April 23, 2025 • 26 mins
(April 23, 2025)
New taxes will soon dwarf the billions spent on homelessness in the last decade. Who’s watching over it? You’ve probably already met your best friend. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about what you are doing at your doctor’s visits that is a leading cause of cancer.
New taxes will soon dwarf the billions spent on homelessness in the last decade. Who’s watching over it? You’ve probably already met your best friend. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about what you are doing at your doctor’s visits that is a leading cause of cancer.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI the only handle here. It is a humpday Wednesday,
April twenty three. Some of the big stories we're covering.
The President said yesterday he is not planning to fire
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, of which he said the
day before he was going to fire Jerome Powell, or
(00:26):
look at every way he could legal issues involved.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And he then.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Said that tariffs on China were going to be lower,
and the market reacted positively a thousand points up and
right now it is way up. Trying to look, amy,
where's the market now? We're into hour number two of
I can't see it up nine.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Hundred training up nine hundred and seventy nine points over
the US to be two days of.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Really really high gains. And I mean this the whole
world is just reeling in terms of the monetary policy.
I mean, no one knows what's going on, No one
has any idea.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Okay, homelessness.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I always love to talk about homelessness. Why because nothing
ever happens. So there's been nearly a decade of unprecedented
taxpayer spending on homelessness, with almost nothing to show, and
the giant nonprofits behind the new measures that ask for
money are asking voters to double down, spend even more money.
(01:39):
And guess what, voters accepted the deal. So this year
one point five billion dollars or more from two measures,
just two measures. We're not talking about other governmental programs.
Ula and A money is going to come in in
orders of magnetude dude, far more than previous ones. And
(02:03):
one consequence is we have a whole new slate of
abbreviations U l A COC lt r H E c
r h A l A c a HSA, also commonly
known as ulakak, litraha, akraha and lakasha ha. If you
(02:28):
look at the acronyms of those things, and they consist
of oversight boards, some of them made of experts from government, business, housing, development,
homeless services, city and county, elected.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Officials, nonprofit leaders.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean some of these have dozens and dozens of
people on the board. All of these are really oversight committees.
The money is being spent to see how the money
is being spent and in the end, how much is
being spent on actual homeless services, and that therein lies
(03:07):
the problem. These are quasi government structures, one created by
measure a okay, and it's there to gauge whether goals
are being achieved. Not doing anything, but just saying asking
the question, are we doing anything?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are we doing enough?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
We've got just a whole new group of these bodies
and they meet at different times, they meet at multiple locations,
they monitor programs, they can overlap in purpose and geography.
So for the big decision makers there are now a
minimum of two or more regular meetings, and for the
public trying to follow what's going on, it's almost impossible.
(03:51):
La City Council member Nithya Rahman said she's optimistic that
two new boards that she sits on, EKRA and Lacasha,
will allow us to improve coordination and communication between all
the different players.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
One more time.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
All this new money is coming in for oversight and
to make sure that all the money that is being
spent is properly being spent. And these boards are getting
money to the billions of dollars. This is completely insane.
(04:34):
Karen Bass has talked about a ten percent decrease in
homelessness in the city of La which is substantial, but
what it costs. Do you know that to build a
shelter for a homeless person. Permanent shelter runs about five
hundred thousand dollars per unit, and developers can.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Do that for one hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Now, to be fair, when you build five hundred units
for homeless people, you also have to add supporting staff, security,
rehab services.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You have.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Other psychological services, mental health services, so you need a
much bigger space and you need a lot more people
to deal with the homeless. It is well, I think
it's almost impossible. The only way homelessness is going to
be dealt with, and I've said this many many times,
is that we are going to have to spend unbelievable
(05:39):
amounts of money where homelessness becomes front burner, more important
in the fire department, the police department, services for the city,
more important than any new negotiation with labor. It has
to be the biggest amount of money spent of any
any part of government and getting tons of money from nonprofits.
(06:04):
And short of that, it isn't going to happen. Now,
I assume that homelessness has flattened that number. It was
increasing by massive amounts, but La County only has sixty
thousand homeless people that's all.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Just sixty thousand. It's crazy, completely, totally crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Okay, moving on, before we get to the topic about
your next best friend, which is not going to be
your next best friend, I want to remind you that
ask Handle Anything happens on Friday, and this is where
you get to ask me anything. And that started because
all of us get questions about all of us.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Know, what's Neil like, what's John like? I get all
of those.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm getting now, what's Will like? Will Coleschreiber And I'd
say boring as hell? You know, you don't want to
have dinner with him?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You know, people ask me what people are like.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here we go ask Handle Anything, and here's what happens
during the course of the show.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You got have to do it. During the course of
the show, you go to the iHeart.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
App and then click on to KFI and then there's
a microphone in the upright hand corner. Click on that,
and then you have fifteen seconds to ask any question
you want of me. And it's kind of fun because
they're embarrassing. I'm very honest about it. I've talked about
my STDs, of which there have been many. I talk
about my drug use of which there have been lots
(07:30):
will be.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I'm honest, I'm honest.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I mean there was a time when I had more
discharges than the US Army hands out, you know what.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's probably of all that is holy geez. Okay, I
got well on that one. He lost it on that one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, So anyway, ask handle anything, and that's always a
lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Now I want to tell you about out being lonely.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
There's an organization called Project Gather and what this does
is host food centered hangouts, pot lucks, bake sales, mushroom
foraging across the country.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's a national company.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
There's a company called Time Left and that's in three
hundred cities, matches groups of five strangers for dinner every Wednesday.
