With over 1,300 cars torched and destroyed, and with 800 people — some of them boys as young as 13 — arrested, France is literally up in flames. And there is no end in sight for the root causes of the riots, according to the government’s own admission.

The riots began in Parisian suburbs ten days ago when Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, boys of Mauritanian and Tunisian background, were electrocuted while hiding from the police. Their deaths sparked the tinderbox of frustration that has been building among the nation’s immigrant population, with poverty, unemployment, and discrimination fanning the flames of resentment.

Commenting on France’s North African immigrants and their locally-born children, Secretary of State for Local Government Brice Hortefeux stated today on French radio that “For 20 years, urban policy has been plugging holes but has not resolved the fundamental problem of integrating … We will find a way out of this with determination and firmness … But I don’t know how long it will take.” An honest but grim appraisal of the situation for a country in which 10 percent of its 60 million residents are immigrants. Even when order is restored in France, the root causes for the riots have only been highlighted, with no particular solution in sight to the grievances of the nation’s immigrants and issues relating to the nation’s immigration policies.

Mimi Hanaoka

Come this Wednesday, November 9, 2005, my mother and stepfather may no longer be married, according to their home state of Texas. Same for my married friends. And their married parents.

No, it’s not a mass divorce orgy. This is, after all, Texas we’re talking about.

Instead, it’s the potentially fatal error of Texas’ Religious Right, which seeks to add Texas to the growing list of states that have outlawed gay marriage on Tuesday, November 8. (Never mind that the Texas Constitution already prohibits same-sex marriage. Texas legislators just thought we needed a not-so-subtle reminder of that fact that gays remain second-class citizens even after the Supreme Court had the nerve to legalize sodomy in its landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision.)

It seems that when Texas legislators took time out of their brief, 140-day session to draft an amendment to the Texas Constitution banning gay marriage, they failed to take the time to actually read — much less edit — what they came up with:

Article I, Texas Constitution, (The Bill of Rights) is amended by adding  Section 32 to read as follows:

Sec. 32.  (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.

(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

So is section b just a subtle — but potentially radical — cry for equality? If gays can’t marry or enter into legally recognized domestic partnerships, then neither can heterosexuals?

Unlikely. After all, the Ku Klux Klan didn’t come out in droves in Austin this weekend to show their solidarity with gays.

If voters approve this so-called Proposition 2 on Tuesday, Texas will effectively be outlawing domestic partnerships for gays and heterosexuals alike. But the poorly worded section b will also make it all too easy for divorce lawyers to argue that their clients can’t be granted a divorce because, well, they were never married in the first place. Just what Texas needs — more court clog, less legal reform.  

At least divorce rates would take a drastic downward turn…

The passage of this amendment seemed certain a couple of months ago. But with every major Texas newspaper coming out in opposition to the proposition in the last few weeks, Proposition 2’s fate is less certain.

For the amendment to be approved on Tuesday, its hateful intent will have to trump its inevitably disastrous effects in voters minds. And if that happens, it will only go to show that the time the Texas Legislature used to draft, debate, and vote on the amendment would’ve been better spent passing some much-needed education reform to ensure that Texans learn how to read before they’re bestowed with civic responsibilities.

Laura Nathan-Garner

For the real Star Wars fan there’s nothing I could say that would change your mind about the release of Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith on DVD.  You probably have already purchased a copy or two, watched every second of every extra, and skipped the game demo because you already have it on your Xbox.  But for all the casual fans who may have missed the film in the theater or who want to check out the extras, then perhaps I have a chance to move you away from the dark side of your local video rental store.

Revenge of the Sith is the third episode in the six-movie saga but the last to be made.  It follows the story of Anakin Skywalker from chosen savior of the Republic and the Force that guides it to his fall into the Dark Side of the Force and transformation from Jedi Knight into the evil Darth Vader — the bad guy in the original films that encompass the last three episodes.  I could go on, but if you grew up in the 70s or later in any part of the world, you already know the story created by George Lucas and his team of amazing artists and technicians.  There isn’t another film franchise that has had the reach into popular culture like Star Wars, and nothing else even comes close, except maybe the Beatles.

Now that technology has caught up with the richness of George Lucas’s imagination, not only are the films themselves more vivid and exciting, but the DVDs have a load of extras that add on hours of compelling viewing no one should miss.  In terms of story, Revenge of the Sith ranks up there with the original Star Wars (now known as Episode IV) and The Empire Strikes Back, heralded by most critics and fans as the best of the entire saga.  If you’re rating quality of special effects, then this is by far the best of the lot, packing in everything that CGI can deliver in one film.  Besides the usual wide-screen, Dolby THX surround sound, and commentary track (provided by Lucas, producer Rick McCullum, and VFX producers Rob Coleman, John Knoll, and Roger Guyett), there is a bevy of extras that are worth putting in the second disk to watch.  There are a bunch of trailers and TV spots, but if you watch just one, check out the nostalgia teaser that reaches back to the original films and gives scope to the entire saga.  The behind-the-scenes stills give an easy glimpse into the world of making technical wizardry films, and if you like games but haven’t seen the new offerings from Lucas Arts, then the Xbox demos will thrill and compel you to buy them the next time you get to the mall. The deleted scenes amount to two sequences that were cut for time, but it’s interesting to hear Lucas’ explanation as to why they were exiled, even if his delivery is dry and plotting.

