Patt Morrison for Tuesday, July 26, 2011

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Tuesday, July 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 – 1:39

OPEN

 

 

1:41:30 – 1:58:30

California DMV makes organ donor question mandatory on driver’s license application as state lags way behind national average

In an effort to increase organ donation in California, where only 28% of drivers choose to give up vital organs after death—compared with the national average of 40%—the state’s Department of Motor and Vehicles is taking a definitive stand. Starting this month, after years of being voluntary, answering that question on a California driver’s license application will become mandatory. Several donation advocacy groups support the move, which became law this year after State Senator Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) pushed the bill through the legislature, unopposed. Still, some bio-ethicists are skeptical of the move; a similar change in Virginia law actually resulted in a decline in organ donors because being forced to answer the question drove more people to decline. Policy makers have proposed alternative plans—a default-to-donation policy that requires opponents opt-out; growing organs from stem cells; even paying for organs. All agree demand is greater than ever as Americans increasingly struggle with obesity-related illnesses and as deaths that leave organs in transplantable conditions, like car accidents, become more rare. Which method is most effective and why are donor rates so much lower in the golden state? Could it be that California’s transient population feels less connected to its neighbors or that cultural attitudes of the state’s diverse populations deter donors? Patt digs into some of the psychology behind the decision-making process. For example, why are people who register for a license online so much more likely to check the donor box than those who apply in-person at the DMV?

 

Guests:

Jaime Garza, spokesperson with the Department of Motor Vehicles in California

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NOT CONFIRMED - ON WHY THEY’RE SUPPORTING THIS TACTIC:

Tom Mone, CEO OneLegacy, a Southern California based donor network that matches available organs to patients at 215 hospitals and 12 transplant centers across Southern California

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ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS, CULTURAL BARRIERS, ETC.:

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania

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• Drivers are far more likely to decide to donate their organs and tissues after death if they’re filling out the application online (41% said yes) than in-person (only 22% said yes at the DMV)
• More than 100,000 people are waiting for organs
• Approximately 100 million Americans are registered donors but very, very few deaths leave organs in transplantable conditions, less than 1% end up being eligible donors.
• In Virginia and Texas, driver’s license applications are required to record people’s decision to donate. Virginia includes the options to donate, not donate, or not decide at all. After 6 months, “45% percent registered as nondonors, 24% were undecided, and only 31% registered as donors”
• Evidence from a similar policy in Texas suggests that mandated choice is problematic: 80% refused to be donors

 

 

 

 

2:06 – 2:30

Chore Wars: myth of the slacker dad debunked?

It’s an age-old domestic debate: who does more work, men or women? According to the latest research, it’s neither. Various surveys including statistics on professional duties, household chores and child-rearing responsibilities are turning up new evidence that men and women now have combined daily totals of paid and unpaid work that for the first time are almost exactly the same. According to the most recent data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women are actually only putting in about 20 minutes more work (paid and unpaid) per day than their husbands. It's still true, however, that women with young children put in more hours around the house and with the kids, at the same time as their husbands are putting more time in at the office, where cutting back hours as a new dad is still stigmatized. Women may be working more, but it's not the extra 15 hours a week predicted by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her 1990 book The Second Shift, which argued that women liberated by the feminist revolution to work one shift in the workplace suddenly found themselves working a second shift with the kids when they arrived home because their husbands had not made a parallel cultural change. TIME editor Ruth Konigsberg says, quantitatively speaking, working mothers “have no grounds to stand on. And it’s time that women—myself included—admit it and move on.” So what about the pay gap? And is the conventional belief that working mothers have it the worst simply a myth?

 

Guests:

Ruth Davis Konigsberg, senior editor, TIME and the author of “Chore Wars: Men are now pulling their weight—at work and at home. So why do women still think they’re slacking off?”

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John Robinson, professor of Sociology and director of the Americans' Use of Time Project at the Survey Research Center at the University of Maryland, which conducted research on couples’ use of time by having them keep a diary accounting for all 24 hours of their day 

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Arlie Hochschild, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California at Berkley; author of the book “The Second Shift”

 

 

 

2:30 – 2:58:30

The NAACP mobilizes its members for jobs, educational opportunities, parity in health care

African Americans do not speak with one voice, but they do have an organization that for over 100 years has worked to have the many voices of blacks heard. This week that group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is meeting in Los Angeles, highlighting the challenges and promise facing its members. As the nation pulls itself out of recession, slow economic growth and a disproportionately high unemployment rate for blacks continues to keep some families at risk for losing their homes and struggling to keep food on the table. On the political side, states are in the process of redistricting, threatening traditional boundaries that have protected minority voting blocks. The Voting Rights Act is threatened in several states as new restrictions are being put on voters, such as having to show photo I.D. before casting a ballot. And as the country looks to the coming election in 2012, are African Americans disappointed in our first president of color? Historically Democrat in their leanings, will they now look to the Republicans for support?  The NAACP is fighting for parity in education and an equal voice in the nation’s policies, but what is the best way to accomplish this? And, as the organization reaches out to other people of color, can it really make a difference in these major areas of concern to all?

 

Guests:

Hilary Shelton (Mr.), senior vice president for policy and advocacy and director of the NAACP’s Washington D.C. bureau

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Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP; member of the NAACP's national board

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