Today, President Obama meets with small business owners and middle-class Americans to discuss the fiscal cliff. Then, we look at why freshman Democrats and Republicans are segregated in Congress, How Tijuana kitsch is still alive and well, David Denby of The New Yorker asks "Do The Movies Have A Future," and much more.
Obama meets with small business owners to discuss fiscal cliff
At the White House today, a group of 15 small business owners from the retail, health-care I.T., transportation and construction sectors are meeting with President Obama to discuss their concerns about the fiscal cliff.
Tomorrow he'll talk with middle-class Americans to talk about how a tax increase would affect them.
It's a change in strategy for the White House. During last year's budget negotiations, the President met mostly with lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner.
For more on this we're joined by
of the Wall Street Journal.
In Congress, Democrats and Republicans kept apart from the start
This week, California’s 14 freshman members of Congress are back in Washington for a second week of orientation. But much of the training is segregated, with Democrats on one side of Capitol Hill and Republicans on another.
During morning sessions, the newbies all learn about setting up a website, how to send constituent mail, how to staff an office. But from lunchtime until late into the evening, Democrats and Republicans are separated.
Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa of Redding says, during afternoons with his GOP colleagues, he's witnessed the "hot debate" about conference rules and amendments. "They didn’t take very long to get the verbosity up here," he observed.
Even the meals are segregated. Speaker John Boehner’s fancy dinner for newcomers in Statuary Hall was GOP only; Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held her own party for Democratic freshmen.
Meeting new members from the other side isn’t easy. Member-elect Mark Takano, a Democrat from Riverside, says he's met one Republican. "I don’t remember his name – a guy from Florida who was impressed that I was not a lawyer." He says his being a teacher made an impression with the GOP freshman's wife.
A fellow Democrat, freshman Raul Ruiz of Palm Springs, says he's found a few Republican friends. "I’m really hopeful that we can get a cup of coffee soon." But he declined to name his new GOP pals. "I’d rather not," Ruiz says. "I’m learning the ropes here so I don’t want to get anybody in trouble."
It wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1970s and ‘80s, after Congressional staffers gave freshmen the basics, representatives from Harvard University would come in to present the larger political overview.
Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says new lawmakers -- both Democrats and Republicans -- were then whisked away to colonial Williamsburg where various non-partisan experts gave lectures on politics. But Ornstein says in 1994, "with the Gingrich revolution — the first Republican House in 40 years, a new Republican Senate — we saw a very different orientation. The Heritage Foundation said no more of these namby-pamby orientations. We want one of our own."
The conservative think tank scheduled its briefings at the same time as Harvard’s and most of the GOP freshmen attended the Heritage sessions. Ornstein says from that time on, orientations were political and ideological — part of a larger move, he says, that made politics not just partisan, but tribal. "Whatever they want, we don’t want. And if we mix with them, we may get their cooties."
It’s the bitter partisan atmosphere that pervades Capitol Hill today. And it’s well-in-place for the Congressional class of 2013.
What the Alternative Minimum Tax could mean for the average American
President Obama is focusing on the looming fiscal cliff and how to get Congress to agree on a plan to extend at least some of the Bush-Era tax cuts.
If that effort fails, virtually every American's taxes will increase, and tens of millions of American households will have to use two different formulas for figuring their taxes.
That's because of something called the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT. It was designed to make sure millionaires paid at least some taxes, but if we fall over the cliff, the AMT — which already penalizes many middle class families — will suddenly be a reality for even people of modest income.
Here with the low-down on the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax, KPCC's Matt DeBord.
Plaster piggy banks remain ubiquitous in Tijuana as tourism evolves
Ever since fears of drug violence stemmed the flow of American visitors to Tijuana, the city’s tourism officials have been trying to draw tourists back by promoting its emerging new food, art and culture scenes.
But even as officials tout a newer, hipper Tijuana, vestiges of the city’s older, kitschier tourism economy are still kicking.
Take plaster piggy banks.
Martin Montellano, a souvenir vendor at the border, would like you to consider one as you sit in the long line of cars waiting to get back into the U.S. Ten bucks. Less if you haggle.
