In the documentary “The Education of Michelle Rhee“, FRONTLINE examines the legacy of one of America’s most admired & reviled school reformers. FRONTLINE was granted unprecedented access to Michelle Rhee (former chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools) during her tumultuous three-year tenure as she attempted to fix a broken school system. As Rhee returns to the national stage, FRONTLINE examines her legacy in Washington, DC, including her battles with the teachers’ union and her handling of a cheating scandal in the District. The debate over how to improve K-12 public education in America has long been highly charged and contentious, but in recent years, it’s taken on a polarizing either or mentality. While Rhee made national headlines from the start of her appointment, most notably as a young Korean American without prior experience running a school, she received even more attention over her policies on teacher evaluations and accountability. Under a new evaluation system that tied teacher performance to student test scores, Rhee fired 241 teachers in July of 2010, a move that teacher unions called too harsh while supporters agreed it was the right course. The conflict worsened when enormous gains in student achievement raised questions about cheating.
Powder & Rails catches up with pro snowboarding legend Bryan Iguchi in the backcountry of Jackson Hole, Wyoming (i.e. the middle of nowhere). He demonstrates his mountaineering man-skills in a snow pit boning up on his knowledge of snow pack densities. The Guch has become an experienced backcountry guide and all-around snow wizard while maintaining his reputation as a pro snowboarder. We find out what the heck you’re supposed to do with a loop, a crystal screen, a big saw knife, and a snow pit.
Bryan takes us back to his Southern California roots as an up-and-coming skateboarder introduced to snowboarding at Big Bear Mountain. Around that time, Bear had become the first resort to let snowboarders, with the help of Mike Parillo’s chainsaw, build their own jumps, rails, and halfpipes. In this D.I.Y. terrain park setting Iguchi flourished, emerging as one of the leaders in the new snowboard park agenda. In turn, Bryan’s career with Burton took off and soon he became a staple of video parts with FLF Films, Mack Dawg, and Volcom. The culmination of this work came when Bryan and a bunch of friends camped out in Sonora Pass, CA with a few super 8mm cameras, their snowboards, and some serious bro vibes, yielding Volcom’s The Garden, one of the most classic videos of all time.
At the height of his freestyle snowboarding career, SoCal-bred Bryan Iguchi traded snowboard park notoriety for mountain man obscurity by permanently relocating to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Most of his sponsors dropped him as a result, leaving him, as Pat Bridges said, quite literally alone in the wilderness. As the sponsorship checks disappeared Iguchi made ends meet by printing t-shirts for Bluebird and taking an apprenticeship as a sushi chef. But The Guch was now able to pursue his own mountaineering agenda, resulting in the pioneering of 90% of the filming spots now used in the Jackson Hole backcountry.
While scouting jumps to shoot via snomobiles, the crew pass by Mt. Maran and explain a fiasco in which Bryan and fellow pro-rider Jeremy Jones got lost while trekking to the peak. Without their combined mountaineering know-how, they may have both gotten permanently lost in mountain’s maze of gullies. Iguchi finds his favorite jump spot and lets the Volcom guys go on ahead, launching out on a one-man demonstration of why the Guch is still a pro.
A cast consisting of Travis Rice, Kevin Jones, Dave Downing, Bjorn Leines, Mike Ranquet, Billy Anderson, Pat Bridges, and Jackson Hole O.G. Willie McMillon throw in their take on Iguchi and why he’s become so important to snowboarding. Oh, and we also dig up some dirty ole hoars—surface hoars, that is. Like, frost.
What happens when a Vietnamese American political rookie goes up against the realities of Southern racial politics and ultra-partisan struggles in Washington, DC? Directed by S. Leo Chiang, MR. CAO GOES TO WASHINGTON follows the unexpected journey of Representative Joseph Cao, a Vietnamese American Republican who scored a surprise victory when he was elected in a predominantly African American Democratic district in New Orleans. The first Vietnamese American ever elected to the U.S. Congress and the only non-white House Republican of the 111th Congress, Cao quickly made headlines as the only Republican to vote for President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act. But will two years in Washington allow Cao to keep his integrity and idealism intact?
