Monthly Archives: April 2015
There are reasons language is taught by parents, schools and higher institutions. Communication is important. Some students learn all the details of a language without becoming fluent. They may recognize the names of arcane verb constructs but if they can’t hold a conversation in the language, they have to some degree failed the course even if they aced the…..
” I take it Lisa sent you?” Vern prodded.
Father Murphy’s eyes leapt up guiltily. “Lisa? Your wife – um, ex-wife? No.”
“Is it about one of my boys?”
Father Murphy shook his head. “Difficult,” he muttered.
“Well, take you time, Father,” Vern said sarcastically. “I’ve got all day.”
Father Murphy responded to the sarcasm. “Okay, then, I’ll cut to the chase. Did you ever know a…..
We are often told: we are what we are. But this is misleading. It’s genetically true up to a point. But as living creatures, we can all change. In fact, we can’t stop changing as we age, and as we experience life. We may live through a long succession of similar days and think: it is what it is, and I am what I am. But this is…..
I live in Chicago, which always has been a multilingual place. The first non-native settler was a black French-speaker named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who established a farm at the mouth of the Chicago river in 1780. His being black was unusual, but his speaking French in the area was not: French had been spoken, along with a number of Indian languages, in the area starting with the colonizing adventures of Père Louis Joliet and Père Jacques Marquette…..
In my novel “Skyscrapers,” one of my two CEO’s is a Mexican immigrant female. Is it realistic to have her climb from immigrant status all the way to being the head of AgriBusiness? Certainly we see many more women in the news nowadays speaking from positions of authority. They are CEO’s, news anchors, doctors, scientists, astronauts and other outstanding people who just happen to be women. Except, as we all know, being female puts a person at a definite…..
