Pres. Trump's voter fraud commission holds first meeting, "Ear Hustle" podcast made by San Quentin prison inmates, South LA's Moonwater teaches kids about nature.
Man at Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russian lawyer has SoCal connection
A closely watched story out of Washington has an unexpected connection to Southern California.
By now, you've probably heard a lot about that meeting last year between the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian Lawyer offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Well, it must have been a crowded room: Now an eighth attendee has been identified.
He's an immigrant from Georgia with a home in Huntington Beach who does lots of business in Russia.
David Cloud wrote about him for the LA Times. He joined Take Two with more.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
Presidential commission to investigate alleged voter fraud convenes today
The Trump Administration's commission to look into voter fraud meets for the first time today.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was created after Trump alleged that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election.
Trump cited no evidence of such fraud thus far but the commission is tasked with investigating.
They have already made waves for seeking public registration data on every American voter from individual states. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla has declined to cooperate.
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with KPCC politics reporter Mary Plummer.
To listen the interview, click on the blue media player above.
Ear Hustle — looking at life inside San Quentin State Prison
Last year we talked to one of the creators of a new podcast that is called Ear Hustle. It was launched after Radiotopia, a podcast network run by Public Radio Exchange (PRX), had an open call for new podcasts.
More than a thousand ideas were submitted, from all over the world, but the winning podcast came from California and is named Ear Hustle.
But what makes it so unusual is that it's made inside San Quentin State Prison. The podcast is a partnership between Nigel Poor, a Bay Area artist and Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, currently incarcerated at San Quentin.
Here's a video of Earlonne, produced by PRX, talking about Ear Hustle
from
on Vimeo.
We spoke to Earlonne about the goals of the podcast, and what his hopes for it are. We started by asking him what the name, Ear Hustle, means.
Ear hustle, it actually means being nosey being in someone else's business when it's not your business, or listening into someone else's conversation. Like say for instance, if your boss is saying something and he's using your name - you're going to key into that conversation. That's what ear hustling is, keying into someone's conversation that might not be yours.
The first podcast episode was titled, Cellies, and it dealt with the hardships, difficulty and often times fear involved when you share a cell with someone. We asked him why they chose that topic as their first one.
Well, when we came up with the cellies idea, we did it from the perspective of - if people in society can't relate to prisons, maybe they can relate to having a roommate. And that is very important ... I mean. the person that you're going to be in a cell with, you have to be compatible, because you're going to be in there ... sometime for 24 hours a day. So you have to be cordial - so that was one of the stories where we were like, well people in society should be able to understand this one.
We asked Woods what he hoped the lasting takeaway would be for the person who listens to Ear Hustle. Here's what he said.
In our eyes and in the stories we do, we hope that we can show transformation. We hope that people understand that, yeah, prisons are here for a reason and we're trying to take advantage of those reasons, which is to rectify our lives.
(click on the blue arrow to hear the entire interview)
Stalled construction and a missing work of art: Why Venice neighbors are angry at Joel Silver
A big shot movie producer. Venice Beach. An old United States Post Office Building. The location of a famous work of art.
It all sounds like the pitch for a cheesy Hollywood mystery.
A battle is being waged in real-world L.A. over a famous mural and a delayed construction project owned by producer Joel Silver. Now a U.S. Congressman has jumped into the fray.
Peter Kiefer joined Take Two's A Martinez to break down the story's twists and turns. Kiefer is Real Estate and City Editor with the Hollywood Reporter who has written about the situation.
Q: In case listeners don't follow Hollywood closely, who is Joel Silver?
[Silver] has been around for a number of decades. He's been responsible for some of the most famous movie franchises in recent Hollywood history, including The Matrix and Lethal Weapon, among many others.
He's sort of this kind of old-school producer that you don't see around much anymore. Kind of freewheeling, has a bit of a volcanic temper, reportedly and is considered to be pretty brilliant in many ways. In 2012, he purchases this historic USPS building on the Windward Circle with the intent of turning it into his new state-of-the-art production facility. And pretty much almost immediately ran into a number of problems.
Q: Is the building being restored? What was his plan?
The plan was to basically gut it and renovate it from the interior. And [Silver] pledged that he was going to not only bring jobs but he was going to maintain the historic integrity of the building. And I think that still is his intention. But the construction has been stalled for a while now.
...Initially it was some engineering snafus that he and his team ran into. There was some flooding in the basement of the building because of its proximity to the ocean. But then later [Silver] ran into some financial problems.
Q: All right, now to the piece of art. It's a mural called"Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice," which was in that post office for 70 years. What's going on with it?
Part of the deal when Joel Silver bought the building was that he was going to remove this very famous and historic mural that hung in the lobby of the post office for more than 70 years... He pledged that he was going to get it restored because it was in disrepair. He did do that, at pretty substantial cost. Then the mural hung at LACMA in a display room for almost 7 months. But then, because the post office building was not in a position to have the mural re-installed, the piece of art is now sitting in a storage facility in Compton.
... People [in Venice] are sort of fed up with looking at this blighted construction site. and in addition to that, they're wondering what happened to this historic mural that was considered a masterpiece at the time. If nothing else, they want that mural back. They have floated the idea of putting it up in another location.
As your listeners probably know, Venice is famed for its feisty artistic community. I think their goal is first and foremost that Mr. Silver fulfill his pledge to finish this development project. In lieu of that, they want to see this mural taken out of storage, and they want to see it hung somewhere else so the public can have access to it.
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-33)... initiated an inquiry last month and sent a number of letters first to the U.S. Postal Service and then to Mr. Silver's team to inquire about what the heck is going on with the mural. He asked that Mr. Silver consider taking the mural out of storage and putting it elsewhere, possibly hanging it in the Venice Public Library on Venice Boulevard. As far as I can tell, those requests have been denied.
This interview has been edited for time & clarity. Please click on the blue media player at the top of the page to listen to the conversation.
How a Compton farm is educating kids one bite at a time
In the summer, there are many programs and activities out there for kids - basketball camp or swimming lessons. But what about one that returns them to nature? For that, you have to check out Moonwater Farms.
Located in the heart of Compton, Moonwater is part of the largest urban farming community in Los Angeles. There's chickens and goats and lush fruit trees all around. But it is unique in that it offers a program that teaches kids about agriculture - growing people in addition to lettuce.
Kathleen Blakistone and her partner Richard Draut run it. "We have had lots of school visits. People come on field trips, from preschool to high school, " says Blakistone. "We came up with this idea to do farm camp because they were so delighted and they never wanted to go."
Lessons range from milking the goats and naming bugs, to churning homemade ice cream and learning how to make tea from herbs on the farm.
Ten year-old Dior McCall is part of a group of students who visit the farm, and she says she takes those lessons home to her family: "I’ve been been telling them we need our own garden, please get a garden, we need to grow our own vegetables so we don’t need to buy that much."
Resident and local cowboy Sidney Cosby runs a college prep program for young people called Southwest College Trio Services, and he often takes his young charges, like Dior, to Moonwater.
"For me it’s always a learning experience," he says. "You get the farm-feel, you get the peace, tranquility, and you get the feeling of home, because it is a home."
Should algebra be a requirement for all community college students?
Here's a classic algebra word problem. Ready? Megan is twice as old as Lori. Three years from now, the sum of their ages will be 42. How old is Megan?
While you are pondering that, ponder this: Is algebra keeping students of color from attending - and getting a degree - at California community colleges?
The head of the state's community college systems thinks it might be. Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley told the LA TImes he's considering dropping it as a requirement for students that aren't studying science, technology, engineering or math.
That's about three-fourths of all students enrolled in community colleges.
But really... how often do most of us who made it through school ACTUALLY use algebra in our daily lives?
We hit the streets to hear what Southern Californian's think about dropping it as a required class, and most in our informal survey said it was not a good idea. Not surprisingly, Marina Del Rey Middle School math teacher Bootise Battle-Holt, says algebra is important for all students.
“People face many hurdles in life - that’s part of life. That’s what we’re trying to convey with math education in this era, is that learning to problem-solve, and learning to get past things that are difficult, that’s part of learning entirely. There’s obviously a need for support for students who are struggling with math in college. Adding support and lowering that hurdle is a much better way to look at the situation than removing that hurdle entirely."
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
K2 Sports: The Dodgers rule the MLB
The Los Angeles Dodgers have the best record in the MLB, so much so that some are calling them the Golden St Warriors of baseball.
But one of the big questions for the team is should they make trades or just leave well enough alone?
Andy and Brian Kamenetzky join A Martinez for Take Two's weekly installment of K2 Sports.