Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

The stories are horrifying and heart-breaking. An 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco died after being violently shoved to the ground during his morning walk. In Oakland, a 91-year-old senior was shoved to the pavement from behind. An 89-year-old Chinese woman was slapped and set on fire by two people in Brooklyn, New York. A stranger on the New York subway slashed a 61-year-old Filipino A...

Join us for an exploration of a side of the Vietnam War that is little known in the United States. Learn about the unexploded ordnances left behind after the United States withdrew from the war, and hear about the "Secret War" in which people from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam fought alongside American troops. Meet the Speakers Sera Koulabdara serves as executive director of Legacies of War, the only...

We'll begin our program sharing war stories from Lao veterans who fought in the secret war. We'll also discuss AB1393, an effort to include Lao history and cultural studies in CA's K-12 curriculum, starting a fish sauce business, and "nung pee"—Lao horror films with the only female film director in Laos. The evening will end with a special performance by Lookthung/Morlam Esan singer Tookta.  Meet...

Dr. Ralph Moss details the origin of cancer immunotherapy and how it disappeared for almost 100 years. Recently, it has been rediscovered and has become one of the most widely used cancer treatments. Inducing fever with compounds of killed viruses, immunotherapy triggers the human immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy generally provides a higher quality of life during t...

One of the final things Abraham Lincoln did on the day of his death was approve legislation that created what would become the Secret Service. Originally created to suppress counterfeit currency, the Secret Service has since become the primary agency to protect prominent politicians and their families. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Secret Service was whipped...

If corporations can be legal persons, why can’t Mother Earth?  In 2017, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River the full legal rights of a person. India also recently granted full legal rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, and recognized that the Himalayan Glaciers have a right to exist. In 2019, the city of Toledo passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights with 61 percent of the vote, but then a year...

Join us for a virtual discussion with the three co-authors of Framers, which focuses on the essential tool that can enable humanity to find its way through the challenges of pandemics, populism, AI, ISIS, wealth inequity, climate change, and other worldwide problems that threaten our current civilizations. To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to see patterns, predict how things will...

The East Bay Sanctuary was organized in 1982 to assist refugees fleeing the terrible violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America. While refugees from El Salvador and Honduras were fleeing, mainly political persecution, the vast majority of Guatemalan refugees were Maya, fleeing persecution on account of their race. More than 200,000 Maya fled into Mexico at the height of the violence, and...

Many critics and patients agree: The American health-care system is broken. They say the quality is poor, the cost is high and the system has a dominant disease-care orientation. "I would like to tell you that 21st century medicine should be about wellness and how we can get there," says Dr. Leroy Hood. "I have a vision of a data-driven health-care system where we can follow the health trajectory...

Two new mothers, a murder, and a question about crime: in her new thrilling debut novel A Good Mother, law professor Lara Bazelon examines the intricacies of motherhood, the legal system, and moral obligation. As a writer, attorney and mother herself, Lara Bazelon writes about crime, love, work and family with a voice that wonders what is right and fair for all. When a soldier is found dead at a U...

This is a condensed Commonwealth Club week in review. Hear what you missed this week, and what we’ve got lined up for you next week. We’re always adding new programs - check out commonwealthclub.org/online for all of our upcoming events. If you haven’t already - please consider becoming a member of the Club. Enjoy exclusive discounts and access to special programs all while knowing your contributi...

Distinguished political analyst John Judis returns to The Commonwealth Club for a timely discussion on the major political issues that have shaped America's tumultuous last decade and can be seen around the world. Over the past five years, Judis has written three books—The Populist Explosion in 2016, The Nationalist Revival in 2018, and The Socialist Awakening in 2020—that have charted the rise of...

Scott Foglesong says this program will be coverage of a potpourri (talk and music) of "pieces that have a particular gift of providing comfort and making us happy. Of course that’s quite subjective, and I’ll be selecting stuff that makes me happy. But my tastes aren’t particularly esoteric, and with any luck there will be something in here for everybody. What can make a piece of music a source of...

Mapping has emerged as a powerful tool for helping humans combat climate disruption. Technology for measuring the totality of global carbon emissions, for example, is highly refined: we know that half of all the carbon pollution humans have dumped into the sky has happened in just the last three decades. But understanding the specific sources of those emissions at the scale of factories or communi...

After the rollercoaster eyes-glued-to-Twitter ride of the Trump years, the nation is now in the Biden-Harris era. Joe Biden came to office promising a return to normalcy as he tackled the country's problems, even as he offered up something in dramatic contrast to his predecessor: He would make policy while being boring.  Has he delivered? Is it an improvement, or does the job of the presidency req...

In a special program co-presented with the Climate Reality Project Bay Area Chapter, join us for an up-close and personal talk with Jim Warne of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Nation about the history of Native Americans and the work of building relationships with native communities to produce effective climate progress. The multitalented Warne is a motivational speaker, president of Warrior Society De...

Join us for this special program in The Commonwealth Club's series recognizing recipients of The Club's Distinguished Citizen Award. Tonight's honorees are committed to the improvement of mental health in the Bay Area and the nation. This program will particularly honor the work of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), for its innovation in mental health, and will salute UCSF Health...

Irregular sleep schedules, smoking cigarettes, skipping meals, procrastination: common bad habits and vices can seem nearly impossible to break. “Quick fixes” to ending unhealthy cycles are rarely backed by scientific evidence, making the process of retraining your brain more difficult and frustrating. Neuroscientist Russell Poldrack, however, conjectures that the brain is a habit-building machine...

Join us for a timely conversation with Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne on how the pandemic has catalyzed change in higher education and how universities can help define new ways of working together to solve our great challenges. The pandemic has magnified our social and economic challenges. As we move into a post-COVID world, President Tessier-Lavigne believes that universities...

The economic opportunities available to citizens in rural America have become an issue of increasing national interest and focus. Since the 2016 presidential election, policymakers and politicians from across the political spectrum have tried to understand the unique economic and workforce needs of rural communities and workers at this critical time in American history. Throughout the pandemic, ma...

Dr. Keynoush, who earned her Ph. D. from Tufts University, has conducted research in the Near East for 2 decades. She has contributed to the Commonwealth Club's Member-led Middle East Forum, as has Jonathan Curiel, today's moderator, a journalist and author. They will talk about about her latest book, Iran's Interregional Dynamics in the Near East, about how Iran was less successful in expanding r...

This is your Commonwealth Club week in review. Hear what you missed this week, and what we’ve got lined up for you next week. We’re always adding new programs - check out commonwealthclub.org/online for all of our upcoming events. If you haven’t already - please consider becoming a member of the Club. Enjoy exclusive discounts and access to special programs all while knowing your contributions dir...

Corporations and their boards are under great pressure these days. Scandals and malpractice at companies like Theranos, WeWork, and Uber have raised questions among regulators, shareholders and the public about the quality of corporate governance. Renowned global economist and veteran board director Dambisa Moyo argues that corporations need boards that are more transparent, more knowledgeable, mo...

Food processing isn’t listed on the nutrition facts food label. The label tells you what’s in the food. Critics say this is mostly irrelevant—what you really need to know is what’s been done to the food, and no label tells you that. In this program, Dr. Robert Lustig will expllain nutrition and food science. He says that essentially, all you need to know are two precepts, six words total: 1) prote...

What motivates the activists? Grassroots activism can take many forms, from protests to letter-writing to citizen science to community organizing. But these often more local forms of activism can get short shrift compared to the more powerful, national players in climate and environmental movements. Nick Mullins, a former fifth-generation coal miner, grew up seeing multiple generations of his fami...