Maryland's Dream Act: Elmore Leonard, Robert Duvall, and a neglected corner

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Elmore Leonard, Robert Duvall, and a neglected corner

I enjoy Elmore Leonard. His Westerns are mind candy, but with good grit. I am grateful to him for getting me to pay more attention to Jose Marti, who showed up in the background of one of his stories. I also think very highly of Robert Duvall, who played Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, had parts in a long list of great movies, and directed his own powerful and complex movie, The Apostle. So when I came across an old movie with screen play by Leonard, co-starring Duvall, I checked it out. Joe Kidd, starring Clint Eastwood, 1972 – when Clint’s glints were amazing.

Netflix summary: A wealthy landowner (Robert Duvall) attempts to hire former bounty hunter Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood) and a band of killers to track down a group of armed revolutionary Mexicans (led by John Saxon's Luis Chama) whose U.S. land claims were denied and then burned by the government. At first, Kidd turns down the offer, until Chama steals his horse and terrorizes his friends. John Sturges directs from an original screenplay by Elmore Leonard.

“… Mexicans whose land claims were denied and then burned by the government.” Interesting background, and another aspect of the immigration horror show.

Check it out, for a great show! (And think it over.)

1 comment:

Peter ThomasonOctober 12, 2012 at 2:30 AM
Tender Mercies is one of my favorite Duvall films. I like Clint but found is performance during the RNC distasteful and uncalled for.
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Intro

There are about 12 million immigrants in the United States without legal documentation. Numerous efforts to solve the challenge of illegal immigration have failed. One such effort is the Dream Act. The federal Dream Act addresses the national challenge, but there are other state efforts as well, including the Maryland Dream Act. The Maryland law deals with a very small piece of the overall issue: it would provide in-state tuition rates at community colleges and in-state tuition rates for juniors and seniors at four-year state colleges and universities, to undocumented immigrants who meet a list of conditions. The law passed in April 2011, but opponents of the bill collected signatures to force a referendum on the issue in the 2012 election. Polls in late 2011 indicated that voters were split, but the bill was likely to go down in defeat.

Many of the leaders of the opposition to the Dream Act are conservatives who identify themselves as Christian. My intent to is open and maintain a civil argument among Christians on the issue. It is not my intention to exclude anyone from the debate; I am focusing on a debate among Christians because that’s who I am.

I am convinced that Christians who oppose the Dream Act have overlooked the clear and forceful teaching of Bible and the Church throughout the ages.

The easiest example: nearly everyone makes a mistake in discussions of the Last Judgment as described in Matthew 25. Nearly everyone makes the SAME mistake -- and it’s an interesting one. (See "9 of 10 ...")

So let’s talk.