11/22/04

LC041122

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's a towering reminder of the Northridge earthquake, so why
doesn't someone get rid of this mountain of concrete?

Linda Marquez>> Look at my house. Look at my windows. Look at
the windows over there. Look at this horrible thing that we
have here. They didn't think of that. They thought of what
they were going to put in there. They never thought of us.
That's a crime.

Val>> And then, local students on an ecological quest. Can
they find a way to hit the slopes on a snowboard made of paper?

It's all coming up next on tonight's Life and Times

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> For the past ten years, chunks of the 10 Freeway have
been sitting in a huge pile in a neighborhood in southeast Los
Angeles and, for the past ten years, the residents there have
been trying to get the concrete removed. As Hena Cuevas tells
us, the legal mountain they've had to climb is almost as big as
the one they want moved.

Hena Cuevas>> Driving down Cottage Street in Huntington Park,
it's impossible to miss the massive pile of concrete rubble on
one side of the street. Covering more than five acres, the
concrete has been sitting there for the past ten years.

Linda Marquez>> I noticed that they were working there. They
were putting in all of that rubble.

Hena Cuevas>> Back in early 1994, eighty year old Linda Marquez
saw activity going on in the vacant lot across the street from
her apartment.

Linda Marquez>> But when it continued for twenty-four hours and
floodlights, bulldozers, trucks at night, I wondered what it
was.

Hena Cuevas>> What was being brought in by the truckload were
the remains of the Santa Monica Freeway that had just collapsed
during the January Northridge earthquake in 1994. A local
businessman had bought the rubble and was renting the land to
store it. His plan was to use it as a temporary dumping site
until the concrete could be crushed and sold to build roads.

Linda Marquez>> We should have been notified and, if we were
notified, of course, I didn't get a letter.

Hena Cuevas>> Dean Hickman owns an apartment building a block
away. He says he was also surprised by the arrival of the pile,
but he understands why it was done. The concrete had to go
somewhere.

Dean Hickman>> It was an emergency, so I can't really fault the
city for accepting that level of debris. The original
conditional use permit said that the debris would not be any
higher than the fence, so this was an emergency and I went along
with it.

Hena Cuevas>> But a decade later, what was supposed to be a
temporary site seems more like a permanent one. In the past ten
years, plants and shrubs have even started growing on top of it,
a sign of just how long it's been sitting here. The neighbors
even have a nickname for it, La Montana, which in Spanish means
The Mountain.

Linda Marquez>> We gave it La Montana because it was getting
higher and higher and higher.

Hena Cuevas>> So high that it's now as tall as a five-story
building.

Linda Marquez>> When we first got it, we had no protection
whatsoever. They finally got a mesh that they used in the
gardening and things like that and put it up. Well, the first
rain that we got was so heavy and loaded with dust that that
water that came down just brought that mesh right down. It was
no help to us whatsoever.

Hena Cueva>> It didn't take long before residents had to deal
with one potentially harmful side effect: dust and lots of it.

Hector Lopez>> Dust. You just hit the word. Dust. That's my
situation.

Hena Cuevas>> Hector Lopez, who lives a block away, moved into
his apartment a year before La Montana arrived.

Hector Lopez>> My wife gets (laughter) -- like in the summer,
you know, sometimes even a lot of people say it's not windy in
the summer, but sometimes little breezes pick up when the
windows are open. She's constantly dusting. She gets all --
what do you want me to do? Do you want me to get a shovel and
move it myself (laughter)?

Linda Marquez>> Look at my house. Look at my windows. Look at
the windows over there. Look at this horrible thing that we
have here and we're going to leave it there until that mountain
is out. That's an injustice for anybody. These people over
here have to close their windows and their doors still. I have
to close my windows because that dust will go in like, for
instance, when the wind is blowing in the afternoon, yes. When
we had that wind here, yes, it's a crime that we have it. We
shouldn't have this. No city should have this.

Hena Cuevas>> But the problems, they say, go beyond just having
to clean every day. Lopez's daughter who was born after La
Montana came in developed asthma as a baby.

Hector Lopez>> We figured it was because of La Montana. La
Montana had a cause of that because no other kids or anybody in
my family ever had suffered with asthma.

Hena Cuevas>> Others, like Hickman's wife, have also reported
having breathing problems.

Linda Marquez>> These people over here had to take their two
children who have some kind of bronchial asthma down the street.
People have asthmatic conditions. They didn't think of those.
They thought of what they were going to put in there. They
never thought of us. That's a crime.

Hena Cuevas>> The fight to remove La Montana was headed by
Marquez and Hickman.

Linda Marquez>> In 1994 is when we started the ball rolling
going down the street here. I had to use a walker and I knocked
on doors. Dean knocked on doors. His wife knocked on doors.
We recruited a lot of people around here that had to knock on
doors and ask these people to come out and speak out against
this mountain.

Robert Cabrales>> It's not a quick battle and it's never a
quick battle.

Hena Cuevas>> According to Robert Cabrales of the group,
Communities for a Better Environment, what is going on in
Huntington Park is an example of environmental racism.

Robert Cabrales>> Communities of color are always targeted, you
know, to bring certain industries -- you know, bring some
revenue in one part, but also affect the peoples' health.

Hena Cuevas>> Huntington Park is a heavily industrial area
located southeast of Los Angeles with a predominantly Latino
population. Why do you call it environmental racism?

Robert Cabrales>> Well, because they didn't take into
consideration the community that lives there, you know. If they
would have brought it over to Beverly Hills or Palos Verdes in a
community that there is more income or more wealthy folks there,
it would have been out in months.

Hena Cuevas>> Cabrales, who's been working closely with the
residents of Huntington Park, says the legal obstacles they
faced are as massive as La Montana itself. First, the man who
was renting the land and actually owned the pile declared
bankruptcy in 1998. After that, ownership of the pile and the
responsibility to clean it up went to the landowner. We tried
numerous times to reach him through his attorney, but received
no response.

Robert Cabrales>> You know, he was ordered to do the cleanup
and then he's like we don't have any money. He was ordered to
do the cleanup and then extensions after extensions. You know,
the city was always pretty much pushing forward and taking it to
the court and finding out what they can do in their power and
there is usually no power because the landowner has his
contracts.

Hena Cuevas>> It's estimated that the cleanup will cost over
two million dollars. The state has already approved three-
quarters of that. However, state officials aren't allowed to go
on private property without permission. Only last August did
they get clearance to enter the site. Do you really think this
is going to happen?

Robert Cabrales>> I'm confident that it can happen. I mean,
the community folks were promised several times that the cleanup
process would start a few years ago and nothing has happened.
That's precisely why the community is little bit hesitant of
seeing this proposal at this time as we speak move forward.

Hena Cuevas>> Hickman says he's heard it all before.

Dean Hickman>> I've got my fingers crossed, but I don't want to
celebrate yet.

Hena Cuevas>> Lopez is also skeptical.

Hector Lopez>> Let's play it by ear. Let's see what happens.
That's all I can tell you.

Hena Cuevas>> Marquez, for her part, is just praying for the
day when she can finally remove the tarps.

Linda Marquez>> When that mountain goes out, it'll be the most
glorious day for all of us here.

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Val>> Religion has played an especially large role in this
year's election, so knowing what people believe and why is of
particular interest to the candidates and, as it turns out, how
religious you are depends very much on whether you are male or
female. I talked with Steve Slon, editor of AARP Magazine. The
American Association of Retired Persons conducted a survey on
seniors in spirituality where the gender differences came
through loud and clear.

Steve Slon, as editor of the AARP, you've looked at all sorts of
issues and the latest one looks at beliefs about religion and
spirituality. You've discovered some really interesting
differences between men and women.

Steve Slon>> That's right, Val.

Val>> Essentially, you say God gets all the girls? (Laughter)

Steve Slon>> (Laughter) Well, we did a survey and we found that
many more women than men define themselves as very religious.
The number starts at about thirty-eight percent of women in
their fifties and it goes up to forty-nine percent of women when
you reach the seventies that define themselves as very
religious. Men, about twenty-five to twenty-eight percent, say
they're very religious and that number doesn't change as you
grow up.

Val>> So by the time women and men are older as they are living
out their lives together, many more women are much more
religious?

Steve Slon>> Well, it would seem so, but there are other ways
to look at it and that is that there are two possibilities. One
is that men aren't religious as women and the other is that men
just don't like to talk about it, so they're much more likely to
define themselves as unreligious? No, not me. But then they go
to church. In fact, attendance at a house of worship is about
the same for men and women even as they get older, so that's
surprising. That says, again, two things, either that men go
because it's like, honey, we're going to church now, come with
me. Or on the other hand, it's that men just, again, don't like
to describe it that way, but they put their butts in the seats
when it comes time and that's how they vote.

Val>> You also found that prayer has a very different role in
the lives of women versus men. Women pray a lot more and it
means a lot more to them?

Steve Slon>> Right. Women describe prayer as being much more
important to them and much more likely to be a way that they
express their spirituality or their religious faith. Men, not
so much. In fact, when we asked about communing with nature,
was that one of the ways? Men were much more likely than women
to say that communing with nature was one of their spiritual
satisfying points.

Val>> And that's why you say women go to church and men go
camping (laughter).