There is Belong Circles, ninety minute gatherings led by trained
community architects.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Have no idea what that's about. There's block Party USA,
and I'm assuming it has to do with block parties.
It's the friendship indus pardon in USA. Yes, you know what.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It's a the friendship industry because people are lonely and
they figure they're going to get together and join these
organizations and sometimes pay to join these organizations.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Some are free and others.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Someone's realized that there's money to be made with lonely
people because there's a lot of lonely people.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Sounds like a Beatles song.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Now, research does not back up that America is experiencing
a loneliness epidemic, or even that overall loneliness rates are
worse now than they've been. Research says that's not true. Now,
plenty of people are feeling lonely, and mainly it's gen Z.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
That's feeling the loneliness.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And so these companies are targeting, for the most part,
gen Z, and they appear to rely on one common
assumption loneliness results from lack of friends, and you want
to know something. According to the studies, that's just not true.
And these programs they don't actually make new friends. Friends
(09:56):
are people that you meet, where you grow up with
and you spend a lot of time with. And these
block parties you're meeting people. It's like five minute dating
to a greater extent. You really you're you're not making friends. Now,
you can find someone, but going to these groups per se,
(10:19):
going to a pot luck doesn't necessarily do it. There's
a podcast hosted by a Shasta Nelson who writes about
this stuff called frintimacy, and people she talks about people
are hungry for not friends, but real intimacy with those friends.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In other words, you're not going to find friendship with
these people.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're going to develop friendship with people that you basically
connect with. And there's a University of Kansas communication professor
who did some studies on this, Jeffrey Hall, and he
says that going from strangers to casual friends takes forty
to sixty hours spent together, moving to an actual friendship
(11:06):
takes eighty to one hundred hours. Forming a good actual
friendship takes about two hundred hours together. And so there's
this myth of how to make friends by just getting together.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Time left.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Another one of these friendship industry startups has raised more
than two million dollars. Belong Center gathered at least almost
one million, seven.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Hundred and fifty one more.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Hour is investing a million dollars in existing social clubs.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Now here's the fun one.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
There is a New York based company called Sprout Societies
and they have a Sproute Society that's the name, and
they have an upcoming event called Together We Dink.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And it's a pickleball experience which.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Includes playing food, drinks, and it only costs two hundred
and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Now you can go out to dinner one Yeah, well
you can.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Go out to dinner, play pickleball, and find a hooker
and have the time of your life for two hundred
and fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
There's intimate friendship. Can I tell you something? Do the math?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We're together, All five of us are together every single day, well,
Monday through Friday for three hours. That means sixty six
days is all it took for us to become intimate friends.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, we're intimate friends. Aren't we very real intimate friends? Yeah?
We love each other, don't we? Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
By the way, I want to at this point correct
the myth if I could. There used to be a
management philosophy here and Neil will back this up, where
publicly we had to pretend we are friends the various
day parts here on KFI. I'm serious, by the way,
(13:14):
we had to pretend we were friends. Neil, tell me
that's not true. We had to give the impression that
we hung out with each other, that I hung out.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
With the evening crowd and the afternoon crowd.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I got news for you, guys. Okay, here is a
reality check.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We hate each other well everywhere, every day part hates
every Day part, and this day part where there are
five of us, I hate four of us.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well, including me, four and a half of us coming out.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh dare you count kno as half?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yes? Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
By the way, that's a little inside baseball. I just
want to point that app.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I disagree with the way you perceived that they were
just saying that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh how about this, okay, how about this a quote?
Pretend you are friends with other hosts here on KFI.
All right, I want to remind you again, and I've
got to remind you a couple of times because I
haven't this week or last week very much. And that's
Ask Handle Anything segment that we do on Friday eight
(14:26):
thirty nine o'clock where you ask the questions and I
answer and it's just fun embarrassing myself.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And so during the course of the show this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
One, you go to the iHeart app, click on the
KFI right hand corner upper right hand corner microphone, and
you have fifteen seconds to ask a question.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I don't want your.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Opinion on anything, by the way, but fun questions and
it's just a neat way to end the week where
I humiliate myself.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So it's ask handle anything now. Oh, just real quickly.
