The ethics of allowing your 4-year-old to choose between 'heaven or hospital'; debating the utility of #BlackLivesMatter; Michael Specter on the future of fast food; and the science of fear.
Oregon family’s decision to let 4-year-old daughter choose death sparks ethical debate
The parents of a 5-year-old girl in Oregon suffering from an incurable disease is allowing the toddler to make her own end-of-life decision.
Five-year-old Snow suffers from an incurable and genetic neurodegenerative disorder that has made her unable to use her arms and legs. Doctors predict that the little girl could die the next time she catches something as minor as a common cold.
When Julianna was four, her parents offered her a choice few kids have to entertain: the next time she falls ill, whether she wants to go to “Heaven or the hospital?”
Can a toddler make an informed decision about life and death?
Guest:
Aaron Kheriaty, Director of Medical Ethics Program at UC Irvine Health and Associate Clinical Professor at the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at UC Irvine
Not a moment but a movement? A debate about #BlackLivesMatter
Black Lives Matter has been back in the news again this month after some of its activists protested and eventually shut down a community meeting with Mayor Garcetti in South LA.
Some members of the black community have since come forward to condemn the group’s tactics and say it doesn’t speak for them. But the moment is raising a question about what Black Lives Matter currently is. Is it a national movement, with unified goals? Or is it a disparate slogan that can be reduced to hashtag activism? We hear from members of the group and its critics about its past, present and future goals.
Guests:
Alex Altman, Washington Correspondent for TIME magazine, where he’s been covering Black Lives Matter, he co-wrote the cover story for TIME about Black Lives Matter
Jody Armour, Roy P. Crocker professor of law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, where he specializes in the relationship between racial justice, criminal justice, and the rule of law
Joe Hicks, Vice President of Community Advocates, Inc., a nonprofit organization that advocates innovative approaches to human relations and race relations in Los Angeles city and county; He is former Executive Director of the L.A. City Human Relations Commission (1997 - 2001) under Mayor Richard Riordan
New Yorker reporter ponders a future where fast food is healthy, tasty, and convenient
Fast food of tomorrow will look nothing like your daddy’s McDonald’s, says the New Yorker’s health and science writer Michael Specter.
In a piece in this week’s magazine, Specter looks at what the future of fast food. It’d be healthy and delicious; in other words: good for you.
How would fast food chains be able to achieve such a seemingly impossible task while maintaining the convenience and price associated with fast food? What would it mean for today’s reigning fast-food king, McDonald’s?
Guest:
Michael Specter, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine focusing on science and technology, whose latest piece “Freedom from fries,” appear in this week’s magazine. He is also the author of “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives” (Penguin, 2009)
Are you afraid of the dark? Sociologist Margee Kerr sheds light on the science of fear
It doesn’t take much to scare us.
Fear could be triggered by a graveyard at midnight, a horror flick or the thought of jumping out of a plane. But how many people write off their fears without exploring them?
Entire film and entertainment industries have been built around the concept that being frightened is fun. We even celebrate a holiday that’s main appeal is scaring the hell out of us—so to speak.
Sociologist Margee Kerr has dedicated her career to the study of being afraid. In her new book, “Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear,” she takes readers through an abandoned prison, a ghost hunt and even to Japan’s “suicide forest.”
Today, Kerr speaks with Larry Mantle on why we’re drawn to frightening situations and what keeps us coming back for more.
Guest:
Margee Kerr, fear sociologist and author of “Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear” (Public Affairs, 2015)