Jose, Can You See?

Tomorrow -- May 1st, May Day -- may or may not be a memorable day in history. There are plans for a general strike among legal and illegal immigrants. The point is to show the contributions that are being made to our economy.

As part of this whole conroversy, a new Spanish language version of "The Star Spangled Banner" (called "Nuestro Himno" -- "Our Anthem") has been recorded. Read about it here, in an account from The London Times. The translation is not literal, and that, among others things, has some people irked.

Count a blogger who's calling himself "The American Kernel" among the irked.

Record label Urban Box Office is using the illegal immigration debate both for music (I use the term loosely) profiteering and as a means to insult Americans. I find their bilingual recording of my national anthem to be offensive on so many levels and would like to suggest that, rather than expropriate America's song, there's another tune that more closely captures what the invasion of illegal aliens means to America: "La Cucaracha."

Be sure to clink on the link. If you click on the picture of the cockroaches decorated as Mexican flags -- (what? That strikes you as racist?!) -- you can hear "Nuestro Himno".

Other people are not as offended.

At least 389 versions have been recorded, according to Allmusic.com, a quick reference used by musicologists to get a sense of what's on the market. Now that Hendrix's "Banner" has mellowed into classic rock, it's hard to imagine that once some considered it disrespectful. The other recordings embrace a vast musical universe: from Duke Ellington to Dolly Parton to Tiny Tim. But musicologists cannot name another foreign-language version.

"America is a pluralistic society, but the anthem is a way that we can express our unity. If that's done in a different language, that doesn't seem to me personally to be a bad thing," said Michael Blakeslee, deputy executive director of the National Association for Music Education, which is leading a National Anthem Project to highlight the song and the school bands that play it in every style, from mariachi to steel drum.

"I assume the intent is one of making a statement about 'we are a part of this nation,' and those are wonderful sentiments and a noble intent," said Dan Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

And remember, the "Banner" itself is a pastiche -- a poem set to an old Englsih drinking song.

Since its origins as the melody to an English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," circa 1780, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has had a long, strange trip. Key wrote the poem after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. It became the national anthem in 1931.

Here are the translated lyrics from the first verse. (Does anybody know the second and third verses in English?)

"The Star-Spangled Banner"
(First verse)
O, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

"Our Anthem"
(Translated from Spanish)
Verse 1
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail as night falls?
Its stars and stripes floated yesterday
In the fierce combat, the sign of victory
The flame of battle, in step with liberty.
Throughout the night it was said, "It is being defended."
Chorus:
Oh, say! Does it still show its beautiful stars
Over the land of the free, the sacred flag?
Verse 2
Its stars and stripes, liberty, we are the same.
We're brothers, it's our anthem.
In the fierce combat, the sign of victory,
The flame of battle, in step with liberty.
Throughout the night it was said, "It is being defended."
Chorus:
"Oh, say! Does it still show its beautiful stars?
Over the land of the free, the sacred flag?"

President Bush, although he speaks passable Spanish himself, has a Mexican-American Attorney General, and even a Mexican-American nephew, is against this version of our national anthem.

“One of the important things here is that we not lose our national soul,” the President said at a press briefing.

“I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

'Tis the Season (Part 11?)

Today's story comes to us from Longmont, Colorado. Once again, MySpace plays a part.

LONGMONT — Skyline High School principal Tom Stumpf and other administrators will meet this morning to discuss how to respond to continuing rumors of a possible Columbine-style attack at the school May 5.

A blog posting on the Web site MySpace.com prompted a student in the St. Vrain Valley School District’s Open Door program to file a police report detailing the possible attack.

According to the police report, a friend of the student, who attends Skyline, posted a blog saying that a “Columbine, so-called shooting” was going to take place there.

Information about the posting was sent to Skyline High school resource officer Craig Mansanares.

“So, for all you people that go to Skyline, please save your lives and don’t go to school on May 5th aka Cinco de Mayo. I already know that I’m not! Repost this if you wanna keep your life safe and anyone else’s lives safe!” the blog stated, according to the police report.

