 |
HOME |  |
SCHEDULE | |
PROGRAMS | |
KIDS & FAMILY | |
LOCAL | |
SUPPORT KCET | |
ABOUT US | |
SHOP KCET |  |
| About Us | Contact Us | |
 |
|
 |
          |
|
|
 |
 |
||
|
|
Life & Times Transcript
03/22/06 Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company. Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Thousands of teens hook up with friends in cyberspace, but could they be making dangerous connections? Sheila Inserra>> MySpace is a big resource for pedophiles looking for lonely kids, but it's really better not to communicate with anybody who you don't know because you have no idea who they really are. Val Zavala>> And then, they are women in tune with their time. The music and mission of Los Angeles's Vox Femina. 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>> Do you know where your kids are? And I'm not talking about the streets. I'm talking about cyberspace. Thousands of teens these days are going to places like MySpace and posting personal information and even photos. They're looking for friends, but some of them may encounter sexual predators. It's enough of a problem to have police warning parents about the dangers of online strangers. Sam Louie has our story. Sam Louie>> Fourteen year old Marc Inserra is a typical teenager, a twenty-first century teenager, that is. He's got a cell phone. Marc Inserra>> "Hi, Eric. So like what are you doing today?" Sam Louie>> He listens to music with an iPod and he can't live without his computer. Marc Inserra>> I usually went on like every day for at least like an hour or two. Sam Louie>> Marc uses the internet to help him with his homework, but for fun, Marc loves tinkering with his MySpace account. Marc Inserra>> So this is like my home page. I get back with my friends. If I have new comments or anything, I'll have that. Well, it's just fun to be able to make your own like web page, like be able to put your own unique stuff on it and kind of show people what you're about. Sam Louie>> MySpace is a website where you can put information about yourself for everyone to see. It's like a cyberspace hangout for people to get to know each other. It was created just two years ago and now boasts up to forty-five million registered users. Users can also post pictures, music and, of course, send messages to each other. Marc Inserra>> I think that if, you know, you're looking for a friend or something, you find out that he's like in the same city as you and he's like your age or something and he like goes to your school or something and you didn't know about him, I think that would be a good way to find friends. Sam Louie>> Friends, yes, but connections can also be dangerous. Police say that MySpace and similar sites are fast becoming popular places for pedophiles. Officer Steve Wolf of the Irvine Police Department. Steve Wolf>> On MySpace, you have friends that are included in your profile. Sometimes you can have five hundred or a thousand different friends and it's very shocking for a parent, especially of a fifteen or sixteen year old, to look and see that they have a thousand friends and some of them are adults. "One in thirty-three received an aggressive sexual solicitation. Okay, let's go meet at Starbucks. I want to meet you right now. What's your home phone?" Sam Louie>> Wolf has given more than forty presentations to parents about online predators. He says that police are trying to keep up with their growing numbers. Steve Wolf>> The numbers are staggering out there. They have task forces where people actually just sit in computer rooms and try to arrange meets with predators and they just don't have enough people. They can't keep up with it. Sam Louie>> Before the internet, child molesters relied heavily on being around kids such as a park to lure them. But that was risky and could raise a lot of suspicion. Now with chat rooms and social networking sites available, pedophiles have unlimited and unrestricted access to vulnerable children. One tragic example, back in January, fourteen year old Judy Cajuste of New Jersey was murdered after meeting a man on MySpace. Her body was found naked and strangled in a dumpster. Parents are realizing they must now watch their children more closely than ever before. Sandi Lester>> I think it's really a very scary situation and I get a little overwhelmed at times thinking about it and thinking about what could happen. Sam Louie>> Sandi Lester of Irvine has three children. Her oldest son, fourteen year old Sam, used to have a MySpace account. Sandi Lester>> He had the MySpace account. It was set up for him. He and his friends set it up. I told him he could keep it if he wanted it and he said he never used it. I said, "Well, if you don't use it, you should get rid of it." Sam Louie>> So he did, but that did not get rid of his mother's worries. Sam goes online to play video games with other gamers, strangers spanning the globe. Basically, he can talk to gamers anywhere around the world? Sandi Lester>> And he does. He's got somebody he talks to in Scotland a lot. There's another kid in New Jersey that is on a lot that's about eleven years old and he talks to him a lot. Sam Louie>> Sandi allows the talking, but makes sure the conversations stick to the game. She doesn't let her children give out any personal information, part of the many rules she has with them. Sandi Lester>> The computer is in an open space where I know what's going on. The children aren't allowed to have passwords on accounts that I don't know. I have to have access to their account at all times. I look at their buddy lists on their IM accounts almost daily. Sam Louie>> Other teens like Marc Inserra are given a bit more flexibility. His parents let him have a MySpace account. They also let him keep his computer in his bedroom as long as they have access to all of his information. Chris Inserra>> It's really the only monitoring I do. I mean, I can go in afterward and see where he's been and what he's done, but I haven't really had to do that because I pretty much trust that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. Whenever I go in, he freely lets me see the