11/26/04

LC041126

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's called higher education, but does that mean the cost has to
keep rising?

Eligio Martinez>> It's ridiculous in the sense that the
University of California Los Angeles is a public institution
and, as such, it needs to be accessible to the public.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> You can have higher fees and higher aid
such that it doesn't reduce access at all.

Val>> And then, a respected newsman has the back story of one
of the oldest shows on television.

Plus, what and where is Los Angeles? A new documentary tries to
define the elusive concept of Los Angeles Now.

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 couple of decades, students and their
parents have been watching as college tuition has gone up and up
and up, far outstripping the rate of inflation. There is some
solace in the fact that our public universities, our UC and
state college campuses, were a great bargain. But as Hena
Cuevas tells us, now even public college tuition is on the rise
and some predict that it could get into the tens of thousands of
dollars.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> There's always a constant line of students at the
Financial Aid office at UCLA.

Brent Bushnell>> I don't make enough to pay for both school and
everything, so this way I get enough money to kind of make ends
meet.

Hena Cuevas>> Twenty-six year old Brent Bushnell is a senior
from California majoring in Computer Science. He transferred
from the University of Colorado to UCLA to save money. Compared
to the out of state tuition he was paying in Colorado, UCLA is a
lot cheaper, but still expensive.

Brent Bushnell>> So this is a lot less. On the flip side, you
know, I've been paying for it all myself which is a lot of money
to try to balance especially since I'm working less in order to
go to school. It's made it a little complicated.

Hena Cuevas>> It's an all too familiar story. Like Bushnell,
more and more students say they're finding it increasingly
difficult to pay for college.

Portia Pedro>> When I found out how much it cost to live and go
to school and eat in the dorm, I started getting financial aid
to take care of it. But now financial aid isn't enough anymore.

Hena Cuevas>> Portia Pedro is studying International
Development. After she completed her first three years, she
took time off to earn some money to pay for her final year.

Portia Pedro>> Since I left, the fees have gone up by about
half, which is just huge.

Hena Cuevas>> Actually, since the year 2000, tuition and fees
at UCLA have increased nearly eighty percent. It now costs
$6,500 a year, not including room and board. One of the reasons
they've gone up is that, for the last four years, the state has
cut back the amount of money it's giving to the UC system.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> "But imagine if we doubled the fee.
Let's say we said add another $7,000, which would take us within
$3,000 of the privates."

Hena Cuevas>> On October 7, UCLA's Chancellor Albert Carnesale
speaking at Town Hall Los Angeles warned that, in the future,
the university would need additional funds to remain
competitive.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> I think the difficulty is that as soon
as you say higher fees, peoples' ears close and they don't hear
the rest (laughter).

Hena Cuevas>> He says those words calling for a tuition hike
obscured the second part of his message, that he would only
advocate it as long as it also came with an increase in
financial aid. The problem, as he sees it, is that the gap
between what the state provides and what the university needs to
maintain its current level of research is getting wider.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> It's becoming more and more difficult in
the University of California system to compete for the very best
people, faculty and students. We depend upon our public
universities being able to compete with the very finest
universities, public and private. We do do that. We have done
that.

Hena Cuevas>> This is not only one of the top research
universities in the nation. It's also first in the number of
low-income students who go to school here, something the
university says that it's very proud of. A recent study of
fifty universities showed that, at UCLA, more than thirty-five
percent of its undergraduates receive federal financial aid.
Carnesale says that higher tuition doesn't mean fewer students
will be able to get a college education.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> You can have higher fees and higher aid
such that it doesn't reduce access at all.

Eligio Martinez>> To me, it's ridiculous in the sense that the
University of California Los Angeles is a public institution
and, as such, it needs to be accessible to the public.

Hena Cuevas>> Eligio Martinez is a Chicano Studies major. He
says an increase like the one the Chancellor proposes would
affect those in the middle the most.

Eligio Martinez>> It's getting so that our upper working class,
lower middle class is a struggle for them from year to year to
figure out if they're going to receive financial aid or if
they're not going to receive financial aid. All these students
wouldn't be able to pay for the increased tuition.

Hena Cuevas>> Pedro agrees.

Portia Pedro>> It's basically saying that working class
students just don't even need to think about UC schools anymore
because it's going to cost too much for them.

