KQED's Forum

Every day in hospitals around the country, while one family is grieving the loss of a family member, another family is given news that will offer them hope: that a possible organ donor match has been made. In California alone, more than 20,000 people remain on the waitlist for a kidney, liver, or other organ. We’ll talk about how organ donation works and hear about a new law that aims to modernize...

Court cases like the Dred Scott decision and Brown v. Board of Education are among the legal milestones that mark the arduous journey towards civil rights. But throughout the 19th century, ordinary Black Americans, freed and enslaved, sought to enforce their rights under the law. It’s a hidden and largely untold story of how Blacks both relied on, trusted in, and tried to leverage the legal system...

This week's Forum in Focus takes on rethinking infrastructure with engineering professor Debbie Chachra and the true toll of vehicular homelessness with New York Times Reporter Rukmini Callimachi and KQED callers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Make one mistake each day.” “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying.” These adages might feel cliché. But mistakes, though often embarrassing, really are essential for learning, and how you handle them depends on your upbringing, education and even your neurology, according to USC professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. We’ll talk about what happens in our brains when we make mistakes, and...

A black Victorian that once housed a Satanic church in San Francisco. The legend of star-crossed young lovers, murdered long ago in what is now Hayward. And of course, San Jose’s enigmatic Winchester Mystery House. The Bay Area is steeped in eerie legends and locations, and KQED’s Bay Curious podcast is exploring them in a special new series entitled “Boo Curious”. We’ll talk to host Olivia Allen-...

When does memory begin? That’s the question Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen poses in the first lines of his new book “A Man of Two Faces,” which he calls at once a memoir, a history and a memorial. Memory for Nguyen begins in part when at age four he fled Vietnam with his parents and his brother, stopping at a chain of American military bases abroad and then being placed in the hom...

Pockets. They are something you don’t notice, until you don’t have one to stash your phone, wallet, keys, or the random Walgreens receipt. Invented in the 16th century, pockets have had a unique trajectory in fashion. Men’s clothes are full of practical pockets. Women’s clothing, not so much. In her new book “Pockets,” design professor Hannah Carlson explores all the ways this “humble component of...

Nursing homes aren’t generally equipped to care for the seriously mentally ill, who require specialized treatment and services. But a new investigation by LAist found that in the past year, 25 percent of California nursing home residents had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or psychotic disorder. And that percentage has increased over the past decade. Some advocates say the mentally ill are effecti...

Broc Cellars, an under the radar Berkeley winery, had a solid Japanese following. But when its Zinfandel “Vine Starr” was featured in the beloved manga “Drops of God,” its sales took off. You’ll often find loving descriptions of comfort food favorites like curries, ramens, and rice balls featured in mangas and animes. And cookbooks have been written about dishes featured in their plotlines. In the...

The Empress date. The Burbank tomato. The Sebastopol Gravenstein apple. Halali’i sugar cane. These are among hundreds of foods grown in the United States on the “Ark of Taste,” a list of endangered foods curated by Slow Foods International. For her new book “Endangered Eating,” culinary historian Sarah Lohman journeyed across the country to study some of the rare foods on the Ark, interviewing the...

The stay at home orders of 2020 and the shift to remote work drastically changed how people commute. Now, more than three years after the onset of the pandemic, ridership on most public transit still hasn’t recovered, and in some cases is consistently hovering below half of pre-pandemic levels. But car traffic has rebounded, and then some. Bay Bridge data shows that some mornings, congestion headi...

An under-studied segment of our country’s homeless population are those who are experiencing “vehicular homelessness.” These are people who sometimes choose, but are often forced, to call their cars their home. The reasons are manifold, including unmanageable rents, bad credit, too much debt, and often just bad luck. For her new article, “I Live In My Car,” New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimac...

When infrastructure works, it’s a marvel. A soaring bridge. A sewer system that spirits away waste. Underground pipes that bring water, electricity and the internet to wherever we want it.. As engineering professor Debbie Chachra argues in her new book, infrastructure is an expression of our society’s values and our ability to work together. But we often take infrastructure for granted and we aren...

Catch up on the our most compelling interviews of the week in 30 minutes or less! This episode MSNBC Host, author, podcaster, and more, Rachel Maddow joins Mina to talk about her new book "Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism" and Alexis interviews Emily Galvin-Almanza, co-founder of Partners for Justice, about a new approach to criminal justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...

Rotten Tomatoes, the site that rates movies according to how a tomato decomposes – from Certified Fresh to rotten – turns 25 this year. And its origin story isn’t only one of the dot-com boom: It began with Jackie Chan movies, a martial arts club and three UC Berkeley undergrads. The trio went on to found a website that changed the way we choose the movies we watch. We’ll talk with them about the...

When someone calls your cell phone are you filled with dread, or even anger? Is it better to call or leave a text? And how long should a voicemail be, if you leave one at all? As our relationships with our mobiles and each other evolve, so do the goalposts of communication norms. The meanings of emojis seem to change with the seasons, and generational conflict can ensue when a parent ends a text t...

In his new book, “Fear is Just a Word,” Azam Ahmed chronicles the years-long journey of Miriam Rodriguez, who took it upon herