Sanctuary cities, immigration policies and law enforcement, what Prop 64 means for marijuana-related criminal records, mistrust in journalists and media literacy.
Could Trump's immigration plan affect LA's 'sanctuary city' policy?
President-elect Donald Trump has taken aim at "sanctuary cities," saying that he will end the immigrant-friendly policies and instead have local law enforcement work with federal officials to step up deportations.
But the plan appears at odds with local policies in California.
This week, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck confirmed local law enforcement will not take part in deportations, saying police officers would not stop people based solely on immigration status. Mayor Eric Garcetti has also vowed to keep immigrant-friendly policies in place.
So could this all lead to a showdown under President Trump? And could these policies change?
"There's no provision in law right now that would authorize such joint enforcement operations," said Niels Frenzen, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Southern California. "But as we know, there are all sorts of ways that the federal government can coerce or encourage states to do things or not to do things in regard to controlling federal funds."
To listen to the audio, click on the blue media player.
Californians are already having their marijuana charges downgraded
When Proposition 64 passed last week, quite a few things changed.
For instance, it's now legal to carry up to an ounce of marijuana, and you can now grow up to six plants on your premises.
But some of the biggest changes have to do with how marijuana-related crimes will be prosecuted going forward. And those changes are already playing out in courts across Los Angeles.
"I was in court today [Nov. 10] where a guy had a possession for sale of 35 pounds," said Bruce Margolin, an attorney who specializes in cannabis-related issues. "They wanted to give him a year in jail and three years felony probation. Today, he walked out with a misdemeanor 60 days, with half time."
Because of changes to the law, some crimes which were felonies are now considered misdemeanors, and some misdemeanors can be wiped from records completely. And these changes don't just apply to current and future cases, but retroactively as well, meaning that anyone who's been charged with a pot-related crime has a chance to have their record amended.
"People with possession for sale, possession with the intent to sell, transportation or giving away more than an ounce, or sale of cannabis, would normally face prison time from three to four years. However, now it's been reduced to six months in jail, maximum, and a $500 fine, or both," said Margolin.
Attorneys, including Margolin, have been inundated with calls from clients trying to amend their records.
Attorney Eric Shevin said that over the past week he's received "hundreds, literally hundreds of calls."
He too has found himself in court since the law passed, adjusting to the new reality: "It's very different than what we've been experiencing, you know, for the last 50 years."
Shevin said that he was in court this week with a client who was booked on a marijuana-related charge back in August, before the law changed.
"They found the 50 pounds [of marijuana]. He was arrested, taken to jail, bailed out on $100,000. The case was filed as a felony transportation of cannabis case," he said. But since the case was pushed until after the law was changed, it was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.
The Drug Policy Alliance, which helped draft Prop 64, has estimated that nearly 11,000 people are arrested in California each year for marijuana-related crimes. The hope among advocates was that the measure would have substantial impact on the lives of people charged with such crimes. And early signs suggest that's what's happening.
Things have already changed for people like Ingrid Archie, a mother of two from Los Angeles, who was arrested in 2004 with more than 50 grams of marijuana separated into small baggies. She was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, the felony charge of possession with intent to sell.
"I was living, you know, in South Los Angeles at the time. And I had let a friend live with me. Basically, the police was looking for them. And they came into my house and searched my house looking for them. And they found the marijuana," she said. "And so I went to jail because I was in the house and I was already on probation for a prior charge."
With a drug-related felony on her record, Archie said that she had difficulty getting housing assistance. And jobs were largely out of the question.
"I applied everywhere. And all I got was 'No, no, no' for years, so I gave up," she said.
On the night that Prop 64 passed, Archie filed a petition to have the charge lessened to a misdemeanor — a move that she hopes will pay off going forward.
But there could be hurdles ahead. Several attorneys that spoke with Take Two said the courts are having trouble adjusting.
"They say, 'Duh.' They don't know what's going on. It's like deer with headlights on them," said Margolin.
Shevin said on some cases that now have to be retroactively reduced to misdemeanors, there has been "both resistance from the prosecution and the court, and a lack of understanding as to that the law actually allows that, and in fact requires that, to be done."
The Superior Court so far hasn't responded to a request for comment. The L.A. County District Attorney's office declined to comment but provided a copy of guidelines that its employees were to follow while dealing with the legal changes.
