Preventing shootings related to gang activity, Ellen Page on her role in 'Freeheld,' a sneak preview at the reopening of Clifton's.
Peeple, Yelp for humans: App for 'horrible people'
Maybe you've written a review for a restaurant or hotel you loved - or hated. Well, now you can do that for your friend - or enemy.
There's a new app, dubbed "Yelp for humans." It's called Peeple, and it's set to launch later this year.
What could possibly go wrong?
Despite its controversial purpose, the app has managed to secure funding from several Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Shares of the company are currently valued at about $7.6 million dollars.
Ashley Esqueda, the host of CNet’s Tomorrow Daily, stopped by Take Two to explain how it works.
“Let’s say you have a friend who had a terrible experience with an ex-boyfriend and they go on to Peeple,” she says. “Even if the ex-boyfriend doesn’t have a profile, they can write up a terrible review of them and say ‘this guy is a cheating jerk and I hate him and he wronged me,’ and they can submit that to Peeple.”
And therein lies the rub, says Esqueda. Even if hypothetical “ex-boyfriend” didn’t opt-in, the negative review will be out there for the world to see.
“And there isn’t really a way to opt-out either, “ she says.
So, who would use this kind of service? Esqueda says, probably not the type of people you want to be friends with.
“This seems like an app for absolutely horrible people,” she says. “This particular app -- it just seems like a really good vehicle for bullying people … This really seems like an app designed to make people feel awful.”
The app will come with a handful of features aimed at preventing slander and bullying. Users will have needed to be on Facebook for six months. Once you become a user, you’re given the ability to dispute negative reviews before they’re posted. Esqueda says these "protections" won’t do much, though.
“If I’m in for the long revenge -- the long game -- I could go on and make a profile that says ‘Mary Smith,’ and ostensibly -- six months later -- start writing bad reviews about people that I don’t like anonymously,” she says.
Press the blue play button above to hear more.
Would you use the Peeple app? Tweet your thoughts
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The Wheel Thing: Can Tesla and Honda help us forget VW?
In the two weeks since its jaw-dropping admission of an elaborate emissions cheat, Volkswagen has fired executives, installed new ones who promise to clean up the carmaker's act, and become the target of more class action suits than can be counted.
The Wheel Thing doyenne, motor critic
, has the latest on VWgate, tempered with some good news for fans of green cars that are fun to drive. Tesla's crossover SUX is - finally - here, and Honda has hopped up its venerable Civic with a new turbocharged power plant that's amazingly clean without losing its punch.
Does the new Clifton's Cafeteria have any of the old charm?
If you took a trip back to Los Angeles in 1935 you'd be privy to a couple of things. Benny Goodman would be launching the swing era at the Palomar Theatre. And in downtown on Broadway, Clifford Clinton was opening one of his cafeterias.
"In 1935 Broadway was absolutely the backbone of Southern California’s Entertainment industry. And Shopping. And then Clifton's was there," says
, Take Two regular and an expert on L.A. history. "You’d walk into Clifton's and all of the sudden you’d be in the Redwood Forest. That’s why they called it Clifton’s Brookdale Lodge."
The restaurant was designed to look like the Brookdale Lodge in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was kitschy, but charming. There were murals of trees on the walls, taxidermied animals and a little chapel in the corner of the main room:
"When you walk in the front door, look up to your right and up kind of on the second floor… is this little tiny structure with a pointed roof on it," explains Phoenix. "And you can walk up the stairs and go in there. There’s room for one and a half people. You sit down on the little bench, which is like kind of has morphed out of the rock. You see through this glass window like these plastic plants that have been there since about probably 1957, which is the last time I think Clifton's had any sort of a remodel at all. And you push a button and you hear this…"
Phoenix says, "I do believe that Clifford Clinton was a very religious man... In fact he was a missionary. And I mean this is just part of his missionary efforts."
Clifton’s inspired people like Ray Bradbury and Walt Disney who went there for the ambiance and for the food, but Clifford Clinton made sure that anyone could afford a meal at his restaurant. There were always affordable birthday cakes, Jell-O and a meat carving station that was part of serving Thanksgiving year round. Because goal wasn’t just to nourish your soul, but your stomach too… affordably of course.
In 2011 Clifton's shut down. Bought by developer Andrew Meieran a year earlier, the hope was that it would only be closed for a few months.
Five years later it's finally opening.
"I’ve often tried to figure out the moment that I made the decision that I had to purchase Clifton's," says Andrew while standing in the foyer of the renovated restaurant. "It comes down to a moment when I walked in… where I felt that it was a flickering and fading part of L.A.’s history. And I recognized that it needed to be saved."