He has them in dozens of characters: The latest box office hits like Batman or Spider Man. Mickey Mouse (though he has a kind of creepy gaze). An oversized Tweety Bird. The Virgin Mary, or for the impending holiday season, how about a Santa Claus?
They’re all brightly painted, displayed in neat rows at his merchant’s booth, one among many that line a little traffic island surrounded by the lines of cars. Almost all of the vendors here sell these piggy banks.
“Thirty years, I’ve been selling here,” Montellano said from in front of his post one recent afternoon, as cars idled nearby. “My dad’s been selling them for 60 years right here.”
Indeed, these piggy banks have been a mainstay of Tijuana’s tourist scene for decades. College revelers out for a night of debauchery, families taking weekend trips down the Baja coast. When times were good, and they had a hundred pesos left to blow before crossing back into the U.S., why not buy a piggy bank?
He said he used to sell up to 200 or 300 in a single weekend.
But the violence fears that drove tourists away in the last decade took their toll on piggy bank sales, as they did on all businesses here. Now Montellano said he’s lucky to sell 40.
Still, in the hilly residential neighborhoods that rise above the city’s downtown, piggy bank production is churning.
Behind his home in a working-class neighborhood, Edmundo Gonzalez employs four workers at a piggy bank workshop. They mix plaster and pour it into molds, then shake the mold by hand until the plaster dries. The whole thing takes just a couple of minutes, and they crunch these out by the hundreds.
On a recent afternoon, one worker peeled a mold away to reveal a perfectly formed, white plaster donkey. He carved a coin slot into it, then set it out to dry along with hundreds of other Disney characters, superheroes and baby Jesuses piled in the courtyard or on wooden shelves. Nearby another worker painted the dried ones using a paint gun.
A street vendor can sell one of these piggy banks for as little as two or three dollars and still make a profit on what he paid a wholesale producer like Gonzalez. It’s not a big profit, but Gonzalez says it’s more than they would make if they worked in one of the many foreign manufacturing plants in Tijuana, where you can make less than ten dollars a day.
“That’s why it’s still a good business even though tourism is down,” he said.
In fact, Gonzalez’s daughter has a workshop behind her house next door to his. So do neighbors down the street and in surrounding colonias. Plaster is cheap, so that keeps production costs low. So does a general disregard for Disney and other company trademarks on the characters the Tijuana artisans cast in plaster.
On Fridays and Saturdays, pickup trucks and mini-vans filled with piggy banks descend these hills and producers deliver them to vendors’ booths near the border.
That’s one of the benefits of having so many local plaster artisans, Gonzalez said, even if it drives prices down. A special request can be cast in plaster within days. And stock is easier to replenish quickly.
Other goods for sale near the border – like sombreros and leather sandals, are shipped in from the interior of Mexico. Many of the Aztec print blankets for sale in Tijuana are made in China -- yes, Mexican blankets from China. But plaster piggy banks are produced right here, in Tijuana.
“It’s really something that Tijuana has given to us all,” Gonzalez said. And that’s a contribution he’s proud to be a part of.
Obama to talk trade, immigration with Mexico's president-elect Peña Nieto
Trade between Mexico and the United States is one of the topics that will be discussed today in Washington as Mexico's President Elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, is meeting with President Obama and leaders on Capitol Hill.
It's the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Pena Nieto was elected this summer. His victory marked a return to power for the Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI, the party that ruled Mexcio for seven decades and has been accused of corruption in the past.
Jude Joffe-Block is a reporter the Fronteras Desk, a public radio collaboration in the Southwest that covers border issues. She joins us from Phoenix to discuss the importance of the meeting.
New Music Tuesday: Lana Del Rey, Alicia Keys, Kendrick Lamar and more
Every Tuesday record companies usually release new albums, which means we're joined today by Oliver Wang from soul-sides.com and NPR's music critic Ann Powers to discuss the new music you need to get your hands on.
