Uncommon Sense

Without immigrants, legal or otherwise ...

... we wouldn't have stories like this one.

It was the first day of school and a new student named Pedro
Martinez, the son of a Mexican restaurateur,entered the fourth grade.
The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history.
"Who said 'Give me Liberty, or give me Death?' "
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Pedro, who had his hand up.
"Patrick Henry, 1775."
"Very good!" apprised the teacher.

"Now, who said, "Government of the people by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth?"Again, no response except from
Pedro: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863."
The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed!
Pedro, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you
do!"

She heard a loud whisper: "Screw the Mexicans!" "Who said that?" she
demanded.
Pedro put his hand up. "Jim Bowie, 1836."

At that point, a student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke." The
teacher glared and asked, "All right! Now, who said that?"
Again, Pedro answered, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister,
1991."

Now furious, another student yelled, "Oh yeah? Suck this!"
Pedro jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouting to the
teacher, "Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"

Now, with almost a mob hysteria, teacher said, "You little shit. If
you say anything else, I'll kill you!"
Pedro frantically yelled at the top of his voice, "Gary Condit to
Chandra Levy, 2001."

The teacher fainted, and as the class gathered around her on the
floor, someone said, "Oh shit, we're in BIG trouble now!"
Pedro whispered, "Saddam Hussein, 2003."

Finally someone throws a eraser at Pedro, someone shouted "Duck!"
Teacher asked "Who said that?"
Pedro: "Dick Cheney, 2006."

"The Lost City" is a hit at the box office

Box Office Mojo reports that "The Lost City," Andy Garcia's tribute to Cuba, will take in an estimated $180,000 in receipts during its opening weekend, which ends later today.

That's good enough only for No. 19 on the list of current releases, but the total dollars is not the real story.

By another, perhaps more important measure, "The Lost City" is a hit.

"The Lost City," which is in very limited release, was shown only on 18 screens during its premier weekend, meaning it will take in an estimated $10,000 per screen.

The next-highest per screen estimated take is $6,465 for "United 93," which debuted this weekend on 1,795 screens. (It was the No. 2 movie of the weekend, taking in an estimated $11.6 million.)

The No. 1 movie of the weekend was the new Robin Williams comedy, "RV," which earned an estimated $16.4 million, or an average of $4,506 for each of its 3,639 screens.

From the beginning, the distribution strategy for "The Lost City" seemed to have been to limit its release. Hopefully, "The Lost City's" early success this weekend will force a re-consideration of that strategy.

For the latest release schedule, go here.

Castro's "ideological endgame"

It may only be wishful thinking but Fidel Castro may be seeing the beginning of the end of his regime — and he won't go down without a fight. One analyst even thinks Castro may be planning his own version of Mao's Cultural Revolution, which devastated China from 1966 to 1976.

The Los Angeles Times details the evidence in this morning's paper:

Although Castro has held his island in a vice grip since his guerrilla band seized power on New Year's Day 1959, his campaigns have lately taken on an urgency. In the last year, amid indications of the bearded icon's flagging health, the regime has:

• Declared war on the "new rich," arresting those who use their cars or bicycles as taxis, seizing privately raised produce on sale at farmers markets and rescinding self-employment licenses that had allowed Cubans since 1994 to run restaurants and guesthouses in their homes.

• Increased the number of "acts of repudiation" by Communist Party militants, who track down and heckle dissidents and their families.

• Ramped up efforts to dismantle outlawed satellite dishes, and confiscated televisions and subscription decoder cards brought in by relatives visiting from abroad.

• Drafted students and aging Communist Party loyalists to stand guard at gas stations and factories to deter theft by a broad sector of state employees, a problem even the party mouthpiece Granma acknowledges has reached pandemic proportions.

• Ordered Cubans to refrain from contact with foreign tourists unless "absolutely necessary" for their jobs, claiming a need to protect citizens from ideological contamination.

(H/T to La Ventanita.)

Mexicans get free pass, Cubans get shot at

Mexicans seeking better jobs cross the U.S-Mexico border by the thousands every year, largely un-hindered by the U.S. Border Patrol. Advocates for immigration "reform" are outraged that some would suggest the U.S. ramp up security along the border to keep the illegal immigrants out.

Cubans seeking freedom get shot at by the U.S. Coast Guard — the same Coast Guard that gave us the Seven-Mile Bridge fiasco a few months ago.

NBC6.Net reports:

ISLAMORADA, Fla. -- The U.S. Coast Guard said its agents fired shots at the engine of a boat in which Cuban migrants and alleged smugglers were riding near Islamorada on Thursday morning.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the boat filled with 34 Cuban migrants and two alleged smugglers was attempting to make its way to either somewhere in the Florida Keys or perhaps the Florida mainland when it was intercepted near Islamorada at about 6:30 a.m.

The Coast Guard said it was trying to stop the boat, but the boat would not stop, so Coast Guard officials fired shots at the engines. No one was injured in the shooting, officials said.

The boat came to a stop. Whether it was because the gunfire disabled the engine or if those on the boat decided to stop is uncertain.

I wonder if these guys taught the Coast Guard that trick.

Where is the outrage now?

I'm guessing we won't hear much about the Coast Guard's actions on Monday, the national "Day Without Illegal Immigrants," either.

H/T to Ziva at Blog for Cuba, who eloquently shares some of her outrage.

"The Coast Guard said the law needs to be upheld. Hogwash, the United States government is arbitrarily enforcing immigration law," Ziva writes. "How is it that millions of illegal immigrants are allowed to take over our city streets demanding legitimacy while handfuls of desperate refugees from Cuba are treated like common criminals? This is not the first time the Coast Guard has used force against Cuban refugees. It is outrageous and immoral; shame on President Bush and all who support this criminal hypocrisy."