Have you seen the video of.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
People lining up to pay their respects to Francis who
is lying in state at Saint Peter's Basilica, And I
mean the crowds are enormous as they pass by in
two lines.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
There's a huge line and.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Then it's splits in half and they go pass in
front of the casket and there he is sort of
lying there, completely dead. And I don't understand paying your
respects to like a dead body.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I don't get it. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
He's dead, you know, I mean, he doesn't appreciate it.
So I just don't understand it. I can see paying
your respects when someone's alive, but not the dead part.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
All right, we're gonna go to Jim Keeney.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We're gonna put a urinal on top of your grave,
and I bet you there'll be lines of people waiting
to pee on it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But I'll be dead. I don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, but in our hearts, we know you're still under.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
There talking about death. The man who is very familiar
with death. Who enjoys death?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Doctor Jim Keeney, Chief medical Officer, Dignity Saint Mary Medical
Center in Long Beach, Jim, how much grief are you
getting from me making fun of you and death?
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Not a lot? No, I'm used to it at this point.
Ah okay, So yeah, yeah, but although I just don't Yeah,
sometimes I don't understand it, but yeah, it comes my way.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Excellent. Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I didn't even know this was a thing, ct scans
being a leading cause of cancer.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I mean cts.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
First of all, would you explain what a CT is
and is there a connection to cancer?
Speaker 5 (16:36):
So yeah, I mean there's ct is, cats can or
computed tomography, and that's that big machine you go and
it looks like a donut and that you lay on
the table and it slides you through.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And you know, it's a task that sometimes.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
People are coming to the emergency room demanding and they
want one. It doesn't really matter my thoughts on it.
They just want a cat scan. So you know, this
study is theoretical study, right. So what they did was
they took you see, San Francisco, so reputable place. They
took the estimates of ninety three million CT scans done
(17:10):
a year. Then they used mathematical models that calculate out
the risk of getting cancer. So this is not like
that they showed that one hundred thousand people got cancer.
They showed that there is a mathematical model that shows
the risk is likely that CT scans caused one hundred
thousand cancers last year, and that would put it in
(17:31):
the in you know there with things like alcohol or
being overweight, as far as your risk increasing your risk
for cancer, what it would be one of the leading causes.
So those people that argue, look, I mean if you
can look at other studies though, that show that the
more you use CAT scans, the better off people are
in a hospital. You know, you have less complications, less depth,
less risk. So you know there's a good, a good side,
(17:55):
and the bad side. The bottom line is this. I
tell people that just like hospitals, X rays and catscans,
it's like the freeway. The freeway is a dangerous place,
right bad things happen. These are powerful you know engines
out there and they can do powerful damage. And so
you don't want to be on a freeway if you
don't need to be. But if you need to be,
(18:16):
then it's really useful right to get from place to place.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You had mentioned that people come into the er and
demand cat scans. Do you can you just say no,
it's not going to happen, or do you go ahead
and cave?
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Yeah, when it's ridiculous, you know, of course I cave.
You know, again, there's no real studies to show exactly
when you should and should not get a cat scan.
We have guidelines. So one of the more common ones,
and especially the ones I get more kind of concerned about,
and this study points out, is that this is lifetime
risk of exposure and it's cumulative. So that means if
(18:52):
you start at age one, that is a much higher
risk than starting when you're at age fifty getting a
cat can. So lot of times, you know, kids fall
and hit their head every single day. Sometimes parents notice it.
Sometimes parents don't even know that their kids fell while
they were outside playing and hit their head. They they
and when the parent hears that awful sound, that dull
(19:13):
thud of a child's head hitting cement, they you know, panic.
I've heard it on my own kids, and I'm telling you,
they meet my stomach sick, and they rush them to
the emergency room. And ask that we get a cat
scan of their child's head. That's one hundred and fifty
chest X rays worth of radiation through their brain. And
(19:34):
while there's no studies that show cat cans increase the
risk of cancer in adults, there are studies that show
increase brain tumors in exposure to cat scans. So you know,
at that point we have a discussion and talk about,
you know, nothing's one hundred percent, so you know, and
here's the risk of a cat scan. Do you want
me to put one hundred and fifty chess worth radiation
(19:54):
through your child's skull or do you want to observe
them because they look pretty good right now, and you
know you have time if they start to deteriorate to
bring them back and have us get a cat scan
and find something. At that point, now, for every one
of those, you can hear you'll hear a parent out
there who said that's what I was told and something
bad happened, you know, and that's true. You know, nothing's
(20:17):
one hundred percent. But you know what people aren't thinking
back on is oh wow, my child got brain cancer.
