Patt Morrison for Thursday, May 26, 2011

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Thursday, May 26, 2011

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

 

 

 

1:06 – 1:19

OPEN

 

 

1:21:30 – 1:39

Crime is dropping everywhere, but why?

By most anyone’s estimation, a recession would be the perfect recipe for a crime spike. But in the last several years, and in fact consistently over the last 20 years, crime rates have been falling in cities nationwide. A new report from the Brookings Institution provides a snapshot of 100 metropolitan areas, which have become increasingly safer; when communities become more diverse, economically and demographically, crime rates tend to fall.  In California, where the economy has been depressed for going on five years, the rate of violent crime has fallen to a 44-year-low.  What happened to the old conventional wisdom that in bad economic times, crime increases?  That’s not the only thinking that was turned upside down in the crime statistics:  the gap between suburban and city crime rates declined dramatically; the social characteristics associated with crime, like immigration or ethnic diversity, had limited connection to crime rates since 1990.  Has the U.S. simply become a safer place in which to live?

 

Guest:

Steven Raphael, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the report authors

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1:41:30 – 1:58:30

Happy Meal wars continue:  Ronald McDonald & cheap kids toys in the crosshairs

There is perhaps no greater symbol for American cuisine, and all of the good and bad that goes along with it, than the Golden Arches of McDonalds.  The Happy Meal wars started years ago, when health and nutrition advocates targeted McDonalds for their aggressive marketing to kids and the connection between childhood obesity and the cheeseburger, fries and cheap toys that come in each friendly-looking child’s meal.  San Francisco and Santa Clara counties banned the sale of Happy Meals, New York City and even Nebraska considered bans.  McDonalds and other fast food chains fought back, pushing legislation that would restrict how local governments could regulate restaurant food.  The latest shot comes from public health advocates who are pressuring McDonalds to stop using Ronald McDonald as their mascot.  Who should exercise the ultimate control over whether you or your child can eat a Happy Meal?

 

Guests:

Deborah Lapidus, Value [the] Meal campaign director, Corporate Accountability International

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TBD Representative of the California Restaurant Association or The Center for Consumer Freedom

 

 

 

2:06 – 2:30

Study shows fluffy majors beget fluffy earnings

You know the old joke about education—the engineering major says, “how does it work?” the English major says, “do you want fries with that?” Now, the first study ever to try and quantify lifetime earnings of different majors shows that that joke may be funny because it’s true. According to previously unreported census data definitively linking college majors to career earnings, those who majored in engineering, computer science or business earn as much as 50% more over a lifetime than those who major in the humanities, arts, education and psychology. Overall, the study conducted by the Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found a college degree was still worth it: workers with a bachelor’s degree can still expect to make 84% more in a lifetime than a colleague with only a high school diploma. But as the recession and increasing college costs renew the age-old debate of the value of a college education, are those “critical thinking skills” promised to dance majors really worth it?

 

Guests:

NOT CONFIRMED:

Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and a researcher on the study

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2:30 – 2:39

OPEN

 

 

2:41:30 – 2:58:30

Alan Arkin’s “Improvised Life”

The Academy-Award winner Alan Arkin has always been a supremely gifted role-player on screen, delivering deadpan comedy and harrowing realities to his audiences. Now he emerges as a charismatic storyteller, revealing in his memoir, An Improvised Life, his childhood epiphany that ever since the age of five he had wanted to be an actor. However, it wasn’t until many years later, while on a location shoot overlooking the Hudson Valley, that he discovered during an intimate conversation with one of his co-stars what he had really been doing throughout his life, in pursuit of his artistic dream. “With that one statement I realized that what she’d said about herself was the impulse behind all of my own interests, all of my needs, all of my studying, compulsions, and passions,” Arkin writes in the beginning pages of his book. “This is dedicated to everyone who wants to be the music.”

 

Guests:

Alan Arkin, Academy Award-winning actor, director, musician & singer; author of “An Improvised Life: A Memoir”

He calls us:

 

Jonathan Serviss
Senior Producer, Patt Morrison
Southern California Public Radio
NPR Affiliate for Los Angeles
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626.583.5171, office
415.497.2131, mobile
jserviss@kpcc.org / jserviss@scpr.org
www.scpr.org