This is not happy news for French language advocates in Canada, the Montreal Gazette reports. Indeed, "French-language militants are organizing a demonstration at the Canadiens' Jan. 7 home game, to protest against what they call the “policy of anglicization” of Montreal's National Hockey League team."

The New York Times Opinion Page opines that the word 'occupy' "is the odds-on favorite to be chosen as the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year.cIt has already succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate, taking phrases like “debt-ceiling” and “budget crisis” out of the limelight and putting terms like “inequality” and “greed” squarely in the center. This discursive shift has made it more difficult for Washington to continue to promote the spurious reasons for the financial meltdown and the unequal outcomes it has exposed and further produced."

Huffington Post: "A judge will hear arguments Thursday in a lawsuit that alleges racial profiling in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration patrols, a week after federal authorities accused the Sheriff's Office of a wide range of civil rights violations."  The lawsuit was filed by a group of Latino citizens who claimed racial  profiling resulted in traffic stops without probable cause and inquiries with respect to immigration status.

The New York Times reports that Judge Richard M. Gergel "blocked the most contentious part of South Carolina’s law, which required law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of any suspect they believe might be in the country illegally. He also blocked provisions that made it a crime to harbor or transport an illegal immigrant."

The new suffrage movement. "New Haven is tightening its embrace of newcomers as its mayor seeks to extend voting rights to undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens, a policy challenge that comes shortly after attacks on "sanctuary cities" by Republican presidential candidates," reports the Huffington Post.  

The Montreal Gazette reports that the team is in turmoil about whether the new head coach needs to be able to speak English as well as French. With the exception of one coach, since the "early 1980s, every Canadiens head coach...has been fluent in French, and former team president Pierre Boivin went as far as to say it was an absolute requirement for the job." I kind of love Montreal.

I may be reading this wrong, but it appears that, after having removed Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio for discrimination against Latinos via his immigration enforcement activities, the Department of Homeland Security will resume his work with federal agents. Per the report on the LA Times: "'...all individuals booked into the Maricopa County jail will be screened to determine if they are removable from the United States,' the agency said. Those arrested for criminal offenses who are in the country illegally will be 'removed from the United States in line with our priorities.'"

The American Prospect has a nice piece by E.J. Graff on efforts to be made to keep languages alive when ethnolinguistic communities are in diaspora. Graff discusses the Tibetan situation, and efforts to retain the Tibetan language by referencing the resuscitation of Hebrew, which "was essentially a language on ice, used primarily in religious services but not to communicate, rich with symbolism but lacking words for anything related to post-exile life—until early Zionists performed CPR and turned it into a living vehicle, actually spoken daily (usually very, very quickly and disputatiously) (#joking)." 

Education Week reports an important finding from the Seattle, WA public schools - that within their "African American" category, US-born students are significantly outperformed by their immigrant counterparts. Nice that there is some press being given to this issue of racial mis-representation. Illuminates just how social a construction race is.

Amazing looking film on the nature of western education's influence abroad. The trailer is riveting, and I'll definitely be seeing this and likely showing it in class. Check out http://schoolingtheworld.org/