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Life & Times Transcript

10/25/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

As the flames die out, the extent of the damage becomes clear. Will the government come through for southern California fire victims?

George Bush>> "We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C., that we want the people to know that there's a better day ahead, that today you're life may look dismal, but tomorrow life's going to be better."

Val Zavala>> And then, reality takes a break in Anthony Hopkins' new film. Will our critics appreciate the diversion?

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 day five of the wildfires and the smoke has turned Los Angeles's skies brown, but firefighters continue to make headway as the winds die down. In San Diego, President Bush stepped off of Air Force One to tour the damage and to meet with firefighters and victims. We'll get a report on that in a moment from KCET's Jeffrey Kaye. But first, the latest.

On a tour of southern California, the president pledged additional help saying "We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C." The number of deaths directly related to the fires increased to seven. Rewards funds increased to a hundred fifty thousand dollars for information relating to the arson in Orange County. With more, here's KCET's Jeffrey Kaye.

Jeffrey Kaye>> The winds calmed in southern California today allowing firefighters to make major progress. In San Diego County, the flames moved eastward away from urban areas and many of the estimated half million evacuated residents were let back into their neighborhoods.

Ron Lane>> Our major focus now is repopulating the western part of our county.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Shelters are emptying, but about a thousand evacuees remained at Qualcomm Stadium, down from a high of several thousand.

Chief Kevin Crawford>> We still have fire conditions out there that cannot be taken lightly, so our efforts are still being put forth to control raging out-of-control large scale fires.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Those large scale fires have moved to more rural areas of the county, this one near the Mexican border. None of the fires are more than forty to fifty percent contained.

>> Our biggest safety concern is the wind's shifting patterns, but it's getting better.

Jeffrey Kaye>> By this afternoon, at least fifteen fires continue to burn across more than seven hundred fifty square miles from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border. There was also word of more deaths connected to the fires. At least ten have died and more than sixty-five have been injured, about forty of them firefighters.

President Bush arrived in smoky southern California this morning to view the damage. He toured Rancho Bernardo, a fire-ravaged suburb north of San Diego, with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The community is home to about seventy-five thousand people. More than two hundred fifty homes were destroyed here.

Along the way, Mr. Bush stopped to comfort Jay and Kendra Jeffcoat whose home was destroyed. Mr. Bush also met with firefighters and toured a one-stop assistance center. He later spoke to reporters.

George Bush>> "It really is important for me to come out here and see firsthand the situation and there's no question a lot of people are suffering and there's no question there's been terrible losses. I also am out here to make sure these firefighters behind me and the first responders know how much I appreciate and how much the country appreciates their courage and bravery.

And we're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C. We want the people to know that there's a better day ahead, that today your life may look dismal, but tomorrow life's going to be better and, to the extent that the federal government can help you, we want to do so."

Jeffrey Kaye>> The president has declared seven southern California counties major disaster areas, opening the way for increased federal aid.

>> "When we get to a barricade, I'll go in front of you and get you through the barricade, okay?"

Jeffrey Kaye>> In Rancho Bernardo, residents began returning yesterday evening, but under strict guidelines. Police Sergeant Bill Davis briefed a team of officers assigned to escort residents to their homes for short visits.

Sergeant Bill Davis: "Stay with the people. They got ten minutes. Take them out to the nearest public exit, a place where the public is allowed, and come back and pick up the next one."

Jeffrey Kaye>> Some people got back to undamaged residences to retrieve possessions and pets.

[Film Clip]

Jeffrey Kaye>> For others, coming home was more dramatic.

Gordon Wood>> We left without shoes on our feet. There were embers falling on our heads when we tried to get into the car.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Gordon Wood returned with his wife, Marilyn, to find their house destroyed. Some residents found their homes turned into impromptu television studios with the arrival of the national and international media. Some in San Diego have criticized news reporters for exaggerating the scope of the disaster. This morning, the line of people in cars waiting to get back into Rancho Bernardo stretched about a mile.

