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Life & Times Transcript
02/21/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- No one wants to see animals mistreated, but should we take cops off the streets to protect them? Sharon Papa>> We took two detectives from other assignments in the department and that's huge to do that when we have a lot of violent crime in the city to dedicate two detectives to animal cases. You know, you have to make sure it's worth your while. Val Zavala>> And then, if at first you don't succeed. How an ordinary Joe turned Trader Joe's into a national phenomenon. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> Should police spend their time rescuing animals or solving crime? The growing popularity of shows like "Animal Cops" has spurred the LAPD to jump on the animal bandwagon, but is it a good use of resources? Hena Cuevas went along with the newly-formed Animal Unit of the LAPD. Hena Cuevas>> Bulletproof vests are something new for Los Angeles's animal services. These officers are part of an elite new Animal Cruelty Task Force. Animal Services officer, Daniel Pantoja says having the Los Angeles Police Department with him is opening a lot of doors. Daniel Pantoja>> You knock on the door and people hear, "LAPD", and they say, "Oh, my God." Hena Cuevas>> The joint task force between the LAPD and Animal Services was created to fight animal abuse. Walt Hampton>> It's never been done before where the departments work together like this in fighting crime. Hena Cuevas>> On this morning, the group is investigating a possible cockfighting operation. From outside, Detective Walt Hampton can see cages in the back yard, but not if there are any birds. After a few knocks from Detective Linda Ortega, the door opens. Linda Ortega>> "I'm with the Los Angeles Police Department, Animal Cruelty Task Force. We're also here with Animal Services. We got a complaint about your roosters, so we wanted to check out your birds." Hena Cuevas>> With the homeowner's permission, the group goes into the house and makes its way to the back yard. There they find dozens of cages of chickens and roosters. Linda Ortega>> "Are you fighting the roosters?" >> "No." Linda Ortega>> "No? How come their combs and waddles are trimmed?" >> "Like those belong to a person. I'm taking care of them." Linda Ortega>> "You're taking care of them? >> "For a few days, yeah." Linda Ortega>> "Well, they have their own cages, so it looks a little bit more permanent than a few days." Hena Cuevas>> It's not illegal to own and raise birds. What is against the law is to raise them for cockfighting. In that sport, bets are placed on roosters that violently battle each other until one of them dies, and the officers suspect that's what this man has been doing. Assistant Chief Sharon Papa started the Animal Cruelty Task Force last year after someone asked her why Los Angeles didn't have an Animal Unit. Sharon Papa>> I went to Chief Bratton about it because I definitely saw the correlation. Any time you have someone that abuses animals, there's a link with child abuse, domestic abuse, and there are numerous studies that show a lot of serial killers start out torturing animals and abusing animals and then graduate on to crimes against people. Hena Cuevas>> But it wasn't easy because it required pulling resources from the already understaffed LAPD. Sharon Papa>> We took two detectives from other assignments in the department and that's huge to do that when we have a lot of violent crime in the city to dedicate two detectives to animal cases. You know, you have to make sure it's worth your while. Walt Hampton>> "You know, it looks like there might have been an arena here. Did you ever fight them here?" Hena Cuevas>> Detective Hampton comes from Internal Affairs and Detective Ortega from Homicide. Five Animal Services officers complete the group. It's hard to believe that a city the size of Los Angeles didn't have an Animal Cruelty Task Force. Boston, Chicago and San Francisco have them and, according to the LAPD, they're hoping to expand the six-month pilot program to try and determine what kind of correlation there is between harming an animal and going on to commit a more serious crime. Linda Ortega>> Animal cruelty has been found to be a precursor for crimes against people. It's found to also go kind of hand in hand with family violence. So if the animals are being abused in the home, children or spouses may also be abused as well. Hena Cuevas>> And the officers fear that kind of abuse may be going on in this apartment. A few weeks ago, a neighbor reported that a man had flung one of his cats against the balcony railing and breaking its jaw. The cat was seized and the man sent to jail. Because another cat is still in the apartment, they're here to seize it to make sure it's okay. After explaining to the owner what's going on, the team emerges with the cat in tow. And like other animals they've rescued, it's taken to a shelter where it's kept until the case is resolved. [Film Clip] Linda Ortega>> We've had several felony filings for dog cases. It's a little bit harder to