Ben Carson becomes the second GOP presidential candidate threatening to ditch the party; California Coastal Commission challenges Venice Beach's curfew; new job-seeking apps like JobSnap are changing the landscape of employment applications; TGI-Filmweek with a discussion of "The Big Short" and the non-fiction books that make for great cinema.
After Trump, Carson threatens third-party run. Just how feasible is it?
GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson has threatened to leave the Republican Party after the Washington Post reported that party leaders are entertaining the possibility of a “brokered convention.”
Carson lashed out at the party, and said he would run as an independent candidate if there are signs that the presidential nominating process is being tempered with. Carson has been slipping in the polls after a strong, early showing.
Carson is not the first candidate to threaten to jump ship. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has done so a couple times before, most recently this week, after he was roundly criticized for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.
How feasible is an independent run today? What are the economics of a third-party run?
Guests:
Glenn Thrush, chief political correspondent for Politico.
Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School
Lawsuit seeks to overturn Venice Beach curfew
A new lawsuit has reignited an age-old debate over who should have access to Venice Beach.
A midnight-to-5 a.m curfew was implemented along the 11-mile coastline in 1989 to curb the threat of gang violence in the area.
With crime in decline, the Coastal Commission started to challenge the ban, but with little success. In recent years, the spread of the tech sector has run up against the growth of the homeless population in Venice, recasting the curfew as a battleline between the haves and the have-nots in the beach city.
Proponents say that the curfew help make Venice safe, but opponents say it is a de facto way to push the homeless population out of the area.
The latest lawsuit was filed this week by activists who wants the court to stop enforcing the ban.
Guests:
Steve Clare, Executive Director, Venice Community Housing Corporation, nonprofit housing and community development organization serving low-income residents in the Westside of Los Angeles.
Mark Ryavec, President of the Venice Stakeholders’ Association, an organization dedicated to civic improvement in Venice Beach.
The pros and cons of nontraditional resumés in the digital era
Gone are the days when applying to jobs meant filling out extensive paperwork and uploading a resume.
Southern California job-seekers can now blast out their CVs to hundreds of employers with the press of one button.
JobSnap is a smartphone app marketed to young adults from 18 to 22 years old looking for an entry-level position in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industry.
The app is modeled after the popular Tinder app and allows hiring managers to use the same “swipe” motion to sift through applicants – for a premium. The initial 25 swipes are free, with plans costing either $50 for 25 swipes or $99 for unlimited swipes.
Should this new app be credited for its innovative or should we be critical of potential drawbacks? What are some nontraditional platforms you’ve used to apply to jobs? Does this new app make it easier to hire applicants based on personality or does it make it easier to discriminate?
Guest:
Liz Ryan, CEO and Founder of Human Workplace, based in Boulder, Colorado. Liz is a former head of human resources at a Fortune 500 company
FilmWeek: ‘The Big Short,’ ‘In the Heart of the Sea’ and more
Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Peter Rainer, Charles Solomon, and Amy Nicholson review this week's new movie releases including the star-studded cast in "The Big Short," the Ron Howard directed whale tale "In the Heart of the Sea," the animated feature "The Boy and the World" and more. TGI-Filmweek!
Guests:
Amy Nicholson, Film Critic for KPCC and Chief Film Critic, LA Weekly; Amy tweets from
Charles Solomon, film critic for KPCC and Animation Scoop and Animation Magazine
Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor
'The Big Short' movie aims for accuracy and entertainment
Director Adam McKay wants audiences to learn entertaining lessons about the 2008 financial crisis featured in "The Big Short," and as "Wall Street Journal" columnist Greg Ip writes, "[McKay's] movie goes a long way [in explaining] the financial engineering behind the mortgage bubble, such as how mortgage-backed securities are constructed and how vulnerable they were to default."
However, Ip says the movie provides an incomplete picture and underplays the more complex economic forces that were at work. Still, could any movie pull off that feat?
Movies based on true stories are under increased scrutiny as audiences can readily search online for the ugly truth. Last year's "American Sniper" starring Bradley Cooper was being called into question even before it hit theaters because the memoir written by Chris Kyle was found to be rife with embellishments and unsubstantiated facts.
This year's "Spotlight" is a sober retelling of "The Boston Globe's" expose of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal. It's been praised for sticking to the facts.
The Charlize Theron movie "North Country" was a dramatization of the sexual harassment class action lawsuit that the women of EVTAC mines in Minnesota filed in the 1980s. Some critics said the true story needed to be simplified for the big screen.
How important is it you that movies based on true stories adhere to accuracy? Or should filmmakers follow the age-old advice to "never let the truth get in the way of a good story?"
Guests:
Amy Nicholson, Film Critic for KPCC and Chief Film Critic, LA Weekly; Amy tweets from
Charles Solomon, film critic for KPCC and Animation Scoop and Animation Magazine
Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor