Patt Morrison schedule for Friday, July 6, 2012

The entire Patt Morrison show is on tape for Friday, July 6^th, 2012

1:06 – 1:18

Physicists hone in on the elusive Higgs boson subatomic particle
A project with a $10 billion budget that involved 6,000 researchers over nearly fifty years seems to be paying off. Scientists in Europe announced Wednesday that they have discovered near certain evidence of the elusive atomic building block called the Higgs boson particle. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, operates the Higgs-hunting Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile circular tunnel deep under the border of France and Switzerland that utilizes thousands of torpedo-sized magnets to propel small particles to near-light speeds in order to break them apart to see what happens. Theorist Peter Higgs envisioned the particle that would eventually bear his name in 1964. Now, at 83, while attending the discovery announcement in Geneva he tearfully stated, “It’s really an incredible thing that it’s happened in my lifetime.” Also known as “the God particle,” the Higgs boson is so fundamental to the universe that, it is thought that without it, nothing could exist. For years, physicists have suspected that the particle is what gives other particles most of their mass. At the subatomic level, mass is a measure of energy, and the Higgs boson is thought to be one of the heaviest particles in the known universe. Now, the finding may validate physicists’ speculations. The Higgs boson provides researchers with the final major puzzle piece of the so-called Standard Model that describes the behavior and properties of every known particle. What will this discovery mean for the world of physics? It is worth the cost?

Guests:

David Stuart, professor of physics at UCSB working on the CMS experiment

Lawrence Krauss, director of The Origins Project at Arizona State University, and author of author of “A Universe from Nothing: Why There is

1:21 – 1:30

Jonathan Demme goes on another journey with Neil Young

Jonathan Demme is a tough guy to nail down. He has made a career of creating very different, but successful films. Everything from “The Silence of the Lambs” to “Rachel Getting Married” and the documentary “Jimmy Carter Man from Plains.” And the three concert documentaries he’s done with Neil Young are no different. They’ve all looked at Young and his music from different angles.The latest “Neil Young Journeys” documents a road trip from his hometown of Omemee, Ontario to Toronto’s Massey Hall in a 1956 Crown Victoria. Demme speaks with Patt on today’s show about the journey to direct his latest film project.

 

Guest:

Jonathan Demme, producer, film director, “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Jimmy Carter Man from Plains”documentary; directed three documentaries about musician Neil Young; his latest film “Neil Young Journeys” premiered at the LA Film Festival

 

 

 

1:30 – 1:58:30

Walter Cronkite, the anchor of middle America

History is shaped by many, but perhaps even more so by journalists and members of the media, whose choices about what stories to follow and questions to ask influence much of public dialogue (like it or not). Walter Cronkite, who delivered newspapers as a boy in Houston, grew into one of the most prominent members of this special circle, coming into his own as a television anchor at the same time that television itself began to usurp radio and print media as a news source. Cronkite covered everything from the space race and the Vietnam War to the first Earth Day in 1970. His special ability to predict the next story was strengthened by both a strong work ethic and an earnest desire to reach the general American public, not the intelligentsia – according to author Douglas Brinkley, President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.” At 667 pages, Brinkley’s biography of Cronkite approaches the weighty influence of the man himself, but you can get a snapshot tomorrow when Brinkley joins Patt to talk about the life of one of the most famous U.S. news anchors of all time.  Did you grow up watching Walter Cronkite on CBS news? Do you have memories of a specific broadcast? What are the differences you see between news then and now?

 

Guests:

Douglas Brinkley, author of “Cronkite” (Harper 2012); history commentator for CBS News; contributing editor to Vanity Fair; professor of history at Rice University, fellow at the James Baker Institute of Public Policy

 

 

 

2:06 – 2:19
‘The Closer’ brings L.A.’s crime stories to the small screen
What’s the secret behind the most successful series in the history of basic cable? Chocolate. Well, that and a meticulously researched plotline, consulted on by the likes of former Los Angeles County district attorney Gil Garcetti, and a powerhouse of a leading lady, Kyra Sedgwick. Sedgwick stars as Los Angeles Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, a southern beauty who means business. Currently in its seventh and final season, the first of show’s final six episodes will air starting Monday, July 9^th, 2012. Los Angeles viewers will especially appreciate that “The Closer” is based on real L.A. crime stories, using the LAPD’s fictional “Major Crimes Unit” to juxtapose law enforcement against L.A. culture. Patt takes her show to the set of “The Closer” to talk dramatized crime stories, and of course chocolate. A spin-off series called “Major Crimes” will premiere on Monday, August 13, in the hour following the series finale of “The Closer.” Are you sad to see “The Closer” come to an end? What are your favorite moments from the show’s seven year run?

Guests:
Kyra Sedgwick, Golden Globe & Emmy-winning star of “The Closer”

James Duff, creator & producer of “The Closer”

 

Gil Garcetti, former District Attorney of Los Angeles County; consulting producer on “The Closer”

 

 

 

2:21:30 – 2:39

The ‘busy’ trap: got free time?

The phrase “I have free time” seems to be so elusive in the rustle and bustle of our modern day society. Busyness is now potentially an addictive condition for adults all the way down to children. According to Tim Kreider, adults schedule time with friends the same way 4.0 students plan community service. Children’s schedules are so densely packed with extracurricular activities that they come home from school exhausted, as an adult from a full day’s work. Kreider reflects nostalgically about the days as a kid when he had three hours of “totally unstructured” time.  Now contemporary society riddles and traps people with obligations left and right, leaving no room for free time to breathe and relax. Now the phrase, “I am so busy,” has taken over. Is this a “boast disguised as a complaint”? Does this phrase make one feel important? Kreider emphasizes the indispensability of idleness, in a last attempt to salvage it. Are you so busy that you have no free time? How has this affected your life? Do you wish to change?

 

Guest:

Tim Kreider, author of "We Learn Nothing," a collection of essays and cartoons; his cartoon, "The Pain - When Will It End?" has been collected in three books by Fantagraphics

 

 

 

2:41:30 – 2:58:30

Is summer better in LA or NYC?

Patt’s counterpart on the East Coast joins her for one of their periodic duels of L.A. versus N.Y.C. This time, it’s summer here versus summer there. Here in Los Angeles we rock the movies in cemeteries and there’s always the Hollywood Bowl. Then again, New York’s got Shakespeare in the Park and The High Line. We’ve got our Dodgers, they’ve got their Yankees; we have road rage, they have fights on subways. What are your favorite things to do in L.A. and if you’re a transplant from the Big Apple, what do you miss?

 

Guest:

Brian Lehrer, host of WNYC’s public affairs program “The Brian Lehrer Show”

 

 

 

Producer - Patt Morrison
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