So what makes this part eleven? Well. . .

WICHITA, Kan. - In the two months leading to the Columbine school shooting anniversary, students have threatened violence in 10 schools across the nation, with many of those beleaguered schools sharing some common underlying factors, a safety expert said Tuesday.

The list of places where students were arrested recently after allegedly threatening attacks at their schools reads like a cross-section of small-town America: Puyallup, Wash., on April 24; North Pole, Alaska, on April 22; Riverton, Kan., on April 20; Platte City, Mo., on April 17; Pierce County, Wash., on April 7; Atco, N.J., on April 5; Foley, Ala., on March 24; Rochester Hills, Mich., on March 20; Greenwood, Ind., on March 2; and Muscatine, Iowa, on March 1.

The article goes on to mention budget cutbacks affecting student support personnel, bullying, and the stresses of testing as being relevant to this spate of threats. It calls attention to the role played by the internet in halting these would-be tragedies.

The Internet is a recurring theme in the recent spat of foiled school plots. Tom Nolan, a Boston University professor of criminal justice and a former police officer, said much of the violence is fueled by the connections children are making on the Internet, where they can interact with like-minded students around the world.

"The Internet is there for endorsement, support and certainly collaboration among kids who may be possessed of the same kind of inclinations," Nolan said. "That ability to communicate across a broad spectrum of similarly disturbed kids didn't exist a generation ago."

In Kansas, Riverton High School officials learned that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com. In Mississippi, two Pearl Junior High School students allegedly made threatening statements on the teen site Xanga. The student charged in the alleged plot at Puyallup, Wash., sent an instant message to a fellow student.

Update 2 -- The Mumps

Betsy alerted us to this story two weeks before vacation, and now everyone's catching on.

When Iowa college students early this year began turning up in doctors' offices with puffy necks, headaches, fevers and, among some young men, swollen testicles, many physicians missed a diagnosis most doctors could have made in their sleep 25 years ago.

These patients had the mumps — as do at least 1,100 in eight Midwestern states as of Friday. The outbreak is still unfolding, spreading east and west, and beyond the 18- to 25-year-old set.

Of course we want to know what's going on. Why now? Why after all this time?

Experts suspect two factors: spotty vaccination coverage among college-aged kids and the unique bacterial and viral mixing bowl that is dorm life.

The virus that causes mumps appears to have found its perfect home in the college scene — with multiple kids lolling on beds in great heaving groups, swigging drinks in common, kissing and cruising the bars even when they're sick, and — oh, yes — attending classes en masse.

"They eat after each other, drink after each other, share other personal items — we know that living under those settings, people run higher risks of infection," says Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Assn.

But is that so difereent from when your parents and I went to college? It's posssible that more people are missing out on their vaccinations. And colleges, unlike the military, are not alwasy requiring that incoming students have these shots.

Roughly half of the states, including Iowa, do not have precollege vaccination requirements in place, according to Dr. Jane Seward, acting deputy director of the CDC's viral diseases division.

Such rules are typically left to colleges to enforce, and where state rules are absent, colleges and universities are left to adopt regulations on their own.

And while we're at it, why not blame the victims (they're always a cheap and easy target) -- in this case, teenagers.

Unlike preschoolers, whose parents drive them to yearly check-ups, adolescents are less likely to see a physician for routine physicals, more likely to reject a shot when they feel fine and often not covered for preventive healthcare.

Adding to the problem, parents of teens often think childhood vaccinations should have been enough and have less power to persuade their older children to get immunized.

"Teens are pretty unresponsive in general — they tend to believe that they'll live forever and don't need these things," says Lawrence, who led a study by the Institute of Medicine of future U.S. vaccine priorities.

Stay tuned for more!

Update 1 -- Cynthia McKinney

Remember Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia Congresswoman who got in a little dustup with a Capitol Hill cop? A Grand Jury is looking into the incident: she has apologized. Here's the latest I could find.

What's New at MySpace?

Well, MySpace was a hero -- sort of.

