Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

“There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”  —David Brooks Really knowing another person is not something people seem to do well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. David Brooks set out to help people do better, posing questions that are essential: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to? Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. He brings that message to The Commonwealth Club, to help people become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the j

As government officials, diplomats and business leaders from across the Asia-Pacific converge in San Francisco for APEC 2023 Leaders Week, the question on everyone’s lips is: What next for the U.S.-China relationship? Amid the climate crisis, which necessitates urgent energy transition, how do the two largest economies work together against the backdrop of geopolitical tension? Where does California—the world’s fifth largest economy, a green energy leader and oriented toward Asia across the Pacific—fit in? Governor Gavin Newsom’s October trip to China underscored the critical relationship between the Golden State and China. California has many trade, technology development, and business relationships with China related to clean energy. At the same time, the United States is broadly looking to reduce reliance on China for products, talent and innovations through many policy incentives for local content and domestic manufacturing and broader policy efforts. How will this trend of localization play out in Califo

Colleges and universities across the country are the scenes of controversy these days, with students, faculty, lawmakers and donors all seemingly locked in high-volume debate over campus rights, free speech, human rights and international conflicts. Almost every institution of higher education touts its ability to set its graduates on a course for successful careers in their desired fields. Also high on the list of their brags are the cultural life and sports teams on campus. But colleges and universities have also played important roles in the curation and development of values in our society. Whether they are religious or secular institutions, public or private, their graduates go out into the world not only armed with job skills and networks of friends but also having been exposed to values instruction in many ways. Sometimes our colleges and universities are out of step with the rest of the country in terms of the nation's values; other times, they preserve and deepen values that most Americans hold dear.

One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources – and we spend so much of our time at work – changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transition from dirty jobs to clean? What do climate positive job transitions really entail?  Guests:  Caroline Dennett, Director, CLOUT Ltd Arvind Ravikumar, Co-Director, Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab, University of Texas, Austin Jennifer Anderson, Carbon Removal Geologist, Charm Industrial Emma McConville, Development Geoscience Lead at Fervo Energy Nathanael Johnson, Electrician For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Special Program for Families 家族向け特別プログラム “This is what we did. How did it happen? How could we?” – Dorothea Lange 「これが私たちがやったことです。なぜこのようなことが起きたのか？なぜこのようなことができたのか？」―ラング·ドロティア Fueled by racist fears and wartime hysteria, the U.S. government incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945, many of them families with children. Allowed to bring only what they could carry, the internees were removed from their homes and forced to live under armed guard in makeshift camps, treated with suspicion and hostility; imprisoned without evidence of any crime. Inflated claims of national security risks justified these actions and carefully curated images hid the truth; even today, the story is not well known.  人種差別的な恐れと戦時のヒステリ-に駆られて、1942年から1945年までに、アメリカ政府は12万人以上の日系アメリカ人を収容しました。その多くは子供を含む家族でした。彼らは手にもてるものしか持参できず、自宅から引き離され、武装警備の下で仮設キャンプで生活するよう強制されました。彼らは疑念と敵意をもって扱われ、犯罪の証拠もないのに収監されました。国家安全保障のリスクの主張がこれらの行動を正当化し、慎重に作られたイメージにより真実が隠されました。今日に至るまで、この事実はあまりよく知られていません。 In her new book for young readers, Elizabeth P

We've all been through a lot in the past five years, but it's difficult to figure out what it all means, and how it applies to our shared existence in this democratic experiment. Heather Cox Richardson aims to remedy that.  As a historian she has been examining and explaining modern events aided by her deep understanding of history and insight into the forces working for and against democracy. In her new book Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson looks at the state of American democracy and the forces that have been driving it toward authoritarianism. In whose interest is the obfuscation of history? Who benefits if Americans are turned off or prevented from taking part in democratic acts? Who and what can help change things and rededicate this country to its founding ideals? Join us in person as she explains how we got to this perilous point, what our history tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 22, 1963, the visual images of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, arguably the most significant crime in modern day history, were seared into the permanent memories of many who were then young adults, teens or children and have continued through the ages for those who have become obsessed with the president’s death. Sixty years later, the yearning for better answers to the questions why and how continues to produce many absurd new speculations and theories to explain his death. Any detailed review of the evidence in the Warren Commission Report raises so many valid questions that ever since it was issued it has been attacked and undermined, both rationally and irrationally. But in recent years, Mark Shaw says clear answers have emerged through the eyes of Dorothy Kilgallen, the most credible journalist to cover the assassination, in fact, the only one who interviewed Jack Ruby at his 1964 trial. Based on her investigation, and his research, bestselling author Mark Shaw (The Reporter W

