The Egyptian military has ousted former President Mohamed Morsi. Is this a fresh start for democracy or is it a return to autocracy? Also, since Prop 209, enrollment of black and Latino students has been declining at UC campuses. Should California reconsider affirmative action? Then, how do you leave a party? Is it polite or rude to announce your exit? Later, TGI-Filmweek! Our critics review the latest movies, and Tom Sito looks at memorable film animation.
The latest from Egypt: a fresh start for democracy, or a return to autocracy?
With former President Mohamed Morsi now properly deposed and placed under house arrest, many questions remain for the future of Egyptian governance. The military, whose popularity among Egyptians was at a soaring high in recent months, appears to have carried out the will of the Egyptian people by ousting Morsi. Egyptians were fed up with stumbling economic policies that kept Egypt mired in billions of dollars in debt, with a quarter of its population unemployed and coping with skyrocketing prices for basic goods. Anti-Morsi protesters were also displeased at how increasingly authoritarian Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood regime had become, with most major government posts taken up Muslim Brotherhood leaders and an increasingly religious approach to their politics.
But Morsi supporters and much of the media have described the former President’s ousting as coup, and many are left wondering whether the military had the right to do what it did. The response from the US and Middle Eastern countries has been mixed, and the military’s rampant arrests of Muslim Brotherhood loyalists leaves more doubt that justice and democracy will be served in Egypt.
Will the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic groups be shunned from the pending political process? Is the military instituting its own secular authoritarianism?
Guests:
Jahd Khalil, Cairo-based journalist who reports for the Cairo-based newspaper Mada Masr and the Abu Dhabi-based The National
Robert Springborg, Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, CA
Diversity at the University of California in decline?
Enrollments of black and Latino students at the top two University of California campuses – UCLA and Berkeley – have dropped significantly since the passage of Prop 209, which ban the use of race, sex, or ethnicity in state hiring and college admissions decisions, the Los Angeles Times reports. At UCLA, African American freshmen made up 3.6% of the freshmen last fall, versus 7.1% in 1995. Similarly, they made up 3.4% of the freshman class at UC Berkeley last fall, compared with 3.4% in 1995.
In lieu of affirmative action, the Times says, UC schools have tried using other race-neutral alternatives to increase diversity, though without much success. Asian Americans, however, continue to boast a sizable presence: they made up close to one-third of UCLA's freshman class in 2012, and over 40% of UC Berkeley's freshmen.
The constitutionality of using race as a factor in admissions continues to be a hotly-debated issue. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially decided in a case involving the University of Texas that public schools could only use race to boost diversity only if all other efforts have failed.
What should the University of California do to increase diversity? Should California reconsider the use of affirmative action in college admissions? In the face of deep budget cuts and rising tuition costs, should millions of dollars be spent on increasing diversity?
Guests:
William Kidder, Assistant Executive Vice Chancellor, UC Riverside
Heather Mac Donald, fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; she wrote about diversity programs at the UCs in an article entitled “Multiculti U," which will be published in the forthcoming “The Beholden State: California’s Lost Promise and How to Recapture It” (City Journal, 2013)
Filmweek: The Lone Ranger, Despicable Me 2, The Way, Way Back and more
Larry and KPCC critics Claudia Puig, Henry Sheehan, and Charles Solomon review this week’s releases, including The Lone Ranger, Despicable Me 2, The Way, Way Back and more. Also, the Academy added 276 more people to its roster, hoping to add diversity by bringing in more women and minorities. Will these additions affect the Oscars? TGI-Filmweek!
The Lone Ranger
Despicable Me 2
The Way, Way Back
Guests:
Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and USA Today
Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and criticsagogo.com
Charles Solomon, animation critic for KPCC, author and historian for amazon.com
Which movies have unforgettable computer graphics?
Do you remember the first time you saw a light saber? Or what about being eye-to-eye with a T-Rex? Did you cry when Andy said good-bye and drove away from Woody and Buzz? Did you reach out to touch the fauna on Pandora? It’s amazing how far animation and computer graphics have come — how they have enabled us to see the imaginative conjurings of creative minds, dreamers and historians and have taken us to realms not thought possible.
In “Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation,” animator Tom Sito details the history of animation. Sito said the technology actually began through military funding in the 1960s because the military was studying flight simulations. From medical imagery to film and from PONG to Avatar, Sito’s book covers how animation and computer graphics has developed over the past 50 years.
As technology continues to develop, what’s the future of animation? Will current CG movies seem really fake? Which CG movies made an impression on you? Which movie has the best graphics? Which one has the worst?
Guest:
Tom Sito, author of “Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation”; Cinema Practice professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts; he has been a professional animator since 1975, working on Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King”, and helped set up the Dreamworks Animation Unit.