Five teenagers were arrested yesterday in Riverton, Kansas and are expected to be charged in connection with their plans to carry out a shooting at their high school on the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School rampage in Colorado. According to local authorities, four of the suspects were taken into custody at their homes while the fifth was nabbed at school. One of the teens had a cache of weapons—including guns, knives, and ammo—hidden away in his bedroom.

One of the students arrested had posted a message on his MySpace account in which he talked about the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth as well as the Columbine shootings, both of which occured on April 20. School officials were informed of the message's existence and followed up with the student in question as well as many of his friends.

Two nights ago, one of the conspirators reportedly gave a North Carolina woman the lowdown on the planned attack, including names of potential victims. She then notified the police, who moved in and made the arrests.

Some of you may be wondering how serious they were -- why would they tell the world their plan? Some kids in Riverton are skeptical, too.

A student at the small-town high school where five teenagers are accused of planning an attack said Friday that rumors were rampant on the day before their arrest, prompting some schoolmates to tell the suspects: "Whatever you do, don't shoot me."

Freshman Nathan Spriggs, 15, also said his friends, who are accused of planning to shoot fellow students and school employees, had posted a threat on the Internet as a joke and were concerned they would be suspended or expelled for doing it. . .

Some students said they doubted the youths intended to carry out the threat. They also said they were not alarmed that authorities found guns in one suspect's bedroom because it is not uncommon in rural Kansas for youths to have access to hunting weapons.

One suspect has a history of school fights and had made such comments as, "I wish so and so died," or "I am going to shoot someone," said Brandon Hay, 18, a senior.

"We knew it was joking around," said Hay, whose brother is a close friend of the suspects. "They weren't bullied a whole lot. They bullied a few kids."

Others who knew the suspects said the boys had friends at school.

"Everybody has their own group," said Ronni Paxson, 17, a senior. "The school is small. Everybody knows everybody."

But who knows? Better safe than sorry. Some things it's better not to joke about.

Overall, a plus for MySpace, I think. Keith Olbermann had something like "MySpace Says the Day" on a Countdown segment. Nevertheless, there's guilt by association: MySpace-Riverton-Columbine-shooting.

And today (Sunday, April 23) a big article in the Business Section of The New York Times.

The emphasis is on the possiblility of MySpace, with its 70 million "friends" as a cash cow for Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. The problem, as we've mention before, is NewsCorp has to be careful not to change the atmosphere of MySpace. If the advertising gets too intrusive, will MySpace lose its cool?

In buying MySpace, Mr. Murdoch also bought a tantalizing problem: how to tame a vast sea of fickle and unruly teenagers and college students just enough to notice advertising or to buy things, yet not make the site so commercial that he scares off his audience. At the same time, he must address the real and growing concerns of parents and teachers who see MySpace as a den of youthful excess and, potentially, as a lure for sexual predators.

Or are young people today accepting of advertising as a fact of life? I mean, whenever I heard Nike using John Lennon's "Revolution" to sell sneakers, I thought "blasphemy!" But I'm from a different time. I don't think I could be friends with a deodorant --

To expand ad sales, especially to big brands, Mr. Levinsohn plans to supplement the MySpace staff with a second sales force linked to the Fox TV sales department. He wants to expand one of Mr. DeWolfe's advertising ideas — turning advertisers into members of the MySpace community, with their own profiles, like the teenagers' — so that the young people who often spend hours each day on MySpace can become "friends" with movies, cellphone companies and even deodorants. Young people can link to the profiles set up for these goods and services, as they would to real friends, and these commercial "friends" can even send them messages — ads, really, but of a whole new kind

-- but then remember that seventh grader who put Axe Body Spray into his poster of "The Four Most Important Things in My Life".

And apparently there are 100,000 young people out there desperate enough to want to be friends with a hamburger.

Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, for example, created a profile for the animated square hamburger character from its television campaign. About 100,000 people signed up to be "friends" with the square.

There's some disagreement over the direction of MySpace between the new management and the old.

Another question is this: Can the News Corporation achieve these goals if the executives in charge don't agree on how to do so, or even on whether they want to? Mr. Levinsohn [new management], for example, said he saw opportunity in the one million bands that have established profiles on MySpace; he said MySpace could charge bands to promote concerts or to sell their songs directly through the site.

