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Life & Times Transcript

11/01/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Gang violence has taken a sharp rise in the San Fernando Valley, but the numbers don't even begin to tell the story.

Grace Zapata>> They started throwing their gang signs and calling out their gang names and then the shooter pulled out his gun and shot my son four times.

Val Zavala>> And then, billions and billions and billions of stars and they're all ready for their close-up at the new Griffith Observatory.

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.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Val Zavala>> Crime is down in cities across California, but in certain areas like the northeast San Fernando Valley, there's a disturbing trend. Gang violence is up, killing innocent victims and throwing families into mourning. Well, we met one man who's been working in the trenches for years to stem gang warfare. His name is "Blinky" Rodriguez and Jim Hill caught up with him at a community march against violence.

Jim Hill>> Los Angeles police and paramedics raced to Birmingham High School just after classes let out for the day. They rushed a dying sixteen year old boy to the hospital. Witnesses say that Roberts had shot it out with two men who'd asked him what gang he belonged to.

>> I was over there practicing and I heard two gunshots. I run over there and I thought something was going on. So I just kept on doing what I was doing, you know.

Jim Hill>> The mid-September killing was part of a frightening trend in the San Fernando Valley. Gang-related murders are on the rise.

[Film Clip]

Jim Hill>> But the determination to do something about it is also on the rise. Hundreds of people from across the valley marched in late October to speak out against the wave of gang violence. Grace Zapata was there clutching photographs of her sons, David and Miguel. Both were shot and killed in February 2005.

Grace Zapata>> Some gang members approached them and asked them where they were from. My son, Miguel, got up and said, "Temple Street". Then they started throwing their gang signs and calling out their gang names and then the shooter pulled out his gun and shot my son four times.

Jim Hill>> Los Angeles police say thirty-six people have been killed in gang-related violence in the valley by the end of October, on pace to far surpass last year's total.

Michael Moore>> We believe what's happening is that, with the increase in the age group of twelve to eighteen to twenty year olds, that's the demographic there, as those numbers in that group increase, the gangs at the same time are trying to add to their ranks, that there's a recycling or recharging, if you will, of our gangs.

Jim Hill>> A good example festered just a few blocks away. In this neighborhood, the Langdon Avenue gang rules the narrow streets and crowded apartments. Here, people live behind double fences and barbed wire and the gang's graffiti mark fences, walls and sidewalks.

The spike in gang-related homicides has made neighborhoods like this more dangerous at a time when Los Angeles as a whole appears to be getting safer. LAPD crime figures show an eight percent drop in serious felonies compared to this time last year and city-wide homicides are down by five percent.

But gangs in the San Fernando Valley have grown. Five years ago, there were an estimated fifteen thousand gang members. Authorities say that now gang membership has swelled to twenty thousand. Lupe Yuhasz says her two sons died in separate shootings. She says they couldn't resist the peer pressure and the allure of gangs.

Lupe Yuhasz>> They're out there. There's so much recruitment and they do it on the lure. The kids, you know, don't see the final, the outcome. They don't see that you could get killed, you get imprisonment for years and years. It's quite evident out there, quite evident.

Jim Hill>> This teenager says he joined when he was fourteen, but dropped out a year ago.

>> It's a bad thing. You got to go to jail, you know. You get killed. Some of my homies got killed and some are in jail right now.

Jim Hill>> Police say that it's the youngest, newest gang members who are committing most of the serious crimes now as they try to prove themselves and build a reputation.

Michael Moore>> The challenge for us is that these are groups or individuals that we don't have a lot of information on because they've not been in the gang lifestyle for a terribly long time, so our intelligence gathering and our gathering of information on who they are, where they live, who do they associate with, what their activities, our ability to curtail that earlier on is challenged.

>> "Too many moms crying, too many moms kids dying!"

Jim Hill>> Police say that they're working closely with valley neighborhoods literally marching shoulder to shoulder with residents and with workers like William "Blinky" Rodriguez. He's a former champion kick boxer whose son was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1990. He and his wife faced their son's killers in court and forgave them.

Lily Rodriguez>> And everybody thinks, well, how do you do it? You make it look so easy. It's not easy. It's not. I cry a lot. I still miss my son today. He was only sixteen years old. I go forward, I have other sons and now I have grandkids. I just keep going forward and fight the good fight and try and save as many kids as I can.

Jim Hill>> They now run youth programs, embracing the at-risk kids that others push away.

William "Blinky" Rodriguez>> Instead of people running towards this population and trying to engage them and, you know, massage or cajole or persuade, convince, beg, mentor, we run from them. We deem them modern-day lepers. We demonize them, but we want to deal with them.

Jim Hill>> The Rodriguez' have helped organize more than a hundred athletic events like this one. Their softball tournament followed the march and drew teams from valley neighborhoods where gangs hold so much power. But on the field and in the stands, the tensions seem to melt away.

