VOA-CONNECT
[AIR DATE: 01 26 18]
[FINAL TRANSCRIPT ]
OPEN ((VO/NAT))
((Banner))
Portland
((SOT))
“And it’s the alchemy of the weed cookery, this idea that you’re messing around between science and art and magic, that’s really exciting. And really compelling to me.”
((Animation Transition)
((Banner))
Baltimore
((SOT))
“The end of 2015 I heard the number 344. That was the most homicides in Baltimore City for the city’s history. Hearing that was pretty disturbing to me, I knew I wanted to do something about it but I wasn’t quite sure what.”
((Animation Transition))
((Banner))
A Community of their Own
((SOT))
“Traditionally in many cultures there’s been this idea of extended families living together but, you know, what we found is that’s really changed. That old system was based on a different time.”
((Open Animation))
BLOCK A
((Banner: THE TRINITY))
((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
((PKG)) PORTLAND / NOBLE ROT
((Banner: Marijuana))
((Reporter: Masha Morton))
((Camera: Mike Maisuradze))
((Producer: Martin Secrest))
((NATS))
((Factoid Banner: Portland, Oregon where marijuana (weed) is legal))
((LEATHER STORRS, Head Chef, Noble Rot))
“I like food and I like Portland. And it’s funky, you know, and people really celebrate that and they ‘wave the flag.’ Like there’s something to be gained in Portland from being kind of kooky. If I make something and it tastes like ‘ganky’ weed, then I haven’t done my job. And it’s the alchemy of the weed cookery, this idea that you’re messing around between science and art and magic, that’s really exciting and really compelling to me. I always cook from the flour up. I think that as a chef, and as a person who likes weed quite a bit, that’s the way that I show my respect.”
“So this right here is some foie gras. It’s a mousse that has exactly one-half milligram of THC to one milligram or one gram, excuse me, of the foie gras. And I don’t have a lot of places in my life where I’m particularly moderate, or careful, and it actually is a little bit strange to me how seriously I take this. A lot of this stuff that happens when you eat cannabis has to do with your mindset at the time. And if you’re kind of freaked out, if you’re worried that it’s going to be scary, then it is. And so I think if I can tell people exactly what I’m going to give them, how I’m going to do it, then it allows them to settle down a little bit and actually enjoy.”
((NATS))
((LEATHER STORRS, Owner, Head Chef, Noble Rot))
“So there we go. That’s the nasturtium butter, infused, there’s 5 milligrams of THC in there, some fava leaves, pineapple, sage, flour and dill.”
“Portland is getting to be a bigger city. But it remains, I think, in the national eye, an idiosyncratic city where people that have strange beliefs, or kind of hippie proclivities, can feel OK.”
((PKG)) PORTLAND / SUSTAINABLE COFFEE
((Banner: Coffee))
((Reporter: Masha Morton))
((Camera: Mike Maisuradze))
((Producer: Phil Alexiou))
((DAVID GRISWALD, Founder, Sustainable Harvest))
“People told me, hey, there’s this place in the North where it rains a lot and the people are all exactly like you and love the things you like about sustainability and recycling and caring about farmers and transparency. You got to go check it out.”
“My name’s David Griswald and I’m the founder of Sustainable Harvest Coffee. Our core business is finding coffees from around the world, from Latin America, from East Africa, from Asia and then selling it to coffee roasters so they can retail it to consumers.”
“So, what we try to do in our business model, we’re called Sustainable Harvest, is find a way that the farmers who are selling will be able to pass their farms onto their children and future generations and continue farming coffee, which isn’t the easiest thing to do with all the changes happening in our environment, in our economy. To make coffee profitable is really a big challenge and that’s what we face every day.”
((STEPHANIE DAVILLA, Coffee farmer, Guatemala))
“In the case of coffee farms, I think, that the job situation has been difficult because the prices are so competitive right now.”
“My name is Stephanie Davilla. I am visiting from Guatemala. I’m a coffee farmer and green coffee exporter in Guatemala. I totally believe that the current commercial models are not working for the farmers. And that is one of the reasons I am here because I am looking for further opportunities to expand my business, but getting closer to the people who consume the coffee.”
((DAVID GRISWALD, Founder, Sustainable Harvest))
“We think one thing that can be done to help farmers is to get them connected directly to the people who sell their coffee. And so that there can be an empathetic relationship between the buyer and the seller. We call that relationship coffee and by empathy it means really understanding what does my producer need to survive. It’s not that different than when you might go to a farmer’s market and meet the farmer and hear a little bit about what does it take to grow tomatoes or strawberries or whatever it is they are selling. You start to understand their life a little more and you sometimes say, you know, it’s more expensive, maybe, what I’m buying here than at the grocery store, but I feel good about my purchase.”