get one for a cat. In the case that we've been handling today, we're really hopeful that this will be our first felony cat filing because of the horrible abuse that this cat went through. Hena Cuevas>> Their first successful conviction involved a four-month old German Shepherd puppy caught in the middle of a domestic violence dispute. Linda Ortega>> These are just some of the injuries that she had from the blistering. Hena Cuevas>> And you mentioned that this was taken two weeks after the burning? Linda Ortega>> Yeah, these are after, so the blisters have, in some cases, popped and are in the healing process. Hena Cuevas>> According to Ortega, the puppy was dunked into a tub of scalding hot water by a man who was trying to get back at his girlfriend. Linda Ortega>> During the course of the investigation, we also found out that the suspect in the case had also tazered the puppy's genitals so that her genital area was severely swollen and inflamed. Hena Cuevas>> Felony charges were filed and the man was sentenced to three years in prison for abusing the dog. For Animal Services officer Pantoja, not every case is malicious. Daniel Pantoja>> People get pets and they put a collar on them when they're a puppy and they never change the collar and the collar starts imbedding into their skin and it just starts getting infected. Hena Cuevas>> Both the detectives are experts at investigating crime, but they say it's still hard to see what some people can do to their animals. Linda Ortega>> It's very hard. It's very emotional. We try to keep our emotions out of it because you can get really angry at what some of these people can do to their animals that they're supposed to be loving and taking care of. Walt Hampton>> You've got to kind of separate yourself and remember all the time that you're a law enforcement officer. You're not sent here to judge. Hena Cuevas>> Back at the house with the birds, it doesn't take long for the officers to find more damaging evidence. Walt Hampton>> "What are these?" >> "They're like gloves." Walt Hampton>> "Gloves? For what?" >> "For sparring." Walt Hampton>> "For what?" >> "Sparring." Walt Hampton>> "For sparring?" Hena Cuevas>> The little gloves are used on the rooster's feet to practice fighting without hurting each other. They are then replaced by razor-sharp spurs which this man also happens to have. Walt Hampton>> He's actually fighting the birds. I mean, it was evident when we walked in the house. He's got the magazines. He's got magazines in there of cockfighting. Some of them are in English and some are in Spanish. He's got the trophies up there. So he's flaunting it, you know, that he's a big bird fighter. Linda Ortega>> "Put your hands behind your back." Hena Cuevas>> The man is arrested and taken to jail. He will have to go to court to explain all those birds. But according to Hampton, it's not just about protecting the animals. In the case of cockfighting, he says, there's potential harm to children who watch it. Walt Hampton>> You know, it doesn't seem like a real big deal. You get little kids watching it and the birds are going at it and the blood's flying all over the place, you know, It like desensitizes them, I think, about the violence, especially the dogs. Hena Cuevas>> He's talking about dog fighting. Just like the roosters, dogs, mostly pit bulls, are trained to aggressively fight each other to the death. It's a bloody sport. Hampton says they haven't been able to bust an actual dog fight yet, but they have found fight dogs in deplorable conditions. Walt Hampton>> During the summer, we went to this one location. There was no water, no food and the dogs, the first thing we did was give them some water and they wouldn't stop drinking. There were pit bulls. Some of them were pregnant. Some of them were injured to the point where they really needed medical care. Hena Cuevas>> They had to be euthanized, the same fate for these roosters. Walt Hampton>> That bothers me, but I know there's nothing else we can do with the roosters. We can't house them. So what I'm trying to do is get out here to let everybody know that you can't do that here in the state of California. Hena Cuevas>> And with stricter enforcement, maybe one day the sign on the boxes they use will hold true for every case they handle. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> Trader Joe's is an institution here in Southern California and, in fact, this is the very first Trader Joe's ever, the one right here in Pasadena. But did you ever wonder if there is a real "Joe" behind Trader Joe's? Well, there is, and you're about to meet him and his wife, Alice. Joe Coulombe and Alice have lived in their Pasadena home for twenty-four years and have been married for more than fifty. They met at Stanford and Joe started out in the corporate world. Joe Coulombe>> I knew that corporate life for me was poison. Val Zavala>> So they started a convenience store chain in 1958 called Pronto and worked for ten years to make it succeed. Joe Coulombe>> And, for ten years, slugged that out until 7-11 came to town and we had to get out of the business. Val