Michelle Rodriguez is expressing regrets about the factors that led to her Hawaii drunk-driving bust and…I feel funny going on about this but given the temperament and tendencies of most actresses I’ve known or heard stuff about, I’m deeply impressed with MR’s decision to take the slammer over community service. “This has more to do with her street cred than anything,” says Manhattan-based journalist Lewis Beale . “She’s a tough babe from Jersey City, and I’ll bet if she hadn’t turned up in Girl Fight she’d be gang banging or in jail for armed robbery. She’s always struck me as someone who was thisclose to returning to the ghetto from which she came. I remember when James Cagney won an AFI Lifetime Achievement award, he referred to the ‘little touch of the gutter’ that made his performances so real. With Rodriguez, it’s a whole heaping helping of New Jersey crude.” A studio- based publicist adds that “another factor is that she’s a regular on Lost. They could write her out of the show for one week, but more than that might be pushing it. She’s already on thin ice as it is.” And reader Amir Hanif says that “calling her MR is appropriate because she has more cojones than most guys out there…when I read that she took jail time over community service, I thought to myself, ‘This is tough chick and not just a poser.’ Gotta give her props for that.”