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Life & Times Transcript

08/26/05

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Our future may be in space, but where will we get the scientists of tomorrow?

Bettye Davis Walker>> In this day and age of so many parents raising their children on the television that's got things blinking and blopping at you at all the time, I think this is a perfect segue to where you really can come and get some information.

Val>> And then --

[Film Clip]

Val>> Okay, so it's hard to sing, but is that reason enough to dump the national anthem?

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 space shuttle is headed toward the International Space Station just as America is headed toward a serious shortage of scientists. American students rank eighth among thirty-five industrial countries when it comes to science literacy and the case is even worse among minorities. That's where Hal Walker comes in. Walker was part of America's mission to the moon and, as Toni Guinyard tells us, he and his wife are now on a mission of their own.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> "And the emergency we're going to have today is our life support systems have a malfunction."

Toni Guinyard>> They are would-be astronauts in training, inner city youngsters getting exposed to space exploration in an unlikely location, an old bank building in Inglewood transformed into the International Science Discovery and Learning Center.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> "So you should notify Mission Control that we're having an emergency and we're going to shut down some of the equipment."

Toni Guinyard>> At the center of it all is Hildreth "Hal" Walker.

Bettye Davis Walker>> Well, he has always wanted to have a center in the inner city for young children to experience science at an early age.

Toni Guinyard>> Hal Walker may not have a recognizable name or a familiar face, but his work as a laser systems specialist left a mark on early space exploration.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> I was involved in 1969 with Apollo 11. I was responsible and led the team that conducted the first interplanetary experiments which were operating a laser that ranged to the moon.

Toni Guinyard>> It was the summer of 1969. The space race was on. The world watched as the Apollo 11 crew walked on the moon. Part of the mission: the lunar laser ranging experiment.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> Neal Armstrong placed the laser reflector there that my team successfully used to detect it and make the first measurements of the true distance between the earth and the moon by using a laser.

Toni Guinyard>> Inspired by that moment, Walker and his wife, retired educator, Dr. Bettye Davis Walker, established the African-American Male Achievers Network, International Science Discovery and Learning Center. Bernard Harris, the first African-American to walk in space, is its spokesman.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> And he comes here and visits, so they get a chance first-hand to meet someone who's flown in the space shuttle, who's actually conducted experiments in space and, while he's here, he gives them a personal walk, I'll call it, of what a mission is like.

Toni Guinyard>> The relationship gives students reason to dream and provides them with an example of what they could achieve. The program is aimed at taking the fear out of learning about science.

Bettye Davis Walker>> When I was a junior high school principal, that was the first thing that I could see: the youngsters not wanting to get in those math and those science classes. But after we started having our hands-on science program after school and before school and in the summer, then all of that fear just kind of disappeared.

Rahim Miller>> "The object is for you guys to brainstorm and put together a cubicle structure using the marshmallows as glue."

Bettye Davis Walker>> Science is a part of everything we do and, using hands-on science as a motivational tool, your critical thinking skills are there, your analytical thinking skills are there.

Rahim Miller>> "I want you guys to not only build a cube, but reinforce it."

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> We give them a basic understanding of the mathematical involvement of space. For example, the speeds that are needed to break away from the earth is talked about. So they find that practical use of mathematics that they're familiar with explains some of the things that they're seeing happening.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> As the children work, Hal Walker watches perhaps thinking back to the moment his interest in space science was ignited. He was not unlike these youngsters. It happened when he was in the seventh grade.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> Well, the folks from, I think, Rocketdyne brought over a model of a rocket to our school. We were all kids sitting there in the auditorium and they turned it on in the auditorium on the stage and that sound of that power, of that type of a small little thing making that sound, just caught my attention and I just said I want to learn more about that.

Bettye Davis Walker>> My father worked at the Pentagon and I was at the Pentagon running through the Pentagon halls, so science, space exploration, all of that has just been a part of me. When Hal and I met, it was like this is it. We can talk this all day and all night and do it all day and all night and it's just been a real blessing.
Rahim Miller>> "Oh, a sticky situation."

