California spends big money on anti-psychotic drugs for inmates; Valley Fever sickens 28 solar workers in San Luis Obispo County; How tech writer Paul Miller survived a year without the Internet; Mexicans urge Obama, Peña Nieto to focus on security; The future of diplomacy between Obama and Mexico's Peña Nieto; Will master plan preserve Union Station's Art Deco charm? Plus much more.
California spends big money on anti-psychotic drugs for inmates
California state prison officials have until midnight tonight to submit a plan to federal officials for prison inmate reduction. It's a fight that California has had with federal officals for years.
The federal government seized control of California's prisons in 2005, and recently Governor Jerry Brown has been a vocal advocate for returning control of the prisons to California. But the federal government may be facing its own problems related to prisoner care.
Yesterday the Associated Press broke a story on California's prison mental health system that show how California spends more money on anti-psychotic medication than any other state in the nation. Many believe that this shows a tendancy to over-medicate mentally ill prisoners.
With more is Don Thompson, the reporter with the AP
Valley Fever sickens 28 solar workers in San Luis Obispo County
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plan to meet with Department of Corrections officials on Thursday to discuss the spread of Valley Fever at two Central California prisons.
The court has ordered the relocation of an estimated 3,200 inmates with heightened risk for the disease.
But Valley Fever is not just striking the prison population. The airborne disease has sickened 28 workers at two large solar-power construction sites in San Luis Obispo County.
For more on why we're seeing these infections, we're joined by Dr. John Galgiani, a Valley Fever expert and professor of infectious diseases at the University of Arizona.
Mexicans urge Obama, Peña Nieto to focus on security
President Obama travels south today to meet with Mexico's president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Under this new administration, Mexico wants to shift focus away from fighting drug traffickers to strengthening the economy. Fronteras Desk reporter Mónica Ortiz Uribe was in Mexico to talk with people there about their concerns ahead of the meeting.
President Barack Obama travels south Thursday to meet with Mexico's president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Under this new administration, Mexico wants to shift focus away from fighting drug traffickers to strengthening the economy.
In Mexico's northern industrial region there are those who tend to agree with the president.
Monterrey is a city of five million people cradled between tall, jagged mountains with suffocating traffic and a high cost of living. English is practically a second language and the United States is like Monterrey's best friend.
"I think we are good partners," said Manuel Montoya, who directs an alliance of companies focused on automobiles.
"Both the American buyers and the Mexican sellers, we are making business in a good way," he said.
The auto industry is king in Mexico, as 80 percent of the big rig trucks on U.S. highways were assembled here. Mexico also supplies the U.S. with parts like windshields, seat belts and steering wheels. Montoya feels it's time Americans stop identifying Mexico with only violence.
"They used to treat us like Kabul or like Beirut, but you can't compare," he said. "This doesn't help our business."
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post last November, Peña Nieto wrote, "it is a mistake to limit our bilateral relationship to drugs and security concerns."
Instead the president wants to focus on binational trade, which in the last 20 years has quintupled to more than a billion dollars a day.
In downtown Monterrey a group of teenage boys in T-shirts and buzz cuts practiced a patriotic tune on rusty trumpets. Nearby is the office of another business alliance focused on a rapidly growing industry in Mexico, information technology. Guillermo Safa is the director.
"The IT sector is growing at 30 percent each year," Safa said.
In 2004 the state of Nuevo Leon had 2,000 engineers working in this field. Today that number is 12,000. Globally Mexico is in third place for IT outsourcing.
"The result of this growth could present new opportunities in Mexico," Safa said. "It may do away with the temptation to immigrate to the United States when there is a good life to be had here in Mexico."
Safa is even hopeful these new jobs might draw Mexicans already in the United States back home. Call centers, for example, are hiring Mexicans with good English skills and experience in the United States.
Four hours outside Monterrey, in the town the Cuatro Cienegas, two sisters prepared bacon-wrapped hot dogs near the central plaza. The town is in the state of Coahuila where drug violence is particularly heavy.
When locals here consider what they'd like the two presidents to discuss, one answer stands out above the rest: insecurity.
While this town has been spared from the most horrific violence, news from around the region travels fast: prison breaks, mass shootings and kidnappings. Organized crime still has a strong grip on the country and drug-related killings continue daily.
Ruben Perez drives a taxi in Cuatro Cienegas.
"It's scary to be out on the road," he said. "Things are bad."
Whether things will improve is anybody's guess.
Under former President Felipe Calderon, the U.S. was an important partner in the fight against organized crime. U.S. intelligence was behind the arrest of Mexico’s most wanted capos.
But under Peña Nieto things have changed. The new administration has made it clear that when it comes to security matters the United States' role will be significantly reduced.
Whether this new strategy will work for Mexico remains to be seen.
The future of diplomacy between Obama and Mexico's Peña Nieto
Joining us to deconstruct the relationship between President Obama and Mexico's President Peña Nieto as the two meet today is Shannon O'Neil. She's a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and author of the new book, "Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead."
Navigating Mexico's booming beer industry
The street food scene in LA is a vibrant and varied world, but if you need some guidance navigating it, there's no one better to turn to than Bill Esparza.
He writes the Vitamina T column for LA Magazine and blogs on his own at Street Gourmet LA. This week he explores craft beer makers in Mexico.
Is it wrong for wealthy celebrities to use Kickstarter to fund projects?
A few months ago, Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell launched a kickstarter campaign to make a film version of their hit TV show "Veronica Mars," raising close to $6 million in the process.
Actor Zach Braff took note and last week made his own appeal on the crowdfunding site to raise money for a sequel to his 2004 movie "Garden State."
Kickstarter does provide a way for fans to contribute to the content they love, but some people are a little turned off by the notion of millionaire celebrities asking for money from folks who make a lot less.
For more on that, we're joined now by Luke Barnett and Tanner Thomason who've started a tongue-in-cheek Kickstarter campaign of their own.
Kickstarter to help Luke & Tanner do COOL STUFF! - watch more funny videos
Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children' heads to the big screen
There was no need to reach out to the public for funds when it came to making a film version of Salman Rushdie's 1981 book "Midnight's Children." After all, the story was a proven hit.
The novel is one of the world's most acclaimed modern novels, and it picked up the Best of the Booker Prize in 2008.
"Midnight's Children" is a magical tale about a boy named Saleem Sinai, born at midnight on August 15, 1947, at the same hour that India became an independent republic. As the story unfolds, we discover that all children born at this hour have special powers.
The film "Midnight's Children" opens on Friday in LA.
We recently spoke with Salman Rushdie who said he never imagined this book would make it to the silver screen when it was first published 32 years ago.
City Hall Pass: Greuel vs. Garcetti, Sheriff Lee Baca and more
KPCC's political team Frank Stoltze and Alice Walton join the show for a regular roundup of the latest political news.
More companies requiring employees to bring their own computers
Keeping your work and personal lives separate may get a little more complicated. According to a new study by the technology research company Gartner, more than half of companies will require their employees to bring their own computers on the job by 2017. The finding comes out of a survey of IT managers around the world.
It means you may have to use your personal laptop, smartphone or even desktop computer for work. For more, we're joined by Arik Hesseldahl, senior editor for the technology website All Things Digital.
How tech writer Paul Miller survived a year without the Internet
Think for a moment about all the things you do on your personal electronic devices. You likely search for online reviews of that new neighborhood sushi joint, discover what your friends are up to on Facebook, maybe even find the cheapest plane ticket to New York.
Now, imagine giving all that technology up. That's what Verge writer Paul Miller did.
For an entire year, the tech writer and self-proclaimed Internet addict chose to abstain from going online. That period of internet abstinence ended on May 1.
Miller joins the show to talk about his experience.
Interview Highlights:
On why he decided to sign off from the Internet for a year:
"A lot of reasons. I was pretty stressed out, I also wanted a large block of free time to read books and sort of educate myself, I never went to school. I got really fed up with it and I felt that if I could quit the Internet, all this noise in my head would die down and I could finally do something productive instead of just click around all day long."
On what it was like to be Internet-free at first:
"It was really wonderful. It was like a zen high, a natural high of just being ecstatic and so peaceful and calm and happy. Even that very night I went home and I listened to records with my roommate. I didn't have pressures or thought that someone could get ahold of me or track me down, or someone needs something from me, or that there's a billion things I'm missing on the Internet, I just couldn't worry about it."
On if he felt Internet withdrawal:
"I don't know if this would be normal for people, but I did not have any withdrawal. I guess because I was so happy at first. There were all sorts of little things, the fact that I get couldn't sucked into the computer so far, I got up and walked around more often and I was more creative, I was reading more. Every once in a while I would have a dream that I had failed and gotten on the Internet, but I woke up and found that that wasn't true."
On what surprised him about the experience:
"The practical stuff wasn't that hard, but it got much more existential. The first few months went great, but then I kind of folded back in on myself and all of the energy I had at the front, I was taking all this boredom that I had and a little bit of isolation and I was taking it to do things creatively, and also taking it to reach out to people and interact with them. It's just a little harder to do that off the Internet, it's a little harder to stay active, it's a little harder to interact with people, so I found myself not doing that after a while and just sitting in my apartment playing video games for a lot of this year, which is really sad to admit, but that's what happened."
On what he learned about boredom:
"When you're on the Internet you never know that you're bored, because before you get actually truly bored, you start clicking on something and you forget about it. You can kind of numb that sensation. Off the Internet I got really, truly bored and I felt it. At first, that would make me do good things, but after a while it became a little painful and not stimulating anymore for me. It became kind of a weight I guess."
