SoCal Jewish community centers among 30 bomb threats across US, impact of Trump's proposed military budget on California, old Nokia model brings users back to basics
Westside Jewish Community Center targeted in national wave of bomb threats
Yesterday, 30 Jewish community centers and schools across 18 states were the targets of bomb threats, as well as the San Francisco office of the Anti-Defamation League– a jewish human rights organization.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been scores of these calls to Jewish community centers and schools across the country. Gravestones were vandalized at Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia and St. Louis just in the past week.
In Irvine, more than one thousand people were evacuated after a threat to Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County and the attached Tarbut V'Torah school.
Another bomb threat was called in late in the afternoon to the Westside Jewish Community Center in Mid-City.
Brian Greene is the Executive Director of the Westside JCC. He spoke with Take Two's A Martinez about receiving the bomb threat and how his community is dealing with the recent spike in anti-semitism.
Interview Highlights
When the call came in
We got a call at about 4:40 PM– a bomb threat call, very similar to the kinds of calls we've been hearing about all over the country over the last 4 0r 5 weeks. Our staff was prepared and ready and we followed out protocols.
We've had 5 weeks of these calls at Jewish community centers across the country– close to 100 calls already. All hoaxes. No actual bombs, no damage, all hoax calls. So, we were ready.
First of all, we called LAPD. They were terrific. And really, they guided us through the whole thing. We were ready to evacuate the building quickly and calmly. Our staff knew exactly where to take children and where to move people so that everybody was moved to a safe location.
At that time of day, there were still children in our pre-school facility. There was a lot of activity on our basketball courts. And at that point during the day, there were probably about 250 swimmers either in... or about to take swim lesson at the Lenny Krayzelburg Swim Academy here in our building.
Preparing to be a target
I think we've kept people informed. We've had to because people have been concerned. They follow the news. They know what's going on. We've kept people informed over the last few weeks that if we should get a call, we will evacuate. We're ready for that and that we know what to expect.
No matter how much you prepare, the anxiousness, the anxiety, the stress is definitely there. It's a bomb threat. Someone is telling you that they're going to do serious damage. I would say the feeling here was one of anxiousness, but also a real anger. Why is this going on? Why can't they stop it? Who would want to do such a thing to disrupt children playing basketball? Why would anybody do this?
Getting back to normal
Everybody wants to know why it's happening? We don't have answers. We can say that we're monitoring the situation. We can say that we're anxious for our government to take this seriously, and take action, and find these people. We hope that's happening already. And we can say that we live in a world where strange things are happening all over. And I hope that this is isn't the new normal. I hope that this isn't going to be something that continues.
I think the first thing we have to recognize is that nobody has been harmed. All of these calls have been hoaxes. The second thing people have to recognize is that our building is secure. We have security. We have protocols. We have procedures. We're on alert. We're careful here. And the proof is that people still come. This morning there are swimmers in the pool and there are pre-schoolers arriving for their day in school. Adults are coming for their exercise classes. The proof is that people are behind us. People support us. People appreciate what we are in this community and the quality of our programs.
Condemnation from leadership
I think we need more but that's just my frustration speaking. I would hope that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are working hard on this. I do want to commend our local police. They have been fabulous and are in regular contact with us. They were real heroes last night. I was very impressed.
A wave of anti-semitism
You want to keep some perspective. None of these calls have had any basis in reality. They're hoaxes. Let's not get intimidated. Let's not feel threatened. Let's not let these people do what they want to do– harass our community center and harass citizens in Los Angeles. That's what they really want to do. Let's not give them a victory.
Quotes edited for clarity.
To listen to the interview, click on the blue Media Player above.
What does a boost in military spending mean for SoCal?
Ahead of his address to Congress tonight, President Trump has pledged to boost military spending and rebuild what he called a "depleted" armed forces. The goal is to increase the Defense budget by $54 billion, according to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, a nearly 10 percent rise from current levels.
California is home to more than 30 military bases and installations, some of the largest defense contractors in the nation and tech giants in Silicon Valley. So how could a rise in military spending play out in the Golden State?
"We're talking about maintaining bases, buying spare parts, fuel to conduct operations – and that's just the normal base budget," said Dan Grazier, a military expert at the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.
But that budget swells to well over $1 trillion a year when you take into consideration other national security agencies, such as Homeland Security, Energy Department and the Justice Department, said Grazier.
The federal budget still needs to work its way through a complex path in Congress, which means the details and ultimate funding levels are far from certain.
