Pfizer Says COVID-19 Vaccine Safe For Kids 5 To 11

Speaker 1: 00:00 Promising data for children and the Pfizer vaccine, Speaker 2: 00:04 Severe long-term reactions to the vaccine will be extremely Speaker 1: 00:10 I'm Jade Hindman Maureen Kavanaugh is off. This is KPBS mid-day edition Here about the San Diego housing commission and a potential conflict of interest after a hotel purchase. Speaker 3: 00:30 I think one way to look at it is that so many people are in charge that no one is in charge Speaker 1: 00:36 The roadblocks for a central valley man, and his final stages of applying for a green card and how a new comics class teaches critical thinking. That's ahead on midday edition Speaker 1: 01:01 Drug companies Pfizer, and Biointech announced in a press release this morning, that lower doses of their joint COVID-19 vaccine provided a safe immune response to children. As young as five years of age, the findings are a welcome sign for parents and pediatricians alike who have been waiting for further guidance on a two-shot regimen of the vaccine for children, five to 11, Dr. Steven specter is a professor of pediatrics and a member of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at UC San Diego and Rady children's hospital. He joins us now with more Dr. Specter, welcome back to the program. Thank Speaker 2: 01:36 You for having me. Speaker 1: 01:38 We'd been waiting for a while now for some assurance that the vaccine is safe for children. What new data has Pfizer come across that allowed them to make this call Speaker 2: 01:47 Pfizer with their MRI and a vaccine, uh, enrolled over 2000 children in a study in which, uh, the children who are between five and 11 years of age. And what they found was that the immune response to the vaccine appears to be equivalent to that which has been seen in older children and adults, and the adverse effects that we're seeing were also very similar to what was seen in those other age groups. I think it's important also to keep in mind that they used a lower dose. So whereas an adults, they use a 30 microgram dose of the messenger RNA patrol gun they have used for this age group, a dose of 10 micrograms of the messenger RNA. Speaker 1: 02:36 What has the available research concluded about long-term side effects for children in this age group? Speaker 2: 02:43 I don't think we can say that. And so that's of course, one of the concerns and one of the reasons why Pfizer will be going for any emergency use for the vaccine and that the vaccine will not be fully licensed because at this stage we do know what the long-term effects are. However, based on the adult data and based on the data in children who are older than 12 years of age, uh, one would expect that there would be very few adverse effects that, uh, lasted for a prolonged period of time. Speaker 1: 03:19 We've seen the risk shift to younger demographics in recent months. Can you explain how that shift in risk from older to younger happened? Speaker 2: 03:28 We are really seeing is the benefit of the vaccines. And so as more adults and older adolescents have been immunized, they're protected from getting infected and being hospitalized and having serious COVID 19 infections. Whereas younger children who are not immunized are more likely to become infected when they're exposed to someone who is infected with COVID-19. So what we are really seeing is yes, there's an increase in the number of children who are becoming infected because they're going back to school and having more exposures. And that percentage is increasing because the younger group of children have not been immunized and the older adolescents and adults have been immunized. So what we're really seeing is the beneficial effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. Speaker 1: 04:28 And Pfizer is one of many vaccines currently available. How quickly do you think vaccines from other pharmaceutical companies will expand their guidance to include this age group? Speaker 2: 04:38 Right. Madrona, uh, in fact is working on a study right now that we are participating in at Rady children's hospital. The study involves children who are between six and less than 12 years of age. So very similar to the Pfizer study. And in fact, the children will receive their second doses as part of this study, uh, by Saturday of this week. So in fact, there will be, uh, uh, a study and this is a study that has randomized children, 3, 2, 1 either to receive the vaccine or to receive a placebo. And the expectation would be that the immunogenicity and adverse effects will be evaluated for at least another 30 days after that period of time in which the data will then be analyzed. And one would expect that given the timeline that sometime in late October, November, we would be seeing data from, um, Madonna for this age group, uh, Johnson and Johnson is also planning a study in this age group. Uh, but they are going be a bit further behind from where the other two companies Speaker 1: 06:02 And as a specialist in pediatrics and infectious diseases, how are you advising patients in light of this news? Speaker 2: 06:09 Well, I think that this is very exciting. We've been looking forward