Machjo

I agree Conservatives seem more nationalistic than the left in Canada as in most countries if not all of them. However, that does not change the fact that the Canadian left has become somewhat nationalistic too in its support for protectionism for example.

In response to post number 8: If you're talking about unlimited resources, by all means you are right. The earlier the better. What I'm referring to is taking the reality of the economic context into account. Resources are not unlimited (schools have access to limited funding and so can afford only so many teachers to teach pupils for so many hours per week) and as such must decide on how to use these resources as efficiently as possible. Seeing that second-language teachers are generally harder to come by, we obviously don't want to waste such a precious resource in teaching a bunch of nursery rhymes to young kids. Instead, we want the regular teachers teaching the kids what they need to know in their own language first so that when they do finally start learning their second language, they're not wasting the foreign language teacher's precious time in teaching what the other teacher could have taught already, such as basic reading and writing in the mother tongue, letter formation, and basic grammar. This way, the foreign language teacher can exploit the children's knowledge of their first language to accelerate their learning of their second. And this way, we can stretch this precious resource still further. Imagine a school that is short of foreign language teachers but quite able to access plenty of teachers for the mother tongue. Do you really think it wise to be using the foreign language teacher to teach the child what a noun is when the other teachers could have done that just as well? Instead, you want the other teachers teaching what a noun is so that the foreign language teacher could focus instead on teaching how to use a noun in a sentence in the foreign language. To use a foreign language teacher to teach what a regular teacher could teach is like using a highly qualified aerospace engineer to to build a kite while you're short of highly qualified aerospace engineers already and qualified kite-makers are are accessible in town. What you're proposing is not an efficient use of human resources.

It still reveals that "if you have a limited number of hours to give to foreign language teaching in school, it will probably be more rewarding in terms of sheer amount of learning to invest these in the older classes." And clearly with a limited number of qualified teachers, limited funding, limited available instruction time, etc, they do in fact have "a limited number of hours to give to foreign language teaching in school", so it's perfectly applicable.

It shows they put their beliefs into practice. Clearly a hamburger guzzling PETA member is not to be taken too seriously. Now of course if a person sees nothing wrong with eating meat, that's a whole other matter. But if he does see something wrong with it and yet does it anyway, then it becomes a sign of a weak character. Same with language. A person who sees no issue with language rights etc. is a separate matter, but if he proclaims strong views on language and cultural rights etc. and yet is monolingual himself, then it does show a weakness.

You need the money to train and then hire the resources. A person doesn't just come out of high school as a qualified foreign language teacher. it takes years to train them. Now multiply that on a national scale, or even provincial scale an say it doesn't involve money. It helps, but it doesn't replace a teacher, at least for younger children. That's nice. And some of those bilingual speakers have no university degree. So will the government pay to teach them all how to teach their language and brush up on any weaknesses in their language skills, and then give them incentives to move to other parts of the country to teach? The vast majority of Canada's bilinguals live in the corridor between Ottawa and Montreal. That's far away from the edges of British Columbia, Iqaluit, and Halifax. OK, we do have quite a few bilinguals in Labrador too, and a few odd pockets in Manitoba and small areas of Alberta, but still in small concentrated pockets. And if the government did that, then the private sector would also have access to fewer bilinguals for commercial translation and interpretation. This would be a double whammy in that taxes would have to go up and prices would go up too. Add to that the political tensions caused by bilinguals mostly concentrated in a few geographical pockets suddenly having their university paid for because they were lucky enough to be bilingual. It would be a major source of political tension too. Just not realistic. I don't see how this would not cost more money. It would mean more investment in these networks. Basic language acquisition theory is still universal, as are basic economic principles. The resources just aren't available.

I'd like your ideas on this. Personally, though I'm left leaning, I still tend to support more open borders to trade, labour, etc. I get the impression that the left today has become very nationalistic. What might be some reasons for this?

Response to post number 23: Where are we going to get the money for all of this? Why not adopt policies now being implemented in Europe that are in fact based on hard research and have taken the economic aspects of their policies into consideration in this research?

Perhaps. So the antithesis of social engineering is moral engineering? So all policies fall in either of these two categories, whereby if we impose one set of values, that is moral engineering, but if we impose an exposure to (as in the case of world religious education in Quebec) or allow an exposure to (as through a more liberal and hands-off immigration system) various values, that is social engineering? But if we impose a particular set of values (like Catechism in Quebec previously) or restrict exposure to alternative world views (by controlling immigration), that is moral engineering? So if everything is either one o the other, then how do we avoid both? Or are they to be avoided?

You can read them for yourself. Let me quote from Ur: The Italian Ministry of Public Instruction, in its 1993 Interministerial Decree (http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf), states: This is practically identical to Halmar Frank's recommendations. In fact, seeing that he's a pedagogical cyberneticst himself, this likely comes form him. Like Ur, he recommends not starting the learning of a foreign ethnic language before the age of ten or eleven. Unlike Ur, however, he suggests that the learning of a planned language like Esperanto can be started at the age of eight, serving as a propaedeutic to the learning of a more difficlut third language later. The British Sprigboard to Languages project also makes reference to propaedeutic language instruction (http://www.springboard2languages.org/documents/springboard_rationale.pdf). Formaggio in her book makes much the same recommendations as Helmar Frank. In fact, her book is a guide book for Italian elementary school teachers. Formaggio also adds that the advantage younger learners have in learning pronunciaiton is conditional on the teacher's pronunciation being impeccable too, not to mention that it can be overcome in older learners through explanatory instruction. Canadian research in second language instruction is quite advanced when it comes to immersion instruction. Abroad, however, that research has been applied only in well-funded schools, usually private elite schools. If we're talking about a more economical and efficient means that could be applied across a regular public school system with moderate funding, the immersion model designed for well-funded immersion schools is too idyllic and just does not work. The European research being increasingly applied now is more realistic within the context of a moderately funded pubic school system. Now that this 'liar' has revealed some of his sources, the ball is now in your court.

You can read the document of the Italian Ministry of Pubic Instruction I sent you in the other thread and it explains it too.

That only works with intensive learning the funding of which is only possible in either elite private schools or specialized immersion schools. Again, read Ur's book I've quoted above. The reality in a classroom is far different from the reality in the family. For younger children, they don't really understand why they're even learning a second language unless they're immersed in it. That is the only reason immersion programmes work. They are so immersed that they have no choice but to use the language in their regular school life. But good luck finding the funding and human resources needed to introduce that to all schools.

