Recently Latin American countries have voiced their opposition to prop 19 (it would legalize recreational marijuana use) because it will cause confusion. This is hogwash. While it might be a little curious to a Columbian that he can go to jail for growing pot while a Californian will not; it's no more confusing than a Bolivian growing coca legally and a Californian not. Wasn't Evo Morales a coca grower? Legalizing Marijuana if anything will lead to less confusion not more.
There is interestingly enough a big difference between what's considered good writing in Spanish and English . V.S. Naipul winner of the 2001 Nobel prize for literature publish an article on writing . In it he emphasizes the use of short clear sentences and encourages the lack of adjectives and adverbs. Essentially he pushes the writer to abandon florid language and master spartan communication . This is a desired feature of English prose , where short clipped sentences are the norm and seamlessly flow into a paragraph. In English prose the paragraph is the unit the writer cares about the most. This is not the case in Spanish where whole short stories (I'm thinking this was Gabriel Garcia Marquez but maybe it was Cortázar) are written in one sentence. Something so difficult to do in English that the expert translator could best manage to encapsulate the tale in two sentences. The florid language is what is considered good writing in Spani...
Hey, stupid people will believe anything.
ReplyDeleteMost of Indiana doesn't use Daylight Savings Time. Apparently, the reason the Indiana legislature voted it down was that "changing the time the cows get milked will confuse them."
It's just another illogical argument that sounds good as a gut reaction from most people (who won't think deeper about it) but falls flat if you actually consider it.
A well-informed populace is vital to good government. That's why most governments think it's in their best interest to keep the populace undereducated and misinformed.