Guest Editorial by Tommy Hummel

Whose Official Language?

“Speak English! This is America.” And so is Mexico, and Brazil, and Canada. They are all part of North America. We are the United States, and we are of America. And we are comprised of immigrants from many nations, many of whom did not speak English as their first language, and the only natives to this land certainly did not speak English either.

To anyone who is actually willing to study the issue, consider this: in all of language history, languages have not ever been able to change because of a government mandate. In World War II, Mussolini banned the use of the second-person plural distinction. As a result, people used it more. And today, despite the extreme efforts of a Fascist dictator, Italian retains the tu/vous distinction. During the Norman Conquest, French was the primary language, the language of the upper classes, but English continued to be used by everyone else, despite the insistence that French was the standard language, and English was considered a poor-man's language. If we promote an English-only nation, the result will be that people will cling to their languages even more.

Will the English language change as a result of all of these blendings of languages? Of course. It will do so whether a law is in place or not. Language change is not only natural, it's inevitable. In fact, the English language owes over eighty percent of its lexicon and grammar to the blending and merging of other languages.

So rather than support such a doctrine, I'd prefer to support the open exchange of ideas, languages, customs, and cultures. Such exchange is a remedy for ignorance and intolerance.

Guest Editorial by Tommy Hummel

Green Lands

We are all familiar with the term "Green" as in "to go green," the current push toward environmental preservation. The use of the word "green" has now taken on many different connotations. It is a word used to evoke images of nature and wildlife, specifically, green wildlife. It is ironic that the word seems to ignore the many other environments on this planet that are not green at all and that would actually be polluted or grossly changed were they to become so (e.g. deserts, the ocean, and the arctic). Still, when people think about environments that they want to visit, they picture lush tropical islands or deciduous forests and so, naturally, this image would create a more emotional draw than had environmentalists created the slogan, "Go Brown!" (though the deserts would benefit).

Guest Editorial, by Tommy Hummel

The Dependent Independents

In one of my honor’s classes in high school, my classmates had the bright idea to get out of doing a menial homework assignment: we decided that we would tell the teacher that our substitute had never assigned the homework. It was a collective lie and we all knew it would work only if everyone went along with it. Of course, the plan failed when one of the girls developed a conscience the next day. It was an important lesson and I find there is a similarity between what happened that day and what happens every four years during election season. If a formal survey were conducted, I would wager that a good portion of the general American public is dissatisfied with the current process of electing a president. Every four years two people are chosen from within the two ruling classes of government, the Democrats and Republicans, and the lament for the remainder of the election season is that we the people must choose between the “lesser of two evils.” The problem lies in the fact that there are voters who may believe that other candidates are more worthy, but since these candidates are running on an independent ticket the voters do not cast their votes in these directions, because they know that then their vote will count for nothing. So, to feel a part of the process, they also vote along the party lines. The blocks of people voting down the party lines prevent the stragglers from ever tasting glory. It is the repeated problem of democracy: it only works if everyone goes in on it. So as a call to action, I’m inviting people to break the party lines this voting season, to look into each of the candidates, and to vote for the one you want, not against the one you don’t want. It is a risk sure, and it is likely the vote won’t count for anything, but in the larger scheme isn’t that the whole point of voting? It is one person throwing his penny into the tray of over 300 million coins and hoping that enough people like himself are doing the same thing to tip the scales. This election season, realize there are more than just two people running for the presidency. Research the rest and vote for the one you actually would like to see in office. And hey, if your first choice isn’t elected, at least you can complain about it.