The new Congress begins with a weakened ethics body, Univision falters with young Latinos, and doctors say that throat tickle means you're contagious.
Conservative Congress could make things difficult for California
House Republicans voted to gut the Congressional Office of Ethics in a session late Monday. The vote came just hours before a new Congress convened Tuesday morning.
But shortly after 9 am PT, word came that Republican lawmakers would scrap the plan. The news broke live during a Take Two segment examining Congress' conservative agenda and how it could impact the Golden State.
Guests:
- Rachel VanSickle-Ward, associate professor of political studies at Pitzer College
- Thad Kousser, professor of political science at UC San Diego
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Trump's 'throw-up-your-hands' approach to cybersecurity worries experts
No computer is safe.
That's the alarming message from President-elect Donald Trump. The soon-to-be new resident of the White House doesn't use anything more technical than a cellphone. No computers. No email.
He suggested over the weekend that we should write notes and send via courier to get around online security issues. The message this sends to foreign hackers has cybersecurity experts more than a little concerned. And has raised questions about what could happen to US online security policies under Trump.
A Martinez spoke with Kristen Eichensehr, assistant professor at UCLA School of Law, who specializes in cybersecurity.
"The idea that you just sort of throw up your hands and say, 'nothing can ever be secure so why try,'—that's a really dangerous posture and it's really a fundamental challenge to how cybersecurity has been handled in the United States and in other countries across the world for the last several decades," Eichensehr says.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Univision grapples with shifting Spanish-language market
Here in the U.S., the Spanish-language audience keeps growing. But its a fast-moving target – and not all media is getting it right.
Univision, the nation's top Spanish-language network, has seen a slide in its audience in the past several years. Since 2013, that prime-time audience has dropped 45 percent, according to Nielsen cited in a recent L.A. Times article.
So what's going on? And what are other outlets doing to capture the potential?
"The Hispanic audience demographic has become younger, more English-dominant," said Veronica Villafañe, editor and publisher of Media Moves.
LA in the '70s: More than just disco and dystopia
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Nope, not talking about France during the Revolution. We're talking about Los Angeles...in the 1970s.
Looking back at that era of disco and dystopia, writer David Kukoff remembers a remarkable sense of freedom:
"I was a kid with a bike and an abundant curiosity for how I could explore the city. What strikes me as incredibly different is that back then that was doable. You actually could ride around your bike, take the bus to...I would take the bus to my best friend's house in Encino, I lived in Westwood at the time. And just we would ride around and make our own fun which..I can't fathom any 11 or 12-year-old kids doing now."
Kukoff is the editor of a new anthology titled "Los Angeles in the 1970s." He recently dropped by along with one of the book's contributors, Chip Jacobs. Kukoff told Alex Cohen about the genesis of this compilation. He said there were plenty of anthologies focused on the black and white heyday of noir, but few that looked at a decade defined by gas lines and glitter:
Kukoff: "I don't think we've actually stopped and thought about the '70s as bonafide history. It still in some ways feels like pop culture but not history yet and we said 'what if we just did a historical take on it and didn't do it necessarily...academically and observe but inhabited?'..."
Kukoff had the idea to reach out to L.A. born and bred locals for stories, and the project grew and grew until it "took off like wildfire."
"The Snake and Wolf"
Chip Jacobs was one of the many contributing authors to add his story to the anthology. His tale centered around Synanon and the growing appeal of cults in the 1970s.
Jacobs: "Synanon was started by a recovered alcoholic who didn't think AA was the most effective means of curing addiction. What started off as a shabby group of people listening to him preach in a Santa Monica apartment, later became a alternative lifestyle cult mainly based up in Northern California area but with also with a huge presence down here. He was sort of that classic guy that began as a reformer and ended up as a demagogue projecting his demons onto his flock.
Xenophobia is the straw that turns the drink of cults and he set his target on a lawyer down here who'd had a very charmed life in many ways who was trying to get kids and other people out of this group that looked at the outside world as very flawed and dangerous and so it seems like these two men were just destined to collide at some point in their lives and that's what I found interesting."
Why do cults end up in Southern California?
Alex Cohen noted the similarities between the appeal of Synanon in the '70s and Scientology today. Those aren't the only examples of religions described as 'cults' finding a place in Southern California, so she asked, what is it about these types of 'religions' forming in SoCal?
Jacobs: " I think because people come here seeking a different way where there's not institutions or old money...there is more integration here and you're applauded for striking out on your own and having new ways of thinking about old problems and you know in the '70s for all its problems, there was a lot of choice in American life: there was drugs, there was sex, there was a million different types of art...it seemed like it was just an escape from complexity."
Kukoff and Jacobs also spoke about wacky radio DJ Dr. Demento, the value of preserving the '70s and more.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
New music from Miles Mosley, Sxip Shirey and Debashish Bhattacharya
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 by to talk about the best new tunes in one short segment. This week, music journalist
Artist: Sxip Shirey
Album: A Bottle of Whiskey and a Handful of Bees
Songs: Woman of Constant Sorrow and Cinnamon Stick
Sxip Shirey is a bit, well, different. To start, he spells his name "Sxip" — it’s pronounced "Skip."
An accomplished composer and performer on a number of things (multi-instrumentalist seems an insufficient term), the New Yorker has built a distinct log of credits from brash Amanda Palmer and her Dresden Dolls to the Boston Pops, with others including Reggie Watts, co-founding the Luminescent Orchetrii, composing for a short film by Neil Gaiman and a mini-opera for the English National Opera and "The Gauntlet," a choir performance in which the audience members walk between two rows of singers. This album was made while he was touring for two years as performer, composer and musical director of the theatrical circus-arts show LIMBO. Its surreal depiction of that nomadic artistic life could be called a modern folk, perhaps.
But in that regard it is also, well, different. Here "folk" means guest appearances on several songs by Rhiannon Giddens, who as part of the folk-based Carolina Chocolate Drops collaborated with Shirey’s Luminescent outfit. One of the songs she sings here is "Woman of Constant Sorrow," a re-gendered reworking of the Appalachian standard "Man of Constant Sorrow." The electronics — and an electronically controlled bells contraption — that are key to the setting for her vocals? As we said, modern folk music.
Then there’s the modern R&B side of it, on the frisky/sultry "Cinnamon Stick," one of several songs featuring soul singer Xavier. But then, that’s folk music too.
Those are just starting points for Shirey’s sonic explorations, though, which also lead to the whimsical experimental chamber music in "The Land Whale Choir Sinks the Albert Hall" (the title is pretty descriptive) as well as to "Bach, Stevie Wonder and Janelle Monae." The latter also features Giddens singing "In my head I hear these records play, if you see me smiling it’s Bach, Stevie Wonder and Janell Monea," which is something of a mission statement. Well, both of those are something of mission statements. He has many missions, it seems. But no matter what he’s doing, or how many things he’s combining, there’s a deft hand at work, as well as a nimble musical vision that makes it unlike anything else. That’s his x-factor.
Artist: Miles Mosley
Album: Uprising
Songs: Young Lion and Abraham
Miles Mosley’s "Uprising" is only 44 minutes long, but in many ways every bit as epic as Kamasi Washington’s sprawling three-hour jazz excursion, which was of course titled "Epic." It’s a pertinent comparison since upright bassist and singer Mosley was a key figure on "Epic," and this new album features much the same ensemble, including Washington himself on tenor sax. For that matter, Mosley’s band, the West Coast Get Down, is the core of the "Epic" outfit, and this album is at the very least a companion work.
That’s a lot to live up to — and "Uprising" rises to the occasion. But there are some significant differences aside from just the length. Where "Epic" was mostly about the music (though there were some vocal choruses) in its extended explorations, this is an album of songs, as much about the words as the music, though there’s no skimping on the latter. Rather, the words and music combine for tandem explosions of power and depth.
This is aspirational, inspirational soul-jazz harking back to some of the great anthems of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the full jazz colorations of the charts giving a signature to these songs, many shaped by a fiery fight for social justice. Curtis Mayfield, the Isley Brothers, the Staples Singers, Bill Withers among others come to mind. Maybe Grandmaster Flash and Public Enemy, too, in some ways. But also Charles Mingus and Archie Schepp, Pharaoh Sanders and Max Roach, for a start. And while there’s nothing reggae about this, it’s probably no coincidence that the album’s title was also used by Bob Marley for one of his forceful sets.
