Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

With the recent appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the balance on the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted fundamentally toward the conservatives, and a series of precedent-breaking decisions issued during the 2022 session confirms it. The implications of the Dodd decision alone are far reaching for individual rights, not to mention those cases that focus on the government’s ability to regulate policy in areas like immigration, the environment, the separation of church and state, and gun safety. In many respects, the court majority's ideological shift to an originalist approach to constitutional interpretation has upset the balance of power and redrawn the traditional lines separating the three branches of government in our democracy.   As the court opens its fall session, Dean Chemerinsky will discuss the new justices and these recent decisions as well as upcoming cases before the court which address critical issues like affirmative action and the independence of state legislature

Ruha Benjamin has been called one of the country's most insightful scholars on issues related to race, technology and justice. In her new book, Viral Justice, Benjamin explores—in a very personal way—two social issues that have received extensive attention over the past two years: police violence and the pandemic of COVID-19. For Prof. Benjamin, these two issues existed in tandem for a reason: they are both public health crises that festered and continue to fester because they are both built on unjust systems. Benjamin examines the converging plagues of COVID-19 and police violence, mapping the multiple routes through which racism gets under the skin. Recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin illuminates the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, the trauma caused by mass imprisonment, and the vast inequities of our nation’s health-care system. As she channels her own life story, she also offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how seemingly minor decis

In a democracy, meaningful change often requires adapting views and building coalitions. Some believe finding common ground and building rapport is the best way to change minds. Others believe activism and protests are key to raising awareness. Increasingly, however, the acts of listening and persuasion are left out, as each side is convinced that the other is unmovable.  Anand Giridharadas is a journalist, columnist, on-air political analyst, and author. His latest book, The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy, explores how the tactics of persuasion can help strengthen democracy and foster positive societal change. Guests: Anand Giridharadas, Journalist, Author, The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reza Aslan is a leading expert in world religions and his bestselling books have touched on a range of issues related to history, extremism and spirituality. His latest work, An American Martyr in Persia, challenges us to look at how seriously we take our ideals of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support. Aslan illuminates these issues by exploring the real-story of Howard Baskerville, a 22-year-old Christian missionary from South Dakota who traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1907 for a two-year stint teaching English and preaching the gospel. Baskerville arrived in the midst of a democratic revolution led by a group of brilliant young firebrands committed to transforming their country into a fully self-determining, constitutional monarchy, one with free elections and an independent parliament. In death, Baskerville became a martyr who spurred the revolutionaries to remove the shah from power, signing a new constitution and rebuilding parliament in Tehran. At this critical time when many

Who is Donald Trump? In her highly anticipated new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman chronicles his life from his rise in New York City to the White House. Join us as Haberman discusses what she learned during interviews with hundreds of sources as well as numerous interviews over the years with Donald Trump himself, a man she says is both a complicated and often contradictory historical figure who pushed American democracy to the brink. This is an important political event you won’t want to miss. SPEAKERS Maggie Haberman Senior Political Reporter, The New York Times; Author, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America; Twitter @maggieNYT (Haberman will be participating remotely) In Conversation with Tim Miller Writer-at-large, The Bulwark; Author, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell; Twitter @timodc In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are curr

Over the last several years, the COVID-19 global pandemic has helped illustrate to the nation that we are only as healthy as those who are most vulnerable among us. Disparities impacting a person’s health ultimately also impact the health of our larger society. Many of these disparities have deeply rooted causes that stem from unjust policies and programs across the country. This session in our Humankindness and Health Justice series will focus on social justice as a form of health justice, addressing these deeply rooted issues and beliefs that created downstream impacts on the health of our communities.  Join us for a conversation on ways to start identifying and ending challenges that foster disparities in our communities. The conversation will feature the Honorable Willie L. Brown, Jr. former California assembly speaker, mayor of San Francisco, and long-time social justice advocate. Also joining in on the conversation is Dawn Porter, award-winning and Emmy-nominated social justice documentarian. Moderating

Adam Hochschild returns to The Commonwealth Club with his revelatory new account of a pivotal but neglected period in American history: World War I and its stormy aftermath, when bloodshed and repression on the home front nearly doomed American democracy. The nation was on the brink. Angry mobs burned Black churches to the ground and chased down pacifists and immigrants. Well over a thousand men and women were jailed solely for what they had written or said, even in private. An astonishing 250,000 people joined a nationwide vigilante group—sponsored by the Department of Justice. This was America during and after the Great War: a brief but appalling era blighted by torture, censorship, and killings. Hochschild brings to life this troubled period, which stretched from 1917 to 1921, through the interwoven tales of some well-known characters, like the sphinxlike Woodrow Wilson and the ambitious young bureaucrat J. Edgar Hoover, and of other less-familiar characters, like the fiery antiwar advocate Kate Richards O