You know they are actually then they're thinking back, oh man,
did I get that cat scan. Did I do an
unnecessary cat scan?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, there's no win in the world of medicine, or
there are plenty of wins, depending on.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Whether I think it's I think it's great, and most
parents want to have a conversation and we'll listen and
we'll say, you know what, I'd really rather get the
cat scan. I feel better about that, And I say, okay,
at least you know the risk. And other parents say
I'd rather.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Take them home.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
I think I can watch them and bring them back
if things get worse, And I say, great, you know.
I like that kind of interaction no matter how it ends.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
All right, Jim, this is an interesting one. A blood
test to predict postpartum depression. Now I know about postpartum
depression firsthand because as soon as my kids were born,
I went into postpartum depression. I'm still there twenty nine
years later. So to be absolutely sure, I take a
(21:16):
blood test.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Well, I mean, this is the issue, right, is that
A lot of number one postpartum depressions common and effects
about one out of seven women that give birth. So
it's the leading cause of maternal death, you know, because
they take their own lives and so It's a serious
condition that goes very much undiagnosed and untreated, and even
(21:43):
when people are diagnosed or know that they have postpartum depression,
only about six percent will actually seek out care. Wellognize
that postpartum depression.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
How do you know?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I mean, this is postpartum depression is obviously psychological.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I mean your brain is doing depressed.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And where is the line between you're just kind of depressed,
uh and true postpartum depression?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And where is postpartum depression?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Let's say you just feel like crap after childbirth because
you know, you hurt, you're not the same, still bloated,
and you're not happy about that.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Where where is that line?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Well, I mean you're right that there's a certain amount
of grieving that goes on, you know, as you as
as your life changes and things change, even though it's
a happy thing you've just had a baby, but you're
grieving some losses of of what you used to be
able to do, what your body used to look like,
things like that. But and that's normal, that's all just normal.
So you know, a grieving process is a normal process.
(22:46):
Where a depressive process where you are you know, hyper
focused on these things or you're you're thinking about them
all the time. You can't get your mind off of it.
You're really starting to have unusual thoughts like thinking about
harming yourself or thinking about harming the baby. These are
times when you should call for help and get help.
And that's why there's professionals in this area to kind
of differentiate. I mean, it's not but that's the problem
(23:09):
with the stigma. Right do women go and say, hey,
I'm having these thoughts. Is this really postpartum depression or
am I just a normal postpartum woman? And that's what
the professionals are for. And there are treatments now, there's
you know, we recognize that this can be treated, and
so there's a new medicine. I can't remember the name
(23:29):
of it actually, but it's a hormone, a neuro hormone,
and it was just approved in twenty twenty three. It
actually treats a postpartum depression and it's pretty effective. You know,
most antidepressants take months to really start working and to
dial in the right dose, and this one works, you know,
within days. So that's just since twenty twenty three, there's
(23:50):
new treatments out there, and so there's things we can do.
I think younger generations are less stigmatized by psychiatric or
neuraline conditions, but you know, it's still definitely there's a
stigma out there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Okay, real quickly, I mean less than a minute, the
low cost Narcan Project California is going to offer to
residents of California.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This seems like a big win. I don't know who
would be against this.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Yeah, I mean it's cutting the two doses of narcan
cost in half, you know, from about forty five dollars
to about twenty something twenty two dollars something like that,
twenty four dollars. It's so that is important to have
around the house, you know, because that's what the paramedics
give of somebody. If you have someone who's addicted to opiates,
or even someone who is addicted to pain medications that
(24:43):
are prescribed for them, those kind of opiates, good to
have this around the house. A lot of us doctors now,
when we prescribe opiates, we also prescribe melox on so
that you have it and this if you overdose and
you stop breathing, this will get your breathing again. And
that's exactly what paramedic give a lot of police carry
this now, and there aren't some pharmacies and hospitals that
(25:06):
are giving this away for free, so you might want
to check locally if you want to get some of
this to have around the house. You know, parents who
have a child who's addicted to opiate cert narcotics.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Good thing you have, right, Jim. Thanks, we'll catch you
again next Wednesday. As always, have a good day. And
what do I always.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Say to you, don't kill somebody today?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, don't kill a rat or go ahead and kill
someone today, and we'll talk about it next Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Have a good one. Bye bye, all right bye, all right,
we're done, guys.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
That's it, Phoenee and coming up Gary and Shannon as always,
and we start again tomorrow morning. There's Amy Oh, I
forgot to mention name. He's wearing her Disneyland sweater today.
It's yellow yellow spring Yes, yellow pastel yellow Disneyland sweater.