Toni Guinyard>> Rahim Miller is one of their success stories.

[Film Clip]

Rahim Miller>> I got teased when I was younger because I had glasses.

Toni Guinyard>> No one is teasing him now. Miller began participating in the program when he was eight years old. He returned to be a mentor, teaching here at the center while pursuing a degree at Loyola Marymount University.

Rahim Miller>> I'm majoring in electrical engineering and, from there, I want to receive my Masters and possibly work in the field for a few years and develop experience and then apply for the NASA training school to become an astronaut.

Bettye Davis Walker>> That is what it's all about, that you can set your sights as high as you want and you can reach them and you can feel that you can reach them. The key thing is that the kids can change their minds, but the point is that the goal is there.

Toni Guinyard>> The Walkers believe this learning experience should be as realistic as possible, so in 2004 the couple commissioned the construction of this space lab. It has all the bells and whistles you might expect and many of the students say this is the heart of the science program.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> The purpose of it is to give children here at the center an experience of actually being in a space station simulator and also operating in conjunction with Mission Control.

Bettye Davis Walker>> In order for us to be the best, we have feel the best. So it's a little exercise machine in there.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> "Now the reason we're doing that is because we're in weightlessness and it's necessary now for us to keep our body toned up properly to overcome the weightlessness."

Toni Guinyard>> They may appear to be playing astronaut, but there is a lesson woven into every step of every mission from life sciences to biomed. The students must learn to communicate with each other, taking turns working as astronauts or in Mission Control.

Bettye Davis Walker>> In this day and age of so many parents raising their children on the television that's got things blinking and blopping at you all the time, I think this is a perfect segue to where you really can come and get some information.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> Each time the students use the space station, they're actually on a mission and there are specific tasks that they're going to actually conduct.

Rahim Miller>> "The message points to a slide in the articulator microscopy interface."

>> "I know it's a human something. This is seven. One sixty seven."

>> "Okay, I decoded it and it's the human stomach."

Rahim Miller>> "The human stomach. That's it. High alert."

Toni Guinyard>> And so begins another day in the Walker's world of space exploration, a world born from one couple's dream of passing their love of space science to the next generation by encouraging them to reach for the stars.

Hildreth "Hal" Walker, Jr.>> You have to see what we did in the Apollo days was just the opening of a door that just leads us into a vastness that is yet to be conquered, but we're on the way.

Rahim Miller>> "This mission is now concluded."

Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard 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 and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Toni Guinyard>> And now this update of a Life and Times story. You may recall that we told you about this Sears store in Boyle Heights. It opened for business in 1927, but in recent years most of the structure has been closed except for the first floor retail store. A proposed redevelopment plan would transform the old store into this: a twenty-three acre mixed use retail and residential center with affordable apartments.

Mark Weinstein>> What the people in the area asked for and what came out and what we're now going back to the community is 714 units which 674 of them will be condos. Twenty percent of those will be affordable condos. There will be forty apartments, all significantly affordable apartments, and about 700,000 to 800,000 feet of retail, including the Sears retail that's already there.

Toni Guinyard>> Now community activists are saying the developer is not providing enough affordable housing and what's been proposed is not the right kind. They're demanding fewer condos and more apartments with a minimum of three bedrooms. Low-income residents are being urged to speak up before the plans are finalized.

Val>> The terrorist bombings in London are yet another reminder of how difficult it is to secure public places. Well, earlier this year, Congress passed a new law requiring that certain information be put onto our driver's licenses. Will it make us safer and help fight terrorism? Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, talked with Congressman Ed Royce about what the new law will actually do.

Roger Cooper>> Congressman Ed Royce, you are a co-sponsor of what has been passed by Congress and is now a law of the land. That is Real ID. What do we mean by Real ID?

Rep. Ed Royce>> You know, the 9/11 Commission told us that it was important that we know people are who they say they are, and Real ID is an attempt to make certain that we don't have another 9/11 attack. On 9/11, the hijackers had multiple forms of identification. Had they been forced to use their passports as identification, the plot probably would have unraveled because a number of those hijacking pilots had actually over-extended their valid visa.