Last year, drug-related overdoses killed more people than COVID-19 in San Francisco, and Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Fentanyl and COVID-19 have only fueled our overdose crisis. While addressing this might seem overwhelming, we can respond in practical and evidence-based ways. Come learn how we can address this crisis with solutions that might surprise you from San Francisco General Hospital's Addiction Care Team director. How can M&Ms help stem the crisis? What is a patient navigator? How do we change the experience of people who use drugs in the hospital? Dr. Marlene Martin will address these issues. Our speaker, Dr. Marlene Martin, M.D., is an associate professor of clinical medicine at UCSF and a hospitalist at San Francisco General Hospital. Dr. Martin is the director of addiction initiatives for the UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence and founded and directs the Addiction Care Team (ACT), an interprofessional consultation service that provides compassionate person-cen

Women are breaking through the tired and hurtful stereotypes of aging to better reflect who they are, how they live, and what they want as they age. Who hasn't heard the stereotypes about women of a "certain age?" That's the age when women become invisible, irrelevant, undesirable, asexual, unhinged, dried-up, hormonal messes. It's when women quickly slide into fragility and become forgetful, passive, weak, feeble, debilitated, disabled, dependent and depressed. Or so the story goes. Not only are those outdated narratives sexist and ageist, they are also damaging to women's physical, emotional, financial, romantic and sexual health. It's time to change them. In Not too Old for That, Vicki Larson helps change the narrative about being a woman at midlife and older. She questions what we've been told aging would be like and encourages us to instead ask ourselves, What do we want it to be like? And how can we get there? She says the key is to be curious, open-minded, and intentional about the ways we are becoming

Join us for an online conversation with the author of a striking and remarkable literary memoir about one family’s transformation, with almost all of them embracing their queer identities. It might sound like a sitcom plot, but for Jessi Hempel, it's a true story. Jessi Hempel was raised in a picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her lawyer-father was constantly away from home, traveling for work, while her stay-at-home mother became increasingly lonely and erratic. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and

Twenty of the world’s richest countries – mostly in the Global North – are responsible for 80 percent of the carbon pollution that’s driving extreme weather and supercharging natural disasters. Yet poorer countries in the Global South are experiencing climate-induced disasters first and worst. Wealthier and whiter countries in the Global North are being hit by climate disruption as well, but they also have more resources to adapt. We talk with two award-winning journalists, one from each hemisphere, about covering climate change in their part of the world and bridging the disconnect that exists between North and South. Guests:  Lauren Sommer, Reporter, NPR Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Reporter for The Guardian, Host of An Impossible Choice.  For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From microwaves to missiles, smartphones to the stock market, our world is increasingly dependent on microchip technology. According to Chris Miller, microchips are the new oil, a critical resource that defines the current state of military, economic and geopolitical power. At the heart of the decades-long battle over control of this technology are the United States and China, two superpowers engaging in a war that puts America’s economic prosperity at risk.  In Chip War, Miller provides a comprehensive analysis of the semiconductor chip and its impact on national security and international economics. Tracing the global history of microchips, he recounts the fascinating events that enabled the United States to perfect the chip design, and the role that faster chips played in America’s Cold War victory over the Soviet Union. As Miller reveals, the United States once dominated advancements in microchips, but now, China is investing billions into a chip-building initiative to bridge the gap, leading to a power c

Since 18th century and pre-Constitution America, libraries have been a public space, a central repository where books could be borrowed, read and returned—a long defended democratic ideal of the public library. The nonprofit Internet Archive, founded in 1996, was built to be both the library of the Internet and the library on the Internet—a grand repository of knowledge. Its mission: universal access to all knowledge through the networked reach of the Internet, which allows the Archive to serve as a loc­­­al library for users with a browser anywhere. During the global COVID pandemic closures of public libraries and schools in 2020, the Internet Archive created the  National Emergency Library  to provide digitized books to students and the public. This changed the one book/one person model of lending. Subsequent lawsuits and responses have led to current federal court cases, led by major publishers, contending that controlled digital lending means “willful mass copyright infringement.” Countersuits filed and c

The new Netflix miniseries Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is one of the streaming service's most popular hits all around the world, telling the horrific story of the serial killer who preyed upon young men from 1978 to 1991. Join us for a discussion of how racism and xenophobia played a role in the Jeffrey Dahmer case. Some of his victims might be alive today if police had listened to Glenda Cleveland, the neighbor who tried to warn police about Dahmer. We'll also explore representation, authenticity, and why it matters in telling traumatic stories. About the SpeakersNicole Childress: Nicole was with her cousin Sandra Smith, who is the daughter of the late Glenda Cleveland, when they found one of Jeffery Dahmer's victims. They called police—who then returned the victim back to Dahmer. Childress, a.k.a. Cola Styles, is the CEO of Beauty Intellect and the author of Cola Styles: The Good, Bad & Ugly. She calls herself a true expert on faith, hair, hair composition, hair maintenance and creativity. She