The most exciting extras are the Making Of documentaries, of which there are many.  The full-length documentary, Within A Minute, is by far the best and probably will be used in film schools in the future as a course all by itself. The doc takes the viewer through the creation of one sequence in the film from conception to the final completion.  The most mind-boggling aspect you come away with is the sheer number of people it takes to make just one part of a film like this and how you’ll feel compelled to sit through the five minutes of credits the next time you make it to the theater.  The other docs are just as compelling but more specialized.  The 15-part Web documentary collection used to help promote the film when it was first released repeats a lot of what appears in the other docs, but it gives you a sense of the time it took to make the entire film.  

All in all, this is a DVD that should be in every film fan’s collection and a must-view for all the young, George Lucas wannabees sitting at their laptop, hoping one day they’ll be making their own six-part, 25-years-in-the-making movie saga.  Knowing Mr. Lucas, there will probably be new and improved versions in the future with added effects he couldn’t do in 2005; but even so, you won’t be disappointed with the current disk offering.  

As Yoda would say, the force one be with, and buy or rent Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith available practically anywhere a DVD could possibly be sold.

Rich Burlingham

“It’s not as obvious as it was that day in Montgomery, but we’re segregated in this city now in many ways…In restaurants you see it. At work you see it. Honestly, I think Rosa Parks would be disappointed. I want to believe that one person can change the world like she did, but I don’t know if I believe one person can solve things here.”

Ms. Thompson spoke as politicians gathered in Detroit to honor Rosa Parks’ life work this afternoon.

llouison

Literature may have deemed April the cruelest month, but October is one of the deadliest; October 2005 closed with one of the highest monthly death tolls of American servicemen in Iraq, bringing the total death count among American forces to 2,025 since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Additionally, over 15,000 servicemen have been wounded, and 159,000 soldiers are currently stationed in Iraq.

President Bush’s outlook is grim; even before the indictment and resignation last week of Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, on charges relating to perjury and illegally disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA officer, the President’s popularity was waning. A recent poll discovered that approximately 53% of the populace now believes American military action in Iraq was an incorrect course of action. Bravo, Mr. President.

Mimi Hanaoka

Ever since reading Joshua Gibson’s essay “Monsters in the Closet:  Killer Kids and Queer Identity,” I have a much more acute awareness of the ways in which gays and lesbians get configured as the monster objects in horror films.  One of the interesting aspects of Gibson’s essay comes from the way he shows that even characters not overly coded as gay can act as stand-ins for fears about homosexuality endangering the beloved and always besieged family.  

High Tension is a film that feels like it was made by a panting serial killer with one hand down his pants.  It’s the first horror film I’ve ever seen that made me feel guilty for watching it.  The camera puts you in the position of a sociopath, erotically lingering over images of women gored and distressed, eschewing plot for stark visual caresses of slit throats, gushing wounds, and sadism so prolonged and unrelenting that the movie becomes a marathon for your capacity to tamp your gag reflex.  I guess I should note that the next paragraph might spoil the one-trick,  wholly implausible plot twist in this rancid piece of trash.

The big shock in High Tension comes at the end when you discover that you’re simply watching a hyper-violent exploration of lesbian desire.  The character being chased and tortured throughout the movie is really the killer, who envisions herself as a fat, middle-aged, white man so that she can express her desire to have sex with her friend and attempt to kill her when her advances get rebuffed.  Of course, she can’t just get drunk and make out with her during spring break for the Girls Gone Wild crew; she has to gruesomely murder the family of the one she loves.  In this way, High Tension traffics in any number of right-wing slurs about the birth of homosexual desire necessitating the death of the traditional family.  

If it were just homophobic, it would be simply typical, but the retrograde notions of queer identity abound.   In one scene, the killer uses a decapitated head to simulate a blowjob in her fucked up terror-truck (every good serial killer needs one) before discarding the head out the window.  Not only does the movie equate homosexual desire with the extinction of the family, but it theorizes lesbianism as simple penis envy.  Thus, all the big rifles, buzz saws, and barbed wire sticks seem like frustrated dildos, the rage that apparently comes from being cursed with a vagina.  After all, what are two women-identified women going to do with two vaginas?  In this sense, homosexuality itself becomes inconceivable except as a stunted desire to reproduce the heterosexual model atop mutilated bodies.  

