Patt Morrison for Tuesday, August 23, 2011

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Tuesday, August 23, 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

Did NATO help pave the way for Sharia law in Libya?

 

Guests:

UNCONFIRMED

Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of Brookings Doha Center in Qatar

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Abubaker Saad, professor of Middle Eastern history at Western Connecticut State University; former Libyan diplomat and interpreter for Moammar Gadhafi

CALL HIM:

 

 

 

1:21:30 – 1:39

OPEN

 

 

 

1:41:30 – 1:58:30

The broken promise of a “green economy”: few jobs created by federal and state money

In recent years, politicians like Barack Obama and Jerry Brown have talked a lot about the potential of a “green economy” to create millions of jobs and reinvigorate the nation’s finances, but a new study by the Brookings Institution has found otherwise: clean-technology jobs only account for 2% of American employment. Though California leads the nation with its 320,000 “green jobs”—90,000 of which are concentrated in the L.A. Metropolitan area—Silicon Valley ranked only slightly above the nationwide average, with 2.2%. In fact, emerging employment figures indicate that efforts by federal and state governments to pump money into these jobs are proving dramatically unsuccessful. Two years ago, California was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to fix drafty homes, but so far about only half of the money has been spent, and only 538 full-time jobs have been created. The $59 million in federal, state and local money meant for green job training and apprenticeships has also yielded disappointing results, with 719 job placements. The number of green jobs has even declined in some areas, with a loss of 492 positions in the South Bay between 2003 and 2010. Though California’s own environmental legislation has helped create a business environment hospitable to a new green economy, nationwide declines in construction and demand have hurt the wide-spread growth of green jobs. Why have so many fewer jobs been created than originally promised? And have companies and the government overestimated how much the public really cares about energy efficiency?

 

Guests:

ALL UNCONFIRMED:

Mark Muro, senior fellow and director of policy for the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and co-author of “Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment”

OR

Jonathan Rothwell, co-author of “Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment”

OR

Devashree Saha, co-author of “Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment”

 

Van Jones, Co-Founder and President of Rebuild the Dream and former green-jobs czar in the Obama Administration

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Andrew P. Morriss, research fellow at the New York University Center for Labor and Employment Law, a Senior Fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center and a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

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2:06 – 2:19

Higher Ground: actress Vera Farmiga's directorial debut

Vera Farmiga is an accomplished actress appearing in such critically acclaimed films as The Departed and Up in the Air, a role for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Now, because of a deep connection to a script, Farmiga can add director to her list of credits. The actress was cast as Corinne Walker in the film Higher Ground, the story of a woman who begins to question her faith (Christianity), but when the financing for the film hit a stumbling block, Farmiga stepped-in to direct. With her name attached, the movie was back on track and marked her directorial debut. Higher Ground walks us through the life of a passionate, intelligent and deeply religious woman (Corinne Walker played by Farmiga), who, locked inside the narrow boundaries of her spiritual world, starts to doubt herself, the people in her life and her religion. She utters a line to her husband (played by Joshua Leonard) in the film about his unease dealing with things that he can't understand like literature, God, or even how to satisfy a woman. How can some so readily accept while others question? Does the quest for a spiritual life and inner growth lead us to more questions than answers? One of the central questions of the film is, is it possible for faith and doubt to coexist? Patt talks to this ethereal actress about the script and her experience directing for this first time.

 

Guest

Vera Farmiga, Academy Award nominated actress and director

SHE CALLS US:

 

 

 

2:21:30 – 2:30

OPEN

 

 

 

2:30 – 2:58:30

Could the erosion of the American middle class be a lasting trend?

The American middle class was a hurting bunch before the “great recession” of 2008 struck—for decades the gap between the rich and poor in this country has been growing at a fairly steady pace and middle class incomes had been largely stagnant.  An analysis from Citigroup back in 2005 found that all of the movement and spending in the American economy was among the top reaches of wealth:  the richest 1 percent of households possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent and with each passing year a greater share of the nation’s assets were flowing into their pockets.  It’s not surprising that as the financial crisis spread out over the past three years the situation has become exacerbated:  according to figures from Gallup, from May 2009 to May 2011 daily consumer spending rose by 16 percent among Americans earning more than $90,000 a year; among all other Americans, spending was completely flat.  As politicians wrestle with job creation there is a real possibility that the slow erosion of the American middle class, once the strength of this country, will become a permanent trend that is now evidenced by persistent high unemployment among those middle income workers.  The troubling trend is not just seen in the U.S. but in other developed countries as well.  New research from the University of Oxford found that in the week of several recent financial crises the rich have usually strengthened their economic position while the middle class suffered depressed income for a long time after a crisis.  We look at a growing body of research that paints a bleak picture for the middle class and what could be an economy that is forever changed.

 

Guests:

UNCONFIRMED

Don Peck, features editor & writer for The Atlantic & author of “Pinched:  how the Great Recession has narrowed our futures and what we can do about it”

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Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

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Anthony Atkinson, research professor at the University of Oxford

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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
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