A handful of programmers in Silicon Valley are curating your internet experience
Nobody looks at the world with absolute objectivity. So why should it surprise us that digital helpers like those embedded in our Google results to our Facebook feeds are just a little bit slanted?
Digital algorithms abound in our digital lives. They help parse through virtually endless caches of information in a process that is both instantaneous and mysterious. But technology author and professor Ramesh Srinivasan says it's time to pull back the curtain, so the world's 3 billion internet users know why they're seeing what they see online.
"There are two mechanisms by which algorithms tend to be configured," Srinivasan explains. "One is whoever tends to be the most popular in the digital world tends to be reinforced in their search results."
Popular, in this case, meaning a person who has been searched out or linked to the most.
"The other is [when] algorithms are personalized, meaning that the algorithms are measuring the digital activity that we're already engaging in and they're feeding us information based on our existing biases or existing digital appetites," Srinivasan says.
While many might have suspected that their internet experiences tend to revolve around their preferences, Srinivasan says few stop to ask whether that's a good thing.
"Part of the problem with personalization is we're not exactly sure what choices are being made in terms of what's being personalized for us," Srinivasan says. "We shouldn't just think of technology as impacting us as individual users, we should think about the communities and cultures that algorithms are being designed for."
Srinivasan says without this sensitivity, most internet users will only be exposed to a narrow selection of what's really available online. This reinforces certain ideas and perspectives while burying others under mounds of other results.
"If the codes of technology that dominate people's experiences all over the world are just written in a few small offices, in cubicles, in software design rooms by engineers here in California, our visions and our perspectives are basically being transmitted through these digital networks that are impacting the larger world," Srinivasan says.
On social media, he says algorithms can keep people in their own thought bubbles. But he has a suggestion.
"These technology companies need to go give people a sense of why they see what they see and what other options there might have been," he says. "We need to explain what types of algorithms we're providing to people and why."
And Srinivasan highlights another potential benefit: letting people look behind the curtain might even change the timbre of the nation's political dialogue.
"[Are programmers] choosing to expose Ramesh Srinivasan to information coming from Trump supporters? Because I tend not to be a Trump supporter. So these algorithms can start to bridge our divides rather than reinforce our division," Srinivasan says.
Click on the blue bar above to listen to the entire interview.
Cops of today have high-powered rifles because of a 1997 shootout in North Hollywood
44 minutes.
That's how long a shootout lasted 20 years ago in North Hollywood between two attempted bank robbers and police.
2000 bullets.
That's how many rounds were exchanged.
The two culprits died in the battle of North Hollywood. More than a dozen officers and bystanders were injured, too.
But the aftermath lasted for years. Police departments throughout the country looked at the event and radically changed how they armed some officers.
That because the ones in North Hollywood were seriously outmatched.
The two robbers were equipped with illegally modified, high-powered rifles that could stream out rapid-fire shots at police. They also wore homemade body armor, and officers' handguns and shotguns had little chance of piercing that protection.
Afterwards, the LAPD and other departments in the nation took the steps to better equip officer with firearms that had more power at a farther distance.
NBC investigative reporter Andrew Blankstein covered the shootout when he was a young reporter for the LA Times.
From what you saw, did the police look like they were not prepared to handle something like this?
It was the post-Rodney King era, and there were debates about how much weapons or force the police should have.
Mostly specialized units had what we think of today as semi-automatic rifles that have a range and power to be able to drop somebody even at a distance.
Back then, [police] had a .38 special revolver or a 9-mm handgun. They didn't have the power to stop at range.
A lot of officers now carry .45 caliber handgun and so not only do they have the ability to stop somebody in a crime-in-progress, but you can do it at least from a distance.
Here, [they] was really no match for two people. It was almost like holding off a potential army with the guns that they had.
What changed for the LAPD after this?
There was a push to get these semi-automatic rifles into more officers' hands.
At one point, during the shootout, [officers] ended up going into a gun store and getting as many of these weapons as they could. ...
This event was one of those things that people kind of realized the dangers that were out there.
There was this support for the department. You certainly saw a push.
And what officers had been arguing at that point was that they had been outmatched by street gangs.
How did other police departments throughout the country use the North Hollywood shootout as an example?
It certainly had an effect on the urban assault rifle, if you will, being distributed to more cops.
Now, for the previous years, you had advocates saying that police should be regulated.
But this [event] showed in a matter of minutes that you could have hundreds of rounds fired off in a neighborhood.
