Another post about the suicide-because-of-autistic-kid couple...

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Mrs Ainscow said: "She said to me if I ever tried to put her in an institution again she would have nothing to do with me, ever. So there was no choice but for us to try to look after her."

Hell, I would've taken her up on it!

"What has been so heartbreaking has been seeing our daughter so wretchedly unhappy. She'll never marry, she'll never have children, she can't work.

"None of this is her fault. She is ill and needs help."

...

I can't even comment. Internet is slow, class is soon, I gotta go.

Oooh, cool!

An article on family terms in Japan.

*plots to start refering to "Ana's mom" and "Seth's mom" in casual conversation*

Wow....

Really cool optical illusion.

I wonder why it works.

So, in my sociolinguistics class we're talking about (what else) Language and Power.

And the point was made that foreign students who want to get into an American university usually need about a 500-600 on the TOEFL, while American students who speak English as a second language can't take the TOEFL, they have to take the SAT and get 500+ on the verbal part.

But a 500 on the TOEFL is like a 200 on the verbal part of the SAT.

When foreigners are given some help on the English part of college admittance, this is seen as fair, but when it happens to American immigrants, it's seen as a "double standard".

Of course, it's obvious why this is. Those foreign students are usually better off than the American ones, and their families aren't the dregs of American society - they're not part of American society at all! So we can say "you're smart, even if your English isn't great". But the American ones are usually poor, and we've really got a vested interest in saying "you're poor because you can't do well". If we didn't say that, we'd have to say "you could do better if things were fair" and then we'd have to ask why they're poor still.

At least, that's my view of the situation, which I'm sure is really much more complicated.