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Life & Times Transcript
07/20/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Conservationists want to pull trawling nets out of coastal waters. What could be bad about that? Rick Algert>> The more of family-owned businesses we knock out here in California, the seafood is going to be supplied by international businesses with little or no regulations or little or no environmental controls on their fisheries, their equipment or canneries. Val Zavala>> And then, the film that reveals the horror in the backyard pool. Our critics tell us if it's safe to go back in the water. 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>> It's one of the most environmentally destructive ways to fish. It's called trawling, or dragging nets across the bottom of the ocean. And yet this has netted fishermen from Santa Barbara to Monterey a pretty good living for a lot of years. So why have dozens of them agreed to give it up? As Sam Louie tells us, they got an offer they couldn't refuse. Sam Louie>> Morro Bay, a waterfront town about three hours drive north of Los Angeles, is known for its legendary rock. Tourism is the city's largest industry, but it was not always this way. From the 1940s through the 1990s, fishing was the main engine of the economy. Rick Algert>> Historically, this town was culturally and economically tied to fishing. You know, people worked in fishing and it was an activity that almost everybody in town did. Sam Louie>> But no longer. Now you see plenty of fishing boats just docked here in the harbor. Rick Algert is the Morro Bay Harbor Director. He's been here sixteen years witnessing the decline of the city's fishing industry. Rick Algert>> Since I came here in 1990, this was a vibrant fishing village unloading millions of pounds of fish a year. Unfortunately, today we have a greatly reduced fishing fleet and virtually no landing this summer. Sam Louie>> And why did that happen? Because for years there were no regulations and the fishermen over-fished. In the mid-1990s, the federal government clamped down, establishing an extensive array of quotas, limits and regulations, and that was the beginning of the decline. Rick Algert>> There have been a lot of losses. A lot of people have moved out of the businesses, lost their jobs, converted, and that's still going on. Sam Louie>> Then in June, the fleet was further reduced when several local fishermen sold their vessels. And the buyer? An unusual customer, the Nature Conservancy of California. Chuck Cook is the Director of the Conservancy's Coastal and Marine program. Chuck Cook>> The culmination of that work resulted in the Nature Conservancy acquiring six federal ground fish permits and four trawl vessels in exchange for an agreed-upon plan to protect 3.8 million acres of sea floor habitat on the central coast. Sam Louie>> The Nature Conservancy wanted to stop bottom trawling. Trawl fishing involves dragging large heavy nets across the ocean floor to catch fish. Environmentalists believe this type of fishing is destructive to marine life. Chuck Cook>> Most trawling is done in tows that are about eight hours in length and about fifteen miles in duration, so you do fifteen miles at a time. One of the biggest problems, besides the contact with the sea floor habitat and the degradation it can do, is this indiscriminate method. It catches everything in front of it. Sam Louie>> The buy-out of the trawlers was an historic first for the Nature Conservancy aiming to keep the ecology vibrant. Chuck Cook>> The more frequent people trawl, the less chance for a recovery and restoration of the sea floor habitat. In other words, if you go into an area and you don't trawl so frequently, it gives the chance for what we call the biogenic structure. The corals, sponges and anemones actually have time to respond and come back. Sam Louie>> Chris Kubiak sold his vessel and license to the Nature Conservancy. He's a third generation fisherman. Chris Kubiak>> It was a good way to go. Like I say, my whole family, my cousins, are fishermen, my uncles, my brother, my dad, so it was just a natural thing to do. Sam Louie>> Now Chris and his brother have retired from trawling. The Nature Conservancy paid them several hundred thousand dollars for each boat and permit. They saw it as a rare opportunity. Chris Kubiak>> These things aren't a real hot item nowadays, so that was part of it. And the other part of it is that I felt like I needed to do something different, so that was a good way for me to do that. You know, it may be fishing. I'm not sure, but it may be not. Sam Louie>> Especially since trawling isn't what it used to be. Chris Kubiak>> I always felt like I was going to make money. It wasn't a question. I may not have been going fishing regularly, but it was always good. Yeah, more recently, it was a question. By the time