What does the UC title IX position entail? The love behind the Obama-Biden bromance, L.A.'s biggest murder mystery turns 70 this year.
Obiden/Joebama have defined the modern 'bromance'
Thursday's Barack Obama/Joe Biden love fest birthed a deluge of tweets, several containing the same word:
Obama brought it up during the surprise medal of honor presentation for Biden himself, saying the internet was getting another chance to joke about their friendship.
Many have watched the relationship between the political pair evolve over Obama's tenure. From those tense moments in the War Room, the night Osama Bin Laden was killed:
...to the way that Biden came to bat for the president during the 2012 debate against Paul Ryan.
Defining bromance
Bromances in the Executive Branch may be far and few, but it wasn't long ago that deep male-to-male friendships in everyday life were rare. The reason? Social norms, of course.
"A bromance describes a relationship between two men that we've been socialized to see is not at all unusual between two women," says John Alberti, author of the book "Masculinity in the Contemporary Romantic Comedy: Gender as Genre."
Alberti says male friendships turn to bromances after they've reached a certain level of emotional intimacy.
"A man being able to tell his close friend that he loves him ... it's this sort of key line to cross," Alberti says.
Bromances became more common as society changed.
"I think it's a part of a whole evolution of gender roles, really over the past half-century — particularly the last 20 or 30 years," Alberti says. "That goes along with the women's rights movement and the LGBT rights movement challenging the ways we understand gender and the idea of male dominance."
Blurred lines
A quick Google search of the word "bromance" will result in this definition:
"A close but non-sexual relationship between two men."
But Alberti says just because one or both friends might not acknowledge their attraction doesn't mean it's not there.
"I think there can be some sexual tension," Alberti says. "I think part of the bromance is an admission that close friendships, intense relationships involve all sorts of emotions, including some that we might want to neatly box off into the non-romantic."
Alberti says there's a range of feelings involved in a bromance — and that's OK.
Obiden/Joebama
Vice presidential picks are rarely made because the two men share a particular affinity for each other — VPs often offer candidates a strategic advantage. John Alberti says the Obama-Biden relationship evolved beyond those of their contemporaries because President Obama exhibits more characteristics of modern manhood.
"With Biden and Obama, I think you have a president in Obama who exhibited a more evolved sense of masculinity — a sort of metrosexual president, and then Joe Biden who in some ways is an older version of masculinity, but was always an openly emotional kind of person," Alberti says.
Trump-Pence bromance?
Alberti doubts President-elect Trump will form a similar bond with Vice President-elect Mike Pence because both exhibit more dominant forms of male masculinity. But he adds that Trump may be at the start of a bromance with someone else: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Press the blue play button to hear the full segment.
(Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
Cannabis producers in California are struggling to protect their ideas
Head into any marijuana dispensary these days and you'll not only see weed, but also an array of well packaged edibles ranging from cookies to candies to soda to popcorn.
The thing is, if you're a marijuana entrepreneur making a great product, you'll run into problems protecting your ideas. And that's because trademark laws might work a little differently for you.
Laruel Rosenhall wrote about this issue for CALmatters, a nonprofit news site that covers California state government and politics. She joins A Martinez for a discussion.
UC's first system-wide Title IX coordinator on her benchmark for success
Title IX is the federal prohibition against gender discrimination in education.
In recent years, it was expanded by the Obama Administration to require schools to address reports of sexual violence and harassment "promptly and effectively."
It's a task, which some could argue, is much more easily said than done. The University of California system has taken a number of steps to comply. The latest is their announcement this week of their first-ever
This week, they announced their first-ever system-wide Title IX coordinator.
Kathleen Salvaty will be taking on the new role next month. She's an attorney who most recently worked as Title Nine coordinator at UCLA. She joined Take Two to discuss how she envisions her new role.
Interview highlights:
What she sees as the biggest challenge of the job:
"It's just the sheer scope... when we talk about it, or we read guidance, it seems simple. The obligation is simple, right? To take care of your students. When you put it into practice on the ground, I can tell you, having done it here at UCLA, it's very challenging."
What her benchmark for success is:
"I think our benchmark would be that we are getting reports of sexual violence and sexual harassment when they occur; that most people believe that we are promptly responding; and really, I think that we change the culture in the university and understand how sexual harassment and sexual violence can impact a student's access."
How President-elect Trump's pick of Betsy DeVos as the new Secretary of Education might impact the work universities do to combat campus sexual assault:
"It's certainly something that we're all thinking about. This whole energizing of Title IX and pushing the universities to do better on it, has been driven in large part by the students and I don't think that's going to change. Students are going to continue to demand equal access to their education and demand that universities respond to sexual harassment and sexual violence. I don't think any government administration is going to change that."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Where is the political will to tackle California's housing crisis?
Living in Southern California is getting more and more expensive.
That's probably not a surprise to many of you.
The state knows about this problem, too.
"In the last 10 years, California has built an average of 80,000 homes a year, far below the 180,000 homes needed a year to keep up with housing growth," according to a recent report by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. "This lack of supply greatly impacts housing affordability."
Los Angeles, itself, has to bite off a big piece of that pie.
"L.A. needs about 85,000 houses dropped on it, and then 30,000 houses a year after in order to keep prices and rents from rising even more," according to Richard Green from the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
Increasing the pace of home construction is a tough sell, though.
Current homeowners might not like the flood of new houses nearby because that would affect the price of their own place.
More neighbors could also lead to changes in the quality of life.
"Once you are in a community, you don't want anymore traffic. You don't want any more pressure on your schools," says Green. "That's the thing that makes this more difficult politically: people don't like their neighborhoods to change."
That might be why Governor Brown didn't directly address the state's housing crisis in the proposed budget he released earlier this week.
"He's just gotten very frustrated with local governments not being willing to do anything," says Green
KPCC reached out to Brown's office for comment, but they declined our offer.
However in 2016, he tried to pass a law that would speed up the permitting process for home construction, as well as allocate $400 million for affordable housing projects.
Both of those attempts failed with state lawmakers.
"So I think his view, now," says Green, "is to tell local governments to change what they do."
He doesn't see that happening on the horizon.
"We have 88 communities in Los Angeles, and no one of them on their own can really fix this problem," says Green. "You need a coordinated strategy."
In fact, the city of Los Angeles might tighten, not loosen, the spigot on home construction during the upcoming March election.
Measure S would put a two-year moratorium on most large building projects in the city.
"If that passes, I do think that it would make housing more expensive here," says Green.
‘The Meaning of Michelle,' reflections on the iconic First Lady
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the first African-American to serve as first lady in U.S. history. She's also a lawyer, a mother, a fashionista, and an inspiration to many.
The depth of what Michelle Obama has represented is explored in the new book, "The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires our Own."
Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with the book's editor, Veronica Chambers and with one of the book's contributors— best selling novelist Cathi Hanauer. Hanauer is also co-founder of the New York Times column Modern Love.
Interivew Highlights
First impressions
Veronica Chambers: I just remember seeing her and seeing her as a mom of young kids and I had a newborn baby. And she just looked like somebody that I would know and that was exciting. That has never happened to me before in American politics.
Cathi Hanauer: I was more focused on Barack at the time and so thrilled that he was taking office that when Michelle came along, it was sort of like, whoa, look at her. This is not your average First Lady. She was gorgeous and stylish and young. I wrote an essay in this book about how she was not unlike me in a lot of ways because she's about my age and her kids are about my kids' ages. And it was fascinating to have somebody our age, in or situation, and at our stage of life in the White House.
Through a child's eyes
Veronica Chambers: My mother-in-law still talks about having my daughter in her jumpy, little bouncy pen on inauguration day and how she literally stared at the screen. I don't know what it was— it was just a love affair at first sight for her.
From the lunch table to the editor's desk
Veronica Chambers: I have a really good friend who's a book editor. Her name is Elisabeth Dyssegaard. And every 6 months or so we would go out to lunch and there would always be this part of the lunch where we would just talk about Michelle.... It was like, coffee, tea, Michelle, and us. And about a year ago she said, don't you want to do a book? And I thought, there's been so many, what would we do? And she said, how about a collection of essays that look at the last 8 years and what she's meant to us. And it would be a thank you and an appreciation but it could be really fun. And it just stayed in my mind. And we jumped into it and we did it together.
Becoming the wife
Cathi Hanauer: I'm a novelist and also an anthologist. And I did a book at one point called ‘The Bitch in the House’ that got a lot of attention. And then my husband, Dan Jones did ‘The Bastard on the Couch.’ Those two led us to be asked to start a column in the New York Times called ‘Modern Love.’ And I didn't really want to do that at the time and he did. So we decided that we would launch it together and then he would take it over, which is what happened. Modern Love went on to be somewhat of a phenomenon.... He sort of became Mr. Modern Love and so I thought, I could write about becoming the wife in the same way that Michelle who really had a high powered job and was a high powered person when she and Barack first met and before they had kids. How she had to learn to become the wife also. And sort of take a back seat and keep the family going so that he could be who he is.
Michelle was a lawyer, she went to Harvard, I mean, she was not a schlub. When they met, she was already at the law firm and she was asked to take him out to lunch and show him the ropes.... The more I learned about her, the more I couldn't believe the parallels. She was dealing with what every working mother with kids in this country are dealing with which is, how do I juggle? How do I do it all, and make a living but also, be a good parent and be there for my kids, and support my husband without getting angry and not feel resentful all the time, and all those things?
The significance of living out loud
Veronica Chambers: We have never really seen a Black woman who wasn't a celebrity live life out loud in that public of a forum. I was telling someone the other day, it was family movie night and my daughter picked up the phone and she said ‘Siri, tell me names of movies with strong, brave girls.’ And it was almost like, I feel like if I had sat down 8 years ago and said, ‘Siri, show me a movie about a beautiful, Black woman with her own career and life who does incredible things, and has a great family, and gives back to the community, and puts forward all these ideas, and is this role model,’ there couldn't have been a movie like what I got to watch for the last 8 years.
Something deeper in those famous arms
Veronica Chambers: I think the amazing thing for me, especially as someone who had a newborn daughter, is it said, she goes to the gym. She takes time for herself. I love the quotes from her where she says, ‘at 50, I've never felt better.’ That she wants to be a really fly 80-year-old. Among many of the things we deal with as women, is that we don't have a really great sense of how to age. And how to be grown up women. One of the things that I liked, and she said this in the Oprah interview, is that none of this would have gone down this way if she had been younger. She came in a grown up and then she continued to grow up in the space. I think that's a very powerful message for women because I think we are constantly being told, you kind of have this shot to be the young, hot thing. And then, what happens...? She really modeled something powerfully there.
Quotes edited for clarity
To hear the full interview, click on the blue Media Player above.
Cuba and the end of the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy
The Obama administration has announced an end to a two-decade old policy, granting Cubans residency, if they make it to U.S. soil.
Effective immediately Cuban nationals attempting to enter the US illegally would be subject to removal, putting an end to the policy known as "wet foot, dry foot."
For more on what this shift means we spoke to Pilar Marrero, a senior writer with La Opinion... and Jose Marquez is a Cuban American artist.
Lots of lip service, but women fall further behind in Hollywood.
It was a dirty little secret that's really come to light in the past year. Not only is Hollywood less than friendly to people of color, it remains, for the most part, a men's club.
After bad publicity, like the OscarsSoWhite campaign, the industry promised change. "Inclusion" became a buzz word, and there were seminars and various initiatives designed to open up the playing field.
All for naught, it seems.
A new report from a researcher at San Diego State University (pdf) finds the number of women in key positions on major films has actually dropped. For instance, only 7% of top films last year were directed by a woman. That's down from 9% the year before.
The bottom line: Things for women in Hollywood are about the same as they were way back in 1998.
Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan has been covering the gender gap in Hollywood for years. Click on the blue bar to listen to our complete conversation with her.
70 years later, The Black Dahlia still fascinates
It's among the most notorious unsolved murders in the long history of LA crime. And a lifetime later, the case still fascinates people all over the world.
Elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old drifter. Gruesome doesn't begin to describe her murder. Her mouth was slashed from ear-to-ear. Her body was cut in two, and drained of blood, before being washed clean and placed in a lot near Leimert Park.
The press jumped on the story and didn't let go, embellishing it in dozens of ways, and coining a sobriquet for Short - The Black Dahia. Suspects came and went, dozens of people confessed to the crime, and a small library of books have been written about the case. Yet, it remains open.
Now, at the 70th anniversary of the murder, we look back with crime historian and mystery writer Kim Cooper.
Click on the blue bar to listen to the entire conversation.
Photo LA redefines what photography could mean
Photo L.A. is the longest-running art fair in Los Angeles. It's a huge collection of photography from all sorts of sources, involving all sorts of subjects, that looks to redefine what photography could mean.
Photo L.A. is happening now at the Reef building in downtown L.A.
Saturday's festivities includes an event called "All Kill No Fill"— it's a look at the art of skateboard photography.
Alex Cohen was joined live in studio by the moderator of that panel - Boyz Beiber and Claudia Bartlett, director of Photo L.A.
For more on the photography being showcased, click through the gallery above.