Shrinking ourselves

Apparently the Senate voted yesterday to declare English the official language of the United States. It's largely symbolic (for example, it carefully skirts the provisions that allow official signs and forms to be provided in Spanish or other languages), but what a sad symbolism to choose. As Bob Harris says,

The idea that a language unifies or defines a culture is based on a bizarrely narrow, uninformed, and misplaced sense of what makes a culture worth having.

Or a national identity as the welcomers of poor, tired, and hungry...

(via This Modern World)