California Propositions; Tax Me?

As Californian voters set to vote on whether or not to extend taxes on sales, car regsitration, etc., plus other budget stop-gap measures, we bring you pros and cons of the state propositions Californians will vote on Tuesday. (See: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop1a-title-sum.htm).

Subversity aired Monday 18 May 2009 at 9 a.m.

We also aired a program, "Tax Me, I'm Yours" from Making Contact, the National Radio Project, courtesy of NRP.

First produced for tax time, the Making Contact program, talks to folks who say we need to reframe the tax structure to support and sustain "the commons"... those public spaces and common grounds we all share. From upper income New Yorkers to public school teachers in Nevada, many are saying, 'tax me, I'm yours.'

Featuring:

Jo Comerford, National Priorities Project (NPP) executive director; Mike Lapham, Responsible Wealth project director (Project of United for a Fair Economy); Allen Bromberger, Manhattan law firm attorney; Bob Fulkerson, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) executive director; Anne Peer, Grady Tarbutton and others who testified at a Reno Town Hall Budget meeting; Kim Klein, Building Movement Project member.

For more information, see: http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2009/1509.html

Campus Activism Not Dead!

Irvine -- Campus activism is not dead. Up north at UC Berkeley, activists are currently rallying to the cause of Jesus Gutierrez, an AFSCME activist who was arrested at his job on a campus eatery for allegedly using a stolen Social Security number. He now faces possible deportation as a result. (See Daily Californian story. Activists are upset over the involvement of the campus authorities with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Students have also called for making UC Berkeley a sanctuary from ICE raids, just like the city of Berkeley. (See the Facebook advocacy page.

NOTE: May 11, 2009, KUCI marked the last day of its 40th anniversary fund drive (You can contribute at: pledge site, or call 949 824 5824 to make a pledge.

On KUCI's Subversity Show, from 9-10 a.m. May 11, 2009 we talked with Hoku Jeffrey, Southern California Coordinator for BAMN. BAMN stands for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.

Jeffrey is helping organize protests at southern California campuses over the Jesus Gutierrez case. BAMN has been actively building the new youth-led integrated civil rights movement.

Upon graduating from UC Berkeley, Jeffrey moved to Los Angeles to organize the Los Angeles chapter of BAMN. He helped mobilize area youth in the historic Spring 2006 immigrant rights marches. He also led successful campaigns of youth to win recognition of the Cesar Chavez Holiday in the Los Angeles Unified School District and has also led struggles for the DREAM Act to win the right to financial aid and a pathway toward citizenship for undocumented immigrant students.

And here at UCI, the Radical Student Union is appealing to UCI students, faculty and staff to come to Disorient UCI! Planning meeting for the 09-10 UCI Disorientation Guide Tuesday, May 12, 8:00pm, Anthill Pub, UCI Student Center. For more information, see the Subversity blog.

Thanks for listening. And do contribute to help make KUCI and shows like this stay on the air. As usual, podcasts will be posted sometime after the broadcast.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Grace Rowe in I Am That Girl; So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain

On our next edition of KUCI's Subversity show, airing Monday 4 May 2009 from 9-10 a.m., we interview Grace Rowe, an actress/writer/producer of an indie film, I Am That Girl. We also interview director So Yong Kim of Treeless Mountain.

Both films have been showing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival organized by the community-based visual arts group, Visual Communications (http://www.vconline.org).

Grace Rowe has has appeared in many TV shows and also in American Seoul (2003) (see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1451149/). She stars in I am that Girl, as a party girl maxing out on her credit cards who on a lark decides to go into the Sierras with a guy. The film covers what leads up to the Sierras trip, what happens on the road trip and a surprise development in the Sierras. I Am That Girl trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3gFTCS9I10.

We also talk with director So Yong Kim, whose Treeless Mountain, is her second feature film. (She directed In Between Days, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance). The current feature is inspired from her early childhood days in Pusan, South Korea. The film tells the story of a six-year-old girl, Jin and her journey to early maturity with a younger sister. The film opens May 8 at Laemmle's Music Hall and Mpark Theatre. So Yong Kim also made several short films, including A Bunny Rabbit, shot by renowned cinematographer Christopher Doyle. She was named one of the "25 Filmmakers to Watch" in Fimmaker Magazine in 2006. See an interview with her on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osp92F4jC1M

Treeless Mountain Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ermzhKx54

The show airs during our current KUCI 40th anniversary fund drive. Please consider contributing to keep KUCI and such shows on the air. For more information go to: http://www.kuci.org/fund09/index.html where you can pick the premiums and donate!

To listen to the show, click here: .

Christopher Wong's Whatever It Takes; Tze Chun's Children of Invention

Two films showing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival -- organized by the dedicated folks at Visual Communications -- will be featured on Subversity 27 April 2009 from 9-10 a.m. The festival runs April 30-May 7; for more information, go to http://www.vconline.org/.

We talk with Director Christopher Wong about his gritty documentary, Whatever It Takes, on students at an inner city school headed by a Chinese American headmaster in the Bronx, New York; and Tze Chun about his Sundance-selected Children of Invention, about two young Chinese children in Boston left to fend for themselves when their mother is incarcerated.

Children of Invention opens the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Thursday 30 April 2009 at Directors Guild of America, 7920 West Sunset in West Hollywood at 7 pm (VIP reception at 5:30 pm). Whatever It Takes screens at the same location, Saturday May 2 at 4 p.m.

Meanwhile, Newport Beach Film Festival continues; see: http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com/.

