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From The Atlantic:
By Hanna Rosin
… Who she is is a harder question, due in part to her reluctance to develop a public persona or talk to the press. (She wouldn’t talk to me, even with campaign season heating up, although Jeb and I corresponded.) Bush loyalists bristle at the idea that Columba would have trouble fitting into the role of first lady in the White House. One scolded me that the press was just being “stupid” and “lazy” by saying that she hates public life and failing to recognize all the causes she has taken up over the past 15 or so years.
… But as a modern first lady, she’ll be expected to come out from behind the scenes. And whether she likes it or not, what she does and how she feels will affect her husband as a person and as a candidate—and that interplay will be endlessly dissected.
But the most likely explanation for why Columba Bush has such a subterranean profile in the English-speaking world, one that Rosin never seems to stumble upon, is because she’s never learned to speak English well. She has plenty of personality in videos of her speaking Spanish.
In this video, for instance, she’s doing fine conducting a First Lady of Florida-style interview in Spanish.
Her problems aren’t idiosyncratic personal shyness, they’re national.
She doesn’t speak English well, so Jeb speaks Spanish at home.
This is not just a personal problem for Jeb Bush’s run for President, it’s a major ideological one.
We’re supposed to believe Jeb’s assurances that his beloved tens of millions of Mexican immigrants will seamlessly assimilate into American culture.
But the candidate’s own wife hasn’t learned to be comfortable in English after four decades of marriage to a Bush! Jeb has to speak a foreign language in his own home.
Jeb Bush has positioned himself as an expert on his favorite cause of immigration reform, assuring Americans that massive immigration from Latin American won’t lead to massive cultural change because of assimilation. But in the candidate’s own home, he’s had to assimilate to a foreign culture because of his own wife’s failure to assimilate to America during their 40 years of marriage!
By Hanna Rosin
Ah the delightful and charming Hanna Rosin. She’s the lady who loves stcking it to White men. I had a look at her recent articles and she has one called “Murder By Craigslist” about a serial killer who targets White guys desperate for work. One of the reader’s comments rated “best” said in part:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/09/advertisement-for-murder/309435/#disqus_thread
Is it possible in turn that the reason Columba Bush isn’t fluent in English after several decades is because perhaps she is not very bright?
Certainly, at least in part. It's also possible that between living in Florida and with a husband who wanted to burnish his bona fides with the reconquistadors, she hasn't faced much pressure to learn the language. If that's the case it's also a sign of stupidity - a failure to understand that the wife of a potential US president needs to speak English well, especially if he's a Republican.
Like her husband....her brother-in-law and father-in-law?
Thinking back to one alcohol-infused night long ago in the 80’s in Kennebunkport with friends…and, more importantly, friends’ parents at the “weekend place,” I now know, definitively, why Barbara Bush so adamantly said, “We’ve had enough Bushes.” BB is a very scary woman.
Holy scheisse! Columba is a conundrum (channeling B. Manilow…columba-conundrum…instruments, Mexican sound) for Jeb. As much as she may be a really good person, has obviously been a great wife; the future spouse of a PM or President has to be stealth, and put up with copious amounts of scheisse and scrutiny – doesn’t matter if you don’t speak English naturally. Barbara already knew a few years ago: “never gonna happen” – not her words, but, duh.
And, if you have a messed up child/adult child, well, you don’t become FLOTUS. It’s sad, maybe unfair…because alcohol and drugs are so mainstream now, even for the ambitious people who are sending their kids to “good schools.”
Could be that, living in Miami, she hasn’t really needed to learn it.
This is the globalist balkanization in your face.
In twenty years they will roll out a puppet candidate who not only has a spouse who doesn’t speak English but they themselves struggle with the language.
Thirty years ago this woman would’ve studied her ass off to present herself as American, as a plausible flotus. Not today. This is a left wing country now.
Think about what it will mean for the globalists to insert this alien into the whitehouse. She will speak Spanish in all of her flotus duties and the media will love it. Victory!
Leftism turns a country into a crap hole. East Germany and North Korea are examples of people with high IQ who were destroyed by left wing ideology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
As Der Spiegel put it back in 2009, "Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism".
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
Regarding North Korea, people only say that North Koreans have high IQ, because the South Koreans, who are clearly of the same genetic stock, are currently extremely successful. Of course, if this were 1955, we would all be talking about how dumb all Koreans are, and what a disgusting hole in the ground the entire peninsula is. The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang discusses this issue in his works.
And regarding "leftism," from what I understand Sweden and Norway are quite leftist - and yet they seem to be doing OK. Maybe the issue here is access to the world market and arms-race exhaustion, rather than leftism...
I'm not too hot on leftism, and I'm willing to consider arguments in favor of the influence of "IQ". But perhaps East Germany and North Korea are not the optimal examples here.
I’ve said it before and will do so again. Why is it so hard for native Spanish speakers to learn English? Both are European languages with essentially the same alphabet. Add to it that Columba married a native English speaker and moved to his English-speaking nation. It really should not have taken her that long to become fluent. After 40 years she should be able to communicate at least as well as Arianna Huffington whose native language uses a different alphabet.
I thought my opinion about Jeb was low. But it keeps getting lower with each Steve post about him.
But lets get down to brass tacks, this article is a red herring. The old woman isn't driving the amnesty/globalist bus. Bushes themselves are, they are all globalists or Davos men. Old man Bush concocted NAFTA which destroyed millions of jobs and usurped authority of the Federal government into the hands of foreigners. Junior never saw a jobs destroying trade bill he didn't like. He even tried to pass amnesty but was stopped by Congress. it's also why he never secured the border after 9/11.
Jebbie is just trying complete what junior didn't.
His support alone for PTP puts him traitor category, and his support for what amounts to open borders and amnesty is just icing on the cake. Send this squinty eyed buffoon back to the pit from when he came.
If his eyes were any closer he'd be a cyclops.
I thought my opinion about Jeb was low. But it keeps getting lower with each Steve post about him.
I don’t think it is that hard. As others have noted, without social pressure to learn English, why bother? It’s not just Spanish speakers: I know Greeks living in the Little Athens ghetto in Astoria, NY who’ve been in the US for decades and can still barely speak English. What’s the point when everyone you do business with and need to prosper is Greek? Now, the US can afford little pockets of non-assimilation like Astoria, but cannot afford to lose the entire southwest to the Mexicans.
I thought my opinion about Jeb was low. But it keeps getting lower with each Steve post about him.
I learned English at 8 yrs old. Watched a lot of TV…Americans schools and kids were/are very social, so, forced to interact. English is easier than many languages. Well, all I can say is that he has no chance becoming President, ever. He has no clue what he actually believes in or supports, and it shows every time he talks or interacts these last few months – truly cringeworthy.
It’s strange you mentioned Greeks. I know several and they all learned English. A few have that annoying Arriana Huffinginton accent, but they can communicate fluently. Heck, even my acquaintances in Greece speak English. I’d like to see these Greeks that have been here for decades who still cannot speak English. I wonder if they are retarded or something.
At least no one’s going to change the lyrics to match a simultaneous change of the song title to “Columba The Gem Of The Ocean.”
Yet.
Points well taken…do we really believe The Atlantic?
What is your first language?
I am studying German now, which is kind of a joke since it is just for fun. My son will be living in Germany and I have many artist friends (Americans) who live/work in Germany. Germans are a lot friendlier if you speak German; same goes for the French & their language. Plus, I want to sample beers in Bavaria and "fit-in," when the opportunity arises. And, I want to bike tour in the mountains...all but one of my sons are adults now, and I have developed a bucket list of sorts.
I thought my opinion about Jeb was low. But it keeps getting lower with each Steve post about him.
Many older generations of European immigrants, who presumably in general were brighter than Columba, to the US never learned or learned very little English simply because there was not much of a pressing need to as they often lived in ethnic enclaves and had jobs that didn’t really require English.
Contrast that to present day NYC where you have immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere from Latin America living side by side. Not only do these newcomers have a full array of media and government resources at their disposal in Spanish, but Spanish already serves as a common language for them to communicate with one another.
So I tend to think, without facts to back it up, that the European immigrants of old probably did have more incentive to learn English than today's immigrants, especially the Latin ones. Columba is just unusual because she actually married a prominent American and I would think she would have made an effort to adopt his culture. Instead, it looks like he made the sacrifice for her. I think Whiskey would call Jeb a beta.
“Is it possible in turn that the reason Columba Bush isn’t fluent in English after several decades is because perhaps she is not very bright?”
Certainly, at least in part. It’s also possible that between living in Florida and with a husband who wanted to burnish his bona fides with the reconquistadors, she hasn’t faced much pressure to learn the language. If that’s the case it’s also a sign of stupidity – a failure to understand that the wife of a potential US president needs to speak English well, especially if he’s a Republican.
And her husband: the great white Hispanderer himself! She has no regard for the [white] public eye on her behavior because her husband has never put her in a situation where she would feel the pressure to have a bit of regard for it. She won't be WASP-ified, and this will eventually become clear. Maybe not before the election, though, in which case Jeb Bush could become an American François Hollande: thrust to power riding a wave of anger at a decade of mostly stagnant and ineffectual rule by the other party, only to have everything blow up for him in the first year.
I live in Miami. It is indeed possible to live here and go your entire life without learning a word of English, but not while also being one of the rich-and-powerful. The Cubans that run Miami are all 2nd or 3rd generation and speak English quite well and as far as I can tell, conduct business in English. Many of their kids don't speak Spanish at all. The Little Havana and Hialeah places (and other areas) where you can merrily proceed English-free are kind of run down and dumpy. Nobody of importance lives there or spends much time there.
My son has Cuban-descended friends named Javier, Alejandro, and Pedro and none can speak Spanish beyond a few words. Certainly not carry on a conversation.
So Columba is most likely a dunce or lazy or both. She's also Mexican, not Cuban, so wouldn't necessarily fit right in.
Like Mrs. Bush.
In twenty years they will roll out a puppet candidate who not only has a spouse who doesn't speak English but they themselves struggle with the language.
Thirty years ago this woman would've studied her ass off to present herself as American, as a plausible flotus. Not today. This is a left wing country now.
Think about what it will mean for the globalists to insert this alien into the whitehouse. She will speak Spanish in all of her flotus duties and the media will love it. Victory!
Leftism turns a country into a crap hole. East Germany and North Korea are examples of people with high IQ who were destroyed by left wing ideology.
Like Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho?
“But the most likely explanation for why Columba Bush has such a subterranean profile in the English-speaking world, one that Rosin never seems to stumble upon, is because she’s never learned to speak English well. She has plenty of personality in videos of her speaking Spanish.”
I have never seen much evidence that Jeb Bush has much of a personality in English. Still, that is an improvement over his brother, George, who has an annoying and unpleasant personality.
If (after Marx), George Herbert Walker Bush was tragedy…………….
And George Walker Bush was farce……………..
What does that make John Ellis Bush?
Pantomime?
The Ice-Capades?
I’ll take Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho over what we have now, or what we’re likely to end up with in 2016. I got the impression Dwayne didn’t actually hate his country.
So, was this marriage arranged with the foresight that a Mexican wife would be a political asset? I know it seems that way, but I don’t know if its ever been seriously investigated.
I’ve always wondered the same with Barack and Michelle. I don’t believe he could be President with a white wife.
Danish. Right after morning wakeup, that’s the second word I say, right after “coffee.”
Obviously I do not have statistics to back up this assertion, but concerning Euro immigrants of old, consider this which Pat Buchanan came up with in one of his books. In NYC a hundred years ago you had immigrants from Poland, Greece, Italy and elswhere living next to one another. They not only needed to learn English to make entryway into the US at large, but they also needed a way to communicate with one another. Thus, English allowed the Pole to commuicate with the Italian and so on.
Contrast that to present day NYC where you have immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere from Latin America living side by side. Not only do these newcomers have a full array of media and government resources at their disposal in Spanish, but Spanish already serves as a common language for them to communicate with one another.
So I tend to think, without facts to back it up, that the European immigrants of old probably did have more incentive to learn English than today’s immigrants, especially the Latin ones. Columba is just unusual because she actually married a prominent American and I would think she would have made an effort to adopt his culture. Instead, it looks like he made the sacrifice for her. I think Whiskey would call Jeb a beta.
I thought my opinion about Jeb was low. But it keeps getting lower with each Steve post about him.
That’s a easy one, a lot of them don’t see themselves as anything but Mexican and speak it every chance she gets. Just watch when Mexico is playing in the world cup and see all the Mexican flags that appear, especially when they play against the U.S. This is not all Mexicans but there is a large segment that will never see themselves as anything but Mexican to the day they die and consider learning proper English a insult.
But lets get down to brass tacks, this article is a red herring. The old woman isn’t driving the amnesty/globalist bus. Bushes themselves are, they are all globalists or Davos men. Old man Bush concocted NAFTA which destroyed millions of jobs and usurped authority of the Federal government into the hands of foreigners. Junior never saw a jobs destroying trade bill he didn’t like. He even tried to pass amnesty but was stopped by Congress. it’s also why he never secured the border after 9/11.
Jebbie is just trying complete what junior didn’t.
His support alone for PTP puts him traitor category, and his support for what amounts to open borders and amnesty is just icing on the cake. Send this squinty eyed buffoon back to the pit from when he came.
If his eyes were any closer he’d be a cyclops.
From what I’ve read, traditionally most adult immigrants who arrived in the US knowing little to no English learned only what they really needed to (no social safety net means no time for things like night classes).
It was their small children and (especially) the children born in the US that assimilated linguistically and culturally.
That is the traditional bargain of immigration – you’ll get a chance at a better quality of life and in exchange you let the new society socialize your children.
In Europe this no longer works as policies of multiculturalism tend to mean that far too often immigrant parents (esp from the middle east) are too busy passing on their culture schock trauma to their children (and making sure they adhere to useless traditional customs) to let them assimilate. The kids don’t fit in with their parents or the new society (which is almost all they know) very well. Hilarity ensues.
I share your view of current immigrants in Europe: though Latino immigrants in the USA tend to be clannish, they don't harbor the resentment that middle eastern & some African immigrants do toward their "host" country. I strongly believe in learning the language of a host country. And, if a country has 2 native languages, it is smarter to learn both. In my mind, the USA has always been an English speaking country however, most people would have more opportunities if they spoke several languages.
A fun 80's story: When I worked-out/ran road races with a group of guys who also belonged to an informal Swedish language group, I was so impressed with an older American guy (he was still ripped @ 58) who spoke 14 languages! He was a freak of nature....I believe he was a CIA guy...well, none of them were honest about what their day job was.
Not likely, or he would have chosen a fellow elite who would have already spoken perfect English. The elites of most countries become native or near-native speakers while still at school even when they have no intention of moving to an English-speaking country. I totally believe his claim that Columba is just someone he met in his adult English class.
I suppose the first assumption to make about this woman if her English is so poor is that she isn’t very bright . A better question might be how well does she understand it : if she can follow a complex conversation in English without needing it translated into Spanish . She may just have have a very strong accent and is embarrassed to speak in public.
Joseph Bonanno moved to the US when he was three years old , I don’t consider him a stupid man. Here he is in an interview on 60 min .
His English isn’t exactly run for office quality but despite an arrest record dating back to the 1920s, Bonanno was never convicted of a serious crime.
Certainly, at least in part. It's also possible that between living in Florida and with a husband who wanted to burnish his bona fides with the reconquistadors, she hasn't faced much pressure to learn the language. If that's the case it's also a sign of stupidity - a failure to understand that the wife of a potential US president needs to speak English well, especially if he's a Republican.
Having lived in Florida under Jeb Bush (what dark days!), I confirm that both points are true. Columba Bush is indeed a moron, the epitome of that female Hispanic social climber who thinks that outside her borders and with a rich husband she can do absolutely as she pleases. Hence her getting fined for failing to declare several thousand bucks worth of Paris fashion goodies at customs.
And her husband: the great white Hispanderer himself! She has no regard for the [white] public eye on her behavior because her husband has never put her in a situation where she would feel the pressure to have a bit of regard for it. She won’t be WASP-ified, and this will eventually become clear. Maybe not before the election, though, in which case Jeb Bush could become an American François Hollande: thrust to power riding a wave of anger at a decade of mostly stagnant and ineffectual rule by the other party, only to have everything blow up for him in the first year.
Why English,of course!
I see this differently than the rest of you since I have never been good at languages. I am sure after 30 or 40 years in another country I’d be barely able to speak in full sentences. I am sure Columba Bush’s English is way better than my Spanish would ever be.
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush’s English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There’s no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife’s English language limitations, then why hasn’t anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody’s time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
-- Because his last name is "Bush".
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush's English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There's no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife's English language limitations, then why hasn't anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody's time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
I don’t think the GOP earned the moniker “The Stupid Party” for nothing.
I won’t vote for Jeb Bush, but pardon my libertarian cant. What language Jeb Bush and his family choose to speak at home is their business.
And Columba Bush if notionally invested as “First Lady”, will not have been elected to anything. Again, her choice of language while in that position is her business. Her supposed lack of “intelligence” is irrelevant to what happens in the West Wing.
Those things are tremendously important. How could you say it's none of our business if the first family speak Spanish at home? That kind of insanity among American conservatives is what put us in this situation to begin with. Contrast that to Europe. Europeans still understand honor. It's an insult to have foreigners ruling over you. No one on the political right in Europe would ever say it's none of their business if the PM's family spoke Arabic at home. Few on the left in Europe would say that either.
Why do American conservatives/libertarians love to take these kinds of ludicrously anti-self interest stands on the most important issues? It seems related to the pathological altruism phenomenon.
And if the guy's speaking Spanish at home, it makes sense he's not going to fight it too hard for the rest of the country.
How well did William of Orange speak English? I have no idea, but now I’m curious.
No pardon for you.
Those things are tremendously important. How could you say it’s none of our business if the first family speak Spanish at home? That kind of insanity among American conservatives is what put us in this situation to begin with. Contrast that to Europe. Europeans still understand honor. It’s an insult to have foreigners ruling over you. No one on the political right in Europe would ever say it’s none of their business if the PM’s family spoke Arabic at home. Few on the left in Europe would say that either.
Why do American conservatives/libertarians love to take these kinds of ludicrously anti-self interest stands on the most important issues? It seems related to the pathological altruism phenomenon.
Sure, but it’s going to hurt his chances of getting elected.
And if the guy’s speaking Spanish at home, it makes sense he’s not going to fight it too hard for the rest of the country.
I won’t vote for Jeb Bush, but pardon my libertarian cant. What language Jeb Bush and his family choose to speak at home is their business.
Typical sperg libertarianism. Y’all really think people are autonomous nations unto themselves. Only a libertarian or a liberal (but I repeat myself) would not pick up extremely relevant conclusions from the character and personality of the wife of a presidential candidate- particularly in this case. That’s why none of you have business holding the reins of power, ever. This man isn’t running for dogcatcher.
To say it once more, cherchez la femme.
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush's English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There's no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife's English language limitations, then why hasn't anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody's time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
I’ve only spent 15 or 20 minutes looking, but I didn’t find any video of her speaking English at all. I found those two videos of her speaking Spanish on camera with animation, which I found eye-opening because I had picked up the impression that she suffered from crippling shyness or something. But no, she’s outgoing in Spanish, but she evidently won’t try to speak English on camera.
After reading the Atlantic piece, my theory is that Columba is somewhat provincial (which explains the lack of interest in politics or learning English well) and that she’s also some combination of emotionally needy / prone to anxiety / neurotic. It sees like she fell in love with a gringo and got swept off her feet but then had a rough time adapting to a new culture and withdrew.
Which of the two represents a more serious “baggage” problem, Columba or Sheldon Adelson and those like him?
It’s not just that, it’s that Jeb Bush has positioned himself as an expert on his favorite subject of immigration, assuring Americans that massive immigration from Latin American won’t lead to massive cultural change because of assimilation. But in the candidate’s own home, he’s had to assimilate to a foreign culture because of his own wife’s failure to assimilate to America during their 40 years of marriage!
Makes sense.
Columba’s mother-in-law can’t be the easiest person in the world to deal with.
She’s kind of the embodiment of Mexican mediocrity, but bizarrely married into a hyper-ambitious gringo dynasty.
My impression is that George P. Bush didn’t make the same mistake. He married an Elizabeth Banks-type lawyer who looks well suited for the demands of being a Presidential candidate’s wife.
Looking at the data, he got in to Rice and then UT law school. So he landed just outside the Ivy League and just outside the T14, but that's a lot better than one would expect for a middle Mexican otherwise destined to be a factory worker or low level cubicle drone.
I know that with small numbers this stuff is very stochastic, but Jeb only had three children. Is it just luck, or does Columba have hidden depths?
This. Her Spanish is a Mexican (lower/lowerish) middle class sociolect, but she's trying her best. I wonder though why she didn't get some months of total immersion yet and a speech trainer, Eliza-Doolittle-wise. Is her husband not that bright either? ...therefore choosing her in the first place? Not yet a Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew, but trying his, uhm, best to marshall us the way that we are going? Royal we because the Turkish functionaries over here are often eerily unbright, too, having inherent HR problems--the bright ones are home in Turkey doing well for themselves in the business world.
There's the idea that a politician should be bright, but not too bright, so not to alienate the electorate. Maybe Jeb wants his future voters to feel at ease.
My theory is Columba Bush speaks English but with a strong accent. Strong enough that she will be ridiculed by Hispanics living here. They will be gossiping and clucking how their own English is ten times better than Columba’s and after living here just a fraction of the time. Jeb Bush could have brought an English tutor into the house to work on her accent but she refused due to Latino and Mexican pride. Thinking, “I will only go so far for these damn Anglos!” IOW she is stubborn like a mule even when it comes to her husbands political career.
Jeb was Florida governor for eight years. How did he and she get by without her speaking English in public and making a fool of herself? In contrast check out Martin O’Malley’s lovely wife and four well scrubbed children who of course are major campaign assets.
Nurtured by Clinton network, O’Malley now becomes 2016 rival
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150520/news/305209973/
Indeed, Hillary’s in-laws come with some baggage.
Exactly. I worded what I wanted to say rather poorly- she’s a reflection of his weaknesses and that means weakness of psyche. This guy’s a fruitcake. If this doesn’t make a lot of Republicans feel that they’re looking into the abyss, not much will.
The “libertarian” fellow here shares a problem that many of his compatriots do: they don’t seem to understand the matter of scale. We’re not talking about some dowdy ex navy guy who lives with his Filipino wife. We’re talking about the product of a party dynasty. Earth to libertarians: people are not interchangeable.
Though you chaps have pretty much given up on it, I remain rather an admirer of your Constitution. One of its real, though minor, merits is that there’s no mention of the effing First Lady. Bloody right, too.
I’m really sick of this ‘first lady’ syndrome where whatever designer outfit they wear is breathlessly reported upon and their make-work do-good advocacy positions are taken seriously. No one voted for them so why should they be always be in our faces? I prefer the Soviet style where the spouses and other family members were kept out of sight.
It’s been reported Barbara Bush skipped her own mother’s funeral and that she spent the day following her five year old child’s death on the golf course. Strange people.