This can be achieved in different ways though. One is, as you propose, starting at a younger age. Another could be to just increase the number of hour of instruction per year by adding more days to the school year. And yet a third could be to extend the number of compulsory years of education. Quantitatively speaking, all of these can achieve the results you intend. Qualitatively though, not at all. The two last options are likely to yield far better results than the first. You're missing a few points though. If they start at a younger age, most of their learning is memorization (unless they speak a second language in the home of course, but that's not what we're talking about here in the context of a truly foreign language). As a result, while this might improve their pronunciation, when they become older, they'll have to relearn much of it at a more conscious level. This relearning period is the reason they other group essentially catches up and th edifferences are not as great as would be expected based on the extra time invested. Just read up on the field research conducted by Frank and Formagio. You can also read up on it in Ur's book (and that last one is available in English for your benefit too). Based on actual comparative groups in a number of European countries, they have found that a group that starts at an appropriate age will soon catch up with the younger group, with possibly only pronunciation being slightly better (and this, bear in mind, is with the younger group having invested much more study time in earlier years). But for all the extra hours spent, it's not worth it for such a small reward when the same could have been achieved in far few er hours by the older group if they just continue. For example, a group studying from the ages of 5 to 17 is likely to achieve much less than one studying from the ages of 10 to 22 with the same study schedule. Obviously for practical reasons, this might also not be possible owing to work or family responsibilities if they can't go on to university. However, this can be compensated for, as Frank and Formagio suggest, by investing more time in the mother tongue at the earlier stage so as to free more time for the learning of the foreign language at a more appropriate age. Looking at it that way, it would make more sense to squeeze the same amount of foreign language study hours in let's say a 4-year period between the ages of 10 and 15 than during a 9 year period from 5 to 15. To compensate for the time taken, more time spent learning the mother tongue in the earlier years could free more time for the foreign language in the later years. Another recommendaiton of Formagio's and Frank'sis to adopt a propaedeutic approach (http://www.springboard2languages.org/documents/springboard_rationale.pdf). This essentially involves learning an easy planned language as the second language between the ages of eight and 11, and then a third more difficult language starting then, the idea being that the second language will accelerate the learning of the third considerably. One study found, for example that Polish students learning Esperanto for one year followed by three years of French achieved the same results in their French studies as students who'd learnt French for four years. Some had even achieved better results. This may counter common sense, but hard research trumps common sense sometimes. It has to do in part with the confidence built along with the skills learnt in the second language that can be transfered to the third. If the second language is particularly easy to learn, then the time spent learning it is inferior to the time saved in the third language. This is what I mean when I say we need to focus on qualitative and not quantitative instruction. it may be that we need to increase funding and instruction time. That does not negate the need to apply the latest research though. The problem I see in Canada and most Western European countries is that they get so lost in politics that they fail to apply hard research findings to their language education policies. This is where we can all learn more from our Eastern European counterparts especially. Lingva Orientado Per Esperanto en la Unua-Grada Lernejo: Gvidlibro por Instruistoj, 1993. It also influenced the Ministry of Public Instruction (translation available in English) (http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf). It too makes reference to Frank, and makes any policy statement of the Ontario Ministry of Education on second language instruction look like child's play. Again, don't confuse children who have a chance to learn the language outside of classroom instruction with those who don't. Those who do not only get more instruction time, but have a better understanding of other linguistic concepts, such as code switching, diglossia as it might occur in the family, and an understanding of the appropriate times to use which language. The one learning his second language in the classroom only not only gets less instruction time, but until he actually has a chance to learn the language well, he has little understanding of how useful it really is. After all, everyone in town can understand him. If you feel more comfortable with research from English-speaking countries, then try Ur's 'A course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory' (http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521449946). She too aggressively debunks the myth of the younger the better, again referring to hard research and experience in the field. I never said limiting it to 2,000 hours. I said that is the MINIMUM recommended for most languages. So you agree with me here but just didn't realize it. Of course extreme quantitative learning will yield results, but at what cost? firs off, there's the money involved. You're looking at it too idealistically. Politically, no government would be willing to invest that sum of money. Even in multilingual Europe only the most elite private schools get that kind of funding, along with perhaps Canadian immersion schools. To extend this to all schools though would be politically impossible even in Europe, let alone Canada. Alternatively, there is the option of cutting out other subjects, but then it's learning one thing at the cost of another. This again is where qualitative learning is absolutely crucial, and where we could learn form our Hungarian and Italian counterparts. We need to implement the latest research so as to increase hourly learning performance. I'm not disputing the idea of increasing funding and study time. But realistically, politically and financially and in terms of human resources, a more research-based approach is needed aimed at maximizing hourly learning time, with any increase in funding or teaching time being an added bonus. Again, research has shown that on an hourly basis, they do learn better at a later age. So if the goal is to add more study time, it ought to be added after the age of ten, either by adding more days to the school year or through some other strategy, but certainly not by wasting their time with nursery rhymes. Propaedeutic instruction in a planned language could also start at the age of eight so as to exploit its propaedeutic value to the learning of the third language starting at the age of ten. All I'm saying is that, as fine as increased funding and teaching time are, those are political questions that are never guaranteed. So ideally, we should focus on efficiency, with any quantitative improvement being an added bonus.

Teens I agree with. They should start as early as research indicates is valuable and will give the best results. From the various books I've read, if they are starting with an ethnic language as their second language, the age of ten is generally the recommended minimum below which the results are too limited, resulting in those who do start at around the age of ten catching up by the end of high school, bringing the initial edge of the younger group to nought. Money-wise, and time wise, that does not make sense. Claude Piron recommends 2,000 hours of quality instruction time to ensure a decent level of competence for most languages. And when he says quality instruction, I'm sure e doesn't mean the endless repetition of nursery rhymes as is taught to very young children, or time wasted in classroom discipline trying to keep a pupil focussed on a language the value of which he does not understand. According to Formaggio, it's only after about the age of eight that a child really has a grasp of his mother-tongue. Needless to say, a child who does not know his own mother tongue well will not learn a second-language well either. It will be a waste of time. So if we're looking at expanding instruction time to 2,000 hours, it would be best to add them in the later years, starting at the age of ten at the youngest. But then of course the question becomes, how do we fit 2,000 hours of second-language instruction time between the age of ten and the end of compulsory education (unless of course we intend to make university free and compulsory too?)? But if you start those twelve years at the age of five, let's say, the child is likely to learn little for the first 5 of those twelve years, making those twelve years roughly equivalent to let's say 6 years had they started later. So in that case it would make more sense to either add more hours in fewer years or add more years of compulsory instruction. Both Formaggio and Frank researched it and found that pupils who start too early do not earn nearly as much on an hourly basis than those who start later. Clearly, a 5-year old learning a nursery rhyme for an hour won't learn nearly as much as a ten-year old being taught poem of roughly equal difficulty but age-appropriate of course, along with an ability to understand its grammatical features at a conscious level. In fact, by the end of that hour, the older child will likely remember at least part of the lesson, whereas the younger one will likely need to be retaught the nursery rhyme quite a few times more before he remembers it (an till not understand it in nearly as much depth). Clearly you recognize the difference between quantitative learning and qualitative learning. If we ignore the difference between qualitative and quantitative learning time, then I agree with you. From the standpoint of economics though, I'd rather focus on qualitative time. Again, what kind of exposure are you talking about? I'm sure that as a trained teacher you can tell the difference between a young child being exposed to a second language daily in the home with one on one instruction and more than one teacher per child (parents, family friends or extended family, etc.), and a need to learn the language to communicate daily needs, and a child being exposed to the language a couple hours a week in a classroom with 20 other children, all speaking the same common mother tongue, one teacher between them (also knowing the same language), and no clear understanding of how this could be of any use to them in their lives at that age. Needless to say, a teacher won't accomplish nearly as much under such circumstances. Add to that, that the teacher cannot even exploit shortcuts to accelerate the pupil's learning. He can't engage the pupils in comparing the grammars of the two languages, for example, since they don't even know their own language. Also, since they might not have mastered a large vocabulary in their own language, they are not very capable of self-instruction either, let alone be motivated to do so. After the age of about eight at the earliest, or if it's a language they are also exposed to in the home, then I can agree. But try that with a class of five-year-olds raised in a monolingual family. To take a few examples: 1. A five year old living in a predominantly Mandarin-Chinese-speaking community in Vancouver:Certainly he could probably start learning both Chinese and English at the same time starting right at the age of five, owing to community support for both languages outside the classroom. 2. The same child learning French and English in the classroom. Chances are, owing to his parents' busy schedule, he can only speak Chinese and not write it. Seeing that he's still struggling with both Chinese and English, and that there is no support for French in the community outside the classroom, and a generla awareness on the part of the child of the value of Chinese over French, how likely is it that this method will work very well for him? 3. A monolingual child in a monolingual community being exposed to an easy planned language as his second language. The planned nature of the language makes the grammar and word-roots more obvious, thus also helping to build his confidence in language learning. He's not likely to achieve the same with French owing owing to exceptions to the rules, silent letters, redundant rules, etc. holding him back from rapid progress. Even when he remembers a rule, he may be hesitant to apply it if he can't remember the exceptions. In a planned language without exceptions, there is no need of such fears, allowing the child to use it quite freely and confidently, thus building his confidence in other languages too, not to mention his enjoyment of the language This can be achieved with any second language, and not just French. And as pointed out above, French might not be the best option i all cases, and might even be harmful as a discouragement from learning other languages if not approached cautiously. A child who succeeds in learning his second language, no matter what language it is, is likely to have the confidence and will to try a third language. One who fails his second language will likely not want to try a third. Looking at it that way, achieving bilingualism is more important than achieving bilingualism in a particular language, because success can lead to trilingual ism later, while failure can ensure permanent monolingualism.

When discussing language policy, I often come across people coming up with the same old answers (i.e. increase funding and second-language instruction time, and teach them wile they're younger). However, research in Europe has already proven that this does not work. Formaggio, Frank, Ur, Piron, Liu Haitao, and others have shown that below a certain age, the benefits of classroom instruction in a second language is negligible (since many of the factors contributing to bilingualism in immigrant or minority families are simply not reproducible in a classroom environment), and that pupils who start at a later age often close the gap by the end of high school. Ur recommends starting at the age of ten. Frank also recommends ten or eleven for ethnic languages, but eight for planned languages. Piron, Formaggio, and Frank recommend that starting with a planned language as the second language so as to build the necessary aptitude for the learning of a more difficult third language later, with weaker pupils being required to continue with the second-language and only those with proven ability going on to the more difficult third language. Grin (a trained economist who has entered the field of economic language research)has also shown that maintaining universal fluency in two difficult and dissimilar languages in a monolingual community is highly expensive and is generally not sustainable except perhaps in an elite private school setting. The Italian, Polish, Croatian, British, and especially Hungarian ministries of education have already adopts some of the findings of this recent research. In all of these countries, for instance, each school is free to teach the second language of its choice so as to be able to exploit natural local advantages as they may occur. In Hungary, pupils are even free to select the second language to be tested in for high school graduation. And in all of these countries, Esperanto is also allowed to fulfill this requirement in recognition of the fact that languages are difficult to learn. In Canada, though, I get the impression that language acquisition policy is based far more on political expediency than hard research findings, and this needs ot change if we want to increase the rate of bilingualism in Canada.

Then this would suggest that the majority of teachers are zombies too. After all, a wise teacher will teach his pupils according to their abilities, taking funding, local and family realities into account. If teachers are unaware that parents are zombies, then they must be zombies too, otherwise they would have been aware of it and adapted accordingly. For example, a teacher who sees his pupil struggling with French, but is aware that that child's parents know Chinese, might recommend that that child learn Chinese as his second language in school, so that his learning the written Chinese language in school could complement what his parents are teaching of the spoken language in the home, rather than force him to learn French so that he can't read Chinese and can't speak French, effectively imposing a form of monolingualism on him. Likewise, a teacher who is aware that the parents are monolingual in a monolingual community, and with little interest in language learning, might recommend that the child learn an easier language than French so that he can in fact succeed in learning his second language. Besides, this has happened in a number of European countries already, where schools are free to teach Esperanto to fulfill second-language graduation requirements and where pupils can choose which second-language to be tested in for graduation requirements, including Esperanto. Most bilinguals and multilinguals (unless they were simply raised that way) are well aware of how difficult it is to learn a second language and of the benefits (not just material, but cultural and spiritual too) that come from bilingualism and multilingualism. So certainly a bilingual or multi-lingual politician is more likely to be open to new strategies to promote universal bilingualism than a monolingual politician who would see language policy as nothing more than a politically expedient means of maintaining national unity. No country is ever blessed to have multiple official languages. A country is blessed to have a common language spoken by all. Individual persons are blessed to be bilingual. As a bilingual English and French speaker, I can enjoy the richness of both cultures. If you are a monolingual English speaker, how do you personally benefit from Canadian official Bilingualism, either materially or spiritually? So what country do you propose we learn from? According to European statistics, only about 6% of Western Europeans are functional in English, and not even 50% are functional in any second language (which in most cases is the language of a neighbouring country). Is it because of underfunding on their part? Before we just point to lack of funding, how about we present supporting evidence that increased funding will necessarily help, because if we look at European statistics, the effect of increased funding, unless phenomenal (which is sustainable only in private elite schools) is limited. This might be an added reason for which a number of European countries now allow for Esperanto to fulfill second-language requirements for high school graduation. Perhaps we ought to learn from our European counterparts who've already tried the increased-funding approach years ago. There is no point repeating an already-failed experiment. Had this never been done before, maybe it would e an experiment worth trying. It has already been done though, and statistics bear out the European results. Clearly it did not work for Europe, which is now moving on to alternative solutions, so why would it work for Canada, and even bigger country geographically? Then you should have learnt from your personal experience. Clearly, if most teenagers are like that, do you believe increased funding alone will suddenly change that nature? Again, research results from Italy have shown that pupils learning Esperanto starting at the age of eight are generally fluent in the language by the age of eleven and ready to learn a third language by then if they want to, or master Esperanto by the age of fifteen. Why not learn from our European counterparts whose research in this field is decades ahead of ours. Now you're confirming my above claim about funding for elite schools only. Unless you are a public employee with considerable government resources backing your learning of French, or you have the money to travel through Mexico, then these languages are not likely to be accessible to you. So while universal French-English bilingualism might be a fine objective for an elite school, it is out of reach f most pubic schools unless they're located in Montreal or parts of Ottawa. As far as language education goes, statistics show that the European one had failed European youth too, again the reason Europe ha become much more experimental than Canada in its language education policies. After all, if an experiment fails, you don't just keep repeating it expecting a different result over time. And you're a certified English instructor? You don't mean for second-language instruction I hope. Even elementary course books such as Penny Ur's point out to research indicating that on an hourly basis, older children outperform younger ones, and that those who start learning their second-language at an appropriate age quickly close the gap over those who start too early. By the end of high school, there is often little difference between the two groups except possibly for pronunciation, and even then there is often little to no difference. Formaggio's teachers' book says the same, pointing to excessively early instruction being a waste of time and money for the most part unless the funding increase and increase in school hours per week is phenomenal. Helmar Frank recommends that the second-language be an easy one so as to build up the pupils aptitude and especially competence in second-language learning before then tackling a more difficult third language, while keeping weeker students on the second-language. Formaggio and Frank are common staple in modern Italian second-language education coursebooks in Italy. Perhaps you ought to read the Grin Report (http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf), an in depth analysis of the economic impact of various language policies, the difference between policies ranging in the billions of Euros in Europe annually. By the way, he's not a linguist, but an economist. As I said before, Europe is far ahead of Canada in the field of linguistics. Whereas in Canada, it's mainly linguists only who engage in language research, in Europe, economists have started specializing in language research too, especially from an overall economic perspective. What you're proposing above would mean a spending increase of at least hundreds of millions of dollars annually. It's not ust to hire more teachers, but also to train more teachers, meaning a need to train more teacher trainers and so on down the line, and then maintain the language skills of these teachers while they live in these monolingual communities. It's not cheap. Again, Ur, Formaggio, Frank, Piron, and other scholars in the field would disagree with you here. It's been proven already that unless you're talking about a significant funding increase (and then there's the question of getting the populace on board for this with the tax hikes necessary), this would be a waste of time.

