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Life & Times Transcript
2/8/07 Coverage of Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company. Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Horse owners versus a grocery chain, a showdown out of the old west. Is there room in this town for both of them? Roman Gora>> If this project is approved, it's the beginning of the end of the Rancho. Michael Besancon>> There are people who just resist any kind of change. They don't like change. Val Zavala>> And then, do these disturbing images feed into the plans of Middle East terrorists? A human rights activist says we may be our own worst enemy. 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 a one-of-a-kind neighborhood where city dwellers can actually keep horses in their own back yards. It's in Burbank, but now this equestrian paradise is shrinking and the latest threat is coming from the Whole Foods grocery chain. Hena Cuevas tells us what happens when horse lovers clash with Whole Foods. Hena Cuevas>> It's home to major movie studios such as Disney and Warner Bros., but the city of Burbank is more than just a media center. It's also home to a unique neighborhood. The Burbank Rancho, or Rancho for short, is one of the few urban areas in the nation where people can keep horses in their back yards. Marva-Lea Kornblatt is a long-time resident and horse owner. She's had Red for seventeen years. Marva-Lea Kornblatt>> "How you doing, big guy?" Hena Cuevas>> But over time, she's seen this equestrian community shrink. Marva-Lea Kornblatt>> The Rancho that you see today is a remnant of what used to exist through this portion of Burbank that abuts Griffith Park. Hena Cuevas>> But now, horses like Red are getting in the way of a proposed new development. Whole Foods Market is the largest retailer of organic and natural foods with more than a hundred sixty stores in North America. It ranks high on Fortune Magazine's list of best companies to work for with a reputation for social and environmental awareness. Now the grocery chain wants to build a big new store on the corner of Alameda and Main right in the middle of horse territory, and that has caused a deep rift in the community. The history of the Burbank Rancho neighborhood is closely tied to that of Griffith Park. In the early 1900s, when the Griffith family donated these lands to the city of Los Angeles, it did so with deed restrictions that would preserve the park for equestrian use. But there's been so many threats to the horse-owning lifestyle of the neighborhoods around it that, in 1995, residents got together and drafted what they called the Rancho Master Plan. Michael Hastings says the Whole Foods project complies with the Master Plan. Hastings is a former mayor of Burbank. He's also a long-time resident of the Rancho and a consultant for the developer. Michael Hastings>> This is a great benefit for this community. I would not stand behind something like this if I felt this is going to be a detriment not to just to my neighborhood, but to the community as a whole. Hena Cuevas>> But last October, there were enough questions raised that the Planning Board rejected the project, so the developer appealed and took his case all the way to City Hall. On February 6, residents poured into the Council chambers. There were so many people that most of them had to wait outside. The meeting began with a presentation by the development team. >> "Tonight we're here to request that you reverse the decision of the Planning Board and approve this worthwhile project." Hena Cuevas>> Then, one by one, people on both sides of the issue came to the microphone and there was no shortage of strong opinions. >> "If they want to build something on that property, let them build it according to what we said they can build." >> "Don't let them come in and ask for variances and do things that aren't fair." >> "I'm wholeheartedly in favor of Whole Foods at this location. I am not afraid of Whole Foods in this location. I am not afraid of the traffic. It's one market, really, honestly." Hena Cuevas>> The meeting lasted until three o'clock in the morning. Roman Gora>> Everyone that I know that's against this project is against the way the land is being used. Nobody is against, for example, Whole Foods. Hena Cuevas>> Roman Gora and his wife Anna have lived in the Rancho for fifteen years. Indy is their horse. They say the biggest problem that Whole Foods would create is more traffic. Roman Gora>> So it's already a problem. The concern is to make sure we maintain the growth. We don't want it to be over-built. We don't want to continue to have problems with additional traffic and becoming concerned about our safety for ourselves and our neighborhood. Hena Cuevas>> Part of the problem is getting to the horse trails in nearby Griffith Park. Riders have to take their animals through city streets. The more traffic, the greater the danger. Just recently, a horse was involved in a minor accident near that intersection. Marva-Lea Kornblatt>> I just want to ride my horse down Main Street. That's all I want, safely, safely. Hena Cuevas>> A new Whole Foods Market would add an estimated five thousand additional car trips along Main and Alameda. Roman Gora>> Now you're going to mix horses with cars that are coming in and out of this big huge project mixed with cars, horses and bicycling and pedestrians and kids going in this one Main Street coming in and out. That's disastrous. I mean, that's irresponsible not to at least factor that into the equation, okay? Hena Cuevas>> That's already a very busy intersection, so what's the problem with just adding another business to it? Roman Gora>> You just answered the question. It's already a busy intersection, so why add more cars to it? Hena Cuevas>> But Michael Hastings says the area can handle it. Michael Hastings>> Can this neighborhood take that kind of traffic? Can this neighborhood absorb that kind of service? Yes, because history has proven that. It will not be this detrimental doom and gloom with traffic lined up for miles. Hena Cuevas>> According to Hastings, the store would be almost sixty thousand square feet. That's roughly the size of this Whole Foods in Glendale. So how about scaling down the size of the store and building a smaller one like this Whole Foods in Sherman Oaks? Michael Hastings>> If we build a five thousand or ten thousand square foot smaller store, would less people come? I don't think so. Would we have less parking? Yes, we would, so we would not be able to accommodate the number of people coming here. Hena Cuevas>> And how does Whole Foods respond to all of this? Michael Besancon is the west coast representative for Whole Foods. He says their smaller store is not in line with the food chain's new approach to retail sales. Michael Besancon>> If this doesn't give the consumer what they're looking for in that particular market to deliver the product, we have to have that size of store. Hena Cuevas>> He says that Whole Foods is all about the experience. Michael Besancon>> To get it small enough to make a difference, which means limiting our business, why do we want to do that? The bottom line is that I only want to be there if the majority of the community wants us to be there. Hena Cuevas>> And Hastings points out that a larger store also means more revenue for Burbank's coffers. Michael Hastings>> I mean, you've got to have commercial to support your infrastructure. You can't keep building parks. You know, you've got to have revenue generating into that general fund that enhances your quality of life. This is one of those uses. Hena Cuevas>> But resident Gora says that it's precisely their quality of life that's at stake. Roman Gora>> The benefit here is that we're going to have a Whole Foods ten minutes or fifteen minutes closer than going to Glendale or Sherman Oaks. Okay, that's a benefit for somebody who doesn't want to drive the extra distance. But what's the cost? The cost is you're going to change permanently the neighborhood. Hena Cuevas>> And that's their biggest fear. As more and more development comes in, someone someday will eventually say -- Marva-Lea Kornblatt>> The horses don't belong there. Says who? Says who? I've had a horse on this property my whole life. I'd bet you could find people that have done it longer than I have. Roman Gora>> We've heard that, well, there's not that many horses. It doesn't matter. One horse could be injured. A person could be killed. It doesn't matter if there are fifty horses or two horses. The fact is, it's a zoned area for horses and they do cross that area. >> "This is not a dangerous development. It's safe and well-planned as a development." Hena Cuevas>> So where does the project stand? At the end of that long meeting, the Burbank City Council asked for additional changes and scheduled another meeting for February 20. Michael Besancon>> If the majority of the community doesn't want us there, then we'll look for an alternate location. It may be another ten years before we find one. Hena Cuevas>> Both sides will get another chance to go head to head with the developer arguing that Whole Foods is a healthy addition to the neighborhood and horse lovers intent on stopping it or at least reining in a national grocery chain that wants to do business in Burbank. I'm Hena Cuevas 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>> The United States has been fighting a war against terrorism ever since 9/11 and the question is, are we safer today than we were five years ago? Well, if you ask the head of Amnesty International USA, the answer is clearly no. Not only that, but America's reputation as a defender of human rights has degraded across the world. Larry Cox is Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. The human rights watchdog group has won the Nobel Prize. He spoke at Town Hall Los Angeles and says that the Bush administration's most egregious violation of human rights is happening at Guantanamo Bay. Larry Cox>> Guantanamo Bay has become, unfortunately, the face of America and much of the world. People see people being held for years, for up to five years, without charges, without detention. It was Archbishop Tutu of South Africa who said that he never thought he would live to see the day when the United States would make the same arguments that the Apartheid government made to justify detention without trial. Yet, that's what we're doing in Guantanamo. Yet we know that many of the people being held in Guantanamo are probably totally innocent of any charges. They're people who were picked up in Afghanistan. There was a bounty offered. You got a certain amount of money if you turned somebody over to us. We know that many of these people are innocent because we've let hundreds of them go free, unfortunately, only after having held them in horrible conditions for years and years. Val Zavala>> Now the United States Supreme Court stepped in and reined in the power of the White House regarding the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Did that not help correct the impression? Larry Cox>> Well, it gave us an opportunity to correct it, but unfortunately, the Congress then stepped in and blew the opportunity. Basically, the Military Commission Act of 2006 ratified the same practices that the president had been demanding that it ratify. That has been, you know, way even worse because now it's the whole United States Congress and therefore all of us, all of who are citizens, are being told that we have the responsibility for these violations. Val Zavala>> But you've also looked at the execution of Saddam Hussein and you have