Hena Cuevas>> Tuition at UC campuses is still relatively
affordable compared to a private university like USC where
tuition is four times as much as UCLA. But Carnesale says that
tuition is on the rise.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> I was talking about if you look ahead,
unless we do something to narrow this gap, we won't be able to
continue to do that and that would be bad news for the people of
California.

Portia Pedro>> I understand there is funding needed to get the
good professors and good programs, but the source of that
funding should be the state and the federal government and not
the students alone.

Hena Cuevas>> But not all students are opposed to the idea.

Brent Bushnell>> I would be willing to pay the extra money to
maintain the, you know, the excellence of the education. I
mean, I've really enjoyed the professors. I've really enjoyed
the education here. I've got a lot of friends who went to USC
and, you know, I feel like the things that are available to me
are equivalent to what was available to them.

Hena Cuevas>> And that's the appeal the Chancellor wants to
maintain.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> Certainly, lots of people that could
afford to pay $13,000 a year to send their son or daughter to a
university that's the equal of a place that would cost them
$30,000. If you increase the fees, you would also increase the
level of family income at which you provide aid. It is true
that those at the higher income levels would pay more than they
pay now, but not necessarily the full amount of the fee
increase.

Hena Cuevas>> But for Martinez, this is another example of the
university taking the easy way out.

Eligio Martinez>> It just seems that every time they cut back
on something, it's always on students' services and things that
benefit students. I remember when I asked once at a Town Hall a
few years ago, why not start cutting from the top? Why do you
always cut from the bottom and affect the students? And the
response the administration gave was that, well, that means
we've got to cut back on our vacation time, our sick time, our
benefits. So what?

Hena Cuevas>> Where the money comes from is part of the debate
Carnesale wants to get started.

Dr. Albert Carnesale>> If we cannot provide both excellence and
access, we will have failed the people of California and I want
to make sure we have discussions about how best to ensure that
we do not fail.

Hena Cuevas>> But students want to make sure that they're
included in those discussions.

Portia Pedro>> I think access really has to be the primary
purpose that we're working for here and not just limited access,
but it's a really great school. That's a private school.
That's what that is, and this is supposed to be a public
university.

Hena Cuevas>> Back in 1960, California's master plan for higher
education promised every qualified student a college degree at
no cost. That goal was clearly unrealistic. The challenge now
is to keep costs from skyrocketing and at least part of that
promise fulfilled. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts
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and Times".

Toni Guinyard>> Viewers have been tuning in to the CBS News
program, "Face the Nation", since November 7, 1954. The program
is now celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Bob Schieffer, the
familiar face of "Face the Nation", has done everything from
interview presidents to moderate presidential debates and now
he's sharing some of his favorite stories from the first fifty
years.

Announcer>> "Today on this CBS Public Affairs program, "Face
the Nation".

Bob Schieffer>> If you look at "Face the Nation" today, it is
basically the same program that it was fifty years ago. To me,
that's even more remarkable than the fact that it's lasted for
fifty years.

Toni Guinyard>> But in this era of look superseding the
content, you've got to wonder what is keeping people tuning in
week after week after week.

Bob Schieffer>> I think there's a great desire out there for
information. People are serious. They want to know about the
issues that are facing the country and we don't do anything very
fancy. I mean, we basically turn on the lights up there, we sit
them down at a table and we ask them questions.

Toni Guinyard>> And it works?

Bob Schieffer>> And they seem to like it that way. Over the
years, every time somebody tried to change "Face the Nation", it
proved to be a disaster even while I was anchoring "Face the
Nation" which I've done for thirteen years now. We once had
some guy that had the bright idea that we ought to move it out
to Hollywood and focus on entertainment news. Well, thank the
Lord, wiser heads prevailed and we didn't do that. I mean, I
could just see myself standing out there on the red carpet when
they were having the Oscars some night.

Toni Guinyard>> Now you know you are in Los Angeles right now.

Bob Schieffer>> I do, but I don't think that that was exactly
what they had in mind for "Face the Nation" and I don't think
that's what people who tune in on Sunday morning want to see.

Toni Guinyard>> If you could list your top one-two-three
moments that "Face the Nation" has been in the spotlight, what
would those be?

