Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

We are experiencing a moment of profound global transformation, a moment that is causing many of us to deeply examine core aspects of our lives that we once took for granted. What is it like to initiate personal transformation in midlife, whether by choice or through crisis? Three women will share their stories of how they are making midlife one of the most profound and powerful times in their lives. Join us for an intimate conversation and discussion. And learn how to find your purpose and passion in the midst of all the external noise; how to overcome the roadblocks to personal change; and discover the gems of wisdom that can help carry you through it. Barbara Mark, Ph.D., has a deeply held passion for working with women in midlife and has enjoyed a decades-long career as an elite leadership, career and life strategies coach and advisor. She has been brought into the confidence of hundreds of professional women seeking to maintain inner balance while facing diverse external demands, personal ambition, and t

Renowned writer Minna Salami’s work is dedicated to the many complex facets of feminism. She founded the award-winning blog MsAfropolitan to connect the dots between intersectional feminism, African diaspora and contemporary culture. She explores these themes and more in her new book Sensuous Knowledge, a collection of essays that also challenges us to rethink our history with power, beauty and knowledge. Join Salami at INFORUM for a youth-centered conversation on what it means to be a feminist, how youth can navigate gender politics, and how young women can build an empowered future for themselves. This conversation will be moderated by Lena Jennings, Equity Strategist at Google and Cinnamongirl, Inc. mentor. This conversation is a part of the Commonwealth Club’s new focus on civics education and is in partnership with Cinnamongirl Inc., an organization aimed at providing access, experiences and a global mindset, empowering girls to be the visionaries our world needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

Against the backdrop of Senator Kamala Harris’ historic run for president of the United States, The New York Times asked the question “What does this country demand of Black women in politics?” In this discussion, we will dive into the subject with a powerhouse panel of Black women officials and strategists. The conversation will explore the expectations and demands of Black women who take the step into public service. What makes the journey so unique? What makes it challenging and what it will take to clear the final hurdle into the White House? Join San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Emerge California Executive Director Kimberly Ellis, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, and Akonadi Foundation President Lateefah Simon, in conversation with SF Pride President Carolyn Wysinger. NOTES Co-hosted by INFORUM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ambassador Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat and a prominent voice on American foreign policy. He is now in his 17th year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to helping people better understand foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Ambassador Haass previously served as Principal Advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell as well as U.S. Coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and and as U.S envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. He was also special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council. In his 14th and newest book, Ambassador Haass seeks to help us all navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges, including pandemics and terrorism, come from beyond our border. Join an important conversation about what Ambassador Haass calls the new normal of the 21st century and the global liter

The coronavirus pandemic has forced communities to face issues of ethics and human value in the health-care system. The higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 complications in communities of color draw focus once again on institutional inequities in access to health care and on hard questions confronting just paths forward. The Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation’s (NorcalMLK) new Center for Social Impact, Development, and Global Engagement (SIDGE Center) focuses on linking ethics and value as data points to information architectures in health care and IT structures in order to improve equity. Leading ethicists and scholars Dwight Hopkins and Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez will be in conversation with Norcal MLK’s Aaron Grizzell, as they explore thoughts on ethics and value that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us all to confront. MLF ORGANIZER Robert Lee Kilpatrick NOTES MLF: Health & Medicine This program is generously supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiativ

How do tech titans at the top stay on top? According to technology reporter Alex Kantrowitz, it’s by acting like they’re at the bottom. At Amazon, "Day One" is code for inventing like a startup, with little regard for legacy. Day Two is, in Jeff Bezos's words, "stasis, followed by irrelevance . . . then death." Kantrowitz says most companies today are set up for Day Two. They build advantages and defend them fiercely, rather than invent the future. But as he chronicles in his new book, Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever, the tech titans of today remain successful because they are always operating in Day One. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have endured because they prioritize reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership. While these values may seem radical to some, they have proven to be immeasurably successful for major tech giants. But what about those actually at the bottom looking to make a name for themselves? Kantrowitz believes that every

Just as Jacqueline Novogratz’s groundbreaking new book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World makes its way to readers, an international pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the gaping wounds of our era, from a broken health system to climate change and skyrocketing inequality and growing divisiveness. Our inadequate systems and institutions are slumping beneath a host of modern crises. Most urgently, moral leaders are proving a scarce commodity. In America and across the world, an anxious public is hungry for clear, conscientious guidance. The stakes are higher than ever. Please join Jacqueline Novogratz in conversation with Keith Yamashita about how we might use this moment of extreme uncertainty to reimagine our institutions and enact a moral revolution—a revolution of character, moral imagination, moral courage, and leadership that acts for the benefit of all of us. MLF ORGANIZER Elizabeth Carney NOTES MLF: Business & Leadership Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho

Despite all the media attention given to black holes, dark matter and dark energy, astronomy is actually all about the light—the decillions of photons careening around the universe. Join us virtually for a conversation with Alex Filippenko, a Berkeley astrophysicist who works on deciphering, from all that photonic information live-streaming to Earth, what is really going on out there. Filippenko will also share some of the spectacular images from deep space that our technology has been able to construct from the clues left behind by billions of those wandering photons. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I became very good at what I do. When other coaches on the staff would go home at night to their wife and kids, I would stay at the office. I would keep working, keep learning. This helped my career, but I didn't realize the negative effects it would have on my mental health." That's how Matt Lynch described his life hiding his sexuality during his time coaching at UNC-Wilmington. Currently out of work due to the COVID-related layoffs of the coaching staff, Lynch will join us for an online program to discuss his decision to come out publicly as a gay man in an article he wrote for Outsports.com this winter. How did his family respond? How did his players react? How did his school treat him? And what's next for this young coach? Join us for a conversation about being gay in big-time college sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect health and industry, the food that we eat every day has formed a complicated relationship to the crisis. Has social distancing forced us to think more consciously about what and how we cook? Or has panic and misinformation surrounding food safety spread to the masses? The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt joins INFORUM to explore all of the complex facets of this conversation—and, of course, he will do it using science. We will cover topics such as safe grocery store practices, food serving and preparation, false information regarding transmission via food (especially when ordering takeout) and much more. Tune in live as we explore all things food while in quarantine from one of the industry’s most trusted experts. This program is generously supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and a collaborative of local funders and donors. We are grateful for their support and hope others will follow their example to support the Club during these uncertain times. Learn more a

Governor Jerry Brown is no ordinary politician. Like California, he is eclectic, brilliant, unpredictable, and sometimes weird. Join us virtually as Newton explains how Jerry Brown extended, but still radically altered, the legacy of his father, Governor Pat Brown. In his 16 years as governor (from 1975 to 1983 and from 2011 to 2019), Jerry Brown's blend of compassion, far-sightedness, and pragmatism helped restore the California economy, balance the state budget, combat climate change, and defend immigrants' rights. Newton reveals the blueprint of Jerry Brown's offbeat risk taking: equal parts fiscal conservatism and social progressivism. Newton also reveals other sides of Jerry Brown, whose defeat on the national stage did nothing to diminish the scale of his political, intellectual and spiritual ambitions, and whose legacy demonstrates how politics may once again be effective in the future. MLF Organizer: George Hammond MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us virtually for a conversation with David Bodanis, Zooming in from London, to discuss his ideas about how the COVID-19 pandemic will influence the future of the world economy, how Einstein grappled with having made a major mistake in trying to solve a physics problem, how Madame du Chatelet, the French aristocrat and married translator of Newton’s works, partnered on her intellectual pursuits with her lover Voltaire, how electricity was changed from a mere curiosity to a transformational force for civilization, and how he got interested in his latest book project, The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Gone Mean, which is due out in November. Hear a master storyteller describe the power of ideas that transform civilizations. NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone wants the economy to reopen as quickly as possible, but how can we do it while minimizing the risk to our health? The government and independent experts have developed detailed proposals. Many states and localities have eased restrictions without meeting the criteria in these plans. Some see the issue as a tug-of-war between the economy and public health, while others argue that we can’t have one without the other. Two influential health-care leaders from different sides of the political spectrum who have contributed to high-profile re-opening plans will debate how fast we should reopen, what risks are acceptable and how we can minimize them. NOTES In association with The Zetema Project This program is generously supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and a collaborative of local funders and donors. We are grateful for their support and hope others will follow their example to support the Club during these uncertain times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, David Kessler explains how eating refined grains such as wheat, corn and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly impossible to lose it. Worse still is how excess weight creates a very real link to diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline and a host of cancers. We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Informed by cutting-edge research as well as Kessler’s own personal quest to manage his weight, Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs reveals in illuminating detail how we got to this critical turning point in our health as a nation—and outlines a plan for eliminating heart disease, allowing us to finally regain control of our health. Dr. Kessler recently joined Joe Biden’s Public Health Advisory Committee and will also discuss how our collective behavior with be the primary determinant in dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. David Kess

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, care workers, particularly those who work in homes and long-term care residential facilities, have faced some of the biggest challenges among frontline workers during the 2-month crisis. One the one hand, many of the care workers who work in homes have lost their jobs or had their hours massively reduced. On the other hand, workers who have maintained their jobs often have had to jeopardize their own health and the health of their own families by going to work. Meanwhile, many of these jobs don’t have traditional job benefits in the best of times, let alone during one of the most significant public health and economic crises that U.S. workers have had to face in decades. How are care workers facing these challenges during the current pandemic? How can these workers be protected in future disasters? Please join us as we explore these important questions and issues with key leaders in the field. NOTES This program is generously supported by the Blue Shield of California Foundat

Join a panel of passionate former Pride board members who will share their experiences volunteering for the organization as it celebrates its 50 year anniversary this year. Jacquelene Bishop owns and operates her own CPA firm in the East Bay, serving small businesses and their owners. She sat on the Pride board from 2016–2019, serving as the treasurer the first two years and as president the third. Ken Jones joined the Parade in 1980; and served as its first co-chair of outreach, charged with bringing more “traditionally under/non/mis-represented segments of the lesbian and gay communities” into the movement. Early efforts including giving people of color an opportunity to gather and march together as their own contingent and utilizing the Hot Colors Event at the End-up to bring people of color together the night before Pride. He continued with the organization for more than a decade, serving as co-chair and president. Jones presently hosts small groups in an historical walk through the Castro during the 80s

The San Francisco Chronicle entered a new era of restaurant criticism in 2019 when longtime critic Michael Bauer retired and was succeeded by Soleil Ho. Quick to set herself apart from her predecessor, Ho freely mixes thoughts on racism, cultural appropriation and other hot-button topics into her reviews. Her "Racist Sandwich" podcast was nominated for multiple awards, and in 2018 she received the Southern Foodways Alliance Smith Symposium Fellowship and a UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship. Join us for a conversation with a young—and controversial—voice in the Bay Area's boisterous food culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A "blinding flash of the obvious" will be striking The Commonwealth Club. And why do we need it now, so badly? Because, the “new normal” has imprinted itself, on the world, and most people do not know how to adapt successfully. Steven Campbell says that success comes from how we think! He will present an eye-opening look at the latest research on how our brains conform to the messages we give them. When we optimize those messages, he says, our brains will literally rewire themselves, again, to create new, positive ways, of dealing with the challenges we are facing. It's not magic . . . it's science! His key take-aways: First, a practical knowledge of cutting-edge brain research on meeting the challenges of the "new normal," and, second, an understanding of the relationship between your brain and your emotions and how to train them both to your advantage. Campbell acquired his Masters degree—when he was 55—to pursue his greatest love, teaching. He then became a professor, author, and professional speaker. He h

Since the early days of the United States, the country’s leaders have understood that the success of our democratic republic depends on a knowledgeable electorate of citizens who are informed about contemporary issues and who understand how government works. The current pandemic comes at a time when that standard is being threatened by deep partisan divisions, disagreements about the role of federal and state government in citizens’ daily lives, and distrust of political leadership. In the past, when the country faced a crisis of such broad magnitude—the Great Depression, World War II—political leaders were able to use the moment to unify the nation and renew faith in America’s civic structures. Despite our current divisions—already on display as the country debates reopening—can the pandemic and the response to it point to new ways of bringing people together to work for a common good? If so, how can we realize this promise, now and in the future? In particular, what role can a comprehensive civics education

In 2001, when Madeleine Albright was leaving office as America’s first female secretary of state, interviewers asked her how she wished to be remembered. “I don’t want to be remembered,” she answered. “I am still here and have much more I intend to do. As difficult as it might seem, I want every stage of my life to be more exciting than the last.” So she has continued to write, teach, travel, give speeches, start a business, fight for democracy, help empower women, campaign for favored political candidates, and spend more time with her grandchildren. For nearly 20 years, Secretary Albright has been in constant motion. Her new memoir is blunt, intimate, funny, and serious. An excellent basis for a rare, candid visit with one of America’s most memorable and revered public figures. Join us to hear Secretary Albright's outlook on the world . . . past, present and post-COVID. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices