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CNN 10
CNN Student News
Aired July 01, 2002 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUSAN FRIEDMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A seasonal firefighter is under fire for starting one. We top our show with a look at the wildfires raging in Arizona and an investigation into that state's most massive blaze ever.
MICHAEL MCMANUS, CNN ANCHOR: Next, we focus on one of the largest countries in the world, celebrating a special holiday today. We'll share its culture and customs, coming up.
FRIEDMAN: From Canada to Cuba, a look at the island's legendary leader.
MCMANUS: And more on Cuba. Our student bureau highlights one school's musical mission.
And welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS on this first day of July.
I'm Michael McManus.
FRIEDMAN: And I'm Susan Friedman. Glad you could join us.
Progress is made on two major fronts in the Arizona wildfire. An arrest is made as thousands of residents get the green light to return home.
MCMANUS: A man who has worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a firefighter was charged this weekend with starting two fires in eastern Arizona. Along with other blazes, the fires have destroyed more than 400 homes and forced about 30,000 people to evacuate. Many of those people, including the residents of Show Low, began returning home this weekend. We'll have more on that coming up.
But first, CNN's David Mattingly has more on the arrest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-nine- year-old Leonard Gregg, before a federal magistrate, accused of deliberately setting fires on Apache reservation land in northern Arizona, in hopes of getting some part-time work as a firefighter. The Rodeo fire, it is called, eventually led to the biggest and costliest wildfire in Arizona's state history.
PAUL CHARLTON, U.S. ATTORNEY: The maximum penalties and charges for these offenses are five years incarceration and $250,000 fine for each charge, and restitution as owing for all losses.
MATTINGLY: According to federal officials, Gregg was trained to fight forest fires and had been hired to do so in the past by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a job that pays from $10 to $20 an hour. Gregg lives in the reservation town of Sibikou (ph), ground zero for what firefighters have come to call a monster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It endangers the lives not only of folks that live near the woods, but endangers the lives of our firefighters. That's the thing that firefighters will take very personally.
MATTINGLY: Emotions in Arizona similar to those in Colorado, where a Forest Service employee is blamed for the devastating Hayman fire. Disbelief, anger and embarrassment for firefighters of all ethnic groups.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All those firefighters who are out there that fight fires diligently, and they fight to, you know, put the fire out.
MATTINGLY: Days after being set, the Rodeo fire merged with the Chediski fire, which started as a signal for help by an injured hiker. That investigation is ongoing.
Together, the cost of destruction is staggering. Hundreds of millions in lost Apache timber alone. Millions more from hundreds of damaged and destroyed homes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: As firefighters got more of a handle on the blazes and residents began returning home this weekend, a sense of normalcy returned, and a new approach for life and work followed, as Thelma Gutierrez reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many breakfast (ph) do we got left?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two eggs, easy-over.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Johnny Angels' (ph) restaurant in Pinetop, Arizona...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's my waitress?
GUTIERREZ: ... it's back to business for Johnny Ainareli (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a menu. What you see is what you get.
GUTIERREZ: At the local nursery up the street, Christopher Kengla (ph) is open for business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been so long since I've used a cash register.
GUTIERREZ: Didi Kane (ph) is also getting ready for customers. Evacuees she hasn't seen in a week.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels great. When I found out this morning, it was wonderful news to be back in town.
GUTIERREZ: Wonderful news because businesses were closed down and hit hard during the week-long evacuation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, gosh, I'd venture to say, you know, it's 4,000 a day, is what I'm losing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, people haven't been paid in 10 days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At least $20,000 if not more.
GUTIERREZ: Chris Kengla (ph) says he could have is lost it all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With this heat and dry conditions that we're having right now, one day and I'm going to lose my whole inventory.
GUTIERREZ: But if Rean Leon (ph) who's worked for Chris for 9 years, stayed behind after all the others had evacuated. He told me he walked four and a half hours through the forest, back to the nursery to water the trees and plants. He said he did it to save the jobs of five co-workers.
People here say it's all about perspective. They may have lost business, but they worry about the hundreds of others who lost their homes.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Show Low, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: Today is Canada Day. The country is celebrating its 135th birthday. And did you know that Canadians are arguably the most diverse group of people in the world? Canada has the highest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland, the most Italians outside of Italy, and the largest French-speaking city in the world outside of France.
That city is Montreal.
Here's a profile by Bob Winsted.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB WINSTEAD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Joi de vivre, the joy of life -- is there a better way to describe Montreal, a Canadian city of Old World charms and New World innovation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been all over Europe and Montreal is probably one of my favorite cities.
WINSTEAD: Decidedly European in character, but American in spirit, the city, nestled between the St. Lawrence River and the like- named Mount Royal, embraces an eccentric split personality.