"Ima take this five-minute song and make one thing real clear," sings Mosley in the chest-thumping opener "Young Lion," his bass taking on the characteristics of a fuzz-tone guitars, with Brandon Coleman’s churning organ, Tony Austin’s roiling percussion and blazing horns all blasting away in a big funky stew. "I’m rock steady, walk tall, ain’t nothin’ wrong with a know it all."
Then he goes Old Testament with "Abraham," singing "Call me Abraham, straight from the mountains of Jerusalem," the boast turning both manic ("Because I’m a little 51/50") and sexy ("I lay your body down in style"). But like the know-it-all line in "Young Lion," he uses the platform to promote exceptionalism: "Mediocrity is everywhere, but not here." It’s not idle chatter.
A little later he looks at the complicated relationship many have with his city: "I won’t let L.A. bring you down," he promises in "L.A. Bring You Down" as the ensemble shifts from strings-backed somber strength to full soul assertion, leading to a big gospel-y bridge.
It’s all mixed up in the best ways, the playful and the serious, the striding and the sensual, the political and the personal, the complexities and contrasts carried out in the music— horns, strings, piano, guitar, drums — and Mosley’s bedrock bass — all working in concert for a massive, compelling ensemble sound. Solos happen, including Mosley taking flight in some bursts with his instrument run through some sort of effect or another.
And then on the last song, "Fire," cascading strings and horn sections pushed by thunderous drum roils bring things to a forceful, inspiring close, so tantalizing and tasty that you may find yourself wishing that it did keep going to epic length.
Artist: Debashish Bhattacharya
Album: Hawaii to Calcutta: A Tribute to Tau Moe
Songs: Kaua I Ka Huahua`i (Hawaiian War Chant) and The Dance Of Nai'a At Oahu Shore
It was a stressful 2016, so you could probably use a Hawaii vacation about now. Or rather than Waikiki, how about Calcutta? There’s more of a link than you might imagine, at least musically speaking.
That link came courtesy of one Tau Moe, a Samoa-born and Hawaii-raised star of the Hawaiian slide guitar styles that proliferated in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s he toured regularly through eastern and southern Asia, finding particularly welcoming ears in Calcutta, where the quarter-tones and glissandi of his slide style fit nicely along the melisma of Indian classical music.
This is not a chapter explored in the recent Oxford American story about the myths and realities of the influence Hawaiian slide guitar had on the blues of the American south. But the six-string slide guitar took hold there and one found its way into the hands of Debashish Bhattacharya when he was just three, and within a year he was performing as an ultra-young prodigy, the start of a career that has seen him as an innovator applying various musical sensibilities to Indian classical music (and vice-versa) and even inventing his own array of instruments combining aspects of slide guitar and Indian instruments. His many recordings are filled with delightful surprises, musical twists and virtuosity.
With this new album, he honors Moe, to whom he owes his initial, and continued, inspirations — and whom he met on a Hawaii trip in 2004, not long before Moe died at age 96. The music here leans more to the Indian side of things, alaaps and rags with the guitar backed by burbling tabla and drones, the Hawaiian elements being perhaps more impressionistic than literal, but making for sparkling evocations on such excursions as "Playful Melina on Diamond Head" and the specifically dedicated, stately "Papa Tau (A Tribute to Papa Tau Moe)."
But mixed in are some direct island nods, including interpretations of the standards "Aloha ‘Oe" and "Kaua I Ka Huahua’i" — better known, if inaccurately, as the "Hawaiian War Chant." Here and there Battacharya finds a way to bring out at least the feelings, and sometimes the sounds, of both at once, such as on "The Dance Of Nai'a At Oahu Shore." It’s like sitting on the beach, watching the waves tickle the sand, eating poi curry. Okay, maybe not the last part.
Am I contagious? A handy guide for cold and flu season
Resolved to read more with your kids in 2017? Here are some books to start with
2016 was a great year for children's literature.
If one of your New Year's resolutions is to read more with your kids, some of the new books that came out in 2016 could be a great place to start.