to a vaccine for younger children. We know very clearly that younger children one can be infected too, although it's less likely that they will have serious infections, that we are seeing children who are being hospitalized. Fortunately deaths are very uncommon, but they have occurred. And so as soon as there is an EUA, I, and I think my colleagues will be very strongly recommending to parents that children who are eligible become immunized with these vaccines. Speaker 1: 06:47 Um, some have said that there is less urgency in vaccinating children, as there is in safeguarding, more vulnerable populations. Do you think that's still the case? Speaker 2: 06:57 We're in a very fortunate position in this country. We don't have to make that choice. We have plenty of vaccines available to us so that those who are immune compromised should be immunized. And if they're immunosuppressed, they should get a third vaccine, uh, one available to them and we don't have to choose. We can immunize children also as well as the immunocompromised patients. So that, uh, again, we're in a fortunate position. And as soon as these vaccines become available for children, I, and I'm sure my colleagues will highly recommend the children be immunized against COVID-19. Speaker 1: 07:42 What's the biggest question you still have about how the COVID 19 vaccines interact with children? Speaker 2: 07:48 I think that we'll have to see when large numbers of children are immunized. There were over 2000 children in the Pfizer study. There will be over 4,000 children in the modernists study three-quarters of whom will have received the marinade vaccines. And what we'll really need to see is what happens when not only thousands of children, but hundreds of thousands and millions of children get immunized and will there be low grade or low incident complications that we will need to watch out for. But I think as of now, given where we are with the vaccines, the likelihood that there will be severe long-term reactions to the vaccine or some of the other findings that have been found, including mild carditis and para carditis, one would expect that in this age group will be extremely low. Speaker 1: 08:47 I've been speaking to Dr. Steven specter, professor of pediatrics, and a member of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at UC San Diego and Rady children's hospital. Dr. Specter, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you Speaker 2: 09:00 For having me, Speaker 4: 09:03 Uh, Speaker 1: 09:06 Tensions appear to be rising between city leaders and the San Diego housing commission as a recent conflict of interest case has come to light. That's according to the article by Andy Kate's voice of San Diego, his assistant editor and senior investigative reporter, and here to tell us more is Andy Keats. Andy, welcome. Speaker 3: 09:25 Thanks for having me Speaker 1: 09:26 So first, just so we're all on the same page here, remind us what the housing commission does and what its role is. Speaker 3: 09:33 So the city of a housing commission is an independent agency that was created by the city of San Diego in the late seventies. And the idea was basically that this agency would be, uh, in charge of the city's low income housing efforts. So they would handle federal programs related to low income housing. They would handle state programs related to low income housing, and then they would do their own independent work to try to, uh, pursue opportunities to increase the stock and availability of affordable housing for people with low incomes in San Diego. And that by being independent, they would be able to be nimble and creative and sort of do more than if that was all handled by city staff, uh, at the direction of the city council. Speaker 1: 10:17 And you write about conflict between city officials, notably the city attorney and the city council, uh, have with the housing commission, where did this conflict start? Speaker 3: 10:27 Basically this spring or early in the spring, there was a revelation that there had been this conflict of interest case involving the San Diego housing commission acquisition of, uh, two hotels last year, the state made some funds available for cities to buy hotels and turn them into low-income housing. The idea here was that hotels would be available more cheap because, uh, the hotel industry was basically shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic so that the cities could pursue those houses, those hotels that were sort of in distress by them, turn them into actual long-term housing options for people who needed them. And this would be a good opportunity. One of those hotels specifically that the city of San Diego purchased, uh, we later learned that the broker that the housing commission had hired to help them identify properties and negotiate the terms of a transaction, uh, that broker had allegedly purchased 50,000 shares and stock in the company that sold that hotel to the housing commission. Speaker 3: 11:41 And he made that, uh, that stock purchase in between the time that he signed a contract with the San Diego housing commission, and then came to an agreement on the transaction in between that