Vieux-Montreal, the city's historic quarter, gives us a great peek into the contrast. Set amongst a backdrop of towering steel skyscrapers are old standing buildings, parks, outdoor cafes and glorious churches, dodging the latest model cars, here you'll find horse-drawn carriages walking down cobblestone streets hundreds of years old.
But the best idea is to explore on foot to discover the diverse treasures along streets like St. Lawrence Blvd.
FRANK SILVA, DELI MANAGER: It's the best of Montreal. To the left is the west, to the right is the east. English, French, and this is the middle here, and everybody basically meets here.
WINSTEAD: And that helps to explain the city's split personality. You see, the French were the first Europeans here, taking the area from the Iroquois in their search for gold four centuries ago. The shiny stone, which explorer Jacques Cartier sought, turned out to be quartz. Undaunted, Cartier planted a cross atop the summit of an overlooking mountain he named Mount Royal to honor his sponsor, the French king.
Two hundred years later, the British conquered the area, but allowed the local French to keep their customs and system of government. Today, while the city is the largest English-speaking population in the French-only province of Quebec, it is the largest French-speaking city outside of France.
Once Canada became a nation through confederation, people from all over Europe flocked to Montreal. Lately, you'll also find people speaking Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, Greek, and plenty of other languages.
NICOS NICOLOPOLOS, RESTAURANT OWNER: We feel free to talk our language, to keep our culture, our dances, music, and everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Montreal is a big surprise our first visit. We have found nothing but superlative food, very creative, and this place, so far, is very, very impressive, very impressive.
WINSTEAD: Equally as impressive, the efforts Montreal has taken to make the city safe, and, above all...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Clean, very clean.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Real clean and nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a clean city. It's a city where at 2:00 a.m. in the morning you feel comfortable wandering around.
WINSTEAD: Yes, many visitors wander in for the Montreal night life, like they did during Prohibition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't forget, Canada didn't join the Prohibition bandwagon. So liquor flowed freely in Canada, and of course, Americans got into the habit of coming up here for their drinks.
WINSTEAD: Coexisting alongside these inns of Quebec nationalism like Le Pierrot are lively and thriving Irish pubs. Montreal is a bustling, modern city with vision and innovation. When the harsh Canadian winter blows cold outside, visitors can escape the elements inside. Montreal enjoys one of the most extensive subterranean districts anywhere in the world. Shop till you drop, eat till you're full, catch a movie -- you name it, it's all underground.
And when the weather gets nice again, there's plenty to do outside: racing on an island in the river, music, the internationally renowned Montreal Jazz Festival. And every summer, just for laughs, the city hosts one of the largest comedy festivals in the world, honoring great comedians of the past and showcasing stars of the future.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do not even know what you're doing. All right.
WINSTEAD: Whether you prefer the night life or the daytime, indoors or outdoors, the Old World or the New, you just may find the joy of life in the many personalities of Montreal.
Bob Winstead, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: The Internet has made just about everything easier. Whether it's shopping for a CD or a shirt, or just keeping in touch via e-mail, technology has had an impact.
Online services have also had an impact on students who cheat. Last week, we explored a number of ethical issues in the business world. This week we chronicle ethics in the classroom.
To our Washington bureau now, as we explore this growing problem and steps teachers are taking to help prevent it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To Alice Newhall, cheating is no big deal.
ALICE NEWHALL, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: Cheating is a shortcut, and it's a pretty efficient one, in a lot of cases.
SLOBOGIN: Alice is a 17-year-old senior at George Mason High School, in northern Virginia. She's typical of what a survey shows is a growing number of kids who see cheating as a way to survive high school.
(on camera): Do you not have any moral outrage about cheating?
NEWHALL: Not really. It's just, it's not the biggest deal in high school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our secretary, Alice.
NEWHALL: You know, what's important is getting ahead. You know, the better grades you have, you know, the better school you get into and, you know, the better you're going to do in life. And if you've learned to cut corners to do that, you know, you're going to be saving yourself time and energy. And in the real world, you know, that's what's going to be going on, is, you know, the better you do, that's what shows. It's not, you know, how moral you were in getting there.
SLOBOGIN: High school cheating is rampant. A national survey of 4,500 students found that 3/4 of them engage in serious cheating. More than half have plagiarized work off the Internet. If you have a credit card and a modem, it's simple.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On disk, I just put it into the machine.
SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Schools have begun using the kids' weapons against them. George Mason is one of thousands of high school fighting Web plagiarism with a new service called turnitin.com. Teachers submit students' papers to the company, which then searches the Web for matching prose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Between 24 and 48 hours, a report will come back, and it's color coded.
SLOBOGIN: This paper is code red, 97 percent plagiarized. Turnitin says about 1/3 of the papers submitted have some sort of plagiarism.
DONALD MCCABLE, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: Students today find it so much easier to rationalize their cheating.
SLOBOGIN: Donald McCable, whose survey of high school students found that 50 percent don't even consider Internet plagiarism cheating, says students feel driven by the tremendous pressure to excel and compete for colleges.
MCCABLE: For one reason or another, they convince themselves that, you know, 1/10 of a point on a GPA is going to make a dramatic difference in their futures, and they feel compelled to cheat.
SLOBOGIN: Of course, not all students cheat. Mike Denny, also a senior at George Mason, thinks it's simply wrong.
(on camera): Do you think that honor is lacking in the average high school student?
MIKE DENNY, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: I think honor is lacking in a large part of society, and I think it's -- you often see the liars and the people who take the easy way get much higher in life than, you know, your average honest Joe on the street.
SLOBOGIN: Mike also blames a high school culture where grades and test scores are more important than integrity.
DENNY: By now, many of us are so jaded we feel like, Oh, our whole life has just been taught for one test. It's pretty sad that things are just who you are, and standing by your word, and whatnot. That's something that we haven't really been taught.
SLOBOGIN: Maybe American high schools are teaching their students the wrong lesson.
Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Falls Church, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: Exploring our world. Here now a CNN student news perspective.
In perspective this week, we pinpoint Cuba. All week long we look at its politics and its culture.
Today, we spotlight a leader who came and never left. He's survived assassination attempts and world power shifts. He's Fidel Castro.
It may be a small island nation, but over the past four decades, he's had a very strong voice, one that commands attention.
Here's John Zarrella with a profile of a much beloved and, at the same time, reviled leader.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): January 8, 1959, Fidel Castro entered the city of Havana to the cheers of a crowd seemingly drunk with love for this revolutionary who had just seized power. Castro never looked back.
His 43 years in power unequaled. But how has he done it: charisma or complete control?
ARTHUR SCHLESSINGER JR., HISTORIAN: I think it's both. I think if there is strong movement, the machinery of repression would go into action. But I think, you know, I think if there were a free election today in Cuba, Castro would probably win. He's the only leader people have known. They're used to him.
DOMINGO MOREIRA, CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FEDERATION: Utter fear, the repressive system. As a general of the KGB put it to me in Moscow many years ago, the repressive system in Cuba, he said -- his words were something like this -- the repressive system in Cuba is better than Stalin ever had at his disposal. And he said I know, we and the Stasi created that system. So we know how good it is.
ZARRELLA: There were times when events threatened to overtake him. Early on, it was the Bay of Pigs invasion. A year later, in 1962, the missile crisis. Later, the fall of the Soviet Union left Cuba without its economic crutch.
(on camera): But Castro dodged all the bullets. He even dodged CIA-sponsored attempts to assassinate him. Rather than weaken him, events that could have toppled him seemed to strengthen him.
(voice-over): And as he got stronger, his speeches got longer -- very long. But he has ruled not only from the pulpit, but also from the pew. He has always been a very public figure, walking among the Cuban people, standing before cheering crowds, embracing sports heroes. He has given, and he has taken away.
There's no free press, no freedom to assemble, no criticizing the government. But he has given the people free health care and education.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What Fidel has achieved in the social area in this country hasn't been achieved by any other poor country and a very few of those that are not poor, even though we are under enormous pressure.
ZARRELLA: As Fidel Castro approaches his 76th birthday, he seems very much in control, and not the least bit worried about his own mortality.
FIDEL CASTRO: And I have never been afraid of death. And I have never been concerned about death. I have learned not to feel attached to decisions and not to feel attached to that which is called power.
ZARRELLA: But for 43 years, Fidel Castro has been the only power Cuba has known.
John Zarrella, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: There will be lots more on Cuba throughout the week, including a profile of Fidel Castro's daughter, who's speaking out in opposition to her father in Miami. And later, Cuba will be the focus of our student bureau report. We'll take the country's pulse to its musical heartbeat.
But first, our culture report and a play that captivated the Great White Way, "Metamorphoses," set in a 27-foot-wide pool of water.
Beth Nissen has more on this Tony award-winning wonder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is without question the play that has made the biggest splash, on or off Broadway this season.
"Metamorphoses," the enactment of 10 ancient Greek myths about change is staged in and around a large pool of water.
MARY ZIMMERMAN, DIRECTOR, "METAMORPHOSES": Water is a symbol in many cultures of change. The big, watershed moment in someone's life -- even that word -- it somehow is connected to big change.
NISSEN: Director Mary Zimmerman has reimagined the stories recorded by Ovid in about 2 A.D. for audiences in 2002.
The familiar character of Midas, for example, is a successful grasping businessman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That everything I touch, everything I put my hand to will turn to solid gold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a really, bad idea
(LAUGHTER)
NISSEN: Midas' metamorphosis is tragic. He gets his wish, his golden touch, at the cost of his daughter.
