Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Growing up as an American-born daughter of immigrant parents, Dr. Sunita Puri always tried to live up to her parents’ expectations and the examples they set. While completing medical school at UCSF, a troubling issue seemed to arise. Between her mother’s experiences as an anesthesiologist and her own conversations with her family about their faith, the disconnect between the traditional medical objective of lengthening life at any cost and her family’s spiritual teachings became more and more apparent. It was this tension that ultimately drew her to palliative medicine, a practice that aims not to simply extend life, but to improve its quality, especially in patients living with fatal illnesses. In her new book, Dr. Puri recounts the most instructive—and often heart-wrenching—stories she has experienced in this line of medicine, intertwining them with the childhood memories of her family that have shaped who she is today. The lessons are not black and white but nuanced in ways that medicine often isn’t. When

Greg Dalton sits down for a rare interview with newly-confirmed U.S. EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler on cars, coal, and climate. Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board, responds to Wheeler’s position on vehicle standards, and discusses her agency’s role leading a group of states in contesting the Trump administration’s revised auto emissions rules. Also featuring Albert Cheung of Bloomberg New Energy Finance on the future of personal mobility, and Helen Clarkson of The Climate Group on getting some of the world’s biggest companies to commit to 100% renewable energy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. This week's in-studio guest is singer and songwriter Matt Alber. Portland-based singer/songwriter Matt Alber is currently touring his fourth self-produced studio album entitled Wind Sand Stars. The album features original pop/folk art songs rooted in melody with vocals reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright, Iron & Wine and John Grant. In 2014, Lincoln Center in New York invited Matt to perform on its esteemed American Songbook series, which garnered a review by The New York Times. In 2015, he was selected by the U.S. State Department as a musical ambassador to Russia, Hungary, Kosovo and to Sudan, where he taught recording arts and sciences to young artists in Khartoum. Matt's music has been featured on ABC Family's series "The Fosters" and "Bones" and he appears on

In 2018, Emily Chang’s Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley made national headlines, further opening up the conversation around discrimination, sexual harassment and toxic work environments taking place across industries and in Silicon Valley. One year later, join Chang and moderator Aileen Lee, partner at Cowboy VC and founder of All Raise, the new nonprofit dedicated to strategically engaging more women and minorities in the founding and funding of technology-driven companies. In this powerful expose, Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals. Drawing on her deep network of tech insiders, Chang sheds light on how hard it is for women to crack the Silicon ceiling and offers insight on what companies and employees need to do to bring down the “brotopia” culture once and for all. This program was generously supported by Ernst & Young. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grain by Grain tells the story of Bob Quinn, an organic farmer from Big Sandy, Montana. Quinn was raised with traditional farming methods but learned that organic farming could create better, healthier food and bring economic opportunity to his small town. He is the founder of the international company Kamut International and the leader in reviving that ancient grain. Ultimately, Quinn’s story shows the way to a better future for American agriculture, proving that rural America can lead sustainability. MLF Organizer Name: Cathy Curtis Notes, MLF: Food Matters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Caro will describe the Longevity Explorers’ most recent explorations. The explorers are a unique sharing, evaluation and ideation community made up of older adults (in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s) and their friends, families and caregivers. The presentation will include promising products the explorers have tried, ideas the explorers have been discussing related to improving the quality of life for older adults and some ideas for products we wish someone would develop. The Longevity Explorers program is an initiative enabled by Tech-enhanced Life. MLF Organizer Name: John Milford MLF: Grownups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On March 16, 2018, just 26 hours before his scheduled retirement, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions. President Donald Trump celebrated on Twitter, saying: "Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy." Now McCabe is telling his side of one of the most intriguing political episodes of 2018. In The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, Andrew G. McCabe offers a dramatic and candid account of his career and an impassioned defense of the FBI's agents and of the institution's integrity and independence in protecting America and upholding our Constitution. Under FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey, McCabe led the investigations of major attacks such as the Boston Marathon bombing, a plot to bomb the New York subways, the Benghazi attack and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. According to McCabe, the greatest threat to th

Is Silicon Valley at a breaking point? The power of technology has been called into question amid the growing number of data breaches, disinformation and lack of privacy. Kara Swisher reflects on what has brought Silicon Valley to this point, the ethical challenges facing tech companies and prognosis for the future. Notes: In association with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Businesses Can Restore the State’s Middle Class California’s powerhouse economy, the fifth largest in the world, relies on a skilled, healthy and available workforce. Yet employers say that job candidates often lack the skills they need—and they cannot grow as a result. Meanwhile, many workers make low wages that are stagnant, despite ever higher living costs. Often workers lack access to quality job training and are increasingly shut out of California’s middle class. As one of the state’s largest philanthropic funders, with $2.3 billion in assets and annual grantmaking of nearly $100 million, The James Irvine Foundation envisions a California where all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. The foundation recently commissioned a survey of California workers, finding that nearly half are struggling with poverty. Join business and community leaders for a discussion of the California workforce and how to increase the skills, qualifications and well-being of employees in ways to benefit i

Monday Night Philosophy analyzes the biblical roots of philosophical inquiry. Accepting your divinely ordained lot in life, as Job did (but ironically Lot did not), is often lauded in the Bible. A few dared negotiate with Jehovah (Abraham, Lot and Moses), and quite a few even tried to outsmart omniscience. But Jeremiah makes it clear he has a problem with the whole prophetic game, even as he was fulfilling his role as the messenger of dire and accurate prophecies. One element of his argument with Jehovah involves his passionate complaints about the uselessness of delivering precise but unpatriotic predictions. Even more fundamentally, Jeremiah's hope for a future where organized religion disappears, along with its crucial concepts of sin and punishment, expresses his emotional frustration with the ineffectiveness of Jehovah's ancient plan for instilling virtue. A god and his prophet might disagree on tactics, but it is something else to disagree about goals. Come hear why that is exactly the kind of fundament

