Patt Morrison for Monday, 10/24/2011

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Monday, October 24, 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 – 1:30

OPEN

 

1:30 – 2:00

UN urges ban on solitary confinement, what does it mean for California prisons?

The United Nations’ lead investigator on torture, Juan Mendez, has called for governments to put an end to solitary confinement in prisons, arguing it can amount to torture and cause serious mental and physical damage. He’s defining solitary confinement as an inmate being held in isolation from everyone but guards for at least 22 hours a day and estimates that between 20-25,000 people are currently being held in isolation within the U.S. It’s been a big year for solitary confinement, from the controversy over the isolation of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier accused of leaking secret documents to Wikileaks, to the ongoing hunger strike in California prisons over the practice of isolating prisoners. While the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) doesn’t consider its practice to be solitary confinement, they argue there are reasons for it, ranging from punishment to protection of prisoners from fellow inmates. Is it time to reconsider or is this the grim reality of detention?

 

Guests:

Juan Mendez, lead investigator on torture, United Nations; he was held in solitary confinement for three days in his native Argentina in the 1970s

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NOT CONFIRMED – DO NOT PROMOTE THIS GUEST:

Scott Kernan, undersecretary of operations for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)

 

Craig Haney, professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz; he was involved in the Stanford Prison Experiment

 

·         Professor Haney as a leading scholar and celebrated speaker on the psychological effects upon prisoners intends to provide commentary on both the psychological effects of prison overcrowding as well the constitutionality of conditions currently existing in American prisons. He also will provide valuable insight regarding potential criminal justice reform necessary to curb existing populations.

 

 

2:00 – 2:40

Think twice before you “go pink”: the big business of breast cancer

There are endless ways for us to contribute to the $6 billion industry that is breast cancer research: runs, walks, run-walks, salad spinners…the list goes on. In a recent Marie Claire article, writer Lea Goldman asks: “When snuggies go pink, haven’t we hit our awareness saturation point?” The ubiquitous campaign has everyone “going pink” – including scammers. Prosecutors in New York allege that one group even raised $4 million for breast cancer research and paid for only 11 mammograms. The State Attorney General’s office is asking over a hundred charities to disclose their financials, checking to see if donations end up where they were intended. How far are scammers willing to go? How intricate are these fraudulent charities? Have you ever been duped and didn’t know?

 

Guests:

Lea Goldman, deputy editor at Marie Claire. Her article, “The Big Business of Breast Cancer,” appeared in September.

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Other guests:  TBD

 

 

2:40– 3:00

Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra

Cleopatra was and remains notorious. The last queen of Egypt, lover of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony—her name has been used to sell cigarettes, adopted by an asteroid, a video game, a strip club, and it remains synonymous with Elizabeth Taylor. But without even one shred of surviving papyri from ancient Alexandria, most of what we know about her has come from a history written by her enemies and classical authors who conflated accounts and exaggerated melodrama. In an attempt to “pluck the gauze of melodrama” from the ruler’s image, Pulitzer prize-winning author Stacy Schiff set out as a kind of historical detective, digging up all alleged accounts of Cleopatra’s life, from contemporary historical and archeological records to Plutarch and Shakespeare. She then simultaneously brought them to bear on Cleopatra’s life and, considering the motives and bias behind each, fit them together to reconstruct a new and divergent image of the ruler. She joins Patt to talk about that woman.

 

Guest:

Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov); she is the author most recently of Cleopatra: A Life

ON TAPE