((KEITH MILLER, Owner, Red E Café))
“Actually going to a polling station and casting a vote, you can do it with your dollar. It’s the one place how you spend your money is how you can actually have a voice and backing up the things that you value personally. And I think the culture here is to spend responsibly.”
((DAVID GRISWALD, Founder, Sustainable Harvest))
“We will find that in 10 to 20 years most of the coffee that we drink will come from just two countries. One will be Brazil where coffee can be mechanized and is very flat and so they can pick beans by machines or in Vietnam where the labor costs are so low. And the coffees from those countries are in some cases good, but in most cases are just sort of mediocre. They’re not the flavors that we’re used to from a place like Guatemala or Costa Rica or Kenya. And so our fear and our concern at Sustainable Harvest is how do we make those farms profitable in those places so that coffee can be really a taste of place that spans the whole world.”
((PKG)) PORTLAND / VOODOO DOGHNUTS
((Banner: Doughnuts))
((Reporter: Masha Morton))
((Camera: Mikhail Maisuradze))
((Producer: Martin Secrest)).
((MUSIC + NATS))
((Factoid Banner: Voodoo Doughnut opened in 2003))
((KENNETH POGSON, Co-Owner, Voodoo Doughnut))
“We have broken the mold of the traditional doughnut shop which sort of was our intent. But we didn’t realize that it would literally spread throughout the industry. We just saw a typical doughnut shop, well why not make it a little crazy. And in our minds back then, make it a little Portland in our eyes. We thought, Portland, you know, keep Portland weird, make it crazy stuff. And we enjoy that, we wanted to experiment with that and so that was kind of the idea. Just like let’s try some crazy stuff. What looks good for the camera? What tastes good? And not being a baker, I didn’t have any limits. I didn’t have any ‘well you can’t do that, you can’t do that.’ I can do whatever I wanted, it was my place. That was one of the reasons my business partner, Trace, and I opened the place. It’s because we wanted to do what we wanted. We were tired of working for other people and doing what they wanted, so hey, let’s do something and let’s do it crazy and make it fun. And a lot of that idea is the idea of we’re going to own a business. We’re going to try to be legitimate business people, therefore we’re going to have to work. And even though now it’s real business - we have several locations, we have employees, we have HR, we have all those kind of things - we’ve still tried to maintain sort of a circus atmosphere.”
((REPORTER: How many doughnuts, how many different doughnuts do you make?))
((KENNETH POGSON, Co-Owner, Voodoo Doughnuts))
“Overall we could probably have a 100 varieties. Maybe not a 100 varieties in the case at all times. But we try to have a good 60 to 70 varieties on hand at all times. A treat every now and then is nice. You deserve a treat every now and then. And that’s kind of our thing. It’s a respite from the storm.”
TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Baltimore
((SOT))
“I just don’t understand how, all the young people, only when it’s their family member or one of their friends do they care that a life has been lost. But all life is precious. All life should be savored.”
BREAK ONE
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
BLOCK B:
((Banner: BALTIMORE))
((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
((Factoid Banner: American cities are becoming safer as violent crime declines nationwide. There are exceptions. Baltimore, Maryland.
((PKG)) STAINS ON THE SIDEWALK
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer, Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk))
“For decades now Baltimore has been faced with the incredible issue of gun violence and homicides that are just climbing almost every year. It’s directly connected to the drug trade which is directly connected to poverty. The end of 2015 I heard the number 344. That was the most homicides in Baltimore City for the city’s history. Hearing that was pretty disturbing to me, I knew I wanted to do something about it but I wasn’t quite sure what.
I’m Amy Berbert. I am the photographer behind “Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk” which is a photography project where I return back to all of the homicide locations in Baltimore City. I go back on the one year anniversary on the same day that the violence occurred and I go back at the same exact time.
((NATS))
Sit. Ok.
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
I definitely don’t look like I belong in those neighborhoods. Being a white female, I look like I’m either a cop, a social worker or someone buying drugs. People have demanded my camera because they thought that I was photographing a drug deal that they were involved in. And then I show them that there’s no people in any of my photos.
We’re going to be driving across the city to the east side. I definitely get a little more nervous on the east side. People in west Baltimore are willing to come up to me and ask me what I’m doing and they seem polite enough. East Baltimore people just give me weird looks. A year ago, tonight, there were two homicides in Baltimore that happened at exactly the same time. They believe that there was a targeted victim that was not in the home, but this woman was killed in the process. There were children upstairs when it happened.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“Hi.”
