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Politics : Andrew Breitbart's Work Continues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Honey_Bee who wrote (510)	6/20/2012 7:25:06 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1176

'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter': A New Era of Hollywood Trash By Brian Salisbury , Hollywood.com Staff \| Tuesday, June 19, 2012 hollywood.com This weekend, everything you learned in history class takes a backseat to blockbuster entertainment as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter unleashes itself upon the masses. It’s the story of our nation’s sixteenth president and his secret campaign against the bloodsucking undead. This is not the first fantastical cinematic recasting of historical figures. Earlier this year, James McTeigue’s The Raven offered the supposition that Edgar Allen Poe not only wrote chilling horror stories, but also matched wits with serial killers. Nor will Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter be the last example of this trend. Later this year, we’ll see FDR: American Badass, in which Franklin Roosevelt hunts werewolves, and there’s even talks of a pending movie in which sailor John Paul Jones battles sea monsters. So what’s the deal with all these history/fantasy mash-ups? Did Inglourious Basterds instill in us a desire to revise history to more satisfying ends? Are we so desperate for twists on familiar movie tropes that we have begun trying to incorporate them into historical context simply to lend them some sort of added subconscious legitimacy? It’s not as if there weren’t enough movies hitting theaters this summer that we absolutely needed a high concept action horror film to entice people to the multiplexes. It could be that this new craze is the natural evolution of something that’s been a part of our shared national heritage for hundreds of years: the tall tale. There was a time—before the inception of social media, the Internet, or even film itself—in which people would hand down these fish stories of legendary figures accomplishing unbelievable deeds or facing down incalculable odds. Characters like Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Calamity Jane, and John Henry became American folk heroes. Their feats and their stories were mythic and they were born of the frontier spirit. They were fearless, self-reliant, and possessed of either gargantuan stature or inhuman strength; thematically communicating the zeitgeist of manifest destiny and pioneer survival. Most interesting about folk heroes, the fodder of tall tales, is the instances wherein tall tales and history begin to overlap like a Venn diagram of fiction and fact. The best example of this crossover has to be Texan hero Davy Crockett. His actions during the battle of the Alamo canonized him into American folklore. Yet, if you believe the folksong, he also killed a bear at age three. Even though some of the finer details of his exploits are the subject of controversy, the fact remains that there is documented proof of his existence; a (once) living legend. Take a slight step further and arrive at one of history’s greatest leaders: Abraham Lincoln. This is a man who saved a young nation from being ripped apart by secession and took the first decisive steps toward racial equality; eradicating generations of bondage and oppression. So why then add a fictive vampire hunting hobby to the man’s story? It’s possible that his actual deeds are so heroic that they had to amplify his legend with genre trappings in order to market it to modern audiences. Our need for heroes has advanced to the point that we begin retrofitting comic book sensibilities to even those figures who once earned monuments by virtue of their actual accomplishments. Yet therein lies the catalyst for the evolution of the tall tale. The boundaries of our nation became tangible, the qualities we admired shifted, and eventually tall tales became so tall they were able to leap buildings in a single bound. As comic books began to redefine heroism, they actually began to push the concept of a tall tale into a more exaggerated and graphically pronounced medium. Leave that to stew for a few decades and superheroes are the new representations of mythic idealism. Spandex-clad folk heroes, their metaphor-laden origins and spectacular talents becoming pop culture lore as they move from the confines of literature to the silver screen. But it’s reaching a tipping point now wherein superhero films are so ubiquitous that the tall tales they weave are losing their appeal. The larger-than-life factor, a requisite for the tall tale, is taken for granted. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and all historical fantasies of that ilk, is both a look backward at what used to distinguish a folk hero and the next logical stage of development in the evolution of the tall tale. Now, if they could only get that Johnny Appleseed: Zombie Slayer off the ground, we’d be in business.

To: Honey_Bee who wrote (510)	6/20/2012 7:27:10 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1176

just as John Boehner has worked to undermine Darrel Issa’s attempt to bring Eric Holder to justice for his involvement in Fast and Furious, so too will he undermine any attempt to hold Obama accountable over his flagrant disregard for the Constitution and violating his oath to uphold it.

To: Honey_Bee who wrote (510)	6/20/2012 9:23:26 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1176

COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THE US LEGAL SYSTEM from Justice Dept on down State Bar says let illegal immigrant practice law Bob Egelko Wednesday, June 20, 2012 sfgate.com An illegal immigrant who passes the bar exam and demonstrates good moral character should be eligible to practice law, the State Bar has declared in a court filing. The bar, which oversees California's 225,000 lawyers, told the state Supreme Court on Monday that federal law leaves regulation of the legal profession largely up to the states and does not appear to prohibit Sergio C. Garcia, 35, of Chico from obtaining an attorney's license. Garcia was 17 months old when his parents brought him to the United States from Mexico. He returned to Mexico with them at age 9, came back at 17, put himself through college and law school and passed the bar on his first try in 2009. He has been working as a paralegal. His father, now a legal U.S. resident, sponsored Garcia's application for legal status and a green card in 1994. Garcia told an interviewer last year that he expects to wait another five to 15 years for approval. In the meantime, the bar has certified his moral fitness to practice law, but the state's high court, which licenses attorneys in California, put his application on hold last month and said it would use the case to decide whether undocumented immigrants are eligible to practice law. A similar case is pending in Florida. The court cited two federal laws as potential obstacles. One prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving any "state or local public benefit," including a professional license provided by a "state agency." The other prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. In Monday's filing, the bar said the first law doesn't apply because the court is a branch of state government, not a "state agency." In 1995, the bar noted, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts aren't government agencies. California has one of the nation's most difficult bar exams, the bar said, and those who pass it and apply for attorneys' licenses "are relying on their own capabilities" and "are not seeking public resources" or state benefits. If licensed, Garcia could not work legally for a law firm, corporation or public agency, but could represent clients as an independent contractor, a status not addressed by federal law, the bar said. "There is no reason to believe he cannot take the oath and faithfully uphold his duties as an attorney," the bar said. It said the policy considerations are similar to those the California court addressed in 1972, when it declared unconstitutional a state law requiring attorneys to be U.S. citizens. The court has also asked state Attorney General Kamala Harris, the Obama administration and other interested parties to submit written arguments in Garcia's case. It has not yet scheduled a hearing. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com This article appeared on page C - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle Read more: sfgate.com