Are you being stalked…by an app? Will Obama cash big checks from SoCal donors? Paradise lost; freedom found. A new Pew Study shows a surge in interracial marriages in west United States. Sin City celebrates its Mob history with new museum. Are you a glutton for information?
Are you being stalked…by an app?
In today’s world, it’s nearly impossible not to invade someone’s privacy, or have your own invaded. If we’re not watching reality TV or reading the tabloids, both notorious invasions of celebrity privacy, then we’re logging onto Facebook or Google, which have both made no bones about amassing information about its users.
But now, an app for the iPhone and iPad is taking this one step further. The social networking app, called Path, automatically uploaded your address book to its servers. Ostensibly, this was done to help Path users find each other, but the intrusion was made without any prompting to the user.
While this nefarious practice is definitely intrinsic to the app itself, some of the blame is being placed on Apple. The company is known for its focus on security and its “opt-in mentality,” but none of its devices warned users that Path would be amassing data, as was the case for the Android version of Path.
Privacy experts and users are more upset about this breach of privacy than they have been by other famous examples in the past, such as Facebook and Google. But why? What makes this incident so heinous? Why was Path accessing and saving all this information? What is the solution to such breaches of privacy? Will Congress need to get involved? Will companies like Apple have to start protecting our privacy for us? Could we all use a simple wake-up call?
Guests:
Henry Waxman, Democratic Congressman, represents California’s 30th district
Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Will Obama cash big checks from SoCal donors?
Politicos in fundraising circles refer to California as a giant ATM. President Barack Obama is back in the Southland to make some big withdrawals. He got an early start this morning for a breakfast at a Corona del Mar home.
The invitation from real estate developer Jeff Stack reads: “Obama for America invites you to join President Barack Obama for a breakfast with supporters like you,” according to a local paper. There were tickets for as low as $2,500 per person, with a $10,000 photo reception, and $35,800 tickets for an afternoon reception later in the day.
“One of the most expensive photos I’ve ever gotten,” joked Wylie Aitken, top 20 donor at the Corona del Mar breakfast and former long-time Chairman of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County.
Last night, Obama was hosted by the Hollywood set. Actor and comedian Will Ferrell co-hosted a dinner with soap opera mogul Bradley Bell (of “The Bold and the Beautiful” fame). Rock ‘n roll entertainment for the moneybags-Democrats came compliments of The Foo Fighters, fresh from their five-Grammy win on Sunday. Entrance for that dinner cost up to $38,500 a person. According to Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times, they raked in 3 million from the effort.
In 2008, nearly a hundred wealthy Californians used their fundraising power to pull in at least $15 million. Going into 2011, similar “bundlers” across the country have raised $74.4 million for the reelection campaign so far, and according to Gold, much of the big donors hail from
Southern California.
“So far this cycle, Obama has raised more than 1 in 5 dollars from Californians, and Southern Californians are obviously a big part of that,” she said. “A lot of it is money from the entertainment industry.”
Tinseltown titans are an essential source of funding for Obama. And though there have been some frustrations with the Obama administration so far, Hollywood majors like producer Jeffrey Katzenberg still have shelled out large sums for Obama’s reelection campaign.
“We spoke to a lot of people in Hollywood about these fundraisers last night, because this comes on the heels of efforts by Hollywood to pass some anti piracy measures that the Obama administration did not get behind as fully as they would have liked,” Gold continued. “There is some frustration on some level, but that does not seem to be stemming any of the campaign contributions.”
Gold said that’s in part to the ideological reasons people donate. “People care about abortion rights, people care about the environment; there are many other topics that are motivating donors in Hollywood,” she said.
Wylie Aitken, top 20 donor who was present at Thursday morning’s fundraiser, said Obama’s speech resonated with him.
“He certainly focused on the issue with the economy, he certainly talked about defense spending – a big issue in Southern California – he talked, obviously, about global warming, and he really talked about [...] where this great adventure started four years ago and where it is now, and all the unfinished work,” Aitken recalled.
Aitken isn’t an entertainment industry man, and he said donors run the gamut of professions. Moreover, he’s from Orange County which is known to be lacking in Democratic heavy-hitters. Aitken maintains that there is a solid base of Democrats in the O.C.
“That’s a total misnomer. There are more democrats in Orange County than there are in San Francisco,” he said. “Great number of democrats, but of course, more Republicans.”
The L.A. Times’ Matea Gold said people should expect much more money to flow in on the Democratic side once the Republican challenger has been nominated. “A lot of people who have raised large sums in the past have told us that they’re really waiting to get engaged once there is a general election,” she said.
So we’ll see what part SoCal money plays as Obama’s campaign really kicks off in spring or summer.
WEIGH IN:
How much money is the campaign hoping to raise in California and across the country? Will the 2008 donors ante up again? How tough is it get big dollars from Orange County? What is the payoff for donors? How often do they get special treatment and White House jobs?
