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Life & Times Transcript

9/21/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Signs of division in the United Way. Why is the group pulling the funds for some nonprofits?

Susana Ryan>> We're still trying to figure out what it is and why it is that we're not included.

Elise Buik>> We have a duty to the residents of this county and to our donors to always ensure that we're continuing to evaluate how we invest that money.

Val Zavala>> And then, is putting a man on Mars the best way to explore space? The debate over human space flight.

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 started a hundred twenty years ago and now United Way is one of the best-known charities in the country. But here in southern California, United Way is making a major change. It's focusing its millions of dollars in charitable giving on one basic issue: poverty. That's important, but as Toni Guinyard tells us, it leaves many other nonprofits empty-handed.

Teacher>> "No more monkeys jumping on the bed. How many monkeys on the bed now?"

Toni Guinyard>> Nonprofit agencies are quietly working to meet the needs of the people they've chosen to serve, but have you ever wondered about the work being done or how your donation is spent?

Teacher>> "Let's count."

Students>> "One, two, three, four, five."

Toni Guinyard>> In Los Angeles County, agencies and programs like this preschool at La Casa de San Gabriel Community Center have historically relied on getting a percentage of their funds from the United Way. It raises money primarily through workplace campaigns, then distributes the funds.

Susana Ryan>> It accounted last year at about fourteen percent of our total budget, so it was about thirty-five thousand dollars that they had been funding for us.

Toni Guinyard>> It's money La Casa can no longer depend on. The United Way of Greater Los Angeles is changing the way it does business. It's adopted a ten-year action plan strictly focusing on poverty and the nonprofits now have to submit proposals and compete for funding.

Susana Ryan>> So it makes you rethink, you know, what your needs are, how to go get them, and really know that we need to step back, refocus ourselves and then really figure out where we go to get that funding.

Toni Guinyard>> Susana Ryan is President of the Board for La Casa de San Gabriel Community Center.

Susana Ryan>> So somewhere we got forgotten and I, as President of the Board for La Casa, have to step back and say, "Did I not do something? Did our Board not make sure that our needs, that our programs that the families that we serve weren't identified and put out there in front of people like United Way?"

Toni Guinyard>> Fifty-two percent of the one hundred thirty-nine poor agencies chosen to receive funding are new partners. They hadn't received funding from the United Way before. The Downtown Women's Center is one of them.

Lisa Watson>> We serve about a hundred forty women a day in our day center and about two thousand women a year. We have a drop-in center where women can come in to receive meals, to take showers, kind of the traditional things that you would think of when you think of a center in Skid Row.

Toni Guinyard>> And that's where we met Elise Buik, President and CEO of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

Elise Buik>> We want to see results, so we're really looking at setting measurable goals for what we're going to try to focus on at the United Way.

Toni Guinyard>> It's an attempt to affect policy and take on more of a leadership role. Using the Downtown Women's Center as an example, Buik says that its programs fit the criteria for the United Way's new plan dubbed "Pathways Out Of Poverty".

Elise Buik>> We're really focusing on three primary areas, so one is basic needs which is kind of where the legacy of our work has been. It's still very important to us that people have food and housing and health care. But now I think what's newest about the plan is that we're really looking at educational achievement and financial stability for families.

Toni Guinyard>> The kind of programs that Dr. George Nalbach believes his agency provides. After all, the Santa Anita Family Service has been a United Way agency, a partner for thirty-nine years, until now.

Dr. George Nalbach>> I could see the writing on the wall that things were changing.

Toni Guinyard>> The Santa Anita Family Service was de-funded.

Dr. George Nalbach>> I have absolutely no problem with what United Way is doing in regards to serving the homeless, helping people learn English and get jobs. I have no problem with that. I'm just saying that there's a lot more going on out here than just that (laughter).

Toni Guinyard>> In making no attempt to hide his frustration, Nalbach penned a letter to The Los Angeles Times comparing the break in the agency's relationship with the United Way to a divorce.

Dr. George Nalbach>> Problems or no problems, we've been married together for thirty-nine years with the United Way.

Toni Guinyard>> He wrote, "What is it about our programs that doesn't cut it anymore?"

Dr. George Nalbach>> It feels to me that it's certainly less about supporting community agencies than supporting United Way's vision, whatever they choose the vision to be.

Toni Guinyard>> And repeatedly stated to the United Way, "You broke your promise."