time is when he made that 50,000, uh, 50,000 share purchase. The stock went up after the purchase and the according to both the San Diego housing commissions legal counsel, and the city attorney that was worth millions of dollars profit. So it was during the handling of this conflict of interest that there started to be some real tension between the city council and the city attorney in how they were handling the conflict of interest case, how they were handling the new information and how they were pursuing what they were going to do about it. So where Speaker 1: 12:21 Is the conflict of interest case involving the broker at now? Speaker 3: 12:24 There's basically two things going on right now. One, the city attorney has been deputized by the city council to take over, uh, this had been handled by the legal council as part of their sort of, uh, ongoing displeasure with how the commission has handled it. The city council put the city attorney in charge and the city attorney brought a civil suit alleging that this arrangement broke state conflict of interest laws, financial disclosure laws, that there were fraudulent misrepresentations made to the city by this broker. At the same time, the legal counsel for the housing commission had previously determined that they were confident that a criminal law was broken, uh, and that they recommended that they hand this case to the district attorney for prosecution. So that could happen. Uh, it also may not happen. It's really hard to say that's a, that's a bit of a black box at this point. Speaker 1: 13:16 Yeah. How did the, the conflict of interest case impact the relationship though between the city and housing commission? Speaker 3: 13:24 Housing commission is a very peculiar agency. It has its own independent board that oversees its at the actions of its staff. That board is those board members are appointed by the mayor and then confirmed by the city council. But the city council still has a role overseeing certain things that the housing commission does. So when the city council operates in its oversight capacity, it renames itself, essentially the housing authority. So there's these two boards that oversee overlapping, but slightly different elements of it. And what was revealed during this, uh, issue was that the San Diego housing commissioners, the people on that commission thought this was a serious matter and it should really be relayed to city staff and the city council. They weren't comfortable being the only ones that knew about it. Uh, and it seemed like they had a really difficult time getting city, the housing commission staff to push that information to the other side of this organization, which ostensibly also has oversight responsibility over it. Speaker 3: 14:30 That's one big part of it. The other big part is between the legal counsel for the housing commission and the city attorney. Um, when the city attorney brought its lawsuit, uh, one of a spokesperson for the city attorney's office pulled the union Tribune that they had never, that the city attorney's office that is had never approved the terms of the transaction in the first place that work had all been done by the legal counsel. I had seen the letter from the legal counsel complaining to the city attorney that that was wrong and that they must have approved it. And that it was not appropriate for the city attorney to say what she said, the city attorney then responded, uh, you know, this was a pretty tense back and forth, I would say. So there's actually new policies and procedures in place because the city attorney has essentially determined that she can't trust the legal work of the housing commissions lawyers. And so it's really revealed this, some holes in the governance structure that, that has created this city, the housing commission in the first place, and some mistrust between all these different officials that have the sort of diffuse role. And it, I, I, I think one way to look at it is that so many people are in charge that no one is in charge and that in a situation like this, that is new, it sort of makes it very difficult to hold people accountable. And there's a lot of finger pointing internally. Speaker 1: 15:52 Is this reported conflict or tension as you quote the CEO of the housing commission referring to it as is it hindering the creation of low-income housing in San Diego? Speaker 3: 16:02 No, not right now. I would. I mean, I don't, I don't, I have no indication that that's the case. The creation of low-income housing is, is such a long and arduous process in the first place. And for the most part doesn't happen by the housing commission. Th they, they do create some, uh, but for the most part, it's low it's affordable housing developers that go out, uh, buy their own property, uh, put together financing from state or federal or local sources. And basically just ask the housing commission, um, for permission to build it. Um, so that all can continue happening in the short term. The bigger question going forward is who's in charge. And whether, if, if this led to a major rearrangement of the agency or its staff, or, uh, just the responsibilities of the city council or the commissioners