Residents are resisting the placement of a temporary homeless shelter in the Koreatown area, but it begs the question: under what circumstances do locals approve of a shelter, and are homeless citizens likely to use it? We also examine the mysteries (and legalities) of CBD oil; discuss rising feminism in the Evangelical community; and more.
Some residents say this Koreatown spot isn’t right for a homeless shelter, but is there a good place in Los Angeles?
Nearly a month ago, Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a shelter crisis in Los Angeles, and said the city will ease restrictions on the building of new homeless shelters and launch a $20 million effort to create housing around the city.
Now, plans to create a temporary shelter in Koreatown have sparked backlash and protest from locals, who say they were not informed of the plan and want to have input on the shelter’s location.
Civil rights advocates have long argued that the city can’t clean up homeless encampments if they don’t have alternate shelter to offer. So legally speaking, what would the creation of shelters around Los Angeles mean for homeless encampments?
This new shelter would be situated in the heart of Koreatown, in a city lot that sits near Wilshire and Vermont, amidst businesses and schools. Residents fear it might drive away business and create safety issues.
But where can shelters in Los Angeles be placed where they wouldn’t encounter similar backlash? Is this a case of NIMBY-ism, or are some locations better than others? Garcetti has called for every council district to create temporary housing. The City Council is currently evaluating other potential properties for temporary housing in South L.A., West L.A. and Hollywood.
How will this process be undertaken, the locations chosen and the NIMBYs negotiated with? What kind of facilities would be needed for a successful shelter? And what would compel people who are homeless to live in shelters, which may be cramped, unsafe and unsanitary, rather than making it on their own?
Guests:
Joon Bang, executive director of the Korean American Coalition Los Angeles, a nonprofit focused on promoting the civic and civil rights interests of the Korean American community; he wrote an op-ed published in the LA Times last week on the topic
Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, the oldest Mission in Los Angeles serving the homeless population, located in Downtown
NFL has settled on a solution to player protests during the national anthem
NFL owners have approved a new policy aimed at addressing the firestorm over national anthem protests, permitting players to stay in the locker room during the "The Star-Spangled Banner" but requiring them to stand if they come to the field.
The decision was announced Wednesday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during the league's spring meeting in Atlanta.
In a sign that players were not part of the discussions, any violations of the policy would result in fines against the team - not the players. The NFL Players Association said it will challenge any part of the new policy that violates the collective bargaining agreement.
The owners spent several hours addressing the contentious issue - which has reached all the way to the White House.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016, a quiet but powerful protest against police brutality and racial inequities in the justice system.
Other players took up the cause.
With files from Associated Press.
Guest:
Jason Cole, NFL reporter for Bleacher Report, a San Francisco-based website that focuses on sports; he tweets
In light of Philip Roth’s death, we look at the Jewish intellectual tradition and its impact on America
Philip Roth, the prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, from the comic madness of "Portnoy's Complaint" to the elegiac lyricism of "American Pastoral," died Tuesday night at age 85.
The author of more than 25 books, Roth identified himself as an American writer, not a Jewish one, but for Roth, the American experience and the Jewish experience were often the same. Still, Roth was part of -- as well as a contributor to -- a vibrant Jewish intellectual tradition that infuses everything from the arts to academia to the larger culture in modern America.
AirTalk explores Roth’s connection to the Jewish American intelligentsia, as well as the movements larger impact on American culture.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Talya Zax, deputy culture editor of The Forward, a 121-year-old Jewish publication based in New York; she tweets
David Lehrer, president of Community Advocates, Inc., a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles; he was the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League
Getting to know CBD, THC’s non-intoxicating cousin, and why it's becoming more popular among medicinal and recreational cannabis users
Chances are, if you wander into a recreational cannabis dispensary in California, the majority of the products you’ll see on the shelves from flower to edibles to wax contain THC, the chemical compound found in cannabis plants that creates the “high” that users experience.
But for some people who might otherwise use cannabis for medicinal purposes, it’s the “high” that prevents them from using those products.
Enter CBD, THC’s non-intoxicating, ostensibly non-addictive cousin. Short for cannabidiol,
CBD can be extracted from both the cannabis and hemp plants. By definition, industrial hemp contains less than 0.3 percent THC, so it is often grown for the purpose of CBD oil extraction. There are also certain strains of the cannabis plant, such as Harlequin or Charlotte’s Web, that have been purposely bred for higher CBD content. According to the Associated Press, many growers in Oregon, for example, are starting to turn their attention to cultivating hemp instead of cannabis in the hopes of making more of a profit off of CBD oil extract as it grows in popularity while the state continues to experience a surplus of “usable flower,” or the dried marijuana bud you’ll commonly see associated with marijuana use.
Anecdotally, CBD has been shown to be effective in treating some of the same ailments that patients often use medicinal marijuana to treat, such as chronic pain, anxiety, epilepsy and even addiction. However, like cannabis, CBD is designated by the DEA as a Schedule I drug, which limits the amount of clinical research able to be done into its potential medical uses.
Today on AirTalk, medical professionals and a cannabis cultivator weigh in on CBD’s growing popularity nationwide, what we do and don’t know about its potential medical uses, and whether cultivators and manufacturers in California are jumping on the CBD bandwagon.
Guests:
Igor Grant, M.D., director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego
Shaun Hussain, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and the director of the Infantile Spasms Program at UCLA, where he is also a faculty member with the Cannabis Research Initiative
Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, a trade organization for cannabis growers
Removal of Texas seminary president over comments about abused women sheds light on changing attitudes among Evangelicals towards idea of 'wifely submission'
The president of a Texas seminary is being removed from his job the institution’s board of trustees following past comments he made about women in abusive relationships.
Paige Patterson will become president emeritus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary following revelations about past statements he’d made about women in abusive relationships should stay with their husbands and an instance reported by the Washington Post in which he counseled a woman in 2003 who said she had been raped to pray for and forgive her assailant instead of going to the police.
The move comes at a time when more and more Evangelicals are re-examining how their faith views the idea of “wifely submission” as it’s laid out in Biblical scripture, for example, in Colossians 3:18 which says “wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord,” and what the limits of that idea are.
How are attitudes towards the idea of “female submission” in relationships changing, especially among Evangelicals, in light of the #MeToo movement?
Guests:
Deborah Jian Lee, journalist, author of the book, “Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism,” (Beacon Press, 2015) and host of Kaleidoscope Podcast, a podcast about identity, faith and social engagement in dangerous times; she tweets
Rev. Jennifer Crumpton, freelance journalist and author of “Femmevangelical: The Modern Girl’s Guide to Good News” (Chalice Press, 2015); she tweets