Dr. George Nalbach>> The United Way was not about competition. It was about, hey, we're going to help you guys meet the needs in your community.

Toni Guinyard>> Do you feel as if you broke a promise?

Elise Buik>> Well, you know, again, we didn't go into this process lightly. It pains me to have to part ways with long-time nonprofits. But I don't think that our job is to fund nonprofits forever. We have a duty to the residents of this county and to our donors to always ensure that we're continuing to evaluate how we invest that money.

Toni Guinyard>> Will your agency apply for United Way funds again?

Dr. George Nalbach>> Well, that's a big question. Probably not under the current philosophy, probably not.

Toni Guinyard>> To better understand the importance of United Way funding, consider this. A lot of nonprofits apply for and receive government grants, but those have restrictions, strings attached.

Susana Ryan>> United Way for us was something that would take on the additional salaries that we had to pay when we have to rush and get something accomplished or to put on those other programs that we make available to the families.

Toni Guinyard>> The day we visited, La Casa staff members were called in to help with the distribution of free car seats by the Asian Youth Center, an agency funded by the United Way. It illustrates how the nonprofits, funded and no longer funded, are working together.

Susana Ryan>> We're still trying to figure out what it is and why it is that we're not included, but we also recognize that we can't stop.

Toni Guinyard>> Agencies that are no longer being funded will still receive some money and support.

Elise Buik>> We know that it's really tough to replace funding, so every organization that received a grant that is not receiving a grant in the new proposal will receive a forty percent transition grant.

Toni Guinyard>> It's a tough transition. The United Way knows it. Other nonprofits know it.

Lisa Watson>> We were sad when the partners who have relied on United Way weren't able to receive funding this round.

Susana Ryan>> We're helping these children rethink, you know, and kind of see a future for themselves. Better yet, I think we're learning to take a lesson from that ourselves. We're exactly at that stage right now where we've got to sit down and say, "Who are we?" We've agreed that this is our mission. Now how do we get the funding to move forward?

Toni Guinyard>> And that, according to Elise Buik, is the benefit of United Way's new focus. They're forcing agencies to rethink their purpose in an ever-changing community without changing their mission for the sole purpose of securing funding.

Elise Buik>> I don't advise any nonprofit to get into mission creep, which is sometimes what happens when people are going after funding. But I would say that we'd like to see an increasing number of nonprofits involve their program into the changing trends.

Toni Guinyard>> Trends impacting the lives of people the nonprofit world is determined to help.

Dr. George Nalbach>> I still give. I haven't run up and changed my deduction to United Way. You know, if we were sour grapes, I'd tell them, "Here, I'll take my money. I'm not going to give it to you anymore." That's not where I'm at. I will continue to give my usual amount to United Way every year because I believe that they're going to fund some things that I think are important in the world.

Toni Guinyard>> The agency he's served twenty-five years may no longer be on United Way's list, but the United Way remains on his. I'm Toni Guinyard 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>> It's been about six years since 9/11 and the man at the heart of it all, Osama Bin Laden, is still at large, assuming he's alive. In the meantime, how many Americans really understand what Al Qaeda wants? There are, of course, the familiar list of issues, but the truth may be more disturbing. Now a new book, "The Al Qaeda Reader", translates certain text from the Koran, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda leaders, some of it never translated into English before.

The editor is Raymond Ibrahim, whose parents came to America from Egypt. He speaks fluent Arabic, studied Middle East history at Cal State Fresno and did graduate work at Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. He now works at the Library of Congress. So, Raymond, why did you think we need a book like this? Because most of us kind of know that Osama Bin Laden hates America.

Raymond Ibrahim>> Right. Well, I think we needed a book like this to put things in a better perspective because we just get half of his writings and half of his communiqu�s which are all propaganda.

Val Zavala>> And sort of custom-made for the west.

Raymond Ibrahim>> They're made for our consumption basically, which is to create a guilt trip and make us seem as totally unjust and that he and the Muslim world are the victims, whereas the theology section which we've never seen and which are not ever sent to us and what's why we haven't seen them before kind of contradicts all that by saying that, no matter what, the west is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't until it actually accepts Islamic rule.

Val Zavala>> The reasons for Osama Bin Laden's animosity toward the west are well known. United States support of Israel, the occupation of Iraq and the decadence of western society. But Ibrahim says that these political issues are not addressed in the theological writings, that the theological texts of Al Qaeda reveal a deeper divide.