Albums Mentioned:
Artist: Bobby Bare
Album: Darker Than Light
Artist: Lana Del Rey
Album: Paradise
Artist: Macklemore/Ryan Lewis
Album: The Heist
Artist: Alicia Keys
Album: Girl on Fire
Artist: Kendrick Lamar
Album: Good Kid M.A.A.D. City
Artist: Menahen Street Band
Album: The Crossing
Ethan Chorin's 'Exit The Colonel' looks at Libya's hidden revolutionary history
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, meets with Republican lawmakers today in Washington to discuss her comments about the U.S. Embassy attack in Benghazi.
While the controversy over the administration's handling of the attack continues, Libya itself has nearly disappeared from the headlines. Yet a new crisis may be brewing there.
We speak with Ethan Chorin, who served as a diplomat in Tripoli from 2004-2006 and who's the author of a new book, "Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution."
Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution
'Do The Movies Have A Future' in an increasingly digital world?
It was a record breaking weekend at the box office over the Thanksgiving holiday thanks to blockbuster films like "Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" and the latest James Bond movie "Skyfall." In total, box offices throughout the U.S. brought in more than $290 million.
The big Hollywood studios may be faring well financially now, but what about five or 10 years from now?
New Yorker film critic David Denby is worried about the blockbuster films being made today and the effect they're having on American cinema. His new book is called "Do The Movies Have A Future?"
Interview Highlights:
What do you think is the biggest problem with the movie industry today?
“The companies are totally interested in revenue flow, they have lost any sense of the cultural value of movies, of the kind of unspoken contract they might have with America, to produce some sense of its life, of its streets, of its soul, of its social existence. And so first of all, we are getting all these enormous movies based on comic book material and games and young adult novels that are all digital spectacle, they are not set anywhere in particular, there are a lot of pixels contending in a dead digital space. Those movies cost anywhere from $150 to 250 million and if they fail they threaten to bring the company down… the system is not accommodating its best talents.”
You said the companies have broken their contract with the nation, what do you mean by that?
“Movies were always our national theatre, they always were a central part of our national culture. They no longer are. They have become so bent out of shape that they have become a very minor part of our culture. There are other things going on like the Internet and cable television but there is no reason that there can’t be more movies like the “Social Network” and “Lincoln” that deal with life that matters to us, that has some significance. It has become a very minor form of entertainment; it’s mainly for kids. They have given up on the older audience for about nine months of the year. There is a marvelous season that starts on October 1st where our IQ goes up by 40 points and ends on December 26 and the rest of the time the adults are treated like down trodden workers.”
If this is what makes them the most money, can you blame them?
“Yes, they are tying their survival to the birth rate, not to the entire population. They don’t have to make 250 million dollar movies that threaten to throw the administration down every time, there are two ways out of this box. They can make smaller winners, you know 15 million dollars and grow to 60 and make a whole slate of them every year. Or they can bring down initial costs, instead of letting agents rule the roost in this insane system and get 12 or 14 million dollars for their star clients, they can do what Soderbergh has done with George Clooney a couple time, pay up front a million dollars up front and at the back end as all the revenue comes in, you divide everything by fixed percentages. It would take longer to pay off and the agents wouldn’t like but they would get their cut too at the back end, but it would bring down initial costs by 30 to 40 percent. Soderbergh has done this but unfortunately he hasn’t had a hit so others haven’t seen the logic of this system.”
How does the fact that two-thirds of the audience comes from over seas exacerbate the problem?
“These movies are not for us anymore, they are as much for Mumbai as for Maine, two-thirds comes from over seas so that has led to the movies being defoliated of nuance and local color, of certain kinds of sophisticated dialogue, there is a lot of facetiousness and self mockery but that is about it. In the seventies in the golden age, movies were set in a particular time and place…these were commercial movies that made to make a profit, that was the way they can conceive that audience. There is as much talent as ever, if not more, it’s the business structure that is not rational.”
One section of your book deals with the genre mumblecore, what role do you see this genre playing in this economic climate?
