Fresh Air

Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

Recently Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross interviewed New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman about Congress’ coming summer recess and its inaction in the last term.  

Here is a description of the interview: 

Friday is the last day before the 113th Congress scatters for their summer recess. And what has it accomplished so far? Almost nothing, says New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman. As he points out in a recent article:

“None of Congress’s 12 annual spending bills have reached Mr. Obama’s desk, and with the House and the Senate far apart on total spending levels, a government shutdown is possible on Oct. 1, when the current spending law expires.

“Once Congress returns on Sept. 9, lawmakers will have just nine legislative days until the current fiscal year ends and large swaths of the government would be forced to close.”

Weisman joins Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross to discuss why this Congress has passed so few laws, and explain some of the conflicts between Republican lawmakers and President Obama.

Bioethicist and Her Quadriplegic Husband

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Bioethicist and Her Quadriplegic Husband

Recently, Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross interviewed bioethicists Margaret Battin. Battin, a right to die advocate, now navigates the intersection between theory and practice has she attends to her quadriplegic husband.

Here is a description of the interview:

After writing books and essays about end-of-life issues, and advocating for the right to die, bioethicist Margaret Battin is wrestling with the issue in her own family. Her husband, Brooke Hopkins, an English professor at the University of Utah, where she also teaches, broke his neck in a bicycle accident in 2008, leaving him with quadriplegia and dependent on life support technology. In order to breathe, he requires a ventilator some of the time and a diaphragmatic pacer all the time. He receives his nutrition through a feeding tube.

Hopkins’ living will gives him the right to decline this technology, and although he’s chosen to keep living, there have been times he’s told his wife he wants to die, and she’s had to decide how literally to interpret his words.

In her academic life, Battin has also had to reflect on the positions she’s taken in the past to see if she still believes in them. She and her husband are in their early 70s. She’s a distinguished professor of philosophy and still teaches full time. When Hopkins is doing well, and not suffering from one of the many infections that have plagued him since the accident, he’s able to do some teaching from his home, talk with friends who come to visit, go in his wheelchair on walks with his wife and even occasionally get taken to a concert or museum.

Battin and Hopkins were profiled in the cover story of last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Battin tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross about what happened right after the accident, and the responsibility of deciding if someone is genuine in their wish to die.

John Roberts Conservative Long Game?

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John Roberts Conservative Long Game?

Recently, Terry Gross interviewed The New York Times‘ Supreme Court Correspondant, Adam Liptak, on NPR’s Fresh Air. Liptak and Gross discuss the High Court’s recent term, specifically the gay marriage cases and Liptak’s new e-book about gay rights.  Liptak also argues that Chief Justice John Roberts is playing a conservative long game, allowing liberal short term victories in order to ensure eventual conservative goals.  

Here is a description of the interview: 

Last week, the Supreme Court wrapped up its eighth term under Chief Justice John Roberts, in which it handed down historic opinions on gay marriage, the Voting Rights Act and genetic patenting. Adam Liptak, who covers the court for The New York Times, says that in the years Roberts has led the court, the chief justice’s patient and methodical approach has allowed him to establish a robustly conservative record.

“I see him planting seeds in cases where he may get a large majority, including the court’s liberal wing, to sign on to short-term victories today that could result [in] long-term losses for the left tomorrow,” Liptak tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross.

The most notable example of this happened just last week, Liptak says. Drawing on language all eight justices had agreed to in a Voting Rights Act case four years ago, Roberts led the court in gutting a key section of the 1965 law, which addressed voting discrimination. The decision struck down a formula that was used to determine which jurisdictions needed federal approval before changing their voting rules. That freed nine states, mostly in the South, from federal oversight and ostensibly returned the issue to Congress.

On July 9, The New York Times and Byliner will publish an e-book by Liptak calledTo Have and Uphold: The Supreme Court and the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage.

How I Became Involved in Syracuse Truce

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How I Became Involved in Syracuse Truce

Last Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to be able to meet David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.  Professor Kennedy’s work, in developing effective strategies aimed at reducing gun and gang violence in inner cities, is the backbone of the violence reduction strategy currently being implemented in Syracuse, Syracuse Truce.  I first learned of Kennedy’s work just over six months ago when I heard the rebroadcast of his interview on NPR’s Fresh Air.  After reading Professor Kennedy’s book and emailing him, he put me in touch with Syracuse Truce.

Below is an introduction to the interview:

In 1985, David M. Kennedy visited Nickerson Gardens, a public housing complex in south-central Los Angeles. It was the beginning of the crack epidemic, and Nickerson Gardens was located in what was then one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.

“It was like watching time-lapse photography of the end of the world,” he says. “There were drug crews on the corner, there were crack monsters and heroin addicts wandering around. … It was fantastically, almost-impossibly-to-take-in awful.”

Kennedy, a self-taught criminologist, had a visceral reaction to Nickerson Gardens. In his memoir Don’t Shoot, he writes that he thought: “This is not OK. People should not have to live like this. This is wrong. Somebody needs to do something.”

Kennedy has devoted his career to reducing gang and drug-related inner-city violence. He started going to drug markets all over the United States, met with police officials and attorney generals, and developed a program — first piloted in Boston — that dramatically reduced youth homicide rates by as much as 66 percent. That program, nicknamed the “Boston Miracle,” has been implemented in more than 70 cities nationwide.

Navigating the Battlefield to Navigating Red Tape

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Navigating the Battlefield to Navigating Red Tape

Are we failing to meet our commitments to veterans? Yes, says journalist Aaron Glantz (Center for Investigative Reporting).  Despite President Obama’s proposals to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs by streamlining veteran’s claims, the reality has not lived up to the rhetoric.  To the contrary, things have gotten worse during the Obama presidency, with veterans waiting, on average, 273 days to access their benefits.  With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan coming to a close and the VA now recognizing new Agent Orange-related  illnesses, the number veterans making claims has increased.  Meanwhile, the VA remains radically understaffed.  

Glantz spoke with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. Their conversation runs 32:16 minutes.