Letter to the Editor: Immigrant advocates criticize jail policy

The Mercury News had another misguided article on illegal immigrants Saturday, Immigrant advocates criticize jail policy by Jessie Mangaliman, which reported on some recent agreements between several county jails (most recently LA County, the first one in California) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I was unhappy with the article’s posture and wrote in the following (unpublished) letter:

Margaret Zaknoen and Renee Saucedo are advocating for a cause which they support, and any good fighter will use the strongest possible language, but I find their rhetoric seriously wrong (“Immigrant advocates criticize jail policy”, 2/12/05). Local police forces properly work with federal agencies every day and there is no good reason why immigration laws should be exempt from such cooperation. Nor is this situation a step towards requiring hospitals or schools to report residency status, as Saucedo exaggerates, because this screening is directly connected to the primary mission of our law enforcement agencies. One can appreciate the reluctance of other illegal immigrants to cooperate with police in most circumstances but that’s hardly a reason to compound a big problem by allowing convicted criminals to remain in the United States needlessly.

Reasonable people may campaign for changes in American immigration law or for programs which reduce the incentives that drive people here illegally; however, that’s an entirely different discussion.

Further, we have more than enough homegrown criminals straining California jails and prisons today without covering the cost for people who’ve shown contempt for our society twice over. Would Zaknoen, Saucedo and members of their organizations prefer to spend already scarce tax dollars on the cost of imprisoning convicted criminals and–given the apparent political impossibility of raising taxes–cut education or healthcare spending instead?

Bushinations: Openings for Democrats?

William Greider has long been one of my favorite muckraking writers and in his new article for The Nation, The New Colossus, he packs a wallop straight at the jaws of CEOs and investment bankers who think that changes forced on them in the wake of Enron and WorldCom are heading for the past. Instead, their new troubles are coming from an entirely new direction: state officials and union bosses who control massive retirement funds and aren’t afraid to use them.

From a different angle, Friedman’s latest (No Mullah Left Behind) offers a lever that meshes well with the action Greider discusses. Where does the money go when Americans fill up their cars, SUVs and pickup trucks? Among other places to the governments in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, which they tend to turn around and use against us. Decreasing our profligate consumption of petroleum would decrease their income and their ability to fund groups antithetical to our interests.

But are President Bush and his crew in DC working to strengthen our national security by developing meaningful alternative fuel source? No, because that would also take money out of the oil industry and that’s where Bush has his strongest backing and where many of his political appointees spent their careers. Can’t bite the hand that feeds him, can he?

Democrats can. If Howard Dean can use his new party chairmanship to push the policies developed by California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others (this is from Greider’s piece) as one pincer and a well-thought out New Manhattan Project to develop new energy resources as the other, the Democratic Party may just nip this Radical Right neotheocracy in the bud.

Dammit, the classic 1965 French docudrama The Battle of Algiers is on IFC right now but not again within the two weeks of listings TiVo has in memory. Makes me wonder, additionally, why the system has no Add to Wishlist choice on the program detail screen. I need to check OnDemand later and see if the movie’s available through the service.

Today’s movie: Win a Date with Tad Hamilton

I didn’t protest too much when TS1 brought this DVD home from the library. Looked harmlessly cute and offered two young actors that I think will be big stars in the near future in Topher Grace and Josh Duhamel. Kate Bosworth is an upcoming starlet–she’ll play Lois Lane in next year’s Superman Returns–though she has stiff age group competition from the likes of Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Scarlett Johannson and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton is a worlds colliding triangular romantic comedy, a basic but robust framework. Duhamel plays Hamilton, a hunky Hollywood star in danger of ruining his career with fast living, Bosworth is small town fan Rosalee, and Grace her supermarket boss and good friend Pete. Tad’s agent and manager (both characters named Richard Levy, played by Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes) cook up the title contest, which Rosalee of course wins. During a sweet dinner date in Hollywood (fish out of water opportunity!), she opens his eyes to the emptiness of his life and so Tad flies to West Virginia to find out more. However, Pete is finally about to profess his love in the lunchroom when Hamilton arrives. Hijinks ensue!