“Mr. Cao explores partisanship and race, two issues which have been important — and divisive — this election season,” says Chiang. “The film examines those two themes through the eyes of an idealist centrist who happens to be an Asian American Republican who tried to survive in the ultra-partisan climate that exists in the country today.”
A pro-life Catholic, former seminarian and lawyer from the Versailles neighborhood of New Orleans, Anh “Joseph” Cao decided to join the public sector to fight for the greater good of his city and country. Elected in an upset in 2008 when his opponent was rocked by scandal, Cao enters the political arena with a disarming combination of earnest naiveté, integrity, and passion. While on the House floor, he speaks frequently about overcoming partisan and racial differences. He soon becomes known as the most liberal Republican in the House, infuriating his fellow Republicans by befriending President Obama and supporting health care reform, all the while insisting that his votes are based solely on personal principle and the needs of his district. Later, he reverses his position and alienates the President by voting with the Republicans against the health care bill, citing inadequate language to prevent funding for abortion. When Cao campaigns for re-election in 2010, he gets an eye-opening lesson in partisan politics and learns the hard way about the temporal nature of political friendships and the power of long-standing political alliances and traditions.
VICE traveled to Indonesia to buy sandals made by former drug addicts. The shoes, called “junkies,” are a part of a program started by the YAKITA Drug Treatment Center to help women suffering from addiction learn a marketable skill. Indonesia experienced a drug epidemic in the 1980s due to rapid economic growth and the increased availability of new drugs; YAKITA was started in 1999 as a response to this crisis. VICE spends the day at the center getting to know the girls and chatting about shoes and drugs. YAKITA puts a positive spin on junkies.
As a tropical storm beats down on the Philippine island of Cebu, two sisters leave work and never make it home.
That same night, 300 miles away in Manila on a different island, 19-year-old culinary student Paco Larrañaga, 19, is at a party, surrounded by dozens of reliable witnesses. The missing women, Marijoy, 21, and Jacqueline Chong, 23, are pretty and innocent Chinese-Filipinos, a group that has formed a traditional underclass. Paco, accused of their rapes and murders, is part of a prominent mestizo political clan that includes a former president. One of the most sensational trials in the country’s history ensues, exposing shocking corruption within the judicial system and long-simmering class and racial antipathies among the population. Beefy and tough, with a past of petty offenses, he neatly fits the role of privileged thug–and that is how he is cast by a frenzied media circus that swarms his arrest and trial, and cheers his eventual sentence to death by lethal injection. Reflecting schisms of race, class, and political power at the core of the Philippines’ tumultuous democracy, clashing families, institutions, and individuals face off to convict or free Paco. Against a backdrop of tabloid journalism, political intrigue and police misconduct, one mother becomes a media darling, the other waits for justice, a judge commits suicide — and the young man remains behind bars. Their irreconcilable versions of reality and justice play out in a case that ends a country’s use of capital punishment, yet fails to free an innocent man.
GIVE UP TOMORROW is not your usual suspense story of a man wrongly accused, and Paco Larrañaga is not your usual hero. But his very lack of facile appeal challenges his society and filmgoers to rely on facts over impressions, evidence over prejudice. Amnesty International, the government of Spain, Fair Trials International, and the United Nations are unequivocal in the belief that for more than a decade, Paco has been paying with his freedom for a crime he did not commit.
Check your local listings for the film on Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 10 pm PBS.
The Asian Law Caucus is the nation’s first and oldest legal and civil rights organization serving the low-income Asian Pacific American communities. The mission of the organization is to promote, advance and represent the legal and civil rights of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Recognizing that social, economic, political and racial inequalities continue to exist in the United States, the Asian Law Caucus is committed to the pursuit of equality and justice for all sectors of our society with a specific focus directed toward addressing the needs of low-income Asian and Pacific Islanders. Some of the areas of focus include Immigrants’ Rights, Juvenile Justice and Education, Housing Advocacy and Community Development, National Security and Civil Rights, and Voting Rights & Voter Empowerment.
