KQED's Forum

A chipped skateboard — one where a piece has come off the nose or tail — is the symbol of a boarder who is dedicated to their deck, held together by nothing but grip tape. It’s also a metaphor for lessons learned, observes José Vadi in his new memoir, “Chipped.” “No matter the age, being a skateboarder lends itself to caustic stares from passersby,” he writes. Vadi delves into skate culture, from...

To USC professor Todd Boyd, hip hop has so permeated American life that what was once a musical subculture now informs entertainment, fashion, sports and politics. In his recent book, “Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip Hop Made The World,” Professor Boyd – also known as the Notorious PhD – traces the genre over the last 50 years from its humble beginnings in the Bronx, to its west coast ascent in the 1990s...

This November San Francisco voters will get to decide whether to give London Breed another four years as mayor. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with how Breed has handled crime and homelessness, and her political weakness has invited several strong challengers into the race, from the political left, right and middle. Board of Supervisors’ President Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Asha Safaí, philanthr...

There was a time when being a DJ meant hauling heavy crates of vinyl LPs, sound equipment and lights from one gig to the next. Now with a computer and a portable speaker, you can make any gathering a party. But just because you can make a playlist doesn’t mean you are a real DJ. To actually spin records and put together memorable sets requires skill, practice and talent. We’ll talk to the founder...

Polls this month suggest that between 9 and 12 percent of Americans support independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But it’s unclear whether in a general election he and his California-based running mate Nicole Shanahan would draw more votes away from President Biden or Donald Trump. Kennedy, who’s gained political visibility as an anti-vaccine activist and anti-institutionalist,...

Stanford women’s basketball coach, Tara VanDerveer – the winningest coach in the history of college basketball – has announced she’s retiring after 45 years leading the epic team. The news comes after a breakthrough NCAA women’s basketball season in which the women’s championship game drew a bigger television audience than the men’s title game for the first time. We’ll talk about VanDerveer’s achi...

“The quiet cousin, the rowdy daughter, the bookish aunt, the brash sister. Some are short and busy; others tall, quiet and stately,” writes environmental historian Daniel Lewis. He’s not talking about family members, though. He’s describing trees. In his new book “Twelve Trees,” Lewis urges us to look at trees with empathy and to understand them as beings with history and purpose. We’ll talk to Le...

Constitutional law professor Maxwell Stearns doesn’t think the U.S. is headed for a constitutional crisis…he thinks we’re already deeply in one. And it’s our constitution itself that’s a big part of the problem. In his new book, Parliamentary America, he maps a way out of the crisis, calling for the country to adopt a parliamentary system of government, like most other democracies in the world. As...

President Biden called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “unacceptable” during a call last week with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said an immediate ceasefire was essential to protect innocent civilians, according to a White House statement. But the White House also reaffirmed its support for Israel and has not slowed military aid, approving new bomb shipments on the day that Israeli...

“I wish the moment of love in our lives more closely resembled the grace of a ballerina, but no, love mainly tromps and plops, falls over and tiptoes through our lives,” writes Anne Lamott in her newest book “Somehow: Thoughts on Love.” Lamott, a long time Marin County resident, has always been frank about the messy parts of her life from parenthood to addiction. We’ll talk with her about how and...

Reversing pandemic-era admission policies, more universities, including MIT, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown, are again requiring that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores. Research has shown that high scores on the tests are a good predictor of college success, and proponents say that the tests are a more equitable metric than a student’s GPA. In California, public colleges – including the UCs and Cal S...

Beyoncé’s new album, “Cowboy Carter,” pays tribute to country music’s greats while reflecting on her own connection to the genre. As she sings on the opening track, “Used to say I spoke ‘too country’ / And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ‘nough.” That rejection reflects the gatekeeping that’s long plagued country music – gatekeeping that determines who gets to be American and whose ‘coun...

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the performing arts world, comedian Kristina Wong found herself adrift. But dozens of frantic calls and one Facebook group later, she was overseeing a network of volunteers – the Auntie Sewing Squad – that churned out hundreds of thousands of homemade masks for those in need. The acts of service and communal care she guided and found are the inspiration for her...