On the first thing he did when he signed back on:
"I tweeted "JK" just to mess with people. The thing that I wanted to do the most when I got back was watch this video my little brother and I made back in 2007 and the only copy I had was on Facebook. That was really my priority coming back. In fact, now that I've been back I've been less entranced by the funny cat videos, as great as they are, and more excited to see Instagram photos of my new nephew. That's really what I want to be more about on the Internet, is about connecting with people. The Internet is the best way to do that, outside of sitting in a room with someone, which is not always possible."
On what his email box looked like when he got back online:
"There was a prediction pool at the office, but it was 22,000 emails across three accounts. I am so overwhelmed by the Internet right now, I'm not used to this level of stimulation and I am not even keeping up with what's happening today."
Advice for someone interested in unplugging:
"I would say instead of quitting the Internet, find something you want to do more. If you're about to see an old friend that you haven't seen in a long time, leave your phone at home and spend your time entirely with your friend. There's not much meaning in quitting or avoiding the Internet. It's about the things you want to do more."
Will the master plan preserve Union Station's Art Deco charm?
You'd have no trouble recognizing Union Station, even if you've never been there before. The iconic train station in downtown Los Angeles has shown up repeatedly as a striking backdrop in film and television.
There it is in the 1950 crime drama appropriately called "Union Station," it was the setting of a pivotal court scene in last year's "Dark Knight Rising," and Fiona Apple memorably danced through the station for her "Paper Bag" video.
However, Metro — which owns Union Station — is poised to reconfigure the station.
That has some people wondering if it will lose some of its Art Deco charm. Haley Fox of KPCC's BlogDowntown has been following proposed changes.
Public meeting:
LA Union Station Master Plan Community Workshop
Thursday, May 2, 1013
5:30-7:30pm
Japanese American National Museum, Aratani Central Hall
100 N. Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
This meeting is scheduled to be live-streamed from http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lausmp and will be recorded for later viewing.
Pasadena learns to dance krump, but will it attract younger arts patrons? (Photos, Video)
With a string of performances and master classes in everything from ballet to African dance, the annual Pasadena Dance Festival attracts aspiring dancers and teachers from all over the West Coast.
This year it debuted something new: a class in krump dancing. The Compton street dance, with its signature chest pops and stomps, can appear almost violent to a first-time audience.
"We try to spice it up every year with something that makes people kind of raise one eyebrow," said Peggy Burt, a board member of the dance company that puts on the festival, Lineage Dance.
Lineage didn't include the dance solely to expose young dancers to new forms of the art – it was also hoping to attract younger audiences.
"All throughout the country we find that the dance audiences are getting older," Burt said.
At more than $100 a seat, tickets for many dance performances are often too expensive for younger audiences.
"We're really trying to break down those barriers and make it affordable and make it accessible and really exciting for the young people who begin to not only dance themselves but be the dance audiences of tomorrow," she said. Tickets to the week-long event, which ended Saturday, were less than $100 and many participants received scholarships.
Miss Prissy and her dance company, The Underground, headlined at the festival. She described krump dancing this way: "It is a combination between African dance style movement and new age hip-hop."
Miss Prissy, whose real name is Marquisa Gardner, is one of krump's co-founders. She was featured in the popular 2005 documentary "Rize," which chronicled the dance's early years.
About 80 students participated in her class at the Pasadena festival. Many were teenagers who had seen the film and were excited to learn the dance from the source.
Gardner spent 17 years training as a classical ballerina. She said krump offers kids a lot of life lessons.
"I feel like it's a life changing culture that can actually open your eyes up to embracing things that you never thought that you would really embrace about yourself," she said.
Anna Hull and Deniek Turner, both 16, were visiting the festival from Idyllwild where they are both juniors in high school. They're ballet dancers, but said they got a lot out of the krump class.
"She was so fierce and so beautiful and – oh, my God – I almost died. I loved her," Hull said, without taking a breath.
The Dinner Party: 'The Great Gatsby,' The Mobro 4000, and more
Every week we get your weekend conversation starters with Rico Gagliano and Brendan Newnam, the hosts of the Dinner Party podcast and radio show.
On tap this week:
Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald's records go online
We now know he was a bad speller, and that in 1926 he got $16,666 for the film rights to “The Great Gatsby” – around $213,000 in today’s dollars, or about a tenth of a percent of the new movie version’s rumored $200 million-plus budget.
NYC scavenger lives off drain drops
Armed with dental floss and mousetrap glue, this guy has been making a living for years wandering New York City, deftly picking up valuable items people accidentally drop through sidewalk grates.
History: 1987 – Thanks to the Gar-barge, Jersey starts recycling
The Mobro 4000 was a barge, loaded with garbage, that set sail in March ‘87 from New York. The idea was to use the garbage to create methane gas power at a new pilot facility in No. Carolina. But North Carolinans protested it, fearing it might contain hazardous waste, and the barge was sent on its way, trying to find someplace on earth that would take the trash. Its journeys to Louisiana, Mexico and Belize – all of which refused to take the garbage -- became a symbol of overconsumption and the supposed lack of landfill space in the U.S. It’s a big reason New Jersey, this week in ’87, became the third state in the union to launch a recycling program.