“It means micro budget film making… it may be shot in Seattle or Portland or Chicago…it creates a kind of awkwardness, but it has its truth, but how much though do you want to watch that? Generally we want firmer action and characters than that. Out of this semi improvised quickly made movies we will eventually get something that’s startling. What startled me the most out of more traditional independent films was “Beast of the Southern Wild,” which is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. That was very carefully prepared, it only cost a million dollars but it was very carefully prepared, shot in the bayou of south west of New Orleans and it had a script that went through elaborate development. The problem with mumblecore is they don’t trust writing enough, they think that directing and acting can do everything. The John Cassavetes films from forty years ago is the model, you just have to have a general idea of where a scene is going to go and let the actors find their way. It is very low intensity that is at the moment is not going to draw a theatrical audience. It’s a home media… but the revolution will come sooner or later.”
Which of the most recent movies give you the most hope for the future of movies?
“Steven Spielberg after years of trying got to make his dream project, “Lincoln” with Daniel Day Lewis. It turned out marvelously well. There are great actors and it is a great triumph and I think it is a shoo-in for the Oscar at this point.”
Some US Muslims struggle with alcoholism despite belief that drinking is a sin
He has practiced Islam for as long as he can remember, and Khalid Iqbal – now in his early sixties – has always known that drinking was haraam, or sinful. Even as he tried his first beer.
“Maybe I was 22 or 23 when I was in college," he reminisced. "After one or two years, I started drinking a couple of beers in the evening, or a couple of shots—not every day, but on and off.”
Iqbal is not his real name – for fear of shaming his family, he asked to use an alias in this story. During the 1980s, he says, he moved from northern India to Southern California. Soon he realized that finding and buying alcohol was as easy here as getting food. By 1997, he had a major problem in his hands: He could no longer function without alcohol.
Iqbal and his wife prepared dinner on a recent weeknight and served it on the floor as is their custom, over a plastic mat. His wife offered him a gentle smile and kept quiet as Iqbal spoke candidly about how the pressures of making it in America fostered his depression and alcohol abuse. The holy month of Ramadan was the only time of year he was able to temporarily stop drinking.
“I’d quit for a month or 40 days or 50 days, but as soon as it’d be over again, I’d start," he says. "One time, I quit for almost a year without any help. I had two DUIs, 2000 and 2007. But in my last DUI, when they held me in a cell, and at the time I decided ‘No, this is over’. I’d hit my bottom, and I had to do something.”
He also had to do something about the food store he owned. His drinking problem had led him to make poor decisions, and the shop was going out of business. His college-age son, Shafi, prodded him to face his problems – starting with attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“You know? I always thought of it as a human problem, so it didn’t shock me," explains Shafi. "I’ve always seen that in our community—in many religious communities—there’s things that are said and done in public, and there’s a different reality in private.”
In Islam, going public about one’s drinking is tantamount to denouncing one’s faith. The Qur'an prohibits drinking alcohol – and also making, selling, and keeping it. Violating those rules can result in a lot of shame.
“I think most Muslim communities in the US or in other countries will say that alcohol use is 'haraam',” explains Mona Amer, a psychology professor at the American University of Cairowith who focuses on mental health and substance abuse among Muslims. “Often times the concern of people who are using alcohol or who know other people who are using alcohol, is not the religion prohibition per se, but more of the stigma within the community.”
Amer says little public health research exists on the topic of substance abuse among Muslims. What findings there are point to a trend: Most Muslims who do abuse alcohol start around college age. In workshops Amer has led throughout the U.S., she has found that parents often don’t want to believe that their kids drink. They’re not just ashamed - their mosques are, too.
That’s what led Yassir Fazaga to become a family therapist. He’s also an Imam at the Orange County Islamic Foundation in Mission Viejo. There, he would sometimes hear stories of despair from members of his congregation.
“That is when I felt I was very deficient, and I think that I also felt a bit dishonest," he says, speaking from his office at the mosque, an open Qur'an facing him. "Because it takes a lot within the community for people to come out and say: I have this problem. Imams are very trusted in the community, so what do you do at that point?”
Back then he couldn’t do much, other than listen and point people toward abstinence. Now, he encourages them to face the problem head on, by talking with family and trying rehab and therapy programs. He also makes a point to let alcoholics know that their faith will help in their recovery.