Kishi Bushnell>> "If there's anything I can do at all, I'm Kishi."

Jeffrey Kaye>> Outside the assistance center, crisis volunteer Kishi Bushnell offered compassion and consolation to evacuees.

Kishi Bushnell>> "And your home? Do you know anything about it?"

>> "I'm pretty sure it's gone."

Kishi Bushnell>> "Oh, I'm so sorry.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Jenifer and John Groeling already knew their home and belongings had been destroyed. What do you hope to get here?

Jenifer Groeling>> Well, there's a car that survived. We've got one of our cars over there. That's pretty much, yeah. I think that's pretty much going to be it. I think we've got maybe a wall.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Inside the aid center, community representatives sat at tables ready to help residents with loans and emergency assistance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, can provide up to nearly thirty thousand dollars per victim for expenses not covered by insurance. The insurance companies were also on hand here setting up shop to arrange for compensation and claims.

Although this neighborhood remains under an evacuation order, one sign of the diminished threat was that firefighters assigned to protect it were coming off a twenty-four hour shift and taking a break before being reassigned back to their stations.

Some communities are rapidly coming back to normal. Poway was one of the very first cities to evacuate, but this morning, you wouldn't know this place had been in any danger. Stores are open, traffic is flowing and mail carriers are catching up on their deliveries.

City officials are helping out those whose homes have been damaged. Poway's recreation center is still serving as a shelter and is a place for people to come for essentials. Red Cross officials running the shelter say that it's being used mostly by Latino immigrant families.

To the north, some fires still rage on. In San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles, firefighters struggle to contain two fires that have destroyed more than three hundred homes around Lake Arrowhead. Six thousand more structures remain in its path. In Santa Clarita north of Los Angeles, some residents described how they took matters into their own hands.

John Joseph>> I have my own pump that I pull out of the stream, a hundred thirty gallons a minute. I was up on the roof wetting everything down. When you think you're about to lose everything that you have, you freak. You don't eat, you fast and you pray.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Now that the fires have largely moved out of urban areas, authorities are issuing new warnings about respiratory health.

Dr. James Dunford>> We're going to be seeing a rise in this over the next couple of weeks in our emergency departments.

Jeffrey Kaye>> These problems took as long as a year to surface after the fires four years ago in San Diego. In general, many here are saying that the firefighting response to this week's fires were much better than in 2003.

[Film Clip]

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 fortunes of politicians can be made or broken by their response to disasters. So has the Bush administration learned from the mistakes of Katrina? And what role does politics play in disaster relief?

We came to the home of Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst and professor at USC. She's just returned from a visit to New Orleans. I asked her about the political response to natural disasters. You actually just recently got back from New Orleans?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yes, I did.

Val Zavala>> And now in the middle of this disaster, how do you compare the two disasters politically?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Politically? Well, the first thing I have to say is that politicians at every level of government seem to have learned the lessons of Katrina. You can't hesitate, you must be on the ground, you must be hands-on, you must have a plan even before the disaster happens. I'm seeing that in California in the way that we couldn't and wouldn't have seen it in New Orleans. The Lower Ninth is almost flat.

Val Zavala>> And it's been how many years now?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It's been over two years. So we can't judge yet in total the response to the wildfires here in California until we see how long it takes for those communities to come back.

Val Zavala>> Now you say how long it takes for the communities to come back, but how much is the federal government really part of that recovery? Isn't it really insurance companies and local governments and permitting processes? I mean, it's not the federal government that will make --

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> -- it's everybody. It's local government, it's state government, it is the federal government. Having a declaration of a major disaster as we now have is far different than simply the president's calling it a state of emergency.

One of the most interesting things I've seen today was a split-screen comparison on television between the Qualcomm dome and the Superdome, Katrina's shelter of last resort. It is a difference between night and day. The horrors of the Superdome aren't there. I'm told that Starbucks has come into Qualcomm with coffee. There are toys --

Val Zavala>> -- for less than three dollars a cup, I hope (laughter).

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I would hope it's for free. Toys there for the children, pillows, blankets, food from restaurants. I think that's all about the lessons of Katrina. So everybody is working in California in a way that we didn't see in New Orleans.

Val Zavala>> But isn't it also true that the logistical challenge of the Superdome, there's no comparison? I mean, you had to get people out of the Superdome as opposed to just Qualcomm being the final destination and a nice place to have a cup of coffee. I mean, the challenge of the two disasters are completely different.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, of course, because they are two different kinds of natural disasters. I mean, first of all, you had flooding. We've never seen flooding like that, at least not in my lifetime, as the flooding in New Orleans. You had people who didn't have cars to get out in New Orleans. You didn't really have clear evacuation routes in New Orleans.

By the way, there are now signs up on the highways that say, "Evacuation Route" with arrows. I thought that was very interesting. So that hopefully will have been overcome. You had rain and moisture and a whole city that had to be taken care of.

In southern California, as horrific as it is, as horrific of about a million people having to move maybe, you do have people who do have cars. You again have the lessons of Katrina to draw on. They're not all using the same highway. As bad as traffic is here, and it is worse since the fires, it's at least spread out in a way that might make access easier.

Val Zavala>> How has President Bush done? Because, after all, he's working with a Republican governor here. Has he fared much better in terms of the PR (laughter)?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Oh, yeah. First of all, who do you know has the guts to say no to the Terminator? How has the president done this time? Much better. He's on the ground. The image of the president's engagement, or lack of engagement, post-Katrina is the photo of his staring distantly out of the window of Air Force One at everything that was going on, the destruction below.

That is the image that is going to remain with the American people. He's fighting that image and he's there on the ground watching, looking, reaching out in a way that it took a much longer time to happen post-Katrina.

Val Zavala>> Could the fact that California, which is a major player in the presidential election, especially now with the early primary on February 6, could that have been part of the calculation?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Sure. Electoral fortunes are always a part of any politician's decision-making. He couldn't afford to look like he did post-Katrina, if it had been the smallest state or the most Republican state or the most Democratic state in the Union.

Val Zavala>> We also can't help but notice incredible difference between poor, black, inner city, and southern California which, for the most part, upper middle class, suburban, wealthy.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It has hit in Orange County, in San Diego, which have been kind, shall we say, to the Republican party and that may well influence the speed and the breadth of the response of the president. I can't deny that. I really can't.

The question is whether or not it is the key factor in his decision-making. Sure, it's one of them. It's one of them whenever a politician makes a policy decision. I don't think it's the only one and I don't think it's the major one.

I just can't believe that any politician could be so slow, so disorganized, so distant from a disaster again. That is the critical lesson of Katrina. We have seen it with our governor. We have seen it with our local officials. And we are seeing it now with the president of the United States.

Val Zavala>> Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, thank you so much. It's always so interesting to hear your thoughts.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And it's always so interesting to hear your questions, Val. Thank you.

Val Zavala>> We'll be back later in the program with the latest headlines on the fires.

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

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Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is the romantic comedy, "Dan in Real Life". It stars comic actor Steve Carell in his first leading man role opposite Juliette Binoche. Carell plays an advice columnist who's lost his wife.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Andy Klein of CityBeat and Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com. Henry, what did you think of "Dan in Real Life"?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, I think someone needed to tell the filmmakers that a romantic comedy is supposed to have romance and comedy. Hence the phrase. This is just a disaster. Steve Carell, who has no leading man qualities, plays a widowed father of two who goes to a big family reunion. He and Juliette Binoche hit it off while he's out doing an errand and, lo and behold, it turns out that she's the girlfriend of his brother. You know, they have these complications to work out.

One of the things the film does is, it takes ten minutes to tell you, you know, that this is a complicated situation, you know, the two brothers in love with the same girl. Then apparently the filmmaker wasn't sure that people got that, so he took another ten minutes to do that. Then, just in case, another ten minutes to do it. This film is just awful. Carell is no good, the script is no good, the direction is no good.

Larry Mantle>> (Laughter) Andy?

