The People's Piano

Guest: Corry Cropper, PhD, Professor of French, Chair of the Department of French and Italian, BYU; Yvon Le Bras, PhD, Professor of French and Contemporary French Civilization, BYU

Guest: Jeffrey Zax, PhD, Professor of Economics, Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder Some research by University of Colorado, Boulder economics professor, Jeffrey Zax, indicates people with a last name further down the alphabet are less likely to be recognized by the teacher as an outstanding student. And that disadvantage carries into your first career experiences.

Guest: Cristian Tomasetti, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Exercise, eat leafy greens, don’t smoke . . . all great advice for preventing cancer, but not enough to prevent all cancers. New research out of Johns Hopkins University, suggests two-thirds of gene mutations that cause cancer are completely out of our control. They’re just bad luck.

Guest: Ganesh Sitaraman, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University, author of “The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution” We’ve been hearing for some time about the shrinking middle class in America – how people are getting either richer or poorer and the gap between them is widening. But if many in the middle class are moving up to wealthier ranks, what’s the problem? Do we really need a large group of people in the economic middle in order for America to function?

Guest: Cristina Garcia, Assemblymember, California’s 58th Assembly District In many states across the country, tampons, pads, and even diapers are taxed as luxury items. That “luxury” designation might seem surprising, but the truth is that actually, only a handful of states give a sales tax exemption to these kind of products.  Last year, California lawmakers pushed for legislation—dubbed the tampon tax--to eliminate sales tax on feminine hygiene products. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who claimed the state could not afford the loss in revenue. But California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia is not giving up—she’s back, with a bill called the Common Cents Tax Reform, which would lift the sales tax on feminine hygiene products and diapers in CA, while imposing an increase in sales tax on hard liquor.