County Wants To Boost Funding For Mental Health Programs And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 Good morning. It's May 10th I'm Deb Welsh and this is San Diego news matters, caring for a growing number of people in psychiatric crisis. That's a main emphasis in San Diego. County's proposed six point $1 billion budget. KPBS health reporter Susan Murphy has more Speaker 2: 00:18 nearly 165,000 people experienced a serious mental illness in San Diego County last year. According to the California Healthcare Foundation, many showed up to a hospital emergency room leading to a continuous backlog of bed. Speaker 3: 00:32 We are feeling increased pressure recently, uh, to provide acute inpatient psychiatric care. Speaker 2: 00:40 Doctor Luke Bergman is director of the county's behavioral health services. He says the proposed budget would pay for 177 additional mental health beds, including at the county psychiatric history Speaker 3: 00:51 spittle. And so one of the things we're doing is increasing staff at the county psychiatric hospital so that we can help alleviate some of that pressure across the county. Speaker 2: 01:00 It says longterm care facilities are another priority. Currently an estimated 50 people each day are on a waiting list for a longterm bed placement. Speaker 3: 01:09 We know that one of the, the the problems that we hear very often about from our hospital partners but also from community members, this is that there aren't enough places for people with really serious mental illness to go. For example, after hospitalization, Speaker 2: 01:24 the budget also pours money into mental health, outpatient care and to walk in services. County supervisors are scheduled to hold public budget hearings beginning June 10th Susan Murphy. Speaker 1: 01:34 Yes, news US Department of Justice on Thursday announced hate crime charges against John t Ernest, this suspected gunmen in last month's Poway synagogue shooting Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says he could face the death penalty. The federal complaint has a total of 109 hate crimes and civil rights violations. That's two for each person in the synagogue. During the attack on April 27th plus one charge for the suspect's alleged arson attack on an Escondido mosque in March, US attorney Robert Brewer says those attacks targeted the entire Jewish and Muslim communities. We will not allow our community members to be hunted in their houses of worship where they should feel free and safe to exercise their right to practice their religion. Prosecutors say they'll determine whether to seek the death penalty after consulting with survivors and the congregation that suspect already pleaded not guilty to state hate crime charges of murder, attempted murder and arson. Andrew Bowen, k PBS news. A new study shows teachers in San Diego are facing financial hardship to the point of crisis because their salaries have not kept up with the rising cost of housing. KPBS is Meyer Travolta. He explains what that means for one of the most important professions. Speaker 2: 02:52 The study by apartment list.com shows that more than 29% of full time teachers in the San Diego Metro are burdened Speaker 4: 03:00 with the cost of housing with a median income of almost 20% less than someone with a comparable degree working full time. This disproportionate ratio of salary to housing costs has forced many teachers into hard times. Chris Salvia Adi is a housing economist with apartment list. He says that almost one in three teachers are spending more on their housing then is financially healthy. Speaker 5: 03:22 We also find that a lot of teachers have been spending more time working during the summers and in second jobs, a longer hours and longer weeks worked or are both data points that we found in our analysis. Speaker 4: 03:35 Nationally. Miami has the highest cost burden rate followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, Maya triple c k PBS news. Speaker 1: 03:45 Total gain looks to the life of the man who pinned the hobbit and Lord of the rings. KPBS film critic Bethel Camacho. As this review of the film that opens today. Speaker 6: 03:55 Tell me a story if you've enjoyed any of Jrr Tolkien stories or fell in love with the fellowship vividly brought to life in the Lord of the rings movies and the new film. Toking offers a nice introduction to the writer's life. Since childhood. I have been fascinated with language obsessed with it. I've invented my own full complete languages. Look. The film provides some fascinating insights into how tall king eventually came to writing, and I love any movie that finds pleasure in the potential held by books in libraries, but the film ultimately can't escape the formula trappings of a bio pic. The result is an immensely appealing film that never quite gets to the depths of its subject, but it leaves you with the warm glow of fellowship. Beth, like Amando k PBS news, Speaker 1: 04:40 San Diego Humane society is on the hunt for information about the person or persons responsible for abandoning a goatee to Oceanside last month. KPV S is Sally Hickson has details. Humane Society officials say the goat was found late in the afternoon on April 29th dashing in and out of traffic at the intersection of college boulevard and Marvin Street. A witness according to the humane society provided video showing someone in a white four door pickup truck leaving the goat at the intersection. The goat, by the way, is healthy and is being held at the humane society's Escondido campus. It hasn't been determined yet if you'll be put up for adoption. The group's law enforcement unit is investigating the goats abandonment as a case of animal cruelty. Sally Hixon KPBS News San Diego sometimes takes a proprietary attitude over the memory of Dr Seuss. Ted Geisel, the author of beloved children's books, green eggs and ham, and the cat in the hat and his wife Audrey, were celebrities in town for many years. Geisel's archives are now and a UC San Diego Library named after him, and many institutions, including KPBS, have benefited from the guys real estate. Now, a new biography is out reminding local that Dr Seuss was not just a local celebrity. He was actually an international icon. Author Brian Jay Jones spoke to KPBS midair [inaudible] host Maureen Cabota about his book becoming Dr Seuss 10 guys. Okay. Speaker 7: 06:11 You know, had a rather long road to becoming Dr Seuss as is outlined in your book. But I want to ask you right off the bat, do you think Dr Seuss was what he wanted to become all along? It's hard to say. I think he would have been happy doing any number of things in his career. And there's a number of times in his career that he almost gets derailed from becoming who we know of is Dr Seuss. I find them really fascinating because he doesn't emerge fully formed and in our imaginations either. Now we started out as I understand as a cartoonist in the 1920s. Yes. And that was at the height of the booming newspaper age in New York City. How successful was he? He was very successful and he had a reputation of making jokes about drinking enough that people look for the cartoons by Dr South. Speaker 7: 06:55 Uh, they would say so, uh, he, he sold them quite regularly and they were very popular when he moved on to advertising. And as you say, he was very successful. Did he write any copy or did he just focus on illustration? Basically his commercials were cartoons, so he was writing both with the text and doing the drawings for those. Um, so he sort of created an experience in advertising. He was very forward thinking, very, you know, had a lot of interesting ideas. You've even back at that time for how advertising should work. And the name sue. So that's actually his middle name, right? That it's actually his middle name and his, his mother's maiden name. And if you're pronouncing getting a germ good German fashion, it's actually soy sauce. Uh, but he gave up very early on. Anybody ever pronouncing it that way? How did his work during World War II changing World War II was, I think very formative for him when he joined the army and ends up serving in the signal corps at age 39, he ends up serving under Frank Capra, his commanding officer, the director, Frank Capra, who teaches him about plot and how to storyboard. Speaker 7: 07:52 So his, his work becomes a little more sophisticated and responsible. One of the major criticisms against Ted Geisel is the racist drawings he made of Asians during and after World War Two. Did he regret that at all? And he said something along the lines of, you know, you have to look at those in the context of the time. At the time I thought they were funny, but looking back now, I'm not so sure. So that's even something in his lifetime. He had to sort of think about, we meet him now he's, it's after World War II and he's on the verge of becoming Dr Seuss. What events though actually brought that about? So the, the game changer in his career is the cat in the hat back in 1954 they, they were saying, you know, kids aren't reading. And one of the problems is the Dick and Jane Reading Primers, we put in front of them in the classrooms are really terrible. Speaker 7: 08:38 And somebody challenged Dr Seuss, write me a book of first grader can't put down using 300 words or less. And he said he threw around the list and was ready to throw it across the room and burn it when he decided to go through it one more time and find two words that rhymed and he saw the words tall ball. So goodness, he didn't go with that. Uh, instead he went with cat and hat and that was the beginning of that book, but it took them another year to write it. After that, you know, in reference to your title becoming Dr Seuss, what do you think makes Geisel's work a distinctly American creation? First of all, there's a lot going on from a lot of different places and he himself is, you know, one of those American success stories. But I think the reason his work still resonates with us even today, and I don't know if this is distinctly an American or not, but he never talks down to an audience no matter how young they are or how old the parents are, he's always talking