Life & Times - Transcript

About Us \| Contact Us

Life & Times Transcript

7/27/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Should Californians vote on withdrawing troops from Iraq?

Senator Roy Ashburn>> It will have no effect whatsoever except to unfairly raise the expectations of the California voter that somehow their vote is going to make a difference.

Senator Don Perata>> There is a surprising amount of skepticism today about government, so I'm just shocked that people think that there might be another motive here.

Val Zavala>> And then, a book for all seasons. A photographer stops time in these panoramic images of an ageless garden.

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>> California voters may have a chance to say yea or nay on the war in Iraq. Democrats are working to get a measure on this February's ballot. But Republicans say that the Democrats have an ulterior motive. Hena Cuevas went to Sacramento to find out more about this war measure that could end up on the California ballot.

Hena Cuevas>> Since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, thirty-five hundred United States soldiers have died. Many thousands more have been injured. The war was the top issue in the last presidential campaign and pressure to end it continues. Soon California could become the first state to officially voice its opinion on the Iraq war.

The state's early primary is set for February 5. That's when Californians may be able to vote on whether they support the immediate withdrawal of the troops. The bill is called Vote Us Out Of Iraq. It's the idea of Senator Don Perata, a Democrat from Oakland.

Senator Don Perata>> Everybody who's anybody is going to have to come and contest in California, so let's put the biggest issue in the country and perhaps the world today on the ballot. At the very least, every presidential candidate will have to square off on that initiative as a reference point and, at the very best, it gives people an opportunity to say, "This is my voice."

Hena Cuevas>> The proposed ballot question reads simply, "The people of California in support of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces of the United States urge President Bush to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and immediately begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all United States forces." On June 6, Perata took his case to the Senate.

Senator Don Perata>> "I would ask all of you in this post-partisan period to embrace this opportunity and allow the voters of this state to have their voices heard."

Hena Cuevas>> As expected, debate on the measure was divided along party lines. Republican senators argued that foreign policy is the job of the federal government.

Senator Dick Ackerman>> "We were elected by our constituents to handle issues regarding the state of California. For people who want to handle federal issues, and there's a few in this House, they should run for Congress and do their job back there."

Senator Gloria Romero>> "What this means is the opportunity of these families and the constituents that I represent to be able to simply record an opinion to make their track on history in California expressing what is I believe the most important issue of our time."

Hena Cuevas>> But a bill like this one does have problems, according to political analyst Jack Pitney. He says it's up to the president and Congress and not California voters to decide the future of United States presence in Iraq. In other words, he argues, the measure would have the same effect as writing a letter to your Congressman.

Jack Pitney>> It doesn't have any official impact at all. If this passes, President Bush isn't required to withdraw troops from Iraq, but it does send a political signal about the sentiment of the California electorate.

Hena Cuevas>> Senator Perata, the bill's sponsor, is aware of its limitations. It will be mostly symbolic because it's not really going to carry any --

Senator Don Perata>> -- no, it's all symbolic. I mean, it's absolutely symbolic. An advisory vote, however, does carry -- it's like a bully pulpit.

Hena Cuevas>> One of the biggest critics of the bill is Republican Senator Roy Ashburn of Bakersfield.

Senator Roy Ashburn>> Didn't the elections of last November send a message not just in California, but all across the country? Because it wasn't as though the voters didn't say something. They changed the majority in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and Iraq was the centerpiece issue.

"It is wrong to put a measure before the voters and raise expectations that cannot and will not be satisfied because we will never, as a nation, conduct our foreign policy based on the vote in each of fifty states on measures placed on the ballot by a state legislature."

But this war resolution, meaningless as it is, cynical as it is, would be an added cost to that ballot.

Hena Cuevas>> So if it carries no authority, why go through all the trouble of including it? According to Pitney, there may be another reason: to boost the turnout among Democrats.

Jack Pitney>> The speculation that Senator Perata wants this on the ballot in order to gin up liberal turnout and that will help him because it will help him pass another ballot measure to modify term limits and thereby allow him to remain as President Pro Tem for a while longer.

Hena Cuevas>> Pitney is talking about the term limits measure that will most likely also appear on the ballot. It would allow legislators to serve longer in their current jobs. Some say the Iraq vote is a way to draw more Democrats to the polls and Democrats are more likely to vote for the term limits measure. What about the charge that it is a way to energize the Democrat base so they could come in and the other initiatives can go through as well?

Senator Don Perata>> Well, there is a surprising amount of skepticism today about government, so I'm just shocked when people think that there might be another motive here.

