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Intelligence Squared Debate Retrospective: Health Care

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Intelligence Squared Debate Retrospective: Health Care

The most r recent episode of NPR’s Intelligence Squared podcast featured a retrospective of its past debates relating to health care policy. 

Here is a description of the episode: 

Since 2006, Intelligence Squared US has been hosting debates on the most divisive issues facing America, and in that time, the country’s political landscape has changed dramatically. Yet, despite these political transformations, the country’s most hotly contested topics have remained the same. Among the most divisive is health care. For this health care retrospective, Intelligence Squared has mined its vast archive of debates and created a program that illuminates the key political and philosophical differences on each side.

Story of the day: Mean Mom Genes

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Story of the day: Mean mom Genes

NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about how, according to neutroscientists, tough economic times could affect parenting, specifically mothering.

Here is the introduction to segment:

A gene that affects the brain’s dopamine system appears to have influenced mothers’ behavior during a recent economic downturn, researchers say.

At the beginning of the recession that began in 2007, mothers with the “sensitive” version of a gene called DRD2 became more likely to strike or scream at their children, the researchers say. Mothers with the other “insensitive” version of the gene didn’t change their behavior.

But once it appeared that the recession would not become a full-fledged depression, the “sensitive” mothers became less likely than “insensitive” mothers to engage in harsh parenting.

“You have the same genes, and with a different environment it’s a completely different story,” says Irwin Garfinkel, a professor of contemporary urban problems at Columbia University. “I think that’s the most amazing part of what we found.”

Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

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Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

Recently, NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Bob Odenkirk who plays the most popular fictional lawyer currently on television–Saul Goodman of AMC’s Breaking Bad.

Here is a description of the interview:

“When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer — you want a criminal lawyer.”

That’s how meth dealer Jesse Pinkman describes the fast-talking, sleazy Saul Goodman on AMC’s Breaking Bad. Played by Bob Odenkirk, Saul knows how to bend the law, or break it, depending on his clients’ needs. He helped Walter White — a high-school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker — launder money, stay out of prison and get connected with a meth drug lord.

Now, in the final season, even Saul is scared. Walt has plenty of drug money stashed away, but he’s murdered a drug lord. Worse still, a DEA agent (who happens to be Walt’s brother-in-law) may be on to him.

Before Breaking Bad, Odenkirk was best known as the co-founder and co-star, with David Cross, of the HBO sketch-comedy series Mr. Show.

Breaking Bad begins the second half of its final season on Sunday. Odenkirk tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross about Saul’s comb-over, the character’s penchant for long-winded speeches, and his own thoughts on playing the most comedic character in a serious drama.

Federal Judge Finds NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Unconstitutional

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Today, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin held that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

Below is the beginning of a WNYC story about the case: 

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin issued her long-awaited opinion finding that the New York City Police Department had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments in the way they have conducted stop-and-frisks. 

“Targeting young black and Hispanic men for stops based on the alleged criminal conduct of other young black or Hispanic men violates bedrock principles of equality,” she wrote in her strongly-worded ruling.

In her opinion, which can be read in full below, Judge Scheindlin writes:

“To be very clear: I am not ordering an end to the practice of stop and frisk. The purpose of the remedies addressed in this Opinion is to ensure that the practice is carried out in a manner that protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much-needed police protection.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reacting Monday afternoon at a press conference, was visibly angered by the judge’s decision. “The judge ignored the realities of crime,” he said, “like the fact that our police officers on patrol make an average of less than one stop a week.”

More on Bloomberg’s reaction.

The judge specified a number of steps the NYPD must take to reform stop-and-frisk. It must revise its policies and training procedures, especially its “over-broad definition of ‘furtive behavior.’ It must change the written documentation police must produce after stops. and it must institute a one-year body camera pilot program involving one precinct in each borough. . . . 

 

READ THE “REMEDIAL OPINION”

Judge outlines what NYPD needs to do next.

 

READ THE RULING

Ruling: Judge finds NYC stop-and-frisk policy violated rights.

 

Raisin Outlaw Takes on Raisin Monopoly?

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Raisin Outlaw Takes on Raisin Monopoly?

NPR’s Planet Money recently ran an interesting story about Marvin Horne, a raisin producer who is taking on the Raisin Administrative Committee, a government agency that controls the production of raisins. The dispute gave rise to the recent Supreme Court case of Marvin D. Horne, et al., Petitioners v. Department of Agriculture.

Here is an introduction to the story: 

In most industries, competitors getting together to restrict the supply of a good would be illegal. But in the raisin world, it’s the opposite. Competitors have to work together. They all decide as a group how many raisins to release to the public. What can get you in trouble in raisins, is going against that group.

Raisin farmer, Marvin Horne, is a raisin rebel, a raisin outlaw. He refused to follow the rules of the Raisin Administrative Committee and found himself under surveillance by Rocky Pipkin’s detective agency. Now he’s being sued by the federal government for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On today’s show, the upside-down world of raisins.