right to us. Speaker 7: 09:29 He always gives us that. It's very democratic in that way, I think. And I think maybe that's what's very American about it. Everyone's an equal in his world. He talks to everybody, never down to anybody, always assumed that his readers are smart as readers are going to get it and they shouldn't be condescended to and they shouldn't be pandered to. And I think that's what makes those books so great. Aren't they just as popular now as they were? They are just as popular now, if not more popular. He's constantly got books on the bestseller lists 30 years after he's died. Speaker 1: 09:56 Brian Jay Jones is the author of becoming Dr Seuss. Do you hear the entire interview? Go to the mid day edition podcast on kpbs.org landmarks. Ken Cinema is treating cinephiles to another week of film classics. Starting tonight. KPBS film critic Beth Armando has this preview. Ken Cinema kicks off a new week of film classics with Bob Fosse, Oscar winning cabaret. Speaker 6: 10:24 The 1972 film is a specially interesting to watch now with the FX series Fossey Verdun providing some insight into the creative processes of director, dancer, choreographer Fauci, who shared a personal and artistic partnership with singer Dancer Gwen Verdon cabaret showcases Fauci. It's unique dance style, made a film star out of Liza Minnelli and served up a mix of sensual musical numbers and chilling political commentary. Over the weekend. There will be matinees of Charlie Chaplin City Lights, although sound pictures debuted in 1927 chaplain dismiss them as a fad and insisted on making his 1931 films, city lights as a silent movie, talking pictures where no fad but chaplain was correct. And deciding that is little tramp was ideally suited to silent cinema. It's the perfect swan song to the silent era and it's most cherished clown. Jump ahead about three decades and you can revel in the very verbal but also very visual humor of Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the delicious Marilyn Monroe in some like it hot. The film's a piece of comic perfection that highlights Monroe at her most vulnerable, he charming and innocently sexy plus. It has the funniest performance of lemons career as a musician who has to dress as a woman to allude mobsters. Most films use men dressing as women as something demeaning, but lemons. Daphne embraces the cross dressing with Gusto. Here he struggles with high heels and marvels at Monroe's ease and them got fat. Well, Gosh, she, it's Speaker 8: 11:54 just like Jello one springs Speaker 6: 11:55 the film, playfully shreds sexual stereotypes and delivers one of the most memorable final lines of any movie ever. Speaker 8: 12:03 Man, I'm a man. Well, nobody's perfect, Speaker 6: 12:12 but perfection is evident on screen with Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Last year, Vertigo ousted Orson Welles citizen Kane from its number one slot in sight and sounds prestigious. Poll of the top 50 films of all time. The film is hypnotic, perverse and absolutely riveting. Next up, Sean Luca Darts, contempt as foreign flavor to this collection of film classics. The French new wave began at the end of the 1950s and hit full stride in the 1960s with bold, brash filmmakers like Godard who tore apart film conventions in order to create a new cinematic language. Amazingly from the same year of 1963 is Stanley donuts, Hollywood comedy charade featuring two established stars and Cary grant and Audrey Hepburn. Why do you think we're going to, two films couldn't be more different than charade and contempt and you'd both can be enjoyed for their particular charms, grant and Hepburn or hard to resist in anything. Speaker 6: 13:12 And here they're placed in a comic thriller that also features menacing bad guys, George Kennedy and James Coburn. We get another example of a Hollywood studio picture with George [inaudible]. A star is born, Judy Garland is amazing and the film is top notch Hollywood schmaltz. It's a guilty pleasure for some and eagerly embraced by others who suffer no guilt at all. Saving the best for last is Sam Peckinpah cause the wild bunch. John Wayne had defined the Hollywood western for decades with his heroic image of the cowboy. In 1969 Wayne would star in true grit, a film that both mocked and played up that heroic image. So it's interesting that the wild bunch was made in the same year, heck and pause tale about aging outlaws attempting one last score was like a brutal Valentine to not only the fading of the old West and all it stood for, but also the passing of the traditional Hollywood, western and all its tropes. Speaker 8: 14:07 You want to come along? I could use to be, but it'll do. Speaker 6: 14:13 This is a great way to wrap up a week of film classics. All these films deserved the expanse of the big screen and the joy of watching them as a communal experience. Beth, Armando KPBS news landmarks can cinema kicks off a week of film classics that begins tonight and runs through Thursday. Thanks for listening to San Diego. News matters. Get more KPB as podcasts. I kpbs.org/podcasts.