Andy Klein>> Well, that leaves a lot for me, Henry (laughter). Yeah, I basically agree. I mean, this film is a catastrophe. I wouldn't so much blame the players because I think they were just stuck in this. I do think that Steve Carell could, in some other context, have that some sort of believable leading man stuff. But the fact is that this is so badly directed and such a limp script.

Juliette Binoche, you needed somebody like her who sort of automatically is understandable onscreen as somebody that everybody's going to fall in love with. She's coasting on her luminosity here. She doesn't even come across charming. Neither of them come across charming, so it's just really completely unlikable, flat. Oh, forget it.

Larry Mantle>> Our second film this week is written by, directed by, has music composed by, and stars Anthony Hopkins. His film is "Slipstream". It's a stream of consciousness movie in which reality and fantasy intermix.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Andy, what did you think of "Slipstream"?

Andy Klein>> Well, I really enjoyed this kind of film and I did enjoy it even though it's clearly not for everybody. I mean, the best way to describe it really is that it's almost the same as "Inland Empire" except half as long and probably half as deep, though we're still working on "Inland Empire".

It's completely wacky. It's impossible to figure out. I doubt that Hopkins himself has some sort of coherent notion of what all this stuff adds up to. But it's the kind of goofy, experimental stuff that I find great fun to watch just because it's such a break from all the usual stuff we see.

There are some moments of performance that I think are good. There is some very funny stuff, but if you're looking for some, you know, coherent and conventional narrative, this is not the film to go see.

Larry Mantle>> Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> You know, I didn't like "Inland Empire", but it's "Citizen Kane" compared to this mess (laughter). You know, this is just further evidence of the malignant influence of Fellini's "8 1/2" on filmmaking in which filmmakers with apparently very little consciousnesses decide to put that consciousness on film.

I mean, this is obviously some kind of dream. You can tell from the title that it's something radical going on in Hopkins' character's head, but does what's going on in his head amount to anything?

I mean, you have all this unbelievably quick editing and images from one section put into another. It looks like a rescue job to me, I have to say, on the editing. If he's a confused filmmaker, you could at least have a film about confusion. But this isn't about confusion. It's just confused.

Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, we have the documentary directed by Jonathan Demme, "Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains". The film follows Carter as he's on his national book tour promoting his highly controversial book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> "Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains", Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, I enjoyed watching this movie. It's basically a record of Jimmy Carter's book tour for his controversial book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", which raised kind of a ruckus, a lot of criticism of him. Mostly the movie shows him going to interviews or talking with audiences and addressing the issues in the book.

That's okay, although he basically only has one thing to say. It's what's in the book, you know, and you learn what that is very quickly. There are nice scenes of him in his car kind of talking with this publicist or his wife on the phone.

But I thought the most interesting part of the movie was the beginning which showed him in Plains on his farm, you know, preaching at a local Baptist church, going to a community barbecue. You saw him kind of being that local patriarch. You know, I thought that was more interesting and I wish they had had more of that.

Larry Mantle>> Andy?

Andy Klein>> Yeah, I love that stuff at the beginning as well. It had some inner cut throughout with some historical material about both the Middle East and about Carter's presidency. It's true that the latter part of the film does get very repetitive. I mean, as much as it's great to have all this material on him, you've kind of heard it enough by about halfway through the second half of the film. The film is a little over two hours and I think it could have been beneficially trimmed.

It's a very positive portrait and I bought it. I mean, I think there are people going to watch it and say like, well, this was either edited to please him or he knew the cameras were on, so he was always keeping in a certain character. But frankly, to do that, since they're following him sixteen hours a day every day for an extended period, you know, if you can stay in character that long, then that is your character.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and Andy Klein of CityBeat. Please join us next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> As we mentioned, this is the fifth day of the fires and here is the latest. The number of deaths directly related to the fires increased to seven. Reward funds increased to a hundred fifty thousand dollars for information relating to the arson in Orange County. And on a tour of southern California, the president pledged additional help saying, "We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C."

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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