Cancel culture—the term and the practice—has left its mark on American culture, business, academia and society at all levels over the past few years. Was it inevitable? Is it permanent? Or is it, as authors Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott argue, a dysfunctional part of how Americans battle for power, status and dominance? They say it is just a symptom of a much larger problem: the use of cheap rhetorical tactics to "win" arguments without actually winning arguments. Drawing on data and research on the phenomenon of cancel culture and how it works, along with many examples of how both the left and the right use it to silence their enemies, Lukianoff and Schlott have concrete steps to offer that they say can reclaim a free speech culture in every realm. Lukianoff and Schlott, authors of the bestselling Coddling of the American Mind, return with their new book The Canceling of the American Mind. Join us to hear their description of cancel culture and their prescription for curing it. NOTES All in-person attende

Climate affects everyone, but not equally. Those affected first and worst are often the same communities that suffer from housing and income inequality, and climate and societal injustice. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. has made striving for social, economic, and climate justice his lifelong pursuit. Rising to prominence in the Hip Hop community, Yearwood brought like-minded artists and creatives together to advocate for justice with the Hip Hop Caucus by harnessing the power of film, podcasts and comedy. We discuss the role of his faith, his partnership with billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and the underlying belief in our human ability to keep improving that drives his activism. Guests:  Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus Jacqueline Patterson, Executive Director, Chisholm Legacy Project For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Arts Member-led Forum and San Francisco Opera’s Department of Diversity, Equity and Community invite you to a powerful and thought-provoking panel discussion. As home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, the Bay Area might have special interest in the 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner for music, Omar, by Grammy Award-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens and composer Michael Abels.The production runs November 5–21 at the War Memorial Opera House. A true story of an astonishing journey enshrined in a 200-year-old autobiography of enslaved Islamic scholar Omar Ibn Said in the Carolinas, who publicly records his story in Arabic—evidencing the act of writing as the preservation of identity. Omar is a sweeping canvas of text, Christian and Islamic faith, profoundly realized in Kaneza Schaal’s transcendent production embodying the horrors of the “Middle Passage,” prison life, plantation traumas and creative human spirit. MLF ORGANIZER: Anne W. Smith An Arts Member-led Forum program. Forums at the C

Take a walk on the warped side with this in-person program featuring stars in their respective fields. The new book The Warped Side of Our Universe is the result of the collaboration of Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne and award-winning artist Lia Halloran. It brings to vivid life the wonders and wildness of our universe’s “Warped Side”―objects and phenomena made from warped space and time, from colliding black holes and collapsing wormholes to twisting space vortices and down-cascading time. Through poetic verse and otherworldly paintings, the scientist and the artist explicate Thorne’s and his colleagues’ astrophysical discoveries and speculations, with an epic narrative that asks: How did the universe begin? Can anything travel backward in time? And what weird and marvelous phenomena inhabit the "warped side"? In their book, Thorne and Halloran take readers on an Odyssean voyage using epic verse and more than 100 pulsating paintings to shed light on time travel, black holes, gravitational waves and the birth of t

We constantly hear about cybercrime in the news, but do you have the knowledge to protect yourself from it?  In this talk, information security expert Dr. Carrie Gates will cover the clues that can alert you to something being a scam, along with some of the common types of attacks, such as phishing, smishing and vishing. Dr. Gates joined Bank of America in October 2018 as a senior vice president in global information security. She has established a research program, working in partnership with universities, to pursue longer-term, higher-risk research in the security space that has the potential to improve the bank’s security posture. Her current portfolio includes broad investigations into audio deep fakes, misinformation, smishing, and adversarial machine learning. Previously, Gates has worked at a start-up as a distinguished engineer for both Dell and CA Technologies, and with CERT at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting her research career, she was the systems manager for the Faculty of Computer S

