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Life & Times Transcript
02/28/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- A special edition from Riverside. We'll show you the world's largest collection of citrus trees on the campus of UC Riverside. We'll look at the meth problem and its surprising connection to identity theft. Tina Buck-Piehe>> She had, of course, my driver's license and my social security number. She proceeded to open accounts in my name. She used credit cards I currently owned at that time and maxed them out by shopping on the internet. Val Zavala>> And we'll take you to the exquisite home of a master woodworker, Sam Maloof. It's all straight ahead on this Riverside edition of 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>> Welcome to this special Life and Times edition from Riverside. Riverside County has one of the largest concentrations of meth labs in the country. Now meth use can wreak havoc on its victims, but what you may not realize is that it can also wreak havoc on your personal life. Sam Louie takes a look at the connection between meth labs and identity theft. A word of warning: some of the photos of victims are rather graphic. Sam Louie>> On the street, methamphetamine goes by many names: speed, glass, ice and crank, to name a few. Dave Stroh>> For a drug user, you get essentially more bang for your buck and you can stay high at lot longer and it's a lot cheaper than some of the other drugs where the high only lasts, say, a few minutes or a few hours. Sam Louie>> Sergeant Dave Stroh has been with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department for more than twenty years. Dave Stroh>> It's the drug of choice without a doubt. Sam Louie>> It's a highly addictive stimulant and getting even more addictive. Dave Stroh>> They've come up with a way to mass produce it, make it a lot more pure, a lot more appealing in appearance than it's ever been and, unfortunately, with all that, it becomes a lot more addictive. Sam Louie>> But what you may not realize is that meth abuse is linked to another crime that can ravage your personal finances. Steven Counelis>> Identities are being sold or being bought as currency among those who use methamphetamine or addicted to it and who sell it. Sam Louie>> Is there a link between meth users and identity thefts? Steven Counelis>> Meth and identity theft go hand in hand. There is hardly a case that, in our office, doesn't have some relationship to methamphetamine. Sam Louie>> Steven Counelis is the Riverside County Deputy District Attorney. The county launched an investigative unit dubbed the C.A.T.C.H. team in 2001 to go after identity theft and other computer-related crimes. Steven Counelis>> And we found many images on the computer showing that identities were scanned, money was scanned, checks were scanned. Sam Louie>> Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario collectively have the third highest number of identity theft victims in the country. It's no coincidence that the region is also a hub of meth production. Steven Counelis>> This suspect had so many names on so many different driver's licenses with his picture on it that he then created checks to match those driver's licenses. Sam Louie>> With nothing more than a simple scanner and computer, identity thieves can steal checks, credit card numbers and then sell the valuable information to others. Steven Counelis>> A crook might divide those numbers and sell them in smaller groupings just like drug cartels who distribute their drugs throughout the country break down the drugs and sell them in smaller increments to the street level. Sam Louie>> Riverside County prosecutors are trying to increase punishment for possession of identities. Right now, it's only a misdemeanor. Steven Counelis>> I don't think anybody who has fifty or a hundred identities is doing anything good with them and those people should be charged with felonies. Tina Buck-Piehe>> So that's what you get from your credit cards. You get all these statements saying that these things were charged and then you have to prove that those things are not yours. Sam Louie>> Tina Buck-Piehe of Victorville was a victim of identity theft. The prosecutors say the meth addict stole Tina's wallet when Tina went to the emergency room for a heart attack. Officials say the suspect was a nurse at the hospital. Tina Buck-Piehe>> I was violated. It was awful. It was just the worst possible person that you could think because you think a nurse would be there to assist in your health, to help you. She had, of course, my driver's license and my social security number. She proceeded to open accounts in my name. She used credit cards that I currently owned at that time and maxed them out by shopping on the internet. Sam Louie>> Tina was stuck with fifty thousand dollars of debt and three years of stress and anxiety. Tina Buck-Piehe>> The stress of repairing your identity, to prove to people that you've done lifelong business with that you are who you say you are on the phone or in public places, you can't repair it. Sam Louie>> Repairing a life destroyed by meth is also very difficult. These are pictures showing the effects of meth addiction. Wrinkles deepen, skin lesions develop, teeth rot. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> This is video from the DEA showing a bust at a meth lab. When officials go in, they must wear special gear to protect themselves from the witch's brew of toxic and explosive chemicals, yet many users disregard these concerns, exposing their children to severe injuries from the harsh chemicals. Steven Counelis>> There are chemicals there and the gases that are developed become highly flammable and explosive and children are put at risk and children have died. Sam Louie>> Kim Yergensen is a mother of two. She is also a fifty year old recovering meth addict. Kim Yergensen>> When I would started getting arrested and I was in jail, I would start thinking about all the time I'd missed with them and what a bad mother I was. So when I was offered this program, I jumped on it. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> At the Matrix Institute on Addictions in Rancho Cucamonga, Kim gets counseling three days a week. It's part of a court-mandated rehab program. Nick Nardone is the therapist. Nick Nardone>> When they come to us, they are basically at the last step before they're going to go to prison and do some serious prison time. Addicts understand immediate gratification. When they hit the pipe, they get high immediately. They also understand immediate consequences. In our program, the clients see the judge every Friday. So if they mess up during the week, they see the judge Friday, they go to jail that Friday. Sam Louie>> Nardone says that Kim has made considerable improvement since joining the program about a year ago. Nick Nardone>> And now she's living a life totally meth-free and, you know, making good decisions, being a good mom, being responsible, so she's done a complete one-eighty from where she started to where she is now. Sam Louie>> And the Riverside County Sheriff's Department has also made progress. Dave Stroh>> Every day, we would go out acting on tips from citizens, concerned neighbors, having noticed funny smells coming from their next door neighbor's house. Sam Louie>> In the past seven years, the number of meth lab busts here in Riverside County has dropped significantly, down seventy-five percent. At first, that figure sounds encouraging, but police warn that it's also an indication of how major meth production has moved out of the area and is now south of the border. Dave Stroh>> Some of the criminal element from Mexico have taken advantage of the easy access at our borders. Just here within the last week or two, we were involved in an investigation that had a direct link to Atlanta, Georgia where multiple pounds of methamphetamine come across the border from Mexico, arrive here in Riverside County and then, from here, it would go straight out to Atlanta, Georgia. Sam Louie>> Riverside County's meth labs may be migrating. It remains to be seen if identity thefts in Riverside County will also decline. In the meantime, the only real answer to the meth problem and the other connected crimes is to beat the addiction. Kim Yergensen>> Because I love my kids and I don't want to lose them and I don't want to see them go through what I went through. Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie 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>> Long before there were three hundred thousand people living here, Riverside was on the cutting edge of agricultural research. In fact, UC Riverside's Citrus Research Center is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary. Anne McDermott takes us to the campus to look at its extraordinary collection of citrus trees. Anne McDermott>> This is a living museum, the citrus variety collection located at UC Riverside. The only exhibits here? Trees. Trees bursting with lemons and oranges and tangerines. Did you know that there are actually about nine hundred varieties of citrus? And you'll find each and every one of them here at the museum. And like every museum worth its salt, this one has a curator. Her name is Tracy Kahn and she's about to tell you something you may not know about California citrus. Tracy Kahn>> None of this is native to California or the United States. All citrus originated in China and northern India. Anne McDermott>> So how did all this fruit travel? By seed. Seeds carried by the likes of Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus and the Spanish missionaries. They spread the seeds and fruits around the world and, today at UC Riverside, they're spreading their knowledge of citrus around the world with their Citrus Research Center-Agricultural Experiment Station. This spring, the center celebrates its one hundredth birthday. Over the years, scientists at the center have worked to keep citrus and other agricultural products safe and healthy by experimenting with root stocks, for example, and keeping pests away. Narrator>> "They discovered parasite wasps which killed the spotted aphid by laying eggs inside it." Anne McDermott>> They actually saved several crops from disease and insects, all the while improving appearance and taste of the fruits and vegetables. Narrator>> "While in the nation's markets, the shopper applies the final test of quality and economy." Anne McDermott>> Today, a lot of the work at the Center focuses on developing new varieties of citrus including this tangerine improbably named -- Mike Roose>> GDE-4, which is not a very fancy name, but it also has another trademark name called Shasta Gold. Anne McDermott>> We won't get to try it for another five to ten years. That's how long development takes. But when it finally does get to market, genetic professor Mike Roose says it will be worth the wait because it just tastes so darn good. Mike Roose>> It's pretty good. It has a very rich flavor, which means it has quite a lot of sugars and also quite a bit of acid. If both of those are low, then the flavor is kind of flat or bland. When