Another round in the redistricting fight. Nicotine gum, patches may not help smokers quit. Buy me some peanuts, crackerjack, the Dodgers... Strip club zoning ordinance. How to deal with child sexual abuse in Hollywood.
Another round in the redistricting fight
The California Supreme Court finished hearing arguments against the new state Senate districts Tuesday morning. The case is an attempt by Orange County GOP activist Julie Vandermost to roll back the work of the California Redistricting Commission, and according to KPCC's Julie Small, it may have succeeded.
Vandermost, with the support of the California Republican Party, argues that the new districts do not follow guidelines to make districts compact, with lines drawn around communities of interests and generally recognized city and county boundaries. Analysts say the new lines leave incumbent Republicans vulnerable, and opponents to the maps say it could all lead to a Democratic supermajority.
The law that established the redistricting commission included the right for California voters to overturn any maps the commission draws if a referendum seems likely to appear on the fall ballot, and the GOP has rounded up signatures in an attempt to put one there. They've accrued 513,000 signatures and are shy of 550,000 to make the impending election.
Small said that the San Francisco hearing revolved around the question of whether the referendum would qualify. According to Small, the secretary of state’s attorney argued the sensibility of undoing months of work for an unpredictable outcome. However, the judges are likely to get involved.
"They said that the arguments being presented by the Secretary of State's attorney [were] basically like saying that 'Well, you guys can't get involved unless it looks likely that referendum's going to qualify, but by the time you know that, it will be too late to do anything about it,’ and the court really bristled at that," Small said. "It seems like it now comes down to, which solution, what's the answer."
Small reported that judges asked about existing maps that could be used and "the most expeditious way to get the districts drawn that would seem equitable and fair."
The GOP was not looking to sue, nor asking judges to weigh in on whether the districts violated any terms of the initiative, Small went on to say. The GOP's attorney was "just asking [the judges] to honor the will of the people, which is if the referendum passes, they have the right to suspend the maps that were drawn by the commission," she said.
Guest:
Julie Small, KPCC's State Capital Reporter
Nicotine gum, patches may not help smokers quit
Trying to kick the cancer sticks? Well, looks like cold turkey might still be the best way to go. According to a new study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Massachusetts Boston, gums, patches and nasal sprays that dose smokers with nicotine, don’t appear to more effective at helping smokers quit long-term than going it alone.
The researchers followed 787 adults who had recently quit smoking and found that over time about a third of them had relapsed, whether they were using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or not. Worse than that, the study also found that seriously addicted smokers using NRT without professional guidance might actually be increasing their chances of relapsing.
Study co-author Gregory Connolly says this study shows the “need for the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees regulation of both medications to help smokers quit and tobacco products, to approve only medications that have been proven to be effective in helping smokers quit in the long-terms and to lower nicotine in order to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes.”
However, previous studies have shown NRT to be an effective approach to quitting smoking. And if smokers use nicotine gum or lozenges instead of smoking, they’re not subjecting their bodies to all those pesky carcinogens found in cigarette smoke.
So, do nicotine replacement therapies help smokers quit? Or might they actually make it harder? How much do we really know about these therapies, which bring in more than $1.5 billion each annually?
Guest:
Gregory N. Connolly, co-author of the study; Professor of the Practice of Public Health; Director, Center for Global Tobacco Control, Harvard School of Public Health
Buy me some peanuts, crackerjack, the Dodgers…
Outgoing Dodgers owner Frank McCourt thinks the team can sell for at least $1.6 billion. Considering the long and impressionable list of potential buyers, he may be right. After a mediation deal fell through with Fox, which would allow McCourt a guaranteed sale price and Fox the long-term television rights, bidders have stepped up to the plate.
With a recently extended deadline until January 23rd, there are now ten separate potential groups or individuals who have made bids.
Former Dodgers players Steve Garvey and Orel Hershiser teamed up with Joey Herrick of Natural Balance Pet Foods for a bid last June, followed by former owner Pat O’Malley declaring he’d like to “reconnect the team and the community” in November. In the same month, former general manager Fred Claire and batboy Ben Hwang partnered with Oakland Athletics president Andy Dolich. On December 1st, another group comprised of Larry King, Chicago White Sox executive Dennis Gilbert and Imperial Capital’s Jason Reese got in the mix. On the same day, Mark Cuban confirmed his desire to buy the team. Magic Johnson joined the efforts of former Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten and investor Mark Walter in early December. Late that month, Steven Cohen, a multi-billionaire hedge fund manager, has gone so far as to hire a sports architecture firm to propose possible renovations to Dodgers Stadium. Rick Caruso was joined by former Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who resigned his position as executive vice president of Major League Baseball to make the bid. Time Warner Cable has stepped in as a potential buyer behind Fox, which makes sense as the television rights could cost upwards of $4 billion. Finally, the family of the late Roy Disney has joined investment banker Stanley Gold this past weekend in his bid for the team.
