The California High-Speed Rail Authority is holding five community open houses to hear about alignment alternatives for the 60-mile Palmdale to Los Angeles project section of California’s high-speed rail program. Also, The 9/11 Memorial Museum opens to the public tomorrow after years of construction and battles over the museum’s contents.
High Speed Rail Authority hosts town halls across Southern California
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is holding five community open houses to hear about alignment alternatives for the 60-mile Palmdale to Los Angeles project section of California’s high-speed rail program.
This is an opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide comments about alignment alternatives that will be studied as part of the Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS). People are encouraged to come anytime between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. The information shared will be identical at each meeting. At 6:30pm, project engineers and planners from the SoCal project section will present present details and answer questions.
The dates and locations are:
Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at the San Fernando Regional Pool Facility at 208 Park Ave., San Fernando, CA 91340
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at Los Angeles Union Station in the Fred Harvey Room at 800 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Wednesday, May 28, 2014 at the Burbank Holiday Inn at 150 E Angeleno Ave., Burbank, CA 91502
Thursday, May 29, 2014 at the Chimbole Cultural Center at 38350 Sierra Highway, Palmdale, CA 93550
Thursday, June 5, 2014 at William S. Hart Regional Park at 24151 Newhall Ave., Newhall, CA 91321
Guest:
Michelle Boehm, Southern California Regional Director at the California High-Speed Rail Authority
How should the 9/11 Memorial Museum address concerns over its gift shop?
The 9/11 Memorial Museum opens to the public tomorrow after years of construction and battles over the museum’s contents.
Particularly controversial issues have been the museum’s gift shop and the private “reflection room,” a place for families of the roughly 8,000 unidentified people who lost their lives in the attack to view their remains.
Critics argue that the remains shouldn’t be housed in the museum, and take particular issue with the fact that they share the space with a gift shop. The museum’s staff has said the gift shop items were carefully selected and that the money raised there will fund operations of the museum and the free outdoor memorial.
Similar gift shops exist at other memorial museums, including several Holocaust museums and Pearl Harbor.
What should the protocol be for remembering the dead in a memorial museum? Is the museum’s gift shop inappropriate, or might it be appropriate if the human remains were housed elsewhere? How should the museum proceed?
Guests:
Philip Tetlock, professor of psychology and management at University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business
Karen Remmler, Professor of German Studies and Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Her research focuses on the politics of memory in the aftermath of atrocities
Sponsored trips to Israel become thorny issue in UCLA student elections
A group of UCLA students that advocate for Palestinian rights and recognition of the Armenian genocide urged candidates running for student-body president to sign a pledge promising they won't visit Israel on trips sponsored by certain lobbying organizations, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The group was able to get more than half of the candidates to sign the document.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and UC President Janet Napolitano both criticized the move. "I am troubled that the pledge sought to delegitimize educational trips offered by some organizations but not others," Block wrote in an email that was sent out to students Friday. "I am troubled that the pledge can reasonably be seen as trying to eliminate selected viewpoints from the discussion." Student Gabriel Levine says the free trips are from external organizations that have political agendas or histories of marginalizing student communities on campus.
Does taking a trip to Israel sponsored by particular advocacy groups automatically color an individual’s politics? Should it be an issue in student elections?
Guests:
Gabriel Levine, Member of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA; Co-Author of the “Joint Statement on USAC ( ) Ethics”
Eytan Davidovits, President, Bruins for Israel, a student and pro-Israel organization at UCLA, Junior, Economics
LA sports roundup: Lakers’ 7th draft pick and Kings vs. Blackhawks
The Lakers had the sixth-worst record in this NBA this season--and the worst showing since the team moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis in 1961. The season's saving grace was supposed to be a high draft pick.
Before yesterday's NBA lottery, most expected the Lakers to at least lock in a sixth pick. But the team was dealt another bad hand.
So what can the Lakers do with a seventh pick? What should the Lakers do? The NBA draft takes place on June 26.
It's déjà vu for the Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks, who face off again in this year's NHL Western Conference Finals. The Blackhawks took game 1 in Chicago, and the Kings are hoping to even the series tonight at the United Center to avoid falling into a 2-0 hole.
Guests:
A Martinez, Co-host, Take Two
Bob Miller, television play-by-play voice of the Los Angeles Kings
Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State
Is change the key to functional government?
In their new book, “Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State,” Economist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge take readers on a global tour to assess government effectiveness.
The book argues that the West, and particularly the United States, is being left behind as nations revolutionize their governments to keep up with modernization.
How should countries adapt to sustain viable economies and stay out of debt? Is reinvention the key to success? Is the U.S. being left behind as other nations move into the governmental future?
The authors will speak about the Fourth Revolution at the Milken Institute Forum today at 4:30.
Guests:
John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of The Economist
Adrian Woolridge, Management Editor and 'Schumpeter' columnist for The Economist magazine