On Tuesday, Take Two discusses NBA's new deal with ESPN and Turner Sports. Then, we'll talk to Theater of War Productions artistic director about his experience translating plays from ancient Greek. Finally, we'll look at UC Davis opened a AB540 and Undocumented Student Center.
Colorado's marijuana industry seeks legitimacy with help from tech world
It’s been only 10 months since recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado, but there’s already a huge movement to create legitimate businesses involving the drug.
This is no easy task, due to the pot industry being a traditionally underground endeavor. But BBC reporter Kim Gittleson traveled to Colorado to find out how the tech industry can help.
Read the full story: Looking for the Facebook of the pot industry
What's driving Neel Kashkari's uphill battle for governorship
Republican Neel Kashkari's bid for governor was always going to be an uphill battle, but now two polls have him running way behind Democratic incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown, and one survey found that just a quarter of likely voters could even identify Kashkari as a candidate.
So what's driving Kashkari to press ahead?
The former banker says he wants to win in November. But he may have an ulterior motive: He wants to transform the state's Republican Party, and a high-profile campaign — even a losing one — could provide him with the pulpit to do so, reports KPCC's Alice Walton.
Read the full story: Neel Kashkari's bid for governor challenges Jerry Brown and the Republican Party
Cost of living surpasses wage increases
Vice President Joe Biden is in Los Angeles today. On his agenda is a sit-down with Mayor Eric Garcetti to talk about raising California's minimum wage from $9 an hour.
But what about people in other income brackets? Have they been struggling to get by with less since the end of the recession?
"We're ahead, "says economist Chris Thornberg, "but at the same time, the cost of living has increased pretty sharply in the area."
Thornberg says spiking housing costs have eaten into many of the economic gains that were lost since the recession, and that's true mostly for the lower- and middle-income workers throughout Southern California.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Broods and Tove Lo
In this edition of Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly new music segment,
— music editor at Billboard Magazine — spoke to Alex Cohen ibout some fantastic new female acts, starting with a New Zealand act called Broods.
Shirley Halperin
Artist: Broods
Album: "Evergreen"
Songs: “Mother & Father,” “Bridges”
Summary: Let's start off with the brother-sister duo called Broods. They come from New Zealand and you can hear in their sound a cue to a fellow Kiwi by the stage name of... Lorde.
That’s no coincidence — Broods, who are where siblings Caleb and Georgia Nott (22 and 20), share a producer with Lorde, Joel Little, who helmed her breakthrough album "Pure Heroine" and of course the song “Royals.”
With Broods, you can see a similar path to cross the Pacific and make a mark here in the U.S.
Now those who were at Sam Smith’s shows at the Greek Theater last week, and got there early enough to catch the opener, may have seen Broods’ understated, monochromatic set. I was there and definitely noticed the ebb and flow between these two twentysomethings – how Caleb stays to the left side surrounded by keyboards, computers and effects almost like it's a protective force while Georgia slinks and twitches nearby free as a butterfly.
They sounded and looked great and it’s no wonder a major label like Capitol Records would scoop them up and put them on the road with one of their more high profile artists.
Artist: Tove Lo
Album: "Queen of the Clouds"
Songs: “Habits (Stay High),” “Timebomb”
Summary: Tove Lo's another international young talent, but she's from Sweden.
Lo's been building buzz gradually over the last year or so largely due to the song “Habits,” which you may recognize.
Tove Lo joins a slew of female artists currently ascending the charts, including Ariana Grande and Jessie J, who we talked about a few weeks ago, Meghan Trainor, who’s #1 this week with “All About That Bass.” Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora, each of which have something unique to offer — Ariana has that chirpy falsetto, Rita can belt, Iggy can rap.
What Tove Lo offers to the world is borderline NSFW lyrics and highly suggestive sexual themes. In other words, this is not an album you want to sing along to with young children in the backseat.
I’ll give you an example from the clean version of the album, the song – ahem - “Like Em Young” where Tove sings, “Hey girl, why you judging me when your guy’s turning 53.”
And the opening introduction to the album is simply called “The Sex.”
But musically, Tove Lo twists and turns in so many unexpected ways that it makes her even harder to define. Take a listen, for instance, to the song “Timebomb” and the way she flows.
'A Deadly Wandering' explores the dangers of technology's influence on the human mind
Eight years ago, a college student named Reggie Shaw was driving on a stretch of highway bordering the Rocky Mountains in Utah.
