On Tuesday, Take Two discusses a new Pew Research study that finds Americans believe religion is losing influence in their life, what could be just as bad for the environment than CO2, L.A. new system to enforce dog-leash laws, the latest in music for Tuesday Reviewsday, and much more.
What are the goals of the US-led strikes in Syria?
Early Tuesday morning, the U.S. and its Arab allies launched airstrikes on targets in Syria, marking an escalation in the military response to Islamist militants in the region.
President Barack Obama called the strikes part of a broader strategy and noted a specific "imminent threat" from an Al Qaeda-related group operating inside Syria, called Khorasan.
Speaking from the White House Tuesday morning, Obama said the goals were "to take out terrorist targets, to train and equip Iraqi and Syrian opposition fighters who are going up against ISIL on the ground, to cut off ISIL financing, to counter its hateful ideology and to stop the flow of fighters into and out of the region."
The Pentagon called the strikes successful, but the Obama Administration said completing the mission wouldn't happen overnight. Still, Sebastian Usher, Middle East editor for the BBC, said the U.S. sent a strong message.
“They’ve made clear both today and in the lead-up that this is a long, long process that isn’t going to achieve results quickly, and it probably isn’t going to achieve results just from the airstrikes,” Usher said. “I think that was the message that ISIS, the Islamic State, was — know that there are no safe havens.”
In his speech, President Obama emphasized that the United States was not alone in taking action. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain joined in the strikes, while Qatar was involved in hosting the U.S. central command and operations, according to Usher.
“Certainly President Obama wants to show [Americans], the Middle East and the whole world that the U.S. is not doing this alone,” Usher said. “That is, from a U.S. perspective, very important to show that. I don't think it will convince people who are edging towards sympathy with the ideology of Islamic State because they have already dismissed countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”
Politics of war: Obama Administration seeks support on airstrikes
While the United States received support from a number of Arab nations to commit airstrikes against Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria, the White House was quick to point out it did not coordinate with the Syrian government.
Now, President Barack Obama is preparing to address the UN Security Council to get backing from more countries to help in the fight against the so-called Islamic State, which has taken control of major land in Iraq and Syria.
"They are trying at the White House to find a way to do whatever they're doing in conjunction with as many as partners as possible," says Edward-Isaac Dovere, senior White House reporter for Politico.
Growing share of Americans want religion to play a role in US politics
A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that nearly three-quarters of Americans say that religion is losing influence in American life.
And most Americans who say religion’s influence is waning see that as a bad thing.
Jessica Martinez, a researcher with the Pew Research Center, says it's difficult to say why more and more Americans believe that religion is losing its influence, but "it might be that some of this is in response to the fact that there is a growing share of the public who don't identify with any particular religion."
Diane Winston, Professor of Media and Religion at the University of Southern California, agrees.
"I asked my class about their religious affiliation and out of about 100 students, about 60 percent said they were unaffiliated. That to me is an example of the loss of religious influence," she says.
But, Winston adds, that doesn't mean that religion has totally lost its influence in American society.
"The big example is [the] Hobby Lobby case. Now, privately owned corporations have rights of religious free exercise. That's a very big example of religion not losing its influence. The saliency of culture war issues — abortion, same-sex marriage — these all show that religion is a vital part of American life."
Hydrofluorocarbons: The lesser known greenhouse gas
World leaders are meeting at the United Nations on Tuesday to discuss climate change and possible solutions.
Much of the focus is on how to cut back on CO2, the primary greenhouse gas scientists say is driving global warming. But, in the past week, some of the largest U.S. companies have agreed to phase out use of another greenhouse gas, hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.
Though a much smaller share, HFCs have a much higher planet-warming potency than CO2.
Dr. Michael Prather is a professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine and one of the lead authors on the recent climate change assessment from the United Nations. He says carbon dioxide comes from burning carbon fossil fuels and deforestation.
"HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons, are really technology gases," Prather says. "They don't occur naturally; we make them. They're all synthetic. And they get released by their technology use."
They're held in air conditioners, refrigerators, heat pumps, truck, trailers, fire fighting equipment and other places, he said. They're eventually released, float around in the atmosphere until they get destroyed chemically.
Lifetimes for HFCs are 1 to 50 years, he said, while CO2 lifespan is much longer.
Is the NFL vetting process thorough enough?
Oftentimes when you're up for a new job, you're subject to a background check.
The same is true in the NFL — a job that not only pays you millions, but also puts you in the national spotlight.
Before they're signed, potential draft picks are vetted by dozens of scouts, coaches and team managers through personality tests, interviews with friends and family, and reviews of any police records.
