National Anthem

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' staff briefly considered shuttering their Tucson district field office in the aftermath of the mass shooting that left the congresswoman in critical condition, killed her director of community outreach and wounded two colleagues. But they couldn't do it. "Congresswoman Giffords would not want us to stop what we do, and that's why the decision was made to open as normal at 8 a.m.," said spokesman C.J. Karamargin. "Obviously, the circumstances are anything but normal.

The first time Natalie Vinti took the field with Mexico's national soccer team, her arms were covered with more ink than those of an NBA point guard. Only Vinti's Magic Marker tattoos weren't paeans to friends, family or the old neighborhood. They were one-word commands in Spanish such as fuera (out) and sola (alone), a kind of bare-skin Berlitz to help her communicate with teammates. "I can't formulate the words fast enough in my head in Spanish," said Vinti, whose understanding of the language at the time went only slightly beyond the menu at Taco Bell.

Fans of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert may be hoping for a political call-to-arms at Saturday's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear at the National Mall, but based on the schedule the Comedy Central duo provided the National Park Service, it appears they're in for more of a comedy-and-music variety show. According to the permit application filed by the rally's organizers, the event will kick off at noon ET with a pre-show performance by The Roots and will conclude with a taped piece dubbed "The Sanity and Fear Awards.

European soccer, relatively free from black eyes in recent years as far as crowd trouble goes, received a pretty good shiner from Serbia's lunatic fringe Tuesday. Rioting Serbian fans caused their country's Euro 2012 qualifying match against Italy in Genoa to be delayed by 35 minutes and then abandoned altogether after only six minutes of play. There was trouble outside the stadium before the game and more trouble inside during the build-up. Fans tossed flares and fireworks onto the field, cut through or broke down security fences, burned a flag, booed their own national anthem and brawled with riot police.

Are the Dodgers getting you down? Are you tired of all the McCourt mangling and Brox bashing and Kemp crashing? Do you sometimes wonder if anyone likes them anymore? Well, someone still does. Steer your computer to YouTube, punch in " Tommy Lasorda national anthem," and click on the 51-second clip to find that person. Lasorda, for the first time in his 82 years, does the only thing he has never done on a baseball field. He sings the national anthem. He's at the Dodgers' triple-A park in Albuquerque, and he's part of a female singing group, and it's an amateur video, but that's clearly his voice, selling his favorite team by crooning his favorite song.

I tend to shun celebrations that don't have at least some spiritual component, but I always make an exception for the Super Bowl. It's a magical day, rife with camaraderie and new friends. Met my first wife at a Super Bowl party. She jumped out of the cake, then ate it. Score. Super Bowl parties are also, as any real fan will tell you, the absolute worst places to watch a football game. In my experience, most of those who go to Super Bowl parties have no interest in the game itself.

O say can you se say can you se e . . . a rock god plucking away at "The Star-Spangled Banner" on electric guitar? Or, farther down the 5 Freeway, a 12-year-old girl belting out Francis Scott Key's greatest hit? The Major League Baseball championship series is underway, which means that for the Dodgers and Angels it's time to pack your starting rotation with aces. But we're not talking pitchers, we're talking national anthem performers. Taste in how the national anthem is performed, as in hot dogs, tends to vary from ballpark to ballpark.

Sergei Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems and also persecuted dissident writers as part of the Soviet propaganda machine, has died. He was 96. Mikhalkov, who fathered two noted film directors, died Thursday in a Moscow hospital. A cause of death was not given. He was born March 18, 1913, in Moscow. As a young author and war correspondent favored by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, he was commissioned to write lyrics for a new Soviet anthem designed to inspire Red Army soldiers in the midst of World War II. Mikhalkov's lyrics, co-written with journalist El Registan and set to music by Alexander Alexandrov, lauded Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who "brought us up on loyalty to the people" and "inspired us to labor and to heroism."

The 2-1 squeaker for Mexico in Mexico City wasn't the real story. What matters is the usual shameful behavior of the Mexican fans -- booing the American national anthem, pelting American players with beer containers while they're taking crucial corner kicks, and afterward mouthing arrogance and hatred toward our country. Less than appealing too were the comment by star forward Landon Donovan that "it wasn't a do-or-die game for us" and the ho-hum attitude of Coach Bob Bradley. If this wasn't a crucial endeavor, perhaps they should resign from the U.S. national team and pursue goals that interest them more.

On Monday, Ana Ivanovic talked about pressure as if it were a lost love. "I realized how much I missed it and how it made me sharper, and, in some ways, more focused. "Then I realized I wanted it back." At the L.A. Women's Tennis Championships on Tuesday night in Carson, she played without it, at least the intense public kind, because the ranking "No. 1" is no longer in front of her name, and it hasn't been since she had it for two stints of 12 weeks last year.