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Life & Times Transcript
07/27/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Rising sea levels put homes and beaches at risk, but is the solution worse than the problem? Dr. Doug Inman>> We're clearly in a crisis and whether we've passed the return point or not is not known. Val Zavala>> And then, with Ian McShane, Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson, can it be anything but good? Our critics give us the scoop on "Scoop". 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>> When temperatures hit the one hundred mark, we may envy all those people who live right along the beach, but they may not be so lucky in the future. That's because these record temperatures could be a sign of global warming and that means sea level rise where living on the ocean is the worst place to be. Sam Louie talked with homeowners and scientists about the latest disturbing predictions. Sam Louie>> The California coastline runs a thousand miles long lined with a mix of beaches, businesses, homes and harbors, but much of this could be at risk as global warming leads to a rise in sea level. One report estimates that close to twenty-five percent of all homes along the United States coastline could be lost. As a prevention, some homeowners have built seawalls. Ronald Lucker owns a seaside house in Solano Beach north of San Diego. His and his neighbors' properties are protected by a seawall. Ronald Lucker>> Without a seawall, the sandstone at the bottom erodes right at the bluff and, when it gets back about twelve feet and the roof of the sandstone gets thinner and thinner between the top of it and the sand that's above, it will collapse and the whole section will go out. Sam Louie>> As a dentist, he preached prevention to his patients. Now retired, he takes a similar stance to protecting the homes in his neighborhood. But what may be good for these homes is considered bad for the beach. In fact, scientists say that seawalls lead to erosion. Dr. Doug Inman>> As soon as you get a straight wall, every bit of water that comes in is now broken back straight into this and erodes the beach behind it. Sam Louie>> Dr. Doug Inman is an expert on global warming at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Dr. Doug Inman>> We're clearly in a crisis and whether we've passed the return point or not is not known. Sam Louie>> In California, about ten percent of the state's coastline is armored and protected by seawalls and other manmade structures. Seawalls may protect homes, but the beach in front of the wall erodes at a much faster pace. Dr. Doug Inman>> There is a lot of coastal erosion happening now more so than previously simply because we're having less sand. Sam Louie>> And why is there less sand? It begins with greenhouse gases higher than ever before. The earth's temperature has risen on average of just over one degree over the last century. It may not sound like much, but Dr. Inman says the effects are undeniable. Dr. Doug Inman>> Well, it's quite apparent. The glaciers are temperature-dependent and the temperature dependence means, with an increasing temperature, you're getting much more glacial melt than you would otherwise and that's adding to sea level rise. Sam Louie>> A study by Scripps predicts that, in one hundred years, the sea level will be three feet higher, a phenomenal rate of change with potentially devastating consequences. Public concern with private development led to the California Coastal Act of 1976. The act addresses issues such as access to the beach and wildlife protection. However, it also gives certain property owners the right to protect their homes. The law says that, if you're building a brand new home or business along the ocean, you cannot build a seawall. But if you have an existing structure, you are allowed to build one. However, some believe that the law is being abused. Todd Cardiff is an attorney for the Coast Law Group, an organization that's fighting the seawalls. He's filed more than one hundred lawsuits to stop them from being built in California. Todd Cardiff>> In the last approximately ten years, there have been twenty-two seawall applications in Solano Beach. Sam Louie>> Cardiff says that people get around the law. They build new homes and then wait a few years and claim their home is an existing structure in danger of erosion. As an existing structure, the law allows them to build seawalls. Todd Cardiff>> It's not only Solano Beach that I'm concerned about. It's the entire coast of California. So we have a situation where seawall applications are coming before the Coastal Commission almost on a monthly basis and almost all of them are being granted and we're slowly seeing the wallification of California. Sam Louie>> And the result of seawalls? Narrow beaches. Todd Cardiff>> Where you can't walk during medium tides or high tides and you only get to access the beach during low tides. Sam Louie>> But property owners, like seawalls, are standing firm. Ronald Lucker>> Well, we do have property rights under the Constitution and we have a right to build a wall if it's a necessary thing under the California law and the local law. Sam Louie>> Deborah Lee is with the California Coastal Commission. She's seen plenty of permit requests to build seawalls. Deborah Lee>> The Coastal Act does provide for protection of existing development. Otherwise, in conjunction with new development, we do not support the construction of seawalls or bluff protection walls to accommodate new development. Sam Louie>> But she disagrees that people are exploiting the law. Deborah Lee>> No, I think we're being as rigorous as we can be, based on the technical information that we have available to us, our independent specialist analysis