Raymond Ibrahim>> When you read the theological treatises, it contradicts because it doesn't address any of this. All it says is what Muslims are commanded to do per se vis-�-vis infidels. I need to read one quote. This is Osama Bin Laden talking.

"Thus our talks with the infidel west and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue, one that demands our total support with power and determination with one voice, and it is does Islam or does it not force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes.

There are only three choices in Islam. Either willing submission" -- conversion to Islam -- "or payment of the jizya" -- which is tribute -- "through physical though not spiritual submission" -- to the authority of Islam -- "or the sword, for it is not right to let him" -- an infidel -- "live. The matter is summed up for every personal life. Either submit, live under Islam or die."

Val Zavala>> There is also a passage in there about mingling or becoming friends with Christians and Jews, right?

Raymond Ibrahim>> Right. He has this whole essay. This is Ayman al-Zawahiri's doctrine called Loyalty and Enmity. It's about a sixty-page document and it's totally grounded in Koranic verses and the traditions of Mohammed. Basically in short, what it says is that "Muslims must always be loyal to other Muslims. Love and friendship for them" -- non-Muslims -- "contradicts faith.

Allah Most High said, 'Oh you who believe,' -- this is a verse from the Koran -- 'do not take the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. Whoever among you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them." In other words, he's an infidel.

Val Zavala>> There's also the issue of compatibility between Islam and democracy and, according to some of these writings, they are not compatible at all.

Raymond Ibrahim>> Right. There's an entire treatise written by Ayman al-Zawahiri which is on sharia and democracy and, after basically showing how antithetical democracy or any kind of government, not just democracy, but socialism, communism, how antithetical they are to Islam law because one of the main aspects of Islam is that there's the law to follow which is derived from the Koran and the good deeds of Mohammed.

So Ayman al-Zawahiri even concludes it by saying, "Thus whoever claims to be a democratic Muslim or a Muslim who calls for democracy is like one who says about himself, 'I am a Jewish Muslim' or 'I am a Christian Muslim', the one worse than the other. He is an apostate infidel."

Val Zavala>> So basically, it's impossible to be, according to him, Muslim and participate or support democratic or other governments?

Raymond Ibrahim>> Right. And the reason for that is because, from the inception of Islam in the seventh century, one of the key features of it was following the law of Allah, sharia law, Islamic law. It has many names. Sharia law, Islamic law, divine law. So basically, you read the Koran and it's full of prohibitions and commandments. So the way to really prove that you're a Muslim is that you want to follow this.

His argument ultimately is how can you say you're a Muslim and then get together with a bunch of other Muslims and vote something that has already been fixed from on high and vote against it?

Val Zavala>> So this would be very disturbing to Americans, obviously. What percentage of Muslims actually believe in this or are willing to fight for these kinds of ideas?

Raymond Ibrahim>> Well, that's a very complicated question. I obviously personally don't know. I don't think anyone does know. But it really all depends on how much a person wants to identify himself or herself with being Muslim and how literally they want to take the Islamic sources, the text.

So just as it is with Christians and Jews and Buddhists and all sorts of other people of other faiths, you have all kinds of people that identify with a religion, but not only do they not follow it, but they don't even necessarily know so much of their religion. I think that's the case with a lot of Muslims.

The question, though, in Christianity, I think this is what we don't see so much fanaticism of Christians in that sense because Christianity, if you really read the text, is very metaphysical. It's not so much grounded in the law. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God" -- the spiritual -- "what is God's."

Val Zavala>> So we separate religion and state.

Raymond Ibrahim>> Church and state, based on Jesus' own words, was really separated. Now, of course, with the Catholic church in history, that's different. But go into actually the text, it has always been separated. Christianity is passive. Turn the other cheek. Pray for those who persecute you. But in Islam, you have all these laws. It's so grounded in what you do in the now.

In fact, every single action a human being can commit in this life is classified under five categories in Islam. Forbidden; disliked, which means you can do it, but we don't want you to do it; permission, which doesn't matter. Do it or don't; recommended, we'd like you to do it, but you don't really have to; and obligatory. You have to do it.

Val Zavala>> Really?

Raymond Ibrahim>> Every single action in this life under sharia law.

Val Zavala>> Secular or religious?

Raymond Ibrahim>> Oh, yeah.

Val Zavala>> It's all bound into one.

Raymond Ibrahim>> It's all one. There is no separation between secular. Life is religion.

Val Zavala>> We don't want necessarily this kind of thing to shade our perception of Muslims here or cause all sorts of discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims here. Yet that's kind of what it's doing.

Raymond Ibrahim>> Well, that's why I would caution people when they read this to always do what I do, which is I basically separate Islam from Muslims just like I separate Christianity from Christians. One is an objective ideology, the religion. It can be studied, quantified, analyzed. I can sit here and say that Islam commands and Islam does not command this.

Muslims, on the other hand, are just human beings like everyone else. They're subjective. So you can be a Muslim and, A, you don't even know about the violent verses; B, you know about it and you just don't care. You're not going to apply it to your life. That's what a moderate Muslim would be. Or you know, just indifference to it like a lot of people of whatever faith.

Val Zavala>> Or you can be sympathetic, but not be willing to actually --

Raymond Ibrahim>> -- or you can be sympathetic with the cause, but you're not going to actually commit to it physically.

Val Zavala>> Pick up and gun and --

Raymond Ibrahim>> -- exactly, but you understand it, you see? So that's the thing. Ultimately, you have to keep that dividing line. There's religion and we can talk about Christianity. We can sit here and really say that Christianity says this, but it doesn't say that. Does that mean Christians do that? Does that mean they follow that? Maybe a small percentage. It's the same thing, I guess, with Islam.

Val Zavala>> Well, Raymond Ibrahim, thank you very much for bringing some very interesting writings in your book to us.

Raymond Ibrahim>> Thanks for having me, Val.

Val Zavala>> So what do you think of some of those passages? You can post your opinion. Just go to kcet.org/lifeandtimes/
blog.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

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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>> Space shuttle landings have become so common that we hardly notice them anymore and yet the space shuttle's days are numbered and a new era of space exploration is being developed. President Bush wants to put a man on Mars, but some scientists say that's not the best way to go. NewsHour's Tom Bearden takes a look at the issues and uncertainties of NASA's future.

[Film Clip]

Tom Bearden>> The space shuttle, the icon and workhorse of America's human space program, is just three years from retirement.

Narrator>> "Returning to the Space Station, paving the way for future missions beyond."

Tom Bearden>> So NASA is now looking to the future, planning a whole new chapter in manned space flight, a whole new fleet of rockets and crew capsules, and a demanding new mission to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to mount a mission to Mars. It's a vision that was laid out by President Bush in 2004.

George W. Bush>> "We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own."

Tom Bearden>> NASA is currently designing the vehicles that the agency hopes will put astronauts back on the moon by 2020, almost fifty years after Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind". Jeff Hanley manages NASA's program to develop new manned space flight systems.

Jeff Hanley>> Mars is the edge of the edge of the frontier and the frontier is where we really test the limits of human endurance and really push technology to the extent of being able to improve life back here for the rest of the planet's inhabitants.

Tom Bearden>> But NASA's history is littered with ambitious programs that have been cancelled because of technical challenges and funding problems. Over a billion dollars was spent on an earlier project to replace the shuttle, dubbed Venture Star, before that program was killed in 2001. The new rockets and manned spacecraft will cost one hundred four billion dollars, according to NASA Director Michael Griffin, the man who has to persuade Congress to spend the money.

Michael Griffin>> I hope to convince the Congress that that request is worth honoring and that NASA is a good place for them to spend their money. But this is a democratic representative government and we have absolutely no guarantee from year to year that any request of any type will be honored.

Tom Bearden>> Using money already appropriated, NASA engineers and contractors are working on the blueprints for a new rocket called Aries One and a new space capsule that will sit atop it, a vehicle called Orion. Orion would be used both for low earth orbital missions such as trips to the International Space Station and for round-trip voyages to the moon.

It looks a lot like the Apollo spacecraft from the 1960s and 1970s, but it's considerably bigger. Meant to carry between four to six astronauts, Orion will return to earth via parachutes instead of gliding to a landing like the space shuttle. NASA also hopes it will be cheaper than the space shuttle because of the tried and true capsule design and the use of off-the-shelf technology such as onboard flight systems adopted from commercial aircraft.

Jeff Hanley>> Getting the operations cost and the production cost down is the key to making this system really and truly a next generation human space flight system.

