On Tuesday Take Two will talk about the plans Disney has to buy Maker Studios, which creates video content for millenials. Also, the show will discuss if overprotecting kids causes them to be less creative and more fearful. Take Two will also talk to a former NAACP president who is trying to create more opportunities for people of color in the tech industry. And it's Tuesday Reviewsday so the show will take a look at the latest in music.
Missing Malaysia flight highlights tensions between nations
The search for missing Malyasia Airlines flight 370 was suspended earlier Tuesday due to weather.
Officials say they hope to resume efforts tomorrow.
But relatives of those passengers on the plane are crying out for answers.
Malaysia's prime minister announced yesterday that the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean. There is still no answer as to why or precisely where.
RELATED: Malaysia Airlines: Missing flight crashed in Indian Ocean (updated)
The two and a half week long search effort has involved the cooperation of more than two dozen countries.
But the experience also highlights some long-standing tensions between nations in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Director of the Asia-Pacific Program at the US Institute of Peace, joins Take Two to talk about the situation.
Disney snags YouTube multichannel network Maker Studios for $500 million
On Monday, Disney acquired Culver City-based Maker Studios, a YouTube network that boasts an average of over five billion views per month over hundreds of entertainment channels.
RELATED: Disney targets millennials with $500M takeover of Maker Studios (update)
James McQuivey of Forrester joined Take Two to talk about how Disney's newest purchase will impact their digital reach in the future.
Is helicopter parenting stunting kids' emotional growth?
Are parents' concerns over children's health and well-being making a culture where kids are less creative and more fearful? That's what some research shows.
Take Two host Alex Cohen talked to Hanna Rosin about her Atlantic Magazine cover story on how overprotection may not be good for kids.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What changed, why and when?
We became preoccupied with safety. Physical safety, emotional happiness. And it’s OK to be concerned about those things, but we became preoccupied with those things, basically to the point that we made all the decisions through that lens. That change happened, basically, between the '70s through the '90s. That’s when we started to perceive the world as a really dangerous place.
That really comes out in the playground. Can you talk about why an American playground looks the way it does today?
There was a case during the '70s that cost a city a lot of money. It was a very tragic case of a toddler who fell off the top of a slide. After that people started to get nervous. There were writers who called all playgrounds death traps. As a result, companies started to homogenize playground equipment. It got a lot more safe, and, as a result, the playground got a bit boring. Kids couldn’t couldn’t do what they needed to do, which was feel excited, feel a certain thrill, feel like they were taking a risk and then mastering that risk.
Why is it important for kids to feel danger?
I think that is growing up. Not to say kids should do dangerous things. But they should feel like they’re doing something dangerous, and then mastering that thing they are doing. And it’s through that mastery is how they get older. Kids no longer go through those stages at all.
Even though women work a lot more than in the '70s, we are spending more time with our kids. The conventional wisdom says this is because the world is a more dangerous place. Is that true?
No, the world is a different place, but it’s not a more dangerous place. When we tell kids don’t talk to strangers, we have in our head these horrible cases of stranger abduction. But those cases are not more common now than they were in the 1970s.
We have a sense that the public space is different. There aren’t moms around in the neighborhood; families are different; there’s a lot more divorces. So we’ve lost the neighborhood as a knitted community. But that’s a big vague change to get your mind around, so we just go to stranger danger.
What should parents be thinking about when we think about protecting our kids?
We shouldn’t go back to the '70s. A lot of people felt neglected in the '70s. I think it’s about re-conceiving your role as a parent. Saying, ‘My role as a parent is not to protect my child every second or optimize safety with every decision but to create opportunity for them to experience things,’ and that’s how we build character in a child.
How do we get everyone on board and find that common ground?
I’m nostalgic for my own child. I’d like to let my child do these things. But all the other parents are going to think I’m nuts. So we have to all turn the ship slowly one by one.
How do we walk the line in keeping our kids safe from danger but teaching them independence and growing in coping skills?