So that's tomorrow morning, five am wake up call with
(25:58):
Will Cole Schreiber and then Neil and I come aboard
from six to nine and handling everything cono and handling
everything with some mediocre attention. And that is con o
and and this is KFI AM six point forty.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI the only handle here. It is a humpday Wednesday,
April twenty three. Some of the big stories we're covering.
The President said yesterday he is not planning to fire
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, of which he said the
day before he was going to fire Jerome Powell, or
(00:26):
look at every way he could legal issues involved.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And he then.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Said that tariffs on China were going to be lower,
and the market reacted positively a thousand points up and
right now it is way up. Trying to look, amy,
where's the market now? We're into hour number two of
I can't see it up nine.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Hundred training up nine hundred and seventy nine points over
the US to be two days of.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Really really high gains. And I mean this the whole
world is just reeling in terms of the monetary policy.
I mean, no one knows what's going on, No one
has any idea.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Okay, homelessness.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I always love to talk about homelessness. Why because nothing
ever happens. So there's been nearly a decade of unprecedented
taxpayer spending on homelessness, with almost nothing to show, and
the giant nonprofits behind the new measures that ask for
money are asking voters to double down, spend even more money.
(01:39):
And guess what, voters accepted the deal. So this year
one point five billion dollars or more from two measures,
just two measures. We're not talking about other governmental programs.
Ula and A money is going to come in in
orders of magnetude dude, far more than previous ones. And
(02:03):
one consequence is we have a whole new slate of
abbreviations U l A COC lt r H E c
r h A l A c a HSA, also commonly
known as ulakak, litraha, akraha and lakasha ha. If you
(02:28):
look at the acronyms of those things, and they consist
of oversight boards, some of them made of experts from government, business, housing, development,
homeless services, city and county, elected.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Officials, nonprofit leaders.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean some of these have dozens and dozens of
people on the board. All of these are really oversight committees.
The money is being spent to see how the money
is being spent and in the end, how much is
being spent on actual homeless services, and that therein lies
(03:07):
the problem. These are quasi government structures, one created by
measure a okay, and it's there to gauge whether goals
are being achieved. Not doing anything, but just saying asking
the question, are we doing anything?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are we doing enough?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
We've got just a whole new group of these bodies
and they meet at different times, they meet at multiple locations,
they monitor programs, they can overlap in purpose and geography.
So for the big decision makers there are now a
minimum of two or more regular meetings, and for the
public trying to follow what's going on, it's almost impossible.
(03:51):
La City Council member Nithya Rahman said she's optimistic that
two new boards that she sits on, EKRA and Lacasha,
will allow us to improve coordination and communication between all
the different players.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
One more time.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
All this new money is coming in for oversight and
to make sure that all the money that is being
spent is properly being spent. And these boards are getting
money to the billions of dollars. This is completely insane.
(04:34):
Karen Bass has talked about a ten percent decrease in
homelessness in the city of La which is substantial, but
what it costs. Do you know that to build a
shelter for a homeless person. Permanent shelter runs about five
hundred thousand dollars per unit, and developers can.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Do that for one hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Now, to be fair, when you build five hundred units
for homeless people, you also have to add supporting staff, security,
rehab services.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You have.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Other psychological services, mental health services, so you need a
much bigger space and you need a lot more people
to deal with the homeless. It is well, I think
it's almost impossible. The only way homelessness is going to
be dealt with, and I've said this many many times,
is that we are going to have to spend unbelievable
(05:39):
amounts of money where homelessness becomes front burner, more important
in the fire department, the police department, services for the city,
more important than any new negotiation with labor. It has
to be the biggest amount of money spent of any
any part of government and getting tons of money from nonprofits.
(06:04):
And short of that, it isn't going to happen. Now,
I assume that homelessness has flattened that number. It was
increasing by massive amounts, but La County only has sixty
thousand homeless people that's all.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Just sixty thousand. It's crazy, completely, totally crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Okay, moving on, before we get to the topic about
your next best friend, which is not going to be
your next best friend, I want to remind you that
ask Handle Anything happens on Friday, and this is where
you get to ask me anything. And that started because
all of us get questions about all of us.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Know, what's Neil like, what's John like? I get all
of those.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm getting now, what's Will like? Will Coleschreiber And I'd
say boring as hell? You know, you don't want to
have dinner with him?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You know, people ask me what people are like.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here we go ask Handle Anything, and here's what happens
during the course of the show.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You got have to do it. During the course of
the show, you go to the iHeart.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
App and then click on to KFI and then there's
a microphone in the upright hand corner. Click on that,
and then you have fifteen seconds to ask any question
you want of me. And it's kind of fun because
they're embarrassing. I'm very honest about it. I've talked about
my STDs, of which there have been many. I talk
about my drug use of which there have been lots
(07:30):
will be.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I'm honest, I'm honest.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I mean there was a time when I had more
discharges than the US Army hands out, you know what.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's probably of all that is holy geez. Okay, I
got well on that one. He lost it on that one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, So anyway, ask handle anything, and that's always a
lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Now I want to tell you about out being lonely.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
There's an organization called Project Gather and what this does
is host food centered hangouts, pot lucks, bake sales, mushroom
foraging across the country.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's a national company.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
There's a company called Time Left and that's in three
hundred cities, matches groups of five strangers for dinner every Wednesday.
There is Belong Circles, ninety minute gatherings led by trained
community architects.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Have no idea what that's about. There's block Party USA,
and I'm assuming it has to do with block parties.
It's the friendship indus pardon in USA. Yes, you know what.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It's a the friendship industry because people are lonely and
they figure they're going to get together and join these
organizations and sometimes pay to join these organizations.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Some are free and others.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Someone's realized that there's money to be made with lonely
people because there's a lot of lonely people.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Sounds like a Beatles song.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Now, research does not back up that America is experiencing
a loneliness epidemic, or even that overall loneliness rates are
worse now than they've been. Research says that's not true. Now,
plenty of people are feeling lonely, and mainly it's gen Z.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
That's feeling the loneliness.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And so these companies are targeting, for the most part,
gen Z, and they appear to rely on one common
assumption loneliness results from lack of friends, and you want
to know something. According to the studies, that's just not true.
And these programs they don't actually make new friends. Friends
(09:56):
are people that you meet, where you grow up with
and you spend a lot of time with. And these
block parties you're meeting people. It's like five minute dating
to a greater extent. You really you're you're not making friends. Now,
you can find someone, but going to these groups per se,
(10:19):
going to a pot luck doesn't necessarily do it. There's
a podcast hosted by a Shasta Nelson who writes about
this stuff called frintimacy, and people she talks about people
are hungry for not friends, but real intimacy with those friends.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In other words, you're not going to find friendship with
these people.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're going to develop friendship with people that you basically
connect with. And there's a University of Kansas communication professor
who did some studies on this, Jeffrey Hall, and he
says that going from strangers to casual friends takes forty
to sixty hours spent together, moving to an actual friendship
(11:06):
takes eighty to one hundred hours. Forming a good actual
friendship takes about two hundred hours together. And so there's
this myth of how to make friends by just getting together.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Time left.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Another one of these friendship industry startups has raised more
than two million dollars. Belong Center gathered at least almost
one million, seven.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Hundred and fifty one more.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Hour is investing a million dollars in existing social clubs.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Now here's the fun one.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
There is a New York based company called Sprout Societies
and they have a Sproute Society that's the name, and
they have an upcoming event called Together We Dink.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And it's a pickleball experience which.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Includes playing food, drinks, and it only costs two hundred
and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Now you can go out to dinner one Yeah, well
you can.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Go out to dinner, play pickleball, and find a hooker
and have the time of your life for two hundred
and fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
There's intimate friendship. Can I tell you something? Do the math?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We're together, All five of us are together every single day, well,
Monday through Friday for three hours. That means sixty six
days is all it took for us to become intimate friends.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, we're intimate friends. Aren't we very real intimate friends? Yeah?
We love each other, don't we? Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
By the way, I want to at this point correct
the myth if I could. There used to be a
management philosophy here and Neil will back this up, where
publicly we had to pretend we are friends the various
day parts here on KFI. I'm serious, by the way,
(13:14):
we had to pretend we were friends. Neil, tell me
that's not true. We had to give the impression that
we hung out with each other, that I hung out.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
With the evening crowd and the afternoon crowd.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I got news for you, guys. Okay, here is a
reality check.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We hate each other well everywhere, every day part hates
every Day part, and this day part where there are
five of us, I hate four of us.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well, including me, four and a half of us coming out.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh dare you count kno as half?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yes? Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
By the way, that's a little inside baseball. I just
want to point that app.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I disagree with the way you perceived that they were
just saying that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh how about this, okay, how about this a quote?
Pretend you are friends with other hosts here on KFI.
All right, I want to remind you again, and I've
got to remind you a couple of times because I
haven't this week or last week very much. And that's
Ask Handle Anything segment that we do on Friday eight
(14:26):
thirty nine o'clock where you ask the questions and I
answer and it's just fun embarrassing myself.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And so during the course of the show this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
One, you go to the iHeart app, click on the
KFI right hand corner upper right hand corner microphone, and
you have fifteen seconds to ask a question.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I don't want your.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Opinion on anything, by the way, but fun questions and
it's just a neat way to end the week where
I humiliate myself.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So it's ask handle anything now. Oh, just real quickly.
Have you seen the video of.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
People lining up to pay their respects to Francis who
is lying in state at Saint Peter's Basilica, And I
mean the crowds are enormous as they pass by in
two lines.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
There's a huge line and.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Then it's splits in half and they go pass in
front of the casket and there he is sort of
lying there, completely dead. And I don't understand paying your
respects to like a dead body.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I don't get it. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
He's dead, you know, I mean, he doesn't appreciate it.
So I just don't understand it. I can see paying
your respects when someone's alive, but not the dead part.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
All right, we're gonna go to Jim Keeney.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We're gonna put a urinal on top of your grave,
and I bet you there'll be lines of people waiting
to pee on it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But I'll be dead. I don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, but in our hearts, we know you're still under.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
There talking about death. The man who is very familiar
with death. Who enjoys death?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Doctor Jim Keeney, Chief medical Officer, Dignity Saint Mary Medical
Center in Long Beach, Jim, how much grief are you
getting from me making fun of you and death?
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Not a lot? No, I'm used to it at this point.
Ah okay, So yeah, yeah, but although I just don't Yeah,
sometimes I don't understand it, but yeah, it comes my way.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Excellent. Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I didn't even know this was a thing, ct scans
being a leading cause of cancer.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I mean cts.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
First of all, would you explain what a CT is
and is there a connection to cancer?
Speaker 5 (16:36):
So yeah, I mean there's ct is, cats can or
computed tomography, and that's that big machine you go and
it looks like a donut and that you lay on
the table and it slides you through.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And you know, it's a task that sometimes.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
People are coming to the emergency room demanding and they
want one. It doesn't really matter my thoughts on it.
They just want a cat scan. So you know, this
study is theoretical study, right. So what they did was
they took you see, San Francisco, so reputable place. They
took the estimates of ninety three million CT scans done
(17:10):
a year. Then they used mathematical models that calculate out
the risk of getting cancer. So this is not like
that they showed that one hundred thousand people got cancer.
They showed that there is a mathematical model that shows
the risk is likely that CT scans caused one hundred
thousand cancers last year, and that would put it in
(17:31):
the in you know there with things like alcohol or
being overweight, as far as your risk increasing your risk
for cancer, what it would be one of the leading causes.
So those people that argue, look, I mean if you
can look at other studies though, that show that the
more you use CAT scans, the better off people are
in a hospital. You know, you have less complications, less depth,
less risk. So you know there's a good, a good side,
(17:55):
and the bad side. The bottom line is this. I
tell people that just like hospitals, X rays and catscans,
it's like the freeway. The freeway is a dangerous place,
right bad things happen. These are powerful you know engines
out there and they can do powerful damage. And so
you don't want to be on a freeway if you
don't need to be. But if you need to be,
(18:16):
then it's really useful right to get from place to place.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You had mentioned that people come into the er and
demand cat scans. Do you can you just say no,
it's not going to happen, or do you go ahead
and cave?
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Yeah, when it's ridiculous, you know, of course I cave.
You know, again, there's no real studies to show exactly
when you should and should not get a cat scan.
We have guidelines. So one of the more common ones,
and especially the ones I get more kind of concerned about,
and this study points out, is that this is lifetime
risk of exposure and it's cumulative. So that means if
(18:52):
you start at age one, that is a much higher
risk than starting when you're at age fifty getting a
cat can. So lot of times, you know, kids fall
and hit their head every single day. Sometimes parents notice it.
Sometimes parents don't even know that their kids fell while
they were outside playing and hit their head. They they
and when the parent hears that awful sound, that dull
(19:13):
thud of a child's head hitting cement, they you know, panic.
I've heard it on my own kids, and I'm telling you,
they meet my stomach sick, and they rush them to
the emergency room. And ask that we get a cat
scan of their child's head. That's one hundred and fifty
chest X rays worth of radiation through their brain. And
(19:34):
while there's no studies that show cat cans increase the
risk of cancer in adults, there are studies that show
increase brain tumors in exposure to cat scans. So you know,
at that point we have a discussion and talk about,
you know, nothing's one hundred percent, so you know, and
here's the risk of a cat scan. Do you want
me to put one hundred and fifty chess worth radiation
(19:54):
through your child's skull or do you want to observe
them because they look pretty good right now, and you
know you have time if they start to deteriorate to
bring them back and have us get a cat scan
and find something. At that point, now, for every one
of those, you can hear you'll hear a parent out
there who said that's what I was told and something
bad happened, you know, and that's true. You know, nothing's
(20:17):
one hundred percent. But you know what people aren't thinking
back on is oh wow, my child got brain cancer.
