Author: lthistle@whyy.org

Transcript:

DON GONYEA, HOST:

We start today’s program in the Venezuelan port of La Guaira on the Caribbean coast, which is now at the heart of one of the country’s worst natural disasters. The city bore the brunt of Wednesday’s brutal double earthquakes, which killed nearly 1,500 people across the capital and surrounding areas in northern Venezuela. Thousands are still unaccounted for. Rescue teams and volunteers continue to search through the rubble, but hopes of finding more survivors are now fading as time passes. NPR’s Eyder Peralta is there in La Guaira. Eyder, you’ve spent the day traveling along this destroyed coastline. What have you seen?

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: I mean, it’s just total devastation, Don. I mean, last night, we were here late, until the sundown. And we were in front of a building, and there was just this mad rush to try and find people who were making noise from under rubble. And really, it was an ad hoc job. They were tying pieces of concrete onto cars and just trying to move them with cars. And then every once in a while, they would tell everybody to be quiet. The motorcycles would turn off their engines, and they would all go quiet. And the rescuers would scream, if you’re alive, please make some noise.

The people inside had been screaming for days, but last night, all the rescuers kept hearing was just rustling sounds. They told them, if you’re alive, use two rocks and smash them together so we can hear them. The good news is one official told us that from the building that I’m standing in front of right now – which we were here last night too – they did rescue one person this morning alive.

GONYEA: We spoke to you 24 hours ago in La Guaira, and I’m struck. It was so noisy in the background when we were speaking. I could hear backhoes, motorcycles everywhere. It is so much quieter today.

PERALTA: It is, and there’s a reason for that. Basically, they need to hear if anybody’s still alive. So what they’ve told – you’ll hear me kind of whisper here – what they’ve told the motorcycles is they have to turn off their engines when they’re going through any collapsed building. And so the motorcyclists turn off their engines. They walk through. And they tell you to be quiet and actually not even to move because the footsteps cause noises, and they’re just desperately trying to find out if anybody is still in those buildings. And so that’s why it’s so quiet today.

GONYEA: So what’s the challenge now for rescue teams and, I guess, recovery teams in the areas that are the worst affected?

PERALTA: There’s some parts that are totally OK, and then there are some parts where it’s just completely devastated. And it’s a massive disaster. There’s a lot of aid, but it’s just not enough. Today, we were in front of a 12-story building, and no one was there. No official rescuer was there. It was just the families of the people who lived in that building who were digging through the rubble, and it’s just with their hands.

GONYEA: And what are people telling you both about the official response but also just the scale of the damage that they’re confronted with?

PERALTA: I think they understand that this is so massive that their government can’t properly deal with it. You know, one interesting scene – we were at an apartment building today, and people were going into half-destroyed apartment buildings to try and rescue their things because they said that they don’t trust that the government will have their back, and so they’re going to need them. I spoke to one woman, Jaymarie Blanco (ph), who told me that she had lost her home in a 1999 landslide. She said she had built this apartment with so much love, and she was taking out her couch from her apartment, and she broke down. Let’s listen to a bit of what she said.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE DRIVING BY)

JAYMARIE BLANCO: (Crying, speaking Spanish).

PERALTA: And what she’s saying there is, “this is not easy.” She says, “there’s been so much suffering, so much suffering.”

GONYEA: That’s NPR’s Eyder Peralta in La Guaira, Venezuela. Thank you, Eyder. Take care.

PERALTA: Thank you, Don.

Transcript:

DON GONYEA, HOST:

Congress has passed the biggest housing bill in decades. President Trump has said he won’t sign it unless Congress first passes an unrelated voter ID measure. But today, House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News he’s confident the president will sign the bill as early as tomorrow.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “SUNDAY MORING FUTURES”)

MIKE JOHNSON: I’m going to send the bill over to him. It’s passed by both chambers. I’m sending it to him on Monday, and it will become law. And I certainly want him to take the biggest, boldest marker that he has and do that big Trump signature proudly on that legislation.

GONYEA: If it does become law, what will it actually change? We called up Vincent Reina, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Housing Initiative at Penn, a housing policy research group. We started by talking about what’s in this bill.

VINCENT REINA: What this bill does is it really brings together essentially 40 different proposals that have been out there for a while and lumps them all together. There’s a few kind of fairly significant changes. One is just thinking about how to make it easier to build housing and maybe reducing federal and local regulations that make it harder to build and by virtue of making it harder to build make it more costly to build.

A good example of this is in the manufactured housing space. There’s a rule that manufactured housing has to be built on a chassis. So that’s a federal regulation that essentially doesn’t make much sense in modern times, especially as standards has increased around manufactured housing and what that actually means for their quality.

