From the What The Hell Department, we have Sen. Becker’s SB 122 which requires that a school is required to enter into a contract with a performer before the performer is allowed to sing the Star Spangled Banner.
If they don’t do it right, they have to pay $25 bucks. The contract has to incorporate standards for singing the national anthem set by the Department of Education. The standards have to include:
1) Acceptable words and music.
2) Procedures for recording the performance and maintaining it for 2 years.
3) Procedures for filing and adjudicating complaints.
Update This had slipped my mind when I wrote the post originally, but I’ll bet this has something to do with the complaints about the national anthem as performed by a Bloomington North student. The student is black, and the complaints arose from a performance she did in Martinsville, so there have been questions about whether there was a racial component to the complaints.
So, in any event, while this raises shades of the apoplexy over Roseanne Barr’s performance of the National Anthem in 1990, the legislation probably didn’t come out of nowhere.
My first reaction is ‘Oh no; not more bureaucratic rules with a monetary penalty for its violation; what’s next’. Without knowing why this became an issue, we’re left with conjecture. Given the butchering of our National Anthem (Rosanne Barr in a ballpark stadium) and some of the exaggerated efforts of others, I can’t blame our educational leaders wanting accountability for those who want to convert their moment in the sun into a public embarrassment or for their own monetary motives. The only fault of the school system’s $25.00 penalty is that is it too light and not a deterrent.
This is clearly the most important thing facing our state.
Ehh, I suspect in most cases like this there’s no expectation or even real intention of it ever getting anywhere on the part of the legislator introducing it; it’s just to make a point or for a bit of catharsis.
Ben C: If only we pass this law, our graduates will be able to compete in the global economy.
You can get catharsis by blogging, without wasting LSA resources. “Masturbatory” is probably a better adjective than “cathartic.”
Paul: you may have inadvertently argued against yourself when you said “Rosanne Barr in a ballpark stadium”. I was fairly young when that happened, but I do recall the hubbub surrounding it. What I don’t recall is where it happened. If a person butchers the national anthem, the school won’t be the one embarrassed, at least not after a day or two. On the other hand, I would hope that schools are allowed to require such a contract if this is a concern for them. Mandating it just seems silly.
I wonder if the contracts would include exemptions for children. I seem to recall a few basketball games where “The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung by kids who were, while adorable, not all that musically gifted. I don’t know what the going rate for an allowance is, but in this economy $25 would really hurt the business of small people.
Can’t the legislature get back to what’s important and abolish class basketball?
Now let me get this correct: Once upon a time the Indiana Legislature only met in a “longer” session every two years, because the Indiana Constitution said so. But even small, centralized, and 10th-Amendment fostered state government needed its citizen-lawmakers to come to Indianapolis at least for a little while in the “off” years to take care fine tuning a few things, maybe passing some truly “emergency” legislation, and then go home and rest up for the blockbuster sessions in the odd-numbered years.
Thank the Almighty we had to amend Indiana’s Constitution to establish those shorter periods of time. Otherwise doing things like masturbating (Tipsy’s term above…not mine) over school renditions of The Rockets Red Glare wouldn’t get the public policy attention that it truly deserves in an informed and intelligent Indiana citizenry.
But do we really need to do this kind of thing in a short legislative session? I thought that’s why in the old Soviet Union they had a Ministry of Culture.
Somewhat related: My wife is classically trained in music. She explained that the national anthem is actually a very difficult song to sing as it is written, which is why we hear so many awful performances of it.
Exactly Jason. Our National Anthem is damn near unsingable by most people, which is why most people stand silently in a pose of respect rather than attempt to sing along.