Gung Hay Fat Choy

And that pretty much exhausts my fund of Chinese language skills. Oh, I know a few Cantonese words that are supposed to request a package of cigarettes, but they were taught to me by an impish Russian/Chinese girl in Hong Kong who was not above a little joke. For all I know she was having me tell the shopkeeper that I desired a bowl of bat feet garnished with navel lint.

These quirky memories were triggered by the morning news report that China has become the world's No.2 economy -- our chief competitor. For the sake of my grandsons'  future, I hope we are keeping track of the dragon with an appetite for lebensraum. I hope we are carefully watching the the strange machinations of the Communist capitalists in the Forbidden City and the Capitalist communists down  around Shanghai.

But I wonder.  Do what ever you want with these fun facts:

China's GDP now exceeds every nation but our own. Spain and Latin American aren't even in the running.  Spanish is,  by millions of students, the most studied foreign language in the United States.

And then there's France,  and when's the last time you heard of a French accomplishment except  the annual public relations  explosion celebrating their successful sale of another year's worth  of pre-nubile Beaujolais to American naifs? French is the second most studied language here.

Students of Chinese don't  make a blip on the charts.

Mon Dieu! I thought this was the kind of disconnect between the real world and the publik skul classroom we'd never have to worry about once we got a cabinet-level Department of Education.

You can show Gotham your rear  cleavage if you want. A judge in New York has thrown out a case against a guy wearing baggie low slungs. Good. It's  decision on the side of liberty.

Now, pull up your pants. You look like an idiot.

Score

Tam nails one center mass when a copeaucrat says every  gun in someone's hand is  a potential homicide. She invites one and all to play the game. Okay:

Every net connection in someone's hand is a case of potential sedition.

I'll drink to that.
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An Immigration Side Note

One more time, just to head off disparaging comments about my libertarian purity: I hate having to defend cops running around demanding "your papers, quickly!"

May my Maker forgive me for hiding behind the Jesuitical saw about ends justifying means. If He requires atonement via an extended stay in Purgatory or New Jersey, so be it.