KPCC and the “reasonable listener”

If you don’t think KPCC is a great radio station, then you probably don’t listen to it. Between the conversational parsing of the day’s news by Larry Mantle and Patt Morrison, the exceptional feeds of shows from Terry Gross and Dick Gordon in the evening, the purely delicious “Off Ramp” and the mix of local and national reporting, the Pasadena-based public radio station is widely regarded as a pillar of Southern Californian journalism. Yet, like so many pillars in greater Los Angeles, that column may not be solid. A station memo leaked last Friday showed that  the station temporarily pulled sponsorship credits to Planned Parenthood when the reproductive health organization became the center of culture wars underlying the funding debates in Washington.

The city flower

LA's city flower, the bird of paradise, is actually a native of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The image is a detail taken from "The Lilies," a Taschen collection of paintings of plants in the Liliaceae by botanical illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Click on the ikhamanga, aka Strelitzia reginae, aka bird of paradise, to find out more about "The Lilies" and the 18th century artist nicknamed 'Raphael of Flowers.'

A year after the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power began offering $1/square foot for home owners to rip out lawn, KPCC reports that the Los Angeles County Waterworks Districts is following suit. A teaser interview today by Patt Morrison with horticulturist Lili Singer, special projects director of the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers & Native Plants, will be followed by a longer appearance by Singer tomorrow on AirTalk.

By all means tune in because ripping out your lawn …

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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com
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