Patt Morrison for Wednesday, 2/1/2012

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

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

 

 

1:00 – 2:00

OPEN

 

2:00 – 2:30

The drone wars – robots that fly and fight all by themselves
Science fiction films like the Terminator movies have both entertained and frightened us with depictions of a future dystopia where humans wage war against an army of intelligent and violent computers of humanity's own making. Although fighting wars against robots still falls in the purview of Hollywood, fighting wars with robots is rapidly becoming a reality. As of 2012, unmanned drones make up nearly one-third of U.S. military aircraft, up from 5 percent in 2005 - a scant seven years. Although it has become commonplace for “desktop pilots” to remotely control planes from halfway around the world, our military is increasingly relying on autonomous drones that can fly themselves, and experts say that the day of flying robots that can make their own tactical decisions isn’t far off. The Navy is even working on a drone that can automatically perform one of the most complex maneuvers required of their planes - to take off and land on aircraft carriers. Although taking pilots out of cockpits keeps American lives farther from the battlefield, saves weight, increases performance of the aircraft and can potentially reduce costs, some military advisers are wary of removing the human element from waging wars. Who is responsible when no one pulls the trigger? There have been reports of PTSD among the people who send the drones on their sometimes-deadly missions from a computer thousands of miles away. Are drones the exclusive domain of the executive branch - and does the very efficiency of drone warfare - cheap and swift, remove congress from its historical role of declaring war and paying for it?

 

Guests:

Mary Ellen O'Connell, professor of law and research professor of international dispute resolution at the University of Notre Dame

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2:30 – 2:40

The Jayhawks find their wings and fly once again

The Jayhawks are a Minneapolis-based band whose breezy mixture of Gram Parsons’ cosmic country and Neil Young’s feedback-drenched guitar made them inadvertent progenitors of a new sub-genre of music in the early 1990s. Adoring fans and impressed critics called this new style “alt-country” and watched as the band’s star began to rise. Built around the unique vocal harmonies and smart songwriting of founding members Gary Louris and Mark Olson, the Jayhawks toured relentlessly but their big break remained elusive. The band seemed to be caught in the crossfire of the rapidly changing music business and in a category that never yielded record sales to match its artistic promise. The New York Times exemplified their struggle by titling a positive review of their 2000 album, Smile, “What If You Made a Classic and No One Cared?” They released a handful of albums, endured lineup changes and eventually went on hiatus in 2003. Over the ensuing years, Louris and Olson worked on other projects and kept in touch while the band’s legend grew in absentia. And then, after testing the waters as a duo with an acoustic tour and album the pair reconvened the Jayhawks’ classic mid-1990s lineup to record a new album, Mockingbird Time in 2011, which prompted the Onion’s AV Club to say that “…the years they spent apart seem like a damnable waste.” How does a band maintain longevity in the modern music business? How can a band’s artistic merit be weighed against its sales figures?

 

PATT: The Jayhawks are playing at The Avalon in Hollywood on Thursday, February 2nd at 8pm.

 

Guest:

Gary Louris, (LORE-iss), singer, songwriter and founding member of the Jayhawks

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2:40 – 3:00

The Behavior Gap: why you can’t stop doing stupid things with money, even when you know you shouldn’t, and how to change

Buy, sell, repeat. Why do so many of us keep doing dumb things with our money, or make the same poor investment choices over and over again?  Maybe it’s because we fail to make decisions based on our own interests, instead planning our financial futures according to the same generic road map. Or maybe it’s because some of us fail to make decisions at all, and instead remain anxious and paralyzed, surrounded by too much advice, uncertain about which particulars apply to our situation and what the precisely correct decision is. Carl Richards – financial planner, New York Times “Bucks” blogger, Marketplace contributor, and author of The Behavior Gap – talks to Patt about what it means to make a financial plan for yourself, regardless of outside opinions and advice, in a world where, as Richard puts it, “financial plans are worthless.” 

 

Guest:

Carl Richard, author of “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money,” a contributor to the NYTimes.com “Bucks Blog” and certified financial planner/ founder of Prasada Capital Management, a portfolio design firm

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