Tiny Parasite Threatens California Native Plants
It's not a great time to be a tree or a plant in California. There's the drought of course, which has us starving our gardens, lawns and golf courses. And don't forget Sudden Oak Death: it began devastating oak forests more than 20 years ago, and it's still around. And now there's a new threat facing California's native plants: a deadly parasite, showing up in plant nurseries and the wild. Experts are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in a race to keep it from spreading.
Oakland Schools Plan Draws Community Outcry
A plan to overhaul five failing schools in Oakland set off a firestorm at an Oakland School Board meeting this week. Parents, teachers and students lined up to comment on a call by the new schools superintendent for outside groups, including charter schools, to submit their ideas for redesigning schools with the lowest test scores. Critics, including the teachers union, say the district and Superintendent Antwan Wilson just aren't listening to what they need. Host Scott Shafer talks with reporter Zaidee Stavely, who attended Wednesday night's Oakland School Board meeting.
In L.A., Mozart's 'Figaro' Recast as an Immigration Opera
The debate over immigration reform is heating up again in Washington, with the new Republican-dominated Congress pushing back against President Obama's plan not to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile in California, undocumented immigrants are now able to get drivers' licenses. This weekend, the debate over immigration reform moves to an unlikely venue: the opera.
SF Tape Music Festival Showcases the Art of Captured Sound
For the uninitiated, tape music is a kind of experimental audio art made up of recorded sounds, mixed together and projected to an audience seated in near-complete darkness. We stop by the country's largest tape music festival, which took place last weekend at a small theater in San Francisco's Mission District.
Jazz Review: The Complete Dial Modern Jazz Sessions
When musicians went on a national recording strike in 1942, the door suddenly opened for small-time labels. In Los Angeles, nearly a dozen indies sprang up looking to document an explosion of creativity in black music, mostly fueled by the wartime economic boom. One of those labels, Dial Records, has been chronicled in a new box set. Jazz critic Andrew Gilbert has a review.