Shortly after sending a text, Shaw swerved his car, crossed the center divide and caused an accident that left two rocket scientists dead.
That tragic incident spurred Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Richtel to take an in-depth look at Reggie Shaw's story and at what technology is doing to us as a society.
The result of his investigation is a riveting new book called "A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention."
Richtel says that when the accident occurred back in 2006, there was a lot that we didn't know about the dangers of texting and driving.
Not a lot of research had been done at that point and, Richtel notes, the context was that "the cell phone began as the car phone. It was glorified that you could talk in the one place you'd never been able to do so [before]."
Today, people are much more aware about the dangers of texting while driving. "Ninety-six percent of people will tell you, 'You should not text and drive,'" Richtel says.
The question he set out to answer in this book was, "How come we're all doing it anyway?"
The answer, he found, lies in the powerful impact that technology can have on the human mind.
EXCERPT from "A Deadly Wandering":
Prologue
Are you comfortable, Reggie?”
“Yep.”
Reggie Shaw lies on a medical bed, his head inches from entering the mouth of a smooth white tube, an MRI machine. He’s comfortable, but nervous. He doesn’t love the idea of people peering into his brain.
Next to the machine stands a radiology technician in blue scrubs, her hair pulled tightly into a bun. She scans the room to make sure there are no errant pieces of metal. The MRI, with sixty thousand times the strength of the earth’s magnetic force, is a kind of irresistible magnet. A small pair of scissors, if accidentally left out, could be sucked across the room into the tube at forty miles an hour.
Reggie, twenty-six, has removed his clothes and left outside his keys, and the iPhone he keeps so regularly in his left front pocket it leaves a faint outline on the jeans. With his head at the edge of the machine, he wonders whether the permanent retainer on his bottom teeth, the product of a particularly nasty clash in a recreational football game in high school, could get yanked through his head. The technician, Melody Johnson, assures Reggie he’ll be okay.
She walks to the left of the machine and from a table lifts an odd-looking helmet, a cross between something that might be worn by an astronaut and Hannibal Lecter.
“I’m going to place this over your head.” She fits the white helmet over Reggie’s face, clipping the sides down to the bed. Inside the helmet, there’s a small mirror. Images can be projected into it in such a way that Reggie, lying flat on his back, stuffed in the tube, will be able to see them.
The hum of the whirring machinery is so loud that Reggie wears earplugs. The MRI works by sending massive amounts of magnetic energy into the person’s body. This excites hydrogen atoms, which are in heavy concentrations in water and fat. As the atoms begin to settle back down from their briefly excited state, they give off a radio frequency, not unlike that of an FM station. Then the computer picks up the signal and translates it into physical images—a map, or topography, of the inside of the body. The technology isn’t great for looking at hard structures, like bone, but it’s extraordinary at imaging soft tissue, like organs. It’s an unprecedented tool for looking at the brain.
When Reggie was little, he dreamed he’d play college basketball, or maybe coach. He’d have a family, for sure, but not just for its own sake; jock though he might have been, he was a romantic who wanted to fall in love, and to be in love. He hoped most of all to go on a Mormon mission. Then, one rainy morning in September 2006, while Reggie was driving to work on a mountain pass, life took a tragic, deadly turn. There was an accident, or so it seemed. Maybe it was just a moment of inattention, or something more insidious. Exactly what happened that last day of summer was not yet clear.
Two men were dead, leaving behind extraordinary grief—and a mystery. The case attracted a handful of dogged investigators, including a headstrong Utah State Trooper. He became convinced that Reggie had caused the wreck because he’d been distracted by his cell phone, maybe texting. He pursued a stubborn probe, a lonely one at first, looking for evidence and proof of Reggie’s wrongdoing, but discovering only one obstacle after another. And, later, there was a victim’s advocate, a woman named Terryl Warner. She had survived a terrible childhood, one that toughened her and forged an uncompromising sense of duty she used to pursue justice for the crash’s victims.
For his part, Reggie claimed not to remember what caused the crash. Then, as the evidence emerged, Reggie denied it, deceived himself, and was reinforced in his denial and deception by his most loving friends and family. Some members of the community, while sympathetic to the victims, couldn’t understand the fuss. So what if he’d looked at his phone, or texted—haven’t we all been distracted behind the wheel? Who knew that was so wrong? The law was no help: Nobody in Utah had ever been charged with such a crime.
The accident became a catalyst. It spun together perspectives, philosophies, and lives—those of Reggie and his advocates, and Terryl and the other pursuers, including, ultimately, prosecutors, legislators, and top scientists. It forced people to confront their own truths, decades-old events, and secrets that helped mold them and their reactions—in some cases conflicted and in others overpowering—to this modern tragedy.
And this maelstrom of forces left behind a stark reality. The tragedy was the product of a powerful dynamic, one that elite scientists have been scrambling to understand, even as it is intensifying. It is a clash between technology and the human brain.
Broadly, technology is an outgrowth of the human mind. It is an extraordinary expression of innovation and potential. Modern-day machines serve us as virtual slaves and productivity tools. The value of such technology is inarguable in every facet of life—from national security and medicine to the most basic and intimate, like the way far-flung family and friends are nurtured and connected through miniature, ubiquitous phones; email that travels thousands of miles in seconds; or Skype and FaceTime. Fundamentally, the extraordinary pace at which consumers adopt these programs and gadgets is not the product of marketing gimmicks or their cool factor but because of their extraordinary utility. They serve deep social cravings and needs.
At the same time, such technology—from the television to the computer and phone—can put pressure on the brain by presenting it with more information, and of a type of information, that makes it hard for us to keep up. That is particularly true of interactive electronics, delivering highly relevant, stimulating social content, and with increasing speed. The onslaught taxes our ability to attend, to pay attention, arguably among the most important, powerful, and uniquely human of our gifts.
As Reggie’s story unfolded, it illuminated and contributed to a thread of science dating to the 1850s, when scientists began to measure the capacities of the human brain—how we process information, how quickly, and how much of it. Prior to that time, the conventional wisdom was that people could react instantly. The idea was that the human brain was “infinite.” Machines began to change that thinking. Compared to, say, guns or trains or the telegraph, people’s reaction times didn’t seem so instant. Technology was making us look slow. But it was also allowing scientists to study the brain, creating an interesting trade-off; machines highlighted the limitations of the brain, threatened to stress our processing power and reaction time to the breaking point, but they also allowed scientists to understand and measure this dynamic.
Then, around World War II, modern attention science was born, also prompted by people’s relationships to technology. A generation of pioneering researchers tried to figure out how much technology pilots could handle in the cockpit, and tried to measure when they became overloaded, and why. Or why radar operators, looking at cutting-edge computer displays, were sometimes unable to keep up with the blips that showed Nazi planes.
In the second half of the twentieth century, high tech moved from the military and government to the consumer. First came radio, and then television (the demand for it growing explosively from 3.6 million sold in the United States in 1949 to an average of three per American home in 2010). Computers followed; the first mouse pioneered in the early 1960s, the personal computer a decade later. By the 1980s, the commercial mobile phone exceeded by orders of magnitude the capability of the world’s greatest military computer in World War II. And within a few years, it would be right there in the pocket.
The developments were swift, the acceleration described by Moore’s law, which, in essence, talks of computer processing power doubling every two years. There was something else, a principle less celebrated than Moore’s law but of equal significance when it comes to understanding what is happening to the human brain. The axiom is called Metcalfe’s law. It was codified in the early 1990s, and it defines the power of a computer network by the number of people using it.
More people, more communication, more value.
More pressure.
As networks became more populated and powerful, they added a huge wrinkle in the demand for attention by turning computers into personal communication devices. The technology was delivering not just data but information from friends and relatives—communications that could signal a business opportunity or a threat, an overture from a mate or a potential one. As such, the devices tapped into deep human needs—with increasing speed and interactivity. It was not just pure social communications, but video games, news, even shopping and consumption, a powerful, personalized electrical current connecting all of us, all of the time. This was the marriage of Moore and Metcalfe—the coming together of processing power and personal communications—our gadgets becoming faster and more intimate. They weren’t just demanding attention but had become so compelling as to be addictive.
The modern attention researchers, walking a path laid down by their forebears 150 years earlier, asked a new question: Was technology no longer the slave, but the master? Was it overtaking our powers of attention? How could we take them back? It wasn’t just a question of life-or-death stuff, like the stakes for pilots in World War II. Now there were subtler tensions, the concept that nips and cuts at attention in the cubicle can take a persistent and low-grade toll on productivity, or in schools on focus, or at home on communication between lovers and parents and children. Would it hinder memory and learning rather than enhance it?
Past technological advances, from the printing press to the radio and television, had invited questions about their unintended consequences and possible negative side effects. But many scholars agreed that these latest breakthroughs, taking full form only in the last decade, marked a difference in our lives in orders of magnitude.
