The New Republic's John McWhorter just came out with an essay on why we should stop pretending French is an important language. The piece comes in response to a New York Times article about a new initiative from the French government to increase the amount of French instruction in American schools. To be sure, it's a little heavy handed for a foreign government to be attempting to quasi-infiltrate another country's education system. But here's why McWhorter's wrong, and why everyone should learn French, even if this guy's the one telling you to do it...

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-still-need-french-2014-2