Poland is rapidly becoming the linchpin of the Western effort to defend Ukraine and deter Russia. The Polish-Ukrainian border, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February, is a hub of activity. With refugees from Ukraine flowing back and forth and military equipment being transferred in to help the Ukrainian war effort along with aid for Ukraine's people, Poland has taken a leadership role in Europe and the West, stepping up to both welcome its neighbors and help defend them against Russia's aggression. As the war drags on into fall, The Commonwealth Club of California is honored to welcome His Excellency Marek Magierowski, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Republic of Poland to the United States, to discuss the current situation on Poland's border with Ukraine and the strategic considerations for Poland, the EU, and the NATO alliance. Ambassador Magierowski was appointed to Washington, D.C., in November 2021 after previously serving as Poland's ambassador to Israel and in the Mi

Humanities West presents a performance, and an elucidation, of Mozart’s String Quintet in G minor, K. 516, composed in Vienna in 1787. It is widely considered to be among Mozart's greatest and most tragic works. But the Quintet is not only “tragic”; it is a “tragedy” in the mode of the ancient Greeks: the enactment of the story of a hero who meets a catastrophic fate. Mozart scholar Steve Machtinger will demonstrate how Mozart imbued the work with musical symbols that convey its tragic narrative. The program will include a live performance by the Hatzfeld Quintet of all four movements of Mozart’s String Quintet in G minor.  MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond SPEAKERS Steve Machtinger Attorney; Violist; Independent Mozart Scholar Musical performance by the Hatzfeld Quintet: Monika Gruber and Emanuela Nikiforova, Violins; Steve Machtinger and Jennifer Sills, Violas; and Louella Hasbun, Cello George Hammond Author, Conversations With Socrates In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our li

Young people's voices are an integral part of our democracy. Yet Gen Z and Millennial voters consistently turn out at lower rates than older generations. To inspire youth civic engagement, the Associated Students of the University of California Vote Coalition, Berkeley Women in Politics, and The Commonwealth Club have proudly launched a first-of-its kind partnership: the Creating Citizens Speaker Series at UC Berkeley. This speaker series will give UC Berkeley students and community members the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of leading minds in politics, media and education as they learn how to become better, more involved citizens. As the home of decades of activism and civic engagement, Berkeley is the perfect environment for this dialogue to occur. Our inaugural program will feature California Attorney General Rob Bonta, plus a panel of impressive political thinkers discussing the importance of voting and civic engagement, particularly in 2022. Accomplished individuals from across the political

The Paris Agreement requires every country to declare their own nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, for reducing emissions. Last year at COP26 in Glasgow, it became clear that even the updated targets would – at best – limit warming to 2.4°C, almost a full degree above the 1.5° goal. But even more important than goals or promises is how every country turns policy into reality. This year’s COP27, hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt, is being framed as “the implementation COP,” where the stated goal is to move from negotiations to action. In this special episode, Climate One Host Greg Dalton speaks one-on-one with Egyptian Ambassador and Special Representative of the COP27 President, Wael Aboulmagd, about how Egypt plans to close the gap between promises and implementation.  Guest:  Wael Aboulmagd, Egyptian Ambassador, Special Representative of the COP27 President For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, scientists and activists have called for action to slow the pace of global warming. The political process has struggled and largely failed to keep up with the growing climate crisis. But through annual summits known as the United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP, countries have finally started to commit to reducing their emissions. At last year’s climate summit, nations that make up about two thirds of the global economy committed to reducing emissions enough to try to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees celsius.  At this year’s 27th COP in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, central questions will focus on how to pay for climate adaptation and mitigation. And, since the world’s 20 biggest economies are responsible for 80% of all climate disrupting emissions, how much money do those nations owe poorer countries suffering from a problem they didn’t create? Guests: Jonathan Pershing, Former Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State Omnia El Omrani, COP 27 Youth Envoy Ambassador Wael A

For visionary businessman and AOL founder Steve Case, great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere and can thrive with the proper support and investment. At a time when America's economy is undergoing fundamental shifts on several fronts, entrepreneurs are obviously essential to America's future. Back in 2014, Case helped the country prepare for this moment with the launch of Rise of the Rest, an effort to inspire entrepreneurs across the country to build successful startups. Case reviews the impact of his effort, and how communities large and small nationwide are reinventing the American landscape. Case explores entrepreneurial efforts in 43 cities across the country, where individuals from all walks of life are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs. Through these inspirational, close-up stories, Case uncovers a path toward a more innovative and inclusive America. Join us as Case explains how startup communities can bring people together around a shared future and redefi