Hena Cuevas>> He says that Democrats in the state are already energized by the presidential candidates. Still, Perata admits that he's in favor of extending term limits. He's the most senior senator, having served almost ten years.

Senator Don Perata>> Yeah, I'm guilty. I am absolutely. I would like to do more here. I think we've done some good things in the past two years. We can do and should do a lot more.

Senator Roy Ashburn>> It's very, very wrong. So if that's the motive, that makes this action on this Iraq resolution even worse in trying to manipulate for some other political purpose.

Hena Cuevas>> This isn't the first time there's been charges of voter manipulation. In 1982, a measure was placed on the ballot. It called for President Ronald Reagan to stop the production of nuclear weapons. It was supported by then Governor Jerry Brown who was running for Senate.

Jack Pitney>> A lot of people thought that this measure would help the senatorial prospects of Jerry Brown, but it didn't. Pete Wilson defeated Jerry Brown on the same ballot.

Hena Cuevas>> And even though Californians passed the nuclear freeze measure, President Reagan simply ignored it.

Senator Darrell Steinberg>> "The people have spoken through their elected representatives, but their message has not been heard by the Commander in Chief. So what is wrong with the voters of California having the opportunity to reiterate that same message?"

Hena Cuevas>> After a forty-five minute debate, the State Senate voted along party lines and approved the bill.

>> "Ayes, 23; nays, 11. That measure passes."

Hena Cuevas>> After that debate here in the Senate, the Vote Us Out Of Iraq bill then moved to the Assembly for additional discussion. But as polarizing as that measure has been, there are actually those who support troop withdrawal out of Iraq who say the measure simply isn't strong enough, that the wording doesn't send the right message, and they may not even vote for it.

Jack Pitney>> Some opponents of the war think this measure is too weak, that the wording doesn't require immediate withdrawal, doesn't talk about the steps that they want, that it's too vague. Consequently, it might not energize the anti-war movement in the way its backers hope.

Senator Don Perata>> As the biggest state in the union, when we do anything, people pay attention. We have a celebrity governor and people pay attention. So I don't think this is just going to be another couple of guys going to the polls.

Senator Roy Ashburn>> It's sort of the height of cynical political manipulation to give a false hope, a false expectation that a vote in a single state will somehow change the course of events in determining our national policy.

Hena Cuevas>> The bill needs a majority vote in the Assembly plus Governor Schwarzenegger's signature. If it does end up on the ballot, California voters will once again be able to send a message to Washington even if that message carries no authority at all. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> We'd love to know your opinion about this war measure. You can post it 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>> More and more companies and manufacturers are jumping on the ecological bandwagon claiming that their products and services are ecologically sound. Well, that's the good news. The bad news? How on earth can you tell if they're telling the truth? Well, now there's a way.

Just look for this. It's a green seal and it means that the product has been evaluated by an objective, independent, credible organization called Green Seal. I met the president of Green Seal, Arthur Weissman, a PhD in environmental science who's worked for the Nature Conservancy and the EPA. Why do we need something like this? What's going on in the marketplace?

Arthur Weissman>> Well, the marketplace is changing. It's trying to reflect the interest we all have now in protecting our world and making everything more sustainable, as the word is.

Val Zavala>> That's good.

Arthur Weissman>> It is, sure, but how you do that is the question. We all feel the need to do that. We all want to have a part in helping things and make our world better and more sustainable, but we don't know how to do it. That's where Green Seal comes in. It's an independent, nonprofit organization. We've been around for eighteen years in this sole business of trying to identify environmentally preferable products and services.

We do it by setting rigorous leadership environmental standards and carefully evaluating the products and services that meet those standards in order to certify them and having a very strict code that we have no conflict of interest with any product or any company that we deal with.

Val Zavala>> That's very important.

Arthur Weissman>> Here's a product that we have certified and perhaps we can show you why or how. That's our registered certification mark.

Val Zavala>> This is paint? Just normal house paint?

Arthur Weissman>> This is a flat house paint, but it bears the Green Seal of Approval. It indicates here that there's a reason for it. Because the label space is tight, you have to look around on the side of the label to find out exactly what the reason is for. It says, "This product meets Green Seal environmental standards for volatile organic compound, VOCs, and other ingredients."

Well, that's a long-winded way of saying that the ingredients that we have evaluated in this product meet our criteria. We're not allowing harmful ingredients like carcinogens, things that cause cancer, reproductive toxins, and the volatiles are the things that you breath that could harm your respiratory system, cause asthma and also cause smog which is a big issue for southern California, of course,

Val Zavala>> Now is it unusual for paint to meet your standards or do most paints these days meet your standards? Or a fairly small percentage?