But their girlfriends might be featured in the Daily Mail, if they look like former Olympic gymnast and cover model Alina Kabayeva.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11099729/Vladimir-Putins-gymnast-girlfriend-heads-pro-Kremlin-media-group.html
Those things are tremendously important. How could you say it's none of our business if the first family speak Spanish at home? That kind of insanity among American conservatives is what put us in this situation to begin with. Contrast that to Europe. Europeans still understand honor. It's an insult to have foreigners ruling over you. No one on the political right in Europe would ever say it's none of their business if the PM's family spoke Arabic at home. Few on the left in Europe would say that either.
Why do American conservatives/libertarians love to take these kinds of ludicrously anti-self interest stands on the most important issues? It seems related to the pathological altruism phenomenon.
It is, but it’s not just conservatives/libertarians, it’s a certain generation that grew up being taught that the world was their oyster. Now they all compete to see who can be most magnanimous in primitive one-upmanship.
Guess barely passable mediocrity skips a generation.
In twenty years they will roll out a puppet candidate who not only has a spouse who doesn't speak English but they themselves struggle with the language.
Thirty years ago this woman would've studied her ass off to present herself as American, as a plausible flotus. Not today. This is a left wing country now.
Think about what it will mean for the globalists to insert this alien into the whitehouse. She will speak Spanish in all of her flotus duties and the media will love it. Victory!
Leftism turns a country into a crap hole. East Germany and North Korea are examples of people with high IQ who were destroyed by left wing ideology.
Ironically, Communist countries made a big fuss about everyone learning the official language. East Germany made Sorbians speak German. North Korea is probably one of the only countries on the planet where people talk approvingly in public about maintaining “racial purity”. If Communism was left wing, I am not sure what to call the dominant ideology in the US. It is really more like a return to pre-industrial societies like the Ottoman Empire or the Habsburg Empire where every major ethnic group was allowed special privileges as long as they supported the elites, who identified only with themselves as a ruling class, not a particular ethnic group.
Probably not well. Until around 1918 noble blood was more important than nationality to the ruling classes. Even later generations of monarchs after William were not strong in their “native language”, and kept marrying Germans. George I spoke only German. George III was the first Hannoverian on the English throne to speak native English. Queen Victoria herself supposedly spoke German as well if not better than English, and her German born consort Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) apparently could manage only fairly basic English, and with a strong German accent.
That’s an absurd idea. The GDR achieved a respectable standard of living within thirty years, rising from the ashes of year zero. They did that pretty much on their own, by their own bootstraps. Left wing ideology? You mean like PC and all the rest that’s found right here at home? The communist were conservative and would meet with approval by a lot of people here if they just had a different name.
It's been reported Barbara Bush skipped her own mother's funeral and that she spent the day following her five year old child's death on the golf course. Strange people.
I prefer the Soviet style where the spouses and other family members were kept out of sight.
But their girlfriends might be featured in the Daily Mail, if they look like former Olympic gymnast and cover model Alina Kabayeva.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11099729/Vladimir-Putins-gymnast-girlfriend-heads-pro-Kremlin-media-group.html
I don’t think your personal question is relevant since it just attracts derisive comments from other commenters. But since you are curious: German, Swedish and Finnish – don’t know exactly which one was first since we were living in Germany and I was a baby. I have forgotten German, but learned Spanish and French.
I am studying German now, which is kind of a joke since it is just for fun. My son will be living in Germany and I have many artist friends (Americans) who live/work in Germany. Germans are a lot friendlier if you speak German; same goes for the French & their language. Plus, I want to sample beers in Bavaria and “fit-in,” when the opportunity arises. And, I want to bike tour in the mountains…all but one of my sons are adults now, and I have developed a bucket list of sorts.
Different times. Half the crowned heads of Europe didn’t have the language of their subjects as their mother tongue. Queen Elizabeth’s father, George VI, was the first monarch of Britain to have a British spouse since William of Orange married Mary Stuart.
She’s got an unfortunately Eurocentric name, considering the huge mestizo vote her husband will be chasing. Aztlana would sound better to them.
It was their small children and (especially) the children born in the US that assimilated linguistically and culturally.
That is the traditional bargain of immigration - you'll get a chance at a better quality of life and in exchange you let the new society socialize your children.
In Europe this no longer works as policies of multiculturalism tend to mean that far too often immigrant parents (esp from the middle east) are too busy passing on their culture schock trauma to their children (and making sure they adhere to useless traditional customs) to let them assimilate. The kids don't fit in with their parents or the new society (which is almost all they know) very well. Hilarity ensues.
Exactly. My parents were given green cards in 20 minutes since they already spoke multiple languages and they had jobs waiting for them. And, their children quickly learned/became fluent in English in American public schools.
I share your view of current immigrants in Europe: though Latino immigrants in the USA tend to be clannish, they don’t harbor the resentment that middle eastern & some African immigrants do toward their “host” country. I strongly believe in learning the language of a host country. And, if a country has 2 native languages, it is smarter to learn both. In my mind, the USA has always been an English speaking country however, most people would have more opportunities if they spoke several languages.
A fun 80’s story: When I worked-out/ran road races with a group of guys who also belonged to an informal Swedish language group, I was so impressed with an older American guy (he was still ripped @ 58) who spoke 14 languages! He was a freak of nature….I believe he was a CIA guy…well, none of them were honest about what their day job was.
Joseph Bonanno moved to the US when he was three years old , I don't consider him a stupid man. Here he is in an interview on 60 min .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4YaOoUb35A
His English isn't exactly run for office quality but despite an arrest record dating back to the 1920s, Bonanno was never convicted of a serious crime.
The other day on the radio I heard a guy who’s been here a lot longer than CB speaking badly broken English: Orlando Cepeda. Sheesh. I think I won’t buy his BBQ.
If you think Columba isn’t very intelligent, and the Bushes themselves have only been “good enough” on that front, how clever is George P Bush anyway?
Looking at the data, he got in to Rice and then UT law school. So he landed just outside the Ivy League and just outside the T14, but that’s a lot better than one would expect for a middle Mexican otherwise destined to be a factory worker or low level cubicle drone.
I know that with small numbers this stuff is very stochastic, but Jeb only had three children. Is it just luck, or does Columba have hidden depths?
“iSteveFan says:
After 40 years she should be able to communicate at least as well as Arianna Huffington whose native language uses a different alphabet.”
We could have only hoped that Arianna Huffington had not bothered to learn English either.
Some good points, but remember that there hasn’t been a “clean” president since Bush the Elder (22 years ago)! First there was Bill “never inhaled” Clinton, then W., a former alcoholic and cocaine user, and now President Obama: someone who by most accounts, always inhaled, and by his own admission dabbled with cocaine. Thankfully, his current drug of choice appears to be Nicorette. As the “icing” on the cake, Joe Biden’s son also uses cocaine, as evidenced by his failure of a recent Navy Reserve drug test.
Of course, there was Kitty Dukakis back in the ’80s and Betty Ford in the ’70s. There have also been numerous past presidents who liked to hit the sauce and Kennedy and Nixon stand out for their love of pills.
I suspect he spoke it rather well, as his Stuart mother was the Princess Royal of Great Britain.
Honesty if Jeb Bush becomes the primary Republican candidate I am tempted to vote for Hillary (or no one).
Why? Well at least if she wins, we will have the first woman president and fill the diversity quota. Also any failures on immigration, economy, etc. will be mostly placed on her and the Democrats regardless of what the media spins around. The gay marriage battle is all but over so the liberals need something else to distract the majority (transgenders aren’t likable enough).
I could be going the wrong way with this though…
It’s a shame because we (the West) went very quickly from advancing those with especially noble blood to advancing those of especially ignoble blood with only about 100 years of space for meritocracy to shine. (1880-1980, roughly). If you’ll permit me the sin of noticing though, we got a hell of a lot done in those 100 years.
“We’re supposed to believe Jeb’s assurances that his beloved tens of millions of Mexican immigrants will seamlessly assimilate into American culture.
But the candidate’s own wife hasn’t learned to be comfortable in English after four decades of marriage to a Bush! Jeb has to speak a foreign language in his own home.”
That Mexican Chicana is married to the WASPiest guy on the planet from a genetics standpoint, as Jeb Bush is of pure 100 percent British ancestry. Yet she can still barely speak English. She still can not assimilate into English speaking society even though her husband is genetically as British as Alfred Hitchcock.
She either has a very low IQ or she has an extreme hatred for WASP culture. Or both.
Is there anyone here who thinks we are going to see Columba Bush out there in the hustings speaking comprehensible English? Hopefully Jebs donations dry up as donors realize the high fruitcake factor here.
But it’s weird that we still get these types showing up here. You think this would be a place where people who feel the need to shoot themselves in the foot to play moral one-upmanship games wouldn’t be.
His comment was in good faith - he wasn't playing games or preening his superior morality.
I’m actually talking about being critical of parents who don’t have the skills, desire, energy to do whatever it takes when their adolescent starts to spiral out of control. Definitely NOT criticizing adults who are/have been addicts (or have dabbled – who hasn’t?) since they alone are responsible for their destiny. And, I am talking about hard-core drugs like heroin, alcoholism that lands that adolescent (12+ yrs old) into juvie, re-hab, psychiatric care, YET, the parents (some in my community) still don’t do the hard work to get the kid back on track and get over their own narcissism/shame about the kid’s behavior.
In fairness, Columba and Jeb seemed to have worked hard to get their daughter on track, but people are going to be skeptical because of C’s shopping passion – she comes off as shallow. You don’t worry about stuff and trivial social life if you have a kid who is spiraling. You must focus on your kid. The focus on the daughter should have been much earlier when there was a chance to get things turned around. Poor Creigh Deeds had tried everything, but his son had been diagnosed and institutionalized with mental illness. Very Gothic horror end for that Senator.
I like the Jackie O quote, “if you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.”
As the parent of an opiate-addicted child (now adult), I wish I could get together with you and get your counsel as to how to "get the kid back on track." We've been to NA meetings, parents' support groups, and consulted with numerous therapists and psychiatrists. For a year we were involved in a parents' support group whose leader advocated the very aggressive program she followed herself with her own son. Her son was subsequently arrested and is currently incarcerated on drug charges. At NA they teach, "You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. And you can't control it." However, if you have experience solving this problem I would really appreciate hearing how you did it.
Should have just said: whether or not it’s fair/compelling/necessary for the FLOTUS to be liked, she can not come across as shallow, craven, stupid. That’s why they have to do some kind of charity-like work, advocate for children, poor people, school girls, etc. or stress issues like reading, eating nutritious food, being physically active…indefinite things. You can’t be Imelda Marcos.
Sometimes I think Diana, with her ridding-land-mines-everywhere advocacy started the “race to the top,” for First Ladies everywhere, of some sort of meaningful advocacy. The beautiful Diana’s fate was very Gothic, too.
Forgive me if this has been discussed before but there is an long article with many pictures dating from Jan 2015 about Mrs JEB and her hometown at the dailymail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2918970/An-illegal-immigrant-warring-parents-bitter-rift-father-did-not-40-years-extraordinary-story-Columba-Bush-husband-bids-make-Hispanic-lady.html
The family home is surprisingly modest; the word hovel comes to mind.
And, I am talking about hard-core drugs like heroin, alcoholism that lands that adolescent (12+ yrs old) into juvie, re-hab, psychiatric care, YET, the parents (some in my community) still don’t do the hard work to get the kid back on track and get over their own narcissism/shame about the kid’s behavior.
