02/14/05

LC050214

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

This is where we send troubled kids to be rehabilitated, but is
California's juvenile prison system beyond reform?

Sylvester Tellez>> Chad was called gladiator school and it's
like -- I mean, it's like hard-core criminals right there and
everything. It's like another step toward, you know what I
mean, prison.

Val>> And then, what's in a name? Well, would you eat
something called Lumberjack Chicken? A tongue-in-cheek primer
on all things Pollo.

It's all straight ahead 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>> The reports are disturbing. Inmates in cages, unprovoked
beatings, twenty-three hours a day in a cell, and even death.
I'm not talking about a prisoner of war detention facility. I'm
talking about the California Youth Authority, the institution
that's supposed to be rehabilitating California's toughest teen
criminals. The CYA has been under harsh attack for the past few
years and now Governor Schwarzenegger has vowed to reform it.
But as Kevin Smith tells us, some critics say it's beyond
reform.

Kevin Smith>> This California Youth Authority facility in Chino
looks pretty calm on a bright sunny day as some of the nine
hundred young inmates, or wards as they're politely called,
stroll from classes back to their living units. But there's a
darker side to what goes on here and at seven other CYA
facilities that often resemble adult prisons beset by violence
and documented abuses. State Senator Gloria Romero chairs the
Select Committee on Corrections.

Gloria Romero>> The California Youth Authority facilities have
unprecedented levels of violence. Not only ward against ward,
but staff against ward and ward against staff. It is something
out of a Charles Dickens novel.

Kevin Smith>> Shocking proof came last year. This security
camera videotaped from the notorious Chad facility outside
Stockton shows guards pummeling young wards lying prone on the
floor. The guards have been fired.

Gloria Romero>> I was appalled. When you take a look at that
video and you see a correctional officer, a counselor, kicking,
beating a ward who is not moving, that is not rehabilitation.
That is pure violence.

Walter Allen>> We have three living unit complexes.

Kevin Smith>> Into this politically charged hornet's nest steps
Walter Allen, a congenial former law enforcement officer and
former mayor of Covina. Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Allen
last year to head the troubled Authority. Allen's mandate: make
CYA facilities less like prisons with more emphasis on
rehabilitating the 3,500 young offenders.

Walter Allen>> We owe it to the community, we owe it to
society, to make every effort we can make to provide them the
best treatment services possible so they don't continue to
victimize society when they get out and they don't wind up going
through the adult system.

Kevin Smith>> The Youth Justice Coalition, a group that claims
CYA should just be completely dismantled, recently held a rally
to commemorate four deaths of teenage wards in the past year,
two by reported suicide, two from unknown causes.

Noe Orgaz>> You're in a place that's supposed to be safe for
you. You're supposed to be there to be rehabilitated, but yet
these four young people lost their lives.

Kevin Smith>> Sylvester Tellez who now works for the Youth
Justice Coalition spent three years as a ward in CYA facilities,
including Chad, for gang-related drug activity.

Sylvester Tellez>> Chad was called gladiator school and it's
like -- I mean, it's like hard-core criminals right there and
everything. It's like another step towards, you know what I
mean, prison.

Walter Allen>> The gladiator school is in our communities. We
get these young people that are really, really entrenched in
gang behavior. They come to us with the racial violence, with
the gang behavior.

Kevin Smith>> Sylvester says the facilities where he did time
were a hotbed of violence and abusive authority, such as guards
betting on fights between wards. He made drawings like this
while locked up in isolation twenty-three hours a day in a tiny
cell for disobedience.

Sylvester Tellez>> They gave you a twenty-three hour lockdown
and it makes you feel like you might as well send me to Pelican
Bay, you know.

Kevin Smith>> A statewide audit just reported that nearly ten
percent of all wards were still confined in their small cells
twenty-three hours a day, many for more than thirty days in a
row, a practice the audit called "ineffective and dehumanizing".

Walter Allen>> We do not have the appropriate staffing right
now to be able to get some of those young people out for more
than an hour or two hours a day. That's just the way it is.