Join us in-person for a Halloween edition of our political discussion series. At Week to Week, we're dedicated to the lively and informed discussion of politics—with a good sense of humor—as a platform for healthy involvement in the issues that drive our society. The Commonwealth Club's Week to Week Political Roundtable and social hour, now in its 12th year, will take a look at the politics of the day—the issues, the people, and the trends affecting our political world. See other upcoming Week to Week political roundtables, as well as audio and video of past Week to Week programs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The popular image of Edgar Allan Poe is that of a sickly, gloomy, dour fellow obsessed with all things eerie and terrifying. Tragically, both for his personal life and because it reinforced this literary myth, Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. The literary effect of his untimely death was also compounded by the mystery of what happened to him, during the three days he went missing, before he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own. There has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of his death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are based on the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit has been examining hope and the unpredictability of change for over 20 years. In 2023 she co-edited an anthology called, “It’s Not Too Late,” which serves as a guidebook for changing the climate narrative from despair to possibility. How can we find hope on a warming planet? Guests:  Rebecca Solnit, Writer, Historian, Activist For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The last five decades have seen the dramatic globalization of organized crime and corruption, now totaling trillions of dollars every year. Using the latest technology and the help of a “criminal services industry” — corrupt bankers, lawyers, accountants—criminal networks and the world’s most corrupt officials easily loot, launder, and hide stolen money for future use. This stolen, hidden money pours into the political process in the United States and countries around the world to advance agendas that do not serve voters, betraying the very premise of democracy.  To fight this, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project co-founders Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu built a global network of investigative journalists that work just like the criminals do—collaborating across borders and using innovative technology. Pulling from their two decades of follow-the-money investigative reporting, Sullivan and Radu will share how they’ve uncovered global dark money flows and how to institute effective solutions that tr

“Country music is the people’s music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.” —Faith Hill Miko Marks and Tookta Topline are two women who have both embraced and recoiled from the major music scenes in Nashville and Thailand before finding their true voices in San Francisco. Join us for a night of musical performance and conversation about how race and sexuality challenge what we think about country music. Revel in their musical talent while exploring each of their journeys as immensely talented musicians who don’t fit the industry mold. This immersive experience will make use of The Commonwealth Club as an intimate, limited-capacity music venue for one night only! Delicious bites and drinks will be served as you mingle and engage directly with our artists. About the Artists Miko deftly blends country, blues, southern rock and even gospel to create a sound and experience that has literally brought every audience to its feet. Miko’s life as a Black woman in count

Will 2024 be America's last free and fair election?  That ominous warning comes from Stuart Stevens, a former chief Republican strategist whose clients included President George W. Bush; Senators Chuck Grassley, Dick Lugar and Dan Coats; and Governors Haley Barbour, John Kyl, Bill Weld and many others. He says the GOP is dragging our country toward autocracy, and the party is no longer a "normal" political party in the American tradition. Rather, he says it is an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As the Republican party changed, Stevens exited his role in one of the country's most influential political strategy firms and joined the Lincoln Project, where he is currently an advisor. Stevens wrote about his fear for the country in his provocative new book, The Conspiracy to End America. In it, he reviews the elements that are necessary for democracies to slide into autocracy, and he examines each of these forces on the modern American right and how they are working together. Are these the l

Think you know San Francisco and the rest of California? Think again. Two new books, Oldest San Francisco, and Secret California: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure, will inspire you to seek out spots even locals will be surprised to learn about and inspired to visit. Oldest San Francisco, by Alec Scott, draws a picture of the sudden city that exploded in the Gold Rush. It tells the stories of the longtime institutions that have made the City by the Bay distinctive, visiting the oldest: bakery (Boudin), bike shop (American Cyclery). and brewery (Anchor, whose struggle to survive will be discussed). Scott speaks of civic fabrics―the oldest blue jeans and first rainbow flag―and even the oldest public affairs forum in the country (yes, The Commonwealth Club). Together the stories distill the ebullient, entrepreneurial spirit of San Francisco. Secret California: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure, by Ruth Carlson, invites you to enter a live fairytale with aerial dancers, opera singers and a hug

Throughout his career, Rajiv J. Shah has tackled some of the world’s most intractable challenges head on. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Shah played an integral role in the colossal effort to vaccinate 900 million children. At the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under President Obama, he led the U.S. response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic, served on the National Security Council, and elevated the role of development as part of our nation’s foreign policy. Now, as president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Shah oversees the global institution in its mission to promote the well-being of humanity around the world. His approach to tackling some of the biggest humanitarian efforts of the 21st century? A "big bets" philosophy—the idea that seeking ambitious solutions rather than making incremental improvements can attract the unlikely partners with the power and know-how to achieve results. His debut book, Big Bets, offers a masterclass in approaching