Technology was exploding in complexity and capability. How could we keep up?
Reggie Shaw could not—keep up. He could not conceive of the larger dynamic, even the crisis, that had enveloped him. So maybe it’s no wonder he couldn’t grasp what had happened; perhaps this confusion prompted him to deceive himself and lie to others. Or was he less innocent than he was letting on? In any case, after being pressed by science and common sense, he no longer could keep the truth at bay and he recognized what he’d done, and he changed, completely. He became the unlikeliest of evangelists, a symbol of reckoning. And he began to transform the world with him. Broadly, his story, and that of others around him, became an era-defining lesson in how people can awaken from tragedy, confront reality, address even smaller daily dissonance, and use their experiences to make life better for themselves and the people around them. And their journey showed how we might come to terms with the mixed blessing of technology. For all the gifts of computer technology, if its power goes underappreciated, it can hijack the brain.
Along the way, Reggie’s defenders and antagonists alike came to see themselves in the young man, a projection of how they would’ve handled themselves, or should. His attention, ours, is so fragile. What happened to him could happen to anyone, couldn’t it? Does that make him, or us, evil, ignorant, naive, or just human?
Is his brain any different from ours?
Ms. Johnson, the technician, hands Reggie two little plastic devices, gray, looking like primitive video game joysticks. She tells him that the gadgets have buttons he’ll be asked to press when certain images appear in the mirror. They’re going to see what Reggie’s brain looks like when he tries to pay attention.
“I’m going to put you in slowly, Reggie,” says Ms. Johnson. “Is that okay?”
Reggie clears his throat, a sign of his assent, an exhalation of nerves. He disappears into the tube.
New NBA TV deal is a cash injection for league and players
The NBA announced yesterday a new TV deal with ESPN-ABC and Turner Sports. With two seasons to go under it's current television contract, the new contract will run for an extra nine years and is worth more than $2.6 billion a year.
That nearly triples what the NBA currently makes off of TV and digital rights.
Howard Beck, NBA National Columnist for the Bleacher Report, joins Take Two to talk about what this cash injection means for the companies and fans.
California drought: Dust contributes to snow pack melt, says JPL scientist
When you think of melting snow pack, climate change may come to mind — but dust... maybe not so much. One scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory says dust can actually have a huge impact on how quickly our snow pack melts, which poses a big problem for California’s drought.
JPL snow hydrologist Tom Painter has studied the effects of dust on snow pack for about 10 years. He’s found that when dust gets into snow, it tends to absorb sunlight better than snow without dust.
He says the phenomenon is akin to a white car sitting in the sun versus a black car: The white car is not going to absorb as much of sunlight as the black car would. Even small amounts of dust can have the same effect on snow, Painter says.
Painter’s decade-long study has taken place in the Colorado River Basin. So far, results have found dust causes snow pack to melt away between one and two months earlier. This poses a problem for water management and reservoir operations, Painter says.
“It’s like if you turned on your sink at home, and all of the month’s worth of water supply came rushing out all at one time. It’s a lot more difficult to manage and hold on to,” Painter says.
Most of the dust in our snow pack comes from the central valley, Painter says. But, other sources include the east side of Sierras and even transported from Asia.
Lake of the Woods relies on neighbors to ease drought
Back in February, California identified the mountain community Lake of the Woods as one of 17 California communities that could run out of water within four months.
It has since been taken off that list, but the town remains vulnerable to the drought.
Lake of the Woods headed off that fate by bringing water in from the Lebec County Water District – at significant cost, reports KPCC's Molly Peterson.
Read the full story: Local town relies on neighbors to ease ongoing water shortage
LA votes today on keeping a controversial program that deports immigrants
Los Angeles County supervisors plan to vote today on whether to renew a controversial program that screens for immigrants who could be deported.
It's called 287(g), and how it works is the Sheriff's Department teams up with federal immigration officials. Then local deputies are charged with checking the immigration status of inmates.
People who are here legally but not citizens can be deported, as well as those who've entered the country illegally.
Some localities have dropped the program. LA would be one of only two counties in the state to keep it going if the supervisors vote to renew it.
Plus, immigration advocates say it encourages deportations which separate families. Meanwhile some law enforcement officials don't like it, either, because they say it damages relationships with immigrant communities as well as opens themselves up to lawsuits.
Southern California Public Radio's immigration reporter Leslie Berestein Rojas explains that one of the incentives for LA to use the program has been a small chunk of change that the county can receive eventually.
