Conversation

Last November Washington became the first state to legalize same sex marriage at the polls but today we want to check in on what is happening with the same-sex marriage debate in and out of the Evergreen State.

“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”

So started the essay by active NBA player Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player. In fact, Collins is the first openly gay male athlete who is still active in a major American team sport. 

Nearly half of all US undergraduates show up to their first day of class unprepared for the rigors of college life. Many of these students require extra education to ready them for their college courses.

These extra classes cost time and money, leading students to drop out or pile on additional debt. To solve this, some colleges are turning to the fast-growing supply of online courses to help prepare their freshmen for college.

The 2013 Seattle mayor’s race is off and running and last night was the first big mayoral forum of the campaign season. All eight candidates appeared before a packed room at Seattle Central Community College and KUOW's Deborah Wang was in attendance. Ross Reynolds sat down with Deborah to talk about who is in the race and the dreams that pushed them to run.

Every person between the ages of 15 and 65, regardless of risk factors, should get routinely tested for HIV. That’s the recommendation from the US Preventative Services Task Force, an independent panel of doctors and researchers.

Nationwide, the percentage of workers who are in unions has dropped to around 11 percent according to January report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That’s lowest rate in nearly a century. But the Service Employees International Union has been bucking the trend in recent decades – it’s the fastest growing union in the United States.

Since 1996, 1.2 million workers have joined SEIU nationally. Today, SEIU national represents 2.1 million.   Here in Washington state the SEUI has six locals with more than 100,000 members, up from about 40,000 in 2001. 

The union represents nurses, child care workers, public school employees and janitors.   Plus, Local 775 is the biggest, with around 43,000 members who are long-term care workers, home health aides, and nursing home aides.  

Ross Reynolds talks with David Rolf, president of the Seattle-based Local 775 of the Service Employees International Union for health-care workers. 

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence reports that in the US over 23 million people over the age of 12 are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Not only that, a recent Columbia University study found that only 1 in 10 of these people actually seeks treatment for drug addiction. And most of the time, the treatment doesn’t work.

Ross Reynolds sits down with Dr. Jim Walsh, the medical director of Addiction Recovery Services at Swedish Medical Center’s Ballard campus to talk about what does work.

Texting has become an incredibly common way of communicating in the 21st century. Back in 2011, the Pew Research Center reported that young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 sent around 110 text messages per day. The texting craze has also given rise to an entirely new vocabulary — texters of all ages abbreviate, punctuate and accentuate in ways that are totally unique to the cell phone age.

So one question arises: Is texting killing our language? Ross Reynolds LOLs with professor John McWhorter and discusses the possible impact of txting and the feared f8 of language.

The Seattle City Council is considering a moratorium on apodments, the tiny rental units with shared kitchens that have been cropping up around town. Critics complain that apodment developers are able to avoid environmental and design review.

At issue is a loophole in the city land-use code. In Seattle a single-dwelling unit is defined in large part by whether or not it has a kitchen, and a building with nine kitchens triggers a design review. That means buildings with dozens of apartments, but only seven or eight kitchens, are able to avoid review.

Apodment supporters say the bottom line is, more cheap apartments are needed. Ross Reynolds talks design and development of apodments with listeners.

Forty-nine states now have laws on bullying. Schools have policies and punishments. But Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon says there’s a risk that searching for solutions to bullying can do more harm than good.

Ross Reynolds sits down with Bazelon to talk about Washington policies and her new book, "Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering The Power of Character and Empathy."