Zavala>> So they reinvented the stores with an island trading post motif and, of course, a new name. And are you the Joe in Trader Joe's? Joe Coulombe>> Yes. Alice wanted me to call it Trader Mom's (laughter), but she lost. Alice Coulombe>> (Laughter) It made sense, and also we were young. I think it would be really hard to try and do this kind of thing once you were kind of settled and your kids needed more than one pair of shoes. Val Zavala>> And what kind of customer did they have in mind? The over-educated and underpaid, like artists, journalists and teachers. Alice Coulombe>> My parents were teachers and they always thought he got the idea from them (laughter). Joe Coulombe>> Well, actually, I did. I was just helping the Stanford Business School magazine with an interview this morning and I said that many of my ideas came from watching Alice's mother struggle on her professor's salary at a time when professors made about as much as a journeyman grocer. [Film Clip] Joe Coulombe>> What we tried to do at Trader Joe's was to make it possible for a school teacher to come home every night and have a decent bottle of wine, a decent pound of cheese and a decent loaf of bread. Val Zavala>> This is the first ever Trader Joe's on Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena. It opened in 1967 and carried mainly wines, cheeses and bread. But in 1977, a major change in food pricing regulations led to a shake-out in the grocery business and yet another transition for Trader Joe's. More items were added, nearly two thousand, and they were always distinct from larger conventional supermarkets. Joe Coulombe>> That is why Trader Joe's does not sell Coca-Cola because there is no way to be outstanding in Coca-Cola and make money and Trader Joe's makes money on everything it sells. Val Zavala>> And yet the prices are very low. I mean, compared to whole foods and other -- Alice Coulombe>> -- they're the price they need to be. They're fair to the customers, but they're also fair for business reasons. Val Zavala>> It's hard to imagine when you see a success story like Trader Joe's that it almost went under. Joe Coulombe>> We almost went Chapter 11 at one point, okay (laughter)? Alice Coulombe>> Partly because we started with a very small amount of money. Joe Coulombe>> Yeah. Alice Coulombe>> We saved five thousand dollars from my teaching third grade and borrowed five thousand from his grandmother and borrowed five from your parents and that sort of did it. Val Zavala>> So you didn't have the big capital resources? Joe Coulombe>> No, no. Val Zavala>> It was literally mom and pop, it sounds like. Alice Coulombe>> Truly, truly mom and pop, yeah. Val Zavala>> Joe attributes the success of the stores to one basic thing: hiring good people. Joe Coulombe>> The real secret of Trader Joe's and what really differentiates it from any other company, it has the best people in retail and that's true at both the store and the office level. Alice Coulombe>> And they're proud of what they do. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Trader Joe's employees are among the highest paid in retail and that keeps workers around for a long time. Craig Arnold has been a store manager for ten years. Excuse me, a store captain. Craig Arnold>> Actually, I was managing a Penguin's Frozen Yogurt two doors up from the Westlake store and liked it, but didn't feel respected. You know, so I quit right on the spot, went down and knew everybody at Trader Joe's and said, "Hey, can I have a job?" From day one, it was, you know, the best job I could have. Val Zavala>> Although a lot has changed, one section has always been, well, developed, shall we say. Joe Coulombe>> What we did every afternoon at the end of the workday at the office, we'd pull fifty corks and taste wine until we began to understand what it was all about. Val Zavala>> Joe figures he's tasted one hundred thousand wines over his years running Trader Joe's, and what does he think of Trader Joe's famous Two-Buck Chuck? Joe Coulombe>> People ask me all the time about Charles T. Shaw. The volume is so enormous that there is no continuity of character. So what I tell people is, when you buy a bottle, write down the date and the hour on which it was packed and then, if you like that, go back and buy from that same date and hour. Val Zavala>> Can you do that? What do you have to do? Go through the shelves looking for -- Joe Coulombe>> -- no, it's on the end. I mean, they sell so much of it that they don't take it out of the cases. Val Zavala>> Oh, got it, okay. It's on the case and you can see clearly. Joe Coulombe>> Yeah, yeah. Val Zavala>> In 1989 after running Trader Joe's for twenty-two years, Joe and Alice made a big decision. They decided to sell the hugely successful stores primarily because of tax laws. Joe Coulombe>> I was approached and romanced over a period of two years by one of the richest families in the world and -- Val Zavala>> -- the Germans? Joe Coulombe>> The Albrecht family, and finally we made a handshake deal. It was literally a one-page contract. They have never interfered with the management of Trader Joe's. Furthermore, I think they figured out that Trader Joe's is so successful that there's no point in interfering. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Joe went on to more interesting challenges, he says. After leaving Trader Joe's, he ran eleven companies helping many of them out of financial trouble. Now he's retired and has discovered a love of gardening. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> And he paints. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> And after years of developing a refined wine palette, he hasn't let it go to waste. Joe Coulombe>> And then I have winejoe.com which I started six years ago to protest Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Wine Spectator and the whole concept of putting point scores on wine and the corollary to this which means that, when you judge wines that way, you will always favor alcoholic wines and, as a result, the alcoholic level of wine around the world is steadily rising, which I regard as, well, first of all, dangerous in terms of drunk driving and, secondly, it tends to produce, in my opinion, aesthetically lacking wines. Val Zavala>> Alice is active in Pasadena charities, but her greatest passion is the opera. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> And do Alice and Joe still shop at Trader Joe's? Alice Coulombe>> Absolutely. Craig Arnold>> Yes, they shop in here, I'd say, once a week. Val Zavala>> As regular old customers, sort of. Craig Arnold>> Joe is always asking how things are going. He's still on the loop of, you know, how this store, especially this store, is going. Val Zavala>> Although their three children have all gone into other fields, Joe and Alice are more than content with leaving behind a thriving chain of more than two hundred Trader Joe's markets across the country. Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> When it comes to African-American women and their hair, it's about a lot more than just style and beauty. It's about class, race, politics, fashion, passion and even pain. Well, all that and more is captured in a new book called "Queens". Vicki Curry talked with its author, George Alexander. George Alexander>> Hair in the black community, hair for black women, is a huge topic. I think hair is big for all women. When it comes to black women, it's like they spend a lot more time in the salons, a little more time and money straightening their hair. I think we live in a global culture that kind of values long, straight and silky hair, so black women genetically have to sort of do some extra things to make their hair -- I mean, genetically they're disadvantaged, so therefore they have to do some artificial things like straightening and perming to get that sort of like global beautiful look. Vicki Curry>> So you decided the best way to explore this topic was to talk to women themselves and have them tell their stories? George Alexander>> Absolutely. Just like my first book, "Crown", where the women told stories about their hats, we thought it would be good to hear directly from the women and have them tell us their own personal hair journeys from the first time they got a press, the decision to cut their hair off or do twists or just decisions that really affects their lives around here. You find so many really interesting stories about reaction from their families in terms of when they got twists or decided to get locks and the dating scene. How men are reacted. You know, it's really interesting because hair can be a personal decision, but it then effects your entire life. Your workplace, dating, family life. I mean, hair is a big way we present ourselves to the world and it's also a way people judge us and make decisions about who we are regarding our politics, regarding our career path, our goals in life, our class. People make really big decisions about us just based on our hair. So I think the decision to change your hairstyle becomes a big decision, bigger than perhaps you even think. Vicki Curry>> So how did you and the photographer go about putting this project together? George Alexander>> Michael Cunningham and I started the project in salons in Harlem and Washington, D.C. and going to hair shows like the Bronner Brothers show in Atlanta. We went to a big hair show over in London and then we also went over to Ghana, West Africa to a hair-braiding school over there. So we really just tried to bring in as many women as possible to give a really diverse perspective on black women and their hair. It really was a fun experience because everyone has a similar story, I think you will find. It's been a really eye-opening experience, a sort of very enlightening experience for us. Vicki Curry>> What are some of your favorite stories and favorite images from the book? George Alexander>> Oh, I have so many favorite images from the book. I love the cover because it's Latice Graham, eighty-two year old at the time in Harlem, and she swims every day. She learned to swim at sixty-four and she keeps living and living and having fun and staying in shape. I think she's represented sort of like the mother of the