I think you have to worry about safety, but not let safety drive your every decision.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Shakira, Malawi Mouse Boys, Juanes and The Baseball Project
Shakira, mouse-eating musicians, a Latin super star and an album all about baseball.
That's right, it's time for Tuesday Reviewsday. Justino Aguila, Associate Editor of Latin at Billboard magazine, and music critic Steve Hochman join A Martinez in the studio this week.
Justino Aguila's picks:
Artist: Shakira
Album: Shakira
Songs we played: Empire
Nunca Me Acuerdo de Olvidarte
Summary: Shakira is back with her tenth album, and her single "Can't Remember to Forget You," featuring Rihanna, has been heard around the world and the video has received over 200 million clicks.
VIDEO: "Can't Remember to Forget You"
Shakira's single "Can't Remember to Forget You," featuring Rihanna, also has been receiving plenty of radio airplay, but the Spanish version of the song, "Nunca Me Acuerdo de Olvidarte," also shines as Shakira (without Rihanna) provides a pop anthem that plays into her style of music, which includes a bilingual audience that has helped make the entertainer a major star. "Empire" highlights Shakira's strong vocal command in a rock ballad that illustrates the singer's ability to give her music depth in a way that grows by the moment thanks to the composition, lyrics and a vibrant song.
This is her first album after having a baby and her first album in four years. It's packaged with some of the iconic pop singer's trademarks: strong musical orchestrations, collaborations and a powerful voice. Shakira, whose first major label debut was "Pies Descalzos" (1996), has managed to spread her brand of music around the world with cool pop melodies and catchy hooks wrapped around a persona. All have helped her develop a major fan base.
But that's not all. We also have a new album from Colombian superstar - Juanes.
Artist: Juanes
Album: Loco de Amor
Songs we played: La Luz
La Verdad
Summary: Colombian singer/songwriter Juanes has made it no secret that his newest album, "Loco de Amor" is completely different from anything he's done in the past. The album's new vibe blends Juanes' own style with a newer sound that's pop, rock and a little retro. If you're a Juanes fan from back in the day, the album might take some getting used to, but the music ultimately grabs and moves you. The single "La Luz," for example, marries Colombian cumbia with electronic dance music for a club-friendly composition that's been getting major attention, which is much deserved. However, don't think that his signature sound is at all lost on the new album. It's satisfying to hear the super star performing music such as "La Verdad," which really drives a pop/rock sentimentality in a song about searching for truth in a relationship. And for those long time fans of the artist, the song has a familiar old-school sound. Juanes teams up with British producer Steve Lillywhite who has worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones to U2. Emmanuel "Meme" Del Real, a member of Mexico's Café Tacuba, is also an associate producer.
Steve Hochman's picks:
Artist: Malawi Mouse Boys
Album: Dirt is Good
Songs we played: Ndakhumudwa (You Betrayed Me)
Zochita Zanu (Your Deeds)
Summary: No, these aren't some gene-spliced hybrids or East African superheroes. We've talked about the Mouse Boys before, with their first album, "He Is #1," from two years ago. Their name comes from the fact that they were discovered selling roasted rodents on sticks, a favored local snack, on the road side in Malawi. San Francisco-based producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Lucinda Williams) stumbled upon them on a trip there... and while we're not sure if he bought any mouse snacks, he did buy into the music that they were making during their breaks from selling the mice. And that's the music that they released in their joyous debut. They don't sing about mice, but about Jesus - in spirited, rustic, rough-hewn, road-side style that Brennan captured perfectly. It was the first album in their language, Chichewa, ever released internationally and it found welcoming ears around the world, leading to an invitation to perform at last summer's WOMAD festival in England. Not only was it their first time on a plane and first time out of Malawi, but it was their first time ever performing on a stage with amplification. They rose to the occasion, turning into instant rock stars.
You can hear some of that confidence and power in the follow-up, "Dirt is Good." Not that you'll think they've fallen under the sway of Max Martin or anything, but there's a stronger rhythmic element to this album, with spartan percussion and crisper playing in the guitars. The opening "Ndakhumudwa (You Betrayed Me)" could almost be taken for reggae, though the vocal harmonies are distinctly African. And on two tracks, including "Zochita Zanu (Your Deeds)," they add amplification, though highly distorted with the guitar being played through a tiny battery-powered amp. It's still gospel, and it's still very much music from their lives, reflecting such sorrows as the death of guitarist Alfred Gavana's father (which happened while they were in England) and the very hard times amid food shortages and medical crises that are part of their country's daily life. But it's the joy of their faith, the joy of the making of music that comes through strongest even if you don't understand the language.
Let's take a trip now to the United States where there's a group singing about one of the nation's favorite past times... baseball.
Artist: The Baseball Project
Album: 3rd
Songs we played: 13
They Played Baseball
Summary: It's the most wonderful time of the year! That's right - spring training is in full swing and the baseball season's opening day is right around the corner. And in recent years a new element has joined the vaunted litany of baseball traditions: the band the "The Baseball Project" - an unlikely alt-rock supergroup including Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and a long solo career, Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows and latter-day R.E.M., with drummer Linda Pitmon and R.E.M. co-founders Peter Buck and Mike Mills - are doing original baseball-themed material.
Two previous albums established the band's approach. It's a celebration of all things baseball, though not necessarily rah-rah stuff. With Wynn (transplanted from L.A. to New York and now a Yankees fan) and McCaughey (go Giants!) as the main songwriters, it gets deep into the baseball psyche, sometimes even into the dark side by talking about the scalawags and scoundrels, the moments of infamy and ignominy and missed chances, lovable losers and some unloveable winners as well.
It's smart, witty, knowledgable, colorful and lively… and it rocks. But above all it's about a true, deep, passionate love for all things baseball. And now the new "3rd" - as in "rounding 3rd and heading home" - ups the ante. The boisterous, power-blues "Hola America" is a Cuban exile's journey to the World Series. "From Nails to Thumbtacks" follows Lenny "Nails" Dykstra from his star years with the Mets and Phillies through his prison time for financial fraud. "They Don't Know Henry" chronicles the combination of determination and talent that made Hank Aaron, well, Hank Aaron. "Pasqual on the Perimeter," sung by Pitmon (a Twins fan) recounts the time Braves pitcher Pasqual Perez couldn't find his way to the ballpark.
It's hard to single out highlights, but the top of the web jems may be Wynn's "13," a devastating broadside at Alex Rodriguez himself. It's a true folk song for the modern sports age. But the bottom line of all this is summed up in McCaughey's "They Played Baseball," a song about the litany of baseball's boozers and juicers, racists and blowhards, with the joyful conclusion that no matter what, we cheered for them, even loved them, simply because they were part of the game. And to finish it off, the album ends with a hot-rodded run of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
Hey, this is rah-rah stuff after all.
River of mud: Death and destruction in a Washington state community
Officials in Washington state say at least eight people are dead and more than 100 missing after a wall of mud inundated a fishing community about 50 miles north of Seattle.
RELATED: 108 on list of missing in Washington mudslide
Area resident Sierra Sansaver heard sirens on Saturday morning. She rushed out to see what was happening and saw a house sitting in the middle of the main highway that runs through her community.
"It was torn to pieces," Sansaver told reporter Phyliss Fletcher at Seattle public station KUOW.
"There was belongings all over the road. And that's when everybody ran out there and they found a 6-month-old baby. The baby was blue when I saw it."
The infant was airlifted out and remains in critical condition.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by the muck, reported to be as deep as 15 feet in some areas.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee praised the first responders during a press conference held yesterday near the site.
"They rescued at least seven people, both through airlift and on the ground efforts," Inslee told reporters. But he noted that some rescuers got caught in up to their armpits and had to be dragged out by ropes themselves.
"It's just a physical impossibility of supporting the human weight in a slurry that is a problem right now," Gov. Inslee said.
Metropolitan Water District field trips raise questions
A KPCC investigation has raised questions about hundreds of out-of-town trips sponsored by a local public agency.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) has spent more than $2 million in public money in the past three years on weekend field trips to water facilities.