As the parent of an opiate-addicted child (now adult), I wish I could get together with you and get your counsel as to how to “get the kid back on track.” We’ve been to NA meetings, parents’ support groups, and consulted with numerous therapists and psychiatrists. For a year we were involved in a parents’ support group whose leader advocated the very aggressive program she followed herself with her own son. Her son was subsequently arrested and is currently incarcerated on drug charges. At NA they teach, “You didn’t cause it. You can’t cure it. And you can’t control it.” However, if you have experience solving this problem I would really appreciate hearing how you did it.
President Obama: someone who by most accounts, always inhaled, and by his own admission dabbled with cocaine.
Everyone who deals with addicts knows that a) they’re liars and b) they vastly understate the amount they abuse their drug of choice. So when Obama admits he “dabbled with cocaine,” assume he got a snootful of it every chance he got for a number of years.
Uh, yes. Actually. FL is a southern state. Aside from Miami, the rest of the state does have large contingencies of Anglos. Tallahassee is located in the North, the Panhandle, where tons of historic Southerners and southern culture still survives.
What does it say that during their courtship, she couldn’t either be bothered to learn English, the first tongue of the man she was about to marry, or that she wouldn’t…and why wouldn’t she, unless of course, she really couldn’t. Her father was a Mexican laborer, correct? So, she didn’t exactly come from the higher echelons of Mexican society.
At least Ricardo Mantalban bothered to learn English before marrying Loretta Young’s youngest sister and didn’t insist that the sister learn Spanish first before marrying her.
There’s something discomforting, to say the least, of a public figure’s wife not bothering to learn English, especially when she’s lived here for most of her life, unless of course, that she simply cannot because she’s not all that bright, perceptive that it would help her husband’s career down the road as well as help allay any apprehensions that she simply refuses to assimilate to American culture.
Simply turn it around. Suppose Jeb had moved to Mexico City and decided to speak to Columba only in English and never bother to learn Spanish, and continued in this attitude for several decades while living in Mexico?
Yes, but Orlando didn’t marry into the “right sort” of family, did he? That’s to be expected, after all. Other examples would include Roberto Clemente, Matty Alou, Luis Tiant, etc. who also lived in the US for several decades and yet could not master the English language, to say nothing of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez (who recently became a US citizen, by the way).
Yes, adult immigrants sometimes struggle with learning English, but there are some data available on how well immigrants from different regions assimilate: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/cr_59.pdf
Some noteworthy but obvious findings: “Recent immigrants—especially Mexican-Americans—are acquiring English-language skills more slowly than their predecessors.” And: “As the immigrant population grows, the English skills of newly arrived immigrants tend to decline.”
Now for the regions. In terms of overall assimilation rate (composite index): those from Canada, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cuba assimilate at high rates while those from China, India, El Salvador, and Mexico do so at very low rates (those from Mexico are the lowest among the major groups).
Culturally, immigrants from Canada assimilate the best by far (100 index). Filipinos, Cubans, and Koreans assimilate very well culturally (all over 60) while Indians do so at the lowest rate (under 4o). Chinese and Mexicans have the next lowest rates.
Economically, most groups assimilate well (near 100), Dominicans and Chinese are the next tier (near and above 80) while Mexicans and Salvadorans are the lowest (60-70 range).
In civic assimilation, Vietnamese, Filipinos, South Koreans, and Cubans lead the pack (50 and above) while Mexicans and Salvadorans lag (20-30 range).
Now, my added comment. Judging from the assimilation rates, there seems to be consistent overlap between assimilation success, particularly *cultural and civic* assimilation, and the tendency to vote Republican/conservative. Conversely, success at economic assimilation tells us little about political affiliation (Cubans and South Koreans vote heavily for the GOP; Indians vote heavily for Democrats). One curious factoid is that Canadian migrants assimilate nearly perfectly in cultural and economic terms, but only show mediocre civic engagement.
Sounds like, this is a fight over who wears the pants in the family. Mexican wife of famous rich boy is saying “you do not control me.”
If Jeb has had to assimilate to his wife in his home country no less, then what sort of influence does she have on him? We know that several first ladies have been able to influence their hubbies in private. Supposedly Hillary pushed Bill to intervene in Kosovo. So if Jeb were president, I doubt he could take any position short of the free movement of peoples between the US and Mexico. Anything harsher and he’d risk offending his wife. And we how committed he is to his wife. That’s great for an average family man. But for the leader of our nation to be that committed to a foreign national, who still seems committed to her native culture, is dangerous.
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush's English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There's no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife's English language limitations, then why hasn't anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody's time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
— Because that would be “racist”.
— Because his last name is “Bush”.
Some telling sections:
Seems to be a lady who does not like being around Anglo-Americans.
How does that work? I’m trying to imagine what some kind of “pan-Anglo” accent (not detectable as North American, English, or Australian) would sound
Yeah, that’s what I look for in a president.I want him to be a guy who really wants to be Cuban/Mexican/Latin American
What’s the phrase? Mexican mediocrity.
Mexican family values……
Certainly, at least in part. It's also possible that between living in Florida and with a husband who wanted to burnish his bona fides with the reconquistadors, she hasn't faced much pressure to learn the language. If that's the case it's also a sign of stupidity - a failure to understand that the wife of a potential US president needs to speak English well, especially if he's a Republican.
“It’s also possible that between living in Florida and with a husband who wanted to burnish his bona fides with the reconquistadors, she hasn’t faced much pressure to learn the language. ”
I live in Miami. It is indeed possible to live here and go your entire life without learning a word of English, but not while also being one of the rich-and-powerful. The Cubans that run Miami are all 2nd or 3rd generation and speak English quite well and as far as I can tell, conduct business in English. Many of their kids don’t speak Spanish at all. The Little Havana and Hialeah places (and other areas) where you can merrily proceed English-free are kind of run down and dumpy. Nobody of importance lives there or spends much time there.
My son has Cuban-descended friends named Javier, Alejandro, and Pedro and none can speak Spanish beyond a few words. Certainly not carry on a conversation.
So Columba is most likely a dunce or lazy or both. She’s also Mexican, not Cuban, so wouldn’t necessarily fit right in.
As the parent of an opiate-addicted child (now adult), I wish I could get together with you and get your counsel as to how to "get the kid back on track." We've been to NA meetings, parents' support groups, and consulted with numerous therapists and psychiatrists. For a year we were involved in a parents' support group whose leader advocated the very aggressive program she followed herself with her own son. Her son was subsequently arrested and is currently incarcerated on drug charges. At NA they teach, "You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. And you can't control it." However, if you have experience solving this problem I would really appreciate hearing how you did it.
I have no experience, but I read this article recently and it might contain some useful hints, especially with regards to whether NA could help you at all. If you think the article might contain anything sensible, you might try to search along those lines for a drug that might work for your kid.
As the parent of an opiate-addicted child (now adult), I wish I could get together with you and get your counsel as to how to "get the kid back on track." We've been to NA meetings, parents' support groups, and consulted with numerous therapists and psychiatrists. For a year we were involved in a parents' support group whose leader advocated the very aggressive program she followed herself with her own son. Her son was subsequently arrested and is currently incarcerated on drug charges. At NA they teach, "You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. And you can't control it." However, if you have experience solving this problem I would really appreciate hearing how you did it.
The article is about alcoholism and AA, but I’d think its conclusions are equally valid for NA, too.
I think there’s something unseemly about a man who marries someone so far beneath him in stature. I just do. Why did a tall, handsome, rich, connected Jeb marry a little Mexican woman? Why not an attractive WASP?
Similarly, what’s up with Scott walker marrying a woman twelve years older than him? He’s a young guy and she’s almost 60. I like Scott, but come on…
In twenty years they will roll out a puppet candidate who not only has a spouse who doesn't speak English but they themselves struggle with the language.
Thirty years ago this woman would've studied her ass off to present herself as American, as a plausible flotus. Not today. This is a left wing country now.
Think about what it will mean for the globalists to insert this alien into the whitehouse. She will speak Spanish in all of her flotus duties and the media will love it. Victory!
Leftism turns a country into a crap hole. East Germany and North Korea are examples of people with high IQ who were destroyed by left wing ideology.
East Germany was a very successful nation by many measures. It had the top economy in the Eastern Bloc, despite having been crushed during the war, and the Soviets having taken whatever remained of its assets in reparations after the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
As Der Spiegel put it back in 2009, “Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism”.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
Regarding North Korea, people only say that North Koreans have high IQ, because the South Koreans, who are clearly of the same genetic stock, are currently extremely successful. Of course, if this were 1955, we would all be talking about how dumb all Koreans are, and what a disgusting hole in the ground the entire peninsula is. The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang discusses this issue in his works.
And regarding “leftism,” from what I understand Sweden and Norway are quite leftist – and yet they seem to be doing OK. Maybe the issue here is access to the world market and arms-race exhaustion, rather than leftism…
I’m not too hot on leftism, and I’m willing to consider arguments in favor of the influence of “IQ”. But perhaps East Germany and North Korea are not the optimal examples here.
"Alles ist kaput."
Regarding Columba, perhaps the Republican strategists have given up on whitey, and have decided to turn their party into the party of quasi-traditionalist provincial whites and blue collar Hispanics. The idea being, let the Democratic Party shoot itself in the foot by trying to control its menagerie of LGBTXYZ’s, AA’s, Saudi-loving libbers, and other assorted freaks; and get the Mexican vote to secure Cali, Texas and Florida, and bravely ride into the future.
Columba doesn’t have to speak English. She’s there to make Hispanics vote for Jeb. (The way Blacks, who wouldn’t believe you if you told them that the Republican party was the party that abolished slavery, voted for Obomba.) Whoever doesn’t like that is obviously racist & shame on you.
I wonder if the Republicans really are doing something like that. What else can they do, given the demographics of their party?
I wonder if donating money to Steve would mean more of my posts would go through?
Contrast that to present day NYC where you have immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere from Latin America living side by side. Not only do these newcomers have a full array of media and government resources at their disposal in Spanish, but Spanish already serves as a common language for them to communicate with one another.
So I tend to think, without facts to back it up, that the European immigrants of old probably did have more incentive to learn English than today's immigrants, especially the Latin ones. Columba is just unusual because she actually married a prominent American and I would think she would have made an effort to adopt his culture. Instead, it looks like he made the sacrifice for her. I think Whiskey would call Jeb a beta.
I have acquaintances and in-laws whose Italian grandparents in NYC never really learned or used English beyond a very basic level. They lived in Italian neighborhoods and worked mainly with other Italian immigrants. Their children all learned English though of course.
Those things are tremendously important. How could you say it's none of our business if the first family speak Spanish at home? That kind of insanity among American conservatives is what put us in this situation to begin with. Contrast that to Europe. Europeans still understand honor. It's an insult to have foreigners ruling over you. No one on the political right in Europe would ever say it's none of their business if the PM's family spoke Arabic at home. Few on the left in Europe would say that either.
Why do American conservatives/libertarians love to take these kinds of ludicrously anti-self interest stands on the most important issues? It seems related to the pathological altruism phenomenon.
You must be really ignorant of European history and politics.
I think we’re being a bit disingenuous here though. For many here, how well she speaks English is not really relevant. Even if she spoke perfect English, dislike or opposition to her would remain, just expressed in different terms.
Yes, definitely. I donate $1,000 annually and as a result my posts go up instantly and without moderation. Give it a try.
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush's English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There's no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife's English language limitations, then why hasn't anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody's time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
Well, all I know is that tacos are going to be back on the menu when she starts reengineering the American grade school diet!
Sometimes I think Diana, with her ridding-land-mines-everywhere advocacy started the "race to the top," for First Ladies everywhere, of some sort of meaningful advocacy. The beautiful Diana's fate was very Gothic, too.