Most all the stories are full of warning, of symbolism, of metaphor.
ZIMMERMAN: There's something profoundly intimate about a metaphor. It's a secret language, it's a code language that 300 or, you know, 600 people are understanding simultaneously, and it kind of knits us together imaginatively.
NISSEN: In wake of September 11, one story especially brings the audience together, brings the audience to tears. The story of Halcyon and her husband Ceyx who sales off to work one day.
ZIMMERMAN: And then out of nowhere, a clear blue day, specifically, a storm hits him and he's killed. And his dying wish as he goes under the waves is just let my body be found.
NISSEN: "Metamorphoses" was first performed less than a week after September 11.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ceyx, come home.
NISSEN: The director worried about the stark portrayals of grief and loss. But she saw relief in the audience's tears.
ZIMMERMAN: Why should we weep for Halcyon and Ceyx? What are they to us? Well, they're us. They are mirrors of ourselves. I just had to face that catharsis is a real thing.
NISSEN: There is catharsis through laughter too, in the story of Phaeton, who tells his therapist what it's like to be the mortal son of the god of the son, and never know his fiery father.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd see him pass by every day, of course. Who doesn't.
NISSEN: The mortals in "Metamorphosis" are so commonly adrift, pitiful, tragic, but their stories have purpose.
ZIMMERMAN: By being given spectacles that evoke pity and terror, we come out alerted to the world in a new way. And these stories are really old. And I think that the comfort in them for us is to see that it's not unprecedented, that people have survived horrible transformations.
NISSEN: And have somehow continued on unbowed.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: OK, time for more culture, as we return to Cuba.
Forget sugar, cigars, coffee and rum -- when it comes to Cuban exports, it's the music that really gets people excited. And politics aside, the rumba and the cha-cha know no bounds.
Our student bureau found that out firsthand.
Here now, a look at that bond that is Cuban jazz.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLLEEN DOYLA, MORMON ACADEMY STUDENT: Our Mormon Academy Jazz Band was granted the opportunity to travel to Cuba to study the roots of jazz, and we were all very excited to go. But I think it's safe to say that none of us have any idea what to expect.
BOB SCHLEETER, MUSIC DIRECTOR: I've heard music, you know, all over this country. I've heard the best players I've ever heard in Cuba. We were fascinated by Cuban rhythms, and the students were banging on anything they could get their hands on. We had our first time where we were actually playing with other Cuban musicians, and the interaction -- and again, there was not a lot of words exchanged. It was a musical exchange. The common language just became clear, that everybody there was trying to learn to play jazz.
They were as mystified by capitalism as we were community communism. I think it's one of the unfortunate things about our relationship with Cuba, that people who -- another person I met in the airport -- called our cousins are treated the way they are as far as access to things from America when we brought conga heads, for instance. We brought music stands down there. It was like we had given these people millions of dollars, because they don't have access to things that we take for granted.
If you love music or dancing or art, in Cuba there's not a financial incentive to study something else to make a living, because people, for the most part, are at the same income level, whether they're doctors, lawyers, or musicians.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The level of passion that every single person had for what they were doing was so at a completely different level than anything I've ever seen before. I said what song are we singing? What song are we singing? And he said, "At Blue." And when he said that, I comforted down a little bit, because, I mean, "At Blue" has been a song, but "At Blue" is something that we've done here. We do more (UNINTELLIGIBLE) "At Blue."
And as scary as all of Cuba was in terms of how it hits you, how it comes into you, and when you see something that's so over the top, it kind of drops your world. Then you hear "At Blue," and you say I know "At Blue." Nuts and bolts communication -- I don't really think it's a problem. But in terms of understanding, the only real commonality in getting each other was to experience things together. But when you meet somebody else you can -- who identifies in that way and who feels as passionately about that subject as you do, that it doesn't matter what country they're from.
When we came back and did our concert at home, it was like we had taken a little piece there with us.
COLLEEN DOYLE, MORMON ACADEMY STUDENT: It's funny how quickly we made connections through sensory. We find commonality in the most basic human tangible senses like sight and taste and sounds. Maybe if we started with something more simple like music, then we could begin to make other aspects of human communication work.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: And we turn from our where-in-the-world country, Canada, to a country on top of the world, Brazil.
FRIEDMAN: Over the weekend, Germany and Brazil met to decide who was the world champion of soccer, or what's also called football, depending on where you live.
MCMANUS: Brazil took a commanding lead with two goals and the boys from Brazil never looked back. What a fantastic World Cup this year.
FRIEDMAN: It sure was. And the four-year countdown begins again.
MCMANUS: But for us, the 24 hour countdown begins now.
FRIEDMAN: That's right.
MCMANUS: So we will see you.
FRIEDMAN: Tomorrow. Bye-bye.
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