On Tuesday, Take Two discusses Internet etiquette, how a mental health organization is bringing help to northern Iraq, a new program to help divert youths from extremism, an FBI investigation into leaked celebrity nude photos and why Coachella Valley High School retired its mascot.
Los Angeles Muslim group seeks resources to identify, aid troubled youth
The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Los Angeles-based Muslim civil rights organization, wants to introduce an intervention program to divert young American Muslims away from violent extremism.
The initiative is the first of its kind in the United States.
“The propensity for [the program] is higher now than before,” said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He cited the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, new bloodshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “U.S. policies that lead to the suffering of Muslims" as reasons for why some youth would be drawn to extremism.
The bottled water industry and California's drought
Some California communities are keeping a closer eye on where their water comes from and where it goes. One concern is bottled water, but officials say the amount of water that is used for that is small.
"The entire U.S. bottled water market is about 10 billion gallons [per year], and Los Angeles goes through that amount of tap water in less than three weeks," says Chris Hogan, spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association.
In California, it is estimated 1 to 2 percent of all the municipal and industrial/non-agricultural water is used for drinking, KPCC's Brian Watt reports.
"So when we’re talking bottled water, we’re talking about a really small, tiny percentage of the overall water used in California, even for municipal and industrial purposes," says Jeff Davis, general manager of the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency.
A majority of state water, about 80 percent, is funneled to California’s well-known water hog: agriculture, according to the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.
But, in Riverside County's city of Cabazon, officials are concerned with every drop of water that leaves the city.
"I’m the guardian of the water resources in this community, and I’m concerned about people 'pulling' or putting straws in our aquifer and pumping water," says Calvin Louie, general manager of the Cabazon Water District. But, "we need to be responsible."
Read the full story: Drought: Is the bottled industry shrinking California's water supply?
Stuart Murdoch on his new film 'God Help The Girl'
It's pretty rare that you hear about a pop star writing a movie, let alone directing it — but, that's just what Stuart Murdoch, the lead singer of the Scottish indie band Belle and Sebastian, did.
His new film is called "God Help the Girl," and it's a story about a young girl named Eve and a summer she spends forming a band with her friends James and Cass.
The film is out in theaters and on demand Sept. 5.
Stuart Murdoch joins Alex Cohen in the studio to talk about the film, how difficult it was to write, where he found inspiration and what it was like recording many of the songs, live, on set.
There's also a screening at CineFamily in Hollywood on September 2, with Stuart Murdoch.
Celebrity nude photo leak raises Internet etiquette questions
Nude photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence were leaked online over the weekend. The incident raises questions not just about iCloud usage, but also about personal online etiquette.
Amy Akon, an expert on manners, says it is important to have a strategy for yourself before jumping into the digital landscape.
"Pre-plan the person you'll be online," she says.
This plan includes:
- Your identity
- Your privacy
- How you treat others
"You can't just wait until the moment arrives and then you lose your job, you lose your friends, and you're very exposed," Akon says.
Akon does recommend steering clear of taking nude photos of oneself.
"Is this fair? No," she said. "But what I say is that your willingness to appear in a compromising position should be directly disproportionate to how much you like your job as an elementary school principal. You have to bring a sense of realism to your behavior and maybe not take the photos at all."
By the same token, Akon suggests getting a feel for what other people prefer to have shared online about themselves by others.
"You're free to share your own information. What you're not free to do is share the naughty bits of some celebrity," she said.
Fossils suggest dinosaurs may have had caretaker roles
Dinosaurs have been extinct for thousands of years, making it tough for researchers to know how they lived.
One fossil discovered in northeast China has given researchers a lot to ponder and might even indicate some interesting child-rearing trends.
New community college chancellor pledges higher completion rates, shorter grad times
The Los Angeles Community College District is the largest in the nation with more than 150,000 students across nine campuses. Many of those students are headed back to class this week to begin the new Fall semester.
It's a sprawling system that has had its share of challenges. Last year, several campuses were hit with sanctions and warnings by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. Earlier this year, a report from the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit, found that the median student takes just over four years to earn an associate's degree — more than double the time it has traditionally taken.
But recently, things are looking brighter, says Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez, who began his term this summer. Classes that had been cut in recent years are back on course schedules and critical funding is being restored, the chancellor said.
Take Two's A Martinez recently sat down with Rodriguez to discuss the upcoming school year and his plans for the community college system.
Highlights from the interview:
What are your priorities for the L.A. community college system?
First and foremost, to ensure that the colleges have the necessary resources to function well and to serve the number of students that could benefit from a higher education and a community college education. During the downturn of the last several years, we lost 20,000 full-time equivalent students and cut over 10,000 sections. In other words, there was no course offerings that we could provide because we simply didn’t have the funding. So, we’re now coming out of what had been the state’s disinvestment of higher education.