everything was said and done, it wasn't necessarily profitable. Sam Louie>> Fishermen were also hit hard by the rising cost of fuel. It tripled while the price for his fish went down. Chris Kubiak>> We were having to question whether we wanted to go over there and spend the money on the fuel to go make the fishing trip. So because of the high cost of the fuel, because of the high cost of all of the equipment to go do it, I felt like, to stay successful at fishing, that I would need to do it a different way. Sam Louie>> Mark Tognazzinni is one such fisherman doing it differently. Fishing is still his passion, but he's decided to diversity. Mark Tognazzinni>> So what we did is, we started selling consumer direct and that kind of evolved into a very strong clientele, it evolved into a restaurant and now we have a fish market and we try to keep that disparity between what the fisherman gets and the consumer pays much more narrow than most places. Sam Louie>> Mark is a salmon and tuna fisherman. He does not use a trawler, but expects the loss of trawling to impact restaurants and the local economy. Mark Tognazzinni>> There are numerous species of fish that will no longer be caught that live right here and many of the flatfish are Sole, Dover, Rex. They're not going to be accessible anymore because they are caught with a trawl net. That's how they're caught. They're not caught with hooks. They're not caught with any other method. That's how they're caught commercially on this coast, so all those species of fish won't be caught here locally anymore. Sam Louie>> With fewer locally caught fish, Mark fears that quality could be compromised. Mark Tognazzinni>> Absolutely, the quality won't be there. It's always nice to promote a local product and have local fish and support the local infrastructure. Usually, the Special of the Day, we could tell you the boat that it was caught on and the fisherman that caught it. Not always, but usually, and we post that. Sam Louie>> What's good for the sea life means fewer choices for customers. Rick Algert>> The more family-owned businesses we knock out here in California, the seafood is going to be supplied by international businesses with little or no regulations and little or no environmental controls on their fisheries, their equipment or their canneries. Sam Louie>> The Nature Conservancy says the trawling near Morro Bay will stop, but other forms of fishing will continue. Chuck Cook>> The Nature Conservancy is not anti-fishing. We are against fishing that could be destructive and damage habitat. Sam Louie>> Experts believe more fishermen will have to reinvent themselves like Mark Tognazzinni if they want to stay in business. Rick Algert>> It's made a tough job even tougher, but that's what it's going to take because you're going to have to have the flexibility to have a number of sources of income. Sam Louie>> So far, the Conservancy has purchased six permits from Morro Bay's trawlers, but they hope to buy the remaining seventeen and put an end to trawling off the entire central coast. Despite the challenges that lay ahead, many in Morro Bay think, if they can weather these changes, there can still be a future in fishing. Mark Tognazzinni>> I see a strong future, different for sure, but a strong future. I think maybe higher quality and lower volume product and teaching people about the value of it. Rick Algert>> Fishing is not dying in this state, but we have to go through a profound change. Sam Louie>> Even though pleasure boats have replaced fishing boats and tourism has surpassed fishing, Morro Bay's identity, like its famous rock, will always be anchored to its heritage as a fishing village. 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>> For most kids and parents, summertime means that thoughts of school are miles away, but not so for the mayor of Los Angeles. He's using the summer to hold meetings, calling parents, teachers and community leaders together to talk about his plans to get more control over Los Angeles's troubled schools. But why would a politician as savvy as Villaraigosa want to take on such a politically risky cause? For an explanation, I talked with political analyst, Arnold Steinberg, who gave me some honest answers. If you were advising Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa about his takeover bid for the LAUSD, what's the one piece of advice you would give him? Arnold Steinberg>> Well, you know, when you're a politician, you always want to succeed, so I'd suggest that he has low expectations to convey low expectations. The fact of the matter is, if he does everything right, there's only so much you can do so quickly for Los Angeles schools. Val Zavala>> Does that mean that you're saying that he should not try to take over the school district? Because that's a pretty high expectation. Arnold Steinberg>> You know, if he doesn't want