Read the full story: Why LA County might stick with 287(g), a little-used immigration enforcement program
UC Davis opens center for undocumented students
UC Davis began the school year last week with a new a resource center for undocumented students.
The AB540 and Undocumented Student Center is the first office of its kind for the University of California system. Andrea Gaytan, the new director of the center, says it's designed to serve as a safe space for the 230 undocumented students on the UC Davis campus this year.
The tragic story behind Prop 46, what the measure aims to accomplish
This November, California voters will have to decide whether or not to pass Proposition 46, a measure that backers say is all about patient safety.
But, as April Dembosky reports, it's a confusing measure inspired by a tragic accident that left two children dead more than a decade ago.
Read the full story: Proposition 46: A Complicated Solution Arising from Tragedy
Could climate change affect your coffee habits?
A dry season in Brazil is leading to less coffee bean production, and yes, that means the cost of your next cup of Joe could be increasing.
The price of Arabica coffee bean has gone up to the highest it has been in more than two-and-a-half years, according to the Financial Times. Climate change could also be causing more pests, such as the berry borer beetle, and disease to hit coffee crops.
But before the panic sets in, take a look at the broader picture, says Chuck Jones, owner of Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena.
The crops and pricing are cyclical, he says.
"I wouldn't be too worried about [price changes] because a lot of spectators like to shake up the market a little bit, especially with weather news from Brazil," says Jones, who grows coffee in Guatemala.
Buyers generally buffer their prices to prevent effects from immediate pricing changes, but you may notice a little difference in price of commercial coffees.
Growers, on the other hand, are always struggling, Jones said.
"In all of the systems that are surrounding the production of coffee, I feel like growers are always at the bottom of the chain," Jones said. "I never feel like [growers] get a leg up. I think it helps when we work more with direct trade coffee and we know that our roasters are paying fair prices for the coffee, but the struggle is always there."
Performances of Greek tragedies help heal the invisible wounds of war
Sophocles's "Ajax" is the story of a soldier who returns from war suffering from an unseen wound.
While the ancient Greek drama is thousands of years old, the themes have proved an effective way to address the costs of war for military veterans today.
Theater of War Productions translates plays from ancient Greek and performs them for service members across the country.
Bryan Doerries, the artistic director for Theater of War Productions, says the performances are designed "as a catalyst for getting [veterans and their families] to speak openly about some of the timeless experiences of war — what we now call post-traumatic stress, alcohol and substance abuse, suicidal ideation, survivor's guilt, the impact of war on families."
The idea first came to him back in 2008, Doerries says. He personally didn't know anyone in the military, but reading stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that "seemed like they could have been ripped from the pages of Sophocles" gave him an idea.
"I had this hunch that if I could put these ancient Greek war plays in front of audiences that had lived the experiences they described, something powerful could happen," Doerries says. "Hopefully something healing would occur."
The response, Doerries says, was more personal than he could have imagined. Doerries described the reaction from the first performance that was done for a room of 400 Marines in San Diego.
"[One woman] stood up and she said, 'Hello, I'm the proud mother of a Marine and the wife of a Navy SEAL. My husband went away four times to war — each time he came back, just like Ajax, dragging invisible bodies into our house. And to quote from the play, our home is a slaughter house,'" Doerries said.
While the plays may not be the kind of therapy sought by everyone, Doerries says they do open the door for conversations that may not have happened otherwise.
"Many people feel ashamed. They feel it's a career-ending gesture, especially in the military, to admit that they're struggling with an invisible wound," Doerries says. "So the purpose of what we do is to give voice to that and to give a communal experience where people can see ... that they are not alone. Not alone in the room, not alone across the country, and the world — and most importantly, not alone across time."
A list of upcoming "Theater of War" performances is available here.
"Theater of War" is featured in this month's issue of Harper's Magazine.
Food on their mind, backpackers make their way into Canada after five-month trek
Right now, backpackers are crossing into Canada after five months of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. These "thru-hikers" started the trail in Mexico, and have traversed 2,650 miles. It can be grueling for hikers. Their toenails fall off, and their feet can swell whole shoe sizes. They say the only thing they talk about more than their feet is food.
For California Reports' ongoing series "California Foodways," Lisa Morehouse visits a makeshift cafe on the Sonora Pass section of the trail, where hikers indulge in the first fresh fruit and sweet treats they've had in weeks,
Read the full story: Pacific Crest Trail Hikers Find Refuge at the Sonora Pass Cafe