No, I'm not dead. (Cue the Shehecheyanu.)

Your humble friar has been and continues to be horribly busy, but so as to not leave his readership without some food for thought, here is a brief comment on the present inanity surrounding the Anthem idiocy controversy.

First, I'd like to point out that most young people really don't care about the national anthem. Unless you're from a military family or are a direct descendant of Francis Scott Key, you probably- at best- associate the anthem with sporting events, which, needless to say, is not particularly patriotic- or sensical. The truth of the matter is that the national anthem is not very relevant to contemporary American life- either in context or content. That the anthem is only invoked in the most hokey of American experiences, sports, says something rather profound about the importance- or lack thereof- of this song.

Incidentally, when did we decide a song was so important? When did we decide that the way to communicate important things about American politics, principles, philosophy, policy (hey, p-words are fun!) was via song? No offense to song lyrics, but I've always been a "prose" guy myself. While songs can be meaningful for some people in some contexts, generally they're relegated to the back shelf in the minds of most modern people.

Which brings us back to the anthem debate: it's really, really, stupid. The national anthem has little contextual basis to tie it so closely to either American-ness or American society the way some of its advocates are suggesting (when was the last time you sang the anthem, either for fun or for some actual reason?), and furthermore, its lyrics are similarly out of touch. Yes, the rockets and bombs bit is somewhat moving- but don't pretend like the America of today, or the wars and struggles it's dealing with, are substantially similar to what was going on in the War of 1812, ok? That's just bullshit.

Other points to note:

• The actual song has 4 stanzas- how come the uber-patriots aren't yelling about everyone cutting it down by three-quarters? Surely the loss of time at sporting events, public school assemblies, and a myriad of other inconsequential gatherings is worth it to properly honor our country and the outdated, preachy ramblings of the stupid song they arbitrarily picked? Full version (including the lines "Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution" and "Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven-rescued land/ Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation") available here.
  
• The nation did just fine without a national anthem for over 150 years. Congress didn't make SSB the anthem until the early 1930s (because, you know, that's what people needed in the Depression- cheerful and relevant songs about the British blowing forts up).
• The melody is a rip-off of a popular British song, To Anacreon in Heaven, the 1800s-version of "On top of Old Smokey".
  
• Bush's inauguration featured a Spanish version of SSB.
• The First Lady has gone on record saying she personally could give a shit.
  
• A Spanish version of SSB was commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Education in 1919- eleven years before SSB was even the NATIONAL anthem!

So up yours, Bushie, up yours, Senator Lamar Alexander (the guy who says muti-linguistic anthems will "celebrate" multiculturalism, to the detriment of an invented "common American culture"), and the same to all their apologists. If you think the anthem isn't about politics, maybe you should actually read the words sometime. And if you think most people actually care about this issue when they aren't being beaten over the head with it, maybe you should get out more.

Full disclosure: I went to California private schools until college. Not only did I not know all the words to the pledge OR the anthem until I was 12, I didn't know what they were, either. ("Wait, you mean the 'baseball song?'")

Fun tidbit: The National Anthem in Yiddish.