There are a few charges that remain felonies — selling to minors, for instance, as well as butane extraction. And there are a few situations where felonies might not be changed into misdemeanors — if someone is a sex offender, for instance, or has a super strike, or has committed a certain crime three times.
For a clear breakdown of what's eligible to be reduced under the current law, check out this chart put together by marijuana activists.
Correction: An earlier version of this story's headline misstated how Prop 64 has affected people who have already been convicted of marijuana-related offenses. KPCC regrets the error.
Porsche Experience Center races into Carson
Porsche. It’s a name synonymous with automotive performance and engineering — and now, here in Southern California, a new Experience Center opening Tuesday in Carson.
The 53-acre, $60 million facility located just off the 405 freeway lives up to its name. It's a place for drivers to learn about all things Porsche, whether it's through direct experience behind the wheel on various tracks that teach handling, acceleration, skid control and off-roading, or inside a 50,000-square-foot space with restaurants, conference rooms, video game racing simulators and a gallery that features cars on loan from the Porsche museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
"Above all, this facility is all about the experience. It's a place for visitors to touch and feel the brand in all its facets," said Klaus Zellmer, president and chief executive officer of Porsche Cars North America. "The simplest, most credible, authentic way to do this is hand over the set of keys for a wonderful sports car and say trust it, drive it, enjoy it."
To experience a Porsche at the new Experience Center in Carson starts at $385 for 90 minutes in a Boxster. Prices increase from there, depending on the vehicle. Available vehicles include the Cayenne, Macan and 911 Carrera S.
California and Porsche have a long history, Zellmer said. It was Southern California race tracks in the late 1940s and 1950s that put Porsche on the map with its 911 predecessor, the 356. Today, one in four Porsches sold in the United States is in California. If California was its own country, it would be the fifth largest market for the brand.
Porsche already operates Experience Centers in Germany, France, England and its North American headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. Next year, it will open yet another in Shanghai, China.
To listen to the audio, click on the blue media player.
Don't you forget about me: How '80s films shaped the teen movie genre
When most people of a certain age think of the '80s, music probably comes to mind first. Groups such as Duran Duran and The Cur shaped the soundtrack to a lot of memories.
However, just as important to the era were the movies. Films like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club" helped define the decade.
It's a time that Kevin Smokler wrote about in his new book "Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to '80s Teen Movies."
Arguably the pied piper of the '80s teen movie is John Hughes. His credits include "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink" and "Weird Science," just to name few.
Smokler spoke with A Martinez and talked about how Hughes was always fascinated with the stories of teen life in America, so much so that he created his own little "Hughes-iverse".
Interview Highlights
Teens move to the forefront
"He was fascinated by the stories of young people as not particularly unique but as this sort of universal phase we all go through in life. And that is really what we have John Hughes to thank for, is moving adolescence to the same place of primacy in the human story as childhood or adulthood."
The "Hughes-iverse"
"To me the 'Hughes-iverse' as Kevin Smith called it, is an obviously white upper middle class, largely, Midwestern suburban universe mostly composed of good kids trying to do the right thing. It is a place of fable not a place of realism. John Hughes was in the business of making fables about teenagers, not documentaries about teenagers...
At its worst, the John Hughes-iverse was very small and myopic and you could not see your own story in there and you wondered, even if you felt like you were leading a typical teenage life when you first saw those movies, why you weren't included."
How did the 1984 Olympics shape teen movies in the era?
"The '84 Olympics has this weird checkered history of being a high point for Los Angeles, depending on who you ask, and being a real symptom of class and race unfairness and prejudice at the same time.
...A disproportionate number of the teen movies that were self-consciously set in Los Angeles at this time are about class divisions, are about kids caught on the wrong side of a slippery wall of money and class that they can't seem to climb over. The obvious examples are movies like "Valley Girl" and "Karate Kid" but also "Pretty in Pink" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Stand and Deliver." It is fascinating to me that...without meaning to or even knowing it, this small sect of movies at the time had a greater insight into what was going on with the citizenry of Los Angeles than the public image Los Angeles projected of itself during the '84 Olympics..."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
The Brood: 5 things families can do to move forward post-election
In the week since the presidential election plenty of families have been asking: What next?
Some are dissatisfied with what happened on a national level and are looking for ways to effect change in whatever way they can.
Others are searching for ways to help heal some of the rifts exposed during the contentious campaign.
How best to meet those goals with your kids?
Psychologist Richard Weissbourd, co-director of the Make Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, offers some advice.