Arthur Weissman>> Well, we rig it, Val. We set our standards so that only a small percentage can meet them.

Val Zavala>> Oh, so when they see the seal, it's really the cream of the crop.

Arthur Weissman>> We say our standards are leadership standards, environmental leadership standards. The reason we do it is this. We're trying to pull the market. If we set a standard that everyone can meet, no one would change.

Val Zavala>> You're right.

Arthur Weissman>> We say typically about fifteen to twenty percent of the products in the market should be able to meet our standard if we're setting it at the right level. That helps pull the market. We've seen this happen in a number of categories where we set standards.

Val Zavala>> Because it's reachable by the others if they want to.

Arthur Weissman>> It's reachable, and we don't want to put it out of reach of anyone who's doing the right thing.

Val Zavala>> Paper. Despite computers and emails, we still use a huge amount of paper in this society. This one got your seal?

Arthur Weissman>> It did indeed.

Val Zavala>> Where is it? Let's see.

Arthur Weissman>> I think it's on the other side here.

Val Zavala>> Oh, here it is, okay. Got it.

Arthur Weissman>> Green Seal Certified. This product meets the criteria of our standard for copy paper which includes that it have a high recycled content. That means that these fibers come from other paper that's been used, post-consumer, as it's called.

The reason that's important is that, once you use this paper for something and you decide you don't need it anymore, instead of throwing it into a landfill and it gets buried for five hundred years or more, you can reuse the paper. It goes through a process of de-inking and re-pulping and then it winds up in another product.

Val Zavala>> And we have here a lot of cleaners. This one happens to be floor cleaner.

Arthur Weissman>> Well, yes. We have certified actually quite a few cleaners. This particular product is a hard floor cleaner that we've certified. The standard that this is certified to is a fairly complex one. There's about fifteen or sixteen different criteria.

Just to give you some examples of what this product would have had to meet to get certified, we look to make sure it has no carcinogens, reproductive toxins, that it's not in any other way acutely toxic to human beings, nor can it be a toxic to the aquatic environment. After all, what happens to this after using it? It goes down the drain and eventually gets into the streams and it can affect our natural systems.

We look at the volatiles that are emitted when you use this product that you breath to make sure that they're limited. We look at --

Val Zavala>> -- packaging, right?

Arthur Weissman>> Packaging, absolutely. It has to be either in reusable or recyclable packaging, HDPE (#2), which is widely recycled in communities. So these are just some of the criteria that a product like this has to meet.

Val Zavala>> Now how do products get certified? Do you go out aggressively and look at them or do companies come to you? How does it come about?

Arthur Weissman>> Typically, since ours is a voluntary program, the companies apply with their products or services and then we evaluate them. We do go out to try to tell them that the standard exists. We involve them in the development of the standard along with nonprofit organizations, government agencies, other public interest groups, academic experts.

I mean, we involve everyone in the development of our standards, but we always make sure that they are leadership levels at the end. We're not going to let anyone bring it down. That helps give us the credibility that is our really most important asset, if not our only asset.

Val Zavala>> Are there a lot of bogus claims out there about being ecological? I mean, anybody can come up with an official looking seal and stick it on their product. How do we know that it's legitimate?

Arthur Weissman>> Well, you really don't unless, in our view, you have the outside third credible party like Green Seal verifying it. The answer is, you do see bogus claims particularly on the web. Anyone could put up a website. Anyone could create a seal program and there's a lot of that going on.

In the more reputable companies, it's not bogus so much as partial. They're going to tell you that this product has this benefit environmentally, but they're not going to tell you about some other things that maybe are not so good about the product. We're trying to look at what we call the life cycle of products.

Val Zavala>> Got it.

Arthur Weissman>> We're looking at all different aspects, not just one. We're trying to get the whole picture about a product and you don't get that necessarily from what a company is touting. You know, it's a basic rule of marketing to go with your strength and we don't allow that. We look at the whole picture when we're looking at a product.

Val Zavala>> Well, hopefully, everybody will catch on and now we know what to look for, the Green Seal Certified. Arthur Weissman, thank you so much for all your hard work.

Arthur Weissman>> Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here.

Val Zavala>> By the way, Green Seal also works with purchasers like the government to help them buy the most ecologically responsible products. For more information, you can go to their website at greenseal.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.

Val Zavala>> Need a break from our hyperventilated, traffic jammed, stress-filled world? Well, southern California is blessed with some of the most beautiful gardens in the world. But if you don't have time to even go to a garden, take heart. An expert photographer is now bringing a garden to you.