Bob Schieffer>> Well, I think, number one, the biggest story
they ever got was the real scoop. They got an exclusive
interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the first time a soviet leader
had ever been interviewed by anybody even in his own country.
The soviet people -- because the soviets recorded the interview
-- for the first time saw their leader being interviewed.

Broadcaster>> "What do you consider at this time to be the most
pressing points that must be solved between the two countries?"

Nikita Khrushchev>> "I believe that the main thing is to
normalize relations between our countries."

Bob Schieffer>> It was a remarkable story. It was also
controversial because people weren't sure at that time that a
government-regulated industry as broadcasting is ought to have
the freedom to interview a communist and put him on television.
After this, they came to the conclusion that broadcasting
deserved the same rights and privileges as print reporters.

Had a print reporter interviewed Khrushchev, he would have been
put in the paper and nobody would have thought anything about
it. But after that interview appeared on television, two
members of the House of Representatives got up on the floor and
introduced a resolution that the next time a communist was going
to be interviewed on television, the questions had to be cleared
in advance by the Central Intelligence Agency. Well, now, we've
come a long way since then. So I think that's the most
important broadcast.

Equally important was the first broadcast with Joe McCarthy. He
was the first guest. That was on the Sunday before the Senate
took up the resolution on whether to censure him.

Joe McCarthy>> "I invited them to give information of
wrongdoing, graft, corruption and communism. I am continuing to
get that information."

>> "Getting documents too?"

Joe McCarthy>> "Yes."

>> "Are you getting any more as a result of your appeals than
you got beforehand?"

>> "Has there been a flow built up as a result of that?"

Joe McCarthy>> "It's pretty hard to say whether it has
increased or decreased. I've been so busy being investigated
and preparing for this lynch bee starting tomorrow that I
haven't had an opportunity to -- "

>> -- "You call a meeting of the United States Senate a lynch
bee?"

Bob Schieffer>> I also think the interview with Fidel Castro,
the day he came out of the hills in Cuba to take power.

[Film Clip]

Bob Schieffer>> I think that was also a memorable broadcast.
It is also the only time in the history of the broadcast that
the Executive Producer was held at gunpoint while the interview
was being conducted and he complained to Castro and Castro said,
"Oh, well, don't worry. They're all men of love." This was not
very reassuring to the guy who was at the other end of a
military carbine that was being held on him.

Every person who has served as president since Eisenhower has
appeared on "Face the Nation" either as a candidate or as a
sitting president. Those were also broadcasts to remember.

Broadcaster>> "Mr. President, let me get back just for a moment
to Ronald Reagan."

Toni Guinyard>> I think a lot of our viewers probably saw you
when you were moderating the presidential debate. Your feeling
about the format, because a lot has been made about the format
of those debates?

Bob Schieffer>> It was very, very difficult because the
moderators were not allowed to ask follow-up questions.

Toni Guinyard>> That hurt you, didn't it?

Bob Schieffer>> There were really times when I really was very
frustrated. I just wanted to say, wait a minute, you haven't
answered the question that I asked, and both of them were guilty
of it. I hope the next time that these debates come about that
we'll be able to work out some kind of a deal where at least
some of the time the moderator can ask the follow-up questions.

Toni Guinyard>> Why did you agree to moderating it?

Bob Schieffer>> Well, because the debate commission, which is a
nonpartisan group, had asked me to moderate the debate and they
asked me to moderate it under the rules that they approved. Now
these two campaigns worked it out and I thought it was my job to
live up to that commitment. You know, my sense of it was that,
if they wanted to stand on their heads and answer the questions,
I'll ask them the questions. We'll see how they think on their
heads. We knew they could think on their feet.

The best parts of that debate were the times when I was -- and
it only happened a couple of times -- when I was able to get
them off the talking points and they seemed to be speaking from
the heart. I don't know why politicians think that hurts them.
They're so afraid to say something that hasn't been sort of
focus grouped, as it were. A lot of the time, I think that you
have people at the top of politics and they generally have
pretty good political instincts. The President has very good
political instincts. You know, when I got him off those
memorized one-liners and he had to answer questions about his
wife, I mean, how could you not like him a little more after
what he said?

George W. Bush>> "To stand up straight and not scowl."

Bob Schieffer>> Or John Kerry when he made fun of himself for
being married to one of the richest women in the world.

