Today on the show, we'll take a look at how small businesses in California are looking to Mexico for new trade opportunities. Then, Obama's in the Central Valley to discuss the state's water woes. Plus, a new book by the editor of the NYT's Modern Love column explores "Love Illuminated," most Californians view weight and exercise as top risks to kids, newly found photos in Antarctica shed new light on one of Ernest Shackleton's last expeditions, and much more.
Small businesses in California look to Mexico for trade opportunities
What country buys more Californian products than any other? Would you believe it's Mexico?
California sold more than $26 billion in goods to Mexico, but a huge chunk of those dollars come from large businesses. This week, smaller businesses were in Mexico trying to do deals.
RELATED: California small businesses on a mission in Mexico
Jennifer Collins is a reporter based in Mexico City and caught up with the trade mission there. She joins the show to explain how Brand California was doing in Mexico
White House officials, Governor Brown discuss drought and climate change
One issue President Obama is expected to raise during his Central Valley stop is the connection between extreme weather events — like the drought — and climate change.
That was also a focus yesterday when White House officials met with Governor Brown and other leaders in Los Angeles to discuss water scarcity and more. The California Report's LA bureau chief Steven Cuevas has details.
Friday Flashback: Obama in Fresno, Eric Holder, Dumb Starbucks and more
It's Valentine's Day! And the end of another work week, so that means it's time for the Friday Flashback, Take Two's look at the week in news. This morning we're joined in-studio by Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey, and we welcome another first-time-ever flashback contestant, Jamelle Bouie, staff writer with the Daily Beast.
Let's start with President Obama, who's in Fresno today meeting with Governor Brown and talking about the drought. What's President Obama here to accomplish?
Congress managed to approve an increase to the debt ceiling, which is akin to us doing a show everyday...so why is this being called a "triumph"?
This week, Attorney General Eric Holder urged states to expand felony voting rights — something we don't hear much about. Why was this was mostly symbolic?
Big news this week: Cable giant Comcast announced a deal to buy Time Warner Cable. A lot of takeaways here saying it's bad for the consumer, antitrust will never let it go through. How likely is the deal to go through?
Of course we've got to talk about the Olympics. Last week was a bit doom-and-gloom but this week, despite Bob Costas's pink eye, it seems to be going pretty smoothly. Are we as Americans learning some tough coping lessons for when our people just don't win?
This week also left us wondering what does it take to become a U.S. ambassador? That was brought on both by the late actress Shirley Temple Black who we were reminded served as ambassador to Ghana, but also by Colleen Bell, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary designate.
We will also never forget this as the week that brought us both Dumb Starbucks and performance art from Shia LaBeouf. Let's talk about with Dumb Starbucks. Remind us what this ultimately turned out to be and why the hell so many people made such a big deal about it.
Facebook now offers 50 custom gender options
For many, checking the box next to male or female is an easy choice, but for others it's a painful question and neither option is really accurate.
RELATED: New gender options for Facebook users
For those who prefer terms like Gender Variant, Pangender, or Two Spirit, there's some good news. At least online. Yesterday, Facebook expanded its list of gender options to about 50 different descriptors.
For more on this, we turn to Mark Snyder, Communications Manager for the Transgender Law Center.
In new book, NYT's Modern Love editor explores 'Love Illuminated'
Today is Valentines Day. It's a day to celebrate flowers, overly sweetened chocolate and romantic love, but what does romantic love mean in this day and age?
That's a question that Daniel Jones from the New York Times has been grappling with for nearly a decade now. Jones is the editor of the column "Modern Love" and having pored through more than 50,000 stories on the subject of love, he's learned a thing or two.
He shares his observations in the new book "Love Illuminated: Exploring Life's Most Mystifying Subject with the Help of 50,000 Strangers."
Most Californians view unhealthy eating, lack of exercise as top risks to kids
According to a new Field Poll from the California Endowment, when it comes to kids, the majority of Californians are very concerned about two things: unhealthy eating and lack of exercise. Almost 60 percent of residents saw these two issues as a big threat to kids — even bigger than illegal drug use.
For more, we're joined by Dr. George Flores, program manager at the California Endowment.
Should unhealthy food producers be held responsible for obesity costs?
Unhealthy eating isn't just a big concern for California kids. It's a nationwide problem which costs billions of dollars each year.
By some estimates, obesity-related disease accounts for twenty percent of health care expenses in this country, but who should pay the price? According to some in the legal community, that responsibility falls with the food manufacturers themselves.
For more on this, we're joined by Politico's Helena Bottemiller Evich.
Making sense of contemporary wine culture with the 'Wine Savant'
I've never really been big on Valentines Day, but I'll take any excuse to eat chocolate and enjoy a fine bottle of wine. But lately I've been in a bit of a wine rut. Loving the ones I drink, but I drink them all the time.
Frankly, I've become a little afraid of trying anything new. That was until I picked up Michael Steinberger's new book, "The Wine Savant: A Guide to the New Wine Culture."
Comment Box: Michael Sam, Pedro Infante and Kristen Stewart poetry
Time now for the Comment Box where listeners weigh in on the stuff we're talking about on Take Two.
We began this week talking about Michael Sam, the aspiring NFL player from the University of Missouri, who came out of the closet. On Monday, we interviewed Howard Bragman, the publicist who advised Sam during the process.
