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Life & Times Transcript
8/16/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Casinos are raking in big bucks for some California tribes. Should they be allowed to expand? Senator Sheila Kuehl>> I think the people in California were thinking, "We really want to help these tribes get on their feet." Well, we've done that big time. I mean, they're now billionaires, a few of them, but the other tribes that they were supposed to help aren't benefiting from it. Val Zavala>> And then, NASA's latest mission to Mars and what it means for the search for life beyond earth. 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>> Should thousands of new slot machines be added to certain Indian casinos in California? Well, so far, that idea has gotten the green light from the State Assembly, the State Senate and the governor. But now this expansion of slot machines is meeting resistance from other Native American tribes and, in the end, it's the voter who could decide. Roger Cooper has our story. Advertisement>> "California and California Indian tribes. Together we soar." Roger Cooper>> Back in May, a major television ad campaign targeted the people of California. Advertisement>> "Governor Schwarzenegger and California Indian tribes have reached historic agreements that bring California hundreds of millions of dollars a year." Roger Cooper>> Paid for by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the ads had a clear purpose. Advertisement>> "Tell your legislator that California's future depends on it." Roger Cooper>> The compact is an agreement hammered out between the governor and five Indian tribes and it's all about this familiar sound. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> Slot machines. Under the proposed compact, these tribes would be allowed to more than triple the number of slot machines they can operate. Here at the twenty-seven story Morongo Casino west of Palm Springs, the number of slots would jump from two thousand up to seven thousand five hundred, making it among the biggest gambling floors in the nation. Robert Martin>> "I urge you to ratify these compacts without further delay so that California can receive the new revenue that these compacts would bring." Roger Cooper>> Morongo tribal chairman, Robert Martin, appeared before a State Senate hearing. The compact would deposit up to twenty-five percent of the revenue from the additional slot machines into state coffers. Robert Martin>> "If these compacts had been enacted last August, hundreds of millions of dollars would already be coming into the state's general fund. Every day that passes without these compacts taking effect cost the state another million dollars." Roger Cooper>> The State Senate approved the additional slots for these gaming tribes. But things didn't go as smoothly in the Assembly where there was greater opposition to the compacts. Advertisement>> "Don't let special interests stand in the way." Roger Cooper>> And that's why the eagle flew so much across our television screens. Among the opponents is State Senator Sheila Kuehl, a Democrat from Santa Monica. She voted no in the Senate, arguing that a few tribes have gotten rich, but haven't shared the wealth. Senator Sheila Kuehl>> You know, when we originally supported Proposition 1A, I think the people of California were thinking, "We really want to help these tribes get on their feet. They haven't had a fair chance and this would be a good way for them to bring education, to bring transportation, to bring a good style of living to the tribe." Well, we've done that big time. I mean, they're now billionaires, a few of them, but the other tribes that they were supposed to help aren't benefiting from it. Waltona Manion>> Well, that would be factually inaccurate. Roger Cooper>> A spokesperson for the Morongo Tribe begs to differ. Waltona Manion says that tribes with casinos have gone to the aid of non-gaming tribes. Waltona Manion>> Since the compacts were negotiated, the tribes have paid in hundreds of millions of dollars into a fund that was set up by the state. Now it is true that, once those funds were paid to the state, there was a serious delay in the state's distribution of those funds to the non-gaming tribes. Roger Cooper>> Manion argues that the gaming tribes have been good members of the community and good business people and ratifying the compact is crucial to them. Waltona Manion>> This is a part of guaranteeing a future for their children and for their grandchildren and it's also a logical next step for them in terms of building their business. Roger Cooper>> Perhaps the strongest opposition to the compact comes from a labor union. UNITE HERE is a hotel and casino workers union that wants to organize Indian casino workers. The tribes say that union organizers are already free to come onto casino property and talk to workers, but Jack Gribbon of UNITE HERE says that cameras are watching. Jack Gribbon>> We have refused the tribe in terms of their request that we talk to workers in their casino under their surveillance cameras so they can find out who talks to the union so they can put a bull's-eye on that worker's back and make sure they can make an example of that worker that, if you talk to the union, you're in trouble. So, no, we're not going to do it their way. That's not appropriate. Roger Cooper>> But Manion says that the tribe is not anti-union and questions why UNITE HERE hasn't talked with Morongo workers. Waltona Manion>> What Morongo stands squarely behind is the right of the employees to choose and to do so by secret ballot so that their decision is private just like any election is in this country and they are dedicated to that. So to suggest that the employer would intervene is just factually wrong. Roger Cooper>> Senator Kuehl has other concerns. She thinks the compact should spell out more benefits for workers. Senator Sheila Kuehl>> They claim