This week on Valley Edition we take a hike into the foothills of Fresno County. Valley Public Radio’s Ezra Romero takes the listener on a journey through the McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve run by the Sierra Foothill Conservancy. Jeannette Tuitele – Lewis, executive director of the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, joins host Juanita Stevenson in a discussion surrounding the Valley locale, its ties to the community and future dates for preserve exploration.
Also on this week’s program, Ben Adler with Capitol Public Radio in Sacramento interviews U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. The two discuss Kennedy’s hope for a booming California and his work involving the state’s overcrowding prisons.
To end the first part of the week’s Valley Edition, we turn to Fresno State philosophy professor Andrew Fiala for a discussion surrounding rational response to possible catastrophe. From the effects of climate change to the threat posed by a giant asteroid there’s a lot humans worry about. Fiala points to a pessimistic conclusion.
The second half of the program explores the issues surrounding end of life care. What steps and decisions need to be made before a loved one passes or becomes ill? The conversation stems from the issues faced when 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless died at a senior living center in Bakersfield in early March after a 911 recording showed that a staff member refused to do CPR on the woman. The call prompted outrage across the nation, but was the nurse’s decision ethical?
Joining the conversation are Michael Nisco, Program Director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine (HPM) Fellowship Program at UCSF Fresno, and Christopher Meyers, director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics and professor of philosophy at CSU, Bakersfield.