KPCC's Alice Walton reports the presence of MWD board members' relatives, campaign donors and those with business before the agency has raised questions about who is benefiting from the outings.
RELATED: Metropolitan Water District's little-known trips raise questions
Bringing diversity to Silicon Valley
Last week, Reverend Jesse Jackson led a delegation to Hewlett Packard's annual shareholders meeting where he raised concerns about the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley.
Jackson joined a growing list of black leaders who are worried that technology companies aren't doing enough for minority communities when it comes to hiring and spending.
Benjamin Todd Jealous, the former NAACP president, made a dramatic announcement recently.
He was leaving the organization to take a post with an Oakland area venture capitol firm with the goal of creating more opportunities for people of color in the tech industry.
RELATED: NAACP President Ben Jealous to step down this year
Jealous joined Take Two to talk about it.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
In your opinion how bad is it when it comes to lack of diversity in the tech world?
It’s clear, it’s glaring. I’m sensing that people are taking on all the problems they can see; they’re taking on big problems but they’re also not seeing all the problems that need to be solved. And some of those problems when you solve them lead to good returns.
The problems are with the Googles, the twitters and Yahoos right?
Yes and no. Typically someone … can be locked out of the valley. The valley is unlike Detroit or big centers of business in our country, like Wall street, in that it’s recreated at a much faster pace. Things that we thought of as mainstays, say 20 years ago, have diminished greatly. Start-ups with four kids in a college dorm room now employ thousands of people.
And of those thousands only one in 14 is black or Latino, so are you saying the answer is go off and start your own business or should we be looking for ways to get more people of color in these big businesses?
I am saying both. Reverend Jackson, many other folks are very focused on how do we diversify the big companies in the Valley. That will help people get good jobs and we need to be doing it. Coming from Washington D.C. … we have 10 times as many black computer professionals in that region. So we know the Valley could be doing a lot better. But at the same time if you want to make sure that in the future the Valley is better you need to focus on the seeds and that’s what we are focusing on is opening the door to black and Latino tech founders, especially founders who are solving big social problems. We can embrace people who have great ideas that can expand really rapidly and make profits on one had but also cutting the cost, for instance, for people behind bars to communicate with their families by 90 percent.
With this push for diversity you run the risk that when an African American or Latino is hired for a tech position his or her colleagues may view it as simply a diversity hire. How do you stop that from happening?
We have to be honest about genius in this country. We are locking out millions of kids because they are born in poor white areas, millions of kids because they are born in black or Latino neighborhoods and we are short-circuiting our own future. Our country is the most diverse country in the world. We should be able to lead an increasingly flat world but we can’t and we’re falling behind in many ways because we are not being as flat as we need to be to lead that increasingly flat world.
Anger at tech industry for gentrification nothing new
In the 1980s, it was in style to demonize Wall Street workers and the excessive lifestyles they lived.
But now there's a growing trend to turn that judgmental eye towards Silicon Valley.
In places like San Francisco, for example, local activists have protested the buses provided by tech companies to ferry their workers to and from their jobs. These activists see them as symbols of the class divide that's pricing other people out of the city.
RELATED: Eviction protesters block Google bus in San Francisco
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ellen Huet has been documenting this increasing scorn directed to the tech industry, and she says there's a more complex story at the heart of this that goes beyond the haves and have-nots.
Her latest piece is "How tech became the enemy — then and now," and she describes how this anger towards gentrification is nothing new for the city.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Tech wasn’t always the enemy in San Francisco, right?
Right. There was a funny thing we didn’t get into the story, but there are some stories from 1985 that mention gentrification of North Beach and the city at large, and the people who are the villains in that story are lawyers moving into lawyer lofts. So, clearly, gentrification is something that’s been happening in San Francisco for many years. But you see technology because it’s sort of a major employer in the area, moving up through the dotcom boom and today, and it’s only getting stronger.
Can you talk about the nature of the demonstration then (before the first dotcom bubble burst) and what the issues were?
