Patt Morrison for Tues 2/9/2010

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

1-3 p.m.

 

CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG

 

 

 

1:00 – 1:40

OPEN

 

1:40 – 2:00

Redistricting – reform a must or a mess?

Every ten years, after the national census, California redraws its legislative districts with the ostensible purpose of more fairly representing voters. For the first time, a citizen commission will set those boundaries, taking the power out of legislators’ hands.  But with a long list of regulations for membership to that body, it’s a challenge to make it representative of the state’s diverse population, and then there are the political forces who want to abolish the commission before it even puts pencil to paper.  We ask…can the average citizen be heard with the new system? 

 

Guests:

Elaine Howle, California State Auditor

 

George Skelton, Political Columnist for the Los Angeles Times

 

 

2:00 – 2:30

The pain gap—pain management disparities by race, gender

Pain—100 million Americans say they live with it, it is the leading cause of disability and it is still misunderstood by the medical establishment, especially in women and minorities. Research shows these groups report higher pain severity than men; they suffer more from depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and more of their pain goes unheard and under diagnosed. When doctors do hear their pain, they often make different treatment decisions based on an individual’s demographics. No matter how you slice the data, race and gender are big predictors of how much pain you are in and that difference doesn’t go away, even when you control for socioeconomic factors. Patt talks with a leading researcher in the field about physician variability decision making and how to close the pain gap.

 

Guest:

Dr. Carmen Green, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan

CALL HER WEB, PLEASE LINK: “Doctor Green’s bio” http://www.med.umich.edu/anesresearch/Green.htm

 

 

 

2:30 – 3:00

What came first: science or democracy?

What has been the impetus and inspiration for the democracies of the world?  Timothy Ferris argues that it was and is science, explaining how the political and scientific revolutions grew concomitantly, feeding off each other’s victories. Does that mean true democracy doesn’t exist in scientifically-deprived nations? And are the most scientific nations the most democratic? Ferris explores how scientific societies demand liberty and other social benefits.

 

Guests:

Timothy Ferris is the author of The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature and an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley

IN STUDIO