board, how that might change going forward and that, you know, it's too early to say that right now, Speaker 1: 16:57 We've been speaking with voice of San Diego's assistant editor and senior investigative reporter, Andy Keats. Andy, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Speaker 1: 17:17 You're listening to KPBS day edition. I'm Jade Hindman Maureen Kavanaugh has the day off when you've been living in California undocumented, and you're finally able to become a legal resident. It can be a huge relief. That's what one man in the central valley city of Los Banos was helping. He would feel he followed the rules and he went back to Mexico for the final step to apply for his green card and interview at the U S consulate. His wife and kids expected him to be back in a week or two. But as reporters, eighties to valley of EdSource source tells us that's not what happened Speaker 5: 17:56 On a Saturday afternoon at the grease house. The grill is sizzling with academy, soda out, Amanda Reese and her four kids are sitting down to the five of them, laugh and tease each other about who likes their meat. Most burned. This family is tight knit, but to the kids, it feels like there's a hole in the home. A dad shaped hole. Speaker 6: 18:20 Yes. There's like this space where he used to be, but he's not there anymore. And like, every time you come home, you're just like, oh, I feel like something's missing. Speaker 5: 18:33 That's 19 year old, Nathan, the something missing is his stepdad. Jose Louis [inaudible]. He's been stuck in Mexico for the past two years. Since he went back to apply for his green card. There are reminders of him everywhere in the cozy trailer, the family photos, along the hallway, the triple bunk bed he built. So three kids could share a room. We'll say has helped raise Nathan and his brother Ignacio and sister, Elena, since they were little and 11 years ago, he and their mom out, Amanda had another daughter together, their little sister, but he see LA. Speaker 6: 19:08 I love him as an actual father. Cause he basically raised us. He's my Papa. So it was very tough. We haven't even like seen him for a long time. We only video chat with him. Speaker 7: 19:26 Uh, Speaker 5: 19:27 The video calls keep this family close. Even though Jose is in MOC or Nora, a thousand miles away, we see less shows her data drawing. She did have a tiger. Sometimes seventeen-year-old Ignacio asks him how to unclog the toilet or how to change the oil in the car. The oldest Elena keeps him updated on her job squished between her kids on the couch is their mom out of Mamba who keeps the whole family together Speaker 5: 20:01 As a us citizen. When she married Jose, she wanted to apply for a green card for her husband, but it's not that easy. Jose had been living here without papers. Since his parents brought him from Mexico. As a teenager, 30 years ago, under current immigration law. If you cross the border without papers, you have to leave the country to apply for a green card and you can be banned from coming back for 10 years. Even if you're married to a us citizen, there is one way around that ban. If you can prove your absence would cause extreme hardship for your us citizen, spouse or parent in that Amanda's case, the hardship was clear Speaker 8: 20:47 [inaudible] so [inaudible] Speaker 5: 20:51 She explains she can't work because she has a full-time job caring for two children with disabilities. Nathan has struggled with severe depression. The Sila was born prematurely with major medical problems. Speaker 8: 21:04 Um, [inaudible] Speaker 5: 21:10 Without Jose and his income, they would really suffer the government approved the waiver and the couple thought they had all their paperwork in order, Jose didn't make much money as a handyman. So they followed the rules and found a sponsor, a family friend who made more and signed papers saying he would support them. If needed in may of 2019, Jose left for Mexico expecting to return with a green card. What he didn't know is that the Trump administration had recently moved to make it a lot tougher for low-income immigrants to become legal residents, expanding something called the public charge rule. That's an old rule meant to exclude people if they're likely to become completely dependent on government aid, but under Trump, it swept up a lot more people. Speaker 9: 21:59 And so we began hearing anecdotes of denials, um, in a space where we had never seen denials before, um, over issues that had never cropped up before in the public charge space. Speaker 5: 22:12 That's Erin Quinn. She is senior staff attorney at the immigrant legal resource center in San Francisco. She says it happened to a lot of people out of the blue. It seemed like officials were looking for reasons to deny people like Jose. The consulate officers started asking questions. They had never asked before. Speaker 9: 22:31 Well, I want you to prove that you actually know the person that signs your sponsorship. I want you to show me that your sponsor can pay. I want to know what benefits your family members are using in the United States. Speaker 5: 22:46 Jose never used any public benefits, but his kids, all us citizens did get some help from the government because pretty Sila the youngest has disabilities. She gets supplemental security income. The others had gotten food stamps and Medi-Cal before president Trump changed the public charge rule. Those things wouldn't have counted against Jose and having a sponsor like Jose, his friend would have been enough proof. He wouldn't become a burden on the government, but not anymore. The consulate officers told Jose he would need another sponsor. And instead of waiting for him to turn in the new paperwork, they canceled the waiver that would let him return home to California. He'll say it felt that his world had broken into a million pieces. Speaker 10: 23:33 [inaudible] [inaudible] gaseous. Speaker 5: 23:38 I've never been in jail says he'll say, but I think it must feel like this. He spoke to me over zoom from Sonata, Speaker 10: 23:50 Amelia [inaudible]. Speaker 5: 23:58 They take everything from you. He says your family, your personality, everything. Before the Trump changes to the public charge rule, barely 3000 people a year were denied entry because officials doubted they would be able to support themselves. In 2019, the year Jose got stuck in Mexico. A record 21,000 people were denied seven times. As many as before president Biden has since reversed the Trump policy and how say and out Amanda are applying again for another waiver to see if he can come home to his family. But they're still separated. What hurts Jose most is watching his kids' plans for college unravel Speaker 10: 24:43 [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 5: 24:51 My kids really put their heart into their studies. He says, I feel like I'm clipping their wings with Jose unable to come home. The family was left without any income. Elena, the oldest went to work and dropped out of UC. Merced said she's the first in her family to ever go to college. She was afraid that if she dropped out, she might never go back, but she didn't know what else to do. Speaker 6: 25:17 So counselors usually advise me to like try to stay in school, but they didn't really understand that. I was the only one that was able to Speaker 5: 25:29 Elena applied for dozens of jobs. She worked at a tomato packing plant at big five sporting goods as a cashier and last year with the us census bureau. But she needed a job with stable benefits. So she decided to join the army reserve. She thought if she could support the family, her younger siblings could follow their dreams. Speaker 6: 25:49 Well, because I'm the oldest like I'm like the forefront. So I don't want them to like get pressured to I'd rather just like take off some of the pressure. So when they go to school, they don't have to worry about Speaker 5: 26:01 Got it. But Elena's brothers are considering putting off their dreams. Nathan took a job at the tomato plant and enrolled in community college. Part-time Ignacio is a high school senior last year, he had a 4.6 grade point average all A's including in four advanced placement classes. He recently got a letter from Harvard, encouraging him to apply. Speaker 11: 26:24 I thought about college, but what I'm really thinking about is maybe a vocational education so that I can get a degree and all of a sudden internship, I don't want to go out of state so that I have close proximity to my family. Speaker 5: 26:35 Jose has been gone now for more than two years, the family still doesn't know when he might be able to return. And the years separation can't be undone. Atlanta wants to take classes again. When she returns from basic training, she hopes you'll one day get her degree. But right now she says, it's just not the right time. Speaker 6: 26:56 My dream would just be my family to be together. We try our hardest. We just have to keep hoping Speaker 5: 27:08 In June out Amanda and the kids drove to visit Jose in Mexico. It was a rare chance for the family to be together before Atlanta headed to basic training, they went to the beach, uh, first for some of the kids and waited into the ocean, playing in the waves from the sand out, Amanda watched and took a video with her phone in it. Her husband and her children walked toward the horizon. They jumped over wave after wave, coming at them all together for the moment for the California report. I'm Zaidi Staveley. Speaker 12: 27:49 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 27:52 Let's turn to the environment now think waste and recycling. And I bet aluminum plastic and cardboard come to mind, but you should also think food here's California report hosts all Gonzalez with more Speaker 13: 28:07 Food waste is a colossal problem with California businesses and consumers tossing out nearly 6 million tons of food a year. And when all that food gets trucked and dumped into landfills, it turns into methane, a greenhouse gas, dozens of times, more damaging to our climate than carbon dioxide. So to both help save the planet and feed more people. The state of California, along with hunger relief groups are trying to find better ways to rescue and recycle food. Often perfectly edible food. Before it's tossed into the trash Speaker 14: 28:46 [inaudible] Speaker 13: 28:47 To learn more. One early morning, I visited a big industrial building south of downtown LA, where forklifts were unloading pallets of pretty fantastic looking fruits and vegetables from truck after truck that pulled in. Speaker 15: 29:00 What you're seeing is a 10,000 square foot warehouse, which is pretty much literally the pitstop for hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh produce that we're recovering every single day. That's Speaker 13: 29:13 No, Maya's the founder of food forward. It's a nonprofit that accepts excess fruits and vegetables from food wholesalers and farmers who frequently have way too much produce to ever sell it for a profit food forward. Then repackages the food and donates it to local hunger relief groups. If this wasn't done perfectly good food would end up in landfills and turn into methane Speaker 15: 29:36 Shameful it's wrong. And we are existing to take what they call that shrink, that stuff they can't sell, or that would flood the market and bring the prices down, getting it to where it's needed. Speaker 13: 29:51 I see where it's needed a few miles north of the food forward warehouse at a weekly food distribution event for residents of Las Pico union district produce that would have been thrown out in the past is bagged by volunteers and a parking lot. And then given out to residents of this working class and largely immigrant neighborhood whose food insecurity has been made worse by Speaker 16: 30:14 Today, we have a medley of things like asparagus cherries, oranges, plums, bell peppers, Speaker 13: 30:19 That's Eric and Jez, a coordinator for seeds of hope. The nonprofit that manages the program, Speaker 16: 30:24 We bag about a thousand bags of fruits and vegetables every Friday. And really what we like to do is we like to give families that come by whatever it is that they need as much as Amy for us, it's a, it's a blessing, not letting food go to waste Speaker 13: 30:42 Food recycling in California got a big boost in 2016, when a state law went into effect requiring businesses to start reducing their organic refuse. And next year, California will take its war on food waste to a new place. Your home starting in January, Californians will be required to recycle their residential organic waste, including food scraps. Instead of tossing older, unused produced into the garbage food will have to be put in organic waste. Disposal bins provided by local governments. The food waste will then go to recycling centers where it's supposed to be turned into either usable compost or biofuels. Speaker 5: 31:21 We're looking for individual Californians to think about their relationship with their food. Speaker 13: 31:26 That's Rachel Wagner, the director of Cal recycle California's recycling department. She says that the state is to effectively fight climate change food. Recycling must become part of every Californians daily life. Speaker 5: 31:38 I rather than throw that banana peel in the garbage can, where it's going to break down to methane in a landfill, throw it in your compost pile or in your yard waste bin. And this is the single easiest thing that we can do as Californians to impact climate change Speaker 13: 31:55 In all the state of California hopes to slash the amount of organic waste going to landfills, including food by 75%, by the end of 2025, Speaker 1: 32:05 California report hosts all Gonzalez Deep in the basement of the Kellogg library at Cal state San Marcos. So it's a treasure trove of San Diego beer history. It's known as [inaudible] and it's the only one dedicated to San Diego's brewing industry. As KPBS reporter Alex wen tells us San Diego brewing history runs deep grillers. This is box Speaker 17: 32:39 21. So that gives you an idea of how many boxes of growers I Speaker 18: 32:42 Have to Downey. I am the Speaker 17: 32:45 History and special collections librarian at Cal state. Speaker 18: 32:48 She's also the curator of the brew cave, an archive of the vibrant San Diego brewing scene from home brewers to establish names dating back to the late 18 hundreds. People are always interested when they meet her. Speaker 17: 33:00 Oh, you're the beer historian. You know, they're always fascinated. I always try to have some kind of little hidden gem of knowledge that, you know, either bust the myth or correct the misperception. Speaker 18: 33:10 One of the most popular misconception about San Diego's brewing industry is that it started in the 1980s, but it all started in 1868 with Christian duplex, San Diego brewing company. Speaker 17: 33:21 It might've been a little bit earlier, but that's the first evidence I can find. The first from date I can find Speaker 18: 33:27 As Downey walks around the collection Speaker 17: 33:30 Stone, Speaker 18: 33:30 Showing off things that she's collected or people have donated to the archive Speaker 17: 33:35 And a variety of styles like with, um, ballast point, I've got an early clear glass roller. Speaker 18: 33:41 You can sense how much she loves her work. Speaker 17: 33:44 And I keep saying, this is the CSU SM collection, but I feel so invested in this because it's such a passion for me that I always say I, my collection and it's