I’m always amazed at how strongly people react to stories about illegal immigration (see the 30 plus comments on this story.) I’d be outraged too if a rapist – whether legal, illegal, a minor or whatever – got out on a bail and committed another violent crime. But I certainly don’t have the same reaction to someone who gets caught for speeding and sent home to Mexico for unpaid traffic tickets. Yes, this guy – the main example in my story – should’ve paid his tickets in the first place and he might have never been in this situation. That said, I don’t think his actions make him a horrible criminal. How many US citizens have done the same thing?

I know that isn’t an entirely fair comparison because illegal immigrants have already broken the law by entering the country without permission. I’m not going to argue that illegal immigration shouldn’t be considered a violation of civil law. The question is how it should be addressed, and I have a lot of conflicting opinions on that. I just wanted to point out that I don’t think people realize how difficult it can be to follow the law when you’re living in fear that any interaction with police could lead to deportation. In some cases, illegal immigrants can’t follow the law even if they want to. They can’t get US identification, which means they often can’t get car insurance or registration for that matter. How many of those “crimes” can they commit before officials label them a criminal who must be sent home?

I keep trying to imagine what the paper will look like in another year or two when the workforce drops another 20, 30 maybe 40 percent and I simply can’t picture it. Unless there’s some kind of dramatic comeback, I really think this is what’s coming next. Of course, I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. So go buy some newspapers and help me out!

Google’s Spanish sites have it, too, though not in the main search bar. I could only get it in the top right corner of the page, where the Firefox Internet browser has a Google search tool.

I did a few test runs on both sites, searching for Juanes, La Jornada and even a U.S. icon – Tina Turner. The consensus – both quickly suggested what I was thinking of after only typing in a few letters. After typing only “La,” Yahoo Telemundo gave me a list of options with “La Jornada” listed second. I had to type the “J” for Google to get the newspaper to appear on the list – but it was the first suggestion.

I’m curious to hear from others who do a lot of internet searching in Spanish – is one better than the other, and why? Or maybe you know of another search engine that’s better than both of these.

I’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty handy tool. Yahoo says it’s needed because their surveys show that only a small percentage of people actually find what they’re looking for when they hit the Web. I usually have the opposite problem – too much information to choose from. But this at least makes it faster for me to type my searches. I’ve noticed that search sites have become a lot more helpful in general lately, remembering past searches I’ve done or suggesting multi-media related to a certain topic.

A Yahoo! news release says it launched its search assist feature in October 2007. Now, it’s available in 15 countries and seven languages. (The Spanish-language versions are also on Yahoo! Mexico and Yahoo! Argentina.) Kudos to them and other major search sites for making sure that non-English speaking markets get the latest technologies, too, even if it takes a few extra months.

The story has gotten national attention because it’s so tragic and appears to be so random. I was asked to talk about it on MSNBC’s national broadcast last week. Not to make light of what happened, here are some screen shots that Seth’s friend made into a comic. If I can figure out how to get the actual video clip on here, I’ll post that as well.

(I wonder if newspapers have to do any sort of special formatting to get their content delivered through this. Or maybe Amazon takes care of that.)

I read a lot of news online, simply because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get things like the NYTimes or Chicago Tribune where I live, and of course, it’s free. But there’s something about flipping through the printed paper that I just can’t get through machines. I notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to look at, and I can clip something out or take the paper with me to read at the gym. Plus, I never buy ink for my printer so those print-at-home coupons are useless to me.
I hope I’ll always have the chance to hold a real paper in my hands. But let’s be honest here – I think Amazon’s on the right track. It’s not hard to believe when you see newspapers continually tightening their belts. Recently, I found out that The Capital Times, the Madison daily that I’d worked for as an intern both in Madison and from D.C. as a political correspondent, had reduced publication to once a week. BUT, they still have a daily Web site. We’ll see how that goes. Still, what a blow to see a paper you worked at essentially one step from shutting down. I can’t imagine how the people who’ve worked there for years must feel.