[Film Clip]

Jim Hill>> The fight against gangs, their violence and their influence with young people, has bedeviled Los Angeles for decades. Chief William Bratton acknowledged as much when he talked with Life and Times Val Zavala two months ago about the need for more police.

Chief William Bratton>> Gang injunctions help us to control the behavior of gangs. Enough cops help us to control the behavior of gangs because we can be there to prevent the activities. So in some respects, Los Angeles has been ignoring for fifty years the most obvious solution to its crime problem, which is more police.

Jim Hill>> Marches and ball games surely help too, even if the athletes have to play ball in parks where the graffiti mark gang turf just over the outfield fence. I'm James Hill for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> They're perfect for voters without a lot of time who want reliable, concise and simple explanations of the thirteen ballot measures. The project is called Video Voter by the Center for Governmental Studies. Marc Istook takes a look at Proposition 86, the cigarette tax.

Marc Istook>> Hi, I'm Marc Istook and this is a voter minute on Proposition 86, a constitutional amendment initiative and statute on tobacco taxes. Currently in the state of California, a pack of cigarettes costs about $4.00 and, of that $4.00, $.87 cents of that are taxes approved by California residents. Now that money goes towards things like early childhood development programs, tobacco education and prevention programs and also health care for some of the state's low income residents.

Proposition 86 would add an additional state tobacco tax of $2.60 per pack of cigarettes making the total price per pack about $6.60. The new tax money could be spent only on hospital emergency care, children's health insurance and other health programs. A yes vote on Proposition 86 means you support an additional $2.60 per pack tax on tobacco. A no vote on Proposition 86 means you oppose that additional tax on tobacco.

Supporters argue that this tax increase will cause five hundred thousand adults to stop smoking, keep seven hundred thousand kids from becoming smokers and prevent three hundred thousand deaths. Supporters also say that Proposition 86 will pay for critical health care services and save California about sixteen million dollars in long-term health care costs from smoking-related illnesses.

Opponents, on the other hand, argue that this three hundred percent tax increase is unfair to smokers and will create new crime by making a truckload of stolen cigarettes worth millions of dollars. Opponents say that Proposition 86 is written to benefit hospitals and specific health care programs and that less than ten percent of the Proposition 86 funds are direct services to help smokers quit.

Supporters include the American Cancer Society, California Division; the American Heart Association, Western States Affiliate; and the American Lung Association of California.

Opponents include the California Taxpayers Association; the Association of the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, James G. Knight, M.D., the Past President of the San Diego Medical Society.

Val Zavala>> For similarly short and simple explanations of the other ballot measures, you can go to their website which is videovoter.org.

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 the biggest astronomical image ever, a cosmic panorama more than a hundred fifty feet long, and it's just one of many new exhibits at the Griffith Observatory, the new and improved Griffith Observatory. Paul Vercammen went to check out the big picture.

Paul Vercammen>> Outside the new and improved Griffith Observatory, the star of our solar system, the sun. And inside --

George Djorgovski>> I believe it is physically the largest astronomical image ever produced.

Paul Vercammen>> More than one and a half million celestial objects, stars, galaxies, a comet and more in a permanent exhibit called "The Big Picture".

George Djorgovski>> We are thrilled that people in Los Angeles will be able to come and see us.

Paul Vercammen>> It's a small piece of our nighttime sky blown up to a one hundred fifty two foot long, twenty foot high wall of wonder.

George Djorgovski>> It's actually a real scientific data set which is still being analyzed. It is not an artist's impression. It is the real thing.

Paul Vercammen>> Caltech Professor of Astronomy, George Djorgovski, helps identify the area of sky on display.

George Djorgovski>> What probably strikes your eye most is this nice chain of galaxies. It's called the Markarian's Chain.

Paul Vercammen>> Featuring a cluster of galaxies close to earth in the constellation Virgo. If you want to get a sense for just how big the slice of the sky is that The Big Picture represents, let's do a little interactive television old-school style. Take your index finger and put it about a foot from your face. Now consider everything that you cannot see behind your index finger.

That's what's represented here in The Big Picture. So The Big Picture is reproduced from just one one-thousandth of the sky. We'd only see a few stars with our naked eye, but with each object magnified for us to see, The Big Picture offers spectacular close-ups of galaxies.

George Djorgovski>> This one here is probably the biggest one. It's called M-87 and it's what known as a giant elliptical galaxy. Now you can see that there is something funny going on in the middle. There is a big black hole in there which is shooting out a jet of particles and energy. Look in here. It also emits radio waves and x-rays. This is one of the best studied cases of giant black holes.

Paul Vercammen>> M-87 catches children right at their eye level.