really not. Speaker 18: 33:54 The collection has pint glasses or Dawn with logos and artworks from various brewers. Some have gone out of business. Others show the evolution of their logos. There also coasters, growlers, beer recipes, and posters, and the collection keeps on growing. Speaker 17: 34:10 That's about it for this room. We do have another room down on the other end of the bill. Speaker 18: 34:15 The idea for the brew calves started as early as 2015 around the time and Cal state San Marcos was starting its spear making certificate program. That enduring it was the brainchild of Jennifer Fabby. She's the Dean of the university library. As the San Diego craft beer scene exploded into a billion dollar industry. Fabby thought it was a good idea to preserve that history as it turns out, nobody in town was. Speaker 19: 34:39 I knew that in order to do that, we would need some resources. And we wanted to make sure that we had a collection that was very exciting to both the public and also to those internal to the university. So Speaker 18: 34:53 Be formed an advisory group comprised of local brewers and a filmmaker. Who's done documentary on San Diego brewing to see what the archive should collect. It was the advisory group that came up with the name. Speaker 19: 35:04 First, we called it the bar hive because of course that rhymes with archive. But those people on the advisory committee, they said that that won't do brew. Hive is better. Speaker 18: 35:15 The brew I've also benefited because a lot of brewers are passionate about their beers. So they collect a lot of memorabilia, suggest Greg cook, the founder of stone brewing. He donated more than 600 banker's boxes full of stuff to the archive. Speaker 20: 35:29 I collected a lot of stuff from stone history, along the way, and by a lot of stuff, I mean a lot of stuff, as well as from other craft breweries and places I've been et cetera, et cetera. And I had just been collecting this in a spare room in my house and it was overwhelmed. It was packed. I had so much. Speaker 18: 35:48 So when he was approached by the Bruker hive, he jumped at the idea. He called it a symbiotic relationship. The [inaudible] gets to preserve the collection and he gets it out of the house. It's the largest donation to the [inaudible] to date though. Danny says the collection is on permanent loan from cook while the majority of the [inaudible] is dedicated to what Danny calls. The third wave of San Diego brewing the period from 1987 into 2020, she is not working on the fourth wave. The post pandemic period. Downey is also working on preserving the history of women's involvement in the brewing industry. Women's history is still not well-represented Alexander. When KPPs news Speaker 12: 36:39 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 36:42 You're listening to KPBS Monday edition I'm Jade Hindman Maureen Kavanaugh has the day off San Diego state university is using comics to teach students about critical thinking at a time when such skills are most needed. KPBS arts reporter, Beth Armando checks in on William mid-air Joe's class on comics and history. He's a professor of English and comparative literature and his unique approach starts with his course title. Speaker 21: 37:10 So bill, tell me about the class you are teaching and the title of it. Speaker 22: 37:15 Well, the title in the catalog is history and comics English one fifty seven, but I call it psychedelic mirrors, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They say that the humanities are dying, but it's just not true. We just haven't marketed them in the right way. So, uh, the focus of the class is on the human psyche and how a group of brilliant artists like, uh, Robert crumb and Dan Klaus, how they depict the intricacies of the human mind, but in comic books in graphic narrative. Speaker 21: 37:47 Now I know because schools are funded by tax dollars, people on the outside, looking in may look at something and say like, wait a minute, a class on comics seems kind of frivolous or irrelevant, but why is it important? Speaker 22: 37:59 Well, at least since mouse by art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer prize. One of the most dominant, huge growing fields in, uh, global literature is graphic narrative. Uh, here, there's a kind of synergy because we're in San Diego, California, the home of comic con and our English department here at San Diego state has a number of professors whose research focus is graphic narrative. So my colleagues and I are working in, in what is a booming field of literary expression. Now in the United States, all too often, comic books are still associated with juvenile works. It works for kids, but light as in Japan and Italy. And now the United States, we have a rich tradition of adult storytelling that happens to take place with words and images. So tax dollars are being spent very responsibly. Speaker 21: 38:55 Now, one of the things you mentioned in class today was that with literature, there are no specific answers. There's this sense of ambiguity. A lot of the times, because it's not like a science, why is it important to have classes like this and to get kids to