In an interview the next day, however, Mr. DeWolfe [old management] dismissed the idea. "Music brings a lot of traffic into MySpace," he said, "and it lets us sell very large sponsorships to those brands that want to reach consumers who are interested in music. We never thought charging bands was a viable business model."

Music has always been a key element of MySpace, and DeWolfe still has some interesting ideas with how to integrate it into the MySpace experience.

MySpace members can become "friends" with a profile for "MySpace Secret Shows," for instance, and they will receive tips about free concerts — sponsored by companies like Tower Records — in their hometowns.

On a recent Friday in Manhattan, several hundred people trekked through drizzling rain to the Tower Records store in the East Village for free tickets to a concert by Franz Ferdinand, the Scottish postpunk band, at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

Heather Candella, a college student from Sloatsburg, N.Y., was among those at the show. She said the shows were "a really good idea because it's kind of a secret kind of thing — it's not so commercial."

Heather uses MySpace in other ways, too.

She added that MySpace had become a main way to stay in touch with her friends. While she does not use the site to meet people, it has become part of the dating ritual. "When you meet someone, the question is not 'What's your number?' " she said. "It's 'What's your MySpace?' "

By checking out a guy's profile, she said, "you can actually get a feeling for who they are."

But to NewsCorp, it's finally all about the money.

At MySpace, the first challenge is to raise advertising rates. Because its supply of pages so greatly outstrips demand from advertisers, it has offered deep discounts. Indeed, the average rate paid for advertising is a bit over a dime for 1,000 impressions, Mr. Levinsohn said, far lower than rates at major competitors. "If we can raise that by 10 cents, think of the upside," he said.

Another question is -- despite the huge number of people on MySpace, is it a good place to sell?

The answer he received was a shock. Not one of them, not even the mighty Google, was sure that it could provide enough advertisements to fill all the pages that MySpace displays each day, Mr. Levinsohn said. The search companies did not want to dilute their networks with so many ads for MySpace users, whom they said were not the best prospects for most marketing because they use MySpace for socializing, not buying.

One way around that is to customize the placement of ads. And of course, the more you know about your possible audience, the better you can target your ads.

Mr. Levinsohn says he also hopes to raise ad rates by collecting more user data so advertisers can find the most promising prospects. To use the site, people need to provide their age, location and sex, and often volunteer their sexual orientation and personal interests. Some of that information is already being used to select ads to display. Soon, the site will track when users visit profile pages and other sections devoted to topics of interest to advertisers. People who put information about sports cars in their profiles or who frequent MySpace message boards about hot-rodding, for example, would be shown ads for car parts, even while reading messages from friends.

And could that work on a very small scale -- to a region or even a town. Could you see yourself being friends with the Big Y, or the Mobil station?

Fox officials wonder whether this sort of commerce, built on relationships, can be extended to small businesses. A Ford dealership in, say, Indiana could create a profile, said Mark A. Jung, the chief operating officer of Fox Interactive. The profiles themselves, he said, would probably be free, but MySpace would sell enhancements to help businesses attract customers and complete transactions, Mr. Jung said.

Yet here is another place that executives at Fox and MySpace don't see eye to eye. Mr. DeWolfe discounted the idea of people creating profile pages for small businesses. "If it was a really commercial profile — the gas station down the street — no one is going to sign up to be one of their friends," he said. "There is nothing interesting about it."

That's up to the business. If prices are the same, why would you go to one station over another? If I felt like I was an insider, part of a club -- if I got something free or discounted every so often because of it, I'd go there rather than down the street.

This Is Too Scary to Contemplate

It really is. You think 9/11 changed everything? It changed nothing. This would change everything. To say we'd be counting down to the Apocalypse would hardly be too strong.

Ok, here goes. An article from today's (Sunday's) Washington Post: "U.S. Is Studying Strike Options on Iran".

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.