You come from a smaller district with just three schools. What prepares you to take on the Los Angeles district with its nine campuses?
I’ve gone around and talked to the faculty and the administration, the college presidents, others who are involved in this system. The themes are very consistent with respect to academic quality, the subjects, the things that we’re tackling, the issue of bridging the student success gap that currently exists among our community colleges up and down the state and across the nation, frankly. The themes are consistent. So whether it’s a small college or medium sized, or now the largest, the themes are very, very consistent. I understand that we’re in a microscope here and the state’s looking toward leadership from the urban community college district, and we’re ready to provide that.
In L.A., you have 150,000 students and they’re all graded on their performance. For you, at the end of one year or two years, can you name one or two benchmarks that you hope will get an A grade?
I would hope we’d get an A grade in our basic skills area, and it’s probably the hardest grade to achieve. I’d like us to have stronger results for the students who come in and who need basic skills in remedial education or developmental education. Why? Because 70 to 80 percent of students up and down the state, including LACCD, who come into our [education] system as new students need remediation. Then on the backend, clearly improving the completion rates [is a benchmark]. We have a number of students who have a bunch of units from different colleges, different places, but there’s no coherent academic pattern of course-taking that they’ve had. And they’ve got maybe 30, 35, maybe 45 units from different places during different eras, and they haven’t put all those together to look at. If you just take one year, even part-time work, you can get your degree.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Diggs Duke and more
And, now, it's time for Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly new music segment. Joining A Martinez in the studio this week is Oliver Wang and music supervisor, Morgan Rhodes.
Oliver Wang
Artist: Taylor Swift
Album: 1989
Song: "Shake It Off"
Summary: Swift is mostly known for pop country but, with this, she’s making some power moves to become the new queen of pop. The song hasn’t drawn controversy but the video has, where Swift is the latest white artist to use black bottoms basically as props so that even when she’s poking fun at Miley Cyrus for doing the same thing. As Spin’s Carl Wilson put it, 2014 was the “summer of ass.”
Artist: Nicki Minaj
Album: The Pinkprint
Song: "Anaconda"
Summary: Not to be outdone, we have Nicki Minaj. Molly Lambert at Grantland argues that this song - and also its video - basically "reclaims the twerk" from all these appropriating white women. That may be the case, but I’m also amazed at how much of Sir Mixx A Lot’s “Baby Got Back” is flipped here. Then again, couldn’t you make an entire album's worth of songs inspired by “Baby Got Back” snippets? “I’m Hooked and I Can’t Stop Staring” would be a slow-jam love ballad, “Wanna Get In My Benz?” is the baller’s anthem. And “I’m Tired of Magazines” could be a meta-commentary on the death of print.
Artist: Superstructure
Album: 7”
Song: "Out At the Deep End"
Summary: I first met Todd Osborn back in the early 2000s - he used to run a record store out in Ypsilanti MI and produced really aggro drum and bass music under the name “Soundmurderer.” I had been curious about what happened to him and, as it turns out, his new alias is Superstructure. Now he’s making very groovy boogie jams for Brooklyn’s Names You can Trust label. This feels like a great, late summer dance jam, so it should go over big in L.A., which has its own deep boogie love affair going on.
Morgan Rhodes
Artist: Diggs Duke
Album: The Upper Hand & Other Grand Illusions
Track: "Secrets Seem Rehearsed"
Summary: Gary, Indiana native Diggs Duke released several EP's on band camp which gained the attention of renowned tastemaker and music programmer Gilles Peterson, who later signed him to his label. Duke is the son of a trombone and french horn player who would sub for the Commodores and Barry White, when they'd come into town. Duke started playing piano at 3. His love for jazz is evident in his song arrangements. "Secrets Seem Rehearsed," like the rest of the album, is about love and relationships. Part of a new school of artists truly blending jazz and soul with their own very compelling nuances. His name is an homage to Duke Ellington.
Artist: The Dionne Farris Charlie Hunter Duo
Album: DionneDionne
Track: "Loneliness Remembers (What Happiness Forgets)"
Summary: She held her own in Atlanta's Grammy nominated experimental conscious soul group Arrested Development, but then successfully struck out on her own with a massive soul rock hit in the mid 90s called "I Know." That one was actually nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. This album is called Dionne/Dionne because she's covering the other Dionne. Very stripped down and acoustic, very thoughtful arrangements and phrasing. The collaboration between she and jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter has been more than 25 years in the making. They first made plans to do it 1991 and finally connected through social media. "Stand by Me" is featured as part of a multi sampled track called "Stop," which is featured on the late great beatmaker Jay Dilla's album "Donuts."
Artist: Tricky
Album: Adrian Thaws
Track: "Nicotine Love ft. Francesca Belmonte"
Summary: Trip hop innovator Tricky returns with a full-length studio album, his 11th, fresh from his 2013 project False Idols. Well-known for his sort of ethereal, stream of consciousness tracks with him alternating between singing and speaking, this album isn't a total departure from what we've come to expect from him style-wise; rather, it's a hybrid of styles: reggae, dance, glitch and alternative.
What do those affected by ALS make of the 'Ice Bucket Challenge'?
In the future, when we look back at the summer of 2014, three words might easily come to mind: Ice Bucket Challenge.
The viral sensation has been a tremendous fundraising success for ALS research, bringing in more than $100 million in just about a month's time.
On the other hand, there's been plenty of backlash too.
Critics say that dumping a bucket of water on one's head really does little to educate people about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In drought-stricken California, some find it a horrible waste of water. But, what about those who have been personally affected by the neurodegenerative disease?
Rolf Wallengren's brother Ernie died of the disease 11 years ago. He says, while a lot of the criticisms are valid, he wishes people would keep the larger picture in mind.
"It's going to such a good cause, and I wish that people would just stand back a little and just enjoy the ride," Wallengren says. "I think there are a lot of times when something becomes a sensation and everybody hops on board and it's kind of a cool thing to do. And then there's a change of tide, and then the cool thing is to criticize."
Investigation on drugged foster kids leads to swift action by the state
In a shocking new investigative report, San Jose Mercury News' Karen de Sá discovered foster kids and teenagers in California are being prescribed powerful psychotropic medication at an alarmingly high rate.
De Sá spent nine months negotiating with state officials to get access to information regarding what types of drugs were prescribed to children and at what age. She writes the children were given drugs as a way to keep them under control. Shortly after de Sá's first piece came out, state officials moved swiftly to investigate the practice.
"State Sen. Ted Lieu sent a letter to the state medical board calling for an investigation into doctors who may be overprescribing," she says.
De Sá says she has repeatedly been denied information about the doctors who are doing much of the prescribing, adding that she believes the state acted more to protect doctors' interests than children's.
Pressure by Sen Lieu may reveal more about the practice.
"Ted Lieu is urging the medical board to go further and look at broader patterns among doctors that may have been prescribing inappropriately," she says.
That may be determined by a number of factors. For example if the doctor had access to a child's medical records or family history before issuing a prescription. De Sá says in some cases they did not.
The first part of Karen de Sá's multi-part series can be found online. In the coming weeks, she'll also report on the cost of these medications and the state's slow movement on this issue.
Mega-donors and the new political landscape
Big money is nothing new in politics but new data shows how several court decisions have paved the way for an unprecedented amount of spending on campaigns.
Sure, there was Citizens United, but more recently the Supreme Court ruled in McCutcheons vs. Federal Election Commission there would be no cap on how much campaign donors could give to candidates and traditional PACs and party committees, says Washington Post reporter Matea Gold.
The ruling will most definitely amplify the voices of the wealthy, Gold says, it hasn't benefited Republicans and Democrats in the same way.
"We're really seeing a real party imbalance. Right now, Republicans are benefiting more than Democrats by ratio of two to one," Gold says. "That's not surprising. Republicans sought to overturn the cap and they have been more aggressive about trying to solicit donations that exceeded the previous limit."
Gold says the money is coming from all over the country, but mainly from a few select wealthy individuals — from George Soros on the left and the Koch brothers on the right.
Mental health organization brings help to northern Iraq
More than a million people have fled Iraq over increasing violence by Islamic militants in recent weeks.
Decades of fighting in Iraq has traumatized many locals, which is why the Trauma Rehabilitation and Training Center, an organization in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been treating patients with mental health issues.
Jenna Krajeski wrote about this unique facility for Harpers Magazine.
Celebrity nude photos surface, FBI responds
Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities were leaked this weekend. The FBI says it is investigating what may be an underground celebrity nude trading ring.
James Cook covers technology for Business Insider. He says, though celebrity's have been hacked before, we have never seen anything at this scale. It appears that it's taken months for someone to put together this collection of hacked images.
Presumably, these photos could bring a pretty penny to the person who first got a hold of them, whether they were obtained illegally or not. But Cook points out, the hacker (or hackers) are not profiting off the distribution of these images. Hackers use images like these, according to Cook, to "curry favor" among their peers. One hacker might post something to show off, and another hacker might follow suit to try to one-up him. Says Cook, "So, you can see how something like this can snowball."
Coachella Valley High School parts with controversial mascot
A Riverside County high school has parted ways with its controversial "Arab" mascot.
The bearded, snarling mascot has existed since the 1920s, but did not appear at Coachella Valley High School's season opening football game on Friday.
In November of last year, the mascot came under fire when the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sent a letter to the school district claiming that the mascot was stereotypical.