So, is any of the old charm still there?
Starting on the first floor, there are still the murals on the walls and the pillars made to look like redwoods. The chapel still stands in the corner. And the brightly lit cafeteria is serving food.
The first floor largely looks the same as it used to, but things get noticeably more modern as you walk up the stairs where there's a working old-timey soda fountain, a bar and a giant three story replica of a redwood tree.
Follow the tree upwards and you’ll find a different experience on each floor:
There’s a gothic bar and private seating on the third.
On the fourth they’ll have a higher end restaurant and another bar, a tiki bar and something called the map room. Whereas the old Clifton's didn't serve alcohol, this one has countless places to drink.
But what about the food?
"One of the things that we did initially was to get rid of not natural ingredients," says Andrew. "And when I say not natural, I mean sauces that look like they were radioactive that look like they came out of years and years of what was institutional style of cooking from that era."
Don’t worry, they’re still going to be serving Jell-O, birthday cakes and Thanksgiving year round.
But the number one question I got when I told people that we were doing this piece was "Is it going to still be affordable?"
Andrew says yes, but was a little vague on the details.
They’ll have affordable options like their daily blue plate specials which are priced out to about 10 bucks.
"They are across the board from Savory pies to fried chicken to pasta dishes… they change regularly and they’re going to be based upon seasonal availability and different market factors."
Andrew says that they’re working with the community, hiring people through local charities and giving out meal vouchers too, but the days of the 25 cent coffee are gone.
How will the new Clifton's fit into the changing downtown L.A. scene?
Not sure, but you can check it out yourself because it's now open.
Let us know your thoughts.
To hear the story that A Martinez put together about the history of the old Clifton's and what the new one is like, click on the audio at the top of this post.
Ellen Page fights for gay rights in new film 'Freeheld'
The new film "Freeheld" tells the true story of Laurel Hester and Stacie Andree, two lesbians who met and fell in love.
For a while they lived a happy life right up until Laurel finds out she has lung cancer. After finding out, she wants nothing more than to leave her pension to Stacie. The movie depicts their struggles and their fight for equality.
Lab Notes: TV and social change, kids eating habits, plastic-eating worm
On this edition of Lab Notes, KPCC science reporter
shares the latest weird and wacky news from the world of science, including:
- A new study exploring the effectiveness of TV "special programming"
- New insight into getting kids to eat their veggies
- A worm that eats plastic
State of Affairs: Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, and the 'juiciest' job in Sacramento
On this week's State of Affairs, what the relationship (or lack therof) between House majority leader Kevin McCarthy and minority leader Nancy Pelosi could mean for California, and the 'juiciest' job in Sacramento.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Los Angeles Times reporter Noah Bierman
- CALmatters reporter Laurel Rosenhall
A new LGBT center opens in Boyle Heights
A new LGBT center opens up in Boyle Heights this month – Mi Centro (533 S. Clarence St.). It's designed to cater to Latinos who live in the neighborhood but also be easier to get to than other options.
Alfred Fraijo, who helped secure the building, grew up in Boyle Heights and found it hard to travel to places like the Los Angeles LGBT Center in Hollywood or Bienestar in East Los Angeles.
"I didn't have a car. I had to ask my parents to take me," he says. "Here, we have a lot of folks who live just in walking distance of the center."
The creation of Mi Centro is also a sign that many LGBT people don't just live in predominantly gay neighborhoods – or gayborhoods – like West Hollywood. The Pasadena Pride Center, for example, recently opened up to be a resource for people in the San Gabriel Valley.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Latino Equality Alliance collaborated to open Mi Centro as an outpost in Boyle Heights.
Alliance co-founder Ari Gutiérrez Arámbula says a brick-and-mortar spot will also help change the views that some local Latinos have about LGBT people.
"In popular culture in the Spanish language realm it was negative," she says. "But in English we had TV shows: we had Ellen [Degeneres] coming out, we had TV shows like Will and Grace so it kind of starts to permeate through the culture."
Mi Centro plans to be interact with the community face-to-face through the many resources it will offer: it will host events, offering meeting spaces, provide immigration legal help, organize support groups and more.
Larissa MacFarquhar's 'Strangers Drowning' examines mankind's do-gooders
The innate desire to help others strikes some people especially hard. It can manifest itself in all sorts of ways, and though we often refer to such people as do-gooders, what they do isn't always good for themselves or for others.
It's all part of a fascinating phenomenon writer Larissa MacFarquhar explores in her new book,
"Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices and the Overpowering Urge to Help."
MacFarquhar joined host Alex Cohen with more.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above. You can also read an excerpt from 'Strangers Drowning' below.