Marc Sommers>> "This is a facility called Point Lookout. It's really going to be the Exploration Development Lab. It's our early . . ."

Tom Bearden>> A plywood mock-up of an Orion capsule sits in a warehouse just across the street from NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston. It was built by Lockheed Martin which has a four billion dollar design contract. Engineer Marc Sommers says the model helps engineers figure out everything from where to put the flight controls to how to give astronauts enough elbow room.

Marc Sommers>> Where we're standing right here actually would be a sixth seat, you know, for people when they're going to the Space Station. When they're going to the moon for lunar ops, then we'd just use these four seats right here.

Tom Bearden>> Astronauts who have actually lived and worked in space have offered practical suggestions to the designers. Astronaut Lee Morin has logged over two hundred fifty-nine hours in orbit.

Lee Morin>> The guys who built this have done a great job building this mock-up, but the first iteration of this was lower because it was designed to be sitting here seated. That's fine for the tasks when you're on your back launching or re-entering, but for evaluating the windows and the docking, you're floating in space. So you need to be able to represent what's it like to be here floating and moving around? So that's more of a standing environment.

Tom Bearden>> Astronauts going to the moon and Mars will also need new spacesuits. These are being tested in the Arizona desert. NASA's Joe Kosmo is in charge of spacesuit development. Why do we need a new suit?

Joe Kosmo>> Well, the shuttle suit wasn't designed for planetary environments, for walking. It's a fine suit for Zero-G operations and working in foot restraints and it doesn't have the kind of mobility features that you really need for walking on a planetary surface. You need additional mobility in the hip and the waist area and, of course, this suit represents that kind of an approach to developing some of that mobility technology.

Tom Bearden>> And off the Florida Keys, astronauts live in an underwater lab for weeks at a time to simulate a future lunar habitat or a long voyage aboard a deep space mission. Jeff Hanley says that all of this has already started to reinvigorate NASA, giving it a new sense of purpose.

Jeff Hanley>> There's a talent being applied across the agency that is excited abut the prospect of doing something big, our generation's monument building. It's doing something greater than ourselves.

Tom Bearden>> But not everyone is completely happy about all this. A lot of scientists are deeply worried that competition for increasingly scarce dollars will starve space science, the satellites that study earth's climate, robotic probes to the planets and orbiting space telescopes.

Louis Friedman>> Currently, the vision is siphoning some money away from the space science and certainly from the space science planning that was being done several years ago.

Tom Bearden>> Louis Friedman is the Executive Director of the Planetary Society, a grassroots space advocacy group. The Society complains that some three billion dollars shifted to manned space flight programs from NASA's science budget has killed or delayed many robotic missions.

Louis Friedman>> A mission to do Mars sample return has been cut out. A mission to find planets around other stars that are earth-like, terrestrial planets around other stars, has been cut out. So, yes, there are great losses to the exploration program, where I mean the robotic exploration program, as well as to the future of space exploration as a result of the current requirements on funding.

Fiona Harrison>> In our case, we were cut completely, just cancelled.

Tom Bearden>> Physicist, Fiona Harrison, managed a one hundred twenty million dollar project called New Star, an orbiting telescope that would have searched the cosmos for black holes. When NASA cut her program, Harrison was forced to stop work at her Caltech lab and let dozens of researchers go.

Fiona Harrison>> Certainly, I wouldn't argue that one should sacrifice the manned program. The question is, how do you find the appropriate balance and exercise wide stewardship of the science program?

Tom Bearden>> So you think the cuts were unbalanced?

Fiona Harrison>> Yes. I think the cuts were unbalanced and I think they were done quickly without enough planning and without enough forethought and input from the community.

Jeff Hanley>> There are some hard choices to be made, no doubt.

Tom Bearden>> Jeff Hanley acknowledges the ongoing battle for money among competing programs, but he says the percentage of NASA's budget for science has actually increased.

Jeff Hanley>> Science is as healthy as it's ever been in this agency. During the Apollo era, the science part of the NASA portfolio was something on the order of fifteen to twenty percent. Today, science is a full third of the agency portfolio. It's around thirty-two percent of the agency portfolio where it stands today.

Tom Bearden>> But Hanley, like other NASA veterans, knows the space agency's soaring ambitions could be brought thudding back to earth by cost overruns and changes in national budgetary priorities.

Val Zavala>> That story by NewsHour's Tom Bearden. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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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