book. She's one of my favorites. Some of the images from Africa as well, because the interesting braiding that they do. One's called Bolga braids, sort of like a basket. Not a basket, but it looks like a basked. I mean, Americans would say, "Oh, she has a basket on her head." (laughter). To them, it's not a basket at all, but it's sort of like it's hairstyles that women wear during a special ceremony and things like that. I think hair takes a really big meaning for them in terms of harvest festivals and things like that that really speak to their culture. That was fascinating for us. Some other favorites, when people were really honest with us about what it meant to the family. When Harriet Cole, who's a syndicated columnist and author, talked about wearing twists. Coming home to a father who was a very successful African-American judge and the first black state senator in the state of Maryland who's very conservative. His view of the world was that, the more you present yourself, you know, the more successful you can be. He did not like the idea of wearing these twists in her hair, but her decision was to do that anyway. Also, the fantasy hair. We had these crazy hairdos that you see in hair shows and competitions. Jennelle Byron is sporting the "Twin Towers" from the World Trade Center designed by Veronica Forbes in Harlem. Really fascinating. She was inspired to do it after 9/11. She'd lost customers from her salon in the attacks and just felt really inspired to just do something in tribute to New York. The time that these stylists put into, first of all, conceptualizing these designs on their heads and then actually putting them together with hair is incredible to see it come together. Vicki Curry>> What are some of the other fantasy hairstyles that you guys included? George Alexander>> We have Purple Passion. It's another design by Veronica Forbes and it's worn by Tisch Sim. It's sort of purple and gold and really beautiful. It's kind of the Mardi Gras Carnival type of feel. I think Veronica is a master. She's really a master of this whole fantasy thing. That was her dream to do hair beyond just the everyday type of stuff. So she is one who brings so much to it. Vicki Curry>> One of the people you included, the first one in the book, is a descendant of Madame C.J. Walker. She was the entrepreneur for hair products and hair styling for the black woman. Tell me about this woman that you included. George Alexander>> Yes, the woman we included is A'Lelia Bundles who is the great-great-granddaughter and the biographer of Madame C.J. Walker. She's a wonderful woman who wanted to share her story. We thought she was important. If you're going to do a book about black women and their hair, you have to have someone, the descendant of Madame C.J. Walker, and she had a wonderful story to share with us about getting an Afro for the first time, what that meant to her family. Her father was the president of Summit Laboratories which made hair-straightening products and, for her to want to get an Afro (laughter) was sort of like not really aligned with what the company was all about. Vicki Curry>> Because of the time it takes for black women to do their hair, it's a big cultural thing in the salons. It's a big part of their social life. Tell me what you learned about that. George Alexander>> You know, black men sort of laugh about the fact that black women, your mom or your sister, spend a lot of time at the salon, or your girlfriend is always at the salons. They go and they spend so much time. But what we learned was that the salon is so much more than just a place to get your hair done. It's a place where you exchange stories or you gossip or you learn about new jobs, where you learn about what's happening in the world, what's happening in the community. It's a place where black women really go to bond. After talking to some of the stylists, particularly Sonja who was in Washington, D.C., she says she's learned that it's so much more than hair. Hair is really secondary. It's really about having someone focus on you. You know, what I learned about African-American women and their hair is that it's so important to them. It's really part of their soul. I think it comes down to something they take so personally. It's part of their spirit, in a sense, and it's a beautiful experience in terms of learning about it. But it's also an experience I continue to learn more and more about. Each person has a story. You start talking to someone about their hair and you start learning a lot of things about how they see the world and some of the experiences they've had or bad experiences. I mean, hair just opens up a gulf of conversation. So that's what I think is a culture, politics, so many things. I feel fortunate to have done this. Vicki Curry>> George Alexander, author of "Queens: Portraits of Black Women and Their Fabulous Hair", thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us. George Alexander>> Thank you. Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> 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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