Another example is a supply fund where they’re essentially trying to create incentives for state and local governments to make it easier to build. So what they said is, essentially, we’ll reward you with financial resources from the federal government if you show us that what you’ve done is made kind of proactive efforts to actually make it easier to build housing in your locality.

GONYEA: If you’re a person who’s struggling to find a home you can afford in, say, California, it seems like that is a very different experience there than maybe doing so in Ohio or Mississippi. But I guess what I’m wondering is do they actually share common problems despite the differences in the markets?

REINA: One of the realities is that we could all have a housing problem, but it takes on different forms, right? So in some markets, like in Philadelphia, there are actually a lot of challenges around housing quality and home repair needs. Whereas in another market, I could just be paying an exorbitant amount of money towards my rent. Maybe it’s a high-quality unit, but there’s no option for me to actually find a cheaper unit.

So all to say is, I think, in some ways, what’s really interesting is when you look at the affordability and the quality challenges, you see the kind of housing challenges people facing take on slightly different forms across markets but still being quite significant. And the reality is, you know, we use a lot of measures like housing cost burdens. And they’re clearly really important measures, but they’re kind of one piece of the puzzle. For someone who’s low-income, even if they’re slightly below being housing cost burden, they still don’t have much income to spend on all other goods.

GONYEA: What’s the next conversation about housing that lawmakers aren’t having yet?

REINA: At the core of this, we have a housing affordability problem – right? – which is distinctly related to the housing supply problem. But when we think of solutions, we really have to center the affordability issues. As we’re kind of talking about bills that could make it easier to build, we actually need appropriations that come along and provide subsidies and supports for people to actually be able to afford housing, right? So building actually reduces price pressure, but when we see a wholesale loss of our affordable housing stock across kind of the ownership and the renter side, we need to think about building for the low- and moderate-income households, and that inherently involves some level of subsidy.

And then beyond that, you need, really, government agencies that are actively thinking about program development and both have the capacity and ability – both kind of staff-wise and financially – to develop these programs and deliver them properly.

GONYEA: Vincent Reina is a city and regional planning professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks for helping explain this to us.

REINA: Thank you for covering this important topic, Don.

Transcript:

DON GONYEA, HOST:

Some cities hosting World Cup games are making an effort to involve Indigenous nations in the events. Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Lauren Gallup has this story about what that’s looking like in the Pacific Northwest.

LAUREN GALLUP, BYLINE: This month, as soccer fans swarm Seattle to watch World Cup games, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians hosted their own celebration to kick off the matches.

(SOUNDBITE OF RHYTHMIC DRUMMING)

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in non-English language).

GALLUP: On their reservation, a short drive from Seattle, the tribe hosted a Coastal Protocol for the public with other Indigenous nations. That’s a traditional cultural exchange of song, dance and often gift giving. Amy McFarland is directing World Cup events for the Puyallup Tribe.

AMY MCFARLAND: That’s the opportunity. Really, the winning point is to share our culture, our language and our heritage with the world.

GALLUP: The tribe is partnering with local organizers to be part of hosting the games. That means, in addition to culturally significant gatherings like the Coastal Protocol, they’re holding watch parties on their reservation. A video also plays before each of the games in Seattle that features the Muckleshoot, Suquamish and Puyallup tribes.

MCFARLAND: It gives a real good snapshot of who the Pacific Northwest native is.

LEO FLOR: It’s just really fitting, and it makes a ton of sense that at this – you know, in the world’s largest and most watched sporting event that really celebrates the coming together of nations, that we would intentionally include the sovereign Indigenous nations that are hosting it.

GALLUP: Flor says the local organizing committee also helped build school soccer pitches for the Puyallup Tribe and the Lummi Nation to support young Indigenous soccer players. Meanwhile, up north in Vancouver, British Columbia, the city included three First Nations as host city supporters of the games there. Charlene Aleck is a member of the Tsleil Waututh Nation. She says Vancouver city leaders made sure that Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh would be partners with the city. The nations helped plan the events and are meeting with world leaders who have come to town for the games.

CHARLENE ALECK: Having the inclusion of our chiefs and our women of high standing be participating at the same level as dignitaries, that – you know, it’s a good step.

GALLUP: Aleck is in charge of the nation’s display at Vancouver’s festival for the games. It includes a traditional 30-foot-long canoe, a map of their homelands and demonstrations of wood carving and weaving. She says people from all over the world have come to the site, and some have spent hours wrapped in the smell of red cedar and absorbing the stories shared within.

ALECK: We had a lady from Costa Rica, knowing our history of the atrocities that we endured, but to see our culture still vibrant and just so giving, she said, the feeling that I got when I stepped onto your site brought me to tears.

GALLUP: Aleck says that woman was among many visitors who say they are grateful that the World Cup has given them an opportunity to learn more about the cultures of the people whose land the games are being played on. For NPR News, I’m Lauren Gallup on the Puyallup Reservation.