WEIGH IN:
As a Dodgers fan, who would you pick as the best possible owner for the operation? What about as an Angeleno? Is money all that matters here, or is it more about the connection to Southern California? Who will come out on top?
Guests:
Bill Shaikin, National Baseball Writer, Los Angeles Times
Nick Roman, Managing Editor, KPCC
Strip club zoning ordinance
Members of the Calvary Chapel South Bay have collected 3000 signatures to stop the opening of The Bay Girls Gentleman's Club which is scheduled to open its doors next week in Harbor Gateway. Church members say they have moral issues with the club, and it is not welcome in their neighborhood.
An existing club called the "Spearmint Rhino" is less than a mile away from Bay Girls so the new club would be the second strip club near the church. The signed petitions were delivered to Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas in hopes that he could stop the strip club opening. Currently, there are no zoning restrictions on the concentration of strip clubs in any one area, but Ridley Thomas has asked the regional planning department to reconsider that issue and to examine ordinances governing the proximity of adult entertainment venues to places like churches and schools. The only restrictions now in place say that the club must be at least 500 feet away from churches, schools and public parks and 250 feet away from homes. Club owners chose this location, a former furniture warehouse, because it complies with current zoning rules but can community opposition drive them away? In Pasadena, a church community was successful in shutting down and forcing the sale of a strip club in their area. Can Calvary Chapel South Bay do the same? How do communities change zoning laws and land use policy?
Guests:
Pastor Rob Stoffel, Calvary Chapel South Bay
Roger Jon Diamond, Attorney, representing Bay Girls Gentleman's Club and specializing in the protection of adult entertainment (strip clubs); Law Offices of Roger Jon Diamond based in Santa Monica.
How to deal with child sexual abuse in Hollywood
In late November, a talent manager who represents young children was arrested and charged with eight felony counts stemming from the alleged abuse of a young boy. A few weeks earlier a casting associate who worked on high-profile films was arrested for neglecting to update the authorities when he began to work under a different name. Fifteen years earlier, the man had been convicted of abducting and molesting an eight-year-old child.
These cases and others like them, including many that never make it to the authorities, are shining a spotlight on what some say is a very serious problem in Hollywood. Several former child stars, including Corey Feldman and Alison Arngrim, have spoken publicly about their own sexual abuse at the hands of industry insiders.
"I always keep quoting the bank robber Willie Sutton," Arngrim said Tuesday. "When they asked him, 'Why do you rob banks,' he said, 'That's where you keep the money.' People who are child predators ... go where the children are."
Arngrim said that Hollywood's environment and the foreignness of fame make parents, whether naïve or nefarious, easily misled and child actors easy targets. According to Arngrim, whose abuse ended a year before she began acting as Nelly on "Little House on the Prairie," she didn't know she could reach out to show staff for help. "I was a kid, and I was too dumb to know these were people I could have told who probably would have done something."
Paul Peterson, a former child star and president of A Minor Consideration, said that legislation regarding child labor laws is forming too slowly.
"Children in the entertainment business are exempt from federal child labor laws," he said. "Now the animals in the entertainment business aren't exempt from international standards, but in the United States of America to this day, and in a lot of production centers, there are no rules in governing the employment of children in the business." Peterson said that parents are always a child's first line of defense.
Paula Dorn, a mother of a child actor, co-founded Biz Parentz, a foundation supporting families with children in the entertainment industry by "explaining away the oddities of Hollywood."
"It's very, very foreign to the way you would normally raise a family," Dorn said. "And when something is off, it's too often just dismissed as well, that's Hollywood. That's 'Hollyweird.'"
WEIGH IN:
How can parents navigate these waters? As a person in the industry, either behind the scenes or in them, is this something you’ve witnessed or experienced?
Guests:
Alison Arngrim, former child star (Played Nellie Oleson on "Little House on the Prairie") and spokesperson for The National Association to Protect Children, an organization working to improve child protection laws.
Paul Peterson, former child star and President of A Minor Consideration, a non-profit that supports young performers.
Paula Dorn, Co-founder of Biz Parentz, a foundation supporting families with children in the business.