Kevin Smith>> Critics say this further highlights CYA's glaring
failures. Seventy percent of the wards wind up back here after
committing more crimes.

Gloria Romero>> We have got to move to a model of
rehabilitation and, to do that, it does mean a culture change
within the organization. Right now if you go into any CYA
facility, you'll find bars, you'll find cages, you'll find
uniforms, you'll find mace, you'll find dogs, you'll find that
essentially these facilities are not rehabilitative centers.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger>> "You cannot pick up a
newspaper without reading about a youth dying in prison."

Kevin Smith>> Even critics of CYA applaud Governor
Schwarzenegger for admitting the system's faults. Last fall,
the state settled a major lawsuit and promised big changes.
Director Allen has already made his mark. He's abolished cages
that were used to contain more violent wards while they attended
classes.

At Chino, better-behaved wards have been placed into this model
living unit with a lounge area and access to computers for
school work. Some of the units in this facility house as many
as one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty wards. This
particular experimental unit has sixty-six. The Youth Authority
agrees with many of its critics that the goal is to reduce that
number much further.

Walter Allen>> The smaller the living units and the more
treatment-oriented services you provide, you do make an impact
on some of these young people that come to us.

Kevin Smith>> German Carranza and Fred Lam are both housed in
the model unit. German is twenty-four and has been in CYA
facilities since he was fifteen for a gang-related murder.
Chino is his second stop in the system and he says there was
nonstop fighting when he first got here.

German Carranza>> Wards against wards. At that time, wards
against staff or whatever.

Kevin Smith>> German will be released next year when he's
twenty-five, the maximum age for CYA wards. Fred will be here
until at least 2008.

Fred Lam>> It's not as bad as everybody says it is. For the
most part, it's really up to the person to make it how it is,
you know. I'm going to school, college at night, training
during the day. I'm trying to get my certificate for computer
repair and such.

Kevin Smith>> Both agree that separating violent from non-
violent wards is essential.

German Carranza>> If you have people that are divided, some
people are still trying to prove themselves to other people
trying to do good. There's always going to be that conflict.

Kevin Smith>> Director Allen says that's high on his list of
proposed reforms. He and Senator Romero are also looking to
programs in other states like Missouri which gets praise for its
success in rehabilitating young criminals.

Walter Allen>> And we're looking at adopting a project here in
California in the coming months that wouldn't have uniforms,
that the ward could be addressed by their first name, to do more
intensive treatment. There'd be a better ward to staff ratio.

Kevin Smith>> But can the CYA itself be rehabilitated?
Organizations like the Youth Justice Coalition say no. They
want to shut down the facilities completely and have the money
turned over to counties for community base programs.

Gloria Romero>> Many have said that CYA will never be totally
dismantled and that may well be the case, but it certainly can
be whittled away to its bare, bare necessity of existence and
the rest of the youth truly should go into programs that meet
the law and the spirit of California, which is rehabilitation.

Kevin Smith>> Still, if promised reforms don't come quickly
enough or prove too costly, the remaining youth correction
facilities could soon bear an eerie resemblance to others that
have already been sentenced to close. I'm Kevin Smith for Life
and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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Val>> When you think of commuter marriages, you usually think
of a young husband and wife getting their careers off the
ground. But these days, things are changing. A recent issue of
AARP Magazine reports that more commuter couples are in their
fifties. Why the change? And how are older marriages handling
the distance? That's what I asked the West Coast editor of AARP
Magazine, Nancy Griffin. I met her at her home in Venice.
Nancy Griffin, with AARP Magazine, thank you for joining us
again.

Nancy Griffin>> Good to be here.

Val>> There's a new pattern, especially among older marriages,
of commuter marriages, the husband and wife living often far
away in different cities.

Nancy Griffin>> Yes, that's right. There are now three million
Americans who are living in separate cities, married Americans.

Val>> And more and more of them are older?

Nancy Griffin>> Yes, an increasing number. Since 2001, the
number of people over fifty who are married who live separately
has tripled.

