Police Cameras, Jet Lag, Eye on the Struggle

Police Body Cameras (1:12) Guest: William Sousa, director of the Center for Crime and Justice Policy and an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Two officers in recent weeks have been charged with murder in the shooting of civilians -- and in both cases, the murder charge might not have been made had the shooting not been captured on video. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the shooting by a volunteer officer was recorded on a body camera he was wearing. In South Carolina, a bystander captured officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott multiple times in the back as he ran away. The incidents have renewed calls by the Obama Administration and others to put body cameras on all police officers as a way to increase law enforcement accountability and community trust. A new poll by YouGov and the Economist finds 88 percent of Americans support body cameras for police, too. But the technology may also have some drawbacks. "There are no firm results with the research yet. We’re waiting for a year till results are coming in. We have found lately, though, that police body cameras are reducing complaints of officer misconduct or what people perceive as officer misconduct. We’re hoping that in the end that this is a good thing. Police officers are saying, citizens are behaving themselves more. And, citizens who don’t have good experiences with police say, police are behaving themselves more." Jet Lag and Fruit Fly Brains (21:01) Guest: Todd C. Holmes, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California Irvine and lead researcher on the fruit fly study published in the journal Current Biology A new study published in the journal Current Biology gets at the reasons why we experience jet lag when travelling across time zones. It has to do with light and the synchronization of our body's circadian clock. And the researchers behind the study figured this out by manipulating the disembodied brains of fruit flies in jars. "To decrease the effects of jet lag, begin the process before you start the trip. Once you get to your destination - track the day of where you are. Get up early in the morning to encounter as much sunlight as you can. Then, avoid alcohol and taking naps. The quicker you can sink into your new zone, the better." Native American Languages (35:53) Guest: Colleen Fitzgerald, professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the Native American Languages Lab Of the hundreds of native languages once spoken in North America, 194 remain, and only 33 of those are spoken by both adults and children. The rest are endangered as the older speakers of those languages pass away without teaching them to the young. The Native American Chickasaw language is on that endangered list. Eye on the Struggle (52:33) Guest: James McGrath Morris, author of numerous best-selling biographies and works of narrative non-fiction. His latest book is “Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press.” As President Lyndon Johnson looked into the TV cameras from behind a table in the East Room of the White House on July 2, 1964, a short woman in a striped skirt and white beret sat in the crowd—unrecognized by most of the invited guests. She had good reason to be there: President Johnson was about to sign landmark legislation outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Such discrimination, he said, looking into the cameras, has been “deeply imbedded in American history. . . but cannot continue.” After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson presented one of the ceremonial signing pens on his desk to the small woman in the striped skirt—52-year-old Ethel Payne—she’d spent years leading up to that signing as an eye witness to the Civil Rights movement for one of the most respected black-newspapers in the country. She covered seven presidents and reported from around the world well into her 70s.  She broke a number of color barriers in journalism and came to be called “the First Lady of the Black Press,” all the while suffering an enormous amount of race and sex discrimination. That scene in the East Room of the Whitehouse in 1964 opens a new biography about Ethel Payne, written by New York Times best-selling author, James McGrath Morris. "The white and black presses, operating in parallel worlds, saw events differently. The white press was quick to portray civil rights legislation as munificent gifts bestowed on American blacks, while Payne’s reporting focused on the failures of legislation to grant African Americans the equality that rightfully belonged to them."