California's big presence at the climate talks, a mother talks about the death of her son while at day care, Isabel Allende's new book.
#WorldAIDSDay: how to change the way you talk about HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is not the killer it once was in the 1980s. Or is it?
News about the virus now isn't as widespread as it was in the 1980s, when details and deaths were splashed on front pages everywhere.
Meanwhile, drugs like Truvada are slowing its spread, and those with HIV are able to manage the virus through treatments.
But the U.S. government still calls HIV an epidemic. Also, the number of people who have died from AIDS complications every year has not significantly dropped in nearly 20 years.
However, what has changed is the way we talk about HIV/AIDS.
"Gay disease," "unclean" and "safe sex" are some of the phrases KPCC listeners recall hearing in the 1980s.
Amity Grimes was a newly minted nurse in 1985, and she remembered hospital staff saying, "Only members of the '4H club' were likely to get aids: Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, Haitians, and Heroin addicts."
"I think there was a little bit of blaming," says Grimes.
"We had a lot of stigmatizing language around infected, contaminated, dying of AIDS," says Diane Anderson-Minshall, editor-in-chief of Plus magazine.
There are many phrases she says the public and journalists should and should not use when talking about HIV/AIDS.
- "HIV stage 3," not AIDS - Some governmental and medical organizations now use this phrase instead of AIDS because they are the same thing: Reaching HIV stage 3 leads to the set of symptoms known as AIDS. "The word AIDS is associated with skeletal, white often-gay men who are dying of a disease," says Anderson-Minshall. "HIV is a chronic manageable condition like diabetes."
- Not "full-blown AIDS" - "You either have AIDS or you don't," says Anderson-Minshall.
- "Safer sex," not safe sex - "Safe sex" may imply complete safety. However, no protection method is 100 percent effective against all STIs.
- Not "unprotected sex" - The term is no longer used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will instead say "condomless sex." The old term suggested that having sex without a condom was unprotected, when in reality there are many ways to prevent STIs.
Why more non-Asians are being enrolled in Chinese heritage classes
A growing number of parents in Southern California are enrolling their children in Chinese heritage schools.
The weekend classes are a regular part of growing up for many first generation Chinese Americans. It's seen as a way of maintaining cultural identity. But as one Chinese American journalist learned, a new, diverse wave of students is attending for another reason: to learn Chinese.
Multimedia journalist
is a first generation Chinese American and spent many a weekend in such classes. She recently returned to the classroom, this time as an observer researching for a piece that would be published in The Atlantic.
Cleo stopped by Take Two to share what she saw.
Press the blue play button above to hear more.
The Brood: A baby's daycare death leads to a parental leave campaign
The first day back to work after having a new baby can be a tough one for any working parent.
Amber Scorah was no different. She was a new mom working at a publishing company in New York City. After having her baby Karl, and three months of paid maternity leave, she headed back to work in July of this year.
As she left Karl at a day care near her work for the first time, a list of worries ran through her mind. But, as she recently wrote for the New York Times, she never imagined in her wildest nightmare that Karl would die on his first day of day care.
Amber Scorah is now asking why she, and other parents in the U.S., have to leave their infants so soon. Scorah spoke with Take Two's Alex Cohen about her story and about her campaign for paid parental leave, called "For Karl."
To hear the full interview with Amber Scorah, click the link above.
Isabel Allende weaves together love, secrecy and WWII in 'The Japanese Lover'
Writer Isabel Allende is known to millions of her fans around the world for her books, "The House of the Spirits," and "City of the Beasts."
Allende joined host Alex Cohen to talk about her newest book, "The Japanese Lover," and her long career that started more than three decades ago. You can catch Allende at the Skirball Cultural Center on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Click here for more information.
Interview Highlights
Alex Cohen: The title, "The Japanese Lover," refers to a relationship between a woman named Alma Belasco, a Jewish immigrant who comes to California in 1939 to escape the Nazis, and a man named Ichimei Fukuda, the son of a Japanese immigrant. Their love must remain secret because the idea of a white woman with a Japanese man was unheard of at that time, which may be hard to understand today. Bring us back to that time, what was so taboo about that kind of love?
Isabel Allende: It would have been impossible for them to have a marriage. Therefore they become lovers, and their love endures a lifetime. But they couldn't marry, not only because it was legally impossible, but also they were separated by so many obstacles: by wealth, social class, culture, everything. Everything worked against them, and I think that if they would have married, it would have been a disaster.
Alex Cohen: In my mind these two were just destined to be together, but there is also that notion of forbidden love, you want what you can't have. In your mind as you created their relationship, do you feel like the fact that they couldn't be together propel their love even further?
Isabel Allende: In my mind, yes, and I think that in real life, it's also the case. You know now, marriages last too long. Before people would get married and you were expected to live with your husband 20, 30 years. Now you live 65 years with the same person! (laughs) It's too long. But with lovers, you know, lovers meet to share the best of themselves, in secret time, a time that is like a parentheses from everything else in their lives. So, of course, it's endurable.
Alex Cohen: You write about Jews escaping from the Nazis, and the Japanese being interned. You yourself endured the 1973 military coup in Chile, when the then-president of Chile, and your father's cousin, was overthrown, and Augusto Pinochet came to power. Do you rely on any of your own experiences to tap into what your characters might have felt?
Isabel Allende: I think I do, but not consciously. I write only about things I care for, obsessions, memory, emotions that somehow I can't either understand or overcome or control, and then I end up writing about that, and everything is related to the kind of life I have had. In all my books, you will find displaced people, or people who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment. They're marginals for whatever reason, poverty, or gender, or whatever reason there is. Those are the characters I'm interested in, because I always feel like a foreigner. I always feel that I don't quite belong — not even in Chile anymore. And it's good for a writer, because as a writer, I end up asking the questions that nobody else asks, because everybody takes everything for granted. But because I am new in a place, I am curious in a way, and that gives me stories.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
CORRECTION: During the interview, we misidentified Book Soup as the location of Allende's event. The reading will take place at the Skirball Cultural Center. We regret this error.
New music from Tom Jones, Sunny Levine Rashida Jones and more
If you love music, but don't have the time to keep up with what's new, you should listen to Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our critics join our hosts in the studio to tell us about what you should be listening to, in one short segment. This week, music journalist Steve Hochman joins Alex Cohen with his top picks.
Artist: Tom Jones
Album: "Long Lost Suitcase"
Songs: "I Wish You Would," "Elvis Presley Blues"
The Welsh Wonder has been on quite the run of late, with his last two albums showing him in peak form on some very meaty blues and gospel on the first and gripping selections from such ace songwriters as Leonard Cohen and Richard Thompson on the second. There’s also a new autobiography. It’s no mere victory lap, though, as he’s still going strong on a third in the series (as with the others, produced by Ethan Johns).
Here he kind of splits the difference, with songs from the catalogs of Willie Nelson, Willie Dixon, Hank Williams, the Rolling Stones among others, along with relative newcomers Gillian Welch and youngsters the Milk Carton Kids. It’s an inspired set, full of the swagger and sex appeal that go with the name Tom Jones, no less at age 75 than ever. For that matter, it’s hard to imagine the 25-year-old Jones we first knew putting so much fire into Billy Boy Arnold’s "I Wish You Would" as he and the ace band behind him do. Many of us know the song first from the Yardbirds’ British Invasion rave-up, and Jones gives that a run for its money. A churning version of Los Lobos’ "Everybody Loves a Train" is another standout.
About half the album has a country-folk grounding. A version of Tom Paxton’s "He Was a Friend of Mine" is bare-bones, just acoustic guitar and spare slide along with him, intimate and honest in his feel for the song, truly mourning for someone now gone. Hank Williams’ "Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used To Do" has some snappy swing to its yearning. And Gillian Welch’s trembling "Elvis Presley Blues" gives a nice balance of homage and elegy. And it serves as a great centerpiece of this album, showcasing Jones later in life, but still taking great inspiration and energy from the heroes of his youth — while providing inspiration for others who have come along later.
Artist: Boss Selection
Album: "Volume 1"
Songs: "Flip and Rewind," "Midnight Fools"
If much of this album puts you in mind of classic, slinky-funky Quincy Jones productions, specifically those around the time of his all-time top, Michael Jackson’s "Thriller," fair enough. Well, it comes by it honestly, not to mention genetically. Sunny Levine, the fellow behind the Boss Selection moniker, is Jones’ grandson, though an established producer, writer and musician in his own right. And then there’s the singer on the song "Flip and Rewind," none other than Rashida Jones — yes, the comic actress known for "Parks and Recreation" and "The Office," but also, oh, Quincy Jones’ daughter and Levine’s aunt. They’re not being coy about the nostalgia/heritage here. Even that song title directs our attention back to the cassette era.
But you know what? It’s a good song, more homage than copy. And while a nostalgia streak runs through the whole album, there’s a personal touch brought by Levine to a range of sounds, with a series of guest vocalists from veteran R&B star Brenda Russell to South African trumpet great Hugh Masekela to singer-songwriter Pete Yorn.
But yes, those ‘80s. Check out the synth bass powering "Midnight Fools," featuring singer Young Dad, a.k.a. Levin’s long-time friend Amir Yaghmai. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Gap Band album. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be out of place on a Flying Lotus album, either.
Artist: Various
Album: "I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in Evangeline Country"
Songs: "Je M’ai Fait Une Maitresse," "Inch Above Your Knee"
In 1934 musicologists John and Alan Lomax went to the prairies of south central Louisiana to collect and record music of the French-descended Cajuns and the African-rooted Creoles. It was a definitive study of two related cultures unlike anything else in the U.S., and largely unknown outside the region. Not to mention it was some of the most exciting and enticing music being made on the continent, but it remained a curiosity at best for ages. Now, several generations later, Cajun is a well-known term, but still quite misunderstood, and anything but restricted to what Lomax captured. Some of the most creative and accomplished figures in Cajun music, brought together by young leaders Joel Savoy and Joshua Caffery and released on Savoy’s Valcour Records label, revisit the Lomax visit and bring it up to date, and in some ways full circle as anthropology from the inside, giving a portrayal of the culture and music today.
The project, a just-completed series of four themed EPs collected in a box set, features a few generations itself, from veterans Ann Savoy (Joel’s mom) and BeauSoleil’s Michael Doucet to younger Kristi Guillory and Megan Brown. They all know the history intimately, but are not locked into it, with performances, mostly in French, running from what we might call interpretive traditional to relatively radical — and every one involving and engaging, enlivening the spirit of the Lomax recordings and covering a good deal of the wide range of approaches you’ll find to music in the region now. On the most "folk" end is Doucet’s fiddle-and-voice rendition of the fallen-woman lament "Je M’ai Fait Une Maitresse" ("I Made Myself a Mistress"), taken from the "Dancing and Seduction" third disc.
On the more modern side, Savoy and Kelli Jones-Savoy, who in addition to being his wife is in the wonderfully creative Lafayette band Feufollet, team for a rocking (and in English) "Inch Above Your Knee," with Savoy writing new music for traditional words. Performances, and performers, are varied, but uniformly earthy and unaffected, and brimming with the same qualities that attracted the Lomaxes way back then. Speaking of which, you can hear the original recordings at www.lomax1934,com, and read about it in Caffery’s book, "Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana." (And a disclaimer: I’ve been friends with the Savoy Family for more than 25 years, since Joel was a lad, and have consumed tons of crawfish with many of the people on these recordings.)
An HR expert's advice for negotiating parental leave
For many new moms and dads there are no easy answers when it comes to sorting out parental leave. Still, there are some steps you can take to make the most of your employer's policy.
Lauren Wallenstein, a human resources consultant and mom based in L.A., joined Take Two for some tips on how to negotiate for parental leave with your employer.
To hear the full interview with Lauren Wallenstein, click the link above.