Can you think of a seven-letter word for “complex character?” If your mind flows to “Oedipus,” you’re probably comfortable among the wonderful, nerdy world of crossword puzzle fanatics. Anna Shechtman has been making crosswords since she was 15, drawn to the idea that through riddles and puns a puzzle constructor can access “something foundational about language — a quasi mathematical code that co...

Traveling across one of the bay’s many bridges, it’s normal to see a massive container ship heading to port or back out to sea. The recent crash of a cargo vessel into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge, an accident which killed six people and spilled thousands of gallons of oil, might lead you to ask: could that happen here? For example, in 2007, a container ship hit a Bay Bridge tower, which s...

The specter of the opioid epidemic has shadowed life in California for nearly three decades, and opioid deaths in the state are rising precipitously. Physicians have long advocated the use of life-saving opioid medications methadone and buprenorphine to treat addiction. Despite methadone’s proven effectiveness, access to the drug has been blocked across the health care system – and California is a...

Why do monkeys belly flop, elephants mud-slide and rats play-fight? In his new book, “Kingdom of Play,” science writer and professor David Toomey set out to answer these questions. It’s an area of study that hasn’t gotten much attention, and Toomey dives into animal behavioral research looking at the neuroscience, and even dream study, behind it all. We’ll talk to Toomey and learn about what anima...

California State Prison, Sacramento – also known as New Folsom Prison – is considered one of the state’s most dangerous. It’s one of several facilities in California that house the most violent offenders, and corrections officers there use force at a rate that’s nearly 40% higher than in other prisons. It’s also a notoriously difficult environment for prison workers, who face high rates of work-re...

This week, California implements a minimum wage of $20 per hour for fast food workers. Proponents of the measure believe that it will not only allow workers to meet essential needs, but potentially move them up the economic ladder to greater financial security. Restaurant owners and operators contend that they may need to cut back on employee hours, eliminate jobs, and increase their prices. We’ll...

Our current growth-based economic systems do not take into account their human cost, argues journalist Nick Romeo. And while there are economic initiatives and programs around the world that have been shown to improve local citizens’ lives, these are few and far between. Yet they provide models, like “true price” initiatives — price tags that account for human labor costs and environmental impacts...

As fighting between Israel and Hamas continues, what will happen after the war ends? The so-called two state solution has long been one of the most prominent ideas, where independent states of Israel and Palestine exist side-by-side, but previous attempts to solidify an agreement have fallen short. We’ll talk with members of A Land For All, a group of Palestinian and Israeli leaders, activists and...

Culinary scientist Arielle Johnson describes flavor as “the thing that drives us to drop serious money on heirloom tomatoes. The reason we don’t just subsist on Soylent. The town where Guy Fieri lives.” Flavor is also molecules, according to Johnson, whose new book “Flavorama” explores how the chemistry of flavor informs how we perceive foods as salty or herbal, sour or sweet. Johnson, who also co...

Radio host, journalist, musician, and musicologist Jesse “Chuy” Varela has been a treasured fixture of the Bay Area jazz scene for more than 40 years. When the Jazz Journalists Association honored him with their “Jazz Hero” award last year they wrote that “his deep knowledge of Latin American and Caribbean music has nurtured the boundaryless nature of the Bay Area’s scene, in which musicians promi...

Adrian Ballinger, a mountain guide based in California, has reached Mt. Everest’s peak 8 times – including once without supplemental oxygen. Now that China has reopened the less-traversed north side route to foreigners, he’s headed back next month for the first time in four years. We talk to him about what draws hundreds of climbers to attempt to summit Mt. Everest every year, how to climb ethical...

The Department of Justice, along with 16 states including California, filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple last week. The government alleges that the trillion-dollar company’s practices around its iPhone have quashed competition by limiting access to its app store, constraining the ability to send messages across different platforms and blocking alternative wallet payment systems. The...