Guest:
Matea Gold, reporter covering money & politics, Washington Bureau, Los Angeles Times
Wylie Aitken, Top 20 donor at the Corona del Mar breakfast; Former long-time Chairman of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County;
Paradise lost; freedom found
In May of 1993, three eight year-old boys were found brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. A month later three teenage boys, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols stood accused of the crime and within a year all three were convicted and one was sentenced to death.
The trial and its aftermath made national headlines as the police work and the trial were roundly criticized. This is the third documentary that filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky have made about the boys who became known as the “West Memphis Three.” Their first came just a few years after the trial in 1996, the second in 2000.
This final installment follows the story of Misskelley, Baldwin and Echol’s release from prison after spending 18 years behind bars. Bizarrely, under the terms of their release, all three had to plead guilty to the crimes they say they never committed. We’ll talk to Berlinger and Sonofsky about what it’s like to follow a story for nearly two decades and discuss the controversies surrounding their Oscar nomination.
Guests:
Joe Berlinger, co-director, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory"
Bruce Sinofsky, co-director, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory"
Study: more couples “marry out” as acceptance grows
Marriage may be at a record low in America, but interracial marriage is soaring, according to a Pew study released today. California and the Western states lead the nation in this surge. The study, called “the Rise of Intermarriage,” says that one-fifth of all recent weddings in the western U.S. are between people of different races or ethnicities.
Nationally, 15% of marriages in 2010 crossed racial and ethnic lines, researchers found. This is twice the rate from three decades ago. Since 1980, the number of whites who “marry out” of their race has doubled to 9% and the share of blacks who marry non-blacks has more than tripled to 17%. The highest rates of intermarriage are between Asians and Hispanics, with more than 25% of Asian newlyweds marrying non-Asians.
Researchers say that with each passing year, these changes become more common, but it’s interesting to note that in the past half century, intermarriage has evolved from being illegal and taboo, to merely unusual.
WEIGH IN:
What’s behind this trend and will it last? Why is it most pronounced in the West? If immigration drops, will acceptance of intermarriage follow? Is this coming together good for the country overall or might there be risks in terms of lost cultural identity?
Guest:
Wendy Wang, Research Associate at the Pew Research Center and Lead Researcher of “The Rise of Intermarriage” study
Sin City celebrates its Mob history with new museum
What most differentiates Las Vegas from other cities that cater to vice? Its Mob origins. Now, the desert destination started by Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, has a new museum celebrating its dubious but fascinating beginnings.
The long-awaited National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, A.K.A. the Mob Museum, opened yesterday in Sin City’s historic downtown district. It’s located on Stewart Avenue, inside the former federal post office and courthouse where the landmark 1950 Kefauver hearings on organized crime were held. It’s the very spot where Las Vegas’ former “Happiest Mayor on Earth,” Oscar Goodman, defended real-life wiseguys like Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro. (Goodman, by the way, played himself in the movie “Casino,” defending a film version of “The Ant.”)
The Mob Museum features interactive exhibits, films and high-tech displays that aim to give an insider’s look at the events and people on both sides of the ongoing battle between organized crime and law enforcement. One of the museum’s prized pieces is the bullet-ridden brick wall against which members of the Bugs Moran gang were lined up then shot and killed by members of Al Capone’s gang. That notorious mob hit, known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, marked the beginning and the end of Capone’s reign.
Vegas has tried to cash in on its mafia legacy before, with mixed results. Will Vegas win big on this publicly-funded bet? Will tourists flock downtown to check out the crime scene photos and ommy guns from Vegas’ Mob-run past? Given the ruthlessness and brutality, why are we so fascinated by Mob culture?
Guest:
Oscar Goodman, Las Vegas Host Committee Chairman; former Mayor of Las Vegas (1999-2011), who was once the Mob’s go-to defense attorney
Gluttons for information
We spend 11 hours out of every 24 consuming. Not eating, not drinking but gorging ourselves on the information spewed to us from screens and speakers.
We are as insatiable with information as we are with sugar and fat. We just can’t get enough and Clay Johnson, founder of Blue State Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama’s online presidential campaign, says it’s time for us to go on an information diet.
In his new book, “The information Diet” he warns us that too much of what we are bombarded with from the media can make us clueless rather that smart, productive and sane. But Johnson says it’s not as much about consuming less but instead about picking and choosing what to consume, how to be selective and what to avoid.
He is especially interested and concerned about the effect an information glut has on a generation of kids who live in front of computer screens and how this may fundamentally change the way our brains are wired. Johnson also delves into the emotional and physical effects of information overload.
Do you need to go on an information diet? If so, how would you change the way you consume information on a daily basis?
Guest:
Clay Johnson, author of “The Information Diet” (O'Reilly Media). Johnson is the founder of Blue State Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama’s online presidential campaign