The LA County Board of Supervisors is meeting today to consider asking voters to approve a parcel tax to pay for parks; discussing contested conventions in the digital age and how to best support a transgender kid
Everyone agrees LA County needs more parks, but we’re divided on who should pay for them
A new report from the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation shows great disparities when it comes to the location of the county’s parks.
The LA County Board of Supervisors is meeting today to consider asking voters to approve a parcel tax to pay for parks. If the Supervisors approve, we'll see it on the November ballot, The measure requires two-thirds approval.
Supervisors are also looking at whether the tax should be three-cents per square foot of a house or five-cents. The smaller tax would be about $45 a year for a 15-hundred square foot house and raise $191 million annually. The larger one would cost $75 a year for that home and bring in $309 million a year. But how will projects be prioritized? And is this the best way to fund the parks?
Guest:
Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles County Supervisor, and is now affiliated with the UCLA’s history department, and the Luskin School of Public Affairs; he tweets from
Jack Humphreville, a columnist with the CityWatch blog; he tweets from
How sudden weight loss can devastate your metabolism
Reality television shows like "The Biggest Loser" can be motivational in kick-starting our own weight loss, but are diet and extreme exercise the most effective way to lose weight and keep it off?
A new study published Monday in Obesity, a research journal, followed 14 former participants of "The Biggest Loser" for six years and found that most had regained the weight they lost, perhaps because their metabolic rate had significantly slowed down.
A person's resting metabolic rate determines how many calories they burn while at rest and greatly influences our ability to maintain a certain weight.
The study raises questions not just about the effectiveness of "The Biggest Loser" and similar weight loss shows but about the methods of the entire weight loss industry. How effective are low-carb, gluten-free, paleo and vegan diets? How much does biology matter when trying to lose weight? What are some of your best and worst weight-loss experiences?
Guest:
Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D., Medical Director, Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa; Author, “The Diet Fix” (March 2014); Board-Certified Physician by the American Board of Bariatric (Obesity) Medicine; he blogs at weightymatters.ca
Contested Political Conventions - the 21st Century edition
Without definite winners of the Republican and Democratic primary battles, the campaigns are gaming out a potential fight over delegates and platforms at the conventions using new technology.
Marketing companies that mine data are promising they can profile individual delegates in a matter of seconds to find out their soft spots and figure out who might change their vote, as reported by the LA Times’ Evan Halper. The 2008 Barack Obama campaign is legendary for exploiting digital profiles of donors and voters to get every last dollar and supporter into the fold.
How will the digital campaign play out in Cleveland and Philadelphia?
Guests:
Evan Halper, Politics reporter, Los Angeles Times; he tweets from
John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation; he tweets
Legal, law enforcement experts discuss whether feds can unlock a phone using a fingerprint
Should the federal government be allowed to get a search warrant that compels someone to unlock a phone using their fingerprint?
It’s the issue at the center of a legal case that was going on as the world watched and waited to see whether Apple would buckle to the FBI’s demand that it help unlock the smartphone that belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the suspects in the San Bernardino mass shooting. The girlfriend of an Armenian gang member was compelled, through a search warrant, to use her fingerprint to unlock a phone that police had taken from a Glendale home.
The case is raising larger questions about how high the bar should be set when it comes to law enforcement obtaining biometric data, like hair or fingerprints. Some think that compelling someone to use a fingerprint to unlock a phone could be a violation of one’s 5th Amendment right not to incriminate oneself because the data on the phone is all about the owner. Therefore, forcing that person to open the phone could be self-incrimination. Others say that so long as the proper legal channels were used to obtain the search warrant, there is no violation.
Should the bar for obtaining biometric data be higher for law enforcement?
Guests:
Randy Sutton, retired police lieutenant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and author of multiple books on policing, including “A Cop’s Life” (St Martin’s Press, 2006)
Susan W. Brenner, a law professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio. She specializes in cybercrime and cyberterrorism law
George M. Dery III, a lawyer and criminal justice professor at California State University, Fullerton
Parents open up about raising transgender kids
Despite high-profile advocates like Caitlyn Jenner and reality shows like "I Am Jazz," it can still be difficult for many parents to know what to do when a child identifies as trans.
We talked with Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine physician specializing in the care of gender non-conforming children and transgender youth at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Devi Borton, mother of a nine-year-old transgender girl, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
How can parents best support their child? What conversations should parents have with school officials? With other parents? How can parents prepare their children for a world that isn't always welcoming?
If you are a parent of a child who identifies as trans, let us know how you've handled these issues.
Interview Highlights
Have you seen growth in the number of families who have gone into your practice to talk about this?
Olson-Kennedy: I have seen a huge growth, especially over the last five years. Particularly in kids who are presenting concerns around their gender at younger and younger ages.
What are some of challenges you help parents navigate?
Olson-Kennedy: There are a lot of decisions parent have to make, especially if their child is younger. And there are very different responses that our society has towards children who appear to be little boys doing little girls things, versus little girls who are doing little boys things.