Hyperbole aside, yes I agree with you, and I'd have a hard time voting for Scott Reid myself. That having been said, for the purposes of this thread, in the limited scope of animal rights, let's say, would you trust a hamburger-guzzling New Democrat over Scott Reid?

" Although I don't see how someone trilingual could try to respect langauge rights more than a bilinugual or unilingual person." Clearly one who has made the effort to learn a second-language, any second-language, has already proven by his actions that he's willing to meet his fellow-man half-way in the communicative process. Anyone who's still monolingual by the age of 15 clearly sees no use in making the effort to meet his fellow man half way and simply expects the rest of the world to speak his language.

I'd rank character as even more important than intelligence and capacity. An unintelligent and incapable politician of good character might not achieve much good, but won't cause too much damage either. An intelligent and capable politician lacking in character is the most dangerous kind. Consider that Joseph Goebels (a doctorate-degree holder by the way) was highly intelligent and capable. That intelligence and capacity made him even more dangerous. There may be others in the Nova Scotia legislature, but he's the only one I know of. To the best of my knowledge, if he's not the only one, then there aren't that many still. Granted I was taking merely one example of that politician. He happens to be vegetarian, which clearly proves his concern for animal welfare beyond lip-service, and that counts for something. I should also point out that Scott Reid has voted agains his party often enough, so he's not exactly the ultimate party hack. However, you are right in that we should take other factors into account about him. I was just taking a fews points as examples to illustrate the point that some politicians do incorporate their beliefs in their daily lives.

I was just wondering how important an MPs character is to an average voter. To take an example, MP Scott Reid is a vegetarian (and as far as I know, the only vegetarian MP in Ottawa), yet a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. If you were concerned about animal rights, would you be more inclined to vote for him or for a hamburger-guzzling PETA-member who just gives PETA some money every month? Likewise, NDP MLA Graham Steele is one of few, if not the only, Nova Soctia MLA who's trilingual, but he is a member of the NDP. Would you be more inclined to trust him to defend language justice competently, or an active member of and regular contributor to some language-rights movement who can't speak any language but his first? I'd just like to know, for you, is the MP's character and his ability to put his words into daily personal action more important, or his professed ideology?

I do agree with much of this. If I had to wear an ideological label, I'd probably say I' moderate left. However, I do accept that setting an example is the most important part of the job of a politician. To take Scott Reid as an example, he's a member of the Conservative Caucus in the House, yet he's a vegetarian (since he adhere's to the consistent life ethic). As far as I know, he's the only vegetarian in the House of Commons. We find a similar oddity in the European Parliament: a Polish Member, Margareta Handzlick, is a member of Citizen's Platform, a moderate right liberal conservative party in Poland, yet she's the only MEP who knows Esperanto. So while the Canadian left likes to talk about animal rights, we have a Conservative MP who is doing something about it in his daily life. And while the European left likes to talk about language justice in international communication in Europe, they have a conservative MEP who again has done something about it in her own life. Now to be fair to Layton, I'd read somewhere that he usually cycles to work. If true, then kudos to him. I'm also aware of a Halifax Fairview NDP MLA Graham Steele who does in fact know English, French and Esperanto and so does not just talk about language justice, but does something about it. Though I sympathize more with the left overall, I admit that I'd be more inclined to vote for someone like Scott Reid who puts his beliefs into daily practice than, let's say, a hamburger-guzzling PETA member. By the way, I eat vegan myself, and see no practical use for PETA, yet I remember meeting a devout PETA member who couldn't resist a good hamburger. So you tell me, who's likely to have the greatest impact on animal rights between the one who actually eats vegan and the one who just throws money at PETA while stuffing her face with hamburgers? I think if we started voting in MPs not based on ideology but rather on the actual content of their character, we'd likely have a much better Parliament after all. After all, I'm sure Scott Reid has a better understanding of the challenges of eating vegetarian than any other MP in the House, since it's part of his daily life and experience, something he acts upon about three times a day; as I'm sure Graham Steele has a better understanding than most MLAs in Nova Scotia of how difficult it is to learn a second language and for linguistic communities to integrate into a larger community, again because he has first-hand experience of having to go out of his way to find the books or teachers, finding the time, place, etc. to study, etc. With such first hand experience in their daily practical lives, such MPs have a better idea of the challenges facing these lifestyles and so are in a better position to propose appropriate legislation that would be practical an not just stemming from an imaginary fantasy.

Another phrase I find to be without meaning is 'social engineering'. For example, when the Quebec government used to require schools to offer Catholic Catechism classes, that wasn't social engineering, yet when it replaces that with world religion classes, it is social engineering. Why is one social engineering but not the other? The same applies with immigration. If a government intervenes in immigration laws to restrict the free flow of people, that is not social engineering, yet if it takes on a more laissez-faire approach to immigration, with government butting out a little more from it, it is social engineering. And then nation-building abroad such as in Afghanistan is not social engineering either. So how exactly do we define the term social engineering for it to make sense in all of these apparently contradictory contexts. Without a clear understanding of the term (which I don't have myself, which is probably why the phrase baffles me so), it is meaningless, so when someone criticizes an idea as being social engineering, we can just sit there and wonder what he's on about.

My point is that respect and humour are two separate entities. Whether one finds Sarah Palin funny or not in this video has no bearing on their respoct for her or their views on her ideological leanings. One could find her quite humorous in the video, think she ought to become a professional comidian, and still disagree profoundly with her political views. Inversely, a person could find the video totally lame, think she ought to stay clear of comedy, but still support her political views. And of course one might find her unhumorous and disagree with her political views, with neither view having a bearing on the other, or like both her humour and her political views. The two are totally unrelated issues. The idea that anyone could believe that he can know our political views based on our opinion of her comedic qualities is ridiculous. Comedy and politics are two separate things altogether and have little bearing on the other, and anyone who believes that they are one and the same could do all of us a favour and stay home on election day.

And I don't find Jesus to be funny either, but that doesn't reduce my respect for him. After all, to get over a billion people following you (or even just claiming to be following you) about 2,000 years after you've ceased walking this earth in physical form, is nothing short of miraculous.

It would have been much easier to just ask whether we think Sarah Palin could be humorous. I bet most of us would either have answered that we had witnessed he ber humorous at one point or another, or that we haven't witnessed it yet (bcause we don't watch much TV, keep up on the news about her outside of politics, or some other reason) but that maybe she could if she chose the right words. To give an example of a particular clip that many of us might not find humorous does not prove in any way that we are incapable of finding humour in her words. All it means is that we could not find any humour in this particular clip. Simple logic would have told you that.

Then how is it that a prime candidate for PM of Lebanon is a Christian? I'm not denying that Christians get tortured in Muslim countries. I don't know if it's the case so I'll keep quiet on that. I do know though that Christians are by no means the primarey target of religious prejudice in the Muslim world though. None of this changes the fact though that clearly from the Lebanon experience, Christians and Muslims can co-exist. Shalom, Salam, Peace, Paco.