You know they are actually then they're thinking back, oh man,
did I get that cat scan. Did I do an
unnecessary cat scan?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, there's no win in the world of medicine, or
there are plenty of wins, depending on.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Whether I think it's I think it's great, and most
parents want to have a conversation and we'll listen and
we'll say, you know what, I'd really rather get the
cat scan. I feel better about that, And I say, okay,
at least you know the risk. And other parents say
I'd rather.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Take them home.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
I think I can watch them and bring them back
if things get worse, And I say, great, you know.
I like that kind of interaction no matter how it ends.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
All right, Jim, this is an interesting one. A blood
test to predict postpartum depression. Now I know about postpartum
depression firsthand because as soon as my kids were born,
I went into postpartum depression. I'm still there twenty nine
years later. So to be absolutely sure, I take a
(21:16):
blood test.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Well, I mean, this is the issue, right, is that
A lot of number one postpartum depressions common and effects
about one out of seven women that give birth. So
it's the leading cause of maternal death, you know, because
they take their own lives and so It's a serious
condition that goes very much undiagnosed and untreated, and even
(21:43):
when people are diagnosed or know that they have postpartum depression,
only about six percent will actually seek out care. Wellognize
that postpartum depression.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
How do you know?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I mean, this is postpartum depression is obviously psychological.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I mean your brain is doing depressed.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And where is the line between you're just kind of depressed,
uh and true postpartum depression?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And where is postpartum depression?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Let's say you just feel like crap after childbirth because
you know, you hurt, you're not the same, still bloated,
and you're not happy about that.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Where where is that line?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Well, I mean you're right that there's a certain amount
of grieving that goes on, you know, as you as
as your life changes and things change, even though it's
a happy thing you've just had a baby, but you're
grieving some losses of of what you used to be
able to do, what your body used to look like,
things like that. But and that's normal, that's all just normal.
So you know, a grieving process is a normal process.
(22:46):
Where a depressive process where you are you know, hyper
focused on these things or you're you're thinking about them
all the time. You can't get your mind off of it.
You're really starting to have unusual thoughts like thinking about
harming yourself or thinking about harming the baby. These are
times when you should call for help and get help.
And that's why there's professionals in this area to kind
of differentiate. I mean, it's not but that's the problem
(23:09):
with the stigma. Right do women go and say, hey,
I'm having these thoughts. Is this really postpartum depression or
am I just a normal postpartum woman? And that's what
the professionals are for. And there are treatments now, there's
you know, we recognize that this can be treated, and
so there's a new medicine. I can't remember the name
(23:29):
of it actually, but it's a hormone, a neuro hormone,
and it was just approved in twenty twenty three. It
actually treats a postpartum depression and it's pretty effective. You know,
most antidepressants take months to really start working and to
dial in the right dose, and this one works, you know,
within days. So that's just since twenty twenty three, there's
(23:50):
new treatments out there, and so there's things we can do.
I think younger generations are less stigmatized by psychiatric or
neuraline conditions, but you know, it's still definitely there's a
stigma out there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Okay, real quickly, I mean less than a minute, the
low cost Narcan Project California is going to offer to
residents of California.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This seems like a big win. I don't know who
would be against this.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Yeah, I mean it's cutting the two doses of narcan
cost in half, you know, from about forty five dollars
to about twenty something twenty two dollars something like that,
twenty four dollars. It's so that is important to have
around the house, you know, because that's what the paramedics
give of somebody. If you have someone who's addicted to opiates,
or even someone who is addicted to pain medications that
(24:43):
are prescribed for them, those kind of opiates, good to
have this around the house. A lot of us doctors now,
when we prescribe opiates, we also prescribe melox on so
that you have it and this if you overdose and
you stop breathing, this will get your breathing again. And
that's exactly what paramedic give a lot of police carry
this now, and there aren't some pharmacies and hospitals that
(25:06):
are giving this away for free, so you might want
to check locally if you want to get some of
this to have around the house. You know, parents who
have a child who's addicted to opiate cert narcotics.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Good thing you have, right, Jim. Thanks, we'll catch you
again next Wednesday. As always, have a good day. And
what do I always.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Say to you, don't kill somebody today?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, don't kill a rat or go ahead and kill
someone today, and we'll talk about it next Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Have a good one. Bye bye, all right bye, all right,
we're done, guys.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
That's it, Phoenee and coming up Gary and Shannon as always,
and we start again tomorrow morning. There's Amy Oh, I
forgot to mention name. He's wearing her Disneyland sweater today.
It's yellow yellow spring Yes, yellow pastel yellow Disneyland sweater.
So that's tomorrow morning, five am wake up call with
(25:58):
Will Cole Schreiber and then Neil and I come aboard
from six to nine and handling everything cono and handling
everything with some mediocre attention. And that is con o
and and this is KFI AM six point forty.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The Bill Handel Show News
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