Posts tagged local
The Judge “Family Courtroom Drama”
Oct 22nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE JUDGE is a terrific film about a family and what happens to them in a courtroom during a murder trial.
Robert Downey, Jr., stars as Hank Palmer, a successful attorney in Chicago, and Robert Duvall stars as Joe Palmer, Hank’s father, who has been a judge in a small town in Indiana for 42 years.
Hank has a reputation that is not entirely favorable, and when asked why many of his clients seem to be guilty, he says, “Innocent people can’t afford me.”
Hank and Joe are estranged and barely talk to one another, and the movie begins when Hank returns to his hometown in Indiana to attend his mother’s funeral.
However, while Hank is there, Joe is involved in an automobile accident late at night with a man on a bicycle who is killed.
The evidence seems to indicate that the accident was intentional, and because Joe and the man on the bicycle had a history from a previous trial, the judge is charged with murder.
Joe hires a local attorney to defend him, who is played by Dax Shepard, but because he turns out to be both out of his league and in over his head, Hank reluctantly agrees to help out over the objections of Joe.
However, the story is not all courtroom drama; Vera Farmiga plays Hank’s high-school sweetheart, a single mom with a daughter that Hank might have had something to do with before he left town, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeremy Strong play Hank’s brothers, and there is something in their past, too, that enters into the story.
In addition, Hank has a wife and daughter back in Chicago who require some attention during the trial, and Joe has a secret that he is not telling anybody. Hank’s reputation isn’t helping his cause, either, especially when he is known as a bully with a big bag of tricks, and he says that his father is the most brutally difficult client he has ever had.
Now, you might believe from the publicity that the movie consists only of Hank and Joe being at each other’s throats and arguing with each other, but there are also some tender and touching scenes in the movie, as well.
THE JUDGE is a tremendous family courtroom drama that is sure to receive some Academy Award nominations.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Facebook good neighbor by funding financially strapped police annex.
Jul 15th
Meet Mary Ferguson, AKA the Facebook Cop, whose position was created through public-private partnership between tony Menlo Park and the social media giant.
Over the next three years, Facebook agreed to pay $600,000 to the town, where the company also happens to be headquartered.
Ferguson, 34, who’s paid $194,000 in salary and benefits per year for her services, keeps an eye on the internet behavior of potentially unruly kids by using an online persona that hides her true identity.
Ferguson’s primary duties apart from patrolling Facebook include keeping children in school, working with juvenile offenders, and helping large area businesses equip themselves for natural disasters, campus shootings or other violent crimes, reports the Wall Street Journal.
‘Mary is a pro-active police officer who enjoys working with kids,’ Commander Dave Bertini told NBC Bay Area in March, when the force first accepted the funds. ‘Her passion and enthusiasm for truancy abatement will drive the department’s program in a successful direction for the youth of Menlo Park.’
While many residents of the well-off tech town appear happy with the unusual corporate partnerships, some people see a conflict of interest.
Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller supports the partnership.
‘Facebook moved into a part of town that was blighted, that was hurting,’ Mueller told the WSJ. ‘One of the first things we’re seeing is this public safety net coming down to protect everyone.’
Mueller brushed off suggestions that the tech giant is acting solely out of self interest.
‘Anyone who has the perception that Facebook is trying to protect themselves really doesn’t understand the situation,’ he told the WSJ. ‘That place is a fortress—they don’t need the Menlo Park Police to protect them.’
Some experts have their doubts.
‘That raises some potential conflicts that, if I was the chief, I am not sure I’d want to wrestle with,’ University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert told the WSJ.
Alpert said he worries about skewed loyalties. ‘What do you tell your officers about how to treat people who work at Facebook?’ he wondered.
For it’s part, Facebook has called the $600,000 donation a no-strings-attached gift.
‘We just identified a need in the community,’ Facebook spokesperson Genevieve Grdina told the WSJ. ‘It’s not the “Facebook officer”; it’s the officer for the whole community.’
by Menlo Park C1N staff
the Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributed to this story.