Long Beach Port Expansion; PPIC Report; Are Antidepressants Safe for Children?; Redemption Through Writing
Long Beach Port Expansion
Officials from the Port of Long Beach, and the City Council and environmental groups met last night to discuss concerns raised over the expansion of Pier J and the Environmental Impact Report surrounding the project. The council will vote on the expansion in November, while residents, business and environmental groups try to find common ground. At issue is air quality versus jobs and the backlog of shipping traffic waiting to come into the port. Larry's guests are: Val Lerch, Long Beach City Councilman, Randy Gordon, President & CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and Gail Ruderman-Feuer, Senior Attorney at NRDC.
PPIC Report
The Public Policy Institute recently released “The Local Initiative in California,” a report that comprehensively covers how propositions are used in the state and the communities that tend to generate the most of them. And as for the claim that the local initiative has become a “fourth branch of government,” you may be surprised at some of the author Tracy Gordon’s findings. Larry's guests are: Tracy Gordon, Research Fellow at the Public Policy Institute, and John Matsusaka, President of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC and a professor of business and Law at USC.
Are Antidepressants Safe for Children?
An FDA advisory panel recommended this week that antidepressants should come with a black-box warning on the label that they can sometimes spur suicidal behavior in children and teenagers. Larry is joined by experts to discuss how parents can weigh the risks and benefits of antidepressants for their children and teenagers. Larry's guests are: Dr. Mark Rapaport, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and Dr. Joseph Haraszti, Medical Director of Aurora Las Encinas Psychiatric Hospital in Pasadena, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at USC School of Medicine.
Redemption Through Writing
Larry speaks with Joe Loya, author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber. Joe Loya’s mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness when he was nine years old. His father, a Protestant minister, displaced his grief onto his sons, beating them in the shadow of his wife’s illness. As a teenager, Joe finally snapped, stabbing his father in the neck. Thus began a life of crime that finally put him in prison for seven years. Joe began a correspondence with author Richard Rodriguez that launched his career as a writer, the vehicle for his redemption. He now works as a writer and an editor with the Pacific Sun News Service.