screen and I can go to his computer anytime I want and look at it anyway. Sam Louie>> His parents have also talked with him about the dangers of the internet. Sheila Inserra>> We talk to the kids very openly about pedophiles. MySpace is a big resource for pedophiles looking for lonely kids, but it's really better not to communicate with anybody who you don't know because you have no idea who they really are. Marc Inserra>> Like if somebody asks to be my friend or something like that and I don't know them, then I won't like let them in. If you don't, then they can't like comment yours, send you any messages or anything. Sam Louie>> So people have asked to be your friend who you did not know? Marc Inserra>> I think like two people once. Sam Louie>> But just the slim possibility of your son or daughter getting targeted should be enough reason for more parents to stay vigilant and on top of the changing technology. Steve Wolf>> "Internet fact: 2001, a hundred eighty million internet users in North America. Eight hundred eleven new users every day." Sam Louie>> Officer Wolf says there was a recent case in Irvine where a sixteen year old girl was preyed upon by a twenty-one year old man in a chat room. They ended up having sex, but the father of the victim did not file charges. Steve Wolf>> The father did not want to report this. The father did not want the shame for the family, did not want to victimize the daughter a second time by having her appear in court. Sandi Lester>> I think you don't have that luxury. I think it's just not something you can just turn a blind eye to. We all want to trust our kids, but we need to talk to them and have an open dialogue with them. But we also need to watch them. They are kids and someday may be tempted by certain things. Sam Louie>> Leslie Goetz is another stay at home mother in Irvine with two teenaged children. Leslie Goetz>> It's a concern because you don't know. You think your kid will never do something, but you don't know. It's a constant thing. Who are you talking to? Make sure you don't let anybody on that you don't know. Sam Louie>> Police say that it's encouraging to see parents so involved with their kids, but a startling number of parents are still in the dark ages when it comes to computers. Steve Wolf>> Some parents have no idea even how to get on the internet or what the internet is all about. So when it comes to MySpace, I realize that they have absolutely no idea what's involved. The facts are that forty-five million users are on MySpace right now and it grows by a hundred fifty thousand each day. So a hundred fifty thousand new users every day on MySpace. Sam Louie>> Predators know it's a numbers game and will continue to take advantage of it. Steve Wolf>> What you're going to find is more attempts, more contacts, of adults versus younger kids. That will happen just by nature of the internet and how it grows. Sam Louie>> MySpace is now owned by NewsCorp. It offers safety rules and is on the lookout for inappropriate material. But police remind parents that it's ultimately up to them to make sure their kids stay safe in both the real world and the cyber world. 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>> We are three years into the war in Iraq and, if there's one thing government officials have learned, it's that the PR war can be as tricky as a military campaign and no one knows that better than the former spokeswoman for the Pentagon who spoke recently at Town Hall Los Angeles. Torie Clark was spokeswoman for the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. She's been called tough as nails and she would have to be to handle PR as the war in Iraq was launched. I talked with her about how she managed the good, the bad and the ugly news coming out of Iraq. You were at the forefront at the PR battle. What were some of the toughest things to do? Aside from keeping news positive, but you don't have any control over that. Torie Clark>> No, you don't have any control of it and, if you accept that, then it actually makes your job much easier. We were never in the business of managing the news. You can't do that. We weren't in the business of trying to make people believe one thing or another. We just firmly believed that the more people saw -- largely the American public, but also publics around the world -- the more they saw what the military was actually doing on a day in-day out basis, the better off we all would be. Val Zavala>> And that's the imbedded -- Torie Clark>> It was the intent behind the imbedding program. Pound for pound, as organizations go, as people go, the military performed exceptionally well. Did they make mistakes? Sure, but even when that happened, the more spotlight you put on it, the faster those problems are cleared up. Val Zavala>> But then something comes along like Abu Ghraib and, for many people, that was the turning point in terms of their perception of what we were doing over there. How do you handle something like that? Torie Clark>> Well, I think different people have different views of the war for a variety of reasons. Abu Ghraib was certainly one of them. I was not there when that really erupted. It happened after I left the Pentagon. Knowing what I know, though, and watching it from an outsider's perspective, this is an extraordinarily difficult thing to handle because of all the natural communications tactics that you would want to use, getting out all the information as quickly as possible, bringing as much transparency to this as possible. Figure out every bad thing that's ever happened and get it out there now just to get this over with faster, make a lot of sense. Very difficult in that environment. In almost any other communications crisis like this, you would want to get all those photographs out as quickly as possible. It makes a lot of sense. However, you have people in uniform on the ground in Iraq at the time saying, "Don't do that, don't do that" because every photograph that gets out there further inflames the opinion against our forces and further endangers them, so you're a little hamstrung there. Having said that, somebody came