THE BELL CURVE:Ticket will pay admission to inspiration

There’s a movie playing around Newport-Mesa that is devoid of sex and violence, is generally upbeat, and sends a viewer away with a pinch of hope for the human race. For these reasons it may be gone by the time you read this, so you should check if “Freedom Writers” is still around.

It tells the story of how a young high school teacher in Long Beach named Erin Gruwell — so young she didn’t know that it couldn’t be done — turned the lives of a classroom of hostile, mostly antisocial students into positive channels and in the process drew from them a best-selling book.

Because the film is about real, living people, a lot of negative reaction is surfacing, mostly from those who feel that the city, the school system and some of the teachers have been misrepresented.

This is understandable. It is also sad. Erin Gruwell — who commuted from Newport Beach when part of this action was taking place — did precisely what the movie says she did, and it was truly remarkable. Success always attracts flak. It shouldn’t be allowed to take anything away from the lessons implicit in Erin Gruwell’s achievement.

Know how to spot the people who vote for dead candidates or names on the ballot that resemble recent lovers? Check out the recent Pilot poll that asked readers what they considered the top local news story of 2006. The people in question are the same ones who made the death of Rupert the Swan the second biggest story of the year. Only immigration topped it. Rupert almost tripled the votes cast for “local elections,” the third choice.

If the Rupert answers were irony — which I seriously doubt — I will repent by saying “under God” the next 10 times I repeat the Pledge of Allegiance. If they were sincere — which I firmly believe — it will explain the 1% “mandate” Mansoor and Leece received. Other big losers included the new concert hall and the Newport Beach centennial, clearly of passing importance in contrast to the loss of Rupert.

When I retired from UC Irvine 17 years ago, a determined political scientist there named Jon Wiener was already eight years into an effort to force the U.S. Justice Department to make public its files on the running battle between the FBI — prodded by the Nixon administration — and John Lennon. Last week, after 25 years, Wiener finally won — sort of. The documents the FBI had withheld on the grounds that “they could cause military retaliation against the United States” turned out to be paper tigers that, said Wiener to a Los Angeles Times reporter, were “an embarrassment to the U.S. government…. The national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning.”

All of this brings to mind a run-in I had with the FBI when I was assigned by a national Sunday newspaper supplement to do a profile of the FBI that would include interviews with all the honchos, including J. Edgar Hoover. I was provided my own private guide who cleared the way for me for four days to see what they wanted me to see. On the last day I was to talk to the Director, which turned out to be a handshake and a lengthy letter after I got home.

At my final lunch with my guide, who split every check down to the penny, he said, rather off-handedly, “The Director would like to see your copy before publication to make sure your facts are correct.” I assured him I was a fine reporter who was very careful with his facts, and I should have been told up front that the story was going to be reviewed because it would have been a serious factor in my coming. Since I wasn’t told, I felt no obligation to do so. My up-to-then-pal was clearly upset with me, and his parting words were, “The Director isn’t going to like this.”

So I returned home to suburban Chicago, and the following Monday went into the city on business. When I called home at noon, my wife told me that two men in a black unmarked sedan had been sitting in front of the house for the past hour. I was furious and stormed over to the FBI Chicago office where a guy I’d flown with in World War II was stationed as an agent. Fortunately, he was there and calmed me down.

Then he disappeared to investigate and came back to tell me the men in the car were indeed FBI agents who were waiting to talk to me about some photos I had allegedly taken without permission that weren’t meant for release. I told him the photos were standard, posed public relations shots that had been given to me by the FBI photo lab in the presence of my guide and were probably useless to my editor. My friend took this information somewhere, then returned and said the men would be gone when I got home.

This little reminder from above — like putting Jon Wiener through 25 years of determined struggle to obtain benign documents — was also absurd from the beginning. I have no doubt that this nonsense was retaliation for my refusal to submit to conditions that weren’t made clear ahead of my visit. I was told later that the same demands were made on the editor of the magazine and that he complied.

After publication, I got letters from the Director telling me what a fine job I’d done. I’ve tried to sell them since his death as historic documents but haven’t had any takers.

Finally, I’d like to put in a word for UCI basketball. I’ve been going to games there regularly for 20 years and have watched interest from the student body diminish steadily during those years. Sure, it has something to do with the quality of the teams, which went through a pretty bad patch a few years ago.

But the student body and faculty to draw from have both been increasing dramatically in the last decade, along with the quality of both UCI basketball and visiting teams, without any appreciable increase in crowds at the Bren Center.

To someone from Indiana where the smallest high schools draw bigger basketball crowds than UCI, this is painful. And shameful. It’s a good show. Have a look.