John Kerry>> "The President and you and I are three examples of
lucky people who married up (laughter) and some would say maybe
me more so than others."

Toni Guinyard>> You were criticized, though, for asking those
questions about their wives, accused of wasting time.

Bob Schieffer>> Yes. The two women in the Washington Post Op-
Ed page said that I wasted valuable time just to provoke a
Hallmark Card moment. Well, you know, I plead guilty to that.
I mean, if there's one thing we could use and deserve, I think,
in this nasty campaign season, it is maybe a Hallmark Card
moment from time to time because I think that, during those
moments, we not only got a little relief, we were able to get a
little better picture of both of those men, and that really was
my objective. I was not trying to do in that debate what I do
on "Face the Nation", which is to make news and move the story
along. What I was trying to do was to give the American people
a little better picture, a little more understanding, of who
these men were and I feel pretty good about that. I think we
did get a couple of insights.

Toni Guinyard>> Well, that's just an appetizer, in a sense, to
all of these moments with "Face the Nation". Mr. Schieffer,
thank you so much for spending a little time with Life and
Times.

Bob Schieffer>> Well, thank you. It was really, really fun.

Toni Guinyard>> Thank you.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val>> Have you ever felt overwhelmed by where we live? This
massive metropolis that's larger than a small country, has over
sixteen million people, a couple hundred cities and more than
eighty languages. Well, now a new documentary by a fresh
hometown voice brings Southern California into perspective in a
visually stimulating way. It's called "Los Angeles Now" by
Phillip Rodriguez.

>> "The story of Los Angeles is a small town that was multi-
cultural and became literally the most white city in the history
of urban America and now has become the most multi-cultural city
in the history of mankind."

Val>> I talked with filmmaker, Phillip Rodriguez, at his home
in Silverlake about how he approached such a huge subject.

Phillip Rodriguez>> I'm as perplexed as everyone else is and I
feel as exhilarated and as concerned about this change that's
taken place in our city, the city that was when I was a boy,
Iowa by the sea, and now has become this unbelievable,
incomprehensible, fast-moving polyglot. I mean, I think
everyone in the elementary school I went to was blonde but me,
and to see it change in the course of twenty or thirty years has
been so impressive.

>> "Someday when there are so few blondes left in California,
we're going to put them in a preserve and we're all going to go
look at them just remembering what it was like."

Medusa>> "Koreatown is almost taking over Crenshaw. I'm like,
wait a minute, where did all of these -- you know, I'm reading
buildings where I can't even understand the language and I'm
like where did this come from?"

Phillip Rodriguez>> I'm a crummy student and I'm not a
historian and I'm not a good statistician and I simply was
trying to get to evoke a feeling of how it's like to be here. I
wanted the film to feel like life on a freeway.

>> "Where is Los Angeles, somewhere in Bel Aire, Zsa Zsa
Gabor's house? I mean, you know, where is this damn town? You
drive along and am I still in East Los Angeles or where am I?
Is this Tarzana yet? I mean, where am I?"

Val>> You use this technique which I would call a city of
collage. Still images moving in relationship to each other as
opposed to just going out and shooting a bunch of pictures of
people. What were you after?

Phillip Rodriguez>> Good question. I think that, again, we
wanted the film to feel like Los Angeles, a city that's
constantly in motion, where the mini-mall that was there last
week is gone and something is in its place the next week. We
rooted around for visual technique to attempt to evoke the sense
of change and disorientation.

Val>> One of the more edgy moments was when there was a
discussion about the relationship between Jews and Latinos,
which is something that's not often broached.

Phillip Rodriguez>> Yeah. I mean, there are lots of edgy
moments in the film, I think. I think a lot of us are feeling
like we don't know where we sit and where we fit in the context
of this change.

>> "The divide between the Jewish community in Los Angeles and
the Latino community is one of the crueler divides."

Yuval Rotem>> "Many Jews in the west side don't necessarily
have any serious understanding about the Latinos on the east
side because most of them are in counter with Latinos. It's
either with their maid or their gardeners."

>> "Most west side Jews could give a damn about Los Angeles.
They're not really of Los Angeles in the way the rest of us are
and, by that, I include the Anglos and Jews, Middle Easterners
and Ethiopians who live in my neighborhood."