It was the lead story for most news outlets that day but listener, initials MK, posted this on our website:
"Happy for gay rights, civil liberties etc. but would challenge the airways to devote as much airtime to the plight of Foster Children and their civil liberties."
Also this week, we talked about Pedro Infante, a celebrated Mexican musician and film actor from the fifties. He died in a plane crash decades ago but Univision has announced plans to use his image — a la James dean — in a series of products, including salsa and tortilla chips.
Listener Sonia Alvarado was a little incensed by this news:
"Pedro Infante is idolized in Mexico as a talented singer/artist and a man who donated to the poor. I would hate for his image to be cheapened with merchandise that would only support Univision. It would be wonderful if his family had taken over the rights to his name and used it for a greater good, such as Paul Newman's family has done."
And finally, actress Kristen Stewart and her poem that appears in the March issue of the magazine Marie Claire. Stewart's poem's been skewered on Twitter and in the blogosphere.
But yesterday we spoke to UCLA professor Brian Kim Stefans, who was far gentler on the young poet, and commended her for a good first effort.
Listeners, you really liked this segment — and professor Stefans's evaluation.
Here's Listener Brenna MacAllister: "Thank you very much for that interview!" Professor Stefans, she writes is "The voice of reason!"
Kristen Stewart, I hope you're listening.
We thank you for listening. Drop us a line anytime at TakeTwoShow@kpcc.org. Or you can find us on Twitter
and on the Take Two Facebook page.
Picture This: Newly found photos detail one of Shackleton's last polar expeditions
On February 15th, 140 years ago, the great British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton was born.
Over the course of his life he would lead several expeditions into Antarctica, in hopes of reaching the South Pole. Now a recent discovery sheds some new light on one of his last expeditions.
Antarctic researchers have uncovered old film negatives left behind by one of Shackleton's teams 100 years ago. As part of our series, Picture This, we thought we'd call up one of the researchers in charge of this discovery.
Nigel Watson of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust joins the show to talk about these enlightening images.
Interview Highlights:
On the expedition huts used by early polar explorers:
"This is one of a handful as the early explorers tried to battle and reach the South Pole, a number of them set up these expedition bases along the way, these huts as we call them. Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott left these early bases. They're now under our care, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, so they date from just over 100 years ago, but they are a fantastic time capsule, still filled with the original explorer's provisions and supplies."
On what the huts are made out of:
"They were all made of wood and they were prefabricated. This find was at Captain Scott's last expedition base, it was prefabricated and brought from London, and it was the largest building in Antarctica in the so-called Heroic Age of Exploration. It was about 15 meters by eight meters, and it's a place where 25 men lived."
On what other items can be found in these expedition huts:
"These huts are stocked, crammed with the original provisions, the biggest excitement has been caused, if not by these photos, by a discovery we found in Shackleton's hut at Cape Roy's a few years ago, which was the whisky that he left behind, so that was certainly a tipple, which lasted through the ages."
Who was Ernest Shackleton?:
"He was Anglo-Irish, he was born in 1874, he went to sea in the Merchant Navy at 16 and probably his first break in the Antarctic was going down with Captain Scott on Scott's first expedition. Shackleton was a very forceful, charming personality. He became most famous for a subsequent expedition where he tried to traverse the continent.
"That's where, aboard the Endurance, which was crushed in the ice in the Riddell Sea and what has been described as the greatest small boat journey. That's of interest because not only that story has had huge significance, but a little-known aspect of that expedition and Shackleton, was his Ross Sea Party, which was to lay provisions for him on the other side of the continent as he traversed. And that's where these photos that we've discovered have come from."
On what it was like to find the photos:
"When we were working through the dark room at Scott's hut where Shackleton's men were basing themselves at the time, we came across a congealed stack of negatives, which we realized might have some images. But it was really difficult and challenging to try and identify what they were. Of course, there was huge excitement from our team of conservators and what we needed really was to get some good conservation work done on them to be able to expose those images."
On the photo of Alexander Stevens posing with his hands on his hips:
"He was Scottish, he was the chief scientist and a geologist by training. He was part of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party and his focus was around working on meteorology, glaciology, oceanography. He took part in laying some of those supply depots in early 1915 for Shackleton, but then based a lot of his time back at the hut while a lot of the other continued further south in laying depots over the subsequent seasons.
"I think one of the most interesting parts that comes out of this is all the scientific work he did over that expedition and the scientific records were lost on the return journey. The ship carrying those records was torpedoed in the English Channel because you must remember we were back here in the great war. A lot of that research was lost."
On why Alexander Stevens looks so stern and grave in the photo:
"I think there's a steely determination around that. Behind the virile young men going down there 100 years ago, its that scientific endeavor and zeal and the chance to be on a great adventure. By this time Shackleton was a big name, he was very famous, there were lots of people wanting to get involved with these expeditions and he was a young scientist trying to make his mark. Despite his looks, I think he was on the adventure of a lifetime."
On the places we see in these pictures:
"We can still recognize some of those landmarks. We see in here the area around Ross Island. We've got Mount Erebus, which is the world's southernmost active volcano, which is still very prominent today."
On whether global warming has affected the area:
"They do to a large extent, and I think remarkably this part of Antarctica has changed very little in 100 years except for a lot of increased activity from government programs — both New Zealand and the United States national programs operate out of Ross Island. But the features that are present within these photographs are still visible today."