really do critical thinking? Speaker 22: 39:15 Um, each one of us will be confronted by ambiguities every day and it's in literature, not in equations that we confront the kinds of problems, the kind of twisted people, the kind of bothersome intellects that we will encounter on a day to day lives as people on the planet. Uh, if anything, literature prepares us much more for life then, uh, of course in botany. So I have a deep and abiding love of the sciences and even of the social sciences and the social scientific and a statistical approach to psychological phenomena. But that's not going to move you at the end of the day. At the end of the day, it's going to be a movie it's going to be a novel, could be a poem. It could be a work of art. That's going to stay in your consciousness. And so it's my job as a professor to try to give this next generation of students a kind of a vocabulary for dealing with, um, literary phenomena, but that have intimate real-world applications. Speaker 21: 40:22 Well, you talked about real-world applications. We are currently at a time where there's fake news, there's the internet where you can find any kind of information to support any kind of belief you might have. So it seems like critical thinking is especially important right now. Speaker 22: 40:38 You're absolutely right there. We've never had more of a need for, uh, our students to have the critical capacity to evaluate information. The problem is with the internet in general is that you can really quickly believe you're an expert at something by, you know, hitting three or four clickbait links, right? But this is not true. And the students know it. That's why the students are so happy to be back in the classrooms and why the professors are so happy most of us to be back in the classroom, because what happens there doesn't happen in any other place in the planet. The university is unique in this regard. We're not a store. We're not trying to sell you something. Uh, we're here to traffic in ideas and at a level that they may not get again. And I feel that pressure all the time today, I was lecturing on how Robert and underground cartoonists frames and early form of motion, pictures to show how susceptible people are to being racist pigs. Because if we see it in the movies, we're going to believe it. If we hear it on TV, we're going to believe it. If we see it on the internet, we're going to believe it. And so we've never needed critical thinking capacity more than in this generation of college students. Speaker 21: 41:59 And you mentioned, you know, being in person this year for your classes, what is the importance do you feel of having classes in person and what do you feel the engagement or the connection with students is Speaker 22: 42:10 Anything can happen? It's live theater, right? Um, what, what we have now in the classroom is a space for thought and performance and accountability. And there's nothing like it. There's really nothing. I, I guess it's come home to me because who knows how many years I've got left, I've been a professor 35 years. It comes home to me every day with more clarity that what we are able to achieve in the space of a university amphitheater needs to be safeguarded and cherished, especially now with more and more departments mandating what classes a student should take. And basically how you should think to become a certain major. Literature is one of the last places in the university for open dialogue thought and conflict, conflict, thoughtful, conflict, disagreement, argument, polemic, you know, like I was lecturing about today, Speaker 21: 43:09 Turn to the title of the class, psychedelic mirrors and elaborate on what that means. Speaker 22: 43:13 I'm hitting them at once with multiple ideas, how literary works, comic books deal with the deepest, darkest corridors of human experience in the mind mirror. We can't get away from between Tik talk and their Instagram. They have digital mirrors on themselves broadcasting 24 7. So what I'm trying to do is have them develop a kind of a critical consciousness with regard to their, how they represent themselves, but also the consequences of always being on camera at a deep, deep level. I'm interested in how the consciousness of our incoming student body let's say freshmen at SDSU. How have they been shaped by the very technology that they carry in their pockets? So the psychic mirror yet it's comic books. Yeah. We're studying the history of comic books in the 20th century. Looking at representative dynamic works that w that changed the medium, but also for the people in the classroom who are not English majors, who will never again take a course in the humanities. I'm trying to raise, uh, analog, digital mirror to themselves so that they understand the consequences of watching. There's always a cost and a consequence for what we see. It's not just entertainment. It's not just selfies. They exert a cost. And I think part of my role in the class is to have the students examine that with me, Speaker 1: 44:54 SDSU psychedelic mirrors class continues through December to hear more from some of the students go to Beth's cinema junkie blog at kpbs.org/cinema junkie.