to run for office ever again and wants to help humanity, he probably should stay on his present course. But it's certainly a high risk to try to take on the teachers union and the bureaucracy that's so entrenched. Val Zavala>> So it's high risk. So why do you think he's doing it? Arnold Steinberg>> I hope because he has a good heart and really wants to help the kids of Los Angeles. It may also be because Antonio has a certain amount of bravado. He's a positive thinker. He's a can-do kind of a guy. He may under-estimate the entrenched interest and over-estimate his ability to persuade and cajole. Val Zavala>> If you were part of his early transition team, would you have advised him not even to take on this issue? To concentrate on potholes and police and other traditional city issues? Arnold Steinberg>> I probably would have done that because there are plenty of other problems to deal with. I think right now the fact that he's succeeding somewhat in Sacramento is because he has an Odd Couple kind of situation, some Republicans who really aren't that keen on the Los Angeles school district and some of his Democratic allies. But the fact is that what is emerging as kind of the hybrid situation may be worse than what we had before. Val Zavala>> So if what's emerging is kind of this, you know, shared responsibility and whatnot, that goes completely counter to his whole argument that if he were in charge of the school district, he personally could be held accountable. People could write to him, they could demand, you know, results from him. Now it's not going in that direction. Arnold Steinberg>> You're precisely correct. I mean, the fact of the matter is, the main argument here is to have a nexus of responsibility and accountability. But by having a mayor involved and a school board with all kinds of confused functions, what's a parent to do when he says, "Well, I don't like the new superintendent." Who would the new superintendent be responsible for? The council of mayors, the one mayor that's the most important, or the elected officials that are now on the school board? We have enough of a problem with the present situation. It's awful. The question is, are we going from the frying pan to the proverbial fire? Val Zavala>> Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is willing to take on the, what, thirty-something worst schools that he himself is willing to have total control to show that he could improve it? Arnold Steinberg>> Right. Val Zavala>> Is that a smart idea? Is it actually -- Arnold Steinberg>> -- well, you know, it's easy -- it's not easy, but possible to take a single school and find a dynamic principal and, if that principal has support and continuity, make some changes over two or three years. Val Zavala>> A single school? Arnold Steinberg>> Yeah, but the sum of the parts doesn't apply to the whole. It's much harder to do that with thirty schools. Val Zavala>> Oh, definitely. So why do you think he's willing to do it? What has he got to gain? Arnold Steinberg>> You know, I think that he sees this sincerely as a way to have back -- he was an organizer in the teachers union. His wife is a teacher. So in the one sense, you have the situation where he has the credentials. It's kind of like Nixon, the anti-communist, going to China. Antonio might be able to do what, say, Republican mayor Dick Riordan could not do. But I think what we're going to find at the end of the day -- and here you may get my bias -- is that the teachers union is so interested in power and control that those interests trump reform. I think ultimately Antonio will find that his idealism will be insufficient to counter the power orientation of the teachers union. Val Zavala>> Would you consider that his biggest obstacle, his biggest challenge, is the union? Arnold Steinberg>> Oh, sure, because I think people don't understand that the teachers union has disproportionate resources. They concentrate those resources not just in Los Angeles, but in school districts all around California. Many school board members are beholding to the teachers union. They want to and they do control both sides of the negotiating table. Ultimately, the question goes to those of us who have a Titanic theory which is, is the only way to reform the Los Angeles school district to destroy it? Do you bring it down and start all over again? Because so many people have tried for years and decades. Extraordinary sums of money have been spent. We had scandal after scandal. There has been corruption in how they award painting contracts, how they award electric contracts. Val Zavala>> Belmont. Arnold Steinberg>> There are so many payoffs. There are so many inefficiencies here. You have the Belmont fiasco. You have a large number of people making over a hundred thousand dollars a year, a huge sprawling bureaucracy. You know, is there any way short of undoing