sovereignty. They don't have to pay minimum wage. They don't have to do other things required by state law. It's not enough. Let them put the protections in the compacts. Waltona Manion>> Well, that would suggest that they don't have a track record. In the case of Morongo, Morongo has an excellent track record. Their employees are the most well-compensated in the industry. They have one hundred percent health care coverage not only for the employees, but their families. They have 401(k)s. These are people who are well taken care of and are very committed to working for Morongo, so I would say that the worker protections are in place. Roger Cooper>> UNITE HERE says that, if the compacts are allowed to go into effect, it will have a long-term impact on the ability to organize. Jack Gribbon>> Well, these compacts go on for twenty-three years if they're ratified. If this issue isn't solved before they're ratified, it will not be solved for twenty-three years. The fastest-growing service sector in the industry in our state, awash in cash, and the engine behind that are these workers. For them to not have the right to organize for twenty-three years is outrageous. Roger Cooper>> As for the television ads, the Morongo Tribe is spending an estimated twenty million on the television campaign. This, together with other political contributions last year, makes Indian tribes one of the most powerful political forces in Sacramento. Kuehl thinks that the tribes have become too powerful. Senator Sheila Kuehl>> I just don't think that either the Senate or the Assembly should be threatened by this kind of money. It's just egregious that they have so much to spend. It's egregious that they can put money into campaigns when they're declaring that they don't have to follow state law on anything else. I just think they got too big for their britches. Roger Cooper>> But Manion says that Native Americans have the same rights to participate in politics as any other American citizens. She says that tribes are simply working to maintain the enterprise that has lifted them out of poverty. Waltona Manion>> Most of their populations were moved to the point of decimation specifically because of state policy. This is a state that once paid bounty on Indian body parts and displayed them at state fairs. It is, I think, up to the Indians to say when enough is enough and what these tribes are committed to is their economic survival and their ability to provide a future for their children and their grandchildren. Roger Cooper>> In the end, the television campaign helped the tribal compacts win approval from the Assembly, but the next battle may be at the ballot. The UNITE HERE union and two horseracing tracks are gathering signatures hoping to get a statewide vote to block the compacts next February. And two Indian tribes in Placer and San Diego Counties say they will donate up to a million dollars to help that effort to kill the compacts at the polls. So it may be up to California voters to determine if the eagle is soaring or flying out of control. I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> We'd love to know what you think about this story and you can post your opinion on our blog. Just go to kcet.org/lifeandtimes/blog. 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>> As we speak, it's flying through space, traveling twelve thousand miles per hour toward Mars. I'm talking about the Phoenix Lander scheduled to arrive in May of 2008 and, if all goes well, it will discover what scientists consider gold. Sam Louie talked with Barry Goldstein, the manager of the Phoenix Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Sam Louie>> Well, after four and a half years of planning, the Phoenix mission launched August 4 and it's expected to land May 25 of next year. Barry, can you describe a little bit more about the mission? Barry Goldstein>> Sure. Phoenix is the first of the Mars scout missions which were missions designed to react to discoveries from the Mars community, basically scientific discoveries from the previous missions to Mars. Sam Louie>> Recent missions have revealed strong evidence of water on Mars, but NASA needed a sophisticated spacecraft which could collect, analyze and scan the terrain. This is the result, the Phoenix Lander. Barry Goldstein>> So what we are doing with Phoenix, which is a little bit different from the previous Landers from Mars, is instead of going to study the history of water on the planet, we're actually going to where we believe through reconnaissance that the water actually is. We're going to send the Lander down to the northern polar regions. We're going to dig into what we believe is the water ice and we're going to sample it and put it into our little in situ, our little instrument laboratories that we have on the Lander deck. Sam Louie>> In terms of significance, what are you hoping to find? Barry Goldstein>> Well, the main purpose for going to the polar region, as I said, this was really reacting to a discovery from Odyssey. Everywhere on earth that we see water in any form, we see signs of life. It doesn't have to be creatures crawling around or anything with intelligence of that sort, but are microbes and things that basically are the building blocks of life. So the NASA theme for the Mars exploration program is really to follow the water. Sam Louie>> To follow the water, NASA is sending the Phoenix Lander to Mars' north pole. This is NASA's first attempt to successfully land on Mars' polar regions. Barry Goldstein>> What we're doing with Phoenix is we are actually reacting to a discovery that was made by the Odyssey spacecraft which is an orbiter that's been in orbit about toward the end of 2001 around Mars. What they found was, within a half a meter of the surface at the northern polar regions, is accessible water ice. Sam Louie>> How confident are you that the Phoenix Lander will find water? Barry Goldstein>> How confident? We're pretty confident based