So what they had been able to do was to go state to state and pick up licenses in Maryland, Virginia, Florida, California, and then use those licenses to establish the presumption that they were in the country legally and carry out their attack. This legislation will now preclude that because there is a system whereby you can't shop state to state. You will have to prove that you are who you say you are and the 9/11 Commission tells us that that will help prevent another 9/11 attack.

Roger Cooper>> So to follow the provisions of the new law, you'll need multiple identification to get your driver's license, four I believe. How is it going to work?

Rep. Ed Royce>> You know, it will be a big change in many states, in eleven states. But in California, you already need to take a thumbprint, you need to give your social security number and have that verified, you need to have a photograph taken and you need to prove that you're at that address by giving your utility bill or you've got to give your valid address. There won't be a great deal of change in California, but in a number of other states, the types of states where these identifications were abused on 9/11 by people like Mohammad Atta who had, you know, a visa for six months and a driver's license for six years. This brings all of those states into compliance with a new federal guideline.

Roger Cooper>> Your colleagues who argued against this in Congress said it's not really an anti-terrorist act as it was couched. It's more to do with immigration. It's kind of a back door way to fight immigration. What do you say to your colleagues?

Rep. Ed Royce>> Well, there is a component of immigration reform also in the bill. For example, there are some provisions that end the process of abuse of our asylum laws. The originator of the first World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, was able to use the argument of political asylum, that he was a member of a terrorist organization at home and therefore he filed for asylum here. While he was here on asylum, he orchestrated that first Trade Center attack. So, yes, we did close that loophole, but I frankly think that was very important.

Roger Cooper>> Some opponents argue that, by making it more difficult to get these driver's licenses, undocumented people will drive anyway and the roads are going to be more unsafe.

Rep. Ed Royce>> I think it's incumbent on us to recognize that, yes, border security is national security and, post-9/11, we have to weigh this in the balance. The cost of that attack was sixty billion dollars to the United States on 9/11, so the recommendations set forward should not be taken lightly.

I think the reason Congress reacted to this -- and it was a bipartisan vote and a fairly large vote -- was because we recognized that the Commission has spent a year studying this problem and came up with a solution which makes it very, very difficult for al-Zarqawi or others who have ordered attacks to have those successfully implemented. At least, it will be close to impossible to board that plane, given the fail-safes that we're building into the system, and that's the reason for this legislation.

Roger Cooper>> What are you going to say when cash-strapped California says, Congressman Royce, here's another unfunded federal mandate. We've got to do our DMV over?

Rep. Ed Royce>> That's a good question. But for California, there is pretty much compliance with most of those recommendations or new standards now. If we look at California law in terms of the DMV, you have the provision for offering up the social security number and that is supposed to be checked. You know, you have the provision for valid birth date, birth certificate, establishing who you say you are.

Roger Cooper>> A lot of data will become available on people. A lot of it will be contained perhaps electronically on your driver's license. Some argue that this is the first step toward a national ID for American citizens.

Rep. Ed Royce>> I don't think it's too much to require that, when state driver's licenses are being handed out, you don't have multiple driver's licenses being given under different aliases to someone who's not who they say they are. I mean, that's the intent of the standard. This is not a federal, you know, card. What it is is simply minimum standards for state driver's licenses and I think that was the practical way. Why? Because we know how the system was abused. We know exactly what form of identification the 9/11 hijackers used in order to move around the country, plan their attacks, take those classes in taking off flights and then ultimately what form of identification did they use to get on those planes? They used a driver's license.

Roger Cooper>> There are provisions which deal with the fences at the border. It's directed at finishing some that are not. What's that about?

Rep. Ed Royce>> There is a fence on the southern border which ends at the area where the California Coastal Commission has jurisdiction. It goes from the foothills down to the area where the Coastal Commission -- it's about a three-mile area there. And over the years, the California Coastal Commission has opposed the completion of that fence. So what this legislation does is give the Director of Homeland Security the authority to go forward with the fence rather than allow the Director of the Coastal Commission to block that.