1. Help children develop empathy
Developing empathy is important, especially empathy for people who are different from you. Almost everybody has empathy, the issue is who do they have empathy for? And do they have empathy for people who are different from them in race and culture and class and gender? It's important to widen a child's circle of concern to include those people and many other people who may be invisible to them.
2. Take action instead of remaining passive
In the first couple days after the election, many people were feeling paralyzed and now they are turning to action and wondering what kind of actions they can undertake. Passivity can be very dangerous in the sense that it can really lead to people being anxious and depressed, and it helps a great deal for people to take action. One way is to do service of different kinds, and particularly doing service in diverse groups-- helping your kids enter groups with people who are different from them in race, class and culture, and also people who are different from them politically. The exposure to other political views will help them in creating bridges and having conversations with people who have different views.
3. Make service a higher priority
Encourage your kids to cut back on all the extra-curricular activities and to cut back on all the AP courses, and instead to get involved in service and ethical engagement. I've been involved in this college admissions report that now 150 colleges have signed, and all the Ivy League deans, that encourages high-school students to focus more on meaningful ethical engagement. It's very important for young people to lead more balanced lives and to be involved in achievement, but to also be involved in many kinds of service. There are ways for students to get involved in service within their schools to create more caring and inclusive communities within their own schools, to have conversations across the political divide, or to organize to prevent bullying or sexual harassment in schools.
4. Find ways to do service together as a family
Families may want to work for a political candidate, someone running for Congress in two years. Families can take up a cause together that they really care about-- the environment, or bullying, or refugee children. There are all kinds of organizations where families can volunteer and volunteer productively. Sometimes you can do things from your own home, just by making calls or raising money. Particularly for people who are upset, and feel like people they care about or issues they care about are really at risk, there are a lot of organizations out there that they can tap into.
5. Create space for kids to talk and for parents to listen
There can be a temptation in situations like this to try to over-interpret things or guide our kids when we may want to just start by asking questions about how they're making sense of these different political views and where are they landing and why. And I think it's appropriate to share our political views and our ethical values in the context of those conversations, but we really need to find out where they're at and how they're making sense of all this. So I would advocate for starting with listening. Listening deeply and asking questions and then sorting out with your kids these different views and where you land and where they land.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Mike Watt, Leah Paul and Jefferson Street Parade Band
If you love music, but don't have the time to keep up with what's new, you should listen to Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our critics join our hosts in the studio to talk about what you should be listening to, in one short segment. This week, music journalist
We’ve been through a lot of emotions this past week. With that in mind, today we have music to reflect some of that: First a bit of powerful independent spirit, then some contemplative calm — and finally a parade. Pretty much sums it up.
Artist: Mike Watt
Album: "Ring Spiel Tour ’95"
Songs: "Against the ‘70s," "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing"
If there was a band on tour that featured both Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl you would have known, right? It would have been huge! As hot a ticket as you’d find. Well, there was such a band and such a tour, in 1995, when Vedder was at his peak of fame with Pearl Jam and Grohl was readying the launch of his new band, Foo Fighters, after Nirvana was shattered by the suicide of Kurt Cobain. It didn’t play arenas, but rather clubs. And that hot ticket? Well, the one for a May 6 show at the Metro in Chicago was but a thrifty $18.
A photo of a ticket from that show is on the inside cover of the new CD capturing that concert with revelatory vibrance. The name on the ticket, and on the album cover, is not Vedder or Grohl. It’s Mike Watt. And Mike Watt may have been the only one for whom these guys would serve as sidemen, Vedder playing guitar, Grohl drums and some guitar, both singing a little.
Watt was, and remains, a hero and mentor to rockers with a true indie spirit. He showed the way when he came up to Hollywood from San Pedro in the heady early days of L.A. ‘80s punk with the Minutemen — a trio also shattered by the death, in a car accident, of its dynamic leader D. Boon, but still cherished for its combo of artistry and integrity, its vibrant array of spirited social critiques and commentaries, as visceral as they were poetic.
In subsequent years and bands his leadership, always humble and by example, loomed large over many, even if his own fame was limited. And when in ’95 he made his first solo album, "Ball-Hog or Tugboat," and went on tour to support it, a few of them eagerly joined him. The album was great, eccentric, personal and powerful in the best ways. The tour, as anyone (including this writer) who saw any shows knows, was exhilarating and magnetic, entirely about community and not celebrity. Even when Vedder took the co-lead vocals on the rockin’ "Against the ‘70s," it didn’t seem a star-spotlight turn, but a delightful bit of affectionate teamwork at its best. It was almost as if Watt was intent on sharing the glory, but the others kept pushing the focus on him. It was pretty sweet, really.