on the data. Can we say positive? No. We haven't had anything down there to touch it and see it, but remote sensing is fairly sophisticated and fairly good, so we're pretty confident that it's there. We think we've designed a good instrument, so we'd actually dig into it and get to it and case and sniff and smell it. The Odyssey mission had an instrument that discovered that all the way down to about sixty-five degrees north latitude was accessible water ice. By accessible, I mean less than a half a meter from the surface. Sam Louie>> The Phoenix Lander has a seven foot long robotic arm. It's the largest ever built by NASA. The arm is capable of digging close to two feet into the soil, deep enough to penetrate the hard surface and potentially tap into a layer of ice underneath. Barry Goldstein>> We like to call it vertical mobility by digging. We want to maximize what we call the workspace. If this is the edge of the deck and that's the surface, we want to maximize the reach of the arm so that it has the maximum capability of grabbing a sample. The longer the arm is, the longer the workspace. That's a fine balance because, if the arm gets too long, it's a little bit hard to control. So we tried to build the longest arm we could within reason. So what we're doing with Phoenix is we're putting a stationary Lander down. If everything goes well, that'll be on May 25 of next year. A stationary Lander down on the upper latitudes of Mars and we're actually going to obviously take pictures, but we're also going to dig into the surface and actually get the ice into a sample and deliver those samples to little laboratories that we actually have on this Lander to investigate what's inside of the ice. Sam Louie>> And if they find water, could life be close by? Barry Goldstein>> If I were to dream as to what would be the miraculous discovery we could have is if we found organics in the water. That would be absolutely earth-shattering, so to speak. That would be sign of the potential for life on another planet. That would be somewhat significant. Sam Louie>> But before that can happen, the Phoenix still has a long ways to go, a hundred seventy million miles, to be exact. Barry Goldstein>> Right now, on the journey, any concerns? It's been remarkably calm (laughter). Last Friday, I guess that was Friday, August 10, we did our first what we call trajectory correction maneuver, TCM for short, the first and largest of the maneuvers that we make. We make six in total on the way to the planet. It went along like a charm. We have had no anomalies with the spacecraft. It's been perfectly calm. It's behaving well within the predicts that we had for it. The TCM went flawlessly. In statistical lingo, it was less than a half signal off predict, which was phenomenally good, and we're right on course for where we want to be. We have been finding no problems, so things have been going very smooth. Sam Louie>> Where is the area of concern? Landing it or keeping it on course? Barry Goldstein>> Getting to the planet is something that we've done fairly well. I think, without question, the hardest part of our mission is the entry descent and the landing, without question. Think of it this way. We're landing a vehicle a hundred seventy million miles away from earth in seven minutes. It's coming in, as I said before, at twelve thousand six hundred miles an hour. Inside that seven minutes, it has to descend down to five miles an hour accurately. Sam Louie>> With so much happening in such a short period of time, precision and accuracy are crucial to a successful landing. Barry Goldstein>> We have models that we use for the environment that we're going through, the density of the atmosphere, the wind speeds, things of that sort, atmosphere pressure, as I said. All these things have to happen as we expect. Sam Louie>> So the quest to find water and to answer the question of whether there's life on Mars gets closer with each passing day. Barry Goldstein>> The proof of our mission is going to be how well we do our job in getting to the surface successfully and that's still some ten months away, May 25. Sam Louie>> And if it gets to Mars successfully, the Phoenix Lander will have ninety days to do its work and possibly answer the question of whether there's past or present life on Mars. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. 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. First up is a science fiction film and it's in a rather long series of versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". "The Invasion" stars Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jeremy Northam. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media and Lael Loewenstein of Variety. Jean, what did you think of "The Invasion"? Jean Oppenheimer>> I think it's a very poorly conceived remake of the wonderful 1956 Don Siegel version. To me, the main problem was that this is a film in search of a subtext, something about the original film. A lot of people thought it was about communism and the red menace coming and taking over. Some people read it as about the nuclear power that had been released and that was taking over. But this version really you can't figure out what the alien invasion is a stand-in for. What threat do these particular aliens present to people? Why do they want to take over? What do they want to do? There are certainly things that could have been. I mean, it could have represented fear of a pandemic or militant religion of any stripe or the threat of the current American administration against the country, but it doesn't do any of that. And without that, even these wonderful actors have nowhere to go. Larry Mantle>> Well, here in the states, we've become huge fans of irreverent British humor and the movies have multiplied over the years. The latest contribution is "Death at a Funeral". [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Death at a Funeral", Lael? Lael Loewenstein>> This