Val>> So why are we seeing an increase in commuter marriages
among people fifty years and older?

Nancy Griffin>> Well, in the past few years, there's been a lot
of downsizing and displacement of people over fifty. A lot of
people over fifty are getting laid off. They can't find another
job in the city they live in. They find a job in a city far
away and the couple feels they need their two incomes and so
they separate.

Val>> So when they separate, what kind of strain or what effect
does that have on the marriage?

Nancy Griffin>> Well, I think it's very difficult. You have
the exhaustion of commuting. Very often, a husband or a wife
will come home every other weekend, so it's constantly traveling
back and forth. Some couples say they like it. They like the
distance and the solitude that they get and they say that it
makes their relationship more romantic, that the time they do
spend together is very highly-charged and they really appreciate
each other more because they're not together all the time.

Val>> So do they find that there are more divorces or fewer
divorces among commuter couples?

Nancy Griffin>> They haven't been able to study this phenomenon
for very long. There is no indication that there is any greater
incidence of divorce among commuting couples. However, couples
do say that they think about the possibility of infidelity more
often. It doesn't mean that they actually act on it, but they
think about the possibility.

Val>> So they're often more worried about it.

Nancy Griffin>> Yes, exactly.

Val>> Now between the younger couple, the wife might move with
the husband to a new city. How is that not necessarily the case
with older couples?

Nancy Griffin>> Wives don't automatically move anymore for a
variety of reasons. First of all, the wife might be working.
She might like her job or not feel she could get the same job in
the city if she moved. Also, I think sometimes the family
doesn't want to take the kids out of school, the kids and the
mother are rooted in the city they're in, and very often the new
job that the husband has gotten might not seem so secure that
it's worth uprooting the whole family.

Val>> So for commuter marriages, whether they be young
marriages or older marriages, are there ways that the stress can
be relieved and the marriage can be kept strong?

Nancy Griffin>> Yes. I think one of the most important things
is couples say they set a time limit on the separation of maybe
three years, maybe five years. They say to each other, okay, we
can stand it for this long, but after that, we need to be
together.

Val>> So what did you sense? Do you think that the number of
commuter marriages, especially among older couples, will
increase in the future or will it go down?

Nancy Griffin>> I think the number is probably going to
increase. It doesn't look like the economy is going to improve
or employment is going to improve drastically in the future and
most couples feel that both husband and wife need to work. So
I'm afraid that means that some of them are going to live apart.

Val>> Nancy Griffin with AARP Magazine, thank you very much.

Nancy Griffin>> Thank you, Val.

Val>> To step inside St. Sophia's Greek Orthodox Church is like
stepping into a cathedral in Rome or Florence, but you're not in
Italy. You're in the Latino neighborhood of Pico Union. Vicki
Curry takes us inside this magnificent cathedral that was
enhanced by a little Hollywood know-how.

Vicki Curry>> It's a working class neighborhood just west of
downtown Los Angeles. It's changed over the years with each new
wave of immigrants, but standing unchanged at the corner of Pico
and Normandie is something you wouldn't expect in an area like
this: St. Sophia's Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Driving by, you
might notice the domed church, but the fairly simple façade
gives no hint of what you'll find inside.

[Film Clip]

Father John Bakas>> The idea for us to have a spiritual
experience is to leave the commonness, the everyday, behind and
come to a higher level.

Vicki Curry>> Father John Bakas is Dean of St. Sophia, one of
the most ornate and impressive churches in Southern California.

Father John Bakas>> So through the use of art, through the use
of light, through the use of stained glass, you really enter
from a secular space to a really holy space.

Vicki Curry>> Father Bakas was born in Greece, but immigrated
to New Mexico as a child where he learned English and Spanish.
He's been at St. Sophia for ten years.

