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CNN Live Today
Future Shock; Mississippi Churning
Aired April 11, 2006 - 11:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a new reality show taking a fast- forward peek at the future. It's actually making parents sick.
Here's Jeanne Moos with a story that first aired on CNN's Paula Zahn.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For a parent, it's hard to swallow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're killing your kids.
MOOS: But "Honey, We're Killing the Kids," sure does make a pithy reality TV show title. Remember, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?" Shrunk and dunked in Cheerios.
Well, instead of shrinking, these kids are getting bigger and bigger. In the Learning Channel's new series, a nutritionist confronts families like the Youngs from Long Island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You won't listen to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm never talking to mom again.
MOOS: They are three kids who are junk food junkies, who watched TV and never exercised. The high point comes in the beginning, when Dr. Lisa Hark shows the parents the future.
LISA HARK, NUTRITION: He already weighs more than most 18-year- old boys.
MOOS: What their 12-year-old will look like at 40. Photo aging is based on data that assumes James will continue his bad habits. The same thing happens with a different family in every episode, and every kid ends up looking like a serial killer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not my Stevie.
MOOS: Reminds us of a certain green guy.
Once they're scared silly, the nutritionist begins a three-week intervention. The junk food is stashed away, the family shops for healthy items. Mom tries recipes like tofu stir fry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tofu tastes like dirt.
MOOS: Mom decides to make Robbie eat. Otherwise...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's going to die. Then it'll be honey, we actually did kill our children. Swallow now.
MOOS: To get them off the couch, TV and computer games are limited to two hours a day.
James rebels.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After I'm 18, I'm gone forever.
MOOS: Robbie's caught stealing chocolate chip mini muffins from the junk food stash.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do not put that in your mouth. Do not -- if you eat it, no TV for a week.
MOOS: Some think the photo aging is a bit much. We showed clips to Mo'Nique, the star of "Phat Girlz."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do I look fat in this?
MO'NIQUE, ACTRESS: No, Twiggy, I look fat in this. You look ugly in that.
MOOS: Mo'Nique wasn't thrilled with "Honey, We're Killing the Kids."
MO'NIQUE: But to show that? That's a form of hatred to me. So what if he looks like that in 40 years? He's a nice looking plump guy.
MOOS: But the nutritionist says changing bad habits will add years to their lives.
(on camera): Now if you think you're killing your kids, you can apply to be on the show at the Learning Channel Web site. That's how they recruit families.
(voice-over): And there is of course, a happy ending. Parents see what their kids might look like at 40 if they change their ways.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll take him.
MOOS: Maybe these parents really could say "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," but looking like a serial killer beats being killed in cereal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't eat me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Make sure to join Paula Zahn weeknights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.
The Voting Rights Act, the landmark law to protect black voters. Today some whites say they are the ones who need protection. Bob Franken will have that story on CNN LIVE TODAY.
Mixed blood leads to bad blood. The Super Bowl MVP takes the stage to fight racism in his mother's homeland.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Role reversal in Mississippi, and some say a sign of just how much the south has changed since the civil rights era. A law used to promote voting rights for African-Americans is being invoked by whites.
Our national correspondent Bob Franken has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If Ike Brown had been here in 1965, before the Voting Rights Act was passed, he would have been shut out of the political process. But more than 40 years later, a lot has changed. Ike is Democratic chairman in Noxubee County, Mississippi. And now he's about to make history, as the first person charged under the Voting Rights Act for discrimination against white voters, white candidates, and those voters who have supported white candidates. The allegations include putting up obstacles to voting, shutting white Democrats out of public meetings, recruiting unqualified candidates to run against white Democrats, Democrats like county prosecutor Ricky Walker.
RICKY WALKER, NOXUBEE COUNTY PROSECUTOR: I believe it to be true from my own personal experience, because he did the same thing -- he did exactly what they're saying, at least in part to me.
FRANKEN: Brown adamantly rejects the discrimination charge.
IKE BROWN, NOXUBEE COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN: It's bogus. The only thing that I discriminate against have been Republicans.
FRANKEN (on camera): This town, this county, like much of the rural south, is still struggling to find a balance between a history of slavery, and intense discrimination and modern times. This monument, for instance, to the Confederate war dead is on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive.
(voice-over): More than 70 percent of the Noxubee County's 12,000 residents are African-American, which means political clout.
BROWN: If you're going run as a Democrat, then you need to act like a Democrat.
FRANKEN: Perhaps like the mayor of Macon, Mississippi.
MYR. BOB BOYKIN, MACON, MISSISSIPPI: I'm white and a Democrat, and this past year's election, Mr. Brown offered me his support.
FRANKEN: The mayor's opponent, by the way, was also white. Legal experts are divided over the impact of this lawsuit on the Voting Rights Act. ROBERT DRISCOLL, FMR. DEP. ASST. ATTY. GEN.: It strengthens it, and lets the country know that everybody is protected by the Voter Rights Act.
JON GREENBAUM, LAWYERS CMTE. FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: I would like to see them do their job and bring meritorious cases on behalf of minority voters.
FRANKEN: Brown says the lawsuit has nothing to do with reverse discrimination. Rather, fear from Republicans.
BROWN: If I can get the Democratic voter (INAUDIBLE) up in east Mississippi, then Mississippi will turn blue.
FRANKEN: A blue Mississippi would be another first, like the lawsuit against Ike Brown.
Bob Franken, CNN, Macon, Mississippi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: A Super Bowl MVP'S tearful triumph visit to his mother's homeland. Hines Ward is the son of an African-American father and a South Korean mother. He also is a man on a mission, to help end discrimination against mixed race children in Korea.
The story now from CNN's Sohn Ji-Ae.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOHN JI-AE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From throwing passes with the president to throwing out the first pitch of the baseball season, Hines Ward was celebrated everywhere he went during his visit to South Korea. Ward was the wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who was voted most valuable player in this year's Super Bowl.
Even though most South Koreans have ever watched U.S. football, they embraced the son of an African-American serviceman and a Korean mother as a national hero. These biracial kids happily identified with their new role model.
"I like Spider Man. Do you like Spider Man, too?" asked 6-year- old Hanna (ph).
HINES WARD, PITTSBURGH STEELERS RECEIVER: Yes, I like Spider Man.
JI-AE: In a country that's more than 99 percent ethnic Korean, Ward's triumphant return has caused many to reexamine prejudices against biracial children.
Eleven-year-old Choi Yung Son (ph) is a shy young boy, but that's not why he has no friends at school. "No one will play with me because they say I look like an American," he says. It's that kind of mindset that Ward hopes to change. WARD: We can't change the past, but, you know, the present day and the future, maybe if I can provide hope and inspiration to make Korea a better place than what it already is, then I'll be more than excited.
JI-AE (on camera): There are moves to take the momentum created by Hines' visit here and to channel it towards something that will provide more long-term benefits to biracial children here.
Lawmakers have started drafting a proposal that would make it illegal to discriminate against biracial Koreans in various parts of society, especially the workplace.
(voice-over): James Lee sings in a nightclub, possibly the only workplace where being a biracial Korean is an exotic plus. James gave up dreams of being a soccer player as a young child when his coach told him no team would take on a player who looked the way he looked. Tired of being teased, he dropped out of high school and knows what his future will look like.
"I have seen many others go down this path," he says. "We don't have an education. All we know is singing at a nightclub. When we get older, people like me do menial labor with a hat pulled over our faces."
James knows it may be too late for people like him, but he ardently hopes changes brought about by the U.S. football star will provide a different fate for those who follow.
Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: A father and son for you ahead. One makes laws, the other enforces them. Strong opinions about illegal immigration, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Not guilty: the plea entered today for Neil Entwistle. He's accused of murdering his wife and their baby daughter at their home near Boston. Entwistle did not speak at today's hearing. The British native was arrested in London in February. His trial is still believed to be at least a year away. In the meantime, he is being held without bail.
The immigration debate hits close to home for one Arizona family. A son's violent encounter with an illegal immigrant has helped drive a father's campaign.
CNN's Dan Simon has the story. You saw it first on CNN's "ANDERSON COOPER 360."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sean Pearce has no doubts about where he stands on illegal immigration.
DEPUTY SEAN PEARCE, MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We have laws that need to be enforced. And if you don't abide by those laws, to me it's no different than, you know your burglar.
SIMON: Pearce has reasons for feeling that way. He's a sheriff's deputy in Phoenix who was shot by an illegal alien. December 2004, Pearce, a member of the Maricopa County Sheriff's SWAT Unit, was trying, along with the team, to execute a search warrant on a murder suspect's trailer home when he and two other deputies came under fire.
(On camera): Where did you take the hit?
PEARCE: First round was in the vest, which gave us some protection. The second one went just below the vest. So just in the abdomen area.
SIMON (voice-over): Doctors say that second bullet could have been fatal. It pierced his intestinal wall and nearly ruptured an artery. Today Pearce is standing guard over thousands, many of whom are illegal aliens. He's not shy about that either.
PEARCE: I understand protesting is a right that you have. But to cater to an illegal entity, it irritates me.
SIMON: He's not the only one named Pearce to be irritated. His father, Russell Pearce, is one of the Arizona legislature's loudest voices calling for better border enforcement.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE RUSSELL PEARCE (R), ARIZONA: Shame on Washington, D.C., and local law enforcement for letting it get this bad.
SIMON: State Representative Pearce, a Republican, sponsored a voter initiative in 2004 that limits public benefits to illegals. According to the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, the state now ranks number one in the nation for overall crime.
R. PEARCE: Number one, and you can't deny there's a direct correlation between that and our open border.
SIMON: Immigrant advocates deny that illegal immigrants are responsible for crime, saying most are hard-working, honorable people. Tens of thousands marched in Phoenix Monday to make that point, and ask Americans to accept them as fellow citizens. But these demonstrations just have the opposite affect on the Pearces.
R. PEARCE: This is groups that are here illegally, walking down the streets, demanding stuff, demanding amnesty, demanding we recognize them as if they have rights. They don't even belong here. They're illegal.
S. PEARCE: I look at him as a hero. I mean, somebody's got to stand up on these immigration issues.
SIMON: For the elder Pearce, the fact that his son was almost killed by an illegal alien has made the immigration issue personal.
R. PEARCE: I almost lost a son because of the government's failure to do what they promised us they would do and have an obligation to do, and that's enforce our laws.
SIMON: Laws that are now being debated across the country.
(On camera): According to one recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, illegal immigration ranked as the number one issue confronting local residents. That was ahead of taxes and terrorism.
Dan Simon, CNN, Phoenix.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: For his perspective on the day's top stories, "ANDERSON COOPER 360" weeknights at 10:00 Eastern.
June Cleaver had one. They called it an icebox back then. We're going to open the door on antique fridges and put the old kitchen workhorse to a new use. How about fast food, anyone?
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
If you wear contact lenses, you need to listen up and learn. Shipments of a possible brand of contact lens solutions are being stopped for now. We'll tell you why, just ahead.
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KAGAN: I'm Daryn Kagan. International news is up next. Stay tuned for YOUR WORLD TODAY.
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