is a really fun British farce, a little bit in the tradition of something like "Four Weddings and a Funeral", although not so much. It's all about the goings-on at the funeral of the father of an extended family. There are wonderful bits where there are revelations that come literally almost out of the closet at times (laughter). There are secrets about the deceased. There are unfortunate events that happen to those attending the funeral. It's just really, really delightful and I think this has a propensity to be a great kind of late summer hit. You know, I think that people are going to say, "Let's go for something light and fun" and this is just sort of what we're looking for. It's a nice alternative to all the films that are out there right now. Larry Mantle>> All right. So you think word of mouth will be big. Jean, do you agree? Jean Oppenheimer>> Now for an alternate view (laughter). I actually think it was a cute idea for a movie and a very workable story. Matthew Macfadyen was really cute in the lead role, but somehow the film didn't gel for me at all. I felt either the pacing was completely off or maybe it was the timing of the individual actors. I'm not sure what it was, but it never gelled for me. A lot of the humor, because it is a farce, is very frenzied and very broad and I'm not terribly fond of farce to begin with. Also, I found the use of Peter Dinklage very distasteful. He plays a part and I felt that, in the end, you are laughing at his character because he is a little person and he therefore lends himself to some of the physical and other comedy. So I found that distasteful. Larry Mantle>> For the past several years, we've been seeing a whole spate of documentaries which have taken aim at the war in Iraq. Now it seems there's a growing body to add to the series of films devoted to global warming, including "The 11th Hour". [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> The documentary, "The 11th Hour", Lael? Lael Loewenstein>> Well, this is an important documentary and it deals with an important subject, global warming -- Larry Mantle>> -- sounds like there's a but coming (laughter). Lael Loewenstein>> (Laughter) but it's delivered in a way that feels more like an awfully big helping of medicine. You know, I want to just have that caveat there that the delivery isn't so great, but the message that global warming is something big and we need to do something about it. I mean, there's experts like Stephen Hawking and former CIA head, James Woolsey, and Mikhail Gorbachev and all these really knowledgeable authoritative sources talking about what's happening to the planet mixed in with a slew of stock footage that kind of seems a bit like a barrage. It makes you feel kind of overwhelmed. Larry Mantle>> Glaciers melting. Lael Loewenstein>> Yeah, lots of glaciers, like the destruction -- Larry Mantle>> -- arid land, floods. Lael Loewenstein>> You know, Katrina, you name it. I don't want to kill the message because the message is something we all need to know about and we all need to do something about, but I think the Al Gore documentary made that message a little bit more palatable. Larry Mantle>> Now you might think a documentary about videogames would be a total snooze, right? Well, not necessarily so, as we'll find out with "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters". [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "The King of Kong". What did you think, Jean? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, if I hadn't had to review this film, Larry, you could not have paid me to go see it. I mean, I am not a videogame person. I have never in my life played a videogame. I say that with a certain amount of pride, I suppose (laughter). But this was an absolutely delightful, entertaining film. I didn't expect it at all. I think the main reason it works is because, first of all, the two directors really do a very imaginative job with putting it together. They put music under part of it that's wonderful that helps create certain moods and they did a good job. The other thing is that really the heart and soul of the film, the emotional heart of the film, is this man, Steve Wiebe, who is not one of the usual Donkey Kong people. He's not one of the -- excuse me -- geeks who normally plays. He's somebody who's lost his job and he's sort of feeling down and gets very good at this and, you know, tries his hand at it. He was just wonderful and gave the film a lot of dignity, so I -- Larry Mantle>> -- sounds like a comedic presence. Down on his luck guy who becomes Donkey Kong champion (laughter). Joan Oppenheimer>> It's wonderful. Go, go. Larry Mantle>> All right (laughter). What did you think, Lael? Lael Loewenstein>> Well, I too am not a videogame fanatic, although in the early 1990s I think I did get to the third level on Ms Pacman. I never played Donkey Kong. You know, I had no real interest in this. I concur with Jean. It was just riveting. I mean, this is an incredibly engaging battle between sort of good and evil with this guy, Steve Wiebe, representing good and Billy representing evil. You know, long hair, he hawks chicken barbeque sauce, I mean, he's kind of sleazy and overly jingoistic. He's incredibly annoying. It's just wonderful how the filmmakers capture the dynamic between the two of them, although they never go head to head. That's part of the brilliance of it. It's just a really well-edited piece and just a master class on how to edit a film and how to make a good documentary too. Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety and Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media. Please join us again next week for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> For an expanded version of FilmWeek, tune in to KPCC public radio Fridays at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow. 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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