Patt Morrison for Tuesday, August 30, 2011

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Tuesday, August 30, 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

Life in 9/12 America: have 10 years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq & Pakistan been worth it?

A development over the weekend in Pakistan seems to underscore the progress made in our decade-long war against al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001.  Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, al Qaeda’s top operational planner, was killed by an American aerial drone in the remote mountains of Pakistan, yet another elimination of a top al Qaeda member as the U.S. appears to be inflicting devastating losses on its nemesis since killing Osama bin Laden.  In 2001, the US military sent a limited number of personnel into the deserts of Afghanistan to cooperate with indigenous groups from across the region.  Within the year, they successfully toppled the Taliban and severely weakened al Qaeda’s presence. Having accomplished these victories, American forces turned in 2002 to another strategy, which would prove far less successful in the long term: reforming the “Graveyard of Empires” from the top-down, through stabilizing its central government institutions. From then on, the situation worsened: Afghanistan’s own police forces collapsed, al Qaeda grew again in strength, American casualties escalated, and billions more dollars were spent on the war as the months went by. Military advisor and future RAND scientist Seth Jones observed it all while on duty in Afghanistan, while also watching Pakistan become increasingly unstable and the painful lessons from the 9/11-inspired invasion of Iraq.  There have been unquestionable victories:  first elections in generations in Iraq and Afghanistan; the killing of bin Laden and the erosion of al Qaeda’s operational capabilities; the demonstrated incredible dexterity of the American military that’s been asked to perform every imaginable operation, from nation building to city destroying, since 9/11.  But have the immense costs been worth the victories?  As we continue to look at the post-9/11 world we ask whether our decade of warfare was ultimately worth all of the sacrifices.

 

Guest:

Seth Jones, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation; former representative & advisor for the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations

via ISDN

 

 

 

2:06 – 2:30
Yelp wars revisited: are online review sites inaccurate and unfair—or helpful?
Because the Yelp Wars segment received such a large response last week and we did not have enough time with it, Patt is having Vince Sollitto, vice president of corporate communications of Yelp, back. He will be here, in studio, to take your calls and comments about Yelp. Have you experienced extortion, defamation, or fake reviews on Yelp? Or, have you had a positive experience on Yelp? Are these online review sites helpful to consumers and businesses alike? Or, with reports of extortion, fake reviews, manipulation of reviews, and defamation, are the sites inaccurate and unfair?

Guest:
Vince Sollitto, vice president of corporate communications, Yelp, Inc.

IN STUDIO

 

 

 

 

2:30 – 2:58:30

“Law does not mandate work-life balance” to mothers claiming discrimination after maternity leave from Bloomberg L.P.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” This statement, made by Jack Welch, former chief executive of General Electric, was what Judge Loretta A. Preska of United States District Court in Manhattan quoted in her recent ruling. Judge Preska dismissed the class-action lawsuit by new mothers who claimed that Bloomberg L.P. discriminated against them when they returned to work from maternity leave by reducing their pay, demoting them, or excluding them from meetings. She wrote about federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (E.E.O.C)’s case that “isolated remarks from a few individuals over the course of a nearly six-year period in a company of over 10,000, with over 600 women who took maternity leave” does not show a pattern of discrimination. Furthermore, “a female is free to choose to dedicate herself to the company at any cost, and… she will rise in this organization accordingly. The law does not require companies to ignore or stop valuing ultimate dedication, however unhealthy that may be for family life.”

 

Bloomberg L.P. is the financial and media services company founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been accused in the past of making inappropriate comments about women’s sex appeal and who the women of the suit claim is responsible for creating a workplace culture of discrimination. Is this an isolated Bloomberg issue, or is discrimination of mothers before, during, and after pregnancy a common workplace occurrence? Does it make a difference that many of these women are top Wall Street executives—at that point, are they choosing career over family? Has feminism created a Generation Y that expects to have it all—family and career—without sacrifice? Is that what men have? Should American companies do more for their working mothers like the government does and European countries do or will that sacrifice competitiveness?

 

Guests:

Sonia Ossorio, executive director, New York National Organization for Women (N.O.W.)

CALL HER:

 

Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research 

CALL HER:

 

 

Jonathan Serviss
Senior Producer, Patt Morrison
Southern California Public Radio
NPR Affiliate for Los Angeles
89.3 KPCC-FM | 89.1 KUOR-FM | 90.3 KPCV-FM
626.583.5171, office
415.497.2131, mobile
jserviss@kpcc.org / jserviss@scpr.org
www.scpr.org