up to me not long after that and was kind of making light of the imbedding program and said, "Boy, you probably wouldn't want any of your reporters at Abu Ghraib. You wouldn't have wanted them in that prison." I said, "I absolutely would have." A, if you have that kind of transparency and you have that kind of accessibility, it's less likely those deviant characters who did what they did would have done it. B, we could have cleaned this up a lot faster. Val Zavala>> So why weren't soldiers imbedded at Abu Ghraib. Were they not allowed in the prison? Torie Clark>> Oh, somewhat ironically, one of the reasons you don't let reporters have that kind of access to those prisons, whether it's Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, is because of trying to adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Any kind of access of reporters to detainees could be considered subjecting them to public humiliation or ridicule. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not an expert on the Geneva Conventions. I argued the opposite. I said, "Boy, the more we let everybody see what goes on here, the more they'll see that actually these people are overwhelmingly being treated very, very well." But the reasons they do not allow them that kind of access is actually to prevent them from being held up to any kind of public humiliation. Val Zavala>> That's ironic. Torie Clark>> Isn't it? Val Zavala>> Now I know you talked about, you know, the Pentagon being open and transparent, but one of the things they're notorious for is not allowing any pictures of any of the coffins of the casualties that are coming home to be taken. What's their reasoning there? Torie Clark>> Well, actually, there's a distinction. There's a distinction between Dover, which is a transport location actually for military that are coming back and are being put into a condition so they can go to their loved ones and go to the funerals, actual funerals and ceremonies, which get covered all the time. You don't see it as much as you used to, but there was a long stretch there when you didn't open a newspaper in a town in this country and you didn't see coverage, including photographs, of the service for someone who had given the ultimate sacrifice. It's something that is up to the families, up to local military. You see a lot of that. The military has very strong feelings about Dover. They say that is different. It's not an appropriate place. It's not what we consider formal recognition of their sacrifice. Val Zavala>> I still don't understand the big deal, though, of taking pictures of coffins draped with the American flag. Torie Clark>> Because you're not a family member of one of those people in those coffins. Different family members have different feelings about it. Some don't think it's respectful, some think it is, some don't mind either way. Again, I'm not in the military. I have great appreciation and respect for them. One of the things I admire more than anything else is their devotion to family at the best of times and at the worst of times and their concern over when and how images are taken. All of those caskets returning has everything to do with respect to the families. So from a communications perspective, it's not the approach I would take, but I have to respect their feelings about that. Val Zavala>> There are really two battlefronts in terms of PR. There's one here domestically and then there's the international one and that's the tougher one, right? Torie Clark>> Right. Oh, it's hard enough to communicate clearly and effectively here in the United States. It's much harder overseas for a variety of different reasons and it's not one size fits all. Val Zavala>> And you got some good advice from somebody. I believe it was somebody who markets -- Torie Clark>> A Los Angeles native. I got some great advice from Miles Copeland, former manager of The Police. I really got to know him as a major developer and distributor of Arab music in the western world. I was explaining to him this problem -- I was focused at the time when I first met him a few years ago in trying to reach Arab youth. I was using the kind of conventional tried and true tactics of we just need to get out there and explain ourselves better. Miles listened to me very patiently. He's a very nice man and he kind of listened. He said, "Torie, look. If somebody brand new moved into your neighborhood and knocked on the door and you invited them in and he just talked about himself for thirty minutes, how would you feel?" I said, "I'd feel awful. He doesn't care about me." He said, "Exactly." Particularly in that part of the world, particularly of their abuse, they need to believe that we value them, we value their culture, their traditions, their successes -- of which they have many in the entertainment world, as he knows. There really needs to be a higher level of engagement. It's very sound advice. But going forward, whether it's the private sector or the public sector, I think the organizations and the people that are going to thrive are going to be the ones that embrace transparency and honesty and a willingness to engage in a very sincere way. Val Zavala>> Do you think the Pentagon is capable of that? Torie Clark>> Absolutely. The imbedding is the greatest example of the biggest no spin zone ever. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of reporters covering combat in real time, often live. You can't manage that. You're not influencing that. They are there seeing it with their own eyes and listening to it with their own ears. That is the biggest no spin zone we've ever seen. Val Zavala>> Torie Clark has put many of her experiences in a book called "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game". Torie Clark was a guest of Town Hall Los Angeles. If you'd like to find out more about upcoming speakers or how to join, you can give them a call or go to their website at townhall-la.org. 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>> They carry more than a tune. They carry the kind of energy that only hard work and dedication can create. They are Los Angeles's premier women's choral group, Vox Femina, and I had the pleasure of stopping by a few years ago as they were getting ready for a concert. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> They gather every Tuesday night at a church in mid-Wilshire, some coming from as far away as Pomona and Riverside. Thirty women, different ages, different professions, different backgrounds, but one single purpose. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> The group is called "Vox Femina" and the Artistic Director is Iris Levine. Although they are amateurs, Iris instills professional standards. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> "Vox Femina" started about six years ago. It got off the ground with encouragement from the director of the Gay Men's Chorus who felt there should also be a woman's group. Iris, with her degrees in choral music, seemed a natural leader. Iris Levine>> I kept saying to him, “Jon, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. There's no reason to have, you know, two hundred women all up on a stage together performing like that. It's really not what I want to do.” [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> The idea evolved into a small singing group which appealed much more to Iris and, finally in 1997, she put the word out. Singers wanted for a new group called "Vox Femina". Stephanie Roth>> When I first saw the notice in the Lesbian News that some group was forming, I thought, huh, maybe I'll try that. I didn't think about it and I didn't let myself get nervous. I sang the first note and suddenly it filled the room and I thought I so much want to be in this group. Val Zavala>> Stephanie Roth's sister had a stroke. Stephanie is the family's caretaker. For her, singing is a great escape. Stephanie Roth>> On Tuesdays just before I have to arrive, I would say why am I in this group? (laughter) But as soon as I get here, it's always wonderful and singing is just a joy. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> The repertoire of "Vox Femina" is broad. It includes world music, classical music and jazz. They've sung in eleven different languages and they specialize in music by women composers, music that doesn't get the exposure it deserves. [Film Clip] Iris Levine>> This concert particularly takes us through essentially the life of women from birth through and past death. What I say about that, it's really about the cycle of life that we're talking about. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Teresa Willis was working for a production company and didn't have the time to do what she really loved. Teresa Willis>> My life had kind of gotten into a dull hum. Go to work, come home, cook, you know, gain weight (laughter). Val Zavala>> Now she works part-time, writes, performs and sings. Teresa Willis>> As a singer, I was never the one that knocked everybody out. I was never the one that, you know, everybody went, “Oh, Teresa, sing, please. Just sing for us.” I was never that girl, but my musicianship and my voice -- here I'm in my early forties and I'm at the height. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> "Vox Femina" is no small commitment. You have to memorize all the music, show up at weekly rehearsals and, of course, be there for numerous concerts. Lisa Bell is a full-time nurse working with the disabled in North Hollywood. Lisa Bell>> Well, you pretty much have to commit to the concert schedule for the year even though we are a community group and considered -- you know, in a sense, non-professional. I think that it demands much more than that. Iris Levine>> Every time when the women come to rehearsal, at the beginning of the rehearsal, some of them are so exhausted from their work of the day and they could just barely drag themselves to rehearsal. At the end of the rehearsal, they are so vibrant and awake. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Iris's work with "Vox Femina" is paying off. Their first commercial CD won an Outmusic Award for best new recording from a choir, impressive for a relatively young group. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> "Vox Femina" performances are always crowd-pleasers, but sometimes they'll strike a special chord with an audience. [Film Clip] Teresa Willis>> It sounds so wonderful when we perform. It's great to hear everybody's voice and watch Iris and feel the audience with us. It's just a really wonderful, exciting experience that I wouldn't get in any other way. You know, as an actor or a poet or a person in a band, which I'm in a band, you go around this town and you're always begging your audience. You're always begging, “Oh, please come, please come, please come.” You don't have to beg anybody to come see "Vox Femina". They come. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> The number of singers is fairly consistent, about thirty. But every year, five or six women leave and others take their place. Iris realizes that, at some point, she may have to move on. Iris Levine>> Should that time come that I'm done with it, I'm tired of doing that, or that, you know, it's just not working for me anymore, then I certainly will be willing to pass on that hat to somebody else. [Film Clip] Iris Levine>> The group needs to be known by its name, "Vox Femina Los Angeles", not known by my name. It really has to exist on its own in order to be successful. Val Zavala>> And success for Iris means striving for perfection. Iris Levine>> I want us to be the best women's choir in this country. That's where I want us to be. [Film Clip] Iris Levine>> We've built bridges between all kinds of communities and we are proud of who we are. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> "Vox Femina's" spring concert is this weekend with guest conductor, Jon Bailey. Their Saturday concert is downtown. Their Sunday concert is in Altadena. For information, you can go to their website at voxfeminala.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:  | |
|
Home | Features | Arts | Health/Science | OC Edition | L&T Blog | Archives | About Us | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use |