Today, we'll evaluate the repercussions of the port strike in Los Angeles and Long Beach and look into L.A. storm water pollution. We'll also consider the use of the word "homophobia" and the court case ruling that determined pharmaceutical marketing to be a free speech issue. Later, futurist Ray Kurzweil joins us to discuss reverse engineering the brain.
Port workers continue strike, shuttering Southern California shipping industry
Freight ships unable to unload cargo have anchored offshore from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as the local 800-member clerical workers unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union continues an eight-day strike. Union leaders claim that management is not protecting future clerical jobs and planning on outsourcing to China and Taiwan.
According to both sides, the primary point of contention is the differences in how to fill temporary and permanent jobs down the road after current employees retire. When 10,000 members of their sister union, which represents dockworkers, refused to cross picket lines last week, 10 of the ports’ 14 terminals quickly shut down. Port clerks have been working without a contract for over two years.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent letters to negotiators for both sides on Monday urging them to bring in a mediator to help resolve the dispute and to stay at the bargaining table around the clock until an agreement is reached. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the busiest and second busiest container ports in the United States.
Is it unacceptable for shipping companies to maximize profits at the expense of American jobs? Is it fair and reasonable for the unions to shut down one of the country’s busiest ports in an effort to gain leverage? How damaging is such a strike to the U.S. economy?
Guests:
Wendy Lee, KPCC business reporter joining us from the Port of Los Angeles
Craig Merrilees, Communications Director, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)
Steve Getzug, spokesman for the Harbor Employers Association
An end to 'homophobia'? AP thinks journalists should stop using the term
Homophobia or no homophobia? That is the question currently being debated among journalists after the Associated Press recommended against the use of “phobia” in “political and social context.” AP editors say the suffix, in cases such as “homophobia,” or Islamophobia,” can be presumptuous because it ascribes mental disability to someone who may or may not have one.
The AP is opting for something that it sees as more neutral, such as “anti-gay,” to describe a comment or action, but avoid attributing a motive. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association agrees, opting for something like “LGBT rights opponents.”
Do you agree or disagree? What do you think might be a better alternative? Or do you think such actions should be labeled in the traditional way?
Guest:
James Rainey, staff writer, On the Media columnist, Los Angeles Times
Who's responsible for L.A.'s stormwater pollution?
The water cycle is pretty simple - rainfall flows down mountains in streams and rivers, through cities in pipes and culverts, to end up in the ocean. But the Los Angeles water story is more complicated than that. L.A.’s water comes from nine watersheds, flowing through miles of interconnected pipes, channels and drains to the ocean.
Along the way it picks up pollution, channeled into the waterways from storm drains, sewers and along the concrete-lined L.A. river. By the time it reaches the sea it’s a fetid soup of bacterial, metal, oils and human and animal waste. So who’s responsible for the cleanup? The county, who manages the storm sewer system through the flood control district? The more than 80 individual cities, each with their own flood control system that contributes to the overall mess?
The municipalities share a permit with the county to operate the stormwater system, issued by the LA Regional Quality Control Board. The county has been sued by environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council for not taking responsibility for cleanup. The county maintains that what pours out of the stormwater system is not their doing; the system only picks up and conveys pollutants, rather than creating them. The case has made its way all the way to the Supreme Court, where arguments are being heard today, but that may not be the end of the story.
The county wants to levy a parcel tax on the 2 million property owners along the stormwater system, with the proceeds paying for programs aimed at capturing and reclaiming rainfall. No matter what the court decides, stormwater runoff is a critical problem for Los Angeles. How can we change the way we use our water system to both maintain this precious resource and ensure cleaner oceans?
Guests:
Mark Pestrella, assistant director, L.A. County Public Works Department
Steve Fleischli, director, Natural Resources Defense Council’s water program
Does off-label drug marketing qualify as free speech?
A federal appeals court in New York overturned the conviction of a man accused of selling drugs for off-label purposes. In a 2-1 ruling on Monday, the judges ruled that a law banning the sale of drugs for purposes not approved by the FDA violates free speech.
Doctors frequently and legally prescribe drugs for off-label effects. Drug companies, however, are bound by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which gives the FDA power of regulation – the sale of a drug for off-label uses is prohibited. Misbranding regulations have long plagued pharmaceutical companies, many of which pay millions, or even billions of dollars in fines for marketing their product for unapproved purposes.
Is pharmaceutical marketing a free speech issue? Who benefits most from this ruling, drug companies, or consumers? How much power should the FDA have over pharmaceutical marketing? Who should decide what a drug is for: the manufacturer, or the government? Have you ever taken a prescription drug for an off-label purpose?
Guest:
Scott Gottlieb, practicing physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; He was deputy commissioner of the FDA and a senior adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Allison Zieve, Director, Public Citizen Litigation Group where she focuses on public health litigation, regulatory law, open government, the First Amendment and more; Public Citizen is a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on citizen rights and consumer safety
Reverse engineering the human brain with futurist Ray Kurzweil
Science fiction has long predicted a future where the line is blurry between human and machine, and the results don’t always turn out well for the humans. But there are thinkers among us today who believe that the integration between human and artificial intelligence will not only become a beneficial new reality, but that the event – referred to as the “singularity” – has an arrival date derived by applying the law that technology is progressing at an exponential rate.
Before he became known as a champion of the technological singularity, inventor, author and futurist Ray Kurzweil had already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments, among them being a principal inventor of the first flat-bed optical scanner and the first synthesizer to mimic the grand piano, as well as spearheading significant advances in optical character recognition and text-to-speech synthesizers for the blind. Along the way he has been honored by three presidents, earned nineteen honorary doctorates and written four best-selling books.
Now, Kurzweil has returned with his newest book, “How to Create a Mind,” and it delves deeply into how the latest developments in neuroscience reveals how closely technology is drawing to mimicking human thought patterns. As far as we’ve come with artificial intelligence, Kurzweil believes that by 2030, we won’t just be talking to our phones – we’ll be backing up our biological brains to hard drives and fixing our bodies with nanobots in our blood. How will future technology help or hurt humankind? What ways can artificial intelligence improve our lives?
Guests:
Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist and author of numerous books including "How to Create a Mind: the Secret of Human Thought Revealed" (Viking)
Michael Shermer, founding publisher, Skeptic magazine; Executive Director of the Skeptics Society; monthly columnist for Scientific American; host of the Skeptics Distinguished Science Lecture Series at Caltech; and Adjunct Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University