Putin’s pictures were staged, whereas the collage of Obama’s weren’t necessarily staged. That said, Obama could certainly have staged photos done… but even then I suspect they’d be a flop.

The two photos of him eating ice cream and riding a bicycle are laugh-worthy. Few people look good riding a bicycle, though to be fair, that’s another family photo because if you check, you can see that the white bar off the back of the bike is the tow bar for a children’s carraige I suspect.

As for Putin not being a Muslim. Well, he may not be, but I do recall that he married one – whether she’s practicing or not, I don’t know.

of nations that will play stronger roles in the world’s future, here’s a rundown of a good selection –

Arabic
Farsi
Turkish
Mandarin

Spanish will still play a strong role in our future, even if we remove all of our illegals by the mere fact of proximity to so many Spanish speaking nations in our hemisphere.

Russia will continue to play a pretty strong role in international politics, but they’re a paper tiger. Certainly a tiger that still has teeth, but they’re crumbling in many ways faster than we are. It does make them more dangerous in the short term, but in the long term, there’ll either have to be some massive positive improvements made in that nation, or they’re toast.

I wish I remembered more of my languages I learned, but then, I don’t seem to have a penchant for it. And, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Mine was primarily French, and a couple years of Latin. My wife only learned German. I’ve tried to delve into Biblical Greek…

Hope he succeeds.

But I will for of own experience.

I learned French because I’m from South Louisiana, which has a strong Cajun/French heritage. I learned Latin because I was going to a Christian private school. My wife was going to a Catholic private school when she learned German, and I suspect that the region may have played a strong role in the language selection as there is a quite large German community here.

We intend on homeschooling. If we do that, we’ll probably teach a variety of languages. I know too that a number of public schools these days have a sort of rotational kind of foreign language program so that students can learn and be open to a broad range of the world.

Well, to be honest, I’m looking at the whole thing from a slightly different perspective. You are correct that Farsi and Turkish aren’t really internationally spoken.

I’m not looking at a commercial or academic enterprise. I’m looking at geopolitics, war and eschatology. Thus Arabic is included in the list.

So, Mandarin because of commerce, but the rest for geopolitical/Biblical reasons.

Frankly I think the Arabian penninsula and Iran will become glass, and Saudi Arabia at the hands of fellow Muslims.

In that vein, I’d say learn Hebrew too.

If anything, why learn these languages? In this day and age where so many people are getting online, doing their own research – newsies – breaking stories and analyzing information, learning these languages makes sense.

That’s why I posted those four languages.