The tradition in horror films of packing conservative messages into surfaces that would appear antithetical to the family values crowd has been around as long as teenagers have needed to be impaled on film for having pre-marital sex.  But High Tension offers a new bottom in hidden messages.  It’s painstaking to dig through the depravity to find the secondary message of degradation.  

Terry Sawyer

There is no denying that the latest film from George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck, is a vanity project — those films that usually get made only for the star power of its creator and have been around since D.W. Griffith made the bloated Intolerance in 1916.  Some of these films have been hailed as the greatest films of all time — see Citizen Kane.  Others go directly to DVD never to be seen again (except for those loyal fans that, if given the chance, would watch their star read War and Peace while on the toilet).

Good Night, and Good Luck is definitely in the heralded category.  It is co-written and directed by George Clooney (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) who is precisely a star that can exercise his pull but does so with integrity and, in this case, to make a movie that deserves to be on all of the year’s top ten lists and a contender for an Academy Award.  The film, shot entirely in black and white, tells the story of the 1952 sword fight of words between the infant CBS News and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was on a diligent and misguided one-man crusade against communism in America.  More particularly, the film is both an homage to legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow and a tutorial on why freedom of the press helps make the United States one of the greatest nations the world has ever known or how we, the people, can nip power-mongers before they get too powerful.

Where Kevin Spacey’s love letter to crooner Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea (2004), was a vanity project that didn’t quite make the grade, Clooney uses his head as well as his heart in giving up the starring role and handing it to the excellent David Strathairn (A League of Their Own, L.A. Confidential), who gives a pitch-perfect performance as Ed Murrow that captures the arrogance, courage, and insecurity of a man who practically wrote the textbook on broadcast journalism.  Clooney smartly relegates himself to an understated supporting role — but a key one in this morality tale — CBS News honcho Fred Friendly who himself created what would give face to the “Tiffany Network,” the CBS Nightly News.

Clooney captures the look, feel, and sound of an era where cigarette smoke filled rooms and everyone wore suits and ties to work.  All of the action takes place indoors and, for the most part, in the studios and offices of CBS New York.  The claustrophobic effect adds to the thematic storyline of a Congressman’s attempt to squeeze communists out of every nook and cranny of his choosing.  Clooney himself comes from a TV news pedigree and even tried it himself, only to find his calling elsewhere, but he did make this film as a reverence to his Dad, Nick Clooney, who had a long career as a TV anchor and host in Cincinnati.  Whatever the reason, Clooney has created a tightly-weaved snapshot of one moment in the history of our country that needs to be revisited and accomplishes this feat in both an entertaining and relevant manner.

The supporting cast is no less stellar, with names like Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey, Jr., Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, and Ray Wise filling out the roster of almost-forgotten CBS staffers.  But the best supporting performance has to go to Sen. McCarthy himself, who only appears via actual news clips from the time.  Ed Murrow perpetuated the downfall, but only McCarthy could unmask himself and show the nation his true colors, all in stark blacks and whites.  Good Night, and Good Luck will rightly be screened in many a future journalism class, but it should also be a film every American should see because it helps remind us that the virtues that make our country great should never be taken for granted.

High ratings to Good Night, and Good Luck, now playing in select theaters.

Rich Burlingham

Since March of 2003, over 2,000 American troops have been killed in Iraq.

By all accounts, this death toll — the highest for Americans since the Vietnam war — is accelerating, not slowing. The same is true for Iraqi citizens. Iraq Body Count estimates that minimally 26,732 Iraqi citizens have died in the conflict.

As troops continue to return to Iraq for multiple tours of duty, and military recruiters continue to struggle — particularly among African Americans, who overwhelmingly oppose the war — President Bush states that “the best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission.”  As we honor the dead of our country, many of whom are heart wrenchingly young, we must support our communities as they grieve and continue to seek ways to bridge the political divides that persist among us.

llouison

My fraternity brother’s best friend died the other day, and as I was sitting listening to him, my heart could not help but go out to him. His best friend from high school was one of those friends from high school he always promised himself he would keep in contact with. The person he always meant to call but got to busy and forgot to. As he tried to hide his tears for his best friend and innocence, my heart went out for him, and I was glad for once for my fraternity because as a freshman at K-State, I do not know who else he would have talked to.

From a high school senior to a freshman in college, the community we had gets lost somewhere, and we find ourselves with new people and situations, but without a home base, tragedies only evolve into catastrophes from which we cannot escape. That is what we lose during a tragedy, a hurricane, or a death. While we might lose buildings or money; we also lose the community that we have created in the meantime. The only thing harder than experiencing tragedy is experiencing tragedy by yourself. Community is involvement in a group larger than you and creating a safe place that cannot be pulled apart.  

Brett Currier