You’ve never heard of Eleanor Roosevelt? That was American influence on Diana. She did not start that sort of thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
As Der Spiegel put it back in 2009, "Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism".
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
Regarding North Korea, people only say that North Koreans have high IQ, because the South Koreans, who are clearly of the same genetic stock, are currently extremely successful. Of course, if this were 1955, we would all be talking about how dumb all Koreans are, and what a disgusting hole in the ground the entire peninsula is. The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang discusses this issue in his works.
And regarding "leftism," from what I understand Sweden and Norway are quite leftist - and yet they seem to be doing OK. Maybe the issue here is access to the world market and arms-race exhaustion, rather than leftism...
I'm not too hot on leftism, and I'm willing to consider arguments in favor of the influence of "IQ". But perhaps East Germany and North Korea are not the optimal examples here.
Well, other than Sweden being the rape capital of Europe, Asia, and pretty much anywhere other than South Africa, anyway.
Eh, the site attracts smart people and smart people tend to be naturally abstract thinkers. A lot of us have difficulty seeing the concrete trees for the abstract forest, especially when that forest is dear to our hearts. There are worse things than extremism in the defense of the abstract principle of personal privacy, even if in this case it steers him off course.
His comment was in good faith – he wasn’t playing games or preening his superior morality.
Pedro Martinez speaks English pretty well, though.
Arnold Schwarzennegger, famously not a brilliant thinker, arrived in the US speaking not a word of English. However, Arnold had ambition and will. Something Columba Bush seems to lack entirely. Arnold spent hours every day watching television to learn English. And he’s not exactly the smartest guy in any room.
If Arnold could do it …
Many years ago O’Reilly said Jeb would not run because of his wife, he didn’t elaborate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
As Der Spiegel put it back in 2009, "Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism".
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
Regarding North Korea, people only say that North Koreans have high IQ, because the South Koreans, who are clearly of the same genetic stock, are currently extremely successful. Of course, if this were 1955, we would all be talking about how dumb all Koreans are, and what a disgusting hole in the ground the entire peninsula is. The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang discusses this issue in his works.
And regarding "leftism," from what I understand Sweden and Norway are quite leftist - and yet they seem to be doing OK. Maybe the issue here is access to the world market and arms-race exhaustion, rather than leftism...
I'm not too hot on leftism, and I'm willing to consider arguments in favor of the influence of "IQ". But perhaps East Germany and North Korea are not the optimal examples here.
Bullshit. I was in East Germany in 1989 and the buildings were falling apart, the shops were largely empty, and what cars were on the road were twenty years behind their western counterparts. It was well on its way to Cuba. As my West German relatives said at the time regarding the DDR:
“Alles ist kaput.”
Mediocre Mexican IQ as Steve would say. And a stubborn little mule who will not accommodate her politician husband on learning to speak decent English. But he is such a fruitcake cave-in he probably has not pressured her much. Another poster called Jeb a fruitcake and its very accurate.
Is there anyone here who thinks we are going to see Columba Bush out there in the hustings speaking comprehensible English? Hopefully Jebs donations dry up as donors realize the high fruitcake factor here.
Columba doesn't have to speak English. She's there to make Hispanics vote for Jeb. (The way Blacks, who wouldn't believe you if you told them that the Republican party was the party that abolished slavery, voted for Obomba.) Whoever doesn't like that is obviously racist & shame on you.
I wonder if the Republicans really are doing something like that. What else can they do, given the demographics of their party?
This may seem counterintutive, but if they grow some balls they could recapture the white female vote and maybe even a solid chunk of the more macho minorities.
I live in Miami. It is indeed possible to live here and go your entire life without learning a word of English, but not while also being one of the rich-and-powerful. The Cubans that run Miami are all 2nd or 3rd generation and speak English quite well and as far as I can tell, conduct business in English. Many of their kids don't speak Spanish at all. The Little Havana and Hialeah places (and other areas) where you can merrily proceed English-free are kind of run down and dumpy. Nobody of importance lives there or spends much time there.
My son has Cuban-descended friends named Javier, Alejandro, and Pedro and none can speak Spanish beyond a few words. Certainly not carry on a conversation.
So Columba is most likely a dunce or lazy or both. She's also Mexican, not Cuban, so wouldn't necessarily fit right in.
The well bred, well to do Cubans in Florida have European-Spanish racial pride. That they are all puro Spanish who happened to have been transplanted to Cuba and are now prospering in Florida. Other Hispanics such as Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans (Columba) are mixed race until proven otherwise. Cuba is lots blacker and browner than it was 40 years ago as the “Spanish” Cubans have escaped best they could.
Is there anyone here who thinks we are going to see Columba Bush out there in the hustings speaking comprehensible English? Hopefully Jebs donations dry up as donors realize the high fruitcake factor here.
“Mediocre Mexican IQ as Steve would say. And a stubborn little mule who will not accommodate her politician husband on learning to speak decent English. But he is such a fruitcake cave-in he probably has not pressured her much. Another poster called Jeb a fruitcake and its very accurate.
Is there anyone here who thinks we are going to see Columba Bush out there in the hustings speaking comprehensible English? Hopefully Jebs donations dry up as donors realize the high fruitcake factor here.”
Jeb Bush is extremely beta for a Republican who was born in a deep red state like Texas. White male Texas Republicans are usually stereotyped as alpha male Rednecks. I would expect that type of beta behavior more from SWPL blue state born and raised Republican male politicians.
If he had,their two daughters,assuming that’s what they had,would be very lite skinned and white looking;he’ll of an asset.
> She’s kind of the embodiment of Mexican mediocrity
This. Her Spanish is a Mexican (lower/lowerish) middle class sociolect, but she’s trying her best. I wonder though why she didn’t get some months of total immersion yet and a speech trainer, Eliza-Doolittle-wise. Is her husband not that bright either? …therefore choosing her in the first place? Not yet a Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew, but trying his, uhm, best to marshall us the way that we are going? Royal we because the Turkish functionaries over here are often eerily unbright, too, having inherent HR problems–the bright ones are home in Turkey doing well for themselves in the business world.
There’s the idea that a politician should be bright, but not too bright, so not to alienate the electorate. Maybe Jeb wants his future voters to feel at ease.
If Arnold could do it ...
“Arnold Schwarzennegger, famously not a brilliant thinker, arrived in the US speaking not a word of English. However, Arnold had ambition and will. Something Columba Bush seems to lack entirely. Arnold spent hours every day watching television to learn English. And he’s not exactly the smartest guy in any room.
If Arnold could do it …”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian and Austrians are basically of the same ethnic stock as Germans. So it is not really surprising that an immigrant with Germanic genes like Arnold assimilated quite well into mainstream American society while a Viva La Raza Chicana like Columba Bush did not.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/arnold-schwarzenegger-love-child-chip-old-block-article-1.1473952
Right. From her Twitter: “Amanda Bush followed KourtneyKardash, Kim Kardashian West, Kourtney Kardashian and 45 others.” Very suited.
Jeb Bush will go down in history as the first Bush politician that will fail to become president of The United States. Jeb is the pathetic loser of the Bush family dynasty. Every successful powerful family has at least one family member who does not live up to the extremely high expectations of the family name.
Maybe the GOP and Jeb’s backers have determined that the wife’ language limitations aren’t a big deal in 2015 because no one in the press will bring it up, lest they be labeled a racist. The MSM is so committed to multiculturalism and anything contra traditional America that it might be an advantage. The only folks who might point out her lack of assimilation are people like Steve and Pat Buchanan, who don’t matter to the MSM. The entire MSM is all aboard the open borders express, and pointing out Columba’s lack of assimilation would only serve to make assimilation an issue, and thus immigration an issue. And we can’t have that.
"Alles ist kaput."
“I was in East Germany in 1989 and the buildings were falling apart, the shops were largely empty”
Americans tell such stories to each other in order to make themselves feel better. They have no connection to reality. It’s what they would have wanted to be true.
The fall of the Berlin Wall caused the biggest peace-time decline in living standards in the history of the world. I’m talking about all of Eastern Europe and the former USSR, not just East Germany. There’s massive nostalgia for the old times.
One thing about Marxists, you don't have much of a reputation for truth. I'm not too worried about people's abilities to tell who is lying here.
Communism brought a massive historical reversal as we were used to seeing Finland as the slum of Europe and Hungary especially was used as very welcome proof that it is possible to be Finno-Ugric and successful. All these countries that we spent all of history envying had been turned into decrepit ghettos. Without communism we'd now have a northern belt of wealth all the way from Germany to China and the whole world would be benefiting from 2 billion additional people in developed European and Asian societies. It really was the worst mistake in the history of the world.
By the way, your statement is categorically false. A number of Eastern European economies is much better off today than ever before in history. But even if your statement of the post-Berlin Wall decline were true ("worse than before"), logically that still presents the possibility that the past economic conditions in the region were quite bad.
Some of the less developed Eastern European economies suffered in the immediate Berlin Wall period, because the much needed Soviet subsidies that had propped up these regimes vanished. Meanwhile the human products of the Soviet system, its gangsters, intelligence officers, various apparatchiks, etc. stole massive amounts of Russia's national wealth and further impoverished its citizens.
Corrupt regimes with bankrupt ideologies are all the same. All the power and resources are directed to the center where massive showcase infrastructure is built while the people in the periphery eke out poverty-stricken existence. That was the case in the Soviet Union, it was the case in Saddam's Iraq, and that's the case in North Korea (where residents of Pyongyang live extremely well compared to those who starve in the countryside).
And, yes, it is a bad sign indeed that what was once our "merely" administrative capital of Washington, D.C. has become a "proper capital" region that is sucking in massive amount resources from the periphery.People remember the good, but forget the terrible. Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of 1984, the pervasive surveillance state, and the gulags. Not even the aging Bolshevik stalwarts. They fantasize that, somehow, they can have the "security" of the all-providing, all-powerful state minus all "The Lives of Others" horrors (which were actually quite civilized in comparison to what happened in the remote gulags).
Some noteworthy but obvious findings: "Recent immigrants—especially Mexican-Americans—are acquiring English-language skills more slowly than their predecessors." And: "As the immigrant population grows, the English skills of newly arrived immigrants tend to decline."
Now for the regions. In terms of overall assimilation rate (composite index): those from Canada, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cuba assimilate at high rates while those from China, India, El Salvador, and Mexico do so at very low rates (those from Mexico are the lowest among the major groups).
Culturally, immigrants from Canada assimilate the best by far (100 index). Filipinos, Cubans, and Koreans assimilate very well culturally (all over 60) while Indians do so at the lowest rate (under 4o). Chinese and Mexicans have the next lowest rates.
Economically, most groups assimilate well (near 100), Dominicans and Chinese are the next tier (near and above 80) while Mexicans and Salvadorans are the lowest (60-70 range).
In civic assimilation, Vietnamese, Filipinos, South Koreans, and Cubans lead the pack (50 and above) while Mexicans and Salvadorans lag (20-30 range).
Now, my added comment. Judging from the assimilation rates, there seems to be consistent overlap between assimilation success, particularly *cultural and civic* assimilation, and the tendency to vote Republican/conservative. Conversely, success at economic assimilation tells us little about political affiliation (Cubans and South Koreans vote heavily for the GOP; Indians vote heavily for Democrats). One curious factoid is that Canadian migrants assimilate nearly perfectly in cultural and economic terms, but only show mediocre civic engagement.
Funny that this study found Cubans to assimilate very well culturally. It is precisely because Miami is so Latino culturally that Columba prefers it even to Texas.