Cashing in on the age of nostalgia: the return of the Nokia 3310
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7kLNJWTDYA
Recognize that?
It's the iconic ringtone from the Nokia 3310. It was a popular choice back at the turn of the century, when cell phones were still something of a novelty. All these years later, the 3310 has earned a special place in tech and pop culture history.
We called it a brick phone, because it felt like a chunk of masonry in your pocket. But it was a brick in other senses too. It had an almost everlasting battery, and it could survive abuse that would destroy a more modern handset.
And of course, there was that addictive game...Snake.
You can still buy a vintage 3310 on Ebay, and soon, you'll be able to buy an all-new version.
KPCC listeners weighed in on the re-release of the iconic phone:
I still have my old one. Just in case.
— Good Citizen (@GoodCitizenBand) February 27, 2017
To explain the enduring attraction of the Nokia 3310 and how anyone could possibly want such a dumb phone in the smart phone age, A Martinez spoke with CNET's Ashley Esqueda.
Interview highlights
It is pretty barebones but even after the iPhone, some people would still swear by the Nokia 3310. What is it about it that attracts so many devoted fans?
"It's really kind of strange that it has this small cult following on the internet. It used to be one of the defining cell phones of that era. I'd say it's up there with the Motorola Razr, if you remember that phone, the old slim flip phone. If you had a Nokia 3310 it was...just about indestructible. There are still hilarious memes about the original 3310 floating around on the internet...."
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/360/003/8a4.jpg
"And it was also one of the first really popular phones to have a stopwatch, alarms, a calculator. It could send texts longer than 140 characters so it's already better than Twitter in some ways so it was a little bit forward thinking in that way."
What does the new model offer?
"So, the new model looks very similar to the original except it is much slimmer. It's about a third of the height of a Snickers bar. It is remodeled so it is a lot prettier. It has more rounded edges, it added a camera and it has some other modern features like a browser and you can still play the old classic Snake on this phone which I thought was very funny."
What are some of the things it can't do?
"Well, I think some of the features it has are a little bit too much like the original. So, they have a camera, but it's only a two megapixel camera. So, you're not going to be snapping these beautiful images you're getting off of your Google Pixel or your iPhone. Also, it added that modern browser but it's pretty flimsy and has quite a few limitations."
I want you for a second to bust out your tech crystal ball and give us a prediction of what you think might relaunch, a classic tech product.
"Oh man, I've got to say, it's got to be the Motorola Razr. We've got to have a modern flip phone version of the Razr, I mean that was the jam. I think that's the one...if they want to really relaunch a nostalgic phone, that phone was so popular globally. I mean, nothing has really touched it in terms of ubiquitousness...except the iPhone. So I would say, 100 percent, it's got to be the Motorola Razr."
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Sofia Reyes and Sin Bandera
If you don't have the time to keep up with the latest in new music, we've got the perfect solution for you: Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our music experts come in to talk about the best new tunes in one short segment. This week music journalist
join A Martinez with his top picks.
JUSTINO'S PICKS
Album: Louder!
Sofía Reyes, 21, is a recording artist from Mexico who in the last few years has become a fixture in Latin pop music. She reached the top spot on Billboard's Latin Pop Chart with "Solo Yo" featuring Prince Royce and according to her team, she has more than 100 million hits on all digital platforms.
Sofia was the first artist to sign with Prince Royce's D'Leon Records in collaboration with Warner Music and Bakab Productions.
Her first hit was "Muévelo" (Move It) in 2007 with Wisin reaching more than 32 million hits on YouTube. Her pop songs are in Spanish and English and tend to have an R&B flavor as well. Reyes is positioned to become an even bigger artist as she grows as an artist with an already strong following of fans.
Sin Bandera
Album: Primera Fila Acústico "Una Última Vez - Encore (First Row Acoustic "One Last Time")
Noel Schajris (SHA-rees) is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Leonel Garcia is from Mexico City. Together they are the Latin Grammy-winning Sin Bandera, the Latin pop duo that can really no wrong especially with their fans because their music, melodies and beautiful ballads transcend.
Here they are performing one of the songs we featured today, "Adios."
From jazz to pop and R&B, Sin Bandera debuted in 2000 and captivated the world with their music. Then in 2008 the friends went off to have solo careers. In 2015, they reunited for a tour that will likely last until 2018 before they jump back on solo career projects. Their ability to connect with their audiences has been key to their success.