Joanna Fabicon, Senior Librarian for Children's Services at the Los Angeles Public Library, offered some of her favorite picks:
Picture books
- "Flora and the Peacocks" by Molly Idle
- "This is Not a Picture Book" by Sergio Ruzzier
Fiction
- "Full of Beans" by Jennifer L. Holm
- "Booked" by Kwame Alexander
Nonfiction
- "Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph" by Roxane Orgill
- "Be the Change: A Grandfather Gandhi Story" by Arun Ghandi
- "Ada Lovelace: Poet of Science" by Diane Stanley
Creatine isn't for teens, but some health food stores recommend it
There are some teens out there looking to build muscle and bulk up for sports.
The supplement creatine is marketed to do just that, but it's not recommend for anyone younger than 18 years old by both the American Academy of Pediatrics and American College of Sports Medicine.
And yet...
In a new study in the February issue of Pediatrics, researchers called various health food stores pretending to be a 15-year-old boy looking to increase his muscle mass.
About 67 percent of the stores recommended creatine.
"Creatine has certain side effects to a body, and especially to the body of a growing teen that are very concerning," says the study's author Dr. Ruth Milaniak.
There are no laws preventing a health food store from selling it to minors, but all bottles do come with a warning label that creatine should not be sold to those under 18.
"We have very little knowledge of what happens when a youth takes creatine," says Milaniak. "The supplement industry is not regulated, so there's a vague sense of what these side effects are."
Her biggest concern is that creatine may affect the way a child's muscles develop, so a child may see immediate gains from taking the supplement and then experience physiological problems decades later.
"You may develop muscles that are unbalanced. You may develop a bone structure or body structure that is not the way it should be and that may lead you later, when you're at the peak of your career, having muscle issues or having ligament tears because your muscles didn't develop the way they were supposed to," Milaniak says.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
5 food trends to watch, or doubt, for 2017
What do cauliflower, jackfruit, brisket and empanadas all have in common?
They're all foods that have made it on to one of the many lists of predicted food trends for 2017.
Erin De Jesus, reports editor at Eater, has gone to the trouble of tracking down almost every food trend that's been predicted for the new year. She's combined them all together into a list she's dubbed the "Official Megalisticle of All 2017 Food Trend Listicles."
DeJesus says these listicles are written by companies or people who want to gain something from them, whether it's a company or brand who want to influence customers, or a public relations firm trying to promote a client, or food journalists, who want to set the tone of coverage for the new year.
"Some people give credit to the kale lobby for the reason why kale was such a big thing two or three years ago," DeJesus says.
Trends can also be predicted by social media companies like Pinterest, who use their own data to call out trends, or anecdotal evidence from food writers and editors travelling the country.
DeJesus told us about a couple of the predicted trends she compiled in her list, which range from very vague to very specific.
Meat: "I would argue meat has certainly been around for quite a long time," DeJesus says.
Naan pizza: "Very surprising, and that's something the folks at Pinterest say will be happening a lot in 2017."
Authentic ethnic cuisine: "That's a catch-all phrase that means everything and nothing at the same time, and that phrase alone features two words that we look skeptically at Eater, which are 'authentic' and 'ethnic,'" DeJesus says. This list came from the National Restaurant Association, which works with major restaurant groups and chains. "For them, that means something different perhaps than what it would for your hometown chef who cooks the cuisine that he grew up eating," DeJesus says.
Food waste: "That's something that I think a lot of chefs at fine dining restaurants have been playing close attention to over the past year, and it would be amazing to see that trickle down into the mainstream," DeJesus says. This means overripe or blemished produce, or serving whole vegetables or incorporating carrot tops into other dishes, DeJesus says.
Vegetables: "This is a big, big catch-all," DeJesus says. " But some people narrowed it down to talk about cauliflower or purple-colored vegetables."
Some of the trends on DeJesus' list are serious and probable, but the vast majority aren't likely to end up in a restaurant near you by the end of the year.
"What we were poking fun at with this 80-plus item list on Eater, is the idea that 1. there will not be 80 food trends for 2017, but 2. it really takes a long time to see how these predictions play out and become accessible to more people," DeJesus says. "I would guess 75 out of these 80 will fizzle out by next year and then we'll have to check in 12 months to see,"