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. This week's in-studio guests, from St. James Infirmary in San Francisco, will discuss the decriminalization of sex work. James Burch is St. James Infirmary’s policy and advocacy officer. He began his work at the Southern Center for Human Rights where he investigated human rights conditions in Georgia and Alabama’s prisons, jails, and court systems. He studied civil rights law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Burch clerked briefly at the ACLU of Southern California before moving to the Bay Area. In the Bay, Burch organized with the Frisco 500 before joining APTP and assuming the role of policy coordinator. He joined St. James Infirmary in January of 2019. Toni Newman is the executive director of St. James Infirmary in San Francisco. St. James Infirmary i

Monday Night Philosophy features author Benn Steil, winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Prize for best book. Steil will discuss the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan. In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct Western Europe as a bulwark against Communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union and a Western identity that continues to shape world events. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Steil’s account brings to life the Prague Coup, the Berlin Blockade, the division of Germany, and Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe. As Putin’s Russia is again rattling the world order, the te

The last five years have been the hottest on record globally. But this past winter, plunging temperatures, snowstorms and torrential rains throughout the country have a lot of people questioning the reality of climate change. If the planet is warming up, why is the Midwest suffering record cold temperatures? Climate scientists, communicators and educators join us to talk about about why, after one of the hottest years on record, the country has suddenly gone into deep freeze. On today’s Climate One: climate science explained, and climate myths debunked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come for a gathering of San Francisco business leaders and philanthropists. They will discuss the importance of and need to give youth a voice, enabling them to make change happen in their own communities. The conversation will focus on the disparities that exist for our youth and families and how local entities are working to close the gap in health, education and access to the outdoors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day with an intimate conversation with San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Following her election in 2018, Mayor Breed is the city’s first African-American female mayor and just the second woman to ever hold the office, elected during a historic year for women’s representation in local and national politics. The mayor has lived a life of public service. Prior to her election as District 5 supervisor in 2012 and her service as Board president from 2015–2018, she served as executive director of the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Western Addition for 10 years. She also served as a San Francisco Redevelopment Agency commissioner for five years and in 2010 was appointed by the then Mayor Gavin Newsom to be a San Francisco fire commissioner. Join INFORUM as we hear from Mayor Breed on the priorities for her administration, with a lens of economic justice, on the biggest issues of our day, including housing, criminal justice reform, education a

This program is part of our Marin Conversation Series, which is supported in part by the Marin Community Foundation and Relevant Wealth Advisors. Art is good for you: It nourishes your spirit and feeds your mind. Home to a diverse, vibrant and rapidly-expanding art scene, the Bay Area is a hive of creativity, brimming with artists, gallerists and curators who labor tirelessly to make, collect and present art for our enjoyment and contemplation. And yet they face ever-mounting challenges: lack of space and skyrocketing rents; market pressures and cautious patronage; competition for private funding and institutional support. These challenges threaten the very health of Bay Area art and culture. Please join three of the Bay Area art scene’s leading lights—Wendi Norris, sharon maidenberg and Natasha Boas—at The Commonwealth Club’s Marin Conversations series. They will provide a “report from the field of aesthetics,” discussing the challenges and opportunities of making, collecting and curating art in the Bay Area

New technology is constantly being developed for home care. What solutions work best, and how can technology successfully enhance the very personal side of home care? We will explore how to find the right balance between using and not using technology with home care. This technology may allow your aging parents and loved ones to remain safely at home. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Denise Michaud NOTES MLF: Grownups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone is looking down—but especially kids. There is something unnatural about a 15-month-old using an iPad to soothe him or herself. Many assume this is just the natural progression of our high-tech society. But what if this is causing us harm? And what if children are more vulnerable than adults? Numerous politicians are calling for reining in of the Internet. Is this necessary? Robert Lustig will answer five key questions: Is there such a thing as tech addiction? Is it similar to or different than drug addiction? Does technology lead to depression and suicide? Have our minds been hacked? Are children at more risk? The answers to these questions will provide us with a blueprint to harnessing technology for good. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Patrick O'Reilly NOTES MLF: Psychology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. Today's in-studio guest: Rimi Born in Hyderabad, India, blossomed in Toronto and living in Oakland, Rimi has been on the gender journey proudly with confidence and realness. She has performed at various South Asian queer events through dance forms and poetry, depicting the anguish and eventual liberation of her gender journey, transcending the paths of survival, rejection, isolation and stress. Rimi lives in Oakland, is working in a leadership role at Walmart.com, and leads PRIDE Associate Resource Group as well, driving inclusion for TGNC lives at workplace inclusion. While staying visible and present for TGNC, Rimi finds herself vulnerable and targeted at times. Rimi seeks to have the world to accept transgender identities as equals and as capable individuals

When Norman Eisen moved into the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Prague and returned to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. Looking into the building’s history, Eisen discovered a remarkable story stretching back over 100 years. In his new book, The Last Palace, Eisen tells a captivating tale of the upheavals that transformed Europe over the past century and of four remarkable people who have called the ambassador’s residence home. Otto Petschek, an optimistic Jewish financial baron who built the palace, and Shirley Temple Black, famed child star and U.S. ambassador, both lived there. Eisen dives into the personal and political history that shaped both a country and a continent. Join us for a conversation about history, diplomacy and the triumph of liberal democracy in the face of tr