A tour of San Bernardino five years after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy; Who will Obama appoint as new Federal Reserve chair?; Revisiting the 'All American High' doc a generation later; Friday Flashback: Vladimir Putin, Syria weapons, and more.
A real estate tour of the Inland Empire five years after Lehman Brothers
It's been almost five years since the Lehman Brothers investment bank went bankrupt, sending the country into an economic tailspin. The nation’s housing collapse hit Southern California particularly hard, especially neighborhoods in the Inland Empire.
To take the pulse of the housing market in San Bernardino, A Martinez took a drive with real estate agent Myra Elder, who has worked in the area for 41 years.
She's also lived there her whole life and as you'll hear, she takes a lot of pride in her community. Elder wanted to stress that there are bright spots. For instance, a neighborhood on the east loosely known as the "country club area," consisting of homes with pools and perfectly manicured lawns next a golf course.
"We have many, many neighborhoods like this," said Elder. "We get a bad wrap because of the high crime and I'm not denying that exists, but it is getting better."
However, a drive south takes you through a vacant-feeling downtown. Other neighborhoods are slowly recovering, and now have just a few foreclosed homes. Since May, assessed property values in San Bernardino County have jumped 68 percent, according the county accessors' office. Foreclosures have decreased by 46 percent from 2010 to 2012.
But even Elder admits, that while things are bouncing back in San Bernardino, it is still struggling.
Who will Obama appoint as new Federal Reserve chair?
Although our economy is recovering and home values are going back up, things remain fragile for a lot of Americans.
Yesterday on the program we heard from former California Treasurer Phil Angelides, who in 2009 was named Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Part of his job was to look into the what and the why of our fiscal meltdown.
Does he think our financial system was now safe. His answer: no.
According to Angelides, the one essential thing to keep us from falling off the cliff again is the appointment of the Federal Reserve Chairman. Current Chair Ben Bernanke will step down soon, and his potential successors are current vice chair Janet Yellen and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Michael Hirsch, chief correspondent for the National Journal, joins the show to explain the importance of this appointment.
Friday Flashback: Vladimir Putin, Syria weapons, and more
Time now for the Friday Flashback, our weekly analysis of the stories in the news. Joining us from Washington DC today is David Gura of Marketplace, and in the studio, James Rainey of the LA Times.
It's was the kind of news week where maybe we all need some analysis. We start with the latest events involving Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting with his counterpart in Geneva to talk work on a plan that would require Syria to turn over its chemical weapons to UN inspectors. Meanwhile, the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, is insisting there will be no deal unless the U.S. stops aiding rebels.
This effort to disarm Syria is only a few days old, but already it seems like there's a good chance it will unravel. Is there optimism that this diplomacy might actually resolve the crisis?
At the center of all this is Russian president Vladimir Putin. He wrote an op-ed published yesterday in the New York Times titled "A letter to America." Putin seems to have improved his position, but at the expense of President Obama.
If nothing else, the Russian proposal at least allowed Congress to return their focus to the big fiscal issues. There's the budget, and the fact that the government will shut down in two weeks if they don't do something. Plus that pesky debt ceiling.
The nation will be unable to pay its debts beginning sometime in October unless Congress votes to increase the credit limit. On the House side, Speaker John Boehner is trying to broker some kind of deal, but he's been unable to keep his own Republican conference in line.
Conservatives in the House are determined to defund Obamacare, and they appear prepared to let the government shut down, and maybe even default to get there.
A group of conservatives also say they want to restore funding that was cut from defense, even if it means increasing the deficit. How can John Boehner find a way to satisfy the hard right and still get enough other votes to pass a funding bill?
A government shut down and a credit default can't be good for an economy that's still struggling five years after the financial crisis. We're coming up on the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. There was also this study, by a respected UC Berkeley economist, that showed the concentration of wealth is greater now than at anytime since 1928.
Why do you think more Americans aren't more upset by the fact that 95 percent of income gains over the past three years went to the wealthiest top one percent? Where's the outrage, and movements to reform?
The AFL-CIO held their convention here in Los Angeles this week. Did any of this rich getting richer stuff come up?
Revisiting the 'All American High' doc a generation later
In 1984, filmmaker Keva Rosenfeld spent the better part of a school year with a film crew, following students at Torrance High School. He shot them in class, at football games, and at pretty wild parties.
The result was an award-winning documentary, "All American High," released in 1987.
Last month, the film was screened for the first time in a generation at the American Cinematheque. A number of the students in the film showed up to the screening, some with their kids, now in high school, in tow.
Rosenfeld said the fact he had complete access to the students when he made the film is something he can't imagine happening today.
The doc focuses on a foreign exchange student from Finland. She was able to bring an outsider's perspective, while also being a participant. Rosenfeld is convinced her character and personality is one reason the film does such a good job of capturing high school life in the '80's.
"All American High" screens again for a week beginning Saturday at The Cinefamily in West Hollywood.
Can you catch an illness through Facebook?
Parents complain that kids waste a lot of time on Facebook when they should be doing homework. It's also often criticized for violating users' privacy.
Now there's speculation that Facebook and other social media sites might actually make people sick.
In January, about two dozen teenagers at the Essex Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers, Massachusetts recently began having “mysterious” hiccups and vocal tics. Facebook is now considered a possible cause of these symptoms.
New Zealand sociologist Robert Bartholomew told the Atlantic that there has been a recent upticks in conversion disorder, where psychological trauma manifests in physical symptoms. This disorder then become "contagious" through a phenomenon known colloquially as "mass hysteria," or scientifically as mass psychogenic illness (MPI).
Atlantic writer Laura Dimon joins the show to talk about her piece, which looks at the connection between recent incidents of mass hysteria and the rise of social media.
Wet Electric dance party in Huntington beach to go on despite outcry
Tomorrow, Huntington Beach will host a 9-hour electronic dance party. Last week, the city filed a restraining order hoping to stop the festival known as Wet Electric.
Officials were worried that the party could get dangerous and out of hand, especially after the rioting which followed a recent surf competition there. But an Orange County Superior Court Judge said the party could go on.
Joining us now to talk to us about the electronic music scene is Steve Knopper, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone Magazine.
Disney welcomes iPad use in theatres for 'The Little Mermaid'
Disney is bringing back "The Little Mermaid" to the big screen...and a smaller screen, too.
Disney will host special screenings of the film that encourage the audience to watch the movie while they're also interacting with a "The Little Mermaid" app on their iPads:
Bring your iPad to the movie theater and experience special event screenings of "The Little Mermaid" on the big screen like never before! It's "Disney Second Screen Live: The Little Mermaid," where you become part of the story. Interact with Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder. Compete with the audience as you play games, sing-along, and collect hidden treasure. But watch out for Ursula, who just might try to steal your points. It just got better, down where it's wetter, with "Disney Second Screen Live: The Little Mermaid."
While second screen experiences seem to be growing in popularity, people are worried that the trend will carry over to other theaters.
Take Two talks with film blogger Dan Seitz about Disney's new in-theatre, second-screen experiment.
Valero rail project fuels tar sands speculation in Bay Area
When it comes to oil production, California is no Texas. But the Golden State is actually number three among states extracting crude oil from the ground.
Now the nation's largest refiner of oil wants to start using trains to bring that crude oil to its refinery in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's raising concerns about safety and air pollution in the East Bay city of Benicia.
KQED Science reporter Molly Samuel has the story.
'Dueling Dinosaurs' fossil up for auction to chagrin of scientists
About six years ago, an amateur fossil collector in the dusty badlands of Montana made the find of a lifetime. Two dinosaur skeletons, almost completely intact, and intertwined in what looks to be a battle to the death.
The specimens, found by Clayton Phipps, have come to be known as the "Dueling Dinosaurs." Seems like something that belongs in a museum, but this November they’ll be put up for auction in New York.
Bids are expected to be as high as $9 million, but museums have refused them and the scientific community has shunned the artifact.
"It's all about the money," says Montana Hodges, a writer who is familiar with the issue. "Ultimately this story, this problem with the paleontological community is all about the money. So, dinosaur museums don't have the money to buy them, and scientists can't study these specimens until they're in a repository, most likely a museum repository — universities also have them."
Additionally, "dinosaur country" is run by hardworking ranchers who work on really dry land and treat their fossil finds like they would oil or gold.
"You have this problem where there's this high monetary value on something that's scientifically important, and it also happens to be material that's found in this very harsh place to live," said Hodges.
On top of that, Phipps is not a researcher. Instead, he's in the search for dinosaur bones as a side business for some extra cash, which makes it more difficult for museums and research universities to show interest in purchasing big dinosaur specimens. Some scientists have refused to study or even look at them.
"What they don't want to do is accidentally give credit to the fossils," says Hodges, "which would heighten their value."
But that might change once they get to a repository, and Hodges says that could happen if a philanthropist or a private funder buys "Dueling Dinosaurs" and donates it to a museum.
Until then, it's unknown where they'll go.
"I'd say there's an equal chance that they will end up with science or that they will end up as somebody's next piece of art in their collection," Hodges says. "This will be the most exciting auction for dinosaurs, possibly ever, and I don't know where they will go."
Web article by Nuran Alteir
What makes one pen superior to another?
Even though a lot of us spend most of our time these days clacking away on computers, tablets and smartphones, the traditional pen has not yet vanished from our collective consciousness.
Some people have almost a fanatic loyalty to their plume of choice, whether it be rollerball, gel or just a plain old ballpoint.
The website Wirecutter recently did a breakdown of what makes the perfect pen and found that the Uni-ball Jetstream reigns supreme.
"The Uni-ball Jetstream seems to be the winner across all categories. It's similar to a ballpoint ink, but its a hybrid ballpoint," said Brad Dowdy, who runs the website ThePenAddict.com. "Uni-ball has made a special ink formulation to give the pen a much smoother writing experience and to give it a really dark line. It dries almost immediately, the ink has security properties to where it bonds with the paper and it can't be washed out if you're writing checks."
Dowdy has reviewed more than 700 pens for his website, so he's definitely an expert on what makes one pen better than another. He says the first thing he looks for in a pen is its smoothness.
"I don't want to feel like nails going across a chalkboard when my pen's writing on the page," said Dowdy. "It's got to be smooth it's got to be comfortable. If the pen's not smooth, it's not going to be good."
Next he says a pen must be able to produce a consistent, solid line without skipping or leaving white marks. Finally, he says one of the most important qualities, especially for left-handed writers, is that the ink dries quickly.
"I don't want it to be too wet where I'm going to get ink on my hands," said Dowdy. "For left-handers that's very important. That's probably their number one priority."
It's also crucial that a pen is designed so that its comfortable in your hand. "Some manufacturers somehow find a way to make the grip area uncomfortable for you to write with and that's just a no-go in my book," said Dowdy. "In the end I want it to look pretty cool too."
So what are the different kinds of pens you might encounter at an office supply store and how do you pick the right one for you? There are three different types, each with its own pros and cons depending on what you want:
1.) Gel Ink
Pros: Provides a dark, rich line
Cons: Ink takes longer to dry, smears easily, not good for leftys
2.) Ballpoint
Pros: Cheap, a clean writing pen that doesn't easily smear, leak or dry out
Cons: Often uncomfortable, lines can "skip" and be inconsistent, not as dark as gel or liquid ink
3.) Liquid Ink, or Rollerball pens
Pros: Smooth writer, clean, dark lines, no skipping
Cons: Will bleed through certain kinds of paper, smears easily, leaks if cap is not put back on
What's your pen of choice? Tell us in the comments!
Actress Katey Sagal has classic tunes 'Covered' in new album
Actress Katey Sagal is probably best known as Peggy Bundy, the big-haired red headed mother from the hit sitcom "Married With Children." More recently, she won a Golden Globe for her performance as Gemma, the tough matriarch of a California motorcycle gang on the hit FX show "Sons of Anarchy."
Many people might not know that she actually got her start in show biz as a singer and songwriter. Sagal began writing songs as a teenager, growing up in the San Fernando Valley.
Eventually Sagal had a successful career as a backup singer, working with artists such as Bob Dylan, Etta James and Bette Midler, but she knew she always wanted to sing center stage.
She has since accomplished that goal, and now she's back with a new album called "Covered," a collection of cover tunes, several of which she has sung on "Sons Of Anarchy."
Here's her rendition of Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man."
Sagal says her husband, Kurt Sutter, the creator and head writer of "Sons Of Anarchy," picks out which songs are used in the show. Sagal joins Take Two to talk about her music career.