(SOUNDBITE OF SEAN ANGUS WATSON’S “RUNNING”)

Transcript:

DON GONYEA, HOST:

With the U.S. trying to disentangle itself from the country’s latest military conflict, we wanted to take a look at how the military has been portrayed on the big screen. In the World War II era, movies often served as propaganda, like 1942’s “Flying Tigers” starring John Wayne.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “FLYING TIGERS”)

JOHN WAYNE: (As Capt. Jim Gordon) Listen, Dale, this is your first time up. Don’t try to win this war all by yourself. Stick close…

GONYEA: By the 1970s, a more jaundiced view of war came into focus in movies like “Apocalypse Now.”

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “APOCALYPSE NOW”)

MARLON BRANDO: (As Colonel Kurtz) You’re an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.

GONYEA: Marlon Brando there. Military movies continue to evolve and reflect the times when they were made. So we wanted to see what people who know quite a lot about our armed forces make of the way America’s military is depicted on the big screen. To get into all this, we have two of NPR’s military experts, Quil Lawrence who covers veterans affairs and Tom Bowman, our Pentagon correspondent. Good to be with both you guys.

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Don.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Hey. Thanks.

GONYEA: So I feel like we can divide movies about the military into separate categories. For instance, there’s William Wyler’s classic, “The Best Years Of Our Lives,” from 1946.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”)

HAROLD RUSSELL: (As Homer Parrish) This is when I know I’m helpless. My hands are down there on the bed. I can’t put them on again without calling to somebody for help.

GONYEA: That’s about World War II veterans trying to reacclimate to civilian life. It is a much different experience from Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” which puts you right in the thick of combat.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “SAVING PRIVATE RYAN”)

TOM HANKS: (As Captain Miller) All right, three runners with suppressing fire. Mellish, you hook to the right. I’ll go up the middle. Who’s going left?

GONYEA: Can we break down what each type offers? Tom, why don’t you go first?

BOWMAN: Yeah, you know, I really loved “The Best Years Of Our Lives,” and I think it’s really pretty daring for that time. It shows psychological damage on these guys coming back from war.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”)

DANA ANDREWS: (As Fred Derry) Come on, the rest of you guys.

VIRGINIA MAYO: (As Marie Derry) Fred.

ANDREWS: (As Fred Derry) Come on, get out.

MAYO: (As Marie Derry) Fred, wake up.

ANDREWS: (As Fred Derry) Get out.

MAYO: (As Marie Derry) Wake up.

ANDREWS: (As Fred Derry) Get out (ph).

BOWMAN: “Saving Private Ryan,” a classic movie, the depiction of the D-Day invasion – I remember seeing it when it came out in 1998.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “SAVING PRIVATE RYAN”)

HANKS: (As Captain Miller, yelling) Clear the shingle.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, yelling) Fire in the hole.

TOM SIZEMORE: (As Sergeant Horvath, yelling) Fire in the hole.

BOWMAN: At that time, I know I read some stories about how veterans of D-Day, some of them just walked out of the theater because it was so realistic. They just couldn’t take it.

GONYEA: Quil, what type of film do you maybe get more out of – the combat film or the film about veterans coming home?

LAWRENCE: Well, it’s a perfect dichotomy, really, because the war films can be a real grueling odyssey like “Saving Private Ryan,” or it can be something like “The Great Escape”…

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE GREAT ESCAPE”)

STEVE MCQUEEN: (As Hilts “The Cooler King”) When I get through that wire, I’m not going to be peeking over fences making maps for you guys. By morning, I’m going to be so far away, you couldn’t hear it if they were shooting me with howitzers.

LAWRENCE: …Where you’re just involved in this story, which can be humorous, and it’s kind of a – you know, war has always provided some of the greatest drama in human history in art. But it also – I say it’s a perfect dichotomy because it’s really how the U.S. government divides things too. They send you over to war, and that is where you have the glory and the fighting and the grueling, exciting combat. And then, if you want to deal with the consequences, that’s not our problem, says the Pentagon. That’s the VA. Send them over there. And so that’s really the difference in these two kinds of films, is one is the adventure of it. And we’ll talk about whether you can really have an anti-war film. But the veterans film is really when you’re paying the piper. These are the consequences, the human consequences of war that go on for decades.

GONYEA: So for both of you, growing up, what were the types of war movies you saw? What were your takeaways as far as how they portrayed the military? Tom, you want to start?

BOWMAN: Yeah, I remember seeing “The Longest Day” with my dad. I was pretty young, maybe 8 or 9 or something like that.

GONYEA: So that’s about D-Day.

BOWMAN: Correct, about D-Day.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE LONGEST DAY”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Are you all right, boy?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Well, don’t you think you better go back there and get your rifle?

