AirTalk hears the latest from Houston as Tropical Storm Harvey continues to flood Texas, forcing an estimated 30,000 residents into shelters. We also dive into the possible ramifications of ending DACA ahead of President Trump's coming decision; look at why young brides and grooms choose to tie the knot despite criticisms; and more.
Updates on Harvey from on the ground in Houston, plus the week ahead in politics
The usually bustling metropolis of Houston, Texas and its 2.3 million residents has screeched to a halt in the wake of Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Harvey, which dumped rain and brought flooding that National Weather Service forecasters called “beyond anything experienced.”
Fearing that ordering an evacuation could lead to people being stranded on roadways and interstates in the middle of the storm, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner did not issue a city-wide evacuation order. Shelters throughout the city are filling up, with some at up to four times holding capacity, and emergency services processed tens of thousands of calls Saturday and Sunday nights. The entire Texas National Guard has been activated to assist with search and rescue. So far, six people have died as a result of the storm, which is expected to continue dumping rain on Houston and surrounding areas well into the week and could bring rainfall totals close to 50 inches in some places. On AirTalk, we'll speak with a reporter who has been reporting on the storm from a North Houston neighborhood since it moved in on Friday night.
We’re also following the president’s response to Hurricane Harvey as he plans to make a
I will be going to Texas as soon as that trip can be made without causing disruption. The focus must be life and safety.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017
to the Houston area when he can do so “without causing disruption.” Among his many tweets through the weekend were pledges of support from the federal government and words of encouragement to residents, first responders and public officials in Houston.
The president made news last Friday on a couple of fronts, signing a memo that prevents transgender people from enlisting in the military and pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who formerly led the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, on charges of contempt of court. Finally, we’ll look at what happens if, as expected, the president ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.
Guests:
Rebecca Elliott, city hall reporter for The Houston Chronicle; she has been reporting since Friday from the Greenspoint area of Houston, a neighborhood north of downtown and south of Bush Airport; she tweets
Caroline Heldman, associate professor of politics at Occidental College and author of the forthcoming book, “Protest Politics in the Marketplace: Consumer Activism in the Corporate Age” (Cornell University Press, 2017); she tweets
Pete Peterson, dean of the School of Public Policy and senior fellow at The Davenport Institute at Pepperdine University; he tweets
As the national marriage rate continues to decline, a look at some young people’s decisions to tie the knot despite criticisms
In 2015, about one in ten marriages in the United States had both bride and groom under age 25, according to data from the National Center for Marriage and Family Research at Bowling Green State University.
Though a 3 percent decline from 2008, it means young couples still make up a decent portion of U.S. marriages. A number of studies have questioned the wisdom of getting married young, and anecdotally at least, young brides say they’ve often felt judged for their decisions.
Stephanie Coontz, the director of research and public education at University of Texas, Austin’s Council on Contemporary Families, says that while this outside concern is not completely unfounded, it’s unfair to use a couple’s age to pass judgment on a marriage’s capacity for success.
Stephanie: On average, people who marry later are less likely to divorce – but those averages disguise lots of variations and I think it’s a real shame when people start making these judgments. And I think that it’s partly because we women are under so much pressure. If you marry early, it might raise your chance of divorce, but if you marry later, you might not be able to have a baby. So we’re always feeling guilty and I think defensive about the choices we make.
One caller, Iswaria in Pasadena, got married 10 years ago, when she and her husband were 25 and 26. She recalls how hard it was to stay home with her young kids while her friends posted about traveling or going out to bars on Facebook, which was just taking off in popularity.
Iswaria: We were really struggling just to make ends meet, and there was really no one in our peer group who was in the same position. Fast forward 10 years later, a lot of our friends now have young children and we’re kind of enjoying life with an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old. It did take us 10 years to buy a house and 10 years to kind of settle down in our careers, but we did it together and at the end of the day, that has made us as a family a lot stronger.
Jolene in Long Beach is celebrating her 11-year anniversary with her husband, who she married when she was 21 and he was 22. Right after they got married, they went into the Peace Corps together, which her husband said he wouldn’t have done without her. More than a decade later, Jolene says their marriage is still a strength in reaching their goals.
Jolene: We are both now in Ph.D. programs... and are raising kids while doing that and also having careers on the side. The support that we’ve found in the relationship I think is something that really allowed us to go as far as we have in pursuing these different paths.
Guests:
Wendy Manning, director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research and co-director of the National Center for Marriage and Family Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio; she is also a sociology professor at Bowling Green
Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families, a research non-profit at the University of Texas, Austin, that focuses on matters related to American families; she also teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
The legal avenues and ramifications of Trump’s expected decision on DACA
A group of conservative state attorneys general said they would sue Trump in federal court unless he started unraveling DACA by September 5 – so it looks like the president will make a decision regarding people who were brought to the U.S. illegally within the fortnight.
Many are anticipating that the Trump administration will stop issuing new work permits to DACA recipients. The ending of DACA would also put its participants in danger of deportation.
Trump has purportedly wavered on the DACA decision for months and today we explore the legal ramifications of his potential decision.
Would DACA survive a court challenge? Do the challenges to DAPA serve as a parallel? What is the avenue for challenging an executive order? And what legal recourse would DACA recipients have if Trump pulls the program?
Guests:
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at Center for Immigration Studies; she tweets
Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant rights organization; she tweets
Analyzing Berkeley police tactics after weekend protests turned violent
Black-clad anarchists on Sunday stormed into what had been a largely peaceful Berkeley protest against hate and attacked at least five people, including the leader of a politically conservative group who canceled an event a day earlier in San Francisco amid fears of violence.
The group of more than 100 hooded protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words “no hate” and waving a flag identifying themselves as anarchists, busted through police lines, avoiding security checks by officers to take away possible weapons. Then the anarchists blended with a crowd of 2,000 largely peaceful protesters who turned up to demonstrate in a “Rally Against Hate” opposed to a much smaller gathering of right-wing protesters.
Berkeley police chief Andrew Greenwood defended how police handled the protest, saying they made a strategic decision to let the anarchists enter to avoid more violence. Greenwood said “the potential use of force became very problematic” given the thousands of peaceful protesters in the park. Once anarchists arrived, it was clear there would not be dueling protests between left and right so he ordered his officers out of the park and allowed the anarchists to march in. There was “no need for a confrontation over a grass patch,” Greenwood said.
Read the full story here.
With files from the Associated Press
Guests:
Devin Katayama, reporter covering the East Bay for KQED News; he covered the Berkeley rally on Sunday; he tweets
Maria Haberfeld, Professor of Police Science, in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City
The rise and fall of social entrepreneurism
When John Mackey founded the health food store, SaferWay in the 1970s, only a small group of hippie supermarket shoppers used terms like “free range,” “organic” and “gluten free.”
But nearly 15 years later, customers worldwide would become devoted shoppers at Mackey’s next supermarket venture, Whole Foods. As the nation’s largest natural foods market, Whole Foods has staunchly rooted itself in movements, from the environment, animal welfare, human rights to the most sustainably wild-caught fish in the world.
Whole Foods is perhaps the paragon of what is called “social entrepreneurism”, a movement created by social activists who want to do good, as well as do well financially. In the new book, “From Head Shops to Whole Foods,” author Joshua Davis looks at the history of social entrepreneurism, with specific Los Angeles examples like the supermarket like Erewhon Natural Foods and the now-defunct Aquarian Book Shop, the legendary black book shop. He also looks at how the mandate of these social entrepreneurism were diluted, coopted and sometimes altogether abandoned.
Guest:
Joshua Davis, an assistant professor of history at the University of Baltimore; author of the new book, “From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs” (Columbia University Press, 2017)