Today on AirTalk, we discuss the passing of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. Also on the show, we update you on the latest COVID-19 news and answer your questions; breakdown the extension and expansion of Project Roomkey; and more.
Rush Limbaugh: The Impact Of The Conservative Radio Host
Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio host who ripped into liberals, foretold the rise of Donald Trump and laid waste to political correctness with a merry brand of malice that made him one of the most powerful voices on the American right, died Wednesday. He was 70.
Limbaugh, an outspoken lover of cigars, had been diagnosed with lung cancer. His death was announced on his website.
President Trump, during a State of the Union speech, awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh galvanized listeners for more than 30 years with his talent for vituperation and sarcasm.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guest:
Rob Stutzman, Republican political consultant and president of Stutzman Public Affairs; former deputy chief of staff to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; he tweets
What We Know About The Texas Power Grid Blackouts, And How It Compares To California
Anger over Texas’ power grid failing in the face of a record winter freeze continued to mount Wednesday as millions of residents in the energy capital of the U.S. remained shivering with no assurances that their electricity and heat — out since Monday in many homes — would return soon or stay on once it finally does.
“I know people are angry and frustrated,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Tuesday. “So am I.”
In all, nearly 3 million customers in Texas still had no power Wednesday after historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge in demand for electricity to warm up homes unaccustomed to such extreme lows, buckling the state’s power grid and causing widespread blackouts. A large swath of Texas was under yet another winter storm warning Wednesday.
Making matters worse: Expectations that the outages would be a shared sacrifice by the state’s 30 million residents quickly gave way to a cold reality, as pockets in some of America’s largest cities, including San Antonio, Dallas and Austin, were left to shoulder the lasting brunt of a catastrophic power failure, and in subfreezing conditions that Texas’ grid operators had known was coming.
Guests:
James (Jim) Bushnell, professor of economics at UC Davis where his research focuses on energy and environmental economics, industrial organization and regulation, and energy policy; he has served as a member of the Market Surveillance Committee (MSC) of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) since 2002 and is the former research director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley
Nicholas Abi-Samra, professor of electrical engineering at UC San Diego; he is president of Electric Power & Energy Consulting (EPEC), an independent consulting firm that works with the electric utility industry; he is the author of the book, “Power Grid Resiliency for Adverse Conditions” (Artech, 2017)
DOC AMA: Essential Workers Can Soon Receive The Vaccine In LA County, School Reopenings & More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Kimberly Shriner, infectious disease specialist at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.
Today’s topics include:
Essential workers can get COVID-19 vaccine in LA County soon
COVID-linked syndrome in children is growing and cases are more severe
COVID-19 shots might be tweaked if variants get worse
LA elementary schools can reopen, but it's complicated
Why COVID-19 cases are falling so fast
People who’ve received their full vaccinations don’t have to quarantine if they were exposed to COVID, according to new CDC guidelines
The CDC has a tool called the “V-safe” which is meant for vaccinated people to report vaccine side effects more easily
Guest:
Kimberly Shriner, M.D., infectious disease specialist at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena
Time Is Money For Project Roomkey And FEMA Reimbursement
Mayor Garcetti announced last week that he was releasing $75 million to continue renting hotel rooms for homeless Angelenos, extending Project Roomkey, with the promise of federal reimbursement from the Biden Administration. But Councilmembers Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman are pushing for the city to move much quicker and to widen the goal for the number of people housed.
They're arguing the city is moving too slowly and wasting federal reimbursement dollars if they don't rent more rooms and fast. The problem though is L.A. needs the money up-front because FEMA is a "slow pay" reimbursement, and the city is in the middle of a budget crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Project Roomkey is a joint state, county and city effort to temporarily house homeless people in hotel rooms. It launched last spring to help prevent the spread of the virus among the most vulnerable populations living on the street. The goal was to house 15,000 people, but at its peak in the fall, there were about 4,300 Angelenos staying in hotel rooms through the program (more on the statewide effort from PPIC here). Since then, Roomkey has been ramping down due to funding issues, and hotel sites have been closing, leaving some people back on the street. In L.A. County right now, about 2,300 Roomkey hotel rooms are under contract and 1,700 are occupied. Some funding is shifting to the state’s next priority: “Project Homekey,” which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last fall, is buying hotels to convert them to permanent housing. L.A. County and the city have purchased about 10 motels each – not nearly enough to house tens of thousands of unsheltered Angelenos. The Biden Administration recently announced a major boon for the Project Roomkey program: an executive order authorizing 100% FEMA reimbursement for what local governments spend to shelter people in separate rooms (non-congregate) until the end of September (previously FEMA paid 75%). Since this money has a sunset – every week L.A. waits without snapping up hotel rooms translates to lost federal reimbursement dollars. City Councilmembers Bonin and Raman have introduced a motion to explore renting thousands more rooms, to maximize the FEMA money. Today on AirTalk, we discuss where the project stands and what barriers remain amid the push for expansion.
