Federal wildlife agencies approve delta tunnels project, examining if the title "tallest building" matters, a Norco school allows students to attend twice a week.
Federal environmental agencies approve of proposed Sacramento River tunnels
The multi-billion dollar plan to re-engineer California's water delivery system cleared a major hurdle yesterday, passing a test by U.S Wildlife officials.
California Waterfix, as the project is called, involves two massive tunnels built from the Sacramento River and extending south through the state.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service said yesterday that the project would not cause the extinction of fragile fish populations in the fresh-water estuary.
"It's a morale boost and it's kind of the start of getting things rolling on federal and state decisions that are going to be coming up in the next few months on this big tunnel project," Ellen Nickmeyer, AP report said to Take Two's A Martinez.
California Governor Jerry Brown has been working to construct these tunnels for decades, as part of an effort to modernize how Southern California receives water from Northern parts of the state.
Right now, most of the water comes from a Norther California Delta, using a system of pumps that are not just old, but also harmful to the local fish.
"They change the flow of the river, but they suck little native fish off course and they suck some of the fish right into the pump," Nickmeyer said.
"So it's been devastating for native species and the Delta since the 70's some of them had dwindled from millions to a few hundred or thousand."
Now that some federal environmental groups have given the project their approval, the tunnels have cleared a major step as the September deadline approaches. But Nickmeyer says that there are still concerns that opponents to the tunnels will continue to voice.
"The tunnels are going to have enough capacity to take almost the whole volume of the Sacramento River during a dry spell. They're worried that once the tunnels are built ... there's going to be quite a lot of incentive for the water agencies to take as much water as they can partly to get returns to pay-off their big investment in the tunnel."
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Travel ban: Immigrants' rights attorneys prepare to show up at LAX
The fallout from Monday's Supreme Court travel ban ruling is being felt in Southern California.
Starting Thursday, travelers from six mostly-Muslim countries will need an official reason to get into the US. As the court put it, they will need a "bonafide relationship with any person or entity in the United States."
But what does that mean? And how will it work?
The lack of specifics about how the ban will be implemented has immigrants rights attorneys worried, which is why volunteers will be at LAX starting Thursday morning.
Caitlin Bellis is slated to be there Friday. She joined KPCC's Take Two to talk about what she plans to do.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
The new Wilshire Grand is tall. So what?
Listen to the full interview using the audio player above.
The tallest building west of the Mississippi opened up, last weekend – the Wilshire Grand in downtown LA.
It stands at 1,100 feet ... IF you count the 300 foot high spire that juts up from the top.
Otherwise it's actually shorter than its rival a few blocks away, the US Bank building.
Roof-to-roof, the Wilshire Grand is 34 feet shy of out-"talling" it (934 ft vs 968 ft).
But really, when it comes to architecture, does size really matter?
"I don't even know if all of us architects would really care about who's the tallest," says Alice Kimm, partner in John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects.
But historically, height does matter from the standpoint of pride.
"If you look at churches from the Middle Ages and their spires, those were always landmarks and points of stability," she says. "Height itself has always been a symbol of human aspiration."
The Wilshire Grand might be cheating a little bit, though, by using a spire to be the tallest building on the West Coast.
"It doesn't really count," says Kimm, who thinks height should be judged by the tallest floor.
There are some simple reasons why the Wilshire Grand didn't just climb a little higher to reach the top.
Towers are extremely expensive to build, for one, and developers must also take seismic activity into account when making a tall structure.
But there's a bigger limitation: elevators.
"Elevators can only go up 60 to 70 stories before you have to stop, get out and transfer to another bank of elevators," says Kimm.
And both the Wilshire Grand and US Bank Building have 73 floors each.
Do you care which building is taller? And what's the value in having the largest building on the West Coast? Tell us in the comments.
Norco Hybrid School of Innovation aims to give students control over their education
It's summertime. If you're a kid, you're probably enjoying those long, sweet days with no homework and no school.
But what if, when summer is over, you could return to class and only have to show up twice a week?
That's the idea behind the Hybrid School of Innovation from the Corona-Norco Unified School District. Students there will spend the rest of the week studying at home and online. The inaugural class will be made up of 80 freshmen students.
"What we do is take a lot of the curriculum that would normally be covered in a traditional classroom, in a lecture environment and we move that to an online learning management system," Brad Hellickson, Hybrid school official, told Take Two's A Martinez. Hellickson helped establish the learning methods of the school.
"When they come into the classroom, teachers have the opportunity to work with them one on one to help them with any issues that they may have. But more importantly, students are coming in to work collaborative in groups to work on projects that deal directly with the core learning activities."
While respective of the traditional school model, Hellickson believes that there is a growing group of students who would benefit from a new model of learning.
"I don't see it necessarily as a problem as much as a shift in what the need of our population is. We have students that the traditional model works very well for," Hellickson said.
"But we're seeing an increasing population of students that need something different more and more we have students that are seeking a customizable learning pathway. one in which they have more control over what they're doing, more agency,"
But that raises a question: how much agency is too much agency, especially for kids who are just entering high school? Hellickson understands that concern, but he thinks the Hybrid School of Innovation is solving more problems than it's creating.
"In this particular program, students are able to not only take ownership of the learning and feel the success through that but also they're able to direct some of the activities. I think that is applicable to almost any age level. but especially as we get into the intermediate and high school kids. That ability to go deeper into the learning is absolutely something that's a fit for that age level."
The first classes for The Hybrid School of Innovation start in August.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
A unique method of diagnosis: Feel your patient's pain, literally
Usually, when someone says, "I feel your pain," they're trying to tell you that they understand how you feel. But when Dr. Joel Salinas, M.D. says it, he's being literal.
Salinas has a condition called mirror-touch synesthesia. This particular subset of synesthesia give him a heightened sense of empathy. So much so, that whatever sensation he can visually register, he feels in his own body as if it's happening to him.
For many with the condition, the sensory overload can be too much to bear. But for Salinas, he's learned how to use it as a tool in his work. And it's helped make him a better physician and a neurologist.
He's written about his experience growing up as a mirror-touch synesthete in his new memoir, "Mirror Touch: Notes From a Doctor Who Can Feel Your Pain." In it, Salinas explores how synesthesia helps him determine a diagnosis, how it informs his bedside manner, and how being a hyper-empath can be both a blessing and a curse when it comes to personal relationships.
Synesthesia: some people actually SEE music
If you're gasping for air, I feel like I'm gasping for air. If you're having a panic attack, I feel like I'm having a panic attack. And this all kind of falls under this larger umbrella called synesthesia.
Someone with synesthesia, called a synesthete, might see colors in letter and numbers, taste flavors in sounds, experience shapes and color with sound, and all sorts of other strange and unexpected combinations.
Imaging studies show that synesthete brains have more connectivity essentially between parts of their brain that are responsible for senses. 4 in about 100 people actually have some form of synesthesia but most of them tend to be artists or musicians like Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Tori Amos, Lorde, Skrillex, even Kanye West.
Mirror-touch in the brain = hyper-empathy
One of the things that brain scientists have discovered is that when we see someone move, or get touched, or are in pain, the vision part of our brain as we see them is active, but so is the touch part of our brain. What ends up happening is essentially a 3-D virtual reality simulation in our heads of the people that we see around us. Kind of like, we're seeing ourselves in a mirror. And so, this mirroring system is believed to have played an integral role in how empathy developed and how we understand the emotion and actions of other people. But, for the two out of 100 people who have mirror-touch synesthesia, the brain areas that are involved in this mirroring system appear to be larger and more active. And what's even weirder – we all have parts of our brain that help us to tell the difference between our physical bodies and the bodies of other people – in mirror-touch synesthetes, those areas seem smaller and less active, so, this mirroring system is hyperactive. It's like the boundary between my physical body and your physical body are blurred.
Managing sensory input like computer screens
I can't chose when I sense them but how vivid the experience is, is governed by my other brain areas or other brain functions like attention, for example. The way I like to think about it is, if my mind is like a computer desktop, this mirror-touch experience – those physical sensations – are just another window that's open on the desktop. And by drawing my attention away from it, I can minimize that window but the program is still running and affecting all the other processes around it. But if I maximize or restore that window again, it can be right in my face.
*Quotes edited for clarity and brevity.
To hear the full interview with Joel Salinas, click on the media player above.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Offa Rex, the Tanzania Albinism Collective and Meklit
Every week we get a preview of new music for the week. This week music journalist Steve Hochman reviews his picks.
Offa Rex
Album: “Queen of Hearts”
A couple of years ago, singer songwriter Colin Meloy - best known for his band the Decemberists, sent a fan tweet to the young English folk artist Olivia Chaney, saying he’d love to hear her sing the old, doleful Scottish ballad “Willie O’Winsbury.”
That tweet was the start of a relationship that ultimately culminated in our first selection - the album, "Queen of Hearts" by the band Offa Rex. Here's a track of the same name.
Offa Rex — the name comes from an 8th century English King — teams Chaney with Meloy and members of the Decemberists. Now, the Decemberists may be from Portland, but they have always seemed to be an English folk-rock group, what with the lilting melodies, mournful fiddles and tales of seafaring adventure and treacherous romance that dotted its early albums in particular. So it’s only natural that Meloy and crew would eventually work with a real English folk singer, and in Chaney they have one of the brightest lights of the revived, resurgent British folk wave.
It’s a great listen of powerful songs and hypnotic performances. Well, anything sung by Chaney is a great listen. Meloy and crew, though, give her settings that take her into new territories as a singer, expand her range, even within a repertoire with which she was already familiar.
“Willie O’Winsbury” is the aesthetic hub of the album, the tone overall spanning jaunty folk-rock to wistful balladry to deep melancholy. While Chaney does most of the lead vocal work, “Blackleg Miner” and the very Fairport-y acoustic-electric “To Make You Stay” have Meloy in front with Chaney as the second voice. Here's one more selection from the project, the song, “The Old Church Yard.”
Tanzania Albinism Collective
Album: “White African Power”
A BBC news item came out of Tanzania recently telling of an albino woman, part of a community of albinos in the East African nation, whose hands were cut off by a neighbor under the surprisingly widespread belief that albino body parts have magic properties. The report focused on the more uplifting saga of how she had learned to weave on a machine, giving her a productive livelihood. But underlying the story is the horrific way in which albinos are treated there.
A project and album spotlights and gives voice — literally — to that community. Last year the husband and wife team of American producer Ian Brennan and Italian-Rwandan filmmaker Marilena Delli went to Northern Tanzania to visit this community on the isolated, remote inland island Ukerewe, where albinos have been relocated, ostensibly for their own protection. The couple’s goal was to tell the stories, or more accurately wanted to help these people tell their stories.
The tales told here are as moving as those on that last album. The song titles, and their messages, are direct, to the point — the average song length is less than a minute and a half, a couple clocking in at less than half a minute. The whole album, 23 songs, is just 31 minutes. But a powerful 31 minutes. “Life is Hard,” “The World Has Gone Wrong,” “Stop the Murders,” “I Am a Human Being,” all are gripping, infused with sadness, horror, urgency that comes through clearly even though the singing is in Swahili.
It’s also simply a compelling musical experience. Keep in mind that none of these performers had ever played instruments or written songs before. Brennan, though, was able to bring out great amounts of musicality from them, helping craft settings, with a generally very spare touch, that enhance without ever obscuring the deep, personal, pained feelings at the core. And some of the results are quite surprising.
“The World Has Gone Wrong,” written and sung by a woman named Mary Leonard, has the feel of an electro-pop art song. “Stop the Murders” is just the voice of its writer, a man named Sospeter Kajanja, with solo upright bass in something of a jazz style. “Never Forget the
Killings,” by a man named Rizki Julius, uses Pachelbel’s Canon in D as its musical base. Other songs add more layers of instruments, both traditional and modern, acoustic and electric, and sometimes there are two or three voices — as in “Tanzania is Our Country, Too,” also by Julius — or larger choruses. And “Stigma, Everywhere” has writer Hamidu Didas like a minister with responses coming from a church congregation.
Meklit
Album: “When the People Move, the Music Moves Too”
The album title seems almost backwards. Isn’t music supposed to make people move, not the other way around? But the movement referenced by Meklit Hadero, who goes by just her first name, is that of migration — both individuals and groups of people — bringing music with them. It’s both a way that the heart of cultures, the essence of home, come with them. But also the music is a spark for new sounds, new cultures, as people build new homes.
A lot of moving happened with the people and music on this album. Some recording was done in Meklit’s birthplace of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as well as her long-time and current home of San Francisco, but also New Orleans (the Preservation Hall Jazz Band Horns play on four songs) and, primarily, here in Los Angeles, home base for album producer Dan Wilson.
Meklit has had a wide-ranging career, with audacious and rewarding forays into pop, jazz (both American-rooted and the vibrant Ethiopian “EthioJazz” variations), soul and singer-songwriter styles, often much of that mixed together in various combinations. But here she has an album that, more than anything Meklit had done before, caught the fullness of vision and talents, and in it the fullness of her own life story. It’s not an autobiographical album per se, but there are certainly such elements on it.
On “I Want to Sing for Them All,” she sings of the music that moved with her, and moved her, through her life, which saw a childhood in Iowa and Brooklyn, an education (political science) at Yale and some time in Seattle before she settled in San Francisco. “I grew up listening to Michael and Aster,” she sings in “I Want to Sing For Them All” — Michael being Jackson, Aster being Aweke, one of the big stars of modern Ethiopian music.
The joyous “You Are My Luck” is buoyant Ethiopianized soul, featuring Los Angeles-based, Ethiopian-born pianist Kibrom Birhame and the Preservation Hall Horns, East African groove goosed with New Orleans street funk. And winding through are some lines of the traditional Ethiopian harp known as a krar played by Messele Asmamaw, one of the three musicians recorded in Addis.
There’s also a nice cover of the Roots’ “You Got Me,” finding a spot right at the heart of all the streams coming together on the album.
Steve Hochman is a music journalist living in Los Angeles. Click on the blue arrow to hear the entire segment.