On Tuesday, 28 April at 3:30 pm at Edwards Island 1, Fashion Island, there is a screening of a Japanese film with exquisite vignettes of locals encountered at a lost and found office in a train station. See: Lost & Found, directed by Nobuyuki Miyake: http://newportbeach.bside.com/2009/films/lostfound_newportbeach2009.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Director Doan Hoang on Oh, Saigon; Radical Student Union Gears Up Protests

We dedicate this program to the victims of the Binghamton massacre, including former librarian Layla Khalil, a Muslim from Iraq. See: New York Times story. Rest in Peace. She leaves behind her husband (who teaches at SUNY Binghamton), a son (studying at the Sorbonne), a daughter (a Fulbright fellow at Binghamton) and another son (in high school). Irvine -- Continuing our focus on the the Vietnamese International Film Festival that continues this week, we talk with Doan Hoang, the director of a daring and revealing documentary, Oh Saigon (Saigon Oi), exposing to the world family fissures in the Hoang family -- the last family airlifted out of Saigon at the impending fall of Saigon in April 1975. Director Hoang exposes dark secrets in the family, including a communist uncle who fought for the liberation of Vietnam and a half-sister left behind initially in Vietnam. The film will be airing in May on PBS and may air on Hanoi TV eventually. Director Hoang is also active in Vietnam Relief Effort, celebrating its 10th anniversary today with the New York Stock Exchange ringing closing bells in its honor 6 April 2009.

Oh, Saigon screens at Chapman University Law School, in Donald Kennedy Hall in Room 237AB on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 @ 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. Chapman University School of Law is located at 1 University Dr., Orange, CA 92866.


We also talk with John Bruning, of UCI's new Radical Student Union, which is mounting several protests this month. One raises concern over sweatshops that are said to produce UCI-logo apparel. RSU and other groups have written an open letter to UCI Chancellor Drake on the issue.

Another RSU protest is over the UCI visit of former Mexican President Vicente Fox to speak April 8 at UCI. RSU protests the visit former Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox to UCI April 8. RSA is hosting a discussion with documentary filmmaker Simon Sedillo planned for April 8 at 5 pm at UCI's Parkview Classroom Building room 1300, on Fox's poor history on human rights. More information on Fox's talk at UCI is linked here A bibliography I compiled on Fox is linked here




To listen to the show, click here:

Sad Fish Director Le-Van Kiet: World Premiere at 4th Biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival

Orchid Lam Quynh in Sad Fish
The Vietnamese International Film Festival in its fourth permutation returns to UC Irvine and the Southland starting Thursday, 2 April, with 60 films from the diverse Vietnamese diaspora as well as from Vietnam.
Monday's (March 30, 2009) Subversity radio show highlights Sad Fish, a locally made new independent film with its world premiere Saturday 4 April at UCI's HIB 100 at 7:30 p.m. as part of VIFF.

Directed by indie filmmaker Le-Van Kiet, Sad Fish stars established actress Kieu Chinh (Joy Luck Club, Journey from the Fall) , newcomer Orchid Lam Quynh (a UCI aluma), Long Nguyen (Journey from the Fall) and Jayvee Hiep Mai (Journey from the Fall). Exquisitely filmed, Sad Fish, a drama tinged with comedy, tells drenching stories of unconventional lives from Little Saigon, California, portrayals of nostalgia for homeland but also of daily routines of longings, relationships and domestic turmoil that transgress conventional boundaries. The film also depicts male intimacy and tension between "Happy Together"-type characters played by actors Jayvee and Long.


On Monday's show, we talk with Sad Fish director Kiet, who was last on Subversity in April, 2007, when VIFF then showcased his earlier gritty visual depiction of OC gang life in Bui Doi, The Dust of Life.


Audio of that earlier interview: http://kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv070416.mp3.


A wine reception for Sad Fish hosted by UCI's new Vietnamese alumni group, Vietnamese American Community Ambassadors (VACA), starts this Saturday at 5 p.m. at UCI's Cross Cultural Center. For more information and ticket info,, see: ttp://www.vietfilmfest.com/2009/viff/program-schedule/#april4 For more information on the film and other films showing at VIFF, go to: http://www.vietfilmfest.com/2009/




To listen to the show, click here:

Surveillance of Muslims in Orange County and Beyond

Recent revelations that the FBI has been infiltrating local mosques to spy on mosque-goers have cast a chill on the local Islamic community. On our 23 March 2009 show, we discuss the impact with Ameena Mirza Qazi Staff Attorney of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greater-Los Angeles Area Chapter.

News about such surveillance is not new. According to OC Register columnist Frank Mikadeit back in May 2006: "Earlier in the week,Pat Rose, head of the Orange County's FBI al-Qaida squad, told me and about 25 others at the breakfast that her agency was seeking out terrorists here through a variety of electronic eavesdropping techniques and that her agency is 'quite surprised' that 'there are a lot of individuals of interest right here in Orange County.'


"When asked by someone whether we should be concerned about all the Muslim students at UCI, she responded, 'Another tough question to answer.' Not only does UCI have a lot, she said, but so does USC. 'I think we need to be concerned with everybody ... with our next-door neighbor.' " [Source: Frank Mikadeit, Monitoring by the FBI and a mea culpa Local Muslims react to FBI spying, OC Register, 30 May 2006.].


Although the FBI denied it was spying on UCI students, in 2007 an FBI agent was involved in an altercation with a UCI student. See: FBI actions at UCI questioned: Muslim student says he feared agent was going to run him over; bureau says cinderblock was thrown at car. By Marla Jo Fisher, OC Register, 18 May 2007.


Recent news:


OC Weekly:

A Look at Craig Monteilh, Who Says He Spied on the Islamic Center of Irvine for the Feds by Matt Coker, OC Weekly, 4 March 2009:


LA Times:

OC Muslims say FBI surveillance has a chilling effect: Use of an informant in Orange County leads some to avoid mosques and cut charitable giving, by Teresa Watanabe and Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2009:


CNN: