AirTalk’s weekly political roundtable will preview the week ahead on the campaign trail and take a look at the history of Donald Trump’s truthiness; 3D printers combined with infared heat could soon change the way we eat; and a state official and an environmentalist debate the state of the Salton Sea.
AirTalk politics 2016: More Clinton email fallout, Paul Manafort’s alleged ties to Russia, and the truthiness of Trump
AirTalk’s weekly political roundtable will preview the week ahead on the campaign trail and take a look at the history of Donald Trump’s truthiness with Washington Post reporter David Farenthold, who recently wrote a piece detailing Trump’s history of embellishing the truth (read: lying) based on a 170-page deposition of Trump after he filed suit against a journalist who wrote a book about him, claiming the author fabricated things about his life and business.
Guests:
Matt Rodriguez, Democratic strategist and founder and chief executive officer of Rodriguez Strategies. He is also a former senior Obama advisor in 2008; he tweets from
Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign
David Farenthold, reporter covering the presidential campaign for the Washington Post; his latest piece is titled “Trump: A True Story;” he tweets from
Josh Gerstein, POLITICO senior reporter; he tweets from
Could 3D food printing be the next TV dinner?
A research team at Columbia University is developing a 3D-printer that can cook food using infrared heat.
The printer is designed for home use, and would use cartridges of ingredients to make each food item. The device is about the size of a blender, and would easily fit on a kitchen counter.
Columbia engineers have been working with the International Culinary Institute in New York to experiment with different tastes. Things like chocolate, cheese and cookie dough have been used in combinations to make spiral-like pastes, but savory items like pesto and fish have also been combined to create additions to entrees.
New high-tech specialty restaurants are already using 3D food printers as a selling point. But a device for at-home use, especially one with a cooking mechanism is something new. Aside from a Star Trek-like convenience factor, the food printer is also said to have the perk of customizing food for maximum nutritional value.
It would ideally be able to mix ingredients which are programmed to make a meal unique to your body's needs. But will this be a modern innovation akin to what TV dinners did in the 1950s?
Guests:
Hod Lipson, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University; he leads the team at Columbia that is developing the at-home 3D food printer
Francine Segan, Food historian and author of six cookbooks
Salton Sea expert: ‘It’s becoming a biological and public health problem’
The Salton Sea, the state’s largest lake, was born by accident when an engineering mistake sent a flood of water from the Colorado River into a salt sink. But more than a century later, it might be human inaction that causes its death.
At the height of its allure in the 1950s and 1960s, the Salton Sea was surrounded by resorts and visitors. But the lake has been shrinking rapidly as the drought worsens and water resources are diverted away from the region. A 2010 plan approved by California lawmakers was supposed to jumpstart restoration efforts, but according to the Los Angeles Times, funding for the project has not come through until June this year.
Environmentalists are fed up at the delay, and want state officials and regulators to step up their game. Meanwhile, the Salton Sea’s ecosystem is dying, which was home to many species of fish and wildlife. And dust blowing from the dry lakebed has posed serious health threats to neighboring communities.
AirTalk spoke to two experts to find out the consequences of inaction for the Salton Sea, and how the state is trying to avoid ecological disaster in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.
Timothy Bradley is the director of the Salton Sea Initiative at UC, Irvine. He emphasized that if the Salton Sea dries up, the biological and public health consequences for Southern California will be dire.
What would happen if the Salton Sea was allowed to dry up?
Timothy Bradley: There would be two consequences. One is biological. The Salton Sea is the most important feeding ground on the Pacific Flyway for many many species of birds. Although it is only 100 years old, previously those birds fed in the marshes in the Central Valley, which are now gone. Or, marshes along the coast, which have been developed, or at the delta of the Colorado river, which is now completely dry.
There’s another problem in addition to the biological ones, and that’s public health. If the Salton Sea should dry up, and even if it begins to dry down, there will be beaches along the shore which will be the source of toxic dust. This is an immediate problem for those who live in that area and California [as a whole].
It’s toxic because of the material that’s associated with the dust, which includes heavy metals, agricultural chemicals, and of course the salt. These tiny dust particles, carry these toxic particles deep into the lungs, and it’s well recognized that this dust is going to be a very serious problem for that part of California.
In January of 2018, the Quantitative Settlement Agreement, which is a contract to remove water from the Imperial Valley and carry it to coastal regions, will lead to the sea declining much more rapidly. So that’s a critical deadline that we need to be conscious of. That’s just a year and a half away that a very serious public health and environmental problem is going to be exacerbated in Southern California.
Bruce Wilcox is the Assistant Secretary at the California Natural Resources Agency, and he is the point person for Salton Sea policy for the state. He said the state has short-term fixes in the works, but they are still working on a comprehensive plan to protect the future of the lake.
What’s California’s plan for the Salton Sea?
Bruce Wilcox: Our plan is to start building habitat around the edges of the sea in an incremental manner that will provide stable habitat for the fish and the birds moving forward using agriculture return flow water. That plan is probably a 5 to 10 to 15 year plan. We can continue to build that habitat for that length of time. There also is a perimeter lake plan that’s finalized in that.
The longer term plan hasn’t finalized yet, but the plan is to have a draft done by the end of this year. That draft will outline what we think we need to do at the Salton Sea.
TB: The State needs to recognize the urgency of this. For example, we don’t have good data about what’s going on [the lake’s tilapia population]...Cal Fish and Game could be providing this information. With regard to the dust problems, Cal EPA needs to be involved...Think about hundreds of thousands of people in the Coachella and the Imperial Valleys whose public health is at risk. [Bruce Wilcox] is doing a great job, [but] the entire state apparatus needs to really realize that this is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed.
How will California pay for this?
BW: At the state level, the legislature has recognized the problem and is moving forward. One of the issues we have is that there are so many well deserving projects across the state of California that need funding and money, that the funding doesn’t go as far as it should.
One of the tasks that the [Salton Sea Task Force] gave us is develop a funding plan to pull these projects all together. One of the components of that is dealing with the federal government and seeing where we can find additional funding. Maybe there is private sector funding available. The Salton Sea Authority is an example. It’s looked into an incremental financing district that might be able to help fund restoration or management at the Salton Sea.
It’s a complex problem that’s going to cost a lot of money, and it’s a long term problem that’s going to cost money for quite a few years.
How much will it cost?
TB: The price of this is going to be in the billions of dollars, no matter what we do. There’s been a study by Michael Cohen that if nothing’s done the cost to California would be $40 billion. So, the 3 or 4 billion that we’re going to spend there is money well spend.
The $40 billion is the cost of doing nothing -- that would be the environmental costs, the public health costs, the economic costs to land values. It’s a huge huge burden. By stepping in the state can actually save a great deal of money and help the state out.
Guests:
Timothy Bradley, director of the Salton Sea Initiative at UC, Irvine. He is also a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the school
Bruce Wilcox, Assistant Secretary at the California Natural Resources Agency, in charge of Salton Sea policy
Pasadena City Council to vote on YWCA building / Kimpton Hotel project
Tonight, the Pasadena City Council will decide whether to move forward with a proposed hotel project in the area around the City Hall.
The city-backed project would allow Kimpton Hotels Restaurants to convert the old historic YWCA building on Marengo Ave. into a 150-room hotel.
Critics say that the proposed hotel would take away precious green space in the area. But city officials say that this is a fiscally sound way to preserve the historic building.
The Pasadena City Council will convene a meeting tonight at 7:00pm at the Council Chamber in the Pasadena City Hall (100 N Garfield Ave, RM S249) to consider the fate of the project.
Guests:
Eric Duyshart, Economic Development Manager at the City of Pasadena
Marsha Rood, Former Pasadena Development Administrator, and vice president of the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association
Have photo editing apps changed our expectations in photojournalism?
With social media filters redefining our expectations in photography, it can be tempting for photojournalists to compromise their organization’s integrity by over processing an image.
From Time’s darkened O.J. Simpson cover in 1994 to more recent controversial alterations, including a former Associated Press freelancer erasing a camera from a photograph of a Syrian opposition fighter, manipulated photos are problematic because they don’t accurately represent the facts. Though it’s sometimes difficult to identify a doctored photo, a digital trail, including metadata and a RAW file format, can usually confirm authenticity.
How much editing is allowed in photojournalism, and how much editing should be allowed? Tell us by commenting, or voting below.
Guest:
Sara Quinn, President of the Society for News Design and a Poynter visual journalism affiliate faculty member; she tweets from