Marie Wilcox, an octogenarian Native American woman from the San Joaquin Valley in California, was born on Thanksgiving in 1933; she grew up in a one-room house with the grandmother who delivered her and spoke her native Wukchumni, and I believe this video will assure you—Marie is better than you or I will ever be.

The first time was at a coffee shop in the Old Jaffa port of Israel. There is a deaf-and-blind theater company there, and next door a coffee shop staffed entirely by deaf employees raises money for the theater. There are laminated menus there that show basic signs in Hebrew Sign Language.

"The United States is a long way from being the multilingual society that so many of our economic competitors are," says U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Apparently being fluent in text message shorthand does not count.