BOWMAN: And I remember I was eating. He got me some lemon lozenges or lemon candy, I remember, at the theater in our hometown in Norwood, Massachusetts. And I just remember how sweeping it was. You know, it was a star-studded cast, as they said back then.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE LONGEST DAY”)

WAYNE: (As Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort) Your assignment tonight is strategic. You can’t give the enemy a break. Send them to hell.

GONYEA: Quil, what movies impacted you?

LAWRENCE: Well, for war movies, I guess, when I was younger, I probably was interested in some of these more realistic and disturbing Vietnam movies like “Apocalypse Now,” “The Deer Hunter.”

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE DEER HUNTER”)

MERYL STREEP: (As Linda) You sure you’re all right, huh?

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Michael) Yeah.

STREEP: (As Linda) What about your wounds?

DE NIRO: (As Michael) Just the usual complications, that’s all.

LAWRENCE: Eventually when “Full Metal Jacket” and “Platoon” came out, I was certainly fascinated by those.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “PLATOON”)

CHARLIE SHEEN: (As Chris) They say, if you’re going to get killed in the ‘Nam, it’s better to get it in the first few weeks. The logic being you don’t suffer that much.

LAWRENCE: I would say, you know, a favorite, too, is “Stripes,” which…

GONYEA: (Laughter) Classic.

LAWRENCE: …Is a classic comedy, which was actually filmed on, you know, a U.S. Army base.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “STRIPES”)

BILL MURRAY: (As John) There is one thing that we all have in common. We were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army.

LAWRENCE: And the Army, at the time, this was a – hat tip to Ken Robbins (ph), a retired colonel I know, who said that – he told me they actually let Bill Murray come in and film this total farce because Army recruiting was so bad at that stage in the early ’80s, they figured it could only help to have a movie, any movie, about the Army.

GONYEA: It’s funny, thinking about “Stripes,” it seems like no matter how farcical or cynical war films can be, some viewers can still find war attractive or exciting.

LAWRENCE: Yeah. You know, contradictorily, you know, paradoxically, all accurate movies about war should be anti-war movies. But the fact is someone, probably a 16, 17-year-old boy in America, is going to be excited by the thrill of the combat and end up interested in joining because of this horrific violence that he’s seeing on screen.

GONYEA: So can either of you recommend one, maybe two films that really got at something honest or true about the military experience?

BOWMAN: I like the movie “Glory”…

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “GLORY”)

MORGAN FREEMAN: (As Sgt. Maj. John Rawlins) If tomorrow, we have to meet the Judgment Day…

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Yes, Sir.

FREEMAN: (As Sgt. Maj. John Rawlins) …Oh, Heavenly Father, we want you to let our folks know that we died facing the enemy.

BOWMAN: …Came out a number of years ago about the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the Black unit that was commanded by a white officer, Robert Gould Shaw, played by of all people, Matthew Broderick.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “GLORY”)

MATTHEW BRODERICK: (As Col. Robert Gould Shaw) It is my hope that the same courage, spirit and honor which has brought us together will one day restore this union.

BOWMAN: It’s kind of a little-known episode in the Civil War, and I thought that was pretty well done and pretty accurate – also, “Black Hawk Down.”

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “BLACK HAWK DOWN”)

ZELJKO IVANEK: (As Harrell) We got a Black Hawk down. We got a Black Hawk down.

BOWMAN: I knew one of the Delta Force soldiers who was there at the time. It’s pretty realistic. It’s almost claustrophobic. There are these narrow streets. There are barricades, gunfire and smoke. They’re shooting RPGs.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “BLACK HAWK DOWN”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, yelling) Take cover.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS)

BOWMAN: The confusion as these guys try to reach their friends who are trapped – and also, it shows you the heroism but also shows you just what a mess this whole military mission was.

GONYEA: Quil, what have you got?

LAWRENCE: Yeah, I would say, if you want to know what counterinsurgency is about, this movie isn’t about Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s about the French counterinsurgency in Algeria. “The Battle Of Algiers” – it’s a classic.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRUNO NICOLAI AND ENNIO MORRICONE’S “ALGIERS NOVEMBER 1, 1954”)

LAWRENCE: I think, though, so many of these films end up being about sort of validating the American experience, and we don’t get to see so much from the other side. There’s an all Middle Eastern cast in a film called “Mosul” about the battle of Mosul against ISIS after the major U.S. combat was over in Iraq. There’s actually an animated film by Studio Ghibli of all places called “Grave Of The Fireflies”…

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character, non-English language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character, non-English language spoken).

LAWRENCE: …About two young siblings trying to survive during the final months of World War II in Japan. And those can kind of look at war experiences not from an American perspective, which is something maybe we don’t see enough of.

GONYEA: All right, some good recommendations. That was NPR’s Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman. Guys, thanks for joining us.

BOWMAN: You’re welcome.

LAWRENCE: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)