human rights issues there as well that may not be so obvious to Americans. What's your perception? Larry Cox>> By executing him the way that we did, we actually did something that I felt was impossible. We managed to turn one of the cruelest tyrants in human history into something of a martyr to make it look like he was somehow heroic and that we were barbaric. That's because the death penalty, no matter how you use it, is such an ugly thing when you have to look at it. The whole world looked at his execution and saw that it wasn't dignified. It wasn't noble. It was ugly and sordid and that made Saddam Hussein look good. So on every front, it was a huge setback. Val Zavala>> Why do you say "we"? Because many people say, well, that was an international court and the execution was conducted by Iraqis. Larry Cox>> Yes, but there's no doubt that the United States had a tremendous amount of influence and the United States was in favor of seeing Saddam Hussein brought to justice in this way. We didn't speak out against it. We didn't say that this was wrong. We didn't say it was wrong to do it the way it was done. In the end, at the end of the day, we said, well, this wasn't as dignified as we would like. The truth is that the deliberate killing of a human being is almost never dignified, cannot be dignified. So I say "we" in the broadest sense of the word. Val Zavala>> Now a lot of Americans will shrug their shoulders and say, well, that's just the price of fighting terrorism. But maybe we don't have the same perception of these policies as the people in the Middle East do or those abroad? Larry Cox>> Well, my main concern and the main concern of Amnesty are those people who have been fighting for human rights who are fighting both against terrorism carried out by private groups, but also terror carried out by their own governments. Those are the people that have really been undermined by what the United States is doing. They are the ones who are hurt because it now looks as if human rights is simply something that the United States, for example, uses when it's convenient and disregards when it's not convenient. It's done tremendous damage to the idea of human rights, which is that it should apply to every government including the United States of America. Incidentally, just to add one more thing, our concern is also that it's not an effective way to fight terror. In fact, the abuses that you mentioned at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have become almost like a recruitment poster for terrorists all over the world. If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd be extremely pleased to see the United States demonstrating to the world that it is no different from those who use terror in other ways. So we need to make a distinction between what terrorists do, which is terrible and horrific and should be fought, and the way that we act, which is based on a different set of values. That's what we've muddied up by carrying out the violation of human rights. Val Zavala>> Do you think it is possible, though, to really crack down, to weed out terrorists, wherever they may be without stepping on some of our more traditional rights to some extent? Larry Cox>> I think it's not only possible, but I think it's the only effective way to do it. I think once you go down the slippery slope of starting to violate human rights in the name of fighting terror, the distinction between what you're fighting and you begins to be blurred. That's exactly what the terrorists want. If you read the language of terrorists, they say they precisely want to demonstrate. They want to provoke the United States into revealing what they consider to be the true character of the United States, a country that doesn't really believe in human rights. So bringing terrorists to justice is very important, but to do that, you don't have to use the kind of techniques we use. In fact, Amnesty in its fight against the Military Commission Act of 2006 had the help of twenty interrogators with two hundred years of experience in interrogating some of the worst people on earth. They made the point that the best way to get information is not through torture and cruel and inhumane treatment. That almost never works. But the best way is to illicit support by appearing to be and being, in fact, more sympathetic and supportive and winnowing away people to begin to see that maybe the road they've gone down is the wrong road and they have an incentive to give you information. Not only is torture wrong and immoral from an interrogation standpoint, from a fighting terror standpoint, it's stupid and counter-productive. Val Zavala>> Larry Cox, with Amnesty International USA, thank you very much for your work and your thoughts. Larry Cox>> Thank you. Val Zavala>> Larry Cox was a guest of Town Hall Los Angeles. If you'd like information on future speakers and events, you can go to their website at townhall-la.org. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. We start this week with "Breaking and Entering" starring Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and Ella Taylor of the L.A. Weekly. Henry, what did you think of "Breaking and Entering"? Henry Sheehan>> Well, "Breaking and Entering" is one of those movies that takes itself so seriously that even the comic relief is self-aware and very serious. Jude Law stars as an English real estate developer who's going to redo a whole depressed section of London. The movie is kind of about the crisis in his private life with his wife, played by Robin Wright Penn. She plays a beautiful Swedish woman and they have a child with a hyperactive disorder and he's kind of alienated from that family. It's not his blood daughter. It's his adopted daughter. Then his place is broken into by some Serbian kids who are part of a gang of Serbian thieves. He becomes involved with Juliette Binoche who's a Bosnian mother of one of them. It's so schematic. It tries to bring in so many issues that are supposed to be refracted to the life of this one businessman and it just doesn't hold any water, I thought. Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Ella? Ella Taylor>> I liked the ambition of this movie. It's really a film that tries to deal with the issue of modern urban panic especially, but not only racial panic which I think is pretty pertinent to most big cities and certainly is to London. It's kind of a genteel crash, I guess, for concerned liberals. But Minghella really is a director who should be making very small, compact movies. He has really trouble trying to contain the multiple plots and the huge ensemble. It has some good performances from Jude Law and Robin Wright Penn who play a married couple. But in the end, really all it seems to do is wring its hands and say that we should all listen to one another and be nice to each other, which I think is a rather limited message. Larry Mantle>> "The Situation" couples a love story with a war correspondent working in Iraq covering the conflict there. Connie Nielsen stars. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "The Situation", Ella? Ella Taylor>> This is a brainy and very sincere and utterly exasperating movie that is significant in part because it's the first fictional narrative feature to be made about the civil war in Iraq. It's made by Philip Haas and, again, who's made some rather stagnant relationship movies and here he is trying to lend legitimacy to just about every party to the conflict in Iraq except perhaps the Americans. The movie makes its position very, very clear. Again, I liked the ambition very much, but it has a wholly gratuitous love story by the screenwriter who's a former foreign correspondent, Wendell Steavenson, based on her own love affair with an Iraqi photographer to whom she's now engaged. It has no place in this very cerebral movie. Again, he uses a hand-held camera in a not very expert way that simply adds to the confusion. Larry Mantle>> Henry? Henry Sheehan>> Well, I'm sure that Haas thought when he was setting out that he was making some kind of original quasi-journalistic investigation. But actually what he has done is made a genre movie, the American in an exotic locale movie, that were churned out by the dozens in the 1940s and 1950s. Essentially, it's a movie about paranoia, about finding something out there that's threatening American values, through these American stick figures. In the worst movies, they were stick figures. That would be Connie Nielsen here, the journalist. She's definitely a stick figure. I don't think Haas is trying to do justice to every aspect of Iraqi life. He definitely finds some corrupt, oily Iraqis who fit right into the typecast and the stereotype of the underhanded, untrustworthy foreigner who's a kind of intermediary between the total foreignness of the true paranoid threat and the Americans. I found it a very bad job. I didn't think he made the genre film he could have. Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, the documentary "An Unreasonable Man" which profiles the long career of Ralph Nader starting with his consumer advocate days, taking on the automotive industry, all the way up through his most recent run for the presidency. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Ralph Nader stars in "An Unreasonable Man". Henry (laughter)? Henry Sheehan>> (Laughter) Yes, he stars even though he keeps saying throughout the movie that he doesn't like to be a star, usually meaning a political star. This is a two-hour film. Don't be afraid of the running time because it's actually quite watchable. The first hour is about Nader's career as a consumer advocate and really a crusader against corporate malfeasance. They go through his unsafe period where he took on the auto companies and then segued into other crusades against the Department of Agriculture in the way it was working hand in glove with the packing industry to get bad meat, non-inspected meat, out there. That's very interesting, comprehensive. They have a lot of young Nader's Raiders who are now, of course, in their middle age talking about it and it's very inspiring. The second half is about his political career running for president in especially the 2000 and 2004 elections. I think it does give Nader a chance to explain his position. Certainly, he's been criticized vociferously and even viciously and some of those critics are in the movie. He does get his chance to respond. You know, I thought it was interesting. I thought it was watchable. It's almost a political junkie's film, though. Larry Mantle>> Ella? Ella Taylor>> Well, it's a very warmly hagiographic film and, in a way, none the worse for it because I guess Nader could use some rehabilitation after being called the spoiler. The film does not address that issue particularly in my view. It rather waffles on the interest of when he was a spoiler. But it's very much devoted to showing that his legacy will be as a wonderful gadfly and a really terrible politician (laughter). Also, it's a tender portrait, I guess. Oddly solemn because the filmmakers are both former standup comedians and you would expect it to be a little funnier. They do show that Nader is actually a lot funnier and wittier and looser than he's usually given credit for, but I think it could have used a little more nay-saying. Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and Ella Taylor of the L.A. Weekly. Please join us next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> You can hear the hour version of FilmWeek Fridays at eleven a.m. 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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