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Subject:
From:
Ron Owens <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:15:48 -0400
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Twain Forum folk might find this interesting (apologies if this has already
been posted):
 An Alternet.org entry by Lee Fang of "Think Progress," tells of Pat
Buchanan's remarks at a conference supporting  English-only initiatives as a
way of "attracting 'working class white democrats'."

Overhead appeared a large banner declaring "2009 NATIONAL CONFERENECE."
Fang says this:

"Mocking Sotomayor's struggle to learn English has become a habit for
Buchanan. On CSPAN a few weeks ago, Buchanan tried to undermine Sotomayor's
qualifications by saying she had read Pinocchio as a part of her "college
work." Buchanan was referencing a New York Times article, which talked about
how hard Sotomayor had to work to graduate at the top of her class from
Princeton. The article stated that she "spent summers reading children's
classics she had missed in a Spanish-speaking home and "re-teaching" herself
to write "proper English" by reading elementary grammar books." Sotomayor
never read children's books as part of her "college work" and the books
consisted of classics such as Huckleberry Finn and Pride and Prejudice --
not Snow White, as Buchanan contends."
    Sotomayor's actual statement was: I spent my summers at Princeton doing
things most of my other classmates took for granted. "I spent one summer
vacation reading children's classics that I had missed in my prior
education -- books like Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, and Pride and
Prejudice. My parents spoke Spanish, they didn't know about these books."

Ron in Elmira, former home of Mark Twain visits to the Gleasons at the
"Watercure."

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