Today on AirTalk we'll see how the Curiosity landing is putting space exploration back in the spotlight, evaluate NBC's Olympics coverage, gear up for a public hearing in Sherman Oaks regarding helicopter noise, look at the rise of addiction rates in baby boomers, consider the shooting this weekend at a Milwaukee Sikh temple and discuss the evolution of the home.
To Mars and beyond! Does the Curiosity rover landing mean space is back?
Tears, yells, hugs, high fives. When the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Curiosity rover successfully touched down on Mars Sunday night, fans of space exploration and those involved in the $2.5-billion NASA mission rejoiced across the United States, from Pasadena to New York City’s Times Square.
The Mars rover is considered the most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet, and comes on the heels of privately held space transport company SpaceX making history by sending a cargo payload to the International Space Station.
Is space making a comeback? The primary mission of the Curiosity research project, in the works since April 2004, is expected to last 687 days, culling data and images from the so-called “Red Planet,” a staggering 154 million miles from Earth. Already the rover has delivered various images, including one grainy picture of its wheels on a crater.
Did you stay up to watch the Mars rover landing? Will an increased fascination with space exploration and space travel lead to more funding for NASA, and more missions? In the hopeful words of “Toy Story” toy astronaut Buzz Lightyear, “To infinity and beyond!”
Guest:
Luther Beegle, group supervisor, JPL’s Mars Science Laboratory
What score does NBC Olympics’ coverage deserve?
Yesterday, the world was anxious to see whether Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt would once again electrify the 100-meter final. The fastest man alive did it again, but half a world away television viewers could not witness it live.
Even though the race happened at 1:50 p.m. PDT/4:50 p.m. EDT on a Sunday, NBC Television delayed the race until prime time. That has been the story of NBC coverage of these 2012 Olympics. NBC slices and dices what they think viewers want to see, and broadcasts it all many hours after events have happened live. It hasn't hurt their rates, but would it if viewers had a choice?
Guest:
Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times television critic
FAA to address helicopter noise problems in Los Angeles
Look! Up in the sky! It’s … another annoying helicopter.
While they are definitely part of the culture in Los Angeles, that doesn’t mean that citizens accept them unconditionally.
With the closing of the 405 Freeway last July, the lack of automobile noise coupled with the choppers covering “Carmageddon,” Westsiders realized just how loud the police, news, paparazzi and touring helicopters can be.
Residents of the San Fernando Valley have been complaining about the noise for years, and in Pasadena there’s even a blog dedicated specifically to the annoyance of local police choppers.
“We do have an almost 500 mile square city that we try to cover. And you know when you look at 9500 or so police officers to do that it makes it very difficult. We recognize that and we deploy helicopters as a force multiplier to assist policing the city,” said Lieutenant Phil Smith, Assistant Commanding Officer, Air Support Division, LAPD.
The police are not the only helicopters that dominate the Los Angeles skyline. There are media choppers, private and corporate helicopters and of course medical ones. One of the groups that doesn’t want to take all the blame, according to Jeff Baugh, longtime airborne reporter for KNX and KFWB, is the legitimate broadcast news media.
“Not only am I an airborne reporter but I certainly live with a bunch of noise myself...The legitimate media here in Los Angeles we have a very distinguished past. I mean it’s aircraft that has brought the listeners of radio and the viewers of TV first reports of some major events here in Los Angeles,” said Baugh.
He admits that there is a problem when helicopters sit and hover over one area for long periods of time. Baugh says he and other media are working together to avoid this for the sake of everyone in Southern California.
Despite this, the complaints have become too much for Congressman Howard Berman (D-Valley Village) who petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to attend a public hearing to address helicopter noise over Los Angeles County.
“I think there is an opportunity to bring some restrictions that protect the integrity of the neighborhoods. The airspace above the neighborhoods is kind of open right now and a lot of times there are great helicopter pilots that respect the residential community. And there’s some others that may not, particularly in the hillsides,” said Anthony Braswell, President, Neighborhood Council Valley Village.
Congressman Berman is hosting the event tonight tonight at 6:30 pm at Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks. It’s open to the entire community, and the public testimonies heard there will comprise an FAA report to be released within a year.
Weigh In:
What complaints do you have about the chopper buzz? Will you attend the meeting tonight? Is this simply just a part of life? And what about other areas of Los Angeles where helicopters serve as one of the main deterrents of crime? How can a compromise be reached there?
Guests:
Anthony Braswell, President, Neighborhood Council Valley Village
Jeff Baugh, longtime airborne reporter for KNX and KFWB
Lieutenant Phil Smith, Assistant Commanding Officer, Air Support Division, Los Angeles Police Department
Information about the hearing tonight can be found here.
Levels of addiction among baby boomers on the rise
For the baby boomer generation, being “born to be wild,” as the freewheeling Steppenwolf 1960s anthem declares, is a double-edged sword when it comes to addiction.
A Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report from September 2011 says an aging baby boomer generation – those born between 1946 and 1964 - is leading to increased levels of addiction among adults over 50, requiring double the availability of treatment services by 2020. For those aged 50 to 59, the rate of illicit drug use, including prescription drug use, increased from 2.7 percent in 2002 to 5.8 percent in 2010, according to the study.
Addiction experts say painkillers and sedatives such as Xanax and Ativan are top categories of abused drugs among middle aged and elderly Americans, with both genetic and environmental triggers such as financial stress, loneliness, age-related pain and isolation jumpstarting addictive behavior. Add to that addiction treatment not covered by Medicare and the difficulties of detoxing older patients.
How do the needs of baby boomer addicts differ from younger addicts when it comes to treatment and recovery? If you’ve battled addiction as a baby boomer, what were the challenges involved?
Guests:
Dr. Westley Clark, M.D., director of the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Dr. Lynn Webster, M.D., a longtime addiction specialist and medical director of CRI Lifetree Clinical Research, a clinical research facility specializing in drug development for addiction and pain in Salt Lake City, Utah
Dr. Barbara Krantz, M.D., medical director of the Hanley Center, a nonprofit addiction recovery center in West Palm Beach, Florida
Sikh temple shooting
Six people and a gunman are dead after a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The gunman has been identified as Wade Michael Page, an Army veteran and a former leader of white-supremacist band End Apathy. The Southern Poverty Law Center called the shooter, a "frustrated neo-Nazi."
According to officials and witnesses, Page walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and started shooting people preparing for Sunday services. Reports say Page killed six people and critically wounded three others before he was shot to death by police. Police are calling this domestic terrorism. We check in with a reporter Wisconsin Public Radio’s Chuck Quirmbach for the latest on the story.
Guest:
Don Walker, Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
There’s no place like home
Many animals are known to create a home – a den, burrow, nest or web – using survival instincts codified many millions of years ago. But the human animal’s nesting instinct has been evolving since the days of the hominids, and continues to reinvent itself today.
The early campfire sites of nomadic hunter-gatherers gave way to houses designed for protection from the elements as humans expanded to higher latitudes. The shift to agricultural societies led to the need to homestead, and its attendant accumulation of goods and supplies that couldn’t be easily transported.
As tribes began to settle down, the home became more sophisticated. Art and symbolism moved from cave walls to interior and exterior decoration. Communities sprang up as people organized their living spaces into pueblos, villages, walled cities.
All of these trends are echoed in the variety of form and function employed in modern dwellings. In his new book, anthropologist Jerry Moore follows the thread of human habitation and its variations from ancient times to the present, and explores the many meanings of the word “home.”
Guest:
Jerry D. Moore, Ph.D., author of “The Prehistory of Home” (University of California Press); professor, department of anthropology at California State University Dominguez Hills