Should the teen accused of killing his ICE agent father, be tried as an adult? Is resume padding a firing offense? Would airports be safer without the TSA? What's the long view on student-loan interest rates? The Science of Good and Evil. Plus, the latest news.
Should the teen accused of killing his ICE agent father be tried as an adult?
A 14-year old boy who allegedly shot and killed his father in Carson last Wednesday is scheduled to appear in Compton juvenile court today.
The father, Myron Chisem, was a 42-year old U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent. The son, who has not been identified, allegedly shot his father in the head through a backyard window using Chisem’s government-issued gun. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said the son called 911 to report the incident.
About eight hours later, the boy was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder. At this point, the motive remains unclear. But Sean Butler, a friend of Chisem’s since 1991, said there “was never any indication” of trouble between Chisem and his son, who is described as a nice, quiet boy who was doing well in school.
The L.A. district attorney plans to ask a juvenile judge to have the teen tried as an adult. That hasn’t been decided yet, and the boy’s fitness will be determined during an upcoming hearing. But cases like this beg the question as to whether a child who kills a parent ought to be treated differently from someone who kills an innocent stranger.
Rightly or wrongly, parents are often blamed or held responsible for many of their children’s actions. If forthcoming details reveal that the father and son had a difficult relationship of some kind, would that make some difference in terms of how the case should be handled? What if the boy is determined to have some kind of developmental disorder? In either case, is it fair to try him as an adult?
GUESTS
Laurie Levenson, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School
Professor Kathleen Heide, Department of Criminology, University of South Florida; Renowned expert in parricide
Is resume padding a firing offense?
Scott Thompson, who was hired to be Yahoo’s CEO in January, inaccurately stated his academic credentials on his resume. Apparently, Thompson indicated that he had received a B.A. in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College at a time when the college didn’t grant B.A. degrees in computer science. Yahoo reacted by calling the misstatement "an inadvertent error," but has since begun an investigation.
Thompson is not the first high profile executive to fudge credentials on a resume. Michael Brown, President George W. Bush’s appointee to the head of FEMA, was found to have lied about being a professor and working as a director of a nursing home. But the news highlights a problem that all organizations face when hiring.
Beth A. Livingston, assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University, said she suspects thousands of people around the country who hold jobs have presented resumes that were less than truthful. But she added that a little embellishment is very different from making up new information.
"I think the distinction has to be made by what we mean by fudging ... You're always encouraged to make your resume put you in the best light possible. It will always be biased towards the positive," she said. "There is no standard format, so you can present however much or little information that you choose."
According to Livingston, companies receive so many applications they need a quick way to whittle down seemingly never-ending piles of resumes. People feel pressured to add untruthful experiences to their resume to even make the first cut.
"It's one of the things that's most problematic for me. I'm always looking at: 'Does someone have the knowledge, the skill and the ability to do a job.' Unfortunately in today's day an age, you see a lot of companies using proxies, using short cuts to make those decisions, thinking, 'Well if they have this degree, they must have the knowledge, skill and the ability,' assuming those without it do not," she explained.
She said that double checking details like college degrees are low on the list of priorities for hirers, especially for high-profile jobs like CEO.
"What you're probably going to see much more often is people asking you to come in and talk about your visions for a company and your ability to weave the company, and whether or not you have a certain degree is really not high up on the list of priorities to double check," she said.
Livingston's biggest question is why Thompson felt it necessary to lie about his credentials.
"What was the impetus behind putting that on his degree? Because obviously he's proven himself to have skills and abilities that would lead to job performance much more so than earning a degree. We have no research that says that certain majors lead you to better job performance than others," she said.
WEIGH IN:
How do you vet prospective employees and how do you guard against resume padding? Have you ever found out that one of your employees lied on his or her resume? Should someone be fired for failing to provide an accurate resume? Have you ever padded your own resume? Were you found out, or did you sneak under the radar and get the job? There’s a fine line between promoting oneself and padding a resume, but where is it exactly?
Guest:
Beth A. Livingston, Assistant Professor, Human Resource Studies at the International and Labor Relations School, Cornell University
Would airports be safer without the TSA?
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is putting together a bill right now not to overhaul the Transportation Security Administration -- he wants to end it completely.
According to a fundraising email from Paul that was sent out by the Campaign for Liberty, the TSA are “government thugs posing as ‘security’” who are subjecting the American people to “harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane” and doing very little to keep us safe from terrorist threats.
"We… recognize that there are an awful lot of good people who are working at the TSA," said Matthew Hawes, Vice President of Campaign for Liberty. "We've seen in the 10 years since the TSA's existed just numerous failures on a security level. We have people who continually get through, and we're seeing numerous abuses it seems like hardly a day goes by that we're hearing a whole new story"
Paul plans to release his new legislation next week and, according to POLITICO he’s also working on a plan to privatize the agency as well as a passenger bill of rights.
The TSA has been a pet target of both Ron and Rand Paul ever since Rand was barred from a flight after refusing a routine screening at a security check point in Nashville, TN. Problems at the TSA have been widely reported.
Late last month several TSA screeners at LAX were arrested for allowing large amounts of drugs through security checkpoints. Nationally we see stories of octogenarians forced to remove diapers, mothers forced to drink breast milk and mentally handicapped children forced to endure aggressive screening procedures.
"For one thing we are very concerned about the way that they are doing things right now, they're doing these extreme pat-downs that we argue is a massive violations of people's dignity for one thing, people's privacy," said Hawes, arguing that allowing private companies to handle security checkpoint duties would allow for more flexibility and better screening. "There'd still be some federal guidelines in place, that's being worked out as Senator Paul finalizes his legislation and gets it ready. The main focus is work rules, personnel decisions, reverting back to local control."
But does that mean the TSA needs to be scrapped altogether?
Not according to some security experts. They say with millions of people boarding flights every day, some lapses are to be expected. And though there are ways to make the administration run better, a privatized system would be both more expensive and less safe.
"Scrapping the TSA is not a solution," said Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Advisor to the President of the Rand Corporation. "We probably don't have to be looking at small pairs of scissors and things of that sort. On the other hand, the problem that we really confront is the fact that terrorists are able now to construct smaller and smaller explosive devices and conceal them in ways that make them undetectable to all but the most obtrusive searches, so that means we're going to have to start looking at the passengers as well."
WEIGH IN:
Are the problems with the TSA too big to fix? Can private companies do the job better? Should we trust them with the security of our flights? With the government out of the picture, who will be in charge of security; airlines, airports?
GUESTS:
Matthew Hawes, VP of Campaign for Liberty
Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Advisor to the President of the Rand Corporation and one of the nation’s leading experts on terrorism and homeland security.
Would you prefer to tell us your story about the TSA confidentially? Use this link to get in touch with a KPCC journalist.
What's the long view on student-loan interest rates?
Today, another full-court press begins to keep the interest rate on Stafford student loans capped at 3.4%, rather than double on July 1.
President Barack Obama is getting on the phone with student government leaders across the country and the Senate floor just took up debate on the 'Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act.' The bill is a short-term measure, extending the lower rate for just one more year. It was back in 2007 when a bipartisan measure instated the lower rates -- that were only supposed to last for this five-year stretch.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argued in an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson student paper: "As we work to get the economy back on track, no one is suggesting it would be a good idea to double interest rates on credit cards or home mortgages. Why then do some believe it's a good idea to double interest rates for students?" As for his counterparts across the aisle, Republicans are largely on board and the Act will pass in all likelihood. (The only quibble is how to pay for it -- no small quibble at that.)
Still conservative economists argue keeping the interest rates low and putting more money in debtors' pockets will not stimulate the economy. The editorial board of The New York Times likes the rate cap, but questions what happens come 2013. "Washington only wants to deal with these matters on a piecemeal basis, or when it is to one side’s political advantage," they wrote.
Tuition is only going up. There's no lesser demand for a college degree. So what to do about the debt and repayments? There's no bankruptcy out as we've discussed on AirTalk before, so what's a fair interest rate for a student loan?
GUESTS
Richard Vedder, Economist; Professor, Ohio University Department of Economics
Mr. Christian Weller, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston; Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress – specialization in macroeconomics, retirement income security, money and banking, and international finance.
The science of good and evil
What if there was a substance that could make us generous and loving, without which we become cruel and greedy? In his new book "The Moral Molecule," neuroeconomist Paul Zak introduces us to oxytocin, a brain chemical that triggers compassion.
With a team of researchers, Zak took blood from thousands of test subject from all walks of life in a variety of circumstances. When Zak artificially boosted levels of oxytocin, people were more caring, more giving and less likely to cheat. He also found that merely acting in a trusting manner triggered the body’s own production of oxytocin, creating what Zak refers as the ultimate virtuous cycle.
But the discovery of the “moral molecule” doesn’t mean that philosophers and theologians are out of business but only that any conversation about virtue and free will must take brain chemistry and physiology into consideration.
Given Zak’s discovery, would it be moral to chemically alter people to make them more loving and generous? What is the role of religion and philosophy in our lives if we are governed more by chemistry and less by our own will?
Guest:
Paul Zak, author of “The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity” (Dutton)