According to Bleacher Report NFL draft expert Matt Miller, the NFL's vetting process is extremely thorough. But, given the troubling actions by some players of late, stricter scrutiny could be on the horizon.
Walking a fine line: Parenting meets social media
By middle school, roughly half of children in the United States own a mobile phone, according to Nielson.
The California Report's Rachael Myrow explores the 24/7 social media landscape for this age group and how parents may help them navigate it.
Read the full story: Navigating Social Media in Middle School a Big Challenge for Parents, Too
Former foster youth shares what it's like being over-prescribed antipsychotic drugs
D'Anthony Dandy has been on a battery of psychotropic drugs throughout his life — lithium, Depakote, an adult dose of Risperdal.
Even though many of these drugs are not regulated for use by children, Dandy was 10 or 11 years old when he got his first prescription.
In her continuing series, "Drugging our Kids," San Jose Mercury News reporter Karen de Sá writes about anti-psychotic medication given to children in California's foster care system.
The kids in foster care are prescribed these drugs at 3.5 times the rate of teens nationwide.
"They have maybe emotional problems; they're traumatized; they're in pain," says de Sá, "and they're treated with medications that are really only approved by the FDA for very severe psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia."
Dandy entered the foster care system when he was 2 years old. He's 19 now, and has lived in 29 different homes.
"I felt like no one wanted me," says Dandy. "I felt lonely in the world."
In some cases he did lash out and have violent episodes.
Within the foster care system, however, at least 14 psychiatrists diagnosed him with various illnesses: post-traumatic stress, bipolar disorder and reactive attachment.
He was prescribed a cocktail of drugs that would often change, none directly addressing the emotional stress of being a foster child.
"I just felt like the medication was taking over me," he says, explaining that while on Risperdal he'd fall asleep from 3 p.m. to 4 a.m. "It mainly helped me calm down to sleep, but that's it. It should be a sleeping pill."
At 15, Dandy began to resist taking the drugs — sometimes hiding them under his tongue. However as a minor in the foster care system, he had little choice or face punishment in his group home.
It wasn't until court-appointed advocate Tara Beckman took over the case that Dandy was able to challenge the prescriptions.
"The acting out was all about his trauma," Beckman told the Mercury News, "but all these people were treating it with meds."
With her support, Dandy was able to be legally taken off the drugs.
However, de Sá says dozens of other foster children she's interviewed share similar stories. Dandy was the rare person among them who said he'd had enough.
"A lot of times, foster youth don't know they have the right to refuse medications," she says.
Today, Dandy is a high school graduate — just 45 percent of California's foster children earn their diploma. He lives in his own apartment and hopes to attend Merritt College next year.
LA Register ends publication after five months
It was a bold move to invest in newspapers when conventional wisdom was that print publications are a dying breed.
But businessman Aaron Kushner did it anyway — expanding Freedom Communications' Orange County Register and entering new territory in Long Beach and Los Angeles. The latter was short-lived. The company announced Tuesday that the LA Register will stop publication after just five months in circulation.
But today, the LA Register will stop publication after just five months in circulation.
Related: Los Angeles Register ends publication immediately
Kushner said starting the paper wasn't a gamble. He said he believed the paper could compete with the Los Angeles Times by offering alternative, quality journalism.
KPCC's Ben Bergman reports on what exactly went wrong.
Jazz program gives Fresno students new musical exposure
Fifty kids from the Fresno area have been learning to play jazz under the Milestones Youth Jazz Workshop, a music project that provides music education opportunities for the youth in the Central Valley.
“Our goal in Milestones is to teach you how to play jazz, but also to teach you how to play together. So playing in a jazz band, you’re going to come across a lot of things that maybe aren’t going to be on paper, or maybe you’re not going to be comfortable or used to,” says musician Eva Scow, who works with an intermediate group of middle school musicians.
The project runs under the nonprofit Jazz Fresno, writes The California Report's Alice Daniel. Milestones, which doesn't turn away kids who really want to participate, runs on grants and donations; students also help with fundraisers to bring in extra money.
Read the full story: Channeling Youthful Energy Into an American Art Form
Under mounting scrutiny, LA superintendent faces school board in annual review
Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent John Deasy weathered a solid year of criticism for his controversial iPad program.
He then took on a high-profile position in a case against teacher tenure.
Now, he's dealing with the fallout of an irksome new attendance system — all this ahead of his annual review by the school board.
"Deasy's problems were fewer last October," KPCC's Annie Gilbertson reports, "when they concerned mainly a botched rollout of the iPad program. Still, rumors swirled then that Deasy would be fired or step down. Neither happened."
Read the full story: Amid iPad, attendance system controversies, school board to weigh superintendent's performance
Tuesday Reviewsday: James Brown, Jason Moran, Kutiman and more
We're joined every week by our music critics for Tuesday Reviewsday, where we talk about the latest in new music. This week,
from Soul-Sides and music supervisor
join Alex Cohen in studio.
Review by Morgan Rhodes
Artist: Foreign Fields
Album: Little Lover
Song: "Little Lover"
Summary: This duo from Nashville is back after a single in 2011 and an EP in 2013. Their latest single is a bit more electronic leaning, which is a good thing. The marriage of folk and electronica works on the lead of single and the forthcoming project — dreamy, folky and cool.
Artist: Jason Moran
Album: All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller
Songs: "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Honeysuckle Rose"
Summary: Poet Michael Longley wrote "Elegy for Fats Waller" in the early sixties. Fifty years later, composer and jazz wunderkind Jason Moran's impressive All Rise: An Elegy for Fats Waller, pays homage to the celebrated pianist and entertainer with interesting nuanced interpretations of Fats Wallers' classics.
Artist: Various Artists
Album: Late Night Tales
Song: "Requieum Pour Un Con," by Serge Gainsbourg and "King Heroin" by James Brown
Summary: Almost two dozen songs make up Franz Ferdinand's latest effort, the uniquely curated Late Night Tales. Skipping across decades and genres, Franz has gathered a cadre of artists and hits and compiled a little something for the grown, sexy, well-versed and cosmopolitan listener.
Review by Oliver Wang
Artist: Kutiman
Album: Thru You Too (forthcoming)
Song: "Give It Up"
Summary: Kutiman is an Israeli producer who first came to prominence in 2009 when he mined YouTube music instructional videos as sample snippets and began creating original music videos based on those slices. At the very least, it demonstrates some strong technical editing skills and infinite patience for crawling through hundreds of videos. But his music also raises these deliciously complex questions about copyright, about what’s borrowing and what’s stealing, and meanwhile, he’s doing it all through songs that are pretty damn good considering the source material. He has a new six song EPs on the way.
Artist: Stax Music Academy (William Bell + Snoop)
Album: "Take Me To the River" soundtrack
Song: "I Forgot To Be Your Lover"
Summary: The soundtrack to this new documentary about the import of Stax Records in Memphis does the re-recording old classics with new/old artists’ gambit that seems to be mandated for this sort of project. “I Forgot To be Your Lover” is one of the great Stax songs that William Bell recorded back in the ‘60s and it’s become a hip-hop favorite for sampling so perhaps it’s [appropriate] that this new version would bring Bell together with a rap artist — in this case Snoop Dogg. I think it’s… interesting. Don’t hate it, don’t exactly love it, but it is an attempt to continually make past recordings relevant in the current day. I’ll be curious to see if this catches on with Snoop fans at all.
Artist:
Song: "Secondhand Gunsmoke"
Summary: Your Old Droog is a young, 20-something white rapper out of New York who had the hip-hop internet engaging in conspiracy theories for most of the summer. If you’re a rap head, you’ll note that Droog sounds a lot like Nas. Almost a perfect replica… and as he dropped a EP out of nowhere, with no press, no appearances, people just thought it was Nas, pretending to be someone else. It wasn’t until the other week that he finally appeared in person at Webster Hall to put the rumors to rest. Honestly, I thought it was more fun pretending it was Nas versus some young gun who just sounds like him. Either way, “Secondhand Gunsmoke” is brand new — just came out last week — produced by J-Zone with an assist from ego trip’s Sacha Jenkins, who helped break the Droog story to begin with.
New LA policy designed to boost leash-law enforcement
Not every law in the books gets enforced.
Case in point: Los Angeles' dog leash laws. Dog owners in Los Angeles aren't supposed to let their pets frolic off leash, but it's rare for anyone to get a citation.
That could change. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the LA City Council's Public Safety and Personnel and Welfare and Animal Services committees have recommended the adoption of a pilot program designed to increase enforcement for what the city calls minor "quality of life" infractions. So, letting your pooch roam free could set you back $250 or more.
Steve Brooks, a professional dog trainer and the author of the upcoming book, "Dog Bites with Steve Brooks," says even the most well-trained dog should be on leash for the safety of pets and their owners.
America's 1000th birthday inspires comedy album
Emmy-award winning comedy writer Rob Kutner stops by to talk about his latest production, a comedy album that "spans the past, present and future of America."
The cast features a wide and varied cast of characters from NPR's Nina Totenberg, who appears as more or less herself, in the distant future, providing a musical report from the Supreme Court, to Alex Trebeck, who joins a group of fellow Canadians in a strange paean to our northern neighbor.
It's called "2776," and it's set in the future during the nation's 1000th birthday. The cast also includes Patton Oswalt and Margaret Cho.