Under Blue Helmets

If you are walking back from the beach - down a tropical street - blocks from the Atlantic - and you see these azul phone booths, you are probably somewhere in Brasil, and most likely in Copacabana.

Okay, so the black-pebbled sidewalk gave it away? Or was it the Bob's red sign in the background - pronounced B-obes!

In either case, if you got the right answer, it's because clearly you have made it to the Southern Hemisphere, and while there - you almost missed the American-style phone booths - yeah, the ones from the Christopher Reeves' Superman movies, with their sharp lines and rectangular-glass look!

But then you realize that life could be as good if you lived in a James Bond-like movie set!

It is 2-007 after all!

American(o) Dream? - Not in the Lone Star Anymore

How much more chipping away at the soul of the Southwest can we take? Tejas, por favor, ya no sigas con este insulto a tu cultura y tu raza. Tu propia gente te quiere, y quiere que sigas como la estrella solitaria que eres!

Texas talks tough on illegal immigrants

Lawmakers push some of the harshest immigration-related measures in the United States.

By Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff WriterFebruary 27, 2007
'This problem is costing Texas money. Texas has to act.'
— Leo Berman, Texas legislator who wrote the bill to deny benefits to the children of illegal immigrants


AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Lone Star State has long welcomed Latino immigrants, no matter how they got across the state's 1,200-mile border with Mexico. Back when California voted to cut public services to illegal immigrants, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush was preaching that immigrants were equal players in the state's economy. But the atmosphere has changed markedly in Texas, home to about 10% of the nation's illegal immigrants.

Now, a growing chorus of Republicans and some Democrats is pushing some of the harshest immigration-related measures in the United States — laws that would not only deny public services to illegal immigrants but strip their American-born children of benefits as well. The proposal to deny services to American citizens, which is thought to be the first in the country, is part of a push to challenge the citizenship given automatically to children born in this country to illegal immigrants. Prior rulings have affirmed that nearly all such children were entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

But some legal scholars have questioned whether the amendment, which redefined national citizenship to include the children of slaves after the Civil War, should cover babies born to foreign parents. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated last year that more than 3 million U.S. citizens were born to illegal immigrant parents.

"The Texas bill could be a vehicle to get this before the courts, and we strongly support that," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been pushing Congress to revisit the 14th Amendment. "There is no question that it is time for a review, given the number of people entering the country illegally and giving birth." Texas' shift toward a more incendiary brand of immigration politics comes at a time when many state lawmakers are frustrated that Washington has failed to stop illegal immigration.

Few think President Bush's moderate proposals, which include a guest worker program and enhanced border security, will help much, even if they are approved by Congress.

State Rep. Leo Berman, the Republican legislator who wrote the bill to deny benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, admits that his goal is to set off a fight in the federal courts. His legislation has been compared to Proposition 187, which was ruled unconstitutional after California voters approved it in 1994, but it goes further. It would deny citizens born to illegal immigrants numerous state services, including unemployment benefits and the ability to obtain professional licenses." A pregnant illegal alien can wait at the border, check into a hospital in Texas, give birth without paying a penny, and be rewarded for her illegal behavior," Berman said. "That's outrageous."

Berman's bill is one of more than two dozen proposals targeting illegal immigration in Texas. Other measures would tax money that illegal immigrants wire abroad; require patients to prove they are in the country legally before receiving state medical services; eliminate in-state college tuition breaks for illegal immigrants; and require state agencies to do a thorough accounting of how much illegal immigration is costing the state. Texas is home to about 1 million to 2 million illegal immigrants."

Why should illegal immigrants, who by virtue of being in the country have broken the law, be able to get the same state services as a citizen?" asked state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas who is proposing one of several measures to tax remittances to Mexico. He said his legislation was one way to raise money for healthcare programs.

Texas politicians say that proposing such laws would have been unimaginable a decade ago. During his days as governor, Bush regularly praised the cultural and economic contributions Latino immigrants were making to the state. His political strategy paid off: He won 40% of the Latino vote in 1998, a number previously considered unreachable for a Republican.Bush's approach was a stark contrast from the immigration politics in California during the tenure of Gov. Pete Wilson, who backed Proposition 187, using it to win reelection."

California has always been more liberal than Texas, but yet the treatment of immigration issues has been night and day," said Rogelio Saenz, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University. The Texas Republican Party added hard-line immigration language to its platform last year in response to the demands of its conservative base. It included the line "No amnesty! No how. No way," and a call to "suspend automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to illegal immigrant parents," the idea now proposed by Berman.

Latino leaders say they are stunned by the Texas proposals to deny services to children. They promise retaliation at the ballot box. "How could anyone be so mean-spirited?" said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights group, which originated in Texas. "We're just going to have to get the community out to show these representatives that we matter."

For undocumented Texans such as Ofelia Lopez, the state's push to get tough on illegal immigrants elicits sadness as much as fear. Lopez , who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico seven years ago with the hope that she could give her children a better life, has two daughters, one 3 years old and one 6 months old, who are U.S. citizens."I don't think the solution is to deny children the opportunity to become better people. That's not going to help anyone," said Lopez, 35, who also has a 15-year-old daughter born in Mexico who is attending a Texas high school. "That's not going to stop people from coming here. People are coming here because it's the only way to survive."

Last year, state lawmakers nationwide proposed a record 570 immigration measures, and 84 were signed into law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The group predicts that immigration will again be among the hottest state issues in 2007.

In Texas, Democratic state Rep. Pete Gallego, head of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the House, said that though some of the new proposals were harsh, a few might have momentum, particularly the bills to tax wire transfers."People are appalled at how hard core some of these things are," Gallego said. "We will have a fight."Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican who talked tough on illegal immigration during his reelection campaign last year, has tempered his rhetoric in recent weeks, and sounded a message of compassion and unity during his oath-of-office address last month. He has singled out Berman's proposal as divisive.

Berman counters that his bill may not make him the darling of Austin's lobbyists or the governor, but he is convinced his cause is popular." My mail is running 30 to 1 in favor of what I am trying to do," he said. "This problem is costing Texas money. Texas has to act."*

miguel.bustillo@latimes.com

Narcissism - Super Sized

Gen Y's ego trip takes a nasty turn

A new report suggests that an overdose of self-esteem in college students could mean a rough road ahead.

By Larry Gordon and Louis Sahagun, Times Staff WritersFebruary 27, 2007

'If you don't have a me-first attitude, you won't succeed.'
— Marc Flacks, an assistant professor at Cal State Long Beach

No wonder YouTube is so popular. All the effort to boost children's self-esteem may have backfired and produced a generation of college students who are more narcissistic than their Gen X predecessors, according to a new study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. And the Internet, with all its MySpace and YouTube braggadocio, is letting that self-regard blossom even more, said the analysis, titled "Egos Inflating Over Time." In the study being released today, researchers warn that a rising ego rush could cause personal and social problems for the Millennial Generation, also called Gen Y. People with an inflated sense of self tend to have less interest in emotionally intimate bonds and can lash out when rejected or insulted.

"That makes me very, very worried," said Jean Twenge, a San Diego State associate professor and lead author of the report. "I'm concerned we are heading to a society where people are going to treat each other badly, either on the street or in relationships."She and four other researchers from the University of Michigan, University of Georgia and University of South Alabama looked at the results of psychological surveys taken by more than 16,000 college students across the country over more than 25 years.

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory asks students to react to such statements as: "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person" and "I like to be the center of attention."The study found that almost two-thirds of recent college students had narcissism scores that were above the average 1982 score. Thirty percent more college students showed elevated narcissism in 2006 than in 1982.

Twenge said she and her coauthors are not suggesting that more students today have a pathological narcissistic personality disorder that needs psychiatric treatment. Still, traits of narcissism have increased by moderate but significant amounts, said Twenge, who last year published a book titled "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before.

"The narcissism report is under review for publication in a scholarly journal, which would give it the stamp of academic recognition it now lacks. It was released, Twenge said, in connection with the upcoming paperback edition of her book and with a student affairs workshop today at the University of San Diego at which she and another speaker will discuss how today's college students approach education.

Some of the increase in narcissistic attitudes was probably caused by the self-esteem programs that many elementary schools adopted 20 years ago, the study suggests. It notes that nursery schools began to have children sing songs that proclaim: "I am special, I am special. Look at me."Those youngsters are now adolescents obsessed with websites, such as MySpace and YouTube, that "permit self-promotion far beyond that allowed by traditional media," the report says. Other trends in American culture, including permissive parenting, increased materialism and the fascination with celebrities and reality TV shows, may also heighten self-regard, said study coauthor W. Keith Campbell, psychology professor at the University of Georgia. "It's part of a whole cultural system," he said.

