The long history of the US-Mexican border, a plan to combat rising traffic deaths in LA, and KTLA turns 70-years-old.
Will Trump's southern border wall prove effective? History says no.
President Donald Trump made one particular promise a lot while on the campaign trail: under his aegis, America will build a "great" wall.
Just five days into his presidency, Mr. Trump took the first step toward keeping that promise, signing off on an order to get the wall built.
Mexico's reaction was swift. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled plans to meet with President Trump in Washington next week. For his part, the President indicated if Mexico wasn't willing to pay for the wall, he wasn't willing to meet with Pena.
This back and forth over the border is nothing new. Border expert Deborah Kang says it actually started around 1917.
"You had the onset of World War One and fears about the entry of subversives — specifically, German spies," says Kang.
Kang says those fears were stoked after the discovery of a document known as the Zimmerman Telegram. In it, a German foreign minister appeared to ask Mexico to enter the war on the side of Germany. If the Germans won the conflict, he said, they would help Mexico regain territories lost during the US-Mexico War.
Kang is the author of the new book, "The INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border 1917 to 1954." She says the Telegram exacerbated xenophobic sentiment in the country, setting the stage for efforts by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to erect barriers in the 1920s.
By 1954, the INS was flying high: the mass deportation campaign known as Operation Wetback had produced the desired result. So much so, that the department garnered extra funding from Congress to erect more fences and walls along the southern border. Kang says this also marked a turning point in the national discourse:
"You see the INS and the federal government talking about building not just a single chain link fence, which is what you had in the early 20th century, but layers of fencing surrounded by patrol roads, Jeeps and surveillance towers. This sounds like the kind of system that we have in place today," Kang says.
Looking at modern efforts to secure the border, Kang says history offers an idea of what works and what doesn't. In regards to walls, Kang channels former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano:
"If you show me a 50-foot wall, I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," Kang muses. "She and others have made a point that if you build a wall, individuals will always find ways over them, under them, and through them."
(This post has been updated.)
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
How charter schools have evolved and where they go from here
KPCC has confirmed that federal agents raided the offices of an L.A. based organization, which runs a network of charter schools, Wednesday night.
Celerity Educational Group manages seven schools in Southern California, it has ties to four more in Louisiana. The warrants for the raid are under seal which means federal officials have not explicitly informed Celerity representatives of the nature of their inquiry.
But we do know that this is not the first time a charter school has come under fire. In fall 2016, the principal of a charter high school in Woodland Hills resigned after concerns were raised about his use of an employee credit card.
For a look at the evolution of charter schools here and the delicate relationship they maintain with the school district, Alex Cohen spoke to UCLA professor of education John Rogers
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
The Ride: LA has a traffic fatality epidemic, and a plan to end it
Here's an sad statistic: LA leads the nation in per capita traffic deaths.
And in a city where supposedly no one ever walks, more than half of the 260 people who died on LA streets last year were either pedestrians or bike riders.
And it gets worse. Those 260 deaths are a dramatic increase over the previous year.
That despite Mayor Eric Garcetti's announcement in 2015 that the city had embarked on a plan to eliminate all traffic fatalities.
Officials say the spike in traffic deaths is part of a nationwide trend. They blame an improving economy and lower gas prices for putting more people on the roads. But they say the biggest problem - drivers just going too fast.
The so-called Vision Zero Action Plan attempts to address the problem by focusing on areas with the highest rates of injury and death. And it calls for a sea change in road engineering, prioritizing safety rather than promoting the fastest movement through the city.
The engineering strategies include:
New turn signals with dedicated left turn lanes. This helps separate people walking from drivers turning, a big cause of pedestrian injuries.
Road diets: Four lane roads are reduced to two lanes with a center turning lane, which also reduces the risk to people walking and biking.
Strict enforcement: Speed is a major factor. A pedestrian hit by a car going 20 mph has an 80% chance of survival. If the car is going 40 mph, the survival chance falls to only 10%.
The city currently has nine projects in the works, and has set a goal of reducing fatalities by 20% this year over last.
Click on the blue bar above to listen to the complete conversation.
State of Affairs: Gov. Brown's State of the State and CA as the #StateofResistance
On this week's State of Affairs, Governor Jerry Brown's defiant State of the State, the latest twists in the 2018 race for Governor, and CA lawmakers come out swinging after President Trump's actions on immigration.
, political reporter for KQED and
, senior writer for Politico's California Playbook, joined Take Two for our weekly look at government and politics in the Golden State.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Backlash as ‘Redskins’ ban from school team names takes effect
On January 1st, the California Racial Mascots Act went to effect. The first of its kind, the law bans the use of the word "Redskins" in public school team names and mascots. It originated from the argument that students are harmed by the use of words deemed as racist in their educational environment.
As of the beginning of the year, there were 4 schools in the state still employing the term. While the schools have complied with the law, a fight wages on in their surrounding communities to keep the name alive. Unofficial T-shirts and city approved street signs still don the name.
While some in these communities say that no offense is intended and that the name is an integral part of the school's history and community pride, others take offense to its continued use and say that it's explicitly racist again American Indians.
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Jane Meredith Adams who's covered this matter for EdSource.org.
To hear the full interview, click on the Blue Media Player above.
Legendary Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones on his memoir, ‘Lonely Boy’
Sex, drugs, and Punk Rock. And then a radio show. And now a memoir.
Steve Jones, former "Sex Pistols" guitarist and host of KLOS's Jonesy's Jukebox has lived through legendary highs and life-threatening lows. His troubled childhood, his turbulent career, and his struggles with addiction are all laid bare in his new memoir, "Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol".
Take Two's Alex Cohen sat down with Steve Jones for look into his epic journey from the streets of London to the radio airwaves.
Highlights
A fascination with fame from childhood
In the opening chapter, Jones describes following a film actor down the street and the significance fame had to him as a child.
I think it was more about getting out of the dump that I lived in and my rotten upbringing. To me, he represented a different, better life... But looking at him, knowing that he was in the movie, and he literally just walked passed my street which like a real, kind of rough, dodgy neighborhood and it was like Peter Pan.... It could have been anyone who was famous walking by there and I would have follow him. It was almost like I needed to follow him to get away. A metaphor for where I was living in the dump and a horrible upbringing with my horrible stepfather and my mum who really didn't want to have a child. It was like an outlet.
"The guy with the prong"
Before he was a legendary Punk Rock musician and radio host, Steve Jones worked in a sausage factory. He uses sausage making as a metaphor for his life in the music industry. But instead of being the sausage sucked into the works, Jones says he was "the guy with the prong".
From day one, he never took any orders from anyone. We wrote our songs, we got a record deal eventually with EMI. We released one single, Anarchy in the UK. For the first time in maybe forever in Rock and Roll where the tables got turned where we were basically calling the shots. It was revolutionary for a couple of years and then it call kind of fell back into the usual old, you'll do this, you'll do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmWs6Jf5dc
The best times are before you're famous
Instead of the the high of fame, Steve Jones remembers the times before the Sex Pistols reached celebrity most fondly.
The great moments to me are before anyone knows you. You're all together as a team, a gang, whatever you want to call it. You've got nothing to lose. No one knows you. And you create from the purist sense. There's no success. There's no money. And you don't even have any fans at his point. You're turning people into your fans. Driving up and down the M1, playing at working man's clubs, playing at strip clubs, playing at some artsy-fartsy avant-garde party— that to me was the best time. It was so naive and new and fresh. And people's reaction when you'd play. To see people's reactions, it was like, you'd blow people's minds. But then, we all became famous. To me, that was like the beginning of the end.
Overcoming addiction
Steve Jones is no stranger to addiction. Through his life, he faced down a variety of addictive demons. He talks about the complex road to recovery.
Even prior to finding out what drugs and alcohol was, I was addicted to Peeping Toming. It was a fix. And that was normal to steal. I never looked at it as an addiction. Looking back in hindsight, anything that I did prior to drugs and alcohol, I was doing it in the same form where I had to do it every day. It was a buzz. It was like a release inside. It's all the same. Whether it's sex, drugs, shopping, eating. I do it all obsessively. That's just the way my head's wired. I can't do it any other way. It's a lot better these days although food is like the last frontier for me.
Hosting Jonsey's Jukebox
Jonsey's Jukebox started on Indie 101.3 but after the station went of the air in 2009, the critically acclaimed show found a home at KLOS. Steve Jones talks about building the show from its raw origins into what it is today.
I still don't really know what I'm doing to be honest with you. I mean I do... the train wreck's a bit more controlled than it used to be.
One thing I always say when I go to a radio station is, I want to play what I want to play and I want to say what I want to say. That's what I said at Indie. I said it at KLOS. And they kind of let me do it. ‘But we need to put some of our songs on’ and I'm like, no, that's work. This is fun. And that fun has to come across. Otherwise, it doesn't sound like Jonsey's Jukebox. I mean that's basically it.
Quotes edited for clarity
To hear the full interview, click on the Blue Media Player above.
Looking back on KTLA's 70 years in Los Angeles
It's the television station that can evoke fond memories of weekend afternoons in the 1980s. KTLA 5 and watching classic movies on programs like Family Film Festival.
KTLA channel 5 got its start 70 years ago this month. In January of 1947, Paramount Pictures and engineer Klaus Landsberg launched the first commercial television in LA.
KTLA was the first station to hit the airwaves and set the course for T.V. in L.A. with a mix of talk shows, wrestling, game shows, and standout music and children's programming. The pioneering station was an early showcase for Lawrence Welk, Jack LaLanne, and Beany & Cecil, and to this day is the home of L.A.'s most watched news shows.
To celebrate this city's first tv station, LA Magazine editor Chris Nichols is hosting a party Thursday night at the Hollywood Heritage Museum.
Among the honorees is the man who hosted the Family Film Festival… as well as the station's beloved Popeye Show: Tom Hatten.
Hatten and Nichols stopped by to speak with Alex Cohen about the event and to reflect on the station's 70 years.
Alex managed to get an original squiggle illustration from Hatten himself.