Roger Cooper>> Well, it's legislation you worked on and it's now law. Thank you for telling us about it, Congressman Royce.

Rep. Ed Royce>> Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it very much, Roger.

Roger Cooper>> Take care.

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>> Okay, so our national anthem is really hard to sing, but the Star Spangled Banner has a lot of other things going for it, as commentator, Cris Franco, tells us with some help from some very patriotic young people.

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> You probably know who wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

Student>> "Francis Scott Key".

Cris Franco>> She got it right. But do you know who wrote the music? Time's up. It was John Stafford Smith who originally composed the melody as a British pub song. "Do you know what battle our anthem commemorates?"

Student>> "World War II."

Cris Franco>> "It was actually during the War of 1812. Do you know what year the War of 1812 was?" And, Oh, Say, do you understand the lyrics? "Do you know what a rampart is?"

If you missed any of these questions, you're like sixty-one percent of Americans. That's why the National Association of Music Education has started the Anthem Project. Their mission is to teach every one of us the Star Spangled Banner's beautiful lyrics, rousing music and dramatic history.

And why are so many Americans lacking in their knowledge of our Star Spangled anthem? Is it a lack of patriotism? Ha, hardly.

Students>> "We love America."

Cris Franco>> Music professionals believe that it's lack of education due to lack of funding. Today only four percent of a school's budget goes to music education and less than half of our students get any type of music education whatsoever. It also might have to do with the fact that the Star Spangled Banner is a difficult song full of vocal gymnastics and cluttered lyrics. Musical Director, Gerald Sternbach, explains the anthem singer's dilemma. What is the dreaded musical leap?

Gerald Sternbach>> Well, the octave in the fifth. It starts with the lowest, "Oh, say", down to the A-flat if you have a key at A-flat. And the highest note, "And the rocket's red glare", that's E-flat. So that's the fifth above the octave.

Cris Franco>> And a singer vocally has to prepare to do that leap.

Gerald Sternbach>> Absolutely, yes. You have to have the solidity for the low parts, and the high parts you've really got to hit that E-flat right there.

Cris Franco>> That's the money note, right?

Gerald Sternbach>> That's the money note.

Cris Franco>> The young thespians at the Pasadena Junior Theatre volunteered to show us their money notes.

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> Even yours truly threw vocal caution to the wind.

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> And because Key conceived it as a poem, not a song, the lyrics are a mouthful. I know when I was a kid I thought the lyrics were about some guy named Don Jose. You know, "Jose, can you see by the Don's early light" (laughter).

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> So it's no surprise that, when I asked the youngest group to sing our national anthem, they replied --

Student>> "Can we sing a different song that we all know?"

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> "Casper" is a pretty good story, but the story behind our Star Spangled Banner is even better. On the evening of September 13, 1814 during the War of 1812 -- long war -- Washington attorney, Francis Scott Key, watched the powerful British Navy attack Fort McHenry. The young American forces fought back all night long. The brave patriots battled the Redcoats until the very end. As dawn broke, Key spotted the flag he'd seen the night before still flying. America had won. Inspired, he scribbled on the back of an envelope a poem he called "The Defense of Fort McHenry".

It became America's national anthem in 1931. Over the years, people have lobbied to change the Star Spangled Banner and replace it with "God Bless America", "This Land is Your Land", "Oh, Beautiful for Spacious Skies", "My Country Tis of Thee". But I say, drop the Star Spangled Banner? Never. Why?

Student>> "Because it's a good song."

Cris Franco>> It is. The music, though demanding, is also exciting. And, yes, the lyrics are tight and tricky, but they're also poetically powerful. Add those ramparts, whatever they are, and you've got our Star Spangled Banner. It was born when our country was born and it's not all about getting all the high notes right or hitting all the words letter-perfect. It's about our collective American families standing together, taking a deep breath and creating one big united sound. Boy, they got good.

Val>> Okay, what is a rampart? A rampart is "an earthen fortification consisting of an embankment often with a parapet built on top". What's a parapet? That's for next time. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. Take care.

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.

Sponsored in part by:


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