Big deal, right. Nothing we didn't already know. Miles (A View from the Right) was telling us about it last week, and he was telling us not to worry. It ain't gonna happen. Or not right away. We've got all those troops tied up in Iraq (which is right next store, however). And the Post seems to agree. With a warning.

No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it.

But read all the way through. About three-quarters of the way through, are these little nuggets.

The U.S. government has taken some preliminary steps that go beyond planning. The Washington Post has reported that the military has been secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004 using radar, video, still photography and air filters to detect traces of nuclear activity not accessible to satellites. Hersh reported that U.S. combat troops have been ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data, but sources have not confirmed that to The Post.

Israel is preparing, as well. The government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a plan involving airstrikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.

Israel, which has nukes itself, is not going to sit around and wait for a belligerent Arab state to develop some. They took out an Iraqi plant in '81, and they'll do it again, if nobody else will. (And don't forget, the new President of Iran had publicly called for the destruction of Israel.) But wait. Read that last bit again. "U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons."

Does this mean that Israel would use nuclear weapons? If they do? Do you think Pakistan stays on the sidelines very long? What about Al Qaeda, and the hundreds of other tiny terrorist groups out there. Think they'll be riled up? Think they'll limit their anger to Israel?

But wait! There's more. Read a couple more paragraphs down, and here's another little nugget, buried way down in the story: oh, by the wa-ay. . .

Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consists of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand and rocks in between, according to Edward N. Luttwak, a specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst. "Could we do it with conventional munitions? Possibly. But it's going to be very difficult to do."

Hell-o! We just might use some nuclear weapons on an Islamic country. Can you say jihad? Can you say fatwa?


You don't have to try to read between the lines in the Washington Post, though. Pick up this week's edition of The New Yorker. There's an interesting, pants-crapping article by Seymour Hersch, with more details about the strike plans in Iran. If you don't have the time or inclination to read the whole seven pages (hey -- it's only the possible destruction of civilization and possibly the human race that we're talking about), maybe you could spare 12 and a half minutes to see Hersch interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition.

A Matter of Priorites

Nearly 50 million Americans are without health insurance.

So what fundamental right is Congress focusing on? I wonder. (And they wonder why their poll numbers are even below Bush's?)

Jill Carroll Released

Check this out. Sound familiar?

Now do you see why I get so frustrated when people in the class don't bother to listen to what I have to say?

And then there's this.

When Jill Carroll was released, she gave an interview to the "Iraqi Islamist Party." In it she said that she was treated quite well by her captors -- never thrreatened, allowed to go to the bathroom. Some people were less than pleased by that. Those more generous in nature allowed that it might be "Stockholm Syndrome," a psychological condtion where captives come to sympathize with their captors. To those less generous it was proof that Carroll was a collaborationaist and a typical America-hating liberal journalist.

It turns out that although she had been released by her captors, being with the Iraqi Islamist Party did not make her feel entirely free, so she said what she thought they would like to hear (and did not say what she was pretty sure they wouldn't want to hear).

The blog entry linked to above -- and I know it's a long one for some of you -- is more a mediation on the role and purpose of the whole blogosphere more than on Ms. Carroll.

What most bloggers don't care to totally admit is this:

Weblogs are an incredible opportunity. Today, anyone can now become a journalist, an investigative reporter, and editor and a publisher. They don't have to navigate themselves through corporate and office politics to become a commentator. They don't have to kowtow to a corporation to get their info and views published. All it takes is a computer and a blogsite. And, to a certain extent, having no shame.

Which is what we have seen in the Jill Carroll case. . .

The impact of blogs, in fact, hasn't been shown to be huge in terms of moving political mountains (yet). But the impact of blogs CAN on those about whom blogs are writing.

Apart from that, there is the huge issue of credibility.

If each time a weblog screeches that X person hates America or X person is a fascist it gets kind of old — unless you are a member of a choir that wants to hear the same song over and over. There's nothing wrong with that — but it does NOT enhance the credibility of blogs.

But if you don't mind spending 10 minutes and using some of those areas of your brain that might be a little dusty, click over. It'll be worth it.