Today on the show, we'll start with a discussion about the 5-year FBI investigation that lead to the arrest of State Sen. Leland Yee. Then, John Rabe introduces us to Philippe Vergne, the new director at MOCA. Plus, how Filipinos contributed to the farmworkers' movement, Dave Wakeling of The English Beat stops by to play some tunes, bartenders are struggling amid a lime shortage and more.
Undercover FBI agents focus in on local and state politicians like Yee, Calderon
The arrest of California senator Leland Yee made waves this week as the politician removed himself from the Secretary of State race after allegations of accepting bribes and conspiracy to traffic in guns.
He's just one of several politicians facing charges after the latest string of FBI investigations that focus on corruption at the local and state level.
Henry Lee wrote about this for the San Francisco Chronicle and joined us to talk about what it was like for the undercover agent in the Leland Yee case as well as what it means for other corruption cases around the country.
Friday Flashback: NSA changes, Rand Paul, college sports unions and more
It's the end of another week and time for the Friday Flashback, Take Two's look at the week in news. This morning we're joined in-studio by Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey and Jamelle Bouie, who's got a new job with Slate.com
We start with the NSA story. Earlier this week, President Obama unveiled his proposals for changes to the way the NSA collects data. Yesterday he floated an idea to put phone companies on the hook.
Might Americans feel any more comfortable with this idea?
As we've mentioned before, Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky along with the conservative organization FreedomWorks, filed a lawsuit last month the NSA and their domestic surveillance program. Where does Paul and the lawsuit stand now that Obama has announced changes to the program?
Rand Paul managed to bring race into the NSA debate when he spoke to a group of UC Berkeley students recently. What happened there?
Speaking of Rand Paul, while at Berkeley he compared the GOP to a popular pizza chain, Dominoes. How do you think this message goes over, especially at a liberal bastion like Berkeley?
Let's put this in context, this comes during a week where as we heard in our opening montage, you have Joni Ernst, a Republican running for office, talking about how she knows how to cut pork from government because she grew up castrating pigs. Perhaps the GOP really does need a Dominos-like makeover?
This week, House Democrats introduced a petition aimed at forcing a vote on the immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year, but stalled in the GOP-controlled House. They're calling it the discharge petition.
We recently interviewed Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi about the discharge petition, and she seemed pretty confident.
Finally, lets go to a topic that we covered a bit yesterday: College athletics and unions. What's your take on the National Labor Relations Board's decision to allow the Northwestern football team to form a union?
Live on KPCC: The English Beat's Dave Wakeling performs in studio
Dave Wakeling's band, The English Beat, are known for hits like "Save it for Later," "Mirror in the Bathroom," and "I Confess."
The origins of the band were surprisingly simple.
"Everybody in the band who ended up on that first record was the first person we met that played that instrument who then responded to the call," Wakeling said on Take Two.
Bassist David Steele, for instance, responded to an advert in a local newspaper.
"[He] became the musical genius of The Beat," said Wakeling.
It was Steele that set the tone for the songs like "Mirror in the Bathroom" with a two-two beat.
"We wanted the joy of Toots and the Maytals rhythm section, with the urban angst of the Velvet Underground, with the full range of Tim Buckley, Van Morrison and Bryan Ferry's emotional pulls," said Wakeling. "In that you had a music that invited you in, reminded you of the joy of life and then because you'd set it up that way you could have a lyric that discussed some of our common foibles. Which normally get shoved to the darker corners of things, but if you pull them out with a little light on them and a good dance... I think we have quite a common bond in our common foible."
And it was those foibles that he sang about consistently throughout the years. One of the problems he had at the time was living in England, which he eventually left for California in 1986. "I did 30 years in England and you only get 30 years for murder," said Wakeling.
Even though he moved, he's been performing some of the same songs over the past four decades. But as Wakeling told Cohen, the songs and their meanings do change.
"When you're writing them you're either stabbing in the dark or at least stirring the mud at the bottom of your river," he said. "Decades later you're like, oh, that's what that's about then."
The English Beat still perform together, as they'll be doing at the Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach on Friday, March 28.
While he was in the Take Two studio he also recorded a couple of live songs:
Meet Philippe Vergne, the new man at the helm of LA's MOCA
Earlier this year the Museum of Contemporary Art announced the appointment of its new director, Philippe Vergne.
Vergne, originally from France, was known in the art circles for being the director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York.
This weekend, the museum will welcome Vergne at its annual gala on March 29.
KPCC's John Rabe stopped by MOCA to catch up with Vergne to talk about the museum, and he asked him why he took the job:
"I took the job because of the reasons we just lined up, amazing collection amazing artists. I was also at the moment at my job in New York where I achieved something that I wanted to achieve and I loved the challenge. I loved the newness ... I couldn't say no - you know, from time to time someone makes you an offer that you can't refuse."