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guests:
Mike Bonin, city councilmember representing Los Angeles’ 11th district, which includes Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Ladera, and Venice; he tweets
Jennifer Hark-Dietz, executive director of PATH, a statewide homeless housing and services agency
Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, principal analyst for Los Angeles County’s homeless initiative; she tweets
Will We Ever Know The Exact Origin Of COVID-19? What History Tells Us About Our Past Attempts To Find ‘Patient Zero’
A team of experts is currently trying to track down the origin of COVID-19. Last week, the group from the World Health Organization announced that it’s “highly unlikely” the virus came from a lab in Wuhan China.
The theory spread early on in the pandemic, with some saying that the virus was manufactured or accidentally released from a lab. It’s a theory experts have largely brushed off, but WHO now says it warrants no further study, according to NBC News. Although experts are starting to rule out places of origin (lukewarm at best), the question remains: are we likely to ever know the exact origin of COVID-19? We’re a lot farther along in the investigation than with past disease outbreaks. According to historians, it took years to collect similar information on HIV and it took about 20 years to figure out that what’s known as the “Spanish Flu” is caused by a virus. So history does not look promising, but it offers some interesting tidbits on how our attempt to find “patient zero” or the origin of past epidemics has evolved. Today on AirTalk, we talk with a historian of medicine and epidemics about what we can learn from history. Do you have thoughts or questions? Feel free to give us a call at 866-893-5722.
Dr. McKay shared additional resources for anyone interested in diving further into this history:
- Archer, Seth, Sharks Upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health, and Culture in Hawai‘i, 1778-1855 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)
- Gostin, Lawrence O., Global Health Law (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014)
- Green, Monica, “The Four Black Deaths,” American Historical Review 125 (Dec. 2020): 1601-1631
- Kassell, Lauren, Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman - Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
- Lloyd, G. E. R. [Geoffrey Ernest Richard], Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into Ancient Greek and Chinese Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
- Milne, Ida, Stacking the Coffins: Influenza, War and Revolution in Ireland, 1918-19 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018)
- “Infectious Historians,” a podcast hosted by two historians, Merle Eisenberg and Lee Mordecai, which explores how a focus on past diseases can help us think about our present-day experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guest:
Richard McKay, historian of medicine and epidemics and Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, author of “Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic,” (University of Chicago Press, 2017); he tweets
Do The Clothes Really Make The Person? New Book ‘Dress Codes’ Explores How Law, Society And History Have Fashioned Our Fashion Sense
NFL Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders, who was known during his playing days for his flashy attire, among other things, famously coined the phrase “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.” And while it would be easy to just attribute this to Primetime being Primetime, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that fashion and the way we dress not only impacts how we feel, but how the rest of the world sees and reacts.
In his new book, “Dress Codes: How The Laws of Fashion Made History,” Stanford University law professor Richard Ford Thompson says he looks at how the law, society, and workplace customs affect what we wear and why we give meaning to what we wear -- from the rise of the business suit for both men and women went to the more relaxed hoodies-and-jeans outfit that Silicon Valley tech workers have popularized, the book chronicles the history of workplace clothing and the norms and expectations surrounding it. But Thompson dives even deeper, exploring fashion’s relationship to race, politics, social class and religion, and the ways in which they contradict each other.
Today on AirTalk, Richard Ford Thompson joins Larry Mantle to talk about his new book. Have questions or thoughts to share with Professor Thompson? Join the conversation by calling us at 866-893-5722.
Guest:
Richard Thompson Ford, author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” (Simon & Schuster, February 2021); he is a professor of law at Stanford University