Father John Bakas>> Through the use of space and the alter and
through the use of all of this iconography, it shows us the
destination to go beyond the curtain of this world, the shadows
of this world, into the eventual world of the life to come.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Greek Orthodox is the major Christian church in
Eastern Europe in the Middle East and dates back to the earliest
followers of Jesus, so how did a cathedral like this end up in
Los Angeles? It was the dream of a movie theatre mogul who saw
his Greek community outgrow its small downtown church.

Father John Bakas>> Mr. Skouras had an inspiration that Los
Angeles and the community here should really have a cathedral,
something that really justified their forefathers.

Vicki Curry>> Charles Skouras was a Greek immigrant who made
his fortune as head of the Fox-West Coast theatre chain in the
1930's and 1940's. He was personally involved in building many
of the country's grand movie palaces.

Father John Bakas>> Many of the craftsmen that worked on his
theatres were the same ones brought to work here in the
cathedral. So there is some relationship between his own
particular theatrical style and this cathedral. In addition,
Mr. Skouras put in his own little touches which would be, if I
can say, "Hollywood-esque". He loved lighting, so for 1952
standards, he put in huge infrastructure of electrical equipment
so that there are shades and there are dimmers and there are
colored lights in here, hundreds literally, that would not have
been a part of what you would have thought of a church in those
days.

Vicki Curry>> Skouras and his designers researched ancient
Eastern churches for inspiration. They envisioned a cathedral
just as grand, but also new and unique.

Father John Bakas>> He based this particular cathedral on the
old cathedral built in 537 A.D. in Constantinople by The Emperor
Justinian. It's a basilica form, but in a more Byzantine
tradition with a dome. You don't find columns in the church
that would obstruct any particular visual element in the
cathedral. Whereas, in the old churches, you had a lot of
columns to hold up ceilings. You won't find that here. It was
a very nice blend of the ancient style with modern building
techniques and yet modern aesthetics.

Vicki Curry>> After three years of construction, St. Sophia was
consecrated on September 28, 1952. There are twenty-one custom-
made chandeliers from Czechoslovakia, leaded glass from Belgium,
England and Germany, marble from Greece and Italy, and gold leaf
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Father John Bakas>> The use of gold leaf is intended to reflect
light. Light is a very important element in the church.

Vicki Curry>> Almost every inch of the walls is decorated with
drawings, mosaics or stained glass.

Father John Bakas>> The whole story of early Christianity is
here for us. Through stained glass windows are the twelve
apostles of Jesus Christ. There are scenes in between the
stained glass windows that connect to certain other
personalities in scripture. Saints and martyrs, scenes from the
life of Christ. The artist who did this did not use abstract
Byzantine forms. He actually used different faces. He would
find someone like you and say, you know, you look like someone
whose face I can use for a particular thing, so he had people
pose in the community at the time of the founding of this
cathedral. I even know the woman whose face is used in the icon
of the Virgin Mary on the screen there.

Vicki Curry>> And these, they've dubbed "Charlie's Angels"
because Charles Skouras raised money for the cathedral by
offering donors the opportunity to have their child's face
immortalized in St. Sophia. Now let me ask you about this
amazing dome above us.

Father John Bakas>> In the Orthodox church, we believe that
Christ is present with us at all times, so we express that by
seeing the Christ in the form of a magnificent mural looking
down upon us. Everything here has a message and it can keep you
occupied even when I'm boring during my sermon (laughter).
During liturgy, people can look around the walls and get their
own sermon.

Vicki Curry>> But Father Bakas is doing more than sermonizing
in a beautiful building. In recent years, St. Sophia has been
instrumental in tackling neighborhood problems.

Father John Bakas>> We saw the neighborhood had really
deteriorated. We realized that we had to do something to be
involved. You know, if you look at the major cities in Europe,
great churches and great cathedrals have always played a role in
city development.

Vicki Curry>> The area is now officially called the Byzantine-
Latino Quarter. Its symbol is two angels, each with one wing.

Father John Bakas>> And the motto, if you notice outside, says
"We are each of us angels with one wing and we can only fly
embracing each other." I think this is really the biography of
Los Angeles.

Vicki Curry>> I'm Vicki Curry for Life and Times.

