TIMELY MOVIE - GREAT NOVEL

I did some googling and found out that The Tortilla Curtain, a novel by T.C. Boyle that I read some years ago, is now being filmed and will star Kevin Costner and Meg Ryan.

Now before anybody rolls their eyes, the novel is a well-done story (I have no idea how the Hollywood-ization will turn out) about a "latte liberal" Southern California couple that crosses paths literally with an illegal immigrant Mexican man. The yuppie runs over him with his car accidentally when the Mexican runs out into a rural road unexpectedly.

What happens after that is a wicked satire, with a strong dramatic and tragic streak. What I found most impressive about the book, and Drop City by Boyle that I'm reading now about the end of the Hippie era when a commune relocates to rural Alaska in the early 1970s, is that Boyle is not sentimental or slanted in his narrative. He's honest and surprisingly objective with the issues so that you don't truly know where the story will end up, but a lot is observed and treated along the way.

It's the sort of story that last year's Best Picture Crash apparently tried to emulate - superficially without the comedy - and the movie Spanglish the year before parroted in some ways, but not very effectively in my opinion.

I'll go on record as saying that I truly do not understand the rage expressed by the right about illegal immigration. It's a crime, there's laws on the books, let's enforce them. If the law cannot be enforced as a misdemeanor, why is it smart to ramp it up to a felony when the offender couldn't read the difference between the two in English - or understand the difference - if they wanted to? Anyway, it seems like a lot of misspent rage targeted at the poor - which to me personally is bad policy.

But I will go on the record and say that I think this issue is being stirred up nationally to motivate conservative turnout and pro-GOP independent votes in the 2006 mid-term election like the Gay Marriage Bans were for the 2004 Presidential election.

The reason I think so is because of the farcical effort put into protests in Oregon as a gubernatorial issue of late. Seriously - what on Earth can Oregon's governor do about illegal immigration besides freeze funds to public services for illegals, including their helpless children, many born here? This is a grass-roots political effort to take the pressure off the GOP for pork-barrel spending, corruption and poorly executed war by ramping up xenophobic hysteria.

Anyway, check out the book. And if you can find a copy of it, El Norte does a far better job of treating the illegal immigration issue than most everything out there already. For instance, the focus is on an indigenous Guatemalan family (Mayan) trying to get into the U.S., reflecting the shift in immigration trends from largely Mexican to Central American people due to changing economic conditions at home.