While the large part (probably the majority) of Miamians of Cuban extraction are bilingual in English and in Spanish, a fair few of them are not, and in the second and definitely the third generation are often more comfortable in English. Moreover, Dade County's hardcore Latino districts like Hialeah and Little Havana nowadays contain rather few Cubans. These latter seem to prefer Kendall, Pinecrest and Coral Gables, when that is they are not mixing with the glitzy multiethnic weirdos of Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and increasingly Brickell. A fair few have even left for the "white" refuges up in Broward.
Also, Mexicans are not a common sight in Dade County with the exception of the migrants related to the agricultural economy of Homestead, which is way the heck to the southwest of (and a nightmarish drive on the South Dixie Highway from) the rest of the urbanized area. And Mexicans are not well-viewed in Miami, and it is other Hispanics who dislike them the most.
The Republican got the married white women vote well covered. Single white moms on the other hand…
They were socially conservative in terms of things such as family life or homosexuality but were militantly atheist, opposed to private property, pro- big government and pro-“union” to an extent that is unfathomable in the West (streetcar drivers earning more than doctors, etc.), and so on.
If Arnold could do it ...
She was home raising the kids (with nannies, presumably) and not a public figure.
What I want to know is: How bad is Columba Bush's English anyway? I have read many vague comments but have never seen a detailed description. Can she handle unscripted talks and questions from a audience? Being First Lady has become a fulltime job that requires a high level of fluency in English. There's no room for constant pauses, stumbles and informal translating by others.
If Republican Party leaders and journalists and others in the know realized years ago that Jeb Bush would never be elected president due to his wife's English language limitations, then why hasn't anybody ever said so? Why has he been allowed to waste everybody's time? Why has he wasted his own time? It all seems very strange to me.
This is a ridiculous manifestation of the “Oprah-ization” of American society and it would be very nice if Columba breaks this tradition.
I have mixed feelings about how the spouses have been dragged in hook, line and sinker.
But it doesn't start at the White House. It starts on the campaign trail. The spouses are used by the campaigns as surrogates for the candidates and it seems the media and public mostly accept them in that role.
The only one I can think of who escaped was Howard Dean's wife who was a doctor who insisted on keeping to her medical practice and out of politics -- as I believe she did throughout his political career. How many other "excuses" would be acceptable?
And this is why the situation is troubling. Bush looks like a weak man who with a history of jeopardizing his political life by not insisting his wife learn the language of the nation he hopes to rule. Is he only weak with respect to his wife (there are such people)? Or is it a global trait?
I believe blacks would consider him a traitor of he had a white wife. Black women in particular don’t care for that arrangement. Without sky high black turnout, he couldn’t win.
I was at school for a year at the University of Manchester in the UK and we had a five week spring break, so I got a Eurail pass and traveled around, spending a week with my grandparents’ cousins in Kassel, BDR. The revolutions were going on in Eastern Europe so I headed that way to check them out. Particularly enjoyed the one in Hungary. I returned there last year with my wife (she spent two years at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemét in 2006-2008) and the difference from 89-90 is night and day.
One thing about Marxists, you don’t have much of a reputation for truth. I’m not too worried about people’s abilities to tell who is lying here.
I didn’t see any living standards at all in the 1980s USSR. As a kid those trips were massively shocking – I had seen poverty on TV but it was all the “let’s do something for Africa” programming. I could not have imagined pale Europeans living in such squalor and misery. The improvement in the places that I’ve repeatedly visited (Baltics and St Petersburg) has been obvious and massive, even if there was an initial crisis (the fall of the USSR was a massive economic crisis for us as well).
Communism brought a massive historical reversal as we were used to seeing Finland as the slum of Europe and Hungary especially was used as very welcome proof that it is possible to be Finno-Ugric and successful. All these countries that we spent all of history envying had been turned into decrepit ghettos. Without communism we’d now have a northern belt of wealth all the way from Germany to China and the whole world would be benefiting from 2 billion additional people in developed European and Asian societies. It really was the worst mistake in the history of the world.
Incidentally, Schwarzenegger fathered a son with his Hispanic maid who looked like Columba:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/arnold-schwarzenegger-love-child-chip-old-block-article-1.1473952
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/bill-o-reilly-assaulted-wife-front-child-report-article-1.2226846
The article mentions that when all of the Bush family get together for dinner, Columba does not say much at the table. Yeah because she speaks very little English. She struggles to have a conversation with Bush family members who are not fluent in Spanish. Her English is so bad that she can not even communicate much with her WASP in laws.
if Jeb Bush had married an immigrant woman from Russia or Ukraine for example, who had been living in the U.S since the 1970s and refused to fully learn English and assimilate into mainstream American society, I bet the MSM would have made a huge deal about it. They would have said hey you racist White Republicans, refusal to assimilate is not limited to just Brown people from south of the border. There are plenty of White immigrants refusing to assimilate.
110 – Dr Preobrazhensky
I have mixed feelings about how the spouses have been dragged in hook, line and sinker.
But it doesn’t start at the White House. It starts on the campaign trail. The spouses are used by the campaigns as surrogates for the candidates and it seems the media and public mostly accept them in that role.
The only one I can think of who escaped was Howard Dean’s wife who was a doctor who insisted on keeping to her medical practice and out of politics — as I believe she did throughout his political career. How many other “excuses” would be acceptable?
to be honest, I thought about Eleanor first. However, I am still not sure what demographic the ISteve people are. Anyone younger than me (baby boomer) may not know the words of wisdom of ER.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/arnold-schwarzenegger-love-child-chip-old-block-article-1.1473952
“Incidentally, Schwarzenegger fathered a son with his Hispanic maid who looked like Columba:”
Arnold Schwarzenegger has sex with Hispanic women from the underclass, but he does not marry any of them like Jeb Bush did. Arnold is too high status in society to have a serious relationship with a maid, for him they are only good for one night stands and nothing else.
you are both blind men trying to find the lamp switch…..sheeesh, don’t drive my girlfriend Oprah, into this scheisse!
I have mixed feelings about how the spouses have been dragged in hook, line and sinker.
But it doesn't start at the White House. It starts on the campaign trail. The spouses are used by the campaigns as surrogates for the candidates and it seems the media and public mostly accept them in that role.
The only one I can think of who escaped was Howard Dean's wife who was a doctor who insisted on keeping to her medical practice and out of politics -- as I believe she did throughout his political career. How many other "excuses" would be acceptable?
regrettably, none.
Like bold men. That’s how they got to be single moms in the first place.
Why? Well at least if she wins, we will have the first woman president and fill the diversity quota. Also any failures on immigration, economy, etc. will be mostly placed on her and the Democrats regardless of what the media spins around. The gay marriage battle is all but over so the liberals need something else to distract the majority (transgenders aren't likable enough).
I could be going the wrong way with this though...
Duh – your last sentence.
sheesh guys, if you read your post to your mother or father, or your best friend in HS, would they say it was legit? …good to go on tape?…a sign of your under-appreciated amazingess?
As the parent of an opiate-addicted child (now adult), I wish I could get together with you and get your counsel as to how to "get the kid back on track." We've been to NA meetings, parents' support groups, and consulted with numerous therapists and psychiatrists. For a year we were involved in a parents' support group whose leader advocated the very aggressive program she followed herself with her own son. Her son was subsequently arrested and is currently incarcerated on drug charges. At NA they teach, "You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. And you can't control it." However, if you have experience solving this problem I would really appreciate hearing how you did it.
this is so personal for you and me. Before I think of a way to even speak of any ‘counsel,’ I have to say something that I have known for generations, not just in my large extended family, but the many American families I have loved: each addict is unique. AA, NA, or any other mainstream program does NOT always work for every person/family with addiction problems. Also, it is now established that adolescents are more influenced by their peers than by immediate family life. I know a great shrink who works with adolescent males or any young men…but, I don’t know how to convey any messages to you on this public post. I would like to tell you more about my own success with emotional distress with my children, but I need discretion for that.
Having said that, it seems to me that with children the peer pressure seems to go only downward. Bad kids influence good kids to behave badly easily enough, but it appears difficult for good kids to influence bad kids to behave well.
This might sound harsh, but as with black-white relations, some degree of segregation and control seem to work better for most than other solutions. That is, there is always a subset of kids who thrive in relative freedom and never falter to temptations while there is another subset that requires to be enveloped in a strict environment.
Some people (and children) just aren't suited for autonomous existence.
Still believe in Potemkin Villages, eh?
Ever see “Goodbye, Lenin”? The sister character (former East German youth), looking at her old clothes: “I can’t believe we wore this crap.”
By the way, your statement is categorically false. A number of Eastern European economies is much better off today than ever before in history. But even if your statement of the post-Berlin Wall decline were true (“worse than before”), logically that still presents the possibility that the past economic conditions in the region were quite bad.
Some of the less developed Eastern European economies suffered in the immediate Berlin Wall period, because the much needed Soviet subsidies that had propped up these regimes vanished. Meanwhile the human products of the Soviet system, its gangsters, intelligence officers, various apparatchiks, etc. stole massive amounts of Russia’s national wealth and further impoverished its citizens.
Corrupt regimes with bankrupt ideologies are all the same. All the power and resources are directed to the center where massive showcase infrastructure is built while the people in the periphery eke out poverty-stricken existence. That was the case in the Soviet Union, it was the case in Saddam’s Iraq, and that’s the case in North Korea (where residents of Pyongyang live extremely well compared to those who starve in the countryside).
And, yes, it is a bad sign indeed that what was once our “merely” administrative capital of Washington, D.C. has become a “proper capital” region that is sucking in massive amount resources from the periphery.
People remember the good, but forget the terrible. Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of 1984, the pervasive surveillance state, and the gulags. Not even the aging Bolshevik stalwarts. They fantasize that, somehow, they can have the “security” of the all-providing, all-powerful state minus all “The Lives of Others” horrors (which were actually quite civilized in comparison to what happened in the remote gulags).
Similarly, what's up with Scott walker marrying a woman twelve years older than him? He's a young guy and she's almost 60. I like Scott, but come on...
did you skip reading Shakespeare when young somehow?
“We are judged by the company we keep,” my parents taught me. They went to extraordinary lengths to keep me in the company of good peers, and for that I will be forever grateful to them, and have repaid them by doing the same for my children.
Having said that, it seems to me that with children the peer pressure seems to go only downward. Bad kids influence good kids to behave badly easily enough, but it appears difficult for good kids to influence bad kids to behave well.
This might sound harsh, but as with black-white relations, some degree of segregation and control seem to work better for most than other solutions. That is, there is always a subset of kids who thrive in relative freedom and never falter to temptations while there is another subset that requires to be enveloped in a strict environment.
Some people (and children) just aren’t suited for autonomous existence.
So, you are right, steering your kids away/cutting ties from bad influences is one of the most important things you must do as a parent when they are teenagers. My other son was a "good influence," for a friend who needed to be around ambitious and confident peers - the only time it seems to have worked...the good influence stuff. And, my youngest is a saint. I am very lucky.
I am happy to say that all of my sons and this friend have turned out well, have received excellent scholarships and are moving on with their lives. A failure to understand the dynamics or reality of the friendship groups of your teen is what is missing in many families. Parents are way too stressed-out all the time and don't keep that line of communication open.
As a teen, my brother and I loved going out to cheap surf & turf restaurants by the water, knowing it was a ploy for my parents to dig up any difficulties or offer guidance with some expected wacky lecture about "destiny," and how we were immigrants and had to survive on our wits and talents.
Communism brought a massive historical reversal as we were used to seeing Finland as the slum of Europe and Hungary especially was used as very welcome proof that it is possible to be Finno-Ugric and successful. All these countries that we spent all of history envying had been turned into decrepit ghettos. Without communism we'd now have a northern belt of wealth all the way from Germany to China and the whole world would be benefiting from 2 billion additional people in developed European and Asian societies. It really was the worst mistake in the history of the world.