Feel-good movie recommendation

For a lesson on the power of words, and the power of love, go see "Akeelah and the Bee." The movie, which I saw earlier this afternoon, co-stars Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett and Keke Campbell, as an 11-year-old girl who is struggling to find her place at home and at school, until she uses her spelling prowess to compete for a spot at the National Spelling Bee.

(Bassett plays her courageous, head-strong, widowed mother who just doesn't quite understand her daughter, and Fishburne plays the slightly mysterious guru who helps Aleekah prepare for the tourney with lessons on spelling, and lessons on life. You know the types.)

Like other inspirational, feel-good films, the movie has its cliches and its corny moments, and sometimes the plot gets a little thin, but by the end, you will be ready to grab your Scrabble game and hug the ones you love.

A bit of trivia about "Akeelah": Two of the executive producers are Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, who helped finance the movie through their 2929 Entertainment. Another Cuban-Wagner company is Magnolia Pictures, which is distributing Andy Garcia's "The Lost City."

Go see that movie, too.

World Press Freedom Day

I know this week is already shaping up as a busy one for many bloggers, especially with the "Day Without Illegal Immigrants" on Monday.

But don't forget that Wednesday is World Press Freedom Day, which should matter to EVERYONE who loves freedom.

For more, visit the World Press Freedom Day Web site.

The courage of Flight 93

An old friend and colleague, Carl Hoover of the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald, has perfectly captured the message of "United 93."

I’m sure the wounds of Sept. 11 are still too raw for some, too soon for them to revisit in films like United 93 or other accounts on television and in books. I still cry, too.

It’s never too soon, though, to remember and honor what we saw in those largely anonymous passengers’ final act: a nameless courage.

An American courage.

Read all of Carl's column here.

Flowers for Martha Beatriz Roque

Martha Beatriz Roque's Assembly to Promote A Civil Society has photos of the injuries Roque suffered when she was assaulted last week by one of Fidel Castro's gooon squads.

There's also photos of some of the propaganda the goons left behind.

The pictures are ugly, but it's not all bad.

The Assembly also has photos of the flowers Roque received from European embassies in Havana — representing Austria, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Poland — after word of what happened to her got out.

It's unlikely that Vladimiro Roca was thinking of those countries when he said Saturday that too many nations prefer to remain in good standing with Castro than hold him accountable for his human rights violations, like the recent harassment and assault of Roque.

(H/T to Y No Mas.)

Caption contest

To commemorate the expansion of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas from two leftist banana states to three leftist banana states, let's take turns writing a caption for the photo to the left.

(H/T for the photo to Arroz Con Mango.)

United 93

No one will ever want to re-live Sept. 11, 2001.

And no one should ever forget what happened that day.

Both points were reinforced for me yesterday when I went to see a first showing of "United 93."

And that is why this film, which has been criticized for being "too raw" and "too soon," is must-viewing for all Americans.

Much of 9/11, I remember as a blur, as I worked to cover the story for a newspaper in Colorado. But there are moments I clearly remember.

I remember hearing my wife tell me as I came out of the shower that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

And I remember watching TV coverage of the ensusing fire when from the right side of the screen, another plane flew into view — "That plane sure is flying close," I thought — and an instant later, slammed into the second tower.

That moment is re-created, with the use of actual footage, in "United 93."

I knew what was going to happen, and I was still shocked.

Once again, I cried.

Sometime after the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon were hit, four hijackers took over United Flight #93, heading from Newark, N.J. to San Francisco. Where they were heading, no one is sure, but the filmmakers' guess was the terrorists' target was the U.S. Capitol.

The passengers of United 93, hearing about the attacks in New York and Washington via their cell phones, were not going to let that happen. Once they concluded their fates were sealed, the passengers got angry and resolved that they would fight back.

No one knows exactly what happened. But as depicted in "United 93," the men and women of Flight 93 organized themselves for a counter-attack, never expecting to and not caring whether they would survive.

They did not see themselves as soldiers in the front line in the war on terrorism that President Bush would soon launch, but that is exactly what they were.

As the passengers whispered amongst themselves in the back of the plane and steeled themselves to make their move, the same question kept swirling through my mind.

"What would I do?"

One of the controversies about "United 93" is that it is being released "too soon" after the events depicted, as if there will be that moment when memories of 9/11 will not re-kindle strong emotions.

When exactly is that time?

More than 38 years later, people cry when they remember the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 42 years later, people cry when they remember the assassination of President Kennedy.

More than 64 years later, people cry when they remember Pearl Harbor.

When exactly is it no longer "too soon?"

And why are the critics of "United 93," so intent that we not remember?

Frankly, it astounds me that it took almost five years for Hollywood to release a movie that so vividly and so accurately captures the events and emotions of 9/11.

The final 20 minutes of "United 93" is some of the most grueling, most difficult movie-viewing I have ever experienced.

The filmmakers do not spare the audience in depicting how the passengers stood up and moved against their kidnappers. Both sides fought for their lives, and no detail is spared in depicting that struggle.

I knew how the fight was going to end, but I still wanted to cheer.

Maybe that's because even though at the end, as the movie went to black, I knew that the passengers of United Flight #93, and all Americans, had won.

The choice whether to see the movie is yours alone. You can decide for yourself if it is "too soon" for you to re-live and remember what happened on 9/11.

But if you plan to see the movie, try to go today or Sunday. Universal Studios has pledged to donate 10 percent of the opening weekend receipts for a Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania.

You can also donate here.

United 93, 9/11