Immigration Marches; High-Speed Rail Project Slows to a Crawl; Melamine and The Poison Pet Food; Politics and Terrorism
Immigration Marches
Larry Mantle talks with KPCC reporters Doualy Xaykaothao and Susan Valot as well as economist Jack Kyser, Chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, about today's immigration marches and their effects on downtown businesses.
High-Speed Rail Project Slows to a Crawl
Plans for construction of a bullet train from Los Angeles to Sacramento were moving full speed ahead, but now the project may be postponed indefinitely. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has tabled his support for the bullet train, a spokesman says, because the state can't afford it. But high-speed rail advocates have vowed to stay the course and refuse to give up hope. Larry Mantle speaks with Democratic State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma and Governor Schwarzenegger's Special Advisor for Jobs and Economic Growth, David Crane.
Melamine and The Poison Pet Food
Melamine is an organic compound derived from coal for use in industrial applications. Apparently, it is also used in feed production as a "fake protein" to undermine food quality tests, tricking farmers into thinking a feed is protein-rich. Recently, American pets started dying from kidney failure; although melamine is not considered particularly toxic, it appears to have become deadly to pets which consumed food which was traced back to Chinese animal-feed producers. It also points to another, more ominous situation: the American food supply depends on larger and larger amounts of imported products. How safe is the food supply from food producers who would use illegal substances such as melamine? Larry talks about this unsettling situation with David Barboza, Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times, Steve Stern, spokesman for ChemNutra, importer of nutritional and pharmaceutical chemicals from China, and with Donald Smith, Dean of the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.
Politics and Terrorism
In his recent book, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats and Why We Believe Them (Free Press), political science professional and national security consultant, John Mueller, argues that our government, private industry, and the media have overstated the threat of terrorism since the Sept. 11th attacks. Larry talks with Mueller about his contention that the threat of terrorism is used to justify military adventurism and to divert public money to, what he deems, unnecessary counterterrorism measures.