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Life & Times Transcript
03/01/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- We pay taxes every time we fill up at the pump. Should oil companies be taxed to help end our reliance on gas? Scott MacDonald>> It may sound like a good idea, but it has dreadful consequences for the economy, the state budget. Fiona Hutton>> We have to invest in new technologies. We simply can't go at the pace we're going and expect to be living the life we're living. Val Zavala>> And then, it's half river rock, half adobe, and it was once the place to be seen in Los Angeles. A look inside the historic home called El Alisal. These stories and more next 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>> Imagine cutting our use of gasoline by twenty-five percent. Well, that's the promise behind the California Clean Alternative Energy Initiative. It will put a tax on oil companies and use the revenues, about four billion dollars, to encourage alternative energy sources. But as Toni Guinyard tells us, that idea is not without its critics. Toni Guinyard>> Welcome to California, the state with the dubious distinction of being rated number one in gas consumption. You don't have to look far to find proof that we are dependent on oil. Fiona Hutton>> We have to invest in new technologies. We simply can't go at the pace we're going and expect to be living the life we're living and relying on the energy resources we're relying on today in twenty-five years. It just won't work. Toni Guinyard>> Fiona Hutton is spokesperson for Californians for Clean Energy. It's a coalition supporting the Clean Alternative Energy Initiative. The proposed November ballot measure would dramatically transform how the state funds alternative energy research and production. The initiative calls for taxing every barrel of oil pumped from California oil wells. Fiona Hutton>> We are the third largest oil-producing state in our nation, yet our oil-producing companies here in the state don't pay what we call an extraction fee. The extraction fee is based on each barrel of oil and it's based on a sliding percentage anywhere from, say, one to six percent based on the actual price per barrel of oil. Toni Guinyard>> This extraction, or severance, fee would equal four billion dollars over a period of ten years. Nathan Lewis>> We spend more money in ten minutes buying gas at the pumps than we spend funding solar energy research in the United States in an entire year. So doubling it is still an incredibly small drop in the bucket and it's measured in tens of millions and this initiative is measured in billions. Toni Guinyard>> Caltech chemistry professor, Dr. Nathan Lewis, is one of several experts consulted by backers of the initiative. Nathan Lewis>> The idea of this initiative is to bring really environmentally sustainable large-scale energy technologies to the consumer. We want to find ways to roll out solar panels like carpet on your rooftops so you can power your houses in an affordable way and not have to buy electricity from fossil energy, from someone that can jack the price up. We want to develop engines and use technologies that are here right now to get consumers to afford very efficient vehicles that will save people gas and save them money. Toni Guinyard>> The initiative aimed in part at cutting our use of petroleum by twenty-five percent within a decade and another twenty-five percent every ten years thereafter is not without critics. Scott MacDonald is spokesperson for Californians Against Higher Taxes. Scott MacDonald>> It is our job to say yes, alternative fuel is important, and not just to say it, but we believe it. We believe that alternative fuel is important. But this is not the answer because it is an initiative which has just run amok. It may sound like a good idea, but it has dreadful consequences for the economy, for the state's budget. Toni Guinyard>> California Taxpayers Association president, Larry McCarthy, says the initiative will cost the state in the long run. How? Because the money from the extraction fee will go to a dedicated fund, not the state general fund. Larry McCarthy>> We think the most serious implication of this initiative is what it will do to the state's budget process and the state's general fund. We think that, if this initiative were to be enacted, it is going to reduce revenues for critical public services that the state of California provides. Toni Guinyard>> For every argument for the initiative -- Nathan Lewis>> Unless we find some other way, we have a serious national security concern that looms bigger and then there's an environmental concern. Toni Guinyard>> There is an argument against it. Scott MacDonald>> Let's not forget this severance tax, four billion dollars taken out of our economy, will go to the private pet projects of the people putting it on the ballot. It will not go for education. It will not go for law enforcement. It will not go for health care and it won't fight poverty. It can only be spent on their pet projects. Fiona Hutton>> Well, I think it's a series of false attacks. At the end of the day, those are people that are saying they're opposed to clean energy and, you know, they're opposed to cleaning our air. Toni Guinyard>> Both sides say they want clean air and affordable accessible clean energy, but how best to make it happen at a faster pace is at issue. Nathan Lewis>> So we are working on long-term research that initiative would accelerate to help get that done more quickly and get it out into the marketplace in a much faster time than we would do on the federal government money alone. Fiona Hutton>> The initiative sets up a very competitive process for the scientific grants that will be made, as well as the production grants. At the end of the day, we need to fund the best and the brightest, so to speak. Larry McCarthy>> Putting the state of California on the cutting edge of trying to pick winners and losers in search for alternative fuels and energy efficiency is just, I think, destined for failure. It's going to slow the process down more. Toni Guinyard>> Over time, we've adjusted to the use of clean energy terms and concepts such as hybrid cars, hydrogen powered vehicles, photovoltaic cells and bio-diesel. But there are other ideas stuck in labs. Nathan Lewis>> These are painted-on solar cells. We make them like you screen-print t-shirts. Toni Guinyard>> That initiative supporters want to get to the marketplace and integrated into our lives. The Santa Monica office of the National Resources Defense Council in many ways is a case study of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Here, they put into practice what many others just talk about. Daniel Hinerfeld>> We're in an energy efficient structure that is using less energy through all sorts of techniques that are on the shelves and they're available to consumers today. We are generating power with photovoltaic cells on the roof, about twenty percent of the power that we use. When you open the windows in this office, the building automatically shuts off either the air conditioning or the heating that's going to your office so that you're not air conditioning or heating the great outdoors. Toni Guinyard>> The office complex is considered to be America's greenest building. Daniel Hinerfeld>> There are so many on-the-shelf materials and technologies that could be used to save energy and it's somewhat frustrating that they aren't more widely adopted at this point. Toni Guinyard>> Under the Clean Alternative Energy Initiative, California is poised to lead the way in weaning the public from its oil addiction. Nathan Lewis>> Relative to other states, no one else is playing in this game right now. There are no state initiatives that would be anywhere comparable to what California would be doing here. Toni Guinyard>> While language in the initiative clearly prohibits oil producers from passing the tax to consumers, critics say that would be near impossible to enforce. Scott MacDonald>> If you take anything and add four billion dollars to the cost of it, it's Economics 101 that someone is going to field that money and there are a variety of ways you can field it. Larry McCarthy>> We would just simply urge the voters to look at the legislative analyst's review of the initiative. Toni Guinyard>> It's a request both sides ask of consumers. Read and study the initiative to better understand its potential impact and the arguments for and against. Scott MacDonald>> We're going to tell people it's not about alternative fuels. It is about this initiative. Is this the way to go about it? Nathan Lewis>> In the end, if you could buy hybrid cars and it costs you less than a regular car and you save money because you didn't have to pay as much for gasoline in the end, that's when people listen. Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard 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>> David Halberstam put it best. "No publisher in America improved the paper so quickly or on so grand a scale as Otis Chandler." Otis Chandler was publisher of the Los Angeles Times for twenty years and the quintessential Californian, an avid surfer, car collector and athlete. Chandler died at his home at age seventy-eight of a rare disease and we thought it was an appropriate time to open up the Life and Times Vault for an interview that Jess Marlow and I did with Otis Chandler's biographer. Jess Marlow>> Chandler took over the family-run newspaper in 1960, but Otis Chandler rejected the power-wielding tactics of his father and grandfather and he transformed the Los Angeles Times from what many derided as a third-rate rag into one of the nation's premier newspapers. A new book, "Privileged Son" examines the life of Otis Chandler and his influence on the Los Angeles we know today. Joining us now is the author of "Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty", Dennis McDougal. You should know. You worked at the Times for several years. Dennis McDougal>> I did. Jess Marlow>> Otis talked to no one, but he talked to you? Dennis McDougal>> Otis spent every Tuesday for about seven months with me at his museum/ -- well, it's an odd museum up in Oxnard -- and we talked every Tuesday all day long. I told him that I was thinking about calling the book "Tuesdays with Otis" (laughter), but I heard that that title had already been used by someone else (laughter). Val Zavala>> Tell us about this rather, it comes to mind, enigmatic gentlemen. We're going to take a look at some pictures of him from his childhood and maybe you can just give us a little mini-bio. Jess Marlow>> This is the privileged son. Dennis McDougal>> He is. Val Zavala>> Looks like about seven or eight there? Dennis McDougal>> Yes. That's Otis on the right with the bare skin. You'll see him with a lot of bare skin -- Jess Marlow>> -- He had a penchant for that, hadn't he? Dennis McDougal>> Yes, he has. That particular picture has a little bit of a story behind it. That's his lifelong friend, Bob Emmett, with him. Bob was playing cowboys and indians with Otis and complained that Otis always got the guns and the holster and the hat, and he wound up with a lousy rubber knife. (laughter) Val Zavala>> (Laughter) But he was born into a family almost destined to run the Times, yes? Dennis McDougal>> Yeah, the -- I mean, the book is essentially the story of southern California and the creation of Los Angeles. There are those who believe, me among them, that the Chandler family, beginning with General Harrison Otis and then his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, literally created where we sit. When General Otis first came to southern California in 1881 and took over what is now the Los Angeles Times, there were about twenty thousand people in Los Angeles. By the time