Written by Victor Levin (Mad About You) and directed by Robert Luketic (both Legally Blonde movies and, opening in May, the J.Lo-Jane Fonda comedy Monster-in-Law), this movie works because of good writing, good pacing and editing plus a very strong performance by Topher Grace. Win a Date could easily have lost it’s way by leaning on cliches, a trap many younger target demo comedies fall to, or by wasting screen time on secondary plot lines. Instead Levin and Luketic use small portions of both as seasoning; for instance, Angelica, the hot bartender (Kathryn Hahn) who adores Pete the way Pete does Rosalee and Rosalee does Tad, might have tempted other filmmakers to add a scene or two but I saw nothing of the sort even in the deleted extras included on the DVD.

Props to Gary Cole for adding to his string of oddball supporting characters as Bosworth’s Dad; perhaps at 48 he passed his window of opportunity for big lead roles when Crusade crashed and burned but has done terrific work as Ron Livingston’s boss in cult fave Office Space, Mike Brady in the recent Brady Bunch flicks, and the sheriff in short-lived TV series American Gothic. Sean Hayes is hot and building off his crazy Jack from Will & Grace but a bit miscast here, trying too hard to be “straight.” Josh Duhamel is decent as Tad, showing he can play more than just the smartass pretty boy that’s his character on Las Vegas.

And yes girls, in case you were wondering, the fabulous Tad does have his own website!

recommended

Today’s movie: Kill Bill

True, this was released as Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 but even the chapter numbering shows that Kill Bill is really one film that Miramax for commercial reasons chopped in half. Starz was considerate enough to run them consecutively tonight with Vol. 2 as the Saturday night premiere but for the most part this writeup treats both parts as a single piece. I have to admit hearing the title, which is repeated many times over the course of the thing, had a disconcerting effect as some aspect of my inner self reacted as if it were directed at me.

Quentin Tarantino can really make a movie when he puts in the effort. But he works at his own pace, enjoying the luxury and variety afforded by his success. If he wants to act or produce or just take time to kibbitz on other peoples’ projects, he does, though this doesn’t endear him to the public or the movie studios; I still think, however, that his lead performace in Destiny Turns on the Radio is sorely underrated. So while his reputation isn’t what it could be, I get the impression Tarantino doesn’t care. More power to him.

What does matter is that in about a dozen years he’s written and directed four movies, three of them (including this one) classics and one (Jackie Brown) questionable to some viewers but which I thought was pretty good. Reservoir Dogs worked within the gangster/heist genre boundaries but was an incredible take on it and Pulp Fiction simply blew up American cinema.

Anyway… Kill Bill. A very basic plot, set up in the opening scene: The Bride (Uma Thurman) was once part of an elite team of assassins run by Bill (David Carradine, after Warren Beatty declined) but, visibly pregnant, has run away to marry Tommy and work in his used record store; Bill and the other assassins (Vivica Fox, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Darryl Hannah) show up at the wedding rehearsal and, guns blazing, kill everybody. Except, of course, Thurman isn’t dead, just in a coma for four years, and when she wakes up goes after the others for revenge. The movie is more or less told in voiceover by Thurman so no spoiler in noting that she gets everyone in the end.

The key is how she gets them. The creativity in dialog and plot twists, the imagination in visuals and staging the fight sequences (for which Tarantino got help from the acclaimed Woo-ping Yuen and Sonny Chiba, who also plays a small but significant role as maker of the finest Katana swords). Particularly impressive is his ability to integrate elements and conventions of many different classic film genres into a coherent, holistic new style. Inglorious Bastards, apparently his next major effort due out in 2006, is about a gang of misfits on a mission in World War II (in the vein of The Dirty Dozen) and I’m truly eager to see what he does with it.

