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Life & Times Transcript
10/25/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Celebrities are making waves. Should a gas terminal be built off the coast of Malibu? Kathi Hann>> We only produce thirteen percent of our gas and we can no longer rely on our other sources. Pierce Brosnan>> What they're attempting to do hasn't been done before in these waters and not on such a large scale as this. Val Zavala>> And then, it's called "Golden States of Grace". A new exhibit chronicles how faith can flourish in the face of adversity. 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. With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Val Zavala>> Just mention the word offshore, as in offshore oil rigs or offshore drilling, and you're bound to get a response in southern California. Well, now the latest idea is to build a floating natural gas terminal off the coast of Oxnard and that's got a response from, among others, some Hollywood celebrities. But do we need it and are they safe? Sam Louie has our story. Sam Louie>> Oxnard, California, sixty miles up the coast from Los Angeles, is known for its rich farmland and small town atmosphere, but it's off the coast of Oxnard where a proposal is stirring up a controversy. That's where an Australian energy company wants to build the first offshore liquefied natural gas terminal in the United States. It's enough to bring out a contingent of Hollywood celebrities determined to stop it, but more on that later. First, just what is liquefied natural gas, otherwise known as LNG? LNG is natural gas cooled to an extremely low temperature, minus two hundred sixty degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, the gas turns into a clear, colorless and odorless liquid. Lieutenant Commander Peter Gooding is with the United States Coast Guard. Lieutenant Commander Peter Gooding>> It's cooled for the reason so that it can be shipped long distances over the ocean. It's similar to taking a beach ball size of natural gas and converting it to a ping pong ball size of natural gas so that you can efficiently ship it. Kathi Hann>> Well, this is what Cabrillo Port will look like once it's built. Sam Louie>> Kathi Hann is with BHP Billiton, the company that wants to build the offshore LNG plant. Kathi Hann>> We only produce thirteen percent of our gas and we can no longer rely on our other sources. Sam Louie>> They're calling the project Cabrillo Port. She showed us a model of the terminal which, if approved, will be built fourteen miles off the coast. Kathi Hann>> Cabrillo Port will be using proven technology, state of the art technology. BHP Billiton has been operating offshore facilities for about four decades now, including floating petroleum storage operations. The technology is the same that's used around the world. Sam Louie>> The offshore LNG terminal will allow LNG tankers like this one to transport liquefied natural gas from overseas and unload it at sea, but BHP Billiton has some high-profile opposition. Pierce Brosnan>> "We cannot let this project be approved." Sam Louie>> Recently, some Hollywood celebrities got into the act. They held a rally in Malibu to express their objection to the offshore terminal. Pierce Brosnan>> What they're attempting to do hasn't been done before in these waters and not on such a large scale as this. There's a great concern for the community that something could go wrong." Daryl Hannah>> An LNG plant right here off the coast of California is just the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. It's like a bomb waiting to go off. Cindy Crawford>> But I guess mostly just the actual quality of the water and the marine life because I have children working in the ocean. We're down at the beach. You know, that's why we moved out here. To have that possibly endanger this, well, it's scary. Sam Louie>> Susan Jordan is the Director of the California Coastal Protection Network. She sees the offshore LNG terminal as a huge potential terrorist target. Susan Jordan>> These are definitely targets. There's no question about that. It's really a massive, floating industrial factory and that's how you have to think about it. It's three football fields long, it's fourteen stories high. There's nothing like it sitting off the California coast. Sam Louie>> So just how dangerous would an offshore LNG terminal be? That is the crux of the debate. Over the past few decades, there have been several LNG-related fatalities. The most recent happened in 2004 when twenty-seven people were killed in an explosion in Algeria. Supporters of an LNG offshore terminal here in Oxnard say that, if this is built, it would meet the strictest of standards, ensuring the safety of the local communities. Billiton says that being fourteen miles offshore would greatly reduce potential hazards. Kathi Hann>> There have been various independent reviews of the safety associated with Cabrillo Port. The worst case scenario would be between two to seven miles of impact around Cabrillo Port in the event of a worst case scenario. This is still fourteen miles from shore, so there will be absolutely no impact to populations whatsoever. Sam Louie>> A computerized graphic simulation demonstrates how the terminal would work. LNG tankers would arrive and the liquefied natural gas would be transferred from the tankers to the floating terminal. Kathi Hann>> It's brought over in our carriers. We'll turn it back to natural gas at our facility far offshore and then send the natural gas through underwater pipelines to shore. Sam Louie>> And