those are both high, it tends to be a rich flavor. Anne McDermott>> This is not genetic engineering. This is good old hybridization, which has been going since at least the 1600s. What they're doing a lot of here these days is developing citrus without those pesky seeds, something there's a lot of consumer demand for. Mike Roose>> Right. People now want fruit without seeds in them and there's a big premium. If growers can produce fruit without seeds, they'll get quite a bit more income from the fruit than they will from a seedy fruit. Anne McDermott>> And it's especially nice if you're squeezing your own fruit. Ah, the smooth tang of seedless juice. But, hey, wait a minute. Without the seeds, how the heck do they grow these things? Well, the answer is grafting. Mike Roose>> So we grow a seedling of a particular variety that's going to produce a good root system that has disease resistance to soil diseases and things like that. Then you take a little piece of plant tissue, a bud. There aren't any good ones here, but a little piece like this, and you can graft that into the stick of the seedling. Make a little slit, put it in and wrap it up with tape and it grafts and then this will grow out as a new shoot. You cut off the part of the original tree and then you have a grafted tree. Anne McDermott>> It costs money to develop new trees, but at the same time, new trees actually benefit this university. The school gets paid a royalty per tree sold for every new variety it develops. And now it's time for some fun facts. Did you know there is no such thing as a mandarin orange? A mandarin is always and only a tangerine. Mike Roose>> Mandarin and tangerine are synonymous. Most of the world calls all these fruits mandarins. Anne McDermott>> I've got kind of a trick question for you. Which of the following, the following being the grapefruit, the lemon, the lime and the orange, which were among the three original citrus fruits on earth? Answer: none of them. The three originals are the tangerine, or mandarin, then the Pummelo. It's a big one. Tracy Kahn>> They're very large. They're larger than a grapefruit. They have very thick peels to them. Anne McDermott>> And Pummelos are very juicy. Well, there's more where that came from. But finally, the third original citrus fruit? The Citron. This particular variety of the fruit is called the Fingered Citron. Yes, I think you can see why. Now as we noted earlier, the Center is involved in research beyond simply citrus. For example, look at this. Yes, at first glance, it does look kike a field of dirt, but look more closely. It's a field of asparagus, new and improved asparagus. This variety is called Dipoli. It's noted for its great spear quality. Mike Roose>> Look at this head. You can see how tightly closed these bracts are. They're not opened up at all. Anne McDermott>> This variety offers a higher yield of spears than other types and that in turn reduces the impact of land and labor costs so the asparagus is more profitable and that's more profitable without raising the price at the supermarket. Meanwhile, when the Center isn't coming up with new varieties of agricultural crops, they're still working to get rid of pests. Remember those aphids? Well, now they're focusing on that scourge of the vineyards, the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter. Mark Hoddle>> When it came to California, it lacked natural enemies. There was nothing here that really used it for food and, as a consequence of the great climate and plenty of food, its numbers exploded. Anne McDermott>> These Sharpshooters posed a deadly threat to California's grape harvest. By using natural insect enemies of the Sharpshooters, the threat has eased and the work here goes on. Okay, back in the citrus groves once again, and we have a question for you, Mike Roose. You're surrounded by all these grapefruits and oranges and tangerines all day, so tell us what is your absolutely all-time favorite fruit? Mike Roose>> Probably raspberries. Anne McDermott>> Well, everyone likes a change now and then, but he truly does love his citrus. That's no pulp fiction. I'm Anne McDermott for Life and Times. 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>> Riverside is dotted with historic landmarks. The centerpiece, of course, is the beautifully restored Mission Inn. But there are also Victorian homes, churches, the courthouse and the train station. But you'll have to drive a good little ways outside of Riverside to see a most exquisite home by a master woodworker. Toni Guinyard introduces us to the world-renowned Sam Maloof. Toni Guinyard>> Enter the workshop of Sam Maloof and you step into a world in which the creativity and talent of one man challenges the image of art that serves a function. Sam Maloof>> I have hundreds of things in my mind that I want to do and I just design as I make them. Toni Guinyard>> His medium is wood. His art is pieces of furniture. Sam Maloof describes himself simply as a woodworker, but even to the untrained eye and the unskilled hands, one glance and somehow you just know calling Maloof a simple woodworker is an understatement. Sam Maloof>> I think that a little part of me goes into everything that I make and I wouldn't let it go if I didn't like it. I really wouldn't. Toni Guinyard>> We visited Maloof just days after his ninetieth birthday. Sam Maloof>> I work about nine or ten hours a day six days a week. I like every piece that I make. I don't have a favorite. I really do not. But I think this is the best, then I do something else and I think this is the best. It's like a mother who never picks one child out as the favorite. They're all favorites. Toni Guinyard>> Every room in his home from corner to corner, ceiling to floor, is filled with his work. The twenty-two room house once sat in the path of the 210 Freeway extension. Declared an historic landmark, the house and workshops were relocated to Alta Loma. Sam Maloof>> So we moved it in pieces. I built this house in pieces. Toni Guinyard>> It's what Maloof does: build. Sam Maloof>> I design all the chairs to fit me and I'm not that tall, but they seem to fit everyone. Toni Guinyard>> How much does a Maloof chair go for? Sam Maloof>> Well, when I first started, I thought thirty-five dollars was a lot of money and then fifty dollars was a lot of money. Toni Guinyard>> So what would a chair go for today? Sam Maloof>> I get -- well, for my rocking chairs, depending on the kind of wood, my rosewood ones go for around forty-five thousand and I have a lot of orders for it. Toni Guinyard>> At times, Maloof seems stunned by his success and a little embarrassed. Sam Maloof>> And I just shake my head at it. Toni Guinyard>> The making of a Maloof original is a meticulous process that begins and ends with Sam, but a select few others have a hand in his creations. David Wade, Mike Johnson and Larry White make up the team Maloof calls "the boys". [Film Clip] Sam Maloof>> Everything that I make, I put it together and then I rough-shape and they do all the really hard work. Larry White>> When Sam puts these pieces together, he kind of does a preliminary shaping on them and the joints are rough and chunky and we go in and start working on it and refining it. Sam Maloof>> They know how I work. I want a hard line here and I mark it. But I'll start it. David Wade>> It's all hand-sculpted and he allows the time, you know, to do it right. You can follow the hard lines around the chair and there's just a lot of hand-sculpting. I think we did forty-eight pieces last year and we usually do about one a week. Larry White>> Usually when Sam signs a piece, that's kind of, more often than not, the final act or close to it. Because of the way Sam works, they are one of a kind pieces, so they all do vary just a little bit. So every now and then, one will really sing. [Film Clip] Larry White>> When you're putting wood together, we can read it pretty well in the raw stage. But when you put it together and finally get the finish on it, it morphs into another thing. David Wade>> This is always our favorite part. After working a piece for sometimes, you know, two or three weeks, the reward is putting the finish on it and really seeing the wood come up. Mike Johnson>> The nice things about this job is that I feel like the people that we're working for really appreciate what we do and they cherish what we do and they consider them as heirlooms. Toni Guinyard>> Sometimes the heirlooms make their way back home to Sam Maloof. Sam Maloof>> Well, some of the early pieces I grounded and then later I hard-lined. Really the hard line started at the chair that I made for a very dear friend of mine who was a principal violist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He said, "I want a chair where I can sit very straight and have very good lower back support and I want it where, when I bring my bow down, I don't hit an arm or anything." So I designed a chair. I've never made another. It's the only chair like that that I've ever made. Then I made the cabinets for music and then a music stand for him. I promised him I'd never make another chair like it. He died when he was only seventy-two or seventy-three. He had a heart attack playing tennis, and he gave them to me in his will. Toni Guinyard>> Maloof's clients range from United States presidents to struggling wanna-be's and everyone in between. He's never had formal training in woodworking, yet his hands know how to talk to the wood and it in turn does what he asks it to do. [Film Clip] Toni Guinyard>> The source of his inspiration is and continues to be his late wife, Alfreda. Sam Maloof>> She was the heart and soul of what I did. Toni Guinyard>> They married in 1948. He started making furniture and she managed the business. Sam Maloof>> She saved every letter, every sketch. At one time, I thought "It isn't fair to you. I'm just barely making enough that we can live on." She said, "Sammy, we can do it. I know we can do it." It was her love and what she thought I could do that kept me going. Toni Guinyard>> Alfreda Maloof died in 1998. Sam Maloof remarried in 2001. His wife, Beverly, is working to raise funds for construction of the Maloof Foundation Education Center. It will house galleries to showcase the works of established and up and coming artists. It will also provide space for lectures and workshops. Sam Maloof>> I try and answer every question that they throw at me. "How do you do this?" I don't have any secrets at all. Toni Guinyard>> He just wants to make sure his love for the arts lives long after he's gone. The Sam and Alfreda Maloof home is open for tours twice a week, giving all of us a chance to share in the Maloof magic. Sam Maloof>> I still can't believe it. I still kind of pinch myself. Here, the last five or six years, I think that Freda's looking down and laughing and saying, "I told you we could do it." That's the way it is. Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> Thanks for joining us for this special edition of Life and Times from Riverside. 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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