his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, died in 1944, of course, the city was at about four million and climbing. Val Zavala>> Tell us more about Otis. We're going to see some pictures of him as an athlete. Jess Marlow>> Now wait a minute, Otis was chosen because Norman Chandler did not want his brother, Philip, to be the publisher -- Philip, who was a member of the John Birch Society -- Dennis McDougal>> Yes. That's all part of the story, yes. Otis was the only son. There was a daughter. His sister, Camilla, is about three years older than Otis, but Otis was the only son of Norman Chandler and his wife, the legendary Buffy Chandler. For those who don't recognize the name Buffy, her given name was Dorothy Chandler as in the Pavilion. Jess Marlow>> And Buffum as in Buffum's Department Store? Dennis McDougal>> The late great Buffum's Department Stores. Jess Marlow>> Otis was only, what, thirty-three when he was tapped? Dennis McDougal>> I believe that's correct. He was born in 1927 and he stepped up to take over the publisher's suite at the Times in 1960. Val Zavala>> We're going to take a look at him as he's weightlifting and I think we can actually hear a little bit of him. Is that right? Dennis McDougal>> Oh, here we go. Announcer>> "A college shot-put champion, Otis Chandler, two hundred forty pound Stanford giant, gives weightlifting a whirl. That's the press lift he's executing." Jess Marlow>> He was a world-class athlete. He still is very much active. Dennis McDougal>> Well, that's impressive because Otis weight trains to this day. He has a four-garage setup at his house and he's got cars because he collects cars in three of the garages. But one of the stalls is devoted to weight equipment and he and his wife, Bettina, go out and train every day. Jess Marlow>> But he's a real heavyweight in the newspaper business. Tell us what changes he brought to the Times that made it a premier newspaper. Dennis McDougal>> Otis was, in my opinion, the last great newspaper publisher of the twentieth century, bar none. And the way the newspaper business is going, I'm not so certain that he's not the last great newspaper publisher. Jess Marlow>> But he's not thrilled with the way it's going? Dennis McDougal>> No. Otis came in to a newspaper that was adjudged by Time magazine to be one of the ten worst in the United States. And within the space of five years, he and the legendary editor of the Times at that time, Nick Williams, turned that newspaper around and Time magazine came back and adjudged it to be one of the ten best newspapers. Jess Marlow>> But he spent a lot of money doing it. Dennis McDougal>> It was a rich newspaper. Even under his father, it was the richest newspaper in the United States. It had the most advertising lineage of any newspaper and it was taking in money hand over foot, but it was not putting it back into the product. That's what Otis did. He created foreign bureaus, he created national bureaus, he beefed up the Washington bureau and he wanted to knock the New York Times off its perch. He almost did it until a family coup ousted him. Val Zavala>> Why did he resign from the times so young, so early? Dennis McDougal>> Well, it's a little bit complicated to try to describe here, but he was the victim of the part of the family, the Philips side of the family, the cousins who were the sons and daughters of the Philips side of the family -- Jess Marlow>> -- and the stockholders. Dennis McDougal>> and the stockholders, and a couple of attorneys that were brought in by his father and mother to handle the legal affairs of the Times Mirror. Over a period of time, he was set up to be ousted early. Val Zavala>> Oh, I see, and he's been very quiet ever since, but he has come out and spoken out and we're glad to see that he spent so much time talking with you. Jess Marlow>> Interesting book. Val Zavala>> Thank you, Dennis McDougal. The book, again, is "Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty". 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>> If you were an artist or a musician or a writer back at the turn of the century, one of the coolest places to hang out was the Charles Lummis House. Well, now this unique home is more than a hundred years old, but it survived. It's a little hard to find, but as Vicki Curry tells us, well worth the effort. Vicki Curry>> Take a drive up the 110 Freeway just north of downtown Los Angeles and you'll come to a chain link fence. Take a look behind that fence. It's like something out of a storybook, a home unlike any you'll ever see, with two distinct personalities. Half Spanish adobe, half stone castle. Denise Spooner>> It's one of the really unusual features. You see a lot of stone houses, but none of them are quite like this one. Vicki Curry>> That's because this one was built by Charles Fletcher Lummis, a man who was every bit as unique and ruggedly individualistic as the home he built. He was a journalist, adventurer, early booster of Los Angeles and advocate of the arts and crafts movement. Denise Spooner is the Executive Director of the Historical Society of Southern California. She oversees the house Lummis called El Alisal, Spanish for "place of the Sycamores". Denise Spooner>> He built the house in the late 1890s, but it continued to be a project of his into the 1920s. As we say, the house kind of grew organically. The arts and crafts movement was sort of a reaction to industrialization. So much of the house was built by hand, whether we're talking about the doors that Lummis actually planed and used in ads to fashion the doors by hand, hanging them by hand, pouring the concrete floors by himself. The beams in the house came from the Santa Fe railroad. So a lot of found materials that he re-crafted himself and then put into the house. Members of the arts and crafts movement advocated a closer relationship with nature, so the reason that the house was made of arroyo stone is because it's located right here on the banks of the Arroyo Seco River. Vicki Curry>> But the house is more than an architectural rarity. It's also a tribute to the west and the people that captured Charles Lummis's heart. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> He didn't come to this region until he was well into his twenties. Lummis was actually born in Massachusetts. Later, he was working at a newspaper in Ohio. This was in 1884 when he accepted a job at the Los Angeles Times. Denise Spooner>> And that was a really important period in southern California's history because it was really the first boom time where a lot of people from around the country were coming to southern California. Vicki Curry>> Lummis decided to tramp across the continent, as he called it, walking all the way from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. Denise Spooner>> And as he was traveling across the United States, he would send sort of dispatches to the Times and they would be published. So when he actually got to southern California, he was something of a celebrity because he had all kinds of different adventures on his way here. Vicki Curry>> Those adventures sparked a life-long love for the people and culture of the southwest. So he decided to share this love and, in 1914, he built the Southwest Museum on Mount Washington with his own personal collection of artifacts. Denise Spooner>> So this is the room that Lummis called his museum and it housed the collections that he gathered especially from a lot of the native people. One of the most significant pieces of this room, the one on which so many people always remark on, are actually these glass plate positives. They're actually pictures that Lummis took and they sort of are arranged in a way that replicates some of the journeys that he took across the southwest into Mexico and then into South America. Vicki Curry>> This is a man who loved photography and he photographed anything and everything. So he really helped to keep a record of those times then? Denise Spooner>> Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he did. Of those times of native people, of building the house, of people in Los Angeles, all the artists and poets and politicians, anybody who came to El Alisal. People like Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, anybody that was interested in the life of the mind and in arts at that time. Vicki Curry>> As an editor at the Los Angeles Times and later the magazines "Land of Sunshine" and "Out West", Lummis actively promoted and celebrated the southwest and its lifestyle. Denise Spooner>> People always associate southern California with the very things that Lummis advertised: sunshine, good health, lots of opportunities for outdoor living. Vicki Curry>> And that hasn't changed, but the bad news is that the Lummis House is changing. In fact, it's falling apart. Denise Spooner>> The house has suffered seismic damage as a consequence of earthquakes over time. There are two guest houses that are on the property that were multi-story actually prior to the Sylmar earthquake in 1969. Now it's just one story because the top floor fell off. Water intrusion is a huge problem. There is a leak right about here that creates what we call Lake Lummis in the floor. Vicki Curry>> Lake Lummis is the start of a lot of other problems. The water leaks are also causing mold and bacteria to grow throughout the house. Denise Spooner>> This is one of the rooms in which the damage that the house has endured is most clearly visible and it's visible in a couple of ways. First of all, on the walls throughout the room, you can see a lot of where there's been water intrusion. After the water actually dries up and evaporates, then what you're left with is the salt from the water and then it blasts through the paint and the plaster. So a lot of people come in here and they think, wow, why don't they repaint this place? But the damage is way deeper than just repainting. We think that it's possible anyway that, in an earthquake, damage was done, but then because of the weight of the tower on the outside of the building, it's actually pulling this section of the building kind of apart. Vicki Curry>> Kind of ironic when you consider Lummis bragged that he built the house that would last a thousand years, but that's not going to happen without major restoration. Denise Spooner>> If we don't move forward with taking greater care of the house, then we will lose the Lummis House. All historic structures are like this, but if you don't ever do anything to them, then you shouldn't be surprised when they just fall down. Vicki Curry>> The house is owned by the city of Los Angeles which can't afford to repair it. Historic preservation is low on the city's list of priorities, so dollars are scarce. Any restoration of the Lummis House will probably cost millions and, even before that gets started, it will cost about two hundred thousand just to assess the house's condition. Denise Spooner>> These projects are very complicated. They're very time-consuming because what we're doing is not just shoring up the foundation of El Alisal, not just making it so that it's not unsafe, but really restoring it so that it really represents Lummis and his time. It's a physical piece of history that links people in the present to the past and helps them better understand how the past is connected to the present and the present is connected to the past. Vicki Curry>> And that's what's most important to the Historical Society of Southern California, saving the house in order to share it. I'm Vicki Curry for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> For more information on the Lummis House and restoration efforts, you can check out their website at www.socalhistory.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. 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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