just how much do we need natural gas? The state's energy commission estimates that seventy percent of our heating is from natural gas. Natural gas is also used for cooking and as a popular energy source for many electrical power plants. It's also considered more plentiful and less polluting than oil. In recent years, the liquefied form has been used as a fuel for vehicles, heavy-duty trash trucks and buses. But what are the risks? Can natural gas explode? Not when it's a liquid. It can only explode in the gas form if it's accidentally released and ignited into the air. Lieutenant Commander Peter Gooding>> There could not be an explosion from the LNG re-gasification process. There could be a fire from the natural gas if LNG were to spill and be heated up. It would burn a very hot fire. Sam Louie>> With an offshore LNG terminal, there are also concerns of an impact on the environment and marine life. Lieutenant Commander Peter Gooding>> There is a pipeline that would be laid on the ocean seabed which could have impact to the fishing business and could have impact to the underwater terrain. Sam Louie>> Susan Jordan with the Coastal Protection Network says that it's very unsettling that BHP Billiton is trying to literally test the waters of LNG in California. Susan Jordan>> You can't go to BHP Billiton and say to them, "Please take me to one that you've built, you know, in another country so that I can see what your problems were when you were installing it. How does it operate? You know, what's your safety record?" This is a clean slate. Sam Louie>> The company hasn't built and doesn't operate an offshore LNG site, but officials say they have plenty of experience with other types of offshore plants. Back at the rally, organizers flipped pancakes and are hoping this proposal will get overturned by Governor Schwarzenegger. Susan Jordan>> The power really rests ultimately with the governor, okay? All the governor has to do is go like this. All he has to do is take that pen and say "I veto this proposal" and this proposal goes away. Sam Louie>> And with just months remaining before a final decision is made, opponents may feel like they're swimming upstream. Nevertheless, with Hollywood stars on their side, they're hoping they can rewrite the script to this controversial story line. 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>> When you think of the gay rights movement, you probably think of New York and San Francisco. But you may not realize that Los Angeles was also a crucial battlefront in the gay rights movement even before the Stonewall riot. Now there's a new book on the history of gay Los Angeles co-authored by Stuart Timmons. Vicki Curry talked with him about the surprising impact gays and lesbians have had on Los Angeles culture and politics. Vicki Curry>> Stuart Timmons, in your book that you co-authored with Lillian Faderman, you look at the history of gay life in Los Angeles. How far back does that history go? Stuart Timmons>> To the very beginning. In fact, probably the oldest records about any gay people in the United States were recorded in the 1540s by Spanish explorers who came out west to southern California and noticed Native Americans in cross-dress, which was part of their culture. They had a more accepting system of dealing with gay and lesbian people. We pick up the trail really in the turn of the century around the 1880s. I found numerous legal cases where men were prosecuted for the so-called infamous crime against nature. There was so much gay life where people dressed up in drag that the Los Angeles City Council in 1898 passed a city ordinance against wearing the clothes of the opposite sex. Vicki Curry>> You argue that Los Angeles has done more than any other city in the United States to pioneer modern gay life. How so? Stuart Timmons>> Many organizations and institutions started in Los Angeles long before they were taken up in New York or San Francisco. The first gay organization that was a national gay rights group started in Los Angeles in 1950. It was called the Mattachine Society. Within ten years, there was a gay newspaper called One Magazine. It was distributed on newsstands all across the country. There was a church started in Los Angeles called the Metropolitan Community Church which is now not only nationwide, but worldwide. It's the largest gay and lesbian faith organization in the world. There was a newspaper started called the Advocate which is now the largest and most famous gay and lesbian news source. Vicki Curry>> Speaking of publishing, the first gay publication was here in Los Angeles, right? Stuart Timmons>> Yes. Vice Versa was started in 1948 by a woman known by the pen name of Lisa Ben, which is an anagram for "lesbian". The community was so small, but so tight-knit that Vice Versa was written on a typewriter. On carbon paper, she would type up six copies so there were twelve in all and those would be circulated through the few lesbian bars that existed in Los Angeles at the time, but hundreds if not thousands of women read Vice Versa and got a sense that there was a much bigger community than they had originally thought. Vicki Curry>> Another first out of Los Angeles was the first Supreme Court decision regarding gay issues. Stuart Timmons>> Basically, there had been several lower court decisions at the local and state level that had ruled that One Magazine was obscene simply because it talked in the most bland and innocuous ways about the emergence of a gay population, the struggles and gay life of gay people. The Supreme Court, when it looked at the evidence, reversed the lower court decisions and declared that this wasn't necessary obscene. It was a huge impact and it came out of Los Angeles. Vicki Curry>> One of the first that I found interesting was that the first gay political action committee was here in Los Angeles. Stuart Timmons>> That was known as the MECLA, the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles. It was founded in the mid-1970s by a group of Los Angeles activists. They started donating small amounts, a few hundred or a couple of thousand dollars, to politicians, but no politician ever turns down a donation or a microphone. Within just a few years, they were known as having changed the face of politics in this city and eventually became a model for how to do this around the country. Vicki Curry>> Stonewall is considered a significant event in the history of gay activism in America, but there were some events here in Los Angeles that happened before that that were precursors. Stuart Timmons>> The Stonewall riot, as it's called, was a rebellion in New York City in June of 1969 against a police raid and it became a huge media event and this started an awful lot of activism. But the year before that in 1968, there had been a raid in a club in Los Angeles called The Patch. The owner of the bar, Lee Glaze, protested and led a huge contingent to go down to the LAPD station. It was a major news event because gay people realized that you could actually organize and respond. The year before that in January of 1967, just actually minutes after New Year's, there was a bar raid here in Silverlake at a place called The Black Cat on Sunset Boulevard. When the cops came down, there was such a response from the community that there were hundreds of people outside the bar day after day for quite a while really making an enormous and unheard of gay protest. Vicki Curry>> That's a thread that runs throughout your book, the role of the Los Angeles Police Department. Stuart Timmons>> There was something of a war between the LAPD and the gay community, particularly men. It was illegal to be gay at that point. If you were caught in a bar that was known as a gay bar, you would become a registered sex offender just for being in a gay bar. Any kind of social touching, including holding hands or simply dancing was illegal and there were constant raids on bars and arrests of individuals who were what we could call garden variety gay guys today. Vicki Curry>> Why is it that Los Angeles has always had a strong gay community? Stuart Timmons>> Los Angeles has such a huge population and also has so many affluent sectors to it. You know, aerospace engineering used to be, you know, enormous here. The entertainment industry always has been that the available resources to fund projects has really been unprecedented. Even before that, Los Angeles, somewhat like San Francisco, was the city at the edge of the country. That sense of freedom where you could live in sunny weather and discover your own life was always an attraction to anyone who moved to Los Angeles and, for gay people, it was particularly profound. Vicky Curry>> Why do you think it is that Los Angeles hasn't been recognized for its contributions the way, say, New York or San Francisco has? Stuart Timmons>> There was a tradition in Los Angeles, also coming from the film industry, where you would have perhaps very progressive politics, but a somewhat more moderate façade and public face. There weren't that many people wanting to be out front, but there were people willing to support those activists who were and that helped Los Angeles develop a lot of these institutions. Vicki Curry>> Stuart Timmons, co-author of "Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians", thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Stuart Timmons>> Thank you. 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>> Is there really a God for prostitutes and drug dealers? Well, in fact, there is. Prostitutes, drug dealers and others on the edge of the society often have deep spiritual beliefs that we're completely unaware of. Well, now that spiritual life is coming to light at the Fullerton Museum through the work of photographer, Rick Nahmias. Inside, you'll find fifty-five remarkable images of unusual spiritual communities, each one out of the mainstream on the edges of society, such as the world's only transgender gospel choir, Zen Buddhist inmates in San Quentin, a former con man, drug addict and thief who's now a Rabbi helping others recover. But the most controversial subject by far is this woman. Rick Nahmias>> I'm standing next to a photograph of a transsexual Latina sex worker who is devoted to the folk deity, Santisima Muerte. Yajahira began prostituting herself at the age of twelve, which was about the same time she began praying to Santisima Muerte. It's also a deity whom is seen by the poor, especially in Latin American countries and Mexico, who protects those in difficult professions, drug dealers, policemen, prostitutes. They are very much aware that they're on their own. They're on their own as immigrants. Most of them are here illegally. They're on their own as prostitutes. They're on their own as transsexuals. I mean, how many more marks against you can you have? So if you find a deity who welcomes that, embraces that and protects that, you're going to embrace it. Val Zavala>> Rick Nahmias studied religion at NYU and was intrigued by the strength that it lends people who are barely hanging on. He worked on this project for ten years, looking for the spiritual communities and gaining their trust. He only photographed them if the whole group approved. Rick Nahmias>> This is a portrait of Juan and Jose who are a pair of blind and deaf brothers who are members of the University Deaf Branch of the Mormon Church down in San Diego. Val Zavala>> Both brothers are blind and deaf? Rick Nahmias>> Both brothers, yeah. So they're not able to see any of the signing that's going on or hear any of the other things, so all the communication these two gentlemen get is through their hands. They were the only disinherited community that I found that was wholly embraced by the institution of the religion they were part of. Meaning that the Church of Latter Day Saints, twenty or thirty years ago, created a branch specifically for deaf Mormons. They were ahead of their time with this and they basically realized that the disabilities were preventing these people who were hearing impaired of enjoying and completely getting involved with the Mormon community and Mormon life. Val Zavala>> This man is a Muslim in Orange County. He's part of a tiny Islamic sect called the Cham from Cambodia. A third of them were wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, mostly from starvation. Fifteen surviving families settled in an apartment building in Santa Ana. This beautiful girl is a part of a new generation of a dying culture. Rick Nahmias>> The Cham culture and language is near extinct. The sad thing is, though, that the elders have resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to lose it because the kids are just bombarded every day with a different culture. If they've got the attention span to teach the kids one thing, they want to teach them the faith. They've learned that the culture, unfortunately, has to take a second back seat to it. There's a striking humility and graciousness about these people that was overwhelming to me. They were so humble at times that they didn't even know that they were being photographed or how to react with a camera. Val Zavala>> Rick calls this section of the exhibit "The Wall of Redemption". Rick Nahmias>> This specific group of incarcerated individuals and recovering addicts are people who, through their own actions, became disinherited and are trying to find a way back to their own spiritual equilibrium, if you will. Val Zavala>> This woman killed someone in a love triangle. She's serving her third decade behind bars. At the time of her conviction, laws were less sympathetic to abused women. Rick Nahmias>> She was physically and emotionally abused in a three-way triangle and she has been up for parole, I think it's now fourteen times, and been turned down every single time. Although she was found fit by the Board of Corrections, the governor in every case turned her down. They're part of a group, the third portrait being Harriett who was an upper middle class white woman who was dealing with, you know, fraud or embezzlement. They come from very different backgrounds, but they're all part of this group that the Sister Suzanne Leeds called Women of Wisdom. She has this amazing sense of energy, this complete lack of judgment which is something I so admire. As someone who works as a documentary photographer, you do find yourself at times getting snagged on your own judgments. What she brings to the table is incredibly inspirational. I left finding that the incarcerated communities were one of the most moving and personally charged things. I think part of that is that they can't leave at the end of the day. All the people that I have in this show may not have full use of their bodies. They may have come from really hideous pasts. But they have the freedom to use their legs and get up and move to another place. These people in incarceration, I think, come to spirituality in a whole different way because they are locked into a physical place. Val Zavala>> In Santa Rose, north of San Francisco, Rick found Native Americans who were beginning to reclaim their culture. This was taken at their annual Acorn Festival. Rick Nahmias>> Their Tribal Chairman, Greg Sarris, is a well-known California Native American writer. He has a great way of understanding and defining it. He says, "The earth is their bible." I think that speaks volumes as far as what the earth and every stone and every leaf and every river means to them and the stories which it has absorbed and which is given back to them. Val Zavala>> The name of the exhibit is "States of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited", but Rick says that it could have simply been called "Everybody Prays". Rick Nahmias>> More and more now today, I think, since we've really been divided by politics and religious right and fundamentalisms, these people are even more marginalized than they were six or eight years ago. If anything, I'm just hoping that people come to see this work with an open enough mind to realize, yes, it doesn't matter where you fall on the board game of life, you too have to grapple with a higher power somewhere and sometime in your life. It's going to happen. Val Zavala>> There is also a CD of music and voices behind the faces that you can listen to as you walk through the gallery. There's a speaker series featuring religious leaders, scholars and some of the people in the photographs. For information, you can go to their website at cityoffullerton.com/depts/museum. The exhibit is up through January 14. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> 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. With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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