George Djorgovski>> Something else interesting about those galaxies. You see all these little colored dots surrounded which might look like faint stars or fainter galaxies. Many of them are star clusters, each of them containing up to maybe a million stars and they're circling this big outer galaxy. It's a very unusual situation.

Paul Vercammen>> Djorgovski led a team of scientists at the Palomar Observatory that captured the images for The Big Picture over twenty nights on a Quest camera.

George Djorgovski>> So we take pictures which are really long ribbons that could be all night long and they're all taken in different filters and they're combined in computers to make all the pictures like you see.

Paul Vercammen>> The Big Picture is distilled from two hundred gigabytes of raw data.

George Djorgovski>> And to put this in perspective, a gigabyte is roughly the amount of information in two thousand books. We started with over two hundred gigabytes of data to create The Big Picture, ending up with only seven and a half gigabytes. But in any case, this one picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words.

Paul Vercammen>> It's open mouth, jaw-dropping images of spiral galaxies. Here are two galaxies on a collision course.

George Djorgovski>> Here are a pair of galaxies that look a little disturbed and that's because they're about to merge in another billion years or so. These two galaxies will blend together and will become one of those elliptical galaxies.

Paul Vercammen>> As we look at The Big Picture, pick an object sixty-five million light years away, we're gazing back in time. When we talk about sixty-five million light years away, when would that have been on earth? What would this light have been created?

George Djorgovski>> Each and every one of these lights started when dinosaurs were still walking on the earth and humans didn't exist. So this is an eye-blink in the history of the universe.

Paul Vercammen>> To preserve history, The Big Picture was produced under one hundred fourteen panels of porcelain enamel. Tell us about why you put the galaxies and the stars and the other objects on porcelain.

George Djorgovski>> That was a choice made by the Griffith Observatory. They wanted something that will be permanent and lasting. Indeed, this photograph is printed, if you will, using a very special process on porcelain enamel. It will not fade for many decades, maybe in centuries. So when we're all gone and long forgotten and all of the science we have done is forgotten, they'll still be out there and children will admire it.

Paul Vercammen>> And to think about the limitless universe.

George Djorgovski>> Many people ask, "Do you think there are other creatures out there?" I'll say, "Probably, yes." They may have their own big picture in which there is a Milky Way Galaxy and looking at the pictures just like they're from their planet and asking the same question.

Our sun is a star in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are about a hundred or two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way and most of them now we know have planets. There are about a hundred billion galaxies in all of these variable universes. That's a fairly large number of planets. I would say chances are pretty good that there is life out there.

Paul Vercammen>> That's The Big Picture's star quality, to make us wonder about the evolving past, present and future. I'm Paul Vercammen for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> And you can get a more complete look at the new Griffith Observatory from Huell Howser. He has a one-hour special that airs tomorrow night at eight right here on KCET.

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>> Halloween is not just about costumes and candy. In the Latino community, the Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, just wouldn't be the same without a certain kind of bread. Well, I wanted to find out what this Day of the Dead bread was all about, so I went to one of the oldest and best-known bakeries in East Los Angeles.

It's called Mascota, named after a small town in Mexico. The bakery was started back in 1953 by this man's father. Today the hard-working and friendly owner, Ed Salcedo, keeps the operation running smoothly. At this time of year, they'll sell hundreds of these, skull-shaped bread and spider rolls called oblano. Each one is hand-made and I got a personal demonstration from Ed himself.

Ed Salcedo>> Okay, you turn it on and then you mix it. See? It's already set.

Val Zavala>> How long does it have to go on like this?

Ed Salcedo>> It takes about half an hour to incorporate like this.

Val Zavala>> Wow. Do you ever get your hand caught in there?

Ed Salcedo>> (Laughter) No.

Val Zavala>> Wow. Did you ever see that movie, "The Blob"? Did you ever see that? That's what this reminds me of (laughter).

[Film Clip]

Ed Salcedo>> That's a small and that's a medium.

Val Zavala>> And you do it the old-fashioned way?

Ed Salcedo>> Mexican bakeries do not have automation.

Val Zavala>> So it's still measured out by hand?

Ed Salcedo>> Oh, yeah.

Val Zavala>> Okay. Then what do you do?

Ed Salcedo>> Okay. Then we get the dough and it practically shapes it all by itself.

Val Zavala>> Oh, it's like an automatic rolling pin.

Ed Salcedo>> Uh-huh. That way, you don't have to be rolling it with a pin or anything.

Val Zavala>> The name of Mascota comes from a small town in Mexico where Ed's father was born. There's a poster of Mascota near the bakery's front door.

Ed Salcedo>> I remember when I was a little boy, the boys walked one way and the girls walked another way.

Val Zavala>> Oh, in the plaza.

Ed Salcedo>> Yeah. And then the orchestra played here. It was really, really nice.