Even for us who were there, the album is a glorious epiphany, belated as it may be. Bassist and singer-spieler (the tour’s name commemorated his semi-spoken and sometimes totally spoken approach to vocals) Watt never sounds like anyone other than Watt, a plain-spoken, down-to-earth guy bursting with ideas. Oh, and also a brilliant, forceful bass player. That has continued with several projects, including the Secondmen, a wild, organ-centric alternate, and having held down the bass spot when Iggy Pop reconvened the Stooges. Here he supplements some of the "Ball-hog" material — much of it depicting his own Pedro world — with a few older pieces (the Minutemen’s "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing") and some nicely chosen covers, including Blue Oyster Cult’s "The Red and the Black" followed immediately by Madonna’s "Secret Garden" (both played appreciatively and irony-free).
"Political Song" is one of the album’s emotional centers, a boisterous performance of a core song to him, dedicated to Boon. Ditto for "Drove Up From Pedro," the tale of the Minutemen’s journey. The real core, though, is "Piss-Bottle Man," his tribute to his truck-driving dad, a rousingly affectionate nod to a working man from his working-man son.
Artist: Leah Paul
Album: "We Will Do the Worrying"
Songs: "This One’s Coming True," "The First Move"
There’s probably a great business opportunity for someone who could figure out how to do our worrying for us. L.A. flutist-singer Leah Paul maybe can’t accomplish that feat, but on her new album she offers a little respite from worry. Not that the calm of this music is shallow. Not at all. There’s a sense of probing, exploring of emotions and perspectives throughout the album, embodied in the dreamy float of her and lead singer Afton Hefley’s layered vocals.
Besides, you’d think she’d have plenty worries of her own, what with trying to achieve a deft balance of classical, jazz and art-song aesthetics in her music. But she has done it with such seeming ease that it’s hard to find the seams. The chiming vibes that mark opener "This One’s Coming True" (played by Nick Mancini, lend a jazz atmosphere, but meld into with the chamber-music ensemble that soon joins in, setting the approach that will carry through the album. She manages to avoid the pitfalls often besetting hybrids — there’s no shoehorning of styles, no self-satisfied sense of achievement merely from bringing things together. Rather it’s a natural flow from an artist who seemingly has never considered that there are different styles, but that music is music.
And the ultimate impression is one of open optimism, implicit in the sounds and explicit in many of the titles: "This One’s Coming True," "Beginnings," "Walking Through Light," "The First Move." The last three present the album’s closing sequence, Paul consciously or otherwise concluding on the sense that this is just one little step into new worlds to be tackled. Scary? Nah. No worries.
Artist: Jefferson Street Parade Band
Album: "Viral"
Songs: "Most Annoying Song Ever, Gone Viral," "Austin City Unlimited"
Check out the most annoying song ever. Oh, wait. That’s the title of the song, "The Most Annoying Song Ever, Gone Viral." And it’s not really annoying at all. Sounds more like a circus parade band gone funky. Or a funky parade band gone circusy, which is kind of what this is, this being the Jefferson Street Parade Band. Hailing from that well-known party town of Bloomington, Indiana, JSPB has brought together various brass parade band sounds on its new album, drawing on Jamaican reggae, Latin American festival styles, a little Eastern European blast and, of course, some New Orleans Mardi Gras madness.
The group, 18-members strong under the direction of drummer and sax player Ben Fowler, has become a regional staple at everything from jazz clubs, festivals, tailgate parties and, yes, parades — the latter even with their electric guitar and bass, the amps fitted on the players’ backs, in the "Ghostbusters" mode, they say. Two past albums have shown a range reaching to music from Guinea and Brazil, the new one supplementing its originals with a smooth version of Jamaican production innovator King Tubby’s "Easy Dub" and the traditional Mexican piece "El Cascabel."
But that’s all part of putting a distinct stamp on the very concept of a marching band, and in fact they are set to play during Mardi Gras in New Orleans for the third time in February. With that in mind, the album opens with its most New Orleans-sounding track, even if it’s named for another city, the roiling "Austin City Unlimited." Everybody still loves a parade, right?