The researchers seek to counter theories that current college students are more civic-minded and involved in volunteer activities than their predecessors. Because many high schools require community work, increases in volunteering "may not indicate a return to civic orientation but may instead be the means toward the more self-focused goal of educational attainment," the report says.An annual survey of U.S. college freshmen by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA has found growing interest in public service and social responsibility, presumably in response to Hurricane Katrina and other disasters around the world.

But that survey also showed that current freshmen are much more interested in financial success and less in "a meaningful philosophy of life" than students were in the 1970s.At Cal State Long Beach on Monday, an informal survey produced divided opinions about Gen Y personality traits.Students and teachers said they often see examples of inflated egos on campus: students who converse in the computer center while others are trying to concentrate, preen in front of the reflecting windows of the economics building or expect good grades simply for showing up at class.

Laura Rantala, 26, a sociology major, said the phenomenon got in the way of a survey she conducted last semester on the attitudes of men and women about jury duty."It took about three minutes to complete the survey," she recalled. "But many students were so self-absorbed they didn't want to participate."I think it's because we all have our own cellphone and iPod with which we're doing our own thing in our own little world," she mused.Some students seeking degrees in finance and management said, however, that they had good reason to stress confidence and esteem.James Coari, a lecturer in the College of Business Administration, agreed, to a point. In an interview in his office, Coari said, people looking for jobs "have to be concerned about image because competition is fierce."

Marc Flacks, an assistant professor of sociology, said that he believed that narcissism was too harsh a description for current students and that it was more important to discuss why "we have a society in which narcissistic behavior is a good quality to have.""This is a bottom-line society, so students are smart to seek the most direct route to the bottom line," he added. "If you don't have a me-first attitude, you won't succeed."Flacks summed up the attitudes he often encounters in students, who expect a tangible payoff from their education:"The old model was a collegial one in which students and professors alike sought knowledge for knowledge's sake.

The new model is 'I paid my money, give me my grade and degree.' It makes me want to ask [students], 'Want fries with that order?' "*

larry.gordon@latimes.comlouis.sahagun@latimes.com

Wi-Fi Comes to LA

Villaraigosa pledges citywide Wi-Fi by 2009
By James S. Granelli and Tony Barboza, Times Staff Writers3:06 PM PST, February 13, 2007

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today pledged to blanket all of Los Angeles with free or very cheap wireless Internet service by 2009. If successful, the plan would create the nation's largest municipal Wi-Fi network in terms of square miles covered and the number of people given access.

Telecommunications providers and advertisers are likely to bear most of the cost for the project, which the city intends to put out to bid as early as this fall.

"This will give a leg up to our businesses and reach technologically isolated parts of our city," said Villaraigosa during a downtown news conference this afternoon.

The city plans to allow the winning bidder to put antennas on its telephone poles, city buildings and other structures to beam broadband access to residents, schools and businesses. Ideally, such a ubiquitous wireless network would give anyone in Los Angeles an uninterrupted high-speed Internet connection for work, browsing or even phone calls.

"With L.A. Wi-Fi, we are dedicating ourselves to the idea that universal access to technology makes our entire economy stronger," Villaraigosa said. More than 300 municipalities nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, in parks and countless other hot spots.

Villaraigosa said the city should be able to build on the efforts of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and other cities across the country.

"This is pretty amazing," said Esme Vos, who founded MuniWireless.com, a website that has become an authority on municipal projects nationwide. "It's a large area, yet an urban project. That's kind of new."

It was not clear how much the network would cost to build and operate. Mark Wolf, the city's assistant general manager for information technology, said such systems cost about $125,000 for every square mile of coverage.

At nearly 470 square miles, a Los Angeles Wi-Fi network would cost $58.75 million. In San Francisco, a proposal by Google and Earthlink to set up and run a wireless system has raised issues about having the private sector running a public utility and service. The city continues to look into whether it should operate and own its own Wi-Fi network.

Villaraigosa acknowledged some of skepticism surrounding a citywide system but said that the L.A. Wi-Fi initiative is "not going to be a study to put on the shelf."

Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times

james.granelli@latimes.comtony.barboza@latimes.com