Val Salcedo>> Okay, back to our baking.

Ed Salcedo>> So we shape it what we want to make it into. So we'll shape the eyes, nose and mouth. So we just get it.

Val Zavala>> This is going to be a skull?

Ed Salcedo>> The skull head, yeah.

Val Zavala>> Skull head. How do you say skull in Spanish?

Ed Salcedo>> Calavera. This one is the body. Then we make the head and then we make the body.

Val Zavala>> How old were you when you made your first one?

Ed Salcedo>> Oh, I was eight years old. I used to come with my dad.

Val Zavala>> You've been doing this since you were eight?

Ed Salcedo>> Oh, yeah.

Val Zavala>> Oh, his arms are folded like he's in a coffin or something?

Ed Salcedo>> Right.

Val Zavala>> Ed's father came to the United States when he was only eighteen. He seemed to have been born with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Ed Salcedo>> Because he was an orphan at eleven years old, so he went from town to town. Then when he was eighteen, he wanted to come to the United States because of the wars that were over there. He legalized himself over here when he was eighteen years old. In 1953, he founded the bakery.

Val Zavala>> Today, Ed has children of his own, but baking is not in their future. Ed says they all have careers of their own, so it's up to him and other family members to keep the shelves stocked and the orders filled. The bodies and skulls are accompanied by a third popular item: spiders.

Ed Salcedo>> Then we make these round like that and we shape these like five feet.

Val Zavala>> Five feet.

Ed Salcedo>> Okay. Then we do it and shape it with your fingers.

Val Zavala>> These are spiders or spider webs?

Ed Salcedo>> Well, really this is what they call the poblana.

Val Zavala>> What does that mean?

Ed Salcedo>> Well, it's a bread that they eat all the time. This is the decoration that you use for the second of November. That's a spider on top of something. Do you want to try one?

Val Zavala>> Yeah. I just go like this?

Ed Salcedo>> Like this, and then you --

Val Zavala>> -- I have to make it longer first.

Ed Salcedo>> And then in the middle, you make one.

Val Zavala>> I go like that -- oops.

Ed Salcedo>> Then you put --

Val Zavala>> -- how come yours got -- mine's too flat.

Ed Salcedo>> You have to put your fingers into it or else you won't --

Val Zavala>> -- got it. I see -- oh!

Ed Salcedo>> Looks easy, huh?

Val Zavala>> Got it. Mine keeps shrinking back. Use your fingers to stretch it out and dig in, right? Oh, my spider got amputated (laughter). Oh, well. Then it's into an oven big enough to walk in. It can hold thirty trays at a time and, in about ten minutes, voila.

Ed Salcedo>> If it bounces back up, that means it's done. If it flattens down, then it's not done.

Val Zavala>> So they're done, right? Oh, no. Still a couple of steps to go and it involves calories. This is just sugar water?

Ed Salcedo>> Yes, with cinnamon.

Val Zavala>> With cinnamon, okay. It's flavored or it helps keep the bread fresh?

Ed Salcedo>> No, no, no. The whole flavor is cinnamon. We grind our own cinnamon.

Val Zavala>> Grind your own cinnamon?

Ed Salcedo>> Oh, yeah. Stick your palm out.

Val Zavala>> Oh, that's good. Holy cow! More sugar?

Ed Salcedo>> Oh, yeah.

Val Zavala>> You're right. This is not for dieters. Forget it. If you're on the Atkins Diet, forget it. (Laughter) That looks like a snowman.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> When I asked Ed Salcedo how many of these he would make for Day of the Dead, he didn't have an answer. Basically, too many to count.

Ed Salcedo>> And then we'll really make them --

Val Zavala>> -- because you don't have enough sugar, you're going to add a little more sugar, right?

Ed Salcedo>> Right, make a bloody mess out of it.

Val Zavala>> What do they say in Spanish? Hecho?

Ed Salcedo>> Hecho.

Val Zavala>> Hecho. Done. Finally, they're ready for the familiar pink boxes. But after all this work, these loaves will never see the inside of a stomach. They have another mission to fulfill. This is a most unusual alter exhibit. It's a Self Help Graphics, a community art center in East Los Angeles. Creating alters to honor one's ancestors is a deep tradition for Day of the Dead and this is where the loaves of Ed Salcedo's bread will find a special place.

The Self Help Gallery is full of untraditional alters. This one, for example, is in memory of abandoned babies. This one is a tribute to the dwindling rainforests. This one is for the women who have been murdered in Las Cruces, and this one to the gods of water, all created by local artists for Day of the Dead celebrations.

This is the thirty-third year that Self Help Graphics will be celebrating Day of the Dead. It's the longest-standing celebration in Los Angeles. For details, you can go to their website at selfhelpgraphics.com.

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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