Thurman, Carradine and Hannah give outstanding performances; Madsen and Liu are good and Fox has too small a role too early in the film to judge. Thurman carries this movie on her back in what seems to me to be the most impressive job of her career. Lately we’ve hardly been lacking in female action hero and sueprhero flicks but very few of those stars have made such meat out of their part. Hannah’s role is so contrary to the soft, sweet women she’s always cast as but looking at her more recent and upcoming credits in IMDB shows that producers aren’t picking up on this but perhaps she’ll get lucky and be cast in a TV drama that runs for years.

definitely recommended

Loud neighbors suck, MV cops no help

Mountain View does not have a noise ordinance; therefore the only law controlling sound levels in my community is California’s Penal Code Section 415, which says: “Any person who maliciously and willfully disturbs another person by loud and unreasonable noise.” For the police to stop someone, I was told by one officer, they must determine the volume is purposely intended to interfere with another person’s quiet enjoyment. Additionally, the volume must be at this level when the policeman arrives on the scene.

Now I’m all in favor of everyone having as much fun as possible but only to the point where I can’t hear my TV or music clearly. The officer I spoke with sympathized though he wasn’t able to agree with my characterization of malicious. I wonder why, though, since Mirriam-Webster’s legal definition is simply “wanton disregard for the rights of others.” The willful and loud requirements are clear unless, as was the case this time, the volume is turned down between a call to the dispatcher and the officer’s arrival. Unreasonable has probably been defined through case law though one analysis suggests a loud home stereo system would be unreasonable.

The officer said this is far from the first time he’s had to deliver an unsatisfactory answer to a resident’s noise complaint and I hardly hold him personally responsible, of course. But that doesn’t mollify me, just makes for one more in a long line of unsatisfactory dealings with the Mountain View Police Department.

On the sad side of the ledger, my sister’s father-in-law passed away this past weekend. I only met Larry Sr. a few times, him living in Florida, but no one could miss his terrific friendliness and appetite for life. I know from talking with my sister that he was a wonderful guy who made her feel like a daughter and not just an in-law, that when he loved you he loved you with all he had. My brother-in-law is a great guy and clearly the apple was dropped only inches from the tree. Only 65, he will be missed.

Bay Area Unites Tsunami Benefit Feb. 20

Are you interested in a local, large scale Tsunami benefit to attend? Then the Bay Area Unites Tsunami Event, coming to HP Pavillion in San Jose on Sunday, Feb. 20,, might be worth checking out. Prominent author and philosopher Dr. Deepak Chopra, Grammy nominated singer Lisa Loeb, Grammy nominated musicians Shankar & Gingger, acclaimed dancer Danica Sena and philanthropist Dr. Malini Alles will be among the headliners, and former President Bill Clinton will particpate via video. Bay Area Unites is a coalition of local organizations with ties to the affected countries in South Asia including the India Community Center (ICC), American India Foundation (AIF), The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPIO). Check it out.

Bushinations: Where’s my darn script?!

Matt Drudge quoted President Bush’s brief conversation with Mary Mornin in Omaha today (PR Newswire transcript). Mornin, a woman in her late fifties who told the president she was a divorced mother of three, including a ‘mentally challenged’ son. Just in case it goes away here is what I read:

"Begin transcript:

MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much."

I don’t but perhaps you find this funny; all I see from this is an enormous lack of sensitivity on the part of a man who seems lost in the ether when he doesn’t have prepared remarks to lean on if an off-message question comes his way. This woman is struggling to make ends meet yet finds the time to attend a rally supporting his (full of crap) Social Security reform proposal and the BushMeister falls back on his fratboy mean humor to thank her. Wonderful!

Letter to the Editor: Design for Living

Nothing in human culture exists without a context. Michael Behe explains the four linked claims that argue for Intelligent Design and fails to provide the context. What, I wonder, is responsible for the intelligence of the designs we see around us? “[T]he theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea,” he writes but then finishes his essay without addressing this central question. Semantics aside, no one can doubt that in the world view of Behe and the Intelligent Design community, the designer is God. And then, so much for his proposition that ID is a scientific theory comparable to evolution.

Here’s a good photo of Vivian and me dancing last Saturday night at her firm’s holiday party at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay. A really great party, beautiful location, great food, really good band (Motown, ’70s soft rock and disco) and a chance for me to finally socialize with her co-workers.