Phillip Rodriguez>> My film, for instance, was financed in
great part by the Skirball Foundation and for that I am very
grateful. But all my film is trying to accomplish is to
stimulate and maybe provoke some kind of interaction. I think a
lot of us, because the city is so spread out and because we
don't sit on top of each other, we don't experience each other
every day in the metro, that we're disinclined perhaps to engage
and consider each other's point of view. All my film is trying
to do essentially is to mix it up a little bit, stir up a little
bit and maybe sometime impolite conversation.

Val>> So what kind of reaction do you hope or expect to get
after people see it?

Phillip Rodriguez>> I would really like for the film to
stimulate conversation. The fact that we made a movie that has
Eli Broad next to Wanda Coleman next to Selma Hayek next to some
taxi driver from Central America.

>> "My child that I have, he's not going to be a cab driver
like me because he knows how hard it is. He knows that there is
a better way and he's sees the light and he already knows what
he wants to do. He wants to be a movie director."

Val>> But it's not just the Latino century. One of the big
points that you make in your piece is that it's going to be such
a mixed race. Everyone is going to be part this and part that
and a quarter that and a fifth that. After a while, will race
not mean anything in particular?

Phillip Rodriguez>> That's not a question I can answer. I'm
not qualified. Which is why I only make documentary films. I
don't think about such things. Honestly, I don't know. Things
could go so many ways. I'm just a chronicler. I'm not a sooth-
sayer or, again, a statistician or a sociologist. I simply take
the camera around and try to get a sense of what people feel and
what they fear and what they aspire to for the city.

>> "You're going to have many Anglos with Latino grandchildren
increasingly and so that they're brought into this mix as family
members whether they want to or not."

>> "I've gotten tickets before and they write down white. You
know, it's not a big deal to me. I'm not going to be like, no,
I'm Asian, you know. It's just whatever people want to call me.
It's their deal. Not mine."

>> "You grow up in a white neighborhood, you're going to have
white. You grow up in an Asian neighborhood, you're --

>> "Everybody speaking Korean and eating Korean food."

>> "You know how it is, though. I mean, you blend in to
everything. So we adapted."

Medusa>> "Ten years ago, I'm getting out of my car and I had an
Afro. This kid said, hey lady, this ain't black history month.
This little black kid. Wait a minute, you know what I mean? I
was almost offended. But three years later, everybody had an
Afro. Mexican-Americans have Afros."

Phillip Rodriguez>> I guess my mission is two-fold. In the
context of the city, I would like people to experience it and
bounce it off their own lived experience and some of it is going
to ring untrue. To some, it will be rubbish. To some, it will
be maybe an irresponsible publication. To some, it will be an
incomprehensible video game.

[Film Clip]

Phillip Rodriguez>> This city is the one most poorly
represented, misunderstood places in the world. It's the most
photographed and it's the most absolutely non-understood.
Hollywood is largely responsible for that because it exploits
images of the place that have nothing to do with the facts that
are here.

>> "To that extent, the people I know in Southern California
seem much more hostage to the lure of fame."

>> "I'm going to be the center of Los Angeles in a minute, you
know (laughter)."

Val>> So we live in the most diverse culture that's ever
existed, as you said, on the human planet and yet we don't talk
to each other.

>> "We used to have the railroad tracks. Now we have the 405,
the freeway. That's the great divide."

>> "If I'm on the other side of aviation, you know, I'm a fish
out of water, I'm flipping around. No, I'm over here."

Phillip Rodriguez>> I simply wanted to introduce this city,
this dynamic place, to the rest of the country.

Val>> Phillip Rodriguez, you've done a fantastic job of
representing this city and it is a difficult one to represent.

Phillip Rodriguez>> Thank you, Val. I appreciate it.

Val>> Whether you're a new arrival or have lived here a long
time, you'll enjoy seeing "Los Angeles Now". It's on KCET
Saturday, November 27, at 9:00 p.m. It's also showing at
various places around town. Just go to their website for
details at losangelesfilms.org. 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 --

Homes, homes and more homes. What kind of future are we
building for ourselves?

>> The mantra is more homes, more single-family detached homes,
more apartments, more condos, more townhouses.

>> That kind of thinking is going to suffocate us.

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