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Peter Jackson, the Academy Award-winning producer and director of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy and King Kong took on a new and exciting movie project in 2007 that's a documentary-style movie about an alien encampment in South Africa. Called "District 9" it's set for release August 14th and features perhaps the most realistic take on the age-old story of aliens visiting Earth I've ever seen thus far.

In District 9, a giant alien ship hovers over Johannesberg, South Africa. In total the ship and its crew have been there for 28 years. Over that time, a generation, they're forced into slum-like conditions in an area called "District 9". Reportedly a government agent become a friend to the aliens and becomes a human host for their biotechnology.

The Alien Encampment and the Ship in District 9

That's as much as I'll give away but what's interesting are the questions raised by the film: why do we feel the need to imprison those who are different from us? If we were visited by alien life forms in a public way, in other words, a large ship so large you can't miss it, how would we react? What does it mean to be ready for "alien visitors"? Will such a development cause those who are racist to be challenged in their thinking about other humans, or will the visit only make what some claim to be a mental illness even more of a problem?

Given improvements in our communications technology, allowing us to "hear" into space better, and current and upcoming search programs for extraterrestrial life, we may be closer to a point of actually dealing with those questions that we realize. In the interim, we have District 9 to serve as a kind of "situation simulator."

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In the BART labor contract matter, one of the issues that's upset me is the union's request for a three percent wage increase. Now, I'm pro-union, that's not the issue, but we're in a terrible recession, perhaps a depression, and many people are unemployed or just trying to maintain employment. But even with that, we have BART's union workers asking for a raise! With such a request, we have the right to ask "Are you the BART worker giving riders the great service they deserve?

Well, if the actions of this BART Rockridge station agent are any example, the answer's "no." I used BART to ride into San Francisco for a light dinner, and after parking at Rockridge, walked into the station as I always do, but noticed that the station agent booth was empty. I couldn't believe it at first, then figured the person just went to the bathroom, which is cool, but then I noticed the entire desk of the booth was clean, as if someone went home. And there was a sign, "Agent On Break" - ok. It tells me nothing about when the agent's coming back.

That's terrible. The level of disregard for the rider shown by some BART workers is an outrage. Yes, California State Law orders that employers give employees 15 minutes of down time for every four hours of work, but the least the station agent could do is have a note that has the time the agent left and the time the agent's going to return.

That's not too much to ask for.

Benefits versus non-benefits

Some took issue with my "$115K v. $55K" BART workers versus BART riders comparison in my last post on the BART labor matter, saying and writing that the average $115K BART worker income includes benefits. Fine. But the people advancing that observation must remember many BART riders don't have health care insurance of any kind. So I'm not sure what the "benefits argument" proves except that BART workers have good health care.

From mistrsac on YouTube: 7/6/2009 -- Boston Red Sox vs. Oakland Athletics: Nomar Garciaparra returns to Fenway Park as a visitor for the first time since the Sox traded him to the Cubs back in 2004.