of information, looking at what's, you know, comparable in the immediate area to provide both reasonable development and public safety. Sam Louie>> However, Lee acknowledges that, if the Commission knew then what it knows now, some development would never have been allowed. Deborah Lee>> Fifteen or twenty years ago, the information in the application said development was going to be safe and no seawall would ever be needed, and today it is. Sam Louie>> So what does all of this mean for California's coastline? The city of Solano Beach is considering dramatically raising the fees it charges property owners for building seawalls. It could end up costing homeowners hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's something that environmentalists like Todd Cardiff are supporting, at least tentatively. As for oceanographer, Doug Inman, he sees more seawalls leading to further erosion of our beaches and coastal future. Dr. Doug Inman>> We're now in conflict with individual rights and this is an ongoing debate. Should the individual have the right to protect his property for the next few years at the expense of giving his children and grandchildren a beach to see? Sam Louie>> So how quickly will our ocean's rise? And how hot will it get? After years of dispute, scientists now agree that global warming is a reality. It's no longer a matter of debate. It's a matter of degrees. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> We'd love to hear your opinion of sea level rise and all the people who live along the shore. You can post your opinion on the Life and Times Blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on "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>> It's an appealing message: believe in the Lord and He'll reward you with financial success and wealth. And it's a message that televangelists have been conveying to their congregations for more than a decade now. It is called Prosperity Gospel. Creflo Dollar>> "You have the house, the debt freedom, the deliverance. All that comes as a result of the blessing." Val Zavala>> Televangelist, Creflo Dollar, is just one such preacher. He appears daily on the Trinity Broadcast Network with a message that wealth and faith are intertwined. Creflo Dollar>> "It is the will of God for you to be promoted out of poverty, promoted out of debt, promoted out of lack, promoted out of shortage, promoted. It's promotion time!" Val Zavala>> But other ministers in the black community don't agree with the strong emphasis on material success. This summer at USC, a group of ministers, including Reverend Cecil Murray from First A.M.E. Church, put together a program called "Passing the Mantle". It explores the role that black churches should be playing in today's society. I talked with Reverends Mark Whitlock and Eugene Williams about what they think of Prosperity Gospel. Reverend Eugene Williams>> God did suggest that we would prosper, but He did not suggest that we would prosper only financially. In fact, there's certain scripture that refutes that mindset. We're trying to help clergy to understand that prosperity is not necessarily a financial prosperity, so that's really what we're trying to get people to do is not to focus so narrowly on financial rewards, but on the health, the prosperity of the community of faith and the larger community in which we live, work and worship. Creflo Dollar>> "I want you to get ready because the success rate is about to increase in your life. You know you're not supposed to be on the bottom of the barrel scraping it out." Reverend Eugene Williams>> What we're finding, though, is that there's this false perspective that financial wealth is assured to everyone and that that should be a primary pursuit as opposed to recognizing that all theology takes place within the context of a community. If, for example, your individual congregation is prospering, but the community around that congregation finds itself in poverty of spirit, poverty economically and dysfunctional, then our gospel does not have a whole lot of impact on the community, if you will. Val Zavala>> Does the Prosperity Gospel hold particular lure or attraction to black communities, especially those low-income or poor communities? Reverend Eugene Williams>> I think it holds a degree of attraction to all communities. Everybody wants to be prosperous. Everybody wants to take business principles and use them. If you look at congregations as a market, then you have a very, very different perspective. It's easy to then perceive the parishioners as consumers and you as a producer. I'm a producer of a particular theological perspective. You come to me, I give you what you need to feel good, you buy my product and we have that kind of relationship. Val Zavala>> Reverend Dollar and other Prosperity ministers do more than appear on television. They sell books, tapes, and invite followers to attend conventions across the country. Announcer>> "September 22 at the Oakland Marriott Conference Center Hotel, 1001 Broadway in California." >> "It's a light in my soul because I know what he is saying is coming directly from the Word of God." Val Zavala>> But others say the history of black churches as leaders in the civil rights movement shouldn't be forgotten and there are still pressing social problems for black congregations to take on. Reverend Mark Whitlock>> The church, historically the African Americans, has always looked and looked at the face of the church and seen reality. So we preach with the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The bible offers us an account of what happened two thousand years ago, but in the year 2006, we still have an unemployment rate that's twice the national average, a poverty rate that's twice the national average. We still have fifty percent dropout rates for Latinos and some forty-eight percent for African American kids in high school. We still have disparities in health. We still have a million African American men in prisons or federal prisons and the Latino community is catching up. Val Zavala>> What do you think the message should be within the black community? Reverend Mark Whitlock>> What are you doing to build your community? What have you done to make a difference in the lives of our youths? How are you going to get involved with the political process? With the development process? If you see trash on the street, pick it up. If you see a child that's going the wrong way, stop and talk to him. Let's engage our community. Let's not be so concerned about moving up the corporate ladder that we forget that there's somebody at the bottom rung. Let's talk about this collective village that the African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, the church historically has been that place of safety, that village. I would suggest to the children that you can make it and this is how you make it. Not just that you name it and claim it, but you have to go to the fourth grade and then go to the thirteenth grade and then go to the eighteenth grade and then find a job or start a business. This is how you do it. Not just simply praying to a wonderful God and hoping, boom, you pull a slot machine arm and it happens magically. No, it does not happen magically. You have to work sometimes twelve or fifteen hours a day. You have to meet friends and make those friends meaningful for your life. So, yeah, the church should not only talk about the soul, but it also should talk about the salvation of the soul. I love Carl Bryan. He said, "How do you separate the soul of a saint from the soul of a community in which the saint lives?" Dr. King would say, "You can't. They're inextricably bound." So we not only must prosper within, but we must also prosper without. Val Zavala>> Is that a hard message to sell these days? Reverend Mark Whitlock>> Absolutely. Val Zavala>> Especially in America where everything is me, me, me. Reverend Mark Whitlock>> Absolutely. The snake salesman always attacks the crowd. The magician always attacks the crowd. Anytime I have a handful of gold coins and I throw them out into the crowd, yeah, the next crowd's going to come hoping that they're going to get a handful of gold coins or some snake oil that's going to kill them or heal them. I think we must be real with people. People know that, when you drive down the street, you don't see prosperity particularly in some parts of Los Angeles. You see poverty. So we must speak to that poverty. We should say to them, and we do say to them, that there's hope and hope is in God. But also God gives you life so that you may give new life to your community. Reverend Cecil Murray>> "A good verdict coming down from a good jury. This good verdict that's good for nothing except creating chaos, pitting us against each other, causing us to hate one another. Good for nothing, good for nothing." 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 familiar territory to television watchers. "Miami Vice", the hit 1980s television show created by Michael Mann, has now been made into a feature film written and directed by Michael Mann. Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell star. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor and Jean Oppenheimer of New Times. Peter, what did you think of the film version of "Miami Vice"? Peter Rainer>> Well, it's not anything like the television version. There's not a lot of, you know, Don Johnson in the pink shirts and all that sort of tangerine coloration. This is very sort of dark and relentless. It's very much like a Michael Mann film as opposed to a television series. In that sense, it's both a plus and a minus because what Mann is really good at is flair. I mean, he has a tremendous flair for movie-making. You can sit back and watch a lot of this movie almost as choreography and see the way that various drug deals go down and the double and triple-crossing and the double and triple agents. It's very hard to follow, but it kind of doesn't matter because of all the stuff that's happening in it. So in that sense, it's a first-rate piece of action choreography. But it takes itself so seriously. The whole notion that Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are these messengers from God that are there to, you know, turn the world is so self-serious. There's a romance between Colin Farrell and Gong Li that really is sort of, you know, dead on arrival. So in any sort of self-importance sense, I don't think it works. As a piece of filmmaking, it's exciting. Larry Mantle>> Jean, what did you think of "Miami Vice"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, I never saw the television series, but self series is exactly the phrase that I was going to use. To me, it was a very sort of generic undercover cop story. Now I really like Michael Mann. I mean, some of his films, "The Insider" was just sensational, "Last of the Mohicans" -- Larry Mantle>> -- "Collateral". Jean Oppenheimer>> "Collateral", that's right. But this one, there was nothing really that special. This was a little bit too much of a "Oh, aren't we cool?" It was very slick, it was very fast. Jamie Foxx gets top billing, but actually it's Colin Farrell who has the meatier role. In fact, I think Foxx really gets short shrift in this film. I think that the film is trying to suggest that Colin Farrell's character, Sonny Crockett, is going so deep undercover that he's becoming attracted to that side and is he going to cross over? I think that would have made it very interesting, but I never really got that. I never really saw that on the screen. I never really felt it. So I was probably not quite as high as Peter was on it. Larry Mantle>> Our second film this week is from writer-director, Woody Allen. This time, he returns to the screen himself also pairing up with Scarlett Johansson. Once again, the film "Scoop" is set in London. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Jean, what were your thoughts on "Scoop"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, I think that Woody Allen has returned to fine form. Not superior form, but fine form in this, I guess you'd call it, sort of a comic-suspense-mystery. Now it does borrow rather heavily from "Manhattan Murder Mystery" which was a film he did with Diane Keaton and which is actually a better film. But there was a lot here that I found very entertaining. I particularly liked an early scene, one of the earliest ones, when a recently deceased British journalist who's played by Ian McShane finds himself in a boat that presumably is crossing the River Styx. It turns out that he's dead and there's something wonderfully absurd about that that I really liked. Now for most of the film, I thought it was really just enjoyable and entertaining. The last twenty minutes didn't work for me so well and it really wasn't because the story sent in a direction I didn't like. It just all of a sudden didn't feel new anymore and the last twenty minutes just seemed very predictable. But other than that, I found it very enjoyable. Larry Mantle>> What did you think of "Scoop", Peter? Peter Rainer>> I thought it was fairly enjoyable. It's Woody Allen's second film in a row set in England, predominantly in London, and I think it has sort of a beneficial effect on his movie-making. It's sort of been taking him out of that old rut of, you know, New York settings. It's a very odd movie. It's sort of a cross, I thought, between "Match Point" which was a pretty straightforward thriller, and something like "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion", one of those comedies of his. In fact, he's playing a magician in this film and there are a lot of scenes that seem to be kind of a cross between a drawing room British murder mystery and like a Woody Allen stand-up routine. Since he's in the movie as opposed to "Match Point" as an actor, there's something odd about seeing all this Woody Allen shtick in the middle of all these very huffy, you know, tut-tut Britishers all the time. It's both funny and off-putting. It's like you're watching two different movies, you know, one sort of pasted onto the other. The routines tend to be sort of shopworn by Woody Allen's standards, but it's compelling at the same time. Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, the film that was a huge hit at the Sundance Film Festival, "Little Miss Sunshine". The movie stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell and Toni Collette in a road trip that takes a family from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Well, it was a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival. What did you think of "Little Miss Sunshine", Peter? Peter Rainer>> Well, despite the fact that it was a big hit at Sundance, it's a pretty good movie. That tends to be the kiss of death on many levels. I liked this film a lot. I don't think it's the be all and the end all, world's greatest audience picture ever that people are saying that it is. I think, in some ways, it's like the best Chevy Chase "National Lampoon" family adventure ever made that didn't star Chevy Chase. You know, there are a lot of potty jokes and sort of semi-burlesque humor and scenes in it that, you know, wouldn't be out of place in a film like that. What redeems the movie, I think, is that the performers are all a lot of fun and very much with the movie. Allen Arkin is always a joy to see. Greg Kinnear is terrific and actually somewhat touching in the film. What I didn't like about it so much is that it's a film that kind of argues against this whole culture of winning, the idea that winning is all. That's fine, except the movie itself is such a rockem-sockem, you know, do anything for a laugh kind of film, that look who's calling the kettle black. But it does have a lot of moments where you think it's going in one direction and getting sappy and then there will be a little twirl at the end of the scene to lift you out of it. So definitely worth seeing. Larry Mantle>> Do you agree with that, Jean? Jean Oppenheimer>> Yeah, I think this is an adorable film actually and I think that it succeeds so well because of the characters and really because of the actors, as Peter suggested. I mean, there are a lot of quirky situations. You know, this is a wildly dysfunctional family, but what really makes it work is the actors portraying them. They are able to sort of bring out both humor and pathos, sometimes at the same time. There are just a lot of funny, a lot of touching things. In the wrong hands, whether it was the director or the actors, I think this could have just been, you know, a total misfire. It would have been too cutesy or too broad and maybe just unbelievable, but the cast here really sustains it. I just want to say that top acting honors, to me, go to Toni Collette and I'd like to mention Abigail Breslin, the little girl in it, who is going to give Dakota Fanning a run for her money. Larry Mantle>> Well, that does it for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Jean Oppenheimer of New Times and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. Please join us again next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> You can hear a full hour of FilmWeek Friday mornings at eleven on KPCC public radio. 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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