Movie Review: *World War Z* (spoiler alert)

There is one major question that needs to be answered about a zombie movie: What are the zombies a symbol for? Check out this take from the PBS Idea Channel:



In the new film World War Z (WWZ), Brad Pitt plays a reluctant, white hero, fighting not nobly for humankind but selfishly only for his own family. It's quite reminiscent of Mel Gibson's decidedly unpatriotic romp in The Patriot. While the special effects are good and the pace of the movie is compelling, the secondary themes are disturbing. In WWZ, the zombies seem to be a stand-in for immigrants, the great barbarian horde. In early scenes, "they" literally take over "our" cities. The film makers seem to play with the immigrants-as-zombies idea in two places. First, Pitt's character's family is ironically saved early on by the hospitality of a Spanish-speaking, presumably-undocumented Latino family. Second, they invert the Battle of Jericho myth, having outsiders (cf. Canaanites) scale the hastily erected walls of Jerusalem, lured in by the chants of the Israeli's (cf. trumpets). The way to survive and eventually defeat the zombies in this case is to be ill, a situation paralleled in recent years as migration across borders has reversed its usual direction as immigrants flee unhealthy (i.e. ill) economic and social conditions in previously vibrant places like the U.S. Walls and guns are not enough; one must make things unpalatable for the parasites.

Should We Educate Undocument Students?

Here is an interesting bit of news from Georgia:

The committee assembled by the State Board of Regents also recommended that all Georgia colleges verify every admitted student seeking in-state tuition to determine if the student is in the country legally....Of the nearly 310,000 students attending the 35 campuses that make up the University System of Georgia, 501 are classified as "undocumented" students....[C]ollege officials said the terminology can include U.S. citizens who didn't turn in forms.

Can we really call something that concerns less than 0.2% of those in the state university system a crisis?

Regardless, perhaps we should think about the future of such kids. One argument among anti-immigrant blowhards is that "illegal aliens" are a drain on state resources. (Forget for a moment that this argument is not supported by evidence and that, in fact, the opposite is likely closer to the truth.) Wouldn't granting the opportunity for a world-class education nip this (fictitious) problem in the bud? Higher ed increases one's chances of acquiring gainful employment. Denying immigrants a chance at education won't send them packing. They'll still be here, just less qualified to work.

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Thanks to Dr. Caitlin Powell for sharing the article.

Exaggerated Problems at the Border and Its Pernicious Consequences

Here's a timely piece from the NYTimes to put all the abstract immigration debate into perspective:

The Pima County morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year during a heat wave….[T]he law has not kept the immigrants from trying to cross hundreds of miles of desert on foot in record-breaking heat. The bodies of 57 border crossers have been brought in during July so far, putting it on track to be the worst month for such deaths in the last five years….Since the first of the year, more than 150 people suspected of being illegal immigrants have been found dead, well above the 107 discovered during the same period in each of the last two years….The increase in deaths has happened despite many signs that the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally has dropped in recent years. The number of people caught trying to sneak across the frontier without a visa has fallen in each of the last five years and stands at about half of the record 616,000 arrested in 2000…[my emphasis].These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.

These dead folks are not al Qaeda; they're not murderers and rapists; they are poor Mexicans looking for work so that they can feed their families. These are the people who keep your produce cheap and the construction costs on your new home low. These rotting carcasses are the wages of our misplaced ire over immigration.

Immigration Links

"Raising the Floor for American Workers" from Center for American Progress
http://bit.ly/6BSQEC
[see especially chart on page 13 of full report (PDF link)]

"Headless Bodies and Other Immigration Tall Tales in Arizona" from The Washington Post
http://bit.ly/bC5VXa

The Non-Rationality Bases of Anti-Immigration Laws

NYTimes "On Border Violence, Truth Pales Compared to Ideas":

…[T]he rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico's drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe. …[S]tatistics show that even as Arizona's population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined…. [I]llegal immigrants commit fewer crimes, in part because they tend to come from interior cities and villages in their home country with low crime rates and generally try to keep out of trouble to not risk being sent home.