The Latin Revival

This is known as the Stopped Clock Principle, aka "even a stopped clock is right twice a day".

I'm less impressed with the "we need a lingua franca" argument, because English is already filling that role pretty reliably in the modern world. But I do think that some acquaintance with both Latin and Greek would be helpful in producing a populace with better vocabulary and reading comprehension, which we desperately need.

(Note: I never took Latin in school, and my entire knowledge of it has been etymologically derived -- which is rather backwards from what I'm saying above, but the flow goes both ways.)

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It's also known as "jerk has a point," a term a friend of mine recently introduced me to, in reference to something Ann Coulter said.

Ms. Jewel, you make my heart glad; I agree that having Latin and / or Greek would make people better readers. And, also, hopefully, give them a richer sense of culture, and myth, and how deep human beings can actually be. You know. When they're not busy being shallow.

As for the lingua franca thing, well, English is a mess. I pity the poor bastard who has to learn the language as an ESL student. OTOH, Latin - being a declined language - is arguably more difficult, a fact exacerbated by the lack of any meaningful living examples of the language in current use. At least English is ubiquitous and vibrant, if messy.

Hmm. Sounds like a number of relationships; vibrant but difficult and messy.

Esperanto, anyone?