We see a lot of the same issues. Displacement, especially in really tight neighborhoods like the Mission. The Mission Anti-displacement Coalition took over the offices of bigstep.com, which were at 22nd and Mission. They were mad that the office had pushed out some of the earlier tenants in order to make space for the new company.
How is what you are seeing now like what you saw then, and how is it different?
What might be different are the companies who are most likely to be protested today are pretty serious moneymakers. Nobody thinks Google is going away or Facebook is going away. This is not as much of a bubble as the other ones were.
And what we saw the same were concerns about people moving into areas where there aren’t a lot of space and with an advantage, which is a lot of money.
This time around, there are different sources of people’s frustrations. One of them is the Google bus, the shuttle the company dispatches to pick up employees and take them to work. There was a big protest that got national headlines, and you spoke with two women on either side of the protest. What did you learn about the nature of the debate from talking to them?
I met a girl who was riding on the bus; she’s 30, she’s a fashion blogger, and she was tweeting from the bus. People started sharing her tweets and saying some pretty mean things the day of. I think she’s a great example, because she’s 30, she’s black, she’s a contractor, which makes a big difference when you think about tech company employees, because a lot of the full-time employees get a lot of the perks you hear about. So I think a lot of them are more in line with the economic interests of the people who are concerned about housing changes.
The activist that I interviewed was also about the same age: 31, college education. When I talked to both of them, I got the feeling that they might have had more in common than they might have expected. I thought it was worth it to show the range of people we are dealing with here.
The protesters said it’s not so much that they were upset with individual workers, but that it’s technology and the effect of these companies as a whole.
But how are you supposed to protest that … and gentrification? It’s this nebulous specter. So instead, you go with the people. And media plays a role, too. We cover this stuff with a frenzy, and that makes activists decide, "That was successful. Let’s focus on tech again." And then the people working in tech end up feeling personally hurt.
'Mistaken for Strangers': The National get a documentary
Trailer: Mistaken for Strangers
"Have you ever woken up in a nightmare on a bus because of the movement?" Tom Berninger asks his brother Matt, the lead singer of the indie band The National.
Matt responds, "Do you have a notebook with the questions written down? Do you have any kind of organization and plan for this film?"
The film that he's talking about, and where the above interaction comes from, is a documentary about the band called "Mistaken for Strangers." It was filmed by Tom, who went on tour with Matt a couple of years ago. The thing is that the entire time he was shooting the documentary, Tom was supposed to be working as a roadie for the band.
And Tom doesn't have any experience shooting documentaries so the things he focuses on at the time may seem inane. He's shooting absolutely everything and people on staff get frustrated at him for shooting footage instead of doing his real job, being a roadie.
While Tom didn't have any real job prospects before the tour, he has even fewer prospects once he gets fired for shirking his roadie duties. And that leaves him sort of aimlessly wandering through life.
"I was... slightly relieved because it was just tiring to be constantly being yelled at, but I was disappointed because it was my paycheck. Also because I had to face hours and hours of footage that I had no idea what I was going to do with. So I was kind of putting that off... I was like keep me on tour just so I don't have to look at this mess of a movie I have. Or at that point I didn't even know it was a movie..."
And it's after the firing that Tom did some reflecting. It's also when the documentary started to take shape. It became more than about the band. It became an examination of Tom's life in the shadow of his rock star brother.
"...ultimately maybe it was good that he wasn't prepared in the traditional sense because it led to something interesting I think," said Matt.
The final product covers everything from the difficulties of being on the road for a long time to what it's like to be a young person trying to discover himself while in his older brother's shadow.
And while the footage seems disorganized at first, Tom walked away with plenty of special candid moments from the band according to Matt, "We weren't playing the roles of indie rock guys trying to sound interesting in interviews. We were just... talking to my brother."
How does it feel for Tom now that the documentary's brought him some recognition?
"Obviously it feels awesome and I had gained a lot of confidence from this movie. And the fact that people are relating to my story and feeling emotionally connected to our story, that's great."
There's a screening of the documentary, as well as a show with The National, at the Shrine Auditorium on March 25.