You think there’s more acceptance of the so-called tomboy?
Olson-Kennedy: I think it’s so socially acceptable, that sometimes young people are not identified in childhood as having a gender different from their assigned sex.
How do parents work through trying to figure what’s going on?
Olson-Kennedy: I think that’s a great question, and certainly, different parents approach this in very different ways. Some of it is cultural and some of it is geographical. I think the best, most important change that’s happened over the last decade is that parents are listening and having conversations about how to figure this out.
I think prior to 15 or even 10 years ago, parents might have shut this down and said, “This is what you are because of these body parts and we’re not going to talk about it anymore.” But now people are spending more time having conversations with their child to listen to what they're telling them about their gender and their experience of their gender.
Devi, how did your then-son approach you about this?
Borton: When I get asked this question, I have to answer that it was really a puzzle that took a long time to put together; it didn’t just happen one day. It really happened gradually over time.
Our child was never attracted to typical girl toys; she was always attracted to her sister’s clothes — and my clothes — and would dress up in them. Also, she never wanted to pee standing up, she always wanted to pee, sitting. Things like that just started to emerge and they were consistent. My child was persistent about her preferences in the way she expressed herself, and she was insistent. I suppose I'm very lucky that I have a child that’s so fiery that she would not let us ignore it.
How old was she when she started verbalizing this?
Borton: I would say 3-and-a-half was really the age I first heard her talk about it. Around that time, she had a very intense fear of death, which I thought was really unusual for a 3-year-old. Our Montessori teacher gave us a Buddhist book about death called, “Mountains of Tibet.” It’s about reincarnation. The wood cutter, who dies, is given an opportunity to have another life and has to make choices about which universe he wants to live in and who his parents will be, and the last question is, “Would you like to be a girl or a boy?” The wood cutter responds, “I’ve enjoyed being a boy in my last life, but I’d like to see what it’s like to be a girl.”
My child turned to me with a really intense look in her eyes and said, “Momma, I wish I was a girl.” That’s really the moment where I stopped being in denial about what’s going on.
Given the fluidity of sexuality, for example, was this something you thought was a phase, or did you feel pretty convinced this was foundational for your then-son, now daughter?
Borton: That’s a great question. When you talked about sexuality earlier, I thought, I got a lot of feedback from our society at age 2 saying, “Your son is going to be gay.” I thought, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard, how could you know that?
But i think that’s the box that a lot of us grow up in. we don’t really have a box for thinking in a more mature way about gender and the fluidity and spectrum of that. Most of us are privileged to not have to think about gender for most of our lives. I think that I did fall into, “Oh ok, I have a feminine son and he’ll probably be gay.”
But something really nagged at me because this was an expression of self that came from really deep inside. And when she became old enough to start talking about it, it was these three important things you hear about: insistent, consistent and persistent. She eventually said, “I am a girl. Why are you making me wear boy clothes? Why are you calling me by this name?” We finally got hit over the head and paid attention, thank goodness.
Caller Tanya in Westwood: I’d just like to know if there are resources we can discuss with our child to help them figure out if they’re confused about their gender or where they belong. How can you help a child know they’re not alone?
Olson-Kennedy: : Luckily in Los Angeles, we have some really great resources. Certainly people are welcome to contact us. Another really good contact is the Los Angeles Gender Center, a collection of therapists who work with a lot of gender non-conforming children and transgender youth, but they’re also good places to bring young people and have a forum to talk about their gender.
They do this professionally all day, every day, and know the kinds of conversations to have to help people move forward and get clarity.
I do want to add that in many situations, it’s usually the people around the young person who are confused about the young person’s gender. I think when you’ve been told your entire life, whether it’s the first 3 years, fifteen years, or forty years, that you are one gender based on everybody else’s impression , it’s difficult to assert that you might have a gender that’s different than that.
Isn’t there also potential confusion for the child because they see their own anatomy, but feel so different than what is considered typical for someone with that anatomy. Would there not be some confusion in that?
Olson-Kennedy: I think so. I think a lot of young people, especially once they've passed that early age of 3 to 5, go through a process of trying to figure that out. And quite honestly, most of the time it’s done online. Young people who use the internet and find their community or other people with a similar experience, do a lot of what I call the “coming in” process. They’re coming in before they coming out. They’re trying to explore and figure out what’s happening for them with those feelings.
Caller Glenn from Pasadena: I’m a parent of a trans child. When our child first started dressing up in girl clothes and playing with girl toys, we were worried it would reflect badly on us because we’re both gay and people would think it’s because of our parenting. But once we got over that and decided it’s not about us, it’s about our kid, we embraced it.
Our child did not choose to transition or identify as girl for a couple of years, she was happy to identify as transgender but wanted to keep the male pronouns and a male name. She’s 6 now and it’s really only been a few months that she’s decided she’s a girl and we’re going with that. She’s transgender because she says she is, if that changes in the future, then we’ll go with that.
This interview has been edited for clarity.