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Life & Times Transcript
10/18/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Light pollution is spreading along with urban sprawl, but why should we care? Scott Kardel>> The more time you know, the more chance you have to do something, to react. We'd like to know if there's anything coming right at us. We hope that the brightness of the night sky doesn't keep us from finding a killer asteroid. Val Zavala>> And then, it's cropped up in jails, locker rooms and hospitals, but do we need to worry about a drug-resistant bacteria? 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>> Remember your parents always telling you, "Turn off the light"? Well, this Saturday across Los Angeles, it's lights out. It's an event sponsored by people who want to cut down on unnecessary energy use, but it has an added benefit: less light pollution. And as Roger Cooper tells us, that thrills astronomers. Roger Cooper>> The top of Mount Palomar has always been a perfect place to experience the powers of the universe. Inside this white observatory dome a hundred miles southeast of Los Angeles sits something that's been called the perfect machine. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> A giant reflecting telescope capable of seeing incredible distances into space revealing remarkable images of galaxies, planets and stars. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> It towers over your head, the two hundred inch telescope here at Mount Palomar. For forty-five years, this was the largest telescope on earth. It's still one of our largest astronomical instruments. But as big as it is, this giant has a weakness. It can be blinded by the light. Those twinkling lights you see from Mount Palomar are not stars. They are glow from civilization down below. And every time something like a car dealership or a new subdivision goes up, so do electric lights and the Palomar telescope's ability to see faint objects in space gets weaker. That has the staff and scientists at Mount Palomar concerned. Ironically, this site was chosen because it would be dark. Scott Kardel>> Yeah. In 1934, Palomar was in the middle of nowhere and it was very dark (laughter). Roger Cooper>> Scott Kardel is Public Affairs Coordinator for Mount Palomar Observatory. He says that light pollution started to become a problem in the 1980s as suburban growth in north San Diego County took off. Scott Kardel>> And with that comes cities and parking lots and homes and back yards lit up and ball parks, and all of these things contribute to the brightness in the sky. Roger Cooper>> Karl Dunscombe is the telescope operator who drives the massive instrument to the precise points astronomers want to study in the night sky. He's seen tremendous change since moving to the mountain nineteen years ago. Karl Dunscombe>> I bought a small cabin and, even before I moved in, I came up here one night and just turned off the headlights and looked at the stars and it was amazing. It was just this pristine beautiful sky. We don't have it anymore. It's gone. Scott Kardel>> If we look towards the Temecula area, we can see lights from beyond that that come from Orange County and Los Angeles. We can see the lights of Palm Springs from here, which is actually a fair ways off. Roger Cooper>> But just how bad is it? About a year ago, a night sky team like this one from the National Parks Service measured light pollution at the observatory. Scott Kardel>> They actually measured the quality of the night in terms of how dark it is. Roger Cooper>> They found that the brightest plume of light was coming from San Diego, but there was also light coming from the northwest, Riverside, Orange County and beyond. What does light do as astronomers try to detect faint objects at the edge of the universe? Bad things, says the telescope operator. Karl Dunscombe>> I kind of liken it to watching television and having a whole bunch of snow on the screen. You want a clear picture and you want to be able to see, and the light pollution is just like a bunch of snow on that screen. Roger Cooper>> One of those astronomers who gets to spend all night using the telescope is Caltech graduate student, Mansi Kasliwal. Mansi Kasliwal>> It's a pretty big toy to play with. Roger Cooper>> She says that light pollution could have ruined her view of a remarkable event. What if it had obscured her view of the night a star exploded, the Supernova she witnessed? Mansi Kasliwal>> One of the most fantastic things that I've seen with the Palomar telescope is there's a subject for 2006 which was the brightest Supernova ever. This Supernova basically was just a few odd seconds from the center of this galaxy and you could very clearly see the center of the galaxy and the Supernova separately. Roger Cooper>> But lest you think this is all academic, there is another more ominous aspect to light pollution. Mount Palomar happens to be the place JPL scans the skies for near-earth objects like asteroids. Scott Kardel>> I hate to sound like a doom and gloom, I'm going to scare you kind of thing, but it's true. We do spend a portion of our time looking for asteroids that come near the earth so that we can understand if there are any on a collision course for the earth. We hope that the brightness of the night sky doesn't keep us from finding a killer asteroid. Roger Cooper>> Astronomy aside, the rise in light pollution has another impact and it's on all of us. We're losing our view of the stars from our own back yards. Look at the United States at night from orbit. We are now a planet aglow with electric lights. Scott Kardel>> It's amazing what people are missing and don't know they're missing. You know, the loss of seeing the Milky Way from your own back yard. Karl Dunscombe>> They should have the ability to go out and see the stars. For them to spark that interest, you know, that inquisitive interest to know what's out there. With the light pollution getting worse and worse, you don't see that. The kids don't have that opportunity. Roger Cooper>> So is there anything that can dim the lights around the Palomar Telescope? The observatory staff has been working for years with Riverside and San Diego Counties and county officials have adopted ordinances to limit light pollution. Observatory officials encourage cities to use lighting that aims downward and a certain kind of lighting, low pressure sodium fixtures, that interfere less with the astronomers' view. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> But while the growth of light pollution has slowed some, Scott Kardel says that the day could come when Mount Palomar might have to close its dome. Scott Kardel>> It's entirely possible. I don't see that growth in the area is diminishing, so it's entirely possible that eventually we may face the reality that the telescope just isn't able to do what it was designed to do anymore. We hope that we can push that back far into the future because the instrument is working wonderfully well and it's maintained wonderfully well by the staff here. Roger Cooper>> For Karl Dunscombe, loss of this great telescope would be a tragedy. Karl Dunscombe>> It never ceases to impress me when I come to work and I walk in and I see the telescope and I know the history here and, when I'm driving it, to know that I'm driving five hundred thirty tons of steel and glass. It's just amazing. It's an excellent machine. It's one of the best machines in the world. Scott Kardel>> So we can conceive of this telescope working for generations to come if the local environment is maintained to allow it to do so. Roger Cooper>> On Mount Palomar, I'm Roger Cooper 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>> Health officials call it astounding. It's a certain staph infection that is now killing more Americans than AIDS. It's a super bug that's resistant to drugs. Toni Guinyard first reported on this staph infection back in 2005 when local public health officials noticed an increase in MRSA. Toni Guinyard>> We touch each other every day usually without considering the transfer of germs, but doctors are now warning the public to think twice before reaching out to touch someone or some things. They're seeing an increase in a strain of staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria commonly known as staph. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> It can occur on abrasions, a cut in the skin, or sometimes on intact skin, and it can be red and raised and can get pus inside it. It's something we usually call a boil, sometimes an abscess or just a big pimple. Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Jonathan Fielding is Director of Public Health for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. He points out that twenty-five to thirty percent of the population carries the bacteria in their noses or on their hands without any sign of infection. But over the past few years, there has been an increase in a strain of staph that is resistant to a family of widely-used antibiotics. It's called MRSA. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> It means Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. Dr. Peter Miao>> It complicates what I do if I only have four antibiotics that I can use for certain infections and the patient happens to be resistant, sensitive or allergic to three of the antibiotics. Now I'm stuck with one. Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Peter Miao is an internist and infectious disease specialist at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Sherman Oaks. He is the hospital's chairman of Infection Control. He says just thirty years ago, most antibiotics used were effective in treating staph infections. Dr. Peter Miao>> Now the opposite. We're seeing more and more resistance, resistance, resistance and only very few sensitive. Toni Guinyard>> What is that telling you? Dr. Peter Miao>> That's telling me the bugs are winning, in a sense. As time goes on, they're learning to adapt, they're learning to become resistant to the antibiotics that we have and that we have to find more or newer antibiotics to try and overcome these resistant organisms, the so-called super bugs. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> There have been outbreaks in sports teams, in some neonatal units and a bunch of different places around and there's no question that this has increased all around the country. We don't know exactly why. Toni Guinyard>> What they do know is that staph has been around for a long time. It's not uncommon for hospital patients to contract antibiotic-resistant staph infections. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> Hospital-acquired MRSA as opposed to community has been with us a long time. It's been with us for decades and it's the result of a lot of antibiotic use within health care institutions, particularly hospitals, and that has grown staph that is resistant to a number of classes of antibiotics. Alan Cronin>> I never really found out the results of what a staph infection can do until after this happened to me, after I acquired a staph infection. Toni Guinyard>> Simi Valley resident, Alan Cronin, contracted a staph infection after a hernia operation in 1998. Alan Cronin>> And after I came out of the coma and realized what had happened to me, that's when I really started learning anything at all about how deadly staph infections can be. >> "Let's see how it is when you lay down and when we put some pressure on it." Alan Cronin>> The hospital had to amputate my legs and arms to save my life because the staph infection that I had acquired was causing gangrene to settle into my limbs because of the lack of circulation. Toni Guinyard>> We met with Alan as he was being fitted for prosthetic legs. >> "You're not even close to getting down in that, are you?" Toni Guinyard>> Alan has become somewhat of an expert about staph infections, forced to learn from his own situation. He is a one-man force fighting to educate the public. Alan Cronin>> We hear about them all the time and people think that, well, you know, Jeez, that's a horrible thing, but they never think it's going to happen to them. It's a real scary thing and I just don't think enough is being done about it. "It is pretty tight." >> "The leg's gained weight, man. That's all there is to it. You want to try standing up or not?" Alan Cronin>> "No." You know, I'm not angry and I don't want to be angry, but it's really disappointing for me after this has happened to me just to see additional staph infections in various hospitals. Toni Guinyard>> Even more frightening is the spread of a strain of staph resistant to antibiotics. Alan Cronin>> You know, if I can get a staph infection and almost die, then it can happen to anybody. Toni Guinyard>> Consider this: while Alan contracted the common form of staph in an outpatient medical facility, the concern now is the somewhat alarming spike in the number of antibiotic-resistant cases found in the community, so-called community-acquired MRSA. Dr. Peter Miao>> I don't want to alarm everybody, but we are seeing community-acquired infections that are due to MRSA in people who have never been in a hospital, never had surgery, never had antibiotics. Toni Guinyard>> In 2002, an outbreak was first reported among Los Angeles County jail inmates. The jail sees an average of one hundred eighty to two hundred new cases each month. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> When we started out, of the cases we found in the jail, only nine percent were coming in from the community already with MRSA. Now that percentage is at least twenty-five percent, so part of what we're seeing in the jail is that there's a lot more in the community and people coming into the jail are more likely to have MRSA than before. Toni Guinyard>> The Centers for Disease Control has already investigated outbreaks of MRSA among athletes, military recruits and even children. Environment does not seem to play a significant role in its transmission, but overcrowded living conditions and poor hygiene are factors. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> Skin to skin is absolutely one of the ways that it can be transmitted and we certainly have seen situations where it's been transmitted that way. Dr. Peter Miao>> There was at one time an infectious disease conference and they did a study, set up observers, and saw how many people actually go in and out of the bathroom and wash their hands or not. I don't want to tell you the answer (laughter). Toni Guinyard>> Oh, go ahead and tell me. Dr. Peter Miao>> There were quite a few that did not wash their hands. Toni Guinyard>> And that raises concerns about how easily the bacteria can be transferred as we go about our day-to-day routines at home, at work or at play. Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> In your average gym, this is not going to be a significant problem. Is there a possibility that, you know, somebody could contract it from somebody else there? Sure, but there's a lot of other places that that could occur as well, so I don't think there's any reason for people to be afraid to go to gyms. But they shouldn't share personal articles and they should observe good hygiene. Dr. Peter Miao>> With the bugs getting smarter, hopefully we're a little smarter than the bugs and we're one step ahead and we can find new antibiotics that will help take care of that. Toni Guinyard>> For now, antibiotic-resistant staph is part of our lives, forcing us to think twice before we touch. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> For more information, you can go to the website lapublic.org and put in MRSA in the search box. 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. Our first film this week is "Things We Lost in the Fire". It stars Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety and Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com. Henry, what did you think of "Things We Lost in the Fire"? Henry Sheehan>> Well, I think the problem with this movie, of all its problems, starts conceptually. This is about the aftermath of the death of a character played by David Duchovny. He leaves a widow played by Halle Berry and two children behind. Berry, the widow, starts up a friendship with an old friend of Duchovny's played by Benicio Del Toro who is junkie. He used to be a lawyer and a childhood friend of Duchovny. Duchovny has stayed with him through all the terrible things that have happened to Del Toro. It's about the friendship that starts between them. The problem is, once you get on that road, everything is pretty predictable with the drugs and the grief and the resentments. The director, a woman named Susanne Bier, tries to get into people by actually going to their irises. I've never seen so many close-ups of eyes and eyebrows. If there's anything you want to know about Halle Berry's eyebrows, just come and ask me. Larry Mantle>> The political thriller, "Rendition", stars Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal in the story of a man who's suspected of terrorism only to be whisked away outside of the United States for highly intense questioning and perhaps more. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Lael, what did you think of "Rendition"? Lael Loewenstein>> I thought it was a movie about a really interesting topic that could have been a lot better. Rendition refers to the United States government's policy called Extraordinary Rendition in which they can take someone who is suspected to be a terrorist and detain them and even send them overseas for secret questioning and, in some cases, torture. That's what happens in this movie. Reese Witherspoon plays the very pregnant wife of this chemical engineer who is in this unknown North African location and is interrogated mercilessly and very cruelly for days and days. Jake Gyllenhaal is the supposedly sympathetic CIA guy who's over there and is trying to make things right, but he's having a conflict of conscience. You know, in the end, I thought this was a lot of star turns, a lot of almost cameos. You've got Meryl Streep as a CIA Director. You've got Alan Arkin as a senator. You've got Peter Sarsgaard. You've got all these great people. It just doesn't add up to a very good movie. It makes you feel like you're wanting a lot more. Larry Mantle>> Henry? Henry Sheehan>> I agree with everything that Lael said. I would add that this movie constantly takes the easy way out in terms of drama. The fellow that suffers the rendition is played by an actor, Omar Metwally, who's really terrific. He could be a leading man easily. He is innocent. The American CIA agent played by Jake Gyllenhaal who's in on the interrogation has no experience in interrogating and is repulsed by the whole thing. You know, you could have made it a lot more complex. You could have made the guy who suffered the rendition be more murky. You could have had an experienced interrogator. That would have been more of a drama. It's one of those movies that's political without having any politics at all. Larry Mantle>> The drama, "Reservation Road", tells the story of a tragic child's death in a car accident and the impact of that loss on multiple characters. Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Connelly star. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Reservation Road", Lael? Lael Loewenstein>> This was a real disappointment to me. It's a tremendously moving subject potentially and, for a parent, it's very upsetting. It's about the accidental death of a child in a car accident. Mark Ruffalo plays the man who accidentally kills this child. Joaquin Phoenix is the boy's dad and he's married to Jennifer Connelly. All these characters kind of intersect because this boy is accidentally killed. Ruffalo in turn is hired as the attorney representing Joaquin Phoenix and his family, which gets very, very complicated and convoluted. The whole film just gets very overwrought. It feels like the actors are playing one note, grief or guilt or anger or resentment. You know, there's just not a lot of nuance or subtlety to the acting. A film called "In the Bedroom" a few years ago deals with a similar subject much, much better and it made me wish for something much more restrained, something like that. Larry Mantle>> The Boston-based crime thriller, "Gone Baby Gone", features Ben Affleck's directorial debut and his brother Casey is the star of the film, which also features Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Freeman. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Gone Baby Gone", Henry? Henry Sheehan>> Well, this is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck and it's pretty respectable. I think all the faults of the film really come from the fact that he sticks too closely to the source mystery novel by Dennis Lehane. It's about a child who's kidnapped in Boston or disappears. The mother, brilliantly played by Amy Ryan who's a real find in this movie, is not a good mother. She's a drinker. She's a single mom. All these issues come into play. The problem with Lehane's plot is that it goes from very realistic to wildly improbable and I think that hurts the film. Casey Affleck is not a great leading man here, but I'd say the first half of the movie is quite good. Larry Mantle>> Lael? Lael Loewenstein>> I actually liked the whole movie. First of all, this is something of a career redemption for Ben Affleck who, you know, is a bright guy, very personable, but has just gotten stuck in a lot of rotten movies over the years. So he has kind of brought back some respect to himself and he chose a very smart project set in Boston which is where he grew up and he peoples the film with a lot of locals, so you really have the sense of place, of atmosphere, of the texture of Boston and all the people that are there. I actually felt that it raised some compelling and kind of provocative issues towards the end of the film. Yes, it is a little improbable, what happens, but it definitely made me think that, well, I guess there's a couple of ways to look at it. I can't give away the ending, of course, but it's not what you would expect by any means. Let's leave it at that. Great performances all the way around. Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan, outstanding, and I actually thought Casey Affleck was excellent too. 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 Lael Loewenstein of Variety. Please join us again next week for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> For the longer version of FilmWeek, tune in to KPCC public radio Fridays at eleven a.m. 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:  | |
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