Steve Slon>> (Laughter). Yes, that's right. Again, you know,
maybe it's just the way they like to talk about it. Another
thing that was very important and a very powerful, positive
message was that the highest spiritually satisfying activity
that both sexes described was helping others. So that mission
of taking care of others and stuff is very satisfying. Also on
the list further down were spending time with family, attending
services and, you know, doing good works.

Val>> And levels of religious belief also paralleled income.
Basically, those earning $25,000 or less, a larger percentage,
more than a third, described themselves as very religious, and
as you go up the income ladder, less so.

Steve Slon>> Right. I think that parallels teachings that
we've heard and, you know, stereotypes that we've heard over the
years which is that the poorer folks, you know, take to religion
more seriously than the wealthy. In fact, of course, there are
biblical teachings along the same lines. Why that is, one can
only speculate, but I do think that it bears out in the study.

Val>> But it has implications. Because if you have elderly
people who are at a lower income, you're going to get a
different kind of culture than those who are wealthy, yes?

Steve Slon>> That's true. I think that you have to look at the
fact that, when people are in desperate and dire circumstances,
when they are very poor, where else are you going to turn? I
mean, this is some satisfaction and some solace for people who
don't have as much.

Val>> You also asked people why they don't go to church, if
they don't go to church, and they had all sorts of reasons.

Steve Slon>> Right. Well, in the context of the current
political race that's going on, it's a very interesting one.
Seventy percent say that they have arguments with some of the
teachings of their religious leaders. They also said that they
were angered by the hypocrisy of other members and some of them
were just plain annoyed that there's so much emphasis on
collecting money. That was one of the factors.

Val>> And, of course, the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic
church. They're angry at the leaders.

Steve Slon>> Yeah, there have been many problems with religious
authority and I think Americans in general, while they still
consider themselves, say, good Catholics, they don't necessarily
follow to the letter the Catholic teachings or, you know, the
Jewish teachings, etc.

Val>> And the fear of hell doesn't have that much clout?

Steve Slon>> No. You know, we asked people what makes them go
and one of the reasons they gave was, you know, because family,
because tradition, because one just simply goes to come closer
to God in one's religion. We also asked if fear of going to
hell was one of the reasons and absolutely that was not. Only
three percent said that was a factor in their decision. So in
the modern world, hell has just lost some of its fire, I think
it's fair to say (laughter).

Val>> Now as the baby boomers get older and supposedly more
religious, will they approach their spirituality differently?

Steve Slon>> Well, I do think they will. I think that there's
going to be more of a Chinese menu approach to religion. The
baby boomers have always taken pride in doing things their own
way and what does that mean? Well, it means that I say I'm a
Catholic, but I go to a Zen meditation center on Thursday nights
and I have this meditation group. Or I'm Jewish and I do the
same. Or I take this theological point of view, but I don't
accept some of the political teachings that go along with that.
So, in other words, it's a very much mix and match, you know,
make my religion my own.

Val>> It doesn't portend well for institutionalized religion,
does it?

Steve Slon>> Well, you know, the numbers of the attendance at
institutional religions has been on a kind of straight downward
trend for the last fifty years. But the one positive note there
for them is that it has leveled off in the last few years. It
hasn't risen, but it has leveled off which suggests that maybe
as the baby boomers come back to the fold as they age, they may
be going back to their childhood religions.

Val>> Steve Slon, editor of AARP Magazine, thank you very much.

Steve Slon>> Thank you, Val. It was really good talking with
you.

Val>> You too.

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Val>> Four students from Pasadena City College took on a big
challenge: build a snowboard out of nothing but recycled paper
and race it down an icy slope in competition with other teams
from across the country. The Pasadena City College team was the
only one from a community college. All the other teams were
from four-year universities. So how did they do? Producer
Sherine Adeli brings us the story of these ambitious underdogs.

Stan King>> The 2004 Energy Challenge was co-sponsored by the
U.S. Department of Energy and the Institute of Paper, Science
and Technology. The premise of the project was to design a
snowboard that took in the heaviest consideration the reduction
of energy consumption in the manufacturing process.

Fabian Lacey>> We had to submit what idea we were creating. We
had to do it in writing, do it in drawing and we had to give the
judges a sense of what direction we would take.

Craig Shoji>> It needed to be stiff, like pops back into its
original shape, have memory, you know. So if I'm bending it, it
has to go back to its original shape. It had to have a
preloaded spring in it so it's conforming on the snow because
the terrain is always changing and it takes the rider's weight
somewhat when the rider's standing on it.

Fabian Lacey>> What we were trying to do with the snowboard is
create a preloaded spring. When we used recycled paper to do
that, it was kind of hard to get the results we needed. The
bamboo is inherently a grass. It's not a wood with very strong
properties of a wood.