Khalid Iqbal hasn’t had a drink for more than five years. He says the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, which has roots in Christianity and the Bible, has worked for him. He says he doesn’t mind that, at all.
“Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t talk about religion—it started that way, but they say, you have to have some kind of faith," he says. "That 'supreme power' can come from anywhere. I’m a religious person from the beginning, so I have faith in God, so for me it was not hard to go back and practice on that.”
Iqbal says his experience with alcoholism has drawn him closer to his faith, and to fellow Muslims who need help fighting alcohol abuse.
For them, there’s something called “Millati Islami”—a newer 12-step program, like AA, but rooted in the Qur'an. Almost a quarter-century ago, Muslims established it in Baltimore. But so far, it hasn’t taken root in Southern California.
Patt Morrison on LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's political future
With the Presidential election over, focus is turning to whom President Obama will choose for his second term cabinet. Here in Los Angeles, eyes are on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and what he will choose to do next.
Villaraigosa’s term as Mayor of Los Angeles will come to a close in seven months, and he will have some big decisions to make. It could be another step in his political career, either with a position on the President’s cabinet, possibly as Transportation secretary, or DNC chair. But he also could decide to go the private route, either getting a think tank or a corporate job.
However, he will need to choose carefully if he wants to keep the possibility of Governor of California in his future.
KPCC’s Pat Morrison talked to Fernando Guerra, head of the Center for Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, about what it would mean if Villaraigosa gave up his position as an executive in charge to become a functionary for President Obama’s agenda.
“Being a secretary you are not completely autonomous, you are going to have to follow the President’s agenda, and that might sometimes go against the State of California,” said Guerra. “It might be that high-speed rail regarding transportation, and that might not benefit him. So if he wants to remain viable as a statewide candidate he needs to remain autonomous.”
Villaraigosa has confided in both Morrison and Guerra that he might prefer to take a break from political life by taking up a job in the private sector before he commits to a decision about what move he wants to make in the future.
With the option of cabinet member or DNC chair available to him, a hiatus from the public eye could be a smart move for him. However, as Guerra points out, “There is always a risk because when you are out of sight you are out of mind, and for a public figure that is very dangerous.”
Considering his future in the political scene, there is the question of how the affair he had a few years ago might affect his political legacy. However, as with other high profile political figures with public scandals, such as President Clinton and General Petraeus, people often place less importance on a figure’s poor decisions as time goes on. Because the scandal was so local, Morrison says, “nationally it may not hurt him as much as it has here in Los Angeles with some voters.”
When looking forward to Villaraigosa’s future, it’s hard not to look to at his past. In 2009 on the cover of Los Angeles magazine, there was a photograph of Mayor Villaraigosa with the caption “FAILURE: So much promise, so much disappointment.” As the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in modern times, Villaraigosa is often compared to Tom Bradley, the city’s first African-American mayor, and most often these comparisons are negative.
This is because, as the caption on the magazine cover points out, Villaraigosa has many great ideas, but not as much follow through. But Morrison contends that not all of the criticisms of Villaraigosa are true.
“He is the guy who got the city’s big transit project going. And these are projects that have been under discussion since Bradley was the mayor,” said Morrison. “Bradley was elected mayor five times, that’s one of the reasons we have term limits, and by the end of his 20 years he, too, was getting criticized for things, including just phoning it in. Bradley did what Douglas MacArthur said he would do, just fade away out of a public role, and whatever Villaraigosa does next, I can guarantee you he is not going to do that.”
China plans to erect world's tallest building in just 90 days
Dubai in United Arab Emirates is home to the tallest building in the world. Named the Burj Khalifa, the skyscraper stand 2,722-feet tall and took five years to build.
However, early next year, a company in China plans to top that by building an even bigger structure in just 90 days.
If all goes to plan, the building, called Sky City, will have a school, a hospital, businesses and apartments for 30,000 people. It'll also be earthquake resistant and highly efficient.
Here to tell us more about Sky City is Edward Lifson, a cultural critic and senior lecturer at the USC School of Architecture.