((Older man looking at memorial))
“How you doing?”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“Good how are you?”
((Older man looking at memorial))
“Look at her. Beautiful. And her name was Tijae.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“My understanding she was just in the house, right? Someone broke in. She was not even the target.”
((Young man looking at memorial))
“She wasn’t a bad person. Innocent. And she had a daughter. She was fun to hang around. We used to go trick-or-treating with her, for real. She was just about her and her daughter for real. She stayed to herself.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“She had a daughter?”
((Young man looking at memorial))
“She was only three but I think she’s four now.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“Ok. That’s awful.”
((Older woman looking at memorial))
“Jesus have mercy.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“So I am an artist in the city. I’m doing a photography project called “Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk”. I go back to all of the homicide locations in Baltimore City on the same day and the same time and I take a photo where it happened.”
((Older woman looking at memorial))
“I just don’t understand how, all the young people, only when it’s their family member or one of their friends do they care that a life has been lost. But all life is precious. All life should be savored. Nobody‘s life is to be thrown away or disregarded. And she’s just a baby, just a baby. She was just beginning her life.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“I know, I know.”
((Older man looking at memorial))
“And how old is her daughter you said big guy?”
((Young man looking at memorial))
“Her daughter was like three or four.”
((Older man looking at memorial))
“My gracious almighty. Rest in peace.”
((Young man looking at memorial))
“I was at my house, that’s when I see ambulances and stuff coming up the street. My homeboy Earl called my brother Zion and told him that she was shot.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“Wow. So it was 3614 was the house? I’d love to get this too though.” ((AMY BERBERT, Photographer))
“Thank you so much.”
((AMY BERBERT, Photographer, Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk))
“I want people to be able to look at these photos and imagine that they’re standing there and that this person is dying. And suddenly they feel this emotional connection through this photo and they can see the victims as individuals and as human beings that you know, otherwise were just a number.
I’m not trying to bring beauty to the world. I’m not trying to make money off of this. I’m really just trying to bring awareness and understanding and compassion to the issue of homicide in Baltimore City. I think social media really has a greater reach. For people to be able to see the image pop up on their Instagram feed or their Facebook feed on the day of, then that gives them the opportunity to pause and remember that person as well. I think that does a lot more than images hanging on a museum wall.”
((Reporter/Camera/Producer: Gabrielle Weiss))
TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Companions
((SOT))
“Inside every wolf dog is a war, and that war is, ‘Am I a wolf, or am I a dog? Am I a wild animal, or am I a part of the family?’ Inside every combat veteran just like me, there’s that struggle like, ‘Am I a husband, or am I an infantryman?’
BREAK TWO
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
BLOCK C:
((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
Companions…come in many….shapes….and sizes
((PKG)) US - WOLF DOGS
((Banner: Man’s best Friend))
((Reporter/Camera: Genia Dulot))
((Producer: Martin Secrest))
((LORIN LINDNER, Co-Founder, LARC))
((Locator Chyron: Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC),
Frazier Park, California))
“People are breeding wolves and dogs together and they think it’s a good idea. They think it makes a good pet, and for the most part, they do not. Because guess what? They’ve got wolf in them. He had been living in Bakersfield, California, and he was just in someone’s small back yard. And there were constant complaints from Animal Control. When they get out they kill the neighborhood dogs and cats. They can jump 8-foot fences and dig under 6-foot dig guards, and they don’t make good pets.”
((MATTHEW SIMMONS, US Navy Veteran, Co-Founder, LARC))
“Inside every wolf dog is a war, and that war is, ‘Am I a wolf, or am I a dog? Am I a wild animal, or am I a part of a family?’ Inside every combat veteran just like me, there’s that struggle like, ‘Am I a husband, or am I an infantryman?’ They’re different things. As an infantryman you learn that the solution to everything is death. And in your home life, you have to be compassionate, and soft and loving. And those two worlds collide all the time. And that’s what makes it so hard for returning combat veterans. They have this inner thing like, ‘I don’t know if I should be gentle anymore. I’ve lost so many. I have survivor’s guilt. I’m suffering.’ For many years I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would be yelling, or I’d be sweating, or I’d be carrying on. Wiley came into my life 10 years ago. I’ve probably had four bad nights since then. So I can’t say it’s all him, but having him next to me, with me, has made a huge difference.”
((LORIN LINDNER, Co-Founder, LARC))
“Wolf dogs are not domesticated like dogs are, where they are accustomed to being told what to do. Wolf dogs do not want to be told what to do. Like that, he can change, start growling, decide that he wants whatever’s in your pocket, and he gets that, you don’t keep that from him.”
