This week: Columbo co-creator William Link, hard times for Marshelle Mills, underemployed mother of three and more!
A word about this week's show
This week, a special Off-Ramp. We're fundraising! You know, raising consciousness and money for KPCC, including Off-Ramp. This week, we have John's interview with William Link, Colombo's co-creator and Kevin's interview with Marshelle Mills, part of our Hard Times series. But there's lots more in the full show, which you can listen to above.
Hard Times: Marshelle Mills
Marshelle Mills is a mother of three. Her husband works for LAUSD and — until recently — she worked in child development. She's been unemployed for some time, and she's even gotten a few job offers — offers that she says she was forced to decline.
“I have three kids. Rebecca, she’s seven. My son Austin is three years old — he’s autistic, really sweet, really sensitive. And I’ve got the mean one, A.J. He’s one. A.J. is bad to the bone," said Marshelle.
Marshelle was pregnant with her youngest son when she found out she was laid off. “It was heartbreaking. I don’t want to sound over dramatic, but to me losing a job was a little bit like what I imagine going through a divorce is when you love what you do. And I loved what I did,” said Mills.
The toughest aspect of unemployment for the Mills family was the lack of affordable child care, previously provided by her former employer. With three young kids, it weighs heavily on their decision making.
"For child care per week, it's about 300 dollars a week, so about 1200 dollars a month. And frankly I don't pay that much for rent," said Mills. "That's just for a child care center certified by the state of California. That just means if they do something inappropriate, there's a watchdog. There's rules on the education level, there's rules on how many adults need to be in the room. My very fist administrative job in child care was an unlicensed facility, and that meant I'd literally be alone with 50 children. There were no rules."
"I’ve gotten some offers. Not great. My husband and I sat down and did the math," said Marshelle. "What would we make? What would the expenses be? Transportation? Wardrobe? On my best offer, we find out that I would save 100 dollars a month staying home. And frankly my kids were happier when I’m at home, it just made sense."
Marshelle remains optimistic about the future, “I think I’m good at my job, and I desperately want to go back. I just know that that the only way I’m going to be competitive is to get education, and so I’ve got to bide my time,” said Mills. “And if I’m going to bide my time to get the education I need, I have to choose not to be bitter and enjoy the moments I have with my kids at home.”
Goodbye, Columbus Day. Hello #ColumboDay!
It's Columbus Day, honoring, as anthropologist Jack Weatherford puts it, the man "who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history:"
Autumn would hardly be complete in any elementary school without construction-paper replicas of the three cute ships that Columbus sailed to America, or without drawings of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to finance Columbus' trip.
This myth of the pawned jewels obscures the true and more sinister story of how Columbus financed his trip. The Spanish monarch invested in his excursion, but only on the condition that Columbus would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices, and other tribute from Asia. This pressing need to repay his debt underlies the frantic tone of Columbus' diaries as he raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value.
After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply - human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.
-- Anthropologist Jack Weatherford, Macalaster College
So instead of Columbus, let's honor Columbo!
Here's my 2010 interview with William Link, co-creator of "Columbo," along with "Mannix" and "Murder, She Wrote." Link explains how he and his partner came up with the idea of Columbo, and why they didn't approach it as a "whodunit."