun to spread out, and spread out more and more with each subsequent lap.

This video was taken on my smartphone, so the quality isn't the best, but it gives you a sense of how fast these cyclists are going.

There are a few things in life that I feel lucky to have experienced - attending a Presidential debate, going to (what was) the Sugar Bowl - and being a stone's throw from the Tour de France cyclists is one more to the list.

And a few still pictures in a bit slower motion...