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i think that a programme like that suggested in the op is a great idea.
i know---we can pay for it as one of the many beneficial outcomes of taking the military off its cold war standing, reducing the obscene amounts of money spent on weapons systems the only rationale for which was once the assumption that a soviet system was more or less symmetrical with the american.
that'd be a hell of a start.
you can't really tell how much good something like that would do---anything and everything that makes americans less parochial also makes them less insular and arrogant, often without realizing that they're often all 3. to understand what it means to be connected to the world, you have to experience something of it. to understand that there is a world and not just americans and everyone else, you need to get out.
there are any number of ways to implement this sort of thing.
i agree entirely with abaya on language training in something beyond english. this is a problem. for example, the only reason that the french healthcare system, which is FAR better than the english counterpart, is not part of the overall debate about alternative organizations of health care at the state level is, i think, because most of the documentation is in french.
the world is big and complicated and extraordinary. i've never understood why so many americans want to hide from it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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