Craig Shoji>> We were like halfway through working on that and
then we got a call from Michael Shea at the Institute of Paper
Sciences. He's like, guys, we got your mid-term report. You
did a great job, but you can't use the bamboo in its raw form
because we're a Paper Science team. We really want you to force
the paper. We're like, wow, what are you talking about? We
have to redo this whole thing? He's like, I'm sorry, but you
can't do that. You're going to get docked for this.

Craig Shoji>> "This is like a covert operation. We're going to
get in. We're going to take the recycled paper, bring it back
to my car and make a snowboard. Go!"

Asami Tachikawa>> We used corrugated cardboard which is manmade
glazed. We're supposed to use corrugated cardboard because it's
already been processed and they already used recycled materials,
so we're not actually using new recycled materials.

Carlos Mendez>> We basically cut that up and laid it out in the
form of a honeycomb pattern as the core.

Fabian Lacey>> The honeycomb was actually suggested by Terry
Price over at Cerritos College. He suggested that we use a
structure that was lightweight and strong, similar to what they
use in aircraft products. So he showed us some samples of
traditional honeycomb patterns. We looked it up and we felt
that it was a really strong professional strength.

>> "How are you feeling right now, bud?"

>> "Feeling good."

Carlos Mendez>> We made handmade paper with avaco, which is a
close relative to banana fiber.

Craig Shoji>> Fabian was taking a class at Cerritos in
composites and he worked with hemp to reinforce plaster molds.
He said you can't break it. The tensile strength is like
incredible. Okay, let's lay that in and emulate this negative
forty-five zero degree format that's similar to fiberglass. You
know, provides strength in all these directions and then, you
know, pretty much sandwich it between paper and just use the
water to bond it together. Then we'll have a sheet that's like,
you know, three or four layers thick with the hemp in between
and we can sandwich that on top of the cardboard.

Fabian Lacey>> When this project came about, it reminded me
again like, well, you know, we are trying to solve a problem.
Why not take it to the next level?

Asami Tachikawa>> Our uniforms, for example. We went to
Goodwill Stores and we bought used clothes and then we greased
it instead of adding colors.

Carlos Mendez>> It got us to the cycle to think of
biodegradables to compost in the greens container, whatever it
is the city has, and it kind of opened our eyes to be conscious.

Stan King>> The interesting thing that was said about our team
in terms of the critique was that PCC's kids really focused on
the spirit of the competition more than any other college.

Craig Shoji>> "One of the major themes that we adopted was
waste minimization and that became an important tie throughout
the entire competition. As it went on, we realized the
importance of it on the global level and the local level."

Stan King>> Some of the teams were really large and they'd
obviously spent money getting there. I mean, I even made the
comment, I forget to which school, because somebody had their
crate with their boards in it. I asked them about their board
and I got this, well, you'll see. I thought, oh (laughter).

Carlos Mendez>> We said when we left from here to Colorado that
we already won because we already had -- not in the sense that
we already won like the prize itself, but we already won the
trip.

Craig Shoji>> I told my team before we got there, if we could
make the snowboard, I'll win the race because I have
experiencing racing and I was pretty hard-headed about that. I
was like, okay, I'll take these guys down. So when I got there
and I started seeing some of the boards, half of me said, okay,
we're good and the other half said, oh, man.

[Film Clip]

Announcer>> "And the fastest time breaking the eighteen-minute
mark, the eighteen second mark, at 17.99, please come up here,
the racer from Pasadena."

[Film Clip]

Fabian Lacey>> As soon as he took off, he started picking up
speed and we were like, okay, our board works (laughter). It
wasn't just the rider, it wasn't just the board, it wasn't just,
you know, the course or something. Everything seemed to click.

Announcer>> "The race counts for twenty percent of the score
and the race, as it should be, is a very important factor in
determining who wins this competition. And the third place team
was Pasadena."

[Film Clip]

Announcer>> "This team took the concept of recycled material to
an extreme and actually went dumpster-diving to find the
materials."

Fabian Lacey>> The judges had told us several times that we
were the most creative team and I think that comes from the fact
that we weren't structured as engineers and we didn't have to
build our board based on the guidelines that they had set. They
had set guidelines and we tried to do everything we could to
meet them, however, keep our own creativity and our own concept
different than everybody else's.

Val>> The students credit their success with a lot of help from
the community and they all plan to continue their studies in
design. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone
at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next
time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

He's changing thousands of lives one wheelchair at a time.

>> You really don't understand. This is their graduation. It
would be like your daughter or your son graduating from college.
They're graduating from their immobility, from living on the
ground.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.