((JAMES THOMPSON, US Army Veteran))
“A lot of my PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) is misunderstood. A lot of things that I go through in life is misunderstood, but yet it’s judged, you know. And it’s the same thing with them, you know. ((Locator Chyron: Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC), Frazier Park, California)) When it comes down to these wolves, to where they can’t speak, I like to be the one that speak for them. I like to be the one to stand up for them.”
((MATTHEW SIMMONS, US Navy Veteran, Co-Founder, LARC))
“And I think that emotional struggle by the human, and by the wolf, is something that works very well together in this kind of outdoor setting and it allows veterans to take an emotional exploration that they don’t normally take. That unspoken communication between the wolf dog and the combat veteran is something very special.”
((PKG)) PRIYA LIVING / INDIAN RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
((Banner: Among Friends))
((Reporter/Camera: Deana Mitchell))
((Producer: Martin Secrest))
((NATS))
((Locator Banner: Priya Living, Silicon Valley, California))
((ASHA RAORANE, Resident, Priya Living))
“This is community living. All the time we are together. We are taking teas. We are having our food together. We are talking. We are having spiritual classes. We are having yoga. We go for a walk together. Nobody is lonely here.”
((ARUN PAUL, CEO & Founder, Priya Living))
“Living here in America as the son of immigrants, I’ve realized that there’s unique needs that immigrants have. I started this because I was thinking about what I could do for my parents and how they could live.”
((ASHA RAORANE, Resident, Priya Living))
“The children are so busy nowadays. They are all the time, working, taking care of their kids, so we do not want to interfere in their lives. So it is better to have independent living. That is what I feel.”
((ARUN PAUL, CEO & Founder, Priya Living))
“Traditionally in many cultures there’s been this idea of extended families living together but, you know, what we found is that’s really changed. That old system was based on a different time when women were in the house, really taking care of, in many cultures, their husband’s parents. Obviously the role of women in society has changed globally.”
((NATS))
((BHAGYASHREE RAORANE, Daughter of Asha Raorane))
“We walked in and instantly it was like walking into an Indian community in India. Even the building is painted the same color as so many of the buildings in India are painted. They have a courtyard, they have a community. All of the people there are like my mother where they have children who live in close vicinity. They have grandchildren that are close by, and it just made sense."
((NATS))
((MAHESH NIHALANI, Community Director, Priya Living))
“A place like Priya Living just keeps them happy and away from loneliness. Seniors being happy takes care of at least 60 to 70 percent of their medical problems.”
((ASHA RAORANE, Resident, Priya Living)) )
“Our generation is older generation. We change according to the needs of the new generation, our kids. But they cannot go backward. So, it’s we who have to change ourselves first.”
((PKG)) ROBOT COMPANIONS
((Banner: A New Kind of Friend))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((Producer: Randall Taylor))
((NAT POP))
"Anybody want to cuddle me?"
((VOX POP))
"This kind of robot is the next step because Amazon Echo, Google Home, can't move. They're not alive. It's not a character you know.”
((VOX POP))
"This is like humanoid. It's good for, maybe, the elderly, for children and for adults, to have interaction.”
((VOX POP))
“I don't know. I guess it would really depend on what you would use it for and what it would do for you.”
((NAT POP))
“This really looks nice over here.”
((VOX POP))
“I think today, people they don't have time to spend time with elderly people or with children and using that is just perfect, because it looks like a human, interacts like a human, and it's a gentle product.”
((Courtesy Chyron: "Intuition Robotics"))
((NAT POP))
“Mary, Meghan sent a new photo. Would you like to look at it?”
“Yes, please.”
((END Courtesy Chyron))
((DOR SKULER, Co-Founder, INTUITION ROBOTICS))
"The world is changing due to demographic change all over the world. Japan, for example, is the first to see this with above 25 percent of the population hitting 65.”
((NAT POP))
"Hi, my name is ElliQ"
((DOR SKULER, Co-Founder, INTUITION ROBOTICS))
“EllieQ is the one that initiates most of the interactions.”
((NAT POP))
"Why did King Kong climb the Empire State Building? Because he could not fit in the elevator."
((DOR SKULER, Co-Founder, INTUITION ROBOTICS))
“By interactions, by learning (about) the older adult, learning their needs, learning the environment, to help them stay sharp, keep connected, active and engaged."
((Courtesy Chyron: "Intuition Robotics"))
((NAT POP))
“Hi Honey.”
“Hi, mom”
“I’m doing my Tai-Chi now.
“Yeah, I can see.”
“Okay mom, just checking in. You take care.”
“I’m fine sweetie. Chat later.”
BREAK THREE
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
CLOSING ((ANIM))
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SHOW ENDS
