Patt Morrison for Monday, May 21, 2012

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Monday, May 21, 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

 

1:06 – 1:30 - OPEN

 

1:30 – 1:39

Clifton’s Cafeteria may boast oldest neon in the world

Renovators of Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles have uncovered what they think is the oldest neon light bulb in the world. Patt checks in on the renovation and its findings.

 

Guest,

TBD

 

1:41:30 – 1:58:30

How bad is hyper partisanship in U.S. government?

Of the two major political parties in the United States, which one is more “scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of legitimacy of its political opposition?” If you guessed the Republican Party, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein would say you are correct. In their book It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, from the left and the right, Mann and Ornstein explain how our existing political system is operating in a state of adversarial culture wars that threatens the very fabric of our society. The authors also put forth a plan to reform what they deem to be a deadlocked and dysfunctional government, which necessitates reeling in extreme Republicans in order to balance out the two major parties. Has political hyper partisanship brought the U.S. to the brink of institutional collapse? How fair is it for Mann and Ornstein to place more blame on Republicans for the nation’s increasingly extreme adversarial political culture? Are Democrats genuinely more willing to compromise than Republicans?

 

Guest:

Thomas Mann, senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and co-author with Norman Ornstein, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism

 

2:06 – 2:30

Keeping cocaine for personal use could be classified a misdemeanor, not a felony

Will reducing the personal possession of drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine from a felony to a misdemeanor help California’s budget woes? Senator Mark Leno (D-California) thinks so. Leno’s bill, SB 1506, is due for a vote within the next three weeks, and if it passes, SB 1506 would set the maximum penalty for personal possession to one year in a county jail, instead of three years in a state prison. Leno estimates this will result in a $159 million savings for California counties and $64 million for the state. The senator stresses that “the legislation will not change the penalties for sale, possession for sale, or manufacture.” The California District Attorneys’ Association, along with several other professional organizations, has come out against the bill, arguing that both the California Penal Code and Proposition 36 already allow for plenty of opportunity for rehabilitation, that SB 1506 will unfairly shift the financial and maintenance burden of facilitating such prisoners entirely to the counties, and that the shift in enforcement would cause an increase in crimes associated with substance addiction, such as property theft. Do you support the bill? Would you like to see fewer tax dollars spent on prisons?

 

Guests:

Senator Mark Leno, D-3rd District (San Francisco); author of SB-1506 and chair of the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee

NOT CONFIRMED:

Lisa Green, District Attorney, Kern County

 

 

2:30 – 2:39

It was supposed to be the end of the world as we know it –but it wasn’t

It was exactly a year ago today that local preacher and Family Radio founder Harold Camping predicted the world was going to end.  His billboards advertising the rapture were all over Southern California: “Save the date! Jesus is coming on May 21!” He paid for 5,500 across the country. Camping had previously predicted the rapture would arrive on May 21, 1994, but said he made a few miscalculations in his Biblical translation. After the world didn’t end last year, he recalculated that it was coming on October 21^st, 2011. Camping passed away in January of this year, but we check in on his following one year later and look at the other looming apocryphal prediction – the Mayan Calendar. A team of archeologists recently discovered a room covered in 1200 year-old astronomical records of Mayan scribes that seem to be 600 years older than the more famous Mayan calendar. That could mean the calendar doesn’t end in 2012. With all these failed predictions, will people keep trying to find an exact date?

 

Guests:

NOT CONFIRMED:

Tom Bartlett, science reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education; his latest piece is A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now? in ReligiousDispatches.com

 

2:41:30 – 2:58:30

The legacy of former California Governor Pat Brown lives on in granddaughter’s documentary

Former California Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who passed away in 1996, left behind a biological legacy in his son and two-time California Governor Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr., but he also left behind a legacy as a synergistic political leader who oversaw the development of the state’s infrastructure, education system, and cultural evolution during most of the 1960s. Now, Pat Brown’s granddaughter has captured her grandfather’s legacy in a new documentary that examines the impact Brown’s legacy has had on the state and how it has influenced the contemporary challenges California faces today. What do you remember about former Governor Pat Brown? How much has California benefitted from his leadership?

 

Guests:

Sascha Rice, Pat Brown’s granddaughter and the writer, director and co-producer of “California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown,” which will air on PBS SoCal tonight [Monday, May 21] at 10 p.m.

 

 

 

Lauren Osen

Southern California Public Radio - 89.3 KPCC

626-583-5173 / 626-483-5278

losen@scpr.org @Patt_Morrison