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

Life and Times
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Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
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Val>> You've heard the phrase "A chicken in every pot". Well,
these days it seems there's a chicken on every corner, as
documented by our lighthearted commentator, Cris Franco.

Cris Franco>> I'm amazed by the number of Pollo places that are
popping up all over town. Pollo is Spanish for chicken and I
like it because it's protein-rich brain food. You don't keep
this powerhouse running on Crystal Light and rice cakes, I'll
tell you that (laughter). Pollo fanatics often need every brain
cell they've got to figure out many of these restaurants' quirky
Spanish names.

As Life and Times unofficial self-appointed cultural ambassador,
we're going to show you some pictures of these local Pollo
places and I'll translate their names for your dining education.
First up, El Pollo Necio, or the Stubborn Chicken. The Stubborn
Chicken? That's right. Can I get that with a side of
intractable rice and hard-headed beans? The place is always
packed full of stubborn people who want their stubborn chicken.

If stubborn chicken doesn't get your Pollo palate salivating,
then how about Pollo Bravo? This isn't bravo as in bravo,
bravo, applause. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. No, here
Bravo means great. Hum, do I want to eat a brave bird? If we
can smell victory, then why can't we taste bravery? I'll order
two.

Super Pollo needs no translation. It means Super Chicken and I
think it's a super title for a Super Pollo eatery because it
gets me thinking, does Super Pollo have any like super powers,
like can he lay eggs with the chorizo right in them?

And can Super Pollo possibly be any stronger than El Pollo
Amigo, or Friendly chicken? And from the looks of this logo, I
think that Friendly chicken should be called El Pollo
(inaudible). He wants to pump you up.

El Pollo Gordo is already pumped up. He is a fat chicken. Hey,
I think I know how Pollo Gordo got all gordo. The same way we
all got gordo by eating so much and not exercising and driving
around in our Pollo Gordo mobiles.

We should stay in shape like El Pollo Campion. That's Champion
Chicken. Pollo Grande may mean Big chicken, but no way is it as
big as the chicken atop A-1 Pollo. Oh, it's Chickzilla, it's
Chickzilla. If you like your Pollo rare, then this is the Pollo
for you because A-1 only serves the type that's still clucking
and attacking.

Oh, and here's a live one. It's Pollo Lenador, Lumberjack
Chicken. "I am a Lumberjack and I'm okay. I'm a chicken today,
I'm a chicken today."

Pollo A La Brasa means flame-broiled chicken, not Pollo in your
bra size. But it could because Pollos are female, which brings
up this whole misconception of the male Pollo mascot, like Juan
Pollo. Friends, Pollos are female, so is Juan Pollo a "hen-
maphrodite" or is she just into corn and flour? I think Juan
Pollo rocks. It's very hip, very now, very today, very gender-
bending, and very delicious.

Oh, there are so many more Pollo places, folks. There's Los
Pollos, Pollo Rico and Pollo Nortenito and Pollo Chiapaneco,
which means Chicken from Chiapas. Boy, I wonder if they can
deliver in a half hour. And, of course, there's the granddaddy
of them all, El Pollo Loco, Crazy Chicken. There are so many of
them that you go crazy trying to figure out which one to eat at.

If I didn't mention your favorite Pollo place, I'm sorry. I
didn't have the time or the tortillas to visit them all. But in
the end, it doesn't matter because whether you like your Pollo
flame-broiled or fat or friendly or in your bra size, ultimately
it all ends up tasting like chicken. Ummm, here's my favorite:
rubber chicken, original recipe.

Val>> If there is a Pollo something or other in your
neighborhood, why don't you take a digital picture of it and e-
mail it to us? We'll send it on to Cris. 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 --

Four years ago, Antonio Villaraigosa drew national attention as
a Latino candidate for Los Angeles mayor. Now he's running
again and this time --

Antonio Villaraigosa>> Well, if you notice, people aren't
talking about that as much anymore and I'm glad they're not
because I said, look, don't vote for me for those reasons. Vote
for me because I have a record.

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