Wilson's Wife is Fair Game

"Wilson's wife is fair game."  So says Karl Rove about Valerie Plame, wife of Joe Wilson, in the movie called Fair Game.

Former ambassador Wilson had been sent to Niger to assess whether that country sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq; he concludes it did not.  

The shipment of this uranium is one of the planks of Bush's allegation that Iraq has 'weapons of mass destruction'.  As the rhetoric to support the war ramps up, Wilson speaks publicly and gives interviews about his conclusion.  But an Op Ed piece in the New York Times seems to be the proverbial straw.  In the piece entitled "What I Didn't Find In Africa", he claims that the government is manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and thus undermines the case for the invasion of Iraq.  

Retribution is swift and brutal.  A leak traced back to Dick Cheney's office results in a column in the New York Times, blowing Plame's CIA cover and putting her and her agent network at great risk.

Eventually Scooter Libby is convicted for this leak, although many feel he is the fall guy for Rove and Cheney.  He is sentenced to jail in June 2007, but less than a month later, Bush commutes his sentence.  

I was particularly interested in seeing this movie, after having heard Valerie Plame at TED last year (see my blog post about her talk and the movie TED screened called Countdown to Zero).  Both are good movies, albeit sobering and chilling.  Definitely worth picking up at the video store.

Hot Coffee

A good meal often ends with coffee, and I will end my reviews from Hot Docs with a review of Hot Coffee.  

A good movie can change your perspective.  Hot Coffee did that, for me and most of the audience.

The movie is about US civil justice reform which restricts citizens' rights to sue corporations and caps the compensation allowed if they do sue.  The movie documents the orchestrated public relations efforts by corporations and the American Chamber of Commerce to bring about these changes, and nasty interventions in elections to oust people who do not agree with big business' position.  It's a rather horrifying story.  So-called tort reform is a major cause of 'crusading fiscal conservatives', as the Economist describes them and most of the American public has been convinced that desperate changes in the justic system are warranted.  This movie argues that the cure is worse than the disease.

But an audience would have no sympathy for this point of view, because they 'know' all about that famous McDonald's scalding coffee case - the one where the elderly lady drove her car with a coffee cup between her legs, received a mild burn and was awarded $2.86 million in compensation.  It's the poster child for 'frivolous lawsuits' and excessive compensation and sparked public sympathy for the law reforms mentioned above.

So Hot Coffee wisely starts off by debunking the myths around that case.  The woman was a passenger, not the driver.  The car was stopped.  In her attempt to remove the tricky lid to add sugar and cream, she spilled the entire cup of coffee over her thighs, buttocks and groin.  The third-degree burns on 6% of her body were horrific (as shown in gory detail in the movie) and required multiple skin grafts. 

McDonald required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190 degrees, considerably hotter than other establishments, a temperature that can produce third-degree burns in two seconds.  The company had received hundreds of complaints about the temperature of its coffee and failed to respond.  The plaintiff sued McDonald's after they refused her request for $20,000 to cover her out-of-pocket expenses for medical bills and lost income and reaffirmed their determination to keep the coffee temperature as it was.  She felt a lawsuit was the only way to bring attention to the issue.  The jury found in her favour, and calculated the compensation based on two days of coffee sales.

The results of the case were as follows:  McDonald's reduced the temperature of the coffee by 10 degrees; they changed the lid design to make it easier to open the coffee;  a judge reduced the compensation to $640,000 and the plaintiff ultimately settled out of court.  But the unintended consequences were far greater.  The settlement gave the right a poster child for frivolous lawsuits and helped gain support among the public for tort reform.

In the Q&A, the filmmaker asked the audience how many had heard of the McDonald's case and virtually everyone raised their hand.  When asked if their opinion on the case had changed, virtually eveyone left their hands up.  She unabashedly admitted she was one of those maligned 'trial lawyers', acknowledged that there were abuses in the civil trial system, but felt that the direction in US justice system and politics would lead to far worse abuses.

As The Economist put it in a recent article "Frivolous lawsuits are, along with criminal aliens and fraudulent voters, a bit of a bogeyman. They do exist, but are hardly as ubiquitous as the thundering rhetoric would suggest."  


The movie emphasizes how American big business has incredible power against the consumer.  In the US, in many contracts - espeically contracts with cellular providers and banks -  the consumer agrees to  'mandatory arbitration' and forfeits the right to sue the provider.  That doesn't sound too bad, does it?  A neutral arbitrator determines a reasonable settlement and keeps the dispute out of court.  Well, the problem is that the provider chooses the arbitrator, which puts the consumer at a significant disadvantage, and they have to recourse to the courts.  
 

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in March 2011 that a customer was allowed to proceed with a class action suit against Telus, despite having signed a mandatory arbitation clause.  So it appears that the situation in Canada is not as lopsided as in the US.

Dolphin Boy

After vicious torture and beating by relatives of a girl he was accused of seducing, Morad sinks into a closed world of his own.  At the start of Dolphin Boy, we see Morad in a catatonic state, unable to speak or even make eye contact.  His father is determined - and makes huge sacrifices - to do whatever it takes to heal his son.  

On a doctor's advice Morad's father takes him to Dolphin Reef on the Red Sea.  The reef is staffed with people who use dolphin therapy to reach the unreachable.  Morad's first contact with any living thing is with the dolphins, and over a period of three years, he reenters the world, strong enough to relive and face the terrors of the night of his kidnapping.

Underlying the surface story, just as the dolphins swim under the Red Sea, is a story of co-operation between Palestinians and Israelis.  Because Morad is Palestinian and the doctor and workers at Dolphin Reef are Israeli.  The dialogue in the film shifts back and forth between Arabic and Hebrew.  While Morad is at the reef, he speaks Hebrew and only as his healing is complete is he willing to revert back to Arabic.  The message is never highlighted in the film, but in the Q&A, the filmmakers clearly stated that one of their goals was to show some good news from the region.

This was a lovely Hot Docs movie and I recommend it.

Love Arranged

Another good movie at Hot Docs.

Two modern women are seeking a husband in India, a country steeped in tradition.  They try out the online dating sites.  So much for modern.  They also approach a traditional Indian matchmaker.  They're not about to be dictated to in the choice of a husband, but they place high priority on their family getting along with their husband and his family.  It's basically 'parental-facilitated matchmaking' rather than arranged marriages.

The two women are complete contrasts.  Divya, who came to India from Canada two years ago, is a sassy, glamorous, highly flirtatious party girl whose career is arranging weddings.  Neha is more traditional, a plump graphic artist who loves animals.  As the movie ends, neither woman has found Mr. Right.

The director, Soniya Kirpalani, fielded several questions from South Asian women asking about the relative merits of arranged marriages and how to get started.  But the fun doesn't end there.  Soniya's on the lookout for a husband for her daughter.  Before leaving for Canada, she asked her if a Canadian boy would do.  Her daughter thought that would be fine, and handed her mother the contact information for a man who just might do.  Soniya made contact, hit it off with his parents, and brought him up on stage to be introduced.  Whatever other qualities he might have, he is certainly a good sport.  

But Soniya is not content yet.  She introduces her Director of Photography, a single man that she describes as 'a great catch, girls'.  There were clusters of people with follow-up questions in the lobby after the movie.  Who knows if any of them were marriageable women?