Nonsense. The average Finn had a much higher living standard than the average Hungarian in 1939. Fewer restaurants, nightclubs and millionaires in Helsinki than in Budapest, but that’s not the point.
That's why communism and its promise of wiping out ethnic privileges was at first extremely popular among Finns. If the Reds had won, ethnic Finns would have gotten access to education and middle class careers much earlier and it wasn't exactly obvious a century ago that communist economic theories were so bad that spending the next few generations slowly struggling to gain ground would be a better choice.
“Is it possible in turn that the reason Columba Bush isn’t fluent in English after several decades is because perhaps she is not very bright?”
Like her husband….her brother-in-law and father-in-law?
Communism brought a massive historical reversal as we were used to seeing Finland as the slum of Europe and Hungary especially was used as very welcome proof that it is possible to be Finno-Ugric and successful. All these countries that we spent all of history envying had been turned into decrepit ghettos. Without communism we'd now have a northern belt of wealth all the way from Germany to China and the whole world would be benefiting from 2 billion additional people in developed European and Asian societies. It really was the worst mistake in the history of the world.
You said it. I visited Leningrad and Moscow as a callow soft-left-leaning youth in the late 80s, and had a come-to-Hayek conversion experience in the GUM department store right on Red Square. I was watching the glorious proletariat lining up three times over to buy each pathetic, shoddy product, and thinking, ‘This store is a vile insult to the people who come here knowing it’s the best they can do in the entire USSR.’
I became a conservative on the spot.
He dumped Brigitte Nielsen on Stallone.
True, Finland was twice as rich as Hungary prior to WWII, but prior to WWI Hungary probably was richer. Prior to 1918 Budapest was the capital of an Empire, and the ethnic Hungarian nobility was lording it over Romanian, Croatian and Slovak peasants, while Helsingfors was controlled by the Russian Tsars and the ruling elite was Swedish speaking, often of German ancestry. That may have added to Finnish perceptions that Hungarians were the more successful Finno-Ugric group.
What nonsense. I am sitting in a provincial city in Poland right now, enjoying a fresh croissant and coffee I bought at the gas station from a smiling healthy looking young woman. All around people are out mountain biking, talking about their ski vacations in Austria, checking their smart phones, etc. Is there still a lot of poverty and unemployment? Yes, but there was a lot more poverty before. I do hear nostalgia from older people for the social aspect of Communism – everyone was in it together, there was more time for family and friends, there was less status seeking, that sort of thing, but no one has ever ever claimed that material living standards were anything but horrible in Poland pre 1989. In Romania it was even worse. You can still see the effects of malnourishment on people who were children in the 1980s.
I really can’t agree on that one. He was governor of Florida which isn’t chopped liver. How many people become governors in their lifetime? He’s not a loser just because he doesn’t become king of the world. Give him credit and hope he just goes away.
You mean the average Swede or German living in Finland had a much higher standard than the average Hungarian and some Swedes and Germans in Finland were extremely wealthy. Actual Finns are a totally different story.
That’s why communism and its promise of wiping out ethnic privileges was at first extremely popular among Finns. If the Reds had won, ethnic Finns would have gotten access to education and middle class careers much earlier and it wasn’t exactly obvious a century ago that communist economic theories were so bad that spending the next few generations slowly struggling to gain ground would be a better choice.
Ahh, Eleanor Roosevelt: the great wise woman who replaced the Westphaelian doctrine with the busybody obsession at the forefront international diplomacy, after her husband had firmly planted it in U.S. domestic politics.
Some noteworthy but obvious findings: "Recent immigrants—especially Mexican-Americans—are acquiring English-language skills more slowly than their predecessors." And: "As the immigrant population grows, the English skills of newly arrived immigrants tend to decline."
Now for the regions. In terms of overall assimilation rate (composite index): those from Canada, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cuba assimilate at high rates while those from China, India, El Salvador, and Mexico do so at very low rates (those from Mexico are the lowest among the major groups).
Culturally, immigrants from Canada assimilate the best by far (100 index). Filipinos, Cubans, and Koreans assimilate very well culturally (all over 60) while Indians do so at the lowest rate (under 4o). Chinese and Mexicans have the next lowest rates.
Economically, most groups assimilate well (near 100), Dominicans and Chinese are the next tier (near and above 80) while Mexicans and Salvadorans are the lowest (60-70 range).
In civic assimilation, Vietnamese, Filipinos, South Koreans, and Cubans lead the pack (50 and above) while Mexicans and Salvadorans lag (20-30 range).
Now, my added comment. Judging from the assimilation rates, there seems to be consistent overlap between assimilation success, particularly *cultural and civic* assimilation, and the tendency to vote Republican/conservative. Conversely, success at economic assimilation tells us little about political affiliation (Cubans and South Koreans vote heavily for the GOP; Indians vote heavily for Democrats). One curious factoid is that Canadian migrants assimilate nearly perfectly in cultural and economic terms, but only show mediocre civic engagement.
Canadians, Filipinos and Vietnamese vote Republican?
Filipinos and Vietnamese, along with Korean, immigrants have been the three most GOP-leaning major Asian immigrant ethnics in the United States.
I think the phrase is “18-year stands.”
They need to recruit macho, good looking men, former college athletes especially. Like Marco Rubio and Scott Brown. Those guys generally lean conservative anyway. And they don’t need to be geniuses, the geniuses can be behind the scenes. They just need to support cops over rioters, Christians over gays, and America over Islam.
They say the Fino-Ugric peoples reached a fork in the road, with two signs. To the left, a beautiful plain with some gentle hills, good weather, good position, fertile land etc etc. To the right, freezing weather, proximity to callous empire, long nights and depression. One group went right and became Finns (and some Estonians). The ones who could read went left. This joke was told to me by a Hungarian.
Try writing better posts. Although it can be annoying to wait, I don’t think I’ve had any actually rejected yet.
Having said that, it seems to me that with children the peer pressure seems to go only downward. Bad kids influence good kids to behave badly easily enough, but it appears difficult for good kids to influence bad kids to behave well.
This might sound harsh, but as with black-white relations, some degree of segregation and control seem to work better for most than other solutions. That is, there is always a subset of kids who thrive in relative freedom and never falter to temptations while there is another subset that requires to be enveloped in a strict environment.
Some people (and children) just aren't suited for autonomous existence.
Yes. It was difficult for my son when at 13 he had to slowly withdraw from his closest friend/friends as they were spiraling out of control – dysfunctional families were to blame. But, he befriended (in the dreaded, middle school years) a mid-western transplant who was football crazy. I like to say, football saved him from his first friends who have all been busted, juvie, drugs, with no plans.
So, you are right, steering your kids away/cutting ties from bad influences is one of the most important things you must do as a parent when they are teenagers. My other son was a “good influence,” for a friend who needed to be around ambitious and confident peers – the only time it seems to have worked…the good influence stuff. And, my youngest is a saint. I am very lucky.
I am happy to say that all of my sons and this friend have turned out well, have received excellent scholarships and are moving on with their lives. A failure to understand the dynamics or reality of the friendship groups of your teen is what is missing in many families. Parents are way too stressed-out all the time and don’t keep that line of communication open.
As a teen, my brother and I loved going out to cheap surf & turf restaurants by the water, knowing it was a ploy for my parents to dig up any difficulties or offer guidance with some expected wacky lecture about “destiny,” and how we were immigrants and had to survive on our wits and talents.
My father, in particular, taught me that there was no finer accolade for a dead man than "He loved God, his country, and his family."
Also, Arnold was very ambitious for success outside entertainment, As an immigrant with a funny accent and from a less serious career as a semi-comic action star, marrying a higher class women would help him be more presentable in something like politics. Jeb on the other hand is from a well off and well connected political family, and thus could afford to rely less on his marriage while still harboring political ambitions. Although as it turns out, he is now of course using his marriage for his political ambitions.
I lived in Miami for over four years and still have close contacts there, and while you may be partially correct I think a qualifier is needed.
While the large part (probably the majority) of Miamians of Cuban extraction are bilingual in English and in Spanish, a fair few of them are not, and in the second and definitely the third generation are often more comfortable in English. Moreover, Dade County’s hardcore Latino districts like Hialeah and Little Havana nowadays contain rather few Cubans. These latter seem to prefer Kendall, Pinecrest and Coral Gables, when that is they are not mixing with the glitzy multiethnic weirdos of Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and increasingly Brickell. A fair few have even left for the “white” refuges up in Broward.
Also, Mexicans are not a common sight in Dade County with the exception of the migrants related to the agricultural economy of Homestead, which is way the heck to the southwest of (and a nightmarish drive on the South Dixie Highway from) the rest of the urbanized area. And Mexicans are not well-viewed in Miami, and it is other Hispanics who dislike them the most.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-election-2014-takeaways-youth-vote-surged-cubans-continue-shift-to-democratic-party-6556830
“I really can’t agree on that one. He was governor of Florida which isn’t chopped liver. How many people become governors in their lifetime? He’s not a loser just because he doesn’t become king of the world. Give him credit and hope he just goes away.”
He is a loser by Bush standards. His father and brother reached political heights that he himself never will.
GW had the presidency, but aside from that I don't know if he's necessarily less of a loser than Jeb. He had that alcohol problem and his oil company Arbusto went bust.
Neil has him beat there.
Finns would say two callous empires.
My deepest, darkest fear is that once multiculturalism has rolled over most of Swedish culture, enough of the old will still remain that it will give (re)birth to an aggressive zealot country with several times our population, obsessed with bringing the same conversion to all disbelievers that surround it.
If it happened with Luther, it can happen with Muhammed.
There’s Neil Bush, who was involved in the savings and loan crisis and other sleazy business activities. I think he’s generally regarded as the loser of the family.
GW had the presidency, but aside from that I don’t know if he’s necessarily less of a loser than Jeb. He had that alcohol problem and his oil company Arbusto went bust.
While the large part (probably the majority) of Miamians of Cuban extraction are bilingual in English and in Spanish, a fair few of them are not, and in the second and definitely the third generation are often more comfortable in English. Moreover, Dade County's hardcore Latino districts like Hialeah and Little Havana nowadays contain rather few Cubans. These latter seem to prefer Kendall, Pinecrest and Coral Gables, when that is they are not mixing with the glitzy multiethnic weirdos of Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and increasingly Brickell. A fair few have even left for the "white" refuges up in Broward.
Also, Mexicans are not a common sight in Dade County with the exception of the migrants related to the agricultural economy of Homestead, which is way the heck to the southwest of (and a nightmarish drive on the South Dixie Highway from) the rest of the urbanized area. And Mexicans are not well-viewed in Miami, and it is other Hispanics who dislike them the most.
It’s great that you bring that up since many a clueless gringos completely misunderstand this phenomena. The hostility from Cubans and various other Hispanics towards Mexicans derives from the simple fact that Mexico is by far and away the largest spanish speaking country in Latin America with the largest economy and thus it has had the greatest influence both in the region and globally. Furthermore, due to Mexico’s location next to the US and the history of the Southwest, Mexican culture and folklore has always been significant to the US and this has best been expressed through Hollywood and food. Simply put, Cubans and other Hispanics resent the overwhelming cultural and economic capital (due to sheer numbers) that the Mexican community possesses and which so dwarfs those of any other Hispanic group that indeed many people still refer to anyone Hispanic as a “Mexican”. Obviously then, being quite resentful, they delight in what is really just harmless trash talk about the most impoverished and vulnerable of Mexicans. However, this does not in any way represent a fundamental fault line between Mexicans and non-Mexican Hispanics but rather is something quite superficial and the proof is in the pudding. For example, being that the Cuban community is protected from any potential backlash from Mexicans given the different geographic location of both groups, why isn’t then the Cuban community leading the charge against immigration from Mexico? Why aren’t they eager to dissolve themselves of Hispanic culture and the Hispanic label which Americans so identify with Mexicans and always will? And let me also point out that younger Cubans are becoming more liberal and they don’t appear to be very weary of Mexicans or Mexican immigration.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-election-2014-takeaways-youth-vote-surged-cubans-continue-shift-to-democratic-party-6556830
A vast majority of Cuban immigrants in the United States is made up of "white" Hispanics. That is not the case with the Mexican immigrants who tend to be much more mixed. Cubans also display a high degree of assimilation while Mexicans do not. Likewise, Cuban immigrants are generally much better educated and affluent than the Mexican ones. Much of "hostility" as such between Cubans and Mexicans is derived from this mix of ethnic, economic/class and cultural reasons.
In general, Mexicans are far more envious of Cubans than the other way around.
My wife is Lithuanian. She has lived in the USA and been married to me for more than 20 years, but she speaks English with many mistakes and she understands English speech unreliably. She sure would not want to be interviewed in English for television broadcasts.
My wife’s English never will get much better. She is not motivated to devote the serious effort necessary to become significantly more competent. She and I speak a Russian-English mish-mash with each other. She has lots of Lithuanian relatives and friends with whom she can express herself fully in Lithuanian or Russian. (I have learned to read some Lithuanian, but I cannot speak it.)
I suppose that Columba Bush likewise is stuck on a plateau of English-language incompetency, for essentially the same reasons as my wife.
Probably better than William the Conqueror spoke Anglo-Saxon. And almost definitely better than George Elector of Hanover because he didn’t speak (or understand) any.
Canadian immigrants, despite their perfect economic and cultural assimilation, display mediocre civic assimilation rate.
Filipinos and Vietnamese, along with Korean, immigrants have been the three most GOP-leaning major Asian immigrant ethnics in the United States.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-election-2014-takeaways-youth-vote-surged-cubans-continue-shift-to-democratic-party-6556830
As is typical from you, this is utter nonsense.
A vast majority of Cuban immigrants in the United States is made up of “white” Hispanics. That is not the case with the Mexican immigrants who tend to be much more mixed. Cubans also display a high degree of assimilation while Mexicans do not. Likewise, Cuban immigrants are generally much better educated and affluent than the Mexican ones. Much of “hostility” as such between Cubans and Mexicans is derived from this mix of ethnic, economic/class and cultural reasons.
In general, Mexicans are far more envious of Cubans than the other way around.
So, you are right, steering your kids away/cutting ties from bad influences is one of the most important things you must do as a parent when they are teenagers. My other son was a "good influence," for a friend who needed to be around ambitious and confident peers - the only time it seems to have worked...the good influence stuff. And, my youngest is a saint. I am very lucky.
I am happy to say that all of my sons and this friend have turned out well, have received excellent scholarships and are moving on with their lives. A failure to understand the dynamics or reality of the friendship groups of your teen is what is missing in many families. Parents are way too stressed-out all the time and don't keep that line of communication open.
As a teen, my brother and I loved going out to cheap surf & turf restaurants by the water, knowing it was a ploy for my parents to dig up any difficulties or offer guidance with some expected wacky lecture about "destiny," and how we were immigrants and had to survive on our wits and talents.
Oh, memories. My parents had that talk with me more than once… “If you fall, there is no one to pick you back up here. You have to raise yourself up again. There is no safety net here for you.” Sink or swim. I also had the “Be a patriot” talk more times than I remember – “Love your new country. Sacrifice for it. Be more American than Americans. You earn your acceptance here with blood and sweat.”
My father, in particular, taught me that there was no finer accolade for a dead man than “He loved God, his country, and his family.”
A vast majority of Cuban immigrants in the United States is made up of "white" Hispanics. That is not the case with the Mexican immigrants who tend to be much more mixed. Cubans also display a high degree of assimilation while Mexicans do not. Likewise, Cuban immigrants are generally much better educated and affluent than the Mexican ones. Much of "hostility" as such between Cubans and Mexicans is derived from this mix of ethnic, economic/class and cultural reasons.
In general, Mexicans are far more envious of Cubans than the other way around.
HAHAHA! U mad bro?
You sir are an ignorant buffoon. Nico very clearly stated that there are several different kinds of Hispanics in Miami now, and that all of these Hispanic groups “disliked” Mexicans. That is Cubans, Colombians, Hondurans , Salvadorans etc. each with a different racial and economic profile but with the same complaints about Mexicans. Now a prejudiced ignoramus like you might run with that and say “See, Mexicans are so awful that even other Hispanics hate them!” But (as I explained already and am having to do so again given that you’re foreigner who has reading comprehension problems in the English language) this would be a completely mistaken reading of the situation. Other Hispanics simply resent the fact that Americans and the world at large seem to only know or care about Mexicans when it comes to Lat Am. They feel invisible, passed over and disrespected because of this fact! And that is why they bitch about Mexicans, because most of the world assumes Mexico = all of Latin America. This petty jealousy does not translate into any substantial hatred or animosity. Again, if your account of the situation were true, why aren’t Cubans (a mostly white, middle class and conservative group ) staunch immigration restrictionists? Why are younger Cuban -Americans becoming more like Mexican-Americans in their views? Do you honestly believe that a Korean like yourself would be better received by Cubans than a Mexican would be? You’d have more Cuban friends and get more Cuban chicks? HAHAHA! You silly old Korean…..
By the way, like the other dim-witted NAM commenter here, you seem to assume that I am ethnically Korean, but I never stated whence I hail ("East Asia" and "not mainland Chinese" are all I mentioned). Don't assume I am Korean just because I valorize Korean immigrants. I give them their due because they are the most Christian among East Asian immigrants, assimilate well (in small numbers anyway), intermarry at high rates, serve in relatively high numbers as officers in the armed forces, and generally vote Republican. If we have to have immigrants, we could do worse than Koreans. A lot worse (and we do... with Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese, all of who display very low rates of cultural and civic assimilation, with Mexicans displaying the lowest rate of economic assimilation among the major immigrant groups as well).
I am sorry that the low assimilation rates, the poor English ability, and the educational and economic underperformance of Mexican immigrants hurt your pride, but unfortunately facts are what they are. I wish that weren't the case - I really do, because that'd have been better for the country, but that wishful thinking doesn't change the reality.
Everywhere outside the deep South (where there is a high concentration of blacks), the residential self-segregation is rather simple: whites and Asians live intermingled in the expensive parts of town, and Hispanics (mostly Mexicans and Central Americans) live on the other side of the tracks and provide the manual labor for the former.
But look at the bright side for you. You benefit enormously from affirmative action, and you don't have to do all that much to exceed expectations.
A vast majority of Cuban immigrants in the United States is made up of "white" Hispanics. That is not the case with the Mexican immigrants who tend to be much more mixed. Cubans also display a high degree of assimilation while Mexicans do not. Likewise, Cuban immigrants are generally much better educated and affluent than the Mexican ones. Much of "hostility" as such between Cubans and Mexicans is derived from this mix of ethnic, economic/class and cultural reasons.
In general, Mexicans are far more envious of Cubans than the other way around.
What he says about the increasing Democratic lean of younger Cubans is true. However, this is due not so much to a “‘spicification” of Cuban-American politics as it is to generational differentials. Even in 2004, some 75-80% of Cuban-Americans voted Bush, but only 55-60% of younger Cuban-Americans did. Most of the Democratic-leaning Cuban-Americans I have encountered have been more “SWPL-y” than “spic-y.” (And they’re not always white. In Miami, owing to the importation of the Latino color spectrum, the SWPL scene has a particular “fusion” flavor that can, to an extent, accommodate yuppy mulattos and even blacks [but less so Indians and Mestizos], as well.)
You are right. Cubans resent Mexicans, because they are whiter than Mexicans, they make more money than Mexicans, they are better educated than Mexicans, they speak English better than Mexicans, and because they assimilate faster than Mexicans. And they resent Mexicans because well-known national-level politicians such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are Mexicans. Oh, wait… forget the last sentence.
I don’t know what to believe, seeing as 1) I have been married happily for over 20 years to an Ivy League-educated former world-class athlete/part-time catalog model who is from a prominent Anglo-German family in the Midwest and 2) my wife and I both have Cuban acquaintances in our professional circles (my wife has a doctorate in a STEM field) while the only Mexicans we know in person are the people who do landscaping at one of our properties (but recall that my main residence is in an area that is only 1% black and 2% Hispanic).
By the way, like the other dim-witted NAM commenter here, you seem to assume that I am ethnically Korean, but I never stated whence I hail (“East Asia” and “not mainland Chinese” are all I mentioned). Don’t assume I am Korean just because I valorize Korean immigrants. I give them their due because they are the most Christian among East Asian immigrants, assimilate well (in small numbers anyway), intermarry at high rates, serve in relatively high numbers as officers in the armed forces, and generally vote Republican. If we have to have immigrants, we could do worse than Koreans. A lot worse (and we do… with Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese, all of who display very low rates of cultural and civic assimilation, with Mexicans displaying the lowest rate of economic assimilation among the major immigrant groups as well).
I am sorry that the low assimilation rates, the poor English ability, and the educational and economic underperformance of Mexican immigrants hurt your pride, but unfortunately facts are what they are. I wish that weren’t the case – I really do, because that’d have been better for the country, but that wishful thinking doesn’t change the reality.
Everywhere outside the deep South (where there is a high concentration of blacks), the residential self-segregation is rather simple: whites and Asians live intermingled in the expensive parts of town, and Hispanics (mostly Mexicans and Central Americans) live on the other side of the tracks and provide the manual labor for the former.
But look at the bright side for you. You benefit enormously from affirmative action, and you don’t have to do all that much to exceed expectations.
My father, in particular, taught me that there was no finer accolade for a dead man than "He loved God, his country, and his family."
reading this late, your last line, well, that was the case for my family in Finland and the United States.
Jeb apparently was a clown in high school till he met Columbia. He then made the honor roll and graduated college in two and a half years.
Not everyone learns languages easily and I don’t think Arnold’s English is perfect. Maybe she just has an accent.
Speaking Spanish at home also makes it more likely the kids will learn Spanish with English at school.
As for assimilation that happens second generation look at George P do you want to say he isn’t as American as they come?
Uh, isn’t a legal requirement of the US Government for becoming a Naturalized Citizen the ability to read, speak and write in English?
She claims she is a Naturalized Citizen as of 1987 or 1988. But, it seems to me, she actually fails to meet the English language requirement.
And, it would not surprise me if she also never took the required written civics test, never publicly attended a required naturalization ceremony, and, never had a Green Card (which is required for Naturalization).
She is a Naturalized Citizen all right, but by Bush Fraud and no other means, in my opinion.
Here are the requirements for Naturalization of Spouses of US Citizens:
http://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-naturalization/naturalization-spouses-us-citizens
I think she also: never voted (because she can’t read the ballot), never had a drivers license (because she can’t read or pass the written test), and never applied for a US Passport herself (because she can’t read the application).
I think she was detained in Atlanta’s Hatfield Airport in 1999 because: she was alone and could not read the US Custom signs or instructions, and she could not understand in English what they were demanding of her.
She is also in a marriage that is not valid, as she actually was in a marriage ceremony, according to her sister and mother, that was in English, at a time when she spoke no English. That has been published.
But now, the Bushes are rushing to say the ceremony was in Spanish. I don’t believe it was.
So, she has no valid marriage license, no valid Naturalization status, and yet, she is seeking the White House with her husband.
Not a good thing for women in this country or around the world, in my opinion, because:
she is a fraud.