Conservation efforts during possible El Niño, writing comedy for young and adult audiences, Pope Francis' visit through the eyes of African Americans.
What black Catholics want to hear from Pope Francis
It was a big day for the pope, and for US Catholics.
The pontiff visited the White House, where he met privately with President Obama. He then made a speech, arguing for immigration rights, and urging recognition of the dangers of climate change. All this before celebrating his first Mass in Washington DC.
But as Pope Francis wraps up day two of his US tour, one group of parishoners continues to watch and listen closely for a mention: black Catholics.
A survey out of Georgetown University estimates that about three-percent of American Catholics are black. The history of black Catholics in this country is a complicated one dating back to the 17th century.
Though slavery was officially condemned by Pope Gregory in the 1830s, the church continued to struggle with segregation in its parishes and schools well into the 20th century. Since then, a shift in demographics has seen the closure of black parishes -- or conversion to Latino services.
Anthea Butler is a Catholic and an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She says African Americans have a unique history in the church, frequently incorporating traditions from the community.
“Prior to Vatican II, there wasn’t a lot of racial identity,” she tells Take Two. “Post Vatican II, black Catholics were able to explore different musical styles with gospel music.”
Butler says that many black Catholics can trace their religious roots back to slavery in America. Many freed slaves who were baptised as Catholics continued to observe religious traditions, even though the general population of white Catholics didn’t accept them. Though the Catholic faith is one of the most diverse in the world, Butler says African American Catholics have always been treated differently than other groups in the church.
“If you think about immigration and all the ethnic Catholics we have -- Polish Catholics, Irish, Germans, Italians, everybody always focuses on them for a culture within the church,” she explains. “But nobody looks at black Catholics, and I think our unique history has a lot of cultural implications, because we’ve had to straddle the line between being black Americans and black Catholics.”
She adds that some Catholic churches had segregated seating well into the 20th century.
As demographics changed in the country, more black parishes and schools were either closed or converted to cater to America’s rapidly growing Latino population. Butler says, as a result, many African American Catholics feel as though they’ve been overlooked by the church.
“I’m thinking about a parish like St.Odilia’s, which was the oldest black congregation parish in Los Angeles -- they flipped. It was like three or four English services, and now there’s lots of Spanish services and only one English service.”
Butler says that cultural shift has left many black parishoners without a church.
“It’s not that they don’t want to be welcoming, let me be clear. They feel like they’re losing because their needs are not being addressed where you have another bourgeoning congregation and population coming in,” she says.
She says that this, combined with recent scandals within the church, has caused many black Catholics to leave Christianity entirely, or turn to evangelical denominations where African American culture continues to play a role in the church.
Press the play button above to hear more.
If El Niño hits, CA will still need to conserve water, Water Board chair says
In the midst of California's ongoing drought, one woman has earned the informal title of "water czar."
is the chair of the California Water Board. Her job, in part, is to get people to use less water, and she's had some success so far. For example, California residents reduced water use in July by more than 31 percent, compared with July of 2013.
But will that be enough? And will our resolve to conserve dribble away if predictions of a wet El Niño season prove true?
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On what she thinks of the "water czar" title
I do not like that title, thank you for asking that question. Because I actually work as part of a team, and multiple teams. The State Water Board is a board of five people, not one. But even within the administration there are a lot of people working [on this], this is an all hands on deck effort... I don't get to make any decisions by myself, but I am the person out front.
On how well conservation is going, on the local level
Communities now, people are in gear. The average across the state for last July was 31 percent. Now, that's really high. The target is 25 percent cumulatively. But most of water we use is in the summer months. So it's key to bank those savings, so to speak, in the summer months so that as we go through the fall and the winter when people don't tend to use as much water, we maintain that savings.
So people are hitting it out of the park all over the place. I mean there are some places I'm a little worried that they're going too far. People are saving 40 percent, but they're not watering their trees. And so we've been desperately trying to get the word out that people should be cutting back on watering their lawns, putting it on a diet. It won't die, it just doesn't have to look like St. Andrews. We douse our lawns with water to trick them into thinking they're in Ireland or something. I mean, it's nice, it's pretty, but in the scale of things it's something of a luxury during a drought. But watering our trees is really important, we don't want to lose our trees in the drought.
On whether it's helpful to focus on how much water it takes to produce specific foods (like almonds) or products (like bottled water)
I think the media went through a period of sort of the classic, simple, 'Oh it must be somebody else's fault, it must be an almond, it must be all that bottled water,' or whatever. The fact of the matter is that we're in the drought of the century and we all need to do something about it...
The thing that's fascinating about it, is that we live in an interesting time, in civilization essentially, where our water agencies have been so successful in bringing water, particularly our large urban areas are hundreds of miles from where their water comes from. And they've been so successful doing it that people don't even know where there water comes from, or that it's vulnerable, or what the mix of it is.
Similarly, folks take for granted that they can get healthy fruits and vegetables and food at the supermarket. Where does it come from? It comes from agriculture. So people will take a fact that a nut, say, is a gallon per nut, that seems like a lot, well I'm sorry the burger you had the other day is hundreds, the steak [is] 1600. An avocado has a lot, don't take my avocados away from me for heaven sakes.
And there's nothing wrong, I understand people jumping to that conclusion, but the fact is, we're so separated from and so lucky that we can take our food and our water for granted that it's actually a much more complex picture.
On whether California needs to rethink what crops we grow and how much of them
I wouldn't say we should put a limit on what we can grow any more than I would say what we should put a limit on what we import. The water of every good and service, all our electronics... I mean, just the water used to make the cell phones we use in California may actually be more water than the agricultural production. So we live in a much more complex world than that. And there are times when I wish I could be a czar on some things, but we don't have a planned economy like some other countries where we can tell people what to grow and where, or what to buy and where.
On whether a wet El Niño winter will cause people to conserve less
I'll take as much precipitation as we can safely handle, so the fact that it messes with messaging is really a good problem to have. The problem is that there are El Niños and there are El Niños. Some times [they're] wet, some times [they're] dry... But the precipitation may end up stopping somewhere in Southern California because that's the higher probability.
So we could end up in a situation, it seems most likely, although we don't know, I keep saying 'It ain't over 'til it's over,' where it gets very wet here [in Southern California], but up in Northern California in the Sierras where we have all the major reservoirs that are responsible for a third of the water that Southern California uses, won't get any and we'll still be technically in a drought.
I just think we will need to get to the next level of sophisticated messaging. I also think people don't go back once they know they can make due [with less water].
To hear the full interview with Felicia Marcus, click the player above.
Where could LA's $100M to combat homelessness come from, and how could it be spent?
Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin and others joined together on Tuesday to announce a $100 million proposal to combat homelessness.
"We have really become, to our great shame, a city of tents and shanties," he said. "On any given night, 19,000 people are sleeping on the streets."
The details of how the money would be spent are few at the moment. Bonin says details will be worked out in the committee by the end of the year, but they could include a number of ideas: more emergency shelters, more safe parking places for people sleeping in vehicles, more legal bathrooms and less policing efforts on the homeless population.
Bonin says the source of the $100 million also has to be determined.
The city has a reserve fund that's set aside for emergency needs like services in a natural disaster. He says that could be tapped.
Bonin also tells KPCC that this call for $100 million might not be a one-time measure in this upcoming budget: It could be a recurring item that the city funds every year.
The reaction by services who work with homeless people has been measured.
Pete White, co-executive director of the L.A. Community Action Network, says he wants money to be spent building up the infrastructure to improve public health.
White also says he wants to the city to cut back its policing of homeless people and use the money on those efforts to rehouse people.
"If we are going to walk away from the enforcement against homeless people, that's $87 million right there that could be placed in the affordable housing trust fund," says White.
'Peace Officer' documentary tackles the topic of police militarization
William "Dub" Lawrence once served as a Marine and a police officer and was actually the youngest sheriff ever to be elected in his home of Davis County, Utah.
But his unwavering support of law enforcement was put to the test seven years ago this week when his son-in-law, Brian Wood, was killed by the local SWAT unit after a lengthy standoff.
Officers were initially called to the scene after a domestic dispute. Wood barricaded himself in his truck, and the SWAT unit did all they could to subdue him. Perhaps the worst part of it, Lawrence had started that very same SWAT unit several decades prior.
Lawrence is out of law enforcement now, and is working to reform police tactics so that peace officers can truly live up to their name.
His efforts can be seen in the new documentary called "Peace Officer," playing now at the Nuart Theater in LA.
William "Dub" Lawrence and Director Scott Christopherson join Alex Cohen for a discussion about the film.
To hear the entire chat click on the audio link embedded above.
Impatient: Should you get a flu shot this year?
Take Two is on now -- click here to listen live
Wednesday is the official beginning of fall, which means that it's time to start thinking about your Halloween costume, drinking pumpkin spice lattes and signing up for the flu shot.
Or not.
Last year, more than 55 percent of adults didn't get the flu shot. Rebecca Plevin, Southern California Public Radio's health reporter, joins host Alex Cohen to talk about why some adults are avoiding the flu shot, the repercussions of that decision and whether this years flu vaccine is any more effective than last years.
Sports Roundup: Yogi Berra's 'Yogi-isms,' USC and UCLA football
In this week's Sports Roundup with Brian and Andy Kamenetzky:
- Though the USC Trojans won their first two games of the season convincingly, the Stanford Cardinal ruined the streak. What happened?
- On the other side of town, the UCLA Bruins are 3-0 and ranked 9th. They're in Tuscon to play University of Arizona, and only have Pac-12 opponents left on their schedule without having to play Oregon. But is the coast clear for the Bruins?
- Yogi Berra died on Tuesday of natural causes. He was 90. Berra was a Hall of Fame catcher and went to 14 World Series games with the Yankees, winning 10, and holds the record for most hits in the World Series. That alone is awesome, but he's also known for what's called "Yogi-isms," or phrases attributed to him. His most famous: "It ain't over till it's over." The K Brothers share some of their favorites.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Is the Muppet reboot too hot for prime time?
A reboot of the classic TV variety show, "The Muppets," made its debut Tuesday night on ABC.
In this modern version, Miss Piggy has her own late night talk show, and Kermit is the show's producer. The rest of the Muppets are also on staff, and much like the style of "The Office," a documentary crew is filming them all the time.
The program has been panned by some critics, but also by some who find it a bit too risque.
A group called One Million Moms has launched a petition warning parents that the remake of "The Muppets" is not the family-friendly program it used to be.
How do you walk the line of humor when making a show with appeal to both kids and adults? We'll talk about it with
, he's the award-winning writer and producer for "The Simpsons."
How the costumes of 'Scream Queens' could influence fashion
"Scream Queens" debuted on Fox on Tuesday night. It's a black comedy is set at a college campus rattled by a series of murders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FtenR69qmk
"Scream Queens" is the latest show from Ryan Murphy, creator of "Glee," "American Horror Story" and "Nip/Tuck." So, fans are eagerly watching to see if this show will be as big of a hit as his other shows. But fashionistas are tuning in, too, as "Scream Queens" is chock full of amazing costumes.
Michelle Dalton Tyree, founder of Fashion Trends Daily, joined the show to talk to about the clothes and the effect a show can have on the fashion world.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above