Every Kid in a Park

Guest: Sir Michael Leigh, Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Former Senior Official at the European Commission Brexit—that’s what people are calling the vote scheduled for June 23 when British citizens will decide whether or not to remain part of the European Union. High profile leaders in the UK have begun lining up on both sides of the issue since the date was announced earlier this week. Including Prime Minister David Cameron campaigning to remain in the EU and London’s Mayor Boris Johnson backing the vote to leave.  Polls so far suggest the vote will go narrowly in favor of the UK staying in the EU. But the fact that this debate is happening at all poses serious questions about the long-term viability of the European Union.

Guest: Kathleen Dolan, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Unlike Germany, Britain, Brazil, India and a number of other democracies around the world, America has never had a female head of state. We also rank way down on the list when it comes to the percentage of national legislative seats held by women. Less than 20 percent of the US Congress and Senate is female. Look down the line to governors and state houses and the numbers are pretty similar there, too.

Guest: James C. Kaufman, PhD, Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut While high school seniors around the country are obsessively monitoring the mail for college acceptance letters, high school juniors are stressing about taking the standardized tests that mean so much to college admissions offices. There’s extra anxiety this year because a revamped SAT debuts next month that’s supposed to be a better gauge of what kids learned in high school and a little more similar to the ACT. But will the new SAT be any better at assessing intellectual curiosity or creativity?

Guest: Jill Manning, PhD, Colorado Sexual Recovery Center Specialist The decision not to include pornography addiction as a mental illness in the last year’s updated diagnostic manual from the American Psychiatric Association fueled debate in the therapeutic community.

Guest: Yann Cornil, PhD, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business Research into epicureans who so intensely appreciate fine food discovered they are not more likely to be overweight. Rather, it’s the antagonistic relationship to food as a guilty pleasure we hate to admit but can’t resist—that’s the kind of eating likely to cause weight gain.