it to reform? Val Zavala>> So if it's the Titanic, why would Antonio want to be the captain? Arnold Steinberg>> Well, let's face it. We have somebody who is a Latino Hispanic mayor. We have a constituency here in the school, particularly in the lower grades, that are overwhelmingly Latino and Hispanic. If he's going to serve his base constituency, he's got to help these kids who really are being shafted in this school district. Val Zavala>> There's the criticism that why should Antonio take over the school district now? Let's assume he succeeds. Because the school district is on a roll. There's small, but nevertheless positive, improvement. Don't disturb it. They're on a roll. Let it be. Why switch chiefs and go through this massive reorganization when things are beginning to go in the right direction? Arnold Steinberg>> Well, you know, it's sort of like the stock market. You don't know what the trend is, but it can tweak one way or another. These marginal improvements really are tweaks. They're not part of some substantial trend there. Tremendous resources have been invested here, so I don't think it's anything to write home about at all. In fact, you know, people should understand that the school district has been spending money for years on political polling, on public relations people, for their image. What's important? Their image or the kids? Val Zavala>> So your prognosis for LAUSD, say, ten or fifteen years from now? What kind of condition will it be in? Arnold Steinberg>> Well, LAUSD is part of the broader economic challenge of this city in which we have lots of people coming in. We have lots of kids who are at the lower socio-economic level and the amount of public resources required for them in general and for schools in particular, it's very substantial. So where is the funding to come in to support those resources? I'm not sure that the commitment is there because people talk a great talk about urbanization and the beauty and romance of the city, but the fact is that we have a disappearing middle class here. The way you help the public schools is you have the middle class be part of the public schools. You don't have them send their kids to private schools. Val Zavala>> Well, Arnold Steinberg, thank you very much for your very realistic assessment of LAUSD. Arnold Steinberg>> Thank you. Val Zavala>> If you'd like to attend one of the Town Halls that the mayor is holding on his reform measures for LAUSD, you can contact his office or go to his website. 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. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water". It stars Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Jean Oppenheimer of New Times and Lael Loewenstein of Variety. Jean, what did you think of "Lady in the Water"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, Larry, judging by the boos, hisses and unprovoked laughter that erupted during this screening, I would say this is not going to be one of his big hits. I must say, however, that I really liked the film and I think I was the only one in the entire audience who did. "Lady in the Water" is a fairy tale about redemption and renewal and, corny as it sounds, I bought into it. Paul Giamatti was just wonderful as the sad-sack apartment superintendent and I found that the film had a lot of intended humor and that it also had some suspense and some mildly scary bits. The characters are all these sort of misfits. They're lost, they're adrift, they're alone and I really liked how even the most ridiculous among them was given sort of a measure, I don't know, dignity or allowed to be a hero in a little way, given some sort of purpose. A lot of the scenes and characters really don't work. A lot of scenes should be cut. Bryce Dallas Howard's character was really lacking in personality which I felt the script for, but overall, the film really worked for me on an emotional level and I thought that the score by James Newton Howard was just lovely. Larry Mantle>> Do you agree with Jean's assessment of "Lady in the Water"? Lael Loewenstein>> No, I don't, Larry. I didn't care for the film. Shyamalan has made much of the fact that he brought this picture to Disney where he had a multi-picture deal and Disney said, "No, we have some problems with this film, we don't want to do it, we don't want to do it the way you want to do it and we particularly don't want to do it with you playing a major supporting part in the film." So he took the script and went over to Warner Bros. and they said, "Sure, we'll make your movie." Well, as it turns out, Disney was absolutely right. This is a wildly self-indulgent film which is based on a fairy tale that Shyamalan told his young daughters. It doesn't work as a film. He never develops the fairy tale. He spends a lot of time talking about the story, having characters in the film describe the story, but he never actually builds the world of the fantasy that you're supposed to be in. There's some scary images and some interesting underwater photography, things like that, but there's nothing really that brings alive this story. So it just feels very, very self-indulgent. Shyamalan himself plays a fairly major supporting role which strikes me as directorial hubris. Larry Mantle>> Film number two this week is the romantic comedy, "My Super Ex-Girlfriend". It stars Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Lael, what did you think of "My Super Ex-Girlfriend"? I like her a lot, but -- Lael Loewenstein>> (Laughter) Larry, I'm sorry to say, I was deeply offended by this movie. You know, I thought, wow, Uma Thurman, she's already practically a super-hero from the "Kill Bill" movies. It seems like a great idea. Luke Wilson. I like him very much, very entertaining. The premise of this movie is that Thurman plays a character called G-Girl who's a modern-day super-hero, but as it turns out, she's also wildly jealous. In her daytime persona, Ginny Johnson, she meets Luke Wilson who's Matt Saunders and they strike up this relationship. As it turns out, Matt is actually in love with his co-worker, Anna Faris, and he's not really into Ginny that much. He discovers that she's G-Girl, but she begins to get wildly and obsessively jealous about his interest in his co-worker, Hannah. The fact that Thurman absolutely loses it just to me represents the fact that the filmmaker, Ivan Reitman in this case, has a very, very antiquated view of relationships. The fact that she can't sublimate her jealousy to the need to save the world is very, very offensive. Larry Mantle>> The ensemble drama, "The Great New Wonderful", stars Tony Shalhoub, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Edie Falco. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Lael, what did you think of "The Great New Wonderful"? Lael Loewenstein>> Well, I actually enjoyed this film. It is set a year after the events of 9/11 and, in a very quiet way, it goes through the lives of several different characters in five different stories who are trying to grapple with the effects of 9/11 through either denial or other forms of actual mourning. One of the stories has a man who was an office worker meeting with Tony Shalhoub who plays a psychiatrist who's trying to get him to deal with his grief, but he's in absolute denial. Another story is about Maggie Gyllenhaal playing a super expensive pastry chef who is out to make loads of money and derail the queen pastry chef, Edie Falco. There's a story about two parents who have an obese ten year old son who is acting out in school. Several different stories and they sort of interlock very slightly, but what I liked about the film was I thought it was very restrained in the way the characters deal with their emotions and the emotional fallout of 9/11. 9/11 is never actually mentioned. You just know that it takes place the year afterwards. Larry Mantle>> Jean, do you concur? Jean Oppenheimer>> I'm probably not quite as high on it as Lael was, but I do think that it is restrained, that it has some fine acting and I think that the film really grew on me as it went along. It's true that I didn't pick up immediately on the fact that this was a year after 9/11 and that's what all these people were still trying to grapple with. You know, it was really appealing enough, but I just didn't think there was a tremendous amount to it. Larry Mantle>> And we close out with another ensemble drama, "Three Days of Rain", starring Peter Falk and Blythe Danner. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Jean, "Three Days of Rain"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, this is another ensemble drama just like "The Great New Wonderful". In this case, the individual stories and characters never criss-cross, so it's all these interconnected stories. It's just a real actor's film and you can see why a lot of actors would have wanted to take part in it. A lot of sort of meaty roles. You have Peter Falk in it. The part that I liked best actually contains a couple of actors I didn't know, Penny Allen and Erick Avari. But it's very disjointed. The stories are so separate that it feels very disjointed and very theatrical. You could almost imagine seeing this on a stage where, as each character's part comes up, a light comes on to a certain portion of the stage. So I think it was a little less successful, actually, than "The Great New Wonderful". Larry Mantle>> That does it for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety, and Jean Oppenheimer of New Times. We invite you to join us next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> KPCC broadcasts a full hour of FilmWeek Friday mornings at eleven. 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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