This is one of the prettiest spots in southern California, one hundred thirty acres of trees, ponds, flowers, cactus. It's Descanso Gardens in La Can�da and, although there's nothing like being here, one master photographer has come very, very close. His name is Warren Marr. He spent an entire year wandering the grounds of Descanso Gardens waiting for the perfect conditions that would produce the perfect photograph.

Warren Marr>> You always have to have patience, which is something that the average person doesn't have, patience and the time to spend to be there at the right moment.

Val Zavala>> He shoots on film, then prints out digitally. At the end of the year, fifty-four stunning panoramas were chosen for a book called "Descanso: An Urban Oasis Revealed". The project was a challenge for Warren. For forty years, he's been a photographer, but almost always in faraway places or foreign countries. Then things changed.

Warren Marr>> Specifically after 9/11, it became really hard to travel with a lot of the gear that I was used to traveling with. I was someone who would carry three or four big bags onboard and pack stuff. So I was looking for a project that I could do close to home.

Val Zavala>> But shooting close to home meant that he had to change his entire approach.

Warren Marr>> If I was on an assignment somewhere flying into a new city, the things that are easily and obviously photographable pop out and I would shoot them and be on my way. But it's a whole different thing to go back to the same area over again. I was able to turn it into a real creative challenge by expanding my vision.

Val Zavala>> Descanso Gardens is rich with color, but it's the deep groves of oak trees that give Descanso its defining character and fascinate Warren.

Warren Marr>> They're magical to me. When the fog rolls in, it turns into an otherworldly magical place in here. Actually, this is probably the best place in the park to view the tree canopy. It's a very unusual angle to be up this high instead of, you know, normally you'd be on the ground.

Val Zavala>> While many photographers will take ten to twenty times as many pictures as they need, Warren holds back. He does more looking than clicking.

Warren Marr>> I basically walk around with my viewfinder looking and composing and, when I see something I like, I put the viewfinder down and come back with the camera and set up the equipment. I'm not one to motor-drive my camera. I don't shoot like that.

Val Zavala>> Descanso means "rest" in Spanish, but Warren found that even a scene as restful as this could be invaded by the world's troubles.

Warren Marr>> It was towards the end of March 2003. The events in the Middle East were weighing very heavily on my mind, so heavily in fact that I couldn't find anything to shoot. I came here for five or six days in a row looking, looking, looking and I couldn't find anything and it was getting pretty frustrating. Finally, I came here on the day that I took the picture that was in the book.

The fog was in the garden here and the sun was coming up through the fog and I just looked. There was no connection between what was going on elsewhere in the world and the absolute pure, unadulterated beauty that was right here. I just thought to myself, "Okay, they can exist simultaneously. Everything is going to be okay." It's glorious. It's just amazing. It's an image that shows hope.

Val Zavala>> Descanso Gardens was originally a Spanish land grant. In the 1930s, it was bought by a newspaper magnate, Manchester Boddy. He eventually sold it to Los Angeles County and it's been cared for and protected ever since, mostly by volunteers.

Warren Marr>> The gardens, as it is today, exists because they wanted to keep the gardens. Whereas, at different times throughout the years, it was scouted by Walt Disney for Disneyland. It could have been a municipal dump. It could have been a housing development. The 210 Freeway could have gone through here. None of those things happened because of the civic involvement of the people on the Guild.

Val Zavala>> Water flows through Descanso Gardens like a musical theme, streams, ponds, waterfalls.

Warren Marr>> I've photographed this stream here from three different spots and I took another shot very low to the ground skimming the top of the water. In that picture, it looks like you could be taking a barge trip through France. But I also like a lot of images I took in the Rose Garden and I like some in the native area too.

Val Zavala>> Amateur shutterbugs may think that all you have to do is point and click to get a great photograph at a place like this, but Warren knows better.

Warren Marr>> You can't just willy-nilly take a lot of pictures and expect one of them to turn out good. The most important element is the computer between your ears to be able to see the picture before you actually take the picture.

People often ask me why gardens are important. I think, if we didn't have gardens, we would have a collective nervous breakdown. In Thomas Jefferson's time, information traveled as fast as a horse could move in a day or a ship could get blown over the surface of the ocean and that's as fast as things moved.

Today, I don't have to tell you how fast things move. I'm not sure that our brains are actually wired to be operating normally at that speed. For that reason, we need gardens. I hope people can look at my images of Descanso and get the same feeling of being here just by looking at the images.

Val Zavala>> For more information on Descanso Gardens and Warren Marr's book, you can go to their website at descansogardens.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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:


Home \| Features \| Arts \| Health/Science \| OC Edition \| L&T Blog \| Archives \| About Us \| Contact Us \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use © 2007 COMMUNITY TELEVISION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA