KPCC's Take Two discusses Monday what we do know about the missing Malaysia flight. We also find out about earthquake science in light of Monday's "Shamrock Shake." Also, the GOP convention highlights two contrasting candidates. We look at LA Fashion Week and March Madness, as well as new films "Divergent" and "Veronica Mars."
Where to celebrate St. Patricks Day in Los Angeles
Even though there isn't a major Irish-American community here in Los Angeles, there are some great Irish bars.
We decided to check in with the owner of one of those bars Seamus Kennedy, owner of the pub, Ireland's 32 in Van Nuys.
On the Lot: 'Divergent,' 'Veronica Mars,' and Hollywood's conservatives
The Los Angeles Times' Rebecca Keegan joined Take Two for its weekly segment On the Lot about the business of films in Hollywood. This week: "Divergent" and "Veronica Mars" open and the conservative Hollywood group "Friends of Abe" gets a tax exempt-status.
See a free screening of Divergent with the filmmakers on Wednesday night at Hero Complex.
Times acknowledges errors in Occidental assault stories
Back in December, we spoke with reporter Jason Felch about his story in the Los Angeles Times concerning Occidental College.
RELATED: Los Angeles Times fires reporter, admits error in 3 stories
Felch's story claimed the college suppressed 27 allegations of sexual assault.
But late last Friday, the Times acknowledged errors in that story and two others related to the charges against Occidental. For more on this, click on the link above.
Local singer tours with her kids in tow
Singer Eleni Mandell has spent the past month on the road - traveling from Fall River Massachusetts to Eugene, Oregon... Philadelphia to Nashville.
But unlike most other touring musicians, she's done so with her kids - three-year-old twins - in tow.
Rex and Della play a big role in Mandell's life, and in her music.
You can hear their influence on songs like "Put My Baby to Bed" off her new album "Let's Fly a Kite."
The Los Feliz-based singer and single mom is back home for a brief stay, and a show tonight at McCabe's in Santa Monica.
Interview Highlights:
How do you tour with two toddlers?
“It's funny, people ask me that a lot and I always think it's really not that hard. You get somebody to watch them when I need to go up on stage, but I think partly it's really a mindset. I have to do it this way and because of that I just make it work and it's a lot of fun.”
You've had an interesting journey to get here. Where were you emotionally when you wrote the song, 'I'm Lucky.'
“Well, I was actually very depressed and I was sort of trying to convince myself, "Oh no, this is really great, going out, me." And I remember distinctly being out during that time and thinking if this is all there is, this is just not enough for me. I want to have a family and making those songs on that last record were actually, came from a pretty dark place.”
You're single, you really wanted to have a family and you decided you were going to become a mother with or without a dad in the picture. Can you talk a little about that?
“Yeah, I actually think since my early 30's thought if I have to do it on my own, I will and in some ways I wonder now if that was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I knew another woman who had children on her own and I didn't like that idea at all. I thought it was sad, really, but when it came down to it having kids was more important to me than anything so I decided to look at sperm banks and that's what I did. I used an anonymous donor and I think it's great. I could be a spokesperson for how great it is.”
You're about to head out on tour again, have you thought about what happens when they're older? Maybe it's harder to take your kids with you?
“I really can't just imagine, even before I had kids how will I keep doing this and I just sort of put one foot in front of the other. I will say that them getting older is both easier and harder because they have opinions now about what they want to do. They don't necessarily want to get in the car for ten hours.”
Rumor control: 4 things we know about Malaysia flight 370
After nine days, the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 continues to bring up more questions than answers.
Two dozen countries are now involved in the search, which reaches out 3,200 miles away from its last known location.
And while there are rumors of the plane crashing or a hijacker taking over the flight, investigators have found few clues to confirm anything.
For more on what we do know, Jon Ostrower, reporter with the Wall Street Journal, spoke with Take Two Monday. With Ostrower's help, KPCC deconstructs some of the rumors and speculation and tries to find the truth behind them.
1) The rumor: The plane’s reporting system was switched off.
Perpetuated by: Malaysian officials. When the Prime Minister presented the conclusion that the aircraft had been deliberately turned on Saturday afternoon in Malaysia, he included that when the aircraft crossed the Malaysian coast into the Gulf of Thailand as it headed northeast, a key reporting system was switched off, Jon Ostrower of the Wall Street Journal told KPCC’s Take Two on Monday. After that the aircraft made its final call to air traffic control and then the transponder, which reports the plane's position, was switched off.
In reality: Ostrower said Malaysian officials have since backtracked, saying there was some initial confusion but the last message from the auto reporting system came as it crossed the coast, not that it was switched off. “So we don’t know when this reporting system was switched off or if the system was necessarily switched off.”
RELATED: Malaysia Airlines: Why the pilot may have turned off the transponder
2) The rumor: The plane disappeared about halfway across the Gulf of Thailand and is likely in that location.
In reality: We have since found out that the aircraft kept flying for about another six and a half hours, Ostrower said. Search and rescue teams have two really wildly divergent ideas about where the aircraft may have gone as it continued to be in contact with an orbiting satellite that sits about 22,000 miles above the surface of the earth. They think the plane either went north through China — and potentially as far north as the Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan border — or it went as far south as the southern Indian Ocean, pretty far off the coast of Australia.
“You have got a global search,” sad Ostrower. “Probably the largest search for a missing airliner in aviation history."
3) The rumor: The plane crashed due to mechanical failure.
In reality: A crash and some sort of mechanical malfunction is possible, said Ostrower. But, he noted:
As we've seen over the last several days the primary working expectations of investigators is that someone diverted this aircraft, and increasingly it's looking closer toward a criminal investigation rather than a strictly aviation safety investigation. So that opens up an entirely new world of possibilities as far as the national security implications and understanding the motives of whoever began to steer this airplane. Certainly there have been scenarios that have been presented that would say this may be due to mechanical failure and somehow the crew became incapacitated, but investigators around the world believe the turn 370 made was deliberate, and officials in the U.S. and Europe are looking at this as a criminal investigation.
RELATED: Malaysia Airlines: US Navy ship quits search for airliner
4) The rumor: There is hope that passengers may be alive because family members hear ringing when they call passengers’ cell phones.
Perpetrated by: According to Chinese media, 19 families signed a joint statement confirming they made calls that connected to the missing passengers, but without an answer, the Mirror reported.
In reality: Different phone carriers act differently, and some will produce a ringing sound for the caller when attempting to locate a phone. Technology industry analyst Jeff Kagan told NPR that the phone company does that "so that the customer doesn't hang up" while the search for that other phone is underway. When a carrier can't find the phone that's being called, any one of several things may happen:
- The call might be dropped.
- The call might go to the person's voicemail.
- The call might go to a recorded message saying it couldn't be completed.
"There's not a standard way" that such uncompleted calls are handled, Kagan told NPR.
A generation's new take on an old Mexican musical genre
You might be familiar with the 1958 Ritchie Valens song, "La Bamba." But, what you might not know is the song comes from an old Mexican musical genre, the Son Jarocho.
A new generation of musicians is now transforming it. The California Report's Julie Caine paid a visit to one of them in his studio in San Francisco.
Several beer giants pull out of St. Patricks Day parade
On this St. Patrick's Day some of the biggest names in beer are sitting out the parades in Boston and New York.
That's because parade organizers won't allow LGBT groups to openly march. In New York, Guinness and Heineken withdrew their sponsorship of today's event. Meanwhile, Sam Adams pulled out of Boston's celebration yesterday.
For a look at the lead up is Michelle Garcia, reporter with The Advocate magazine.
Hollywood Jobs: Food Stylist
Have you ever seen one of those ads with a perfect hamburger from your favorite fast food restaurant? Condiments squeezed on in beautiful symmetrical zig zags, sesame seeds equal distance apart, and a big, gleaming, all-beef patty.
Surely no real-life food could ever begin to live up to that picture. So blame food stylists for making that junk food look so delicious. People like Sienna Degovia, whose work has appeared in numerous places, including TV shows, magazines and a slew of advertising.
She let us follow her around her studio as she prepared for a shoot and she described her job as she prepares the food on a TV or movie set.
Kick up St. Patricks Day with a whiskey cake
Looking for an extra special way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?
Well have we got just the thing for you. It's a culinary creation whipped up by our favorite King of Kitsch, Mr. Charles Phoenix who joined Take Two to talk about his new creation.
Irish Whiskey Lucky Charms Cake
- 2 boxes white cake mix
- 12 eggs
- Vegetable oil according to instructions +1/4 cup
- 750 ml bottle of Irish Whiskey
- 1 box ‘O Lucky Charms
- 4 canisters of fluffy white frosting
- Food coloring
MIX cake according to directions but substituting Irish whiskey for water, adding the additional 6 egg whites and ¼ cup vegetable oil.
SEPARATE charms from the cereal and set aside. Add the whiskey to cereal and let soak for at least 1 hour. After the cereal is well soaked with the alcohol, mix whiskey and cereal together with electric mixer until it turns into a crumbly pasty mess. Add to cake batter. Divide batter in five parts add plenty of bright food coloring to create a rainbow effect of the five layers.
BAKE cake according to box instructions. Cool, stack and frost with frosting tinted with PLENTY of green food coloring. Cover frosting with all the Lucky Charms. Top with six-dozen gold foil covered chocolate coins each stuck with a colored toothpick.
Recipe by Charles Phoenix
GOP convention highlights contrasting candidates
We begin this morning with a look at California's Republican party.
By all accounts it was a pretty rockin' weekend up in Burlingame, California, where the state's Republican party gathered for its biannual convention to hammer out a new party platform and meet and greet its gubernatorial candidates.
For more on that we're joined by John Myers, the Political editor for the Sacramento ABC affiliate KXTV.
What would Plato think of us now?
WWPD … what would Plato do?
That’s the idea behind "Plato at the Googleplex," by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.
She argues that philosophy is here to stay – and in fact more relevant today than ever before – by revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.
She does so by imagining Plato has come to life in the twenty-first century, and is embarking on a multi-city speaking tour.
She joined host Alex Cohen to talk about it.
Join Goldstein and Take Two's Alex Cohen for an event, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away at Mark Taper Auditorium's Central Library Tuesday at 7:15 p.m.
LA Fashion Week: The latest trends to hit the runway
Unless you're a fashion maven here in L.A., you may not even know that it has been fashion week here since last Saturday.
Joining Take Two to talk to us about the scene here in L.A., the latest trends from Betsey Johnson and more is Adam Tschorn, who covers fashion and pop culture for the L.A. Times.
KPCC's Public Radio Bracket Madness: Vote for your favorite shows!
The NCAA college basketball tournament field is set as the first couple games of March Madness tipoff tomorrow.
Take Two hosts Alex Cohen and A Martinez will look at the top seeds, talk about the surprises and the possible Cinderella stories.
Then we'll talk about another kind of bracket ...
The second annual KPCC Public Radio Bracket Madness, during which you can vote for your favorite public radio shows.
There's a couple of ways to play:
- You can go to our special Public Radio Bracket Madness page to vote!
- You can vote in the matchups embedded here.
- You can also print out a copy of the bracket, fill out how you think the contests will play out, and tweet an image of your bracket (using the hashtag #KPCCMadness and #MyKPCCMadness). At the end, we'll gather all the brackets that are closest and choose a winner from among them for a special prize.
KPCC digital producer Mike Roe and keeper of KPCC's blog Without a Net talked with Take Two.