Should LAUSD stop serving breakfast to its students? Also, non-citizens may start receiving jury duty and a UCI Irvine fraternity apologizes for their controversial "Suit & Tie" video. Then, what's the future of the L.A. Lakers, and what's your favorite cure for a hangover? All that and more, on AirTalk.
LAUSD could eliminate classroom breakfast program
LAUSD may eliminate a classroom breakfast program serving over 200,000 children. The program’s supporters argue that offering a nutritious breakfast at school is crucial for children who may not be eating at home, either because their parents can’t afford food for breakfast or because they leave for work too early in the morning to make sure something is on the table before school.
"Many kids have single parent families and the mom may be asleep because she had the night shift. They may be going to school with a sibling who goes to school at a different time. Any number of reasons that explain why they can't come in early enough to make use of the breakfast program before the first class," said William McCarthy, professor at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health. "I think every child should be assured to be well fed before the start of the first class of the day, otherwise they're not going to be taught."
The teachers union opposes the breakfast program, saying that it cuts too much time out of classroom instruction. In addition, the 10 minutes allotted to breakfast in the classroom has proven to be not enough time;
"Setting up a 10 minute window in which to do 25 or 30 minutes worth of work is guaranteed to mean that something is going to lose out, either the nutritional side or the instructional side," said Warren Fletcher, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "It's being rolled out poorly, it's being rolled out in a way that assures bad sanitation issues. Board member Monica Garcia said there needs to be some middle ground."
The classroom breakfast program was launched last year to increase the number of children eating breakfast after it was discovered that only 29 percent of children eligible for free or discounted food were eating before school in the cafeteria. With new breakfast numbers up to 89 percent, schools are reporting fewer tardies, greater classroom focus, and higher attendance.
What’s the way out of this dispute? Is there a way to make before-school cafeteria breakfasts more popular and effective?
Guests:
Warren Fletcher, President, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)
William McCarthy, Professor, UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health; McCarthy specializes in nutrition and has devoted most of his 30-year career to intervention studies designed to encourage members of special populations to adhere to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
Should legal immigrants who aren’t citizens serve on juries?
Under a law proposed by the California state assembly, the Golden State would be the first in the nation to allow non-citizens to serve on juries as long as they meet all the other requirements of jury service (jurors must be 18, proficient in English, and have no felony record).
While to opponents the idea sounds like a departure from one of the basic tenants of American life--the right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers--those in favor of the change argue that, in a state where one in seven residents are not citizens, the law is simply reflecting the reality of living in California. Supporters also site the need for a larger pool of potential jurors as a reason to open the criteria.
Does the inclusion of non-citizens on juries weaken or strengthen the verdicts they hand down? Would non-citizens fully grasp the importance of sitting on a jury, or might they take it more seriously than American citizens who sometimes consider jury duty a hassle?
Guests:
Bob Wiecowski, California state assemblyman representing the 25th District, which encompasses parts of San Jose and the South Bay Area
Rocky Chavez, California state assemblyman representing the 76th District, which includes most of coastal northern San Diego County, including Oceanside and Carlsbad
Asian-American fraternity under fire for blackface video
The University of California, Irvine, is looking into a video produced by the Asian-American fraternity Lambda Theta Delta that features one of its performers in blackface. The video shows three members of the fraternity dancing to the Justin Timberlake song “Suit & Tie.” A minute into the video, they are joined by a fourth member in blackface pretending to be the hip-hop star Jay Z.
The video went viral last week and sparked outrage on campus. Lambda Theta Delta has since issued an apology on Facebook. "This behavior is simply unacceptable and the individuals responsible for the video have already been reprimanded within the organization prior to the public outcry to which this formal apology is responding," the statement read. But some in the university community are calling for more than just reprimands.
Thomas Parham, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at UCI, has said that if school policy is found to have been violated, the fraternity or its members could face more severe sanctions. What should the punishment be?
Guest:
Sarah Menendez, opinion editor of the New University, UC Irvine's official newspaper, who’s been covering the story for the paper.
NBA Roundup: Lakers are out...and so is Jason Collins
The season started out promising enough, but injuries proved to be the ultimate undoing of the Los Angeles Lakers this year. The short-handed team—minus Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Metta World Peace and more—were swept out of the first round of the NBA playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs. Now plenty of thorny questions face the Purple and Gold. Will Dwight Howard stay? Will Pau Gasol be traded? With Kobe’s torn Achilles tendon and the difficulty of recovering from such an injury, who will be the future of the Lakers?
In other NBA news, Jason Collins, a 12-year NBA veteran, has become the first active male athlete in a major American team sport to come out as gay. He made the announcement in a first-person piece for Sports Illustrated. “I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand,” Collins writes in Sports Illustrated.
The painful search for a hangover cure
For years, the medical community abstained from studying hangover cures because doctors didn’t want to be seen as encouraging overindulgence of alcohol. What helped change that was grasping the severity of the problem: it’s estimated that painful hangovers cost the U.S. economy $148 billion annually. Recovering revelers either call in sick or show up with headaches, nausea, decreased skills and general misery. Now, scientists are calling for more research into cures. What about tequila shots or a bottle of wine actually causes the pain of a hangover? Dehydration was blamed in the past, but that’s changing.
What are your homemade hangover cures and what do actual doctors recommend?
Guest:
Dr. Sharon Orrange, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC; Also has a private practice in Internal Medicine at USC