Anti-styrofoam activists follow plastic bag ban model, conserving water in all seasons, SoCal's annual grunion and climate change.
Activists work to ban styrofoam containers by starting small
Styrofoam containers for takeout food are convenient, but also pretty environmentally unfriendly.
Instead of going to Sacramento to lobby for an outright ban, however, environmentalists are aiming small.
They're getting cities and counties throughout California to ban them first. The strategy takes a page from the state's ban on plastic shopping bags, which started with similar restrictions in places like Pasadena and San Francisco.
To explain this political strategy is CALmatters reporter Laurel Rosenhall, whose latest story is "Foam Fight: As California balks at state ban, activists target local level."
Listen to the full interview using the audio player above.
3 ways to be an ally to women in the workplace
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions faced some tough questions earlier this week when he appeared in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
One exchange stood out above all the others: the back and forth between Sessions and California Senator Kamala Harris.
https://youtu.be/RpjztYkNkO0?t=5m30s
The social media response was quick, with many saying that Harris was ultimately silenced because she's a woman.
Here is a complete list of Senators who have been interrupted by Senators during the #SenateIntelHearing:
— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) June 13, 2017
1. Kamala Harris (twice)
2.
3.
All the Dems should just yield their time to Harris - Sessions clearly can't deal with her on all sorts of levels. #SessionsHearing
— Saladin Ambar (@dinambar) June 13, 2017
lol Kamala Harris' wikipedia bio already up to date pic.twitter.com/BCevYsMBft
— Mark Byrne (@markwby) June 13, 2017
Her colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted her support:
Silencing @SenKamalaHarris for not being “courteous” enough is just unbelievable. Keep fighting, Kamala! #NeverthelessShePersisted https://t.co/58y15qWVzU
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 7, 2017
Did gender play a role here?
Well, what we do know is that in workplaces across the country, women are often treated unfairly.
Here are three things that you can do about that, as told by Juliet Williams, professor of gender studies at UCLA.
Don't be dismissive
"It's easy to make jokes about mansplaining or microaggressions, or subtle sexism — to trivialize the harms that occur when people are treated disrespectfully," Williams says. "If somebody is not being talked to in a respectful way, take that seriously."
1. Speak up on their behalf
"We have to remember that sometimes when you're being put down, it's hard for you to take a stand," Williams says.
2. Apologize
"It's my sense that a lot of the troubles that we get into in the workplace have to do with the fact that people do things by mistake," Williams says. "They maybe do it thoughtlessly, and a lot of good could come from just saying, 'Hey, sorry I said that' or 'Sorry I said it that way.'"
3. Pro tip: Avoid savior mentality
The first two tips provide a framework for potential workplace allies, but Juliet Williams says how you approach a situation will always be key.
"I think the best thing to do in that situation isn't to say, 'I'm jumping in to protect this woman," Williams says. "It's to say, 'Wow, I just heard what you said, and I wouldn't like it if someone talked to me that way.' Try to make sure that you make space for everyone to have their own response but also that you recognize that people who are in the minority who are being treated disrespectfully can't always be expected to speak up when they should."
Press the blue play button to hear the full conversation.
The Whole Person Care program brings health care directly to homeless people
If you are homeless and you get sick, you'll probably end up in an emergency room.
The problem is that the ER is typically the most expensive way to provide medical care.
This is prompting a lot of initiatives to look for cheaper - and more efficient ways - to treat homeless patients.
One program that is gaining support is California's Whole Person Care pilot program -- because it is bringing the health care straight to homeless where they are: on the streets.
"It's about trying to cut our health care costs by catching our most needy and sickest and poorest people before they wind up in the emergency room," Anita Chabria, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee told Take Two's A Martinez.
Several counties, including Los Angeles, have signed up for the Whole Person Care program. But Sacramento recently voted to be the only place to offer it as a city.
"Normally this is a program that counties, tribal agencies and health care consortiums have to apply for, but when our county declined to do it, our mayor said, 'Hey, why can’t the city do it itself?'" Chabria said.
"He was able to make a call to the state and get permission to do this just as a city. And on June 1st the federal government gave us permission to be the only city in the program."
On how the program works
"It's actually a statewide pilot program. So it works a little bit differently in different places. What we did here is to get all of our major health care providers to come on board. They're going to set up a database that shares information across their system to figure out who the most frequent users of the emergency room are. What they're expecting to find is that many of those people will also fall under our homeless category. Many with ongoing chronic physical or mental health issues."
On bringing health care directly to people on the street
"We're not going to be providing heavy health care on the street, but what I mean by that is that they'll send out people who will intervene and get a heavy user of medical care into a stable situation. Whereas then they don't have to rely on the emergency room."
Answers have been edited for clarity.
To listen to the whole interview, please click on the blue player above
Remember to save water in a heat wave, even without a drought
It's warm out there again in SoCal, today, and the forecast says it'll only get hotter over the next few days.
That means you'll probably want to cool off with some nice, cold water.
But when the drought was declared over in April, Southern Californians started to slip back on all the progress made to conserve.
In one part of the region, people used 28 percent more water than they did the year before.
To help us keep up the momentum to save without the drought to motivate us, we've tapped Lester Snow, senior policy advisor of the California Water Foundation.
Listen to the interview using the audio player above.
SoCal’s ‘sex-crazed fish party’ — the grunion run — may be facing difficulties
The Binge: Genius, The Handmaid's Tale and Fortitude
Every month we get a list of great movies and shows that are available for streaming. Writer Mark Jordan Legan is our guide.
Here are his picks:
GENIUS (National Geographic Channel)
Albert Einstein is the subject of this terrific new series from Ron Howard & Brian Grazer which is based on the 2007 best selling book by Walter Issacson, "Einstein: His Life & Universe."
What truly makes this series are the performances – it is wonderfully cast - Johnny Flynn is fantastic as the younger Einstein, and matching him step by step is Geoffrey Rush as Einstein in his golden years.
Just like the book, GENIUS tries to show us the man behind E=MC2, foibles and all.
THE HANDMAID'S TALE (Hulu)
Based on the famous Margaret Atwood novel -- which was made into a forgettable feature film in the 90s -- this is an incredibly powerful and timely series. But it is bleak.
It is set in the not-so-distant future where a dictatorship is now in power, women are basically treated as property, and a mass occurrence of infertility among the population makes any fertile young woman a prized commodity.
FORTITUDE (Amazon Prime)
Fortitude is a murder mystery set amongst frozen landscapes and breathtaking glaciers. The main economy had been the mining industry but the mines are drying up and many are hoping that with tourism, their fortunes will turn around.
But in this tight-knit community, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and there is basically very little crime, someone turns up dead and because of the inexperience of the small police staff, an American FBI forensics expert who now works for the London Police is called in to help with the investigation.
The excellent cast also has Christopher Eccelston and Michael Gambon – it is smart and compelling and the stunning wintery location really gives it a sense of isolation and mystery. I look at FORTITUDE like FARGO meets BOROADCHURCH with a little bit of TWIN PEAKS but with huge snowdrifts and polar bears!
Mark Jordan Legan is a writer living in Los Angeles. If you want to catch up on past segments, click here.