On the different art scene in L.A. and New York:
"I think LA is great and has an important art scene ... I think New York and Los angeles are complementary of each other, the two bookend of American art today ... I actually resist the idea of inventing or bringing into the conversation a dichotomy or antagonism between New York and Los Angeles, because that's not how the world works anymore ..."
Filipino farmworkers' 1965 strike a pivotal moment in California
The new movie about Cesar Chavez hits theaters nationwide Friday. Directed by Diego Luna, it covers the tumultuous early years of the United Farm Workers union and the legacy of one of the most famous Mexican American civil rights leaders.
But one aspect of that story remains largely overlooked: The key role that Filipino farmworkers played in launching the 1965 grape strike in Delano that led to the birth of the United Farm Workers union. KPCC's Dorian Merina reports.
In the new film, "Cesar Chavez," there’s a scene where a group of Filipino farmworkers are attacked in a labor camp in Delano. It’s a brief scene, but a pivotal moment in the United Farm Workers’ movement.
It was September 1965 and tensions were rising in the region between established growers and a migrant workforce. Lorraine Agtang was 14 at the time, and remembers working the fields, picking grapes with her family, when the strike began.
"I remember listening and hearing all this racket and thinking what’s going on why aren’t people working why are they out there making all that noise?" said Agtang. "I remember that day, my father said come on let’s go."
Lorraine’s mother was Mexican, but her father had come from the northern Philippines at the age of 17. He was part of a wave of Filipino migrants in the 1920s and '30s, working the pineapple and banana plantations in Hawaii, the canneries in Washington and Alaska, and the fields in California.
After decades of long hours working for little more than $1 an hour, the Filipinos in the fields went on strike in 1965.
"They took that plunge, they had the guts to take on the growers in the beginning, and they were united and they were strong and they were hard workers and they were skilled workers," said Agtang. "There would have never been a strong union without them."
"The role of Filipino workers in that struggle has historically been under covered and underreported," said Kent Wong, director of UCLA’s Labor Center and publisher of a book on Filipino farmworkers in California. "Even the United Farm Workers itself was a merger of a Filipino and a Mexican farm labor organization."
To be specific, it was a merger between a mostly-Filipino union led by workers like Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz and Pete Velasco and Cesar Chavez’ fledgling farmworkers union. Filipinos took on leadership roles in those early years. But the 1965 strike wasn’t the first.
"In the 1930s there were many work stoppages in the fields of California launched by Filipino workers and the Delano grape strike galvanized national and international attention because of its duration, because of its power and because of the forging of this very dynamic relationship between Filipino farmworkers and Mexican farmworkers," said Wong.
It took five years, but they eventually secured a contract with growers for higher pay and better working conditions. At the signing ceremony, Filipino leader Larry Itliong stood together with Cesar Chavez.
Today, Filipinos make up about a tenth of Delano’s 53,000 people. Some of Cesar Chavez’ best-known early speeches took place here in the town's Filipino Community Hall. It’s where Senator Robert Kennedy came during the peak of the strike in 1968.
Inside, black and white photographs of the farmworker movement and the Filipinos who took part line the wood-paneled walls.
"This is our community room…This facility has so much memories for so many Filipinos for different generations," said 34-year-old Mimi Ignacio who works as a nurse at the center.
She, too, worked in the fields as a teenager and often talks with the older Filipinos about the heady days of the 1960s. She says this was a gathering place for her as a child and her own nieces and nephews hang out at the center.
"These elderlies come and see us they go back and feel oh I was really a part of that," said Ignacio.
For Lorraine Agtang, who witnessed the 1965 strike that brought together Filipino and Mexican workers, it struck a deeply personal chord.
"It was the first time I felt whole. I was like gosh, you know, that’s what was missing, that community," said Agtang. "That feeling of mutual respect and just a united front, people together."
Could medical marijuana ease PTSD symptoms?
Twenty states have legalized medical marijuana, including California.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that pot can help combat depression and ease anxiety, and yet there isn't a whole lot of scientific research to back those claims. But that could soon change.
Sue Sisley, MD, joins the show to talk about the hurdles she faces in doing a clinical study with marijuana.
How neuroscience is helping UC Riverside baseball
Now that baseball season is getting underway, teams are restarting the use of statistics to figure out their optimum match-ups. KPCC's Sanden Totten says there's a different approach at UC Riverside, where the baseball team is turning to neuroscience.
Spike in lime prices squeezes SoCal restaurants and bars
Bad news for margarita lovers:
The increasing cost of Mexican limes is putting the squeeze on bartenders to raise their prices. A case of the tiny green citrus fruit will now set you back $100 a case, up from the average price of just $14 a case.
Here with more is David Karp, he writes a farmers market column for the Los Angeles Times and is a citrus researcher with the University of California, Riverside. Then, we speak with Mario Marovic, who owns several bars and restaurants in Orange County and has come up with an innovative way to deal with the spike in lime prices.