Fallout of report claiming Democrats manipulated California’s redistricting commission. School lunches get a makeover, students unimpressed. “Excuse me, miss, do you have the time?” Good tidings & last minute food guidings from the LA Times test kitchen.
Report on Dems manipulating congressional districts: The fallout begins
Following Wednesday’s blistering ProPublica investigation claiming California Democrats manipulated the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to protect Democratic incumbents, both Republicans and Democrats are lashing out.
According to the investigation, reportedly based on obtained internal emails and memos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee supported an intentional manipulation of the commission, from enlisting elected officials to lobbyists to testify as “ordinary Californians,” without disclosing party ties, at community forums influencing redistricting. Previously the California State Legislature mapped out redistricting lines, drawn up every 10 years. In 2008, Proposition 11 placed redistricting in the hands of an independent commission made up of 14 citizens – five Democrats, five Republicans, and four with other party affiliations – who listen to communities all over the state to create new districts. In response to the report, Republicans say the state’s newly drawn up congressional map – which favors Democrats – should be eliminated. “No fair minded person can now say the process or the result was fair. I am calling for an immediate and thorough investigation, by congressional and State authorities, to get to the bottom of this obviously corrupted process," California GOP Chairman Tom Del Becarro said in a statement. California Democratic Chairman John Burton has countered that the report is “pure fantasy,” adding, “I've never had a single conversation about redistricting with any of the Commission's members and frankly I wouldn't recognize a single member of the Commission if I ran into one on the street.”
WEIGH IN:
Do you think Republicans will take legal action to prove ProPublica’s claims? Are you for or against the redistricting commission?
Guests:
Senator Mimi Walters (R-CA's 33rd), California State Senator; Chair of the Legislative Ethics Committee
Eric Bauman, Vice Chair, California Democratic Party; also serving his sixth term as Chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, the largest local Democratic Party organization in the nation.
Bruce Cain, Heller Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley; Executive Director of the University of California Washington Center in D.C.
School lunches get a makeover, students unimpressed
In August the Los Angeles School District did something drastic. They rolled out an entirely new school lunch menu. They stopped serving sugary drinks and high-fat, high-sodium foods like chicken nuggets and corn dogs in favor of healthier alternatives.
After extensive taste tests with parents and kids they created a menu featuring foods like quinoa, curry and pad thai. District chefs worked hard to make sure the menu was not only healthy, but also reflected the diversity of L.A, featuring tastes that would appeal to many of the different cultural palates in this area.
The new food is certainly a hit in some circles. The U.S Department of Agriculture and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have both given LAUSD awards for the effort. However, it’s not much of a hit where it counts: Students.
According to LAUSD Food Services Director Dennis Barrett the healthy menu has been a “disaster.” The district has lost about 6% its school lunch participants, and the ones that stayed are tossing their lunches straight into the trash. School principals say waste has been rampant and a black market of chips, cokes and candy has sprung up, even teachers are peddling high-fat wares. Students who gave the food a stamp of approval during the tasting process have backed off, saying the food is “nasty.”
WEIGH IN:
So what happened? Does the food truly taste bad? Or are students just so used to eating poorly that it will take time for their palates to adjust? Should the district stick to their culinary guns? Was there a shift in quality when the district went from small batches for tasting to making 650,000 meals a day? At one school, salads 10 days past their expiration date were served to students. Is the district really committed to better quality?
Guests:
David Binkle, Deputy Director of Food Services, Los Angeles Unified School District
Jennie Cook, Creator of Food For Lunch, an L.A. based group advocating for healthier school lunches
Myths and realities about the biological clock
In a recent poll sponsored by EMD Serono, a bio-pharmaceutical company, data shows that women drastically underestimate how strong the connection is between declining fertility and age. For instance, women surveyed believed 30-year-olds had an 80 percent chance of getting pregnant in one try. In reality, it’s 30 percent. And for 40-year-olds it’s less than 10 percent, although it is perceived to be 40 percent.
These statistics are made more sobering by the fact that women also are unaware of the relatively poor success of fertility treatments on older women, as some women, even those who are active and healthy, go through as many as six rounds of in vitro fertilization without getting pregnant.
As society is pushing back further and further the age at which adults enter parenthood, many women are simply losing the opportunity to conceive. This is magnified by the fact that, in today’s modern world, many women expect to be able to get an advanced education and embark on their career before even thinking about having a child. But then, when they prepare to have a baby, the hard data provides a stark realization that there was something they simply didn’t know.
Many aspiring mothers blame their perilous situation on the fact that there isn’t an effective campaign in warning women of the dangers of declining fertility.
WEIGH IN:
Why isn’t this information more widely known? Are women wearing overly-optimistic blinders? If so, why? And what – if anything – can be done to better educate men and women?
Guest:
Dr. Marcelle Cedars, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco
Good tidings & last minute food guidings from the LA Times test kitchen
Before a recipe for turducken, bacon-maple biscuits or magical honey cakes can grace the pages of the Los Angeles Times it gets tested, tasted, tweaked and re-tested in their spacious test kitchen.
The perfectly-styled recipe is then whisked into the nearby photo studio for its close-up. The Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen is one of very few such facilities still in existence at daily metropolitan news publications.
They test more than 600 recipes on average per year. But only 400 make it to print. Who makes all the tough decisions? Where do they get all those recipes? And who gets to eat the divine mishaps and culinary triumphs? LA Times Food Editor, Russ Parsons, and Test Kitchen Chef, Noelle Carter, join Larry in studio to dish about the year’s most popular recipes, tasty ideas for last-minute holiday treats and to answer all your gastronomic questions.
Guests:
Russ Parsons, LA Times Food Editor, “The California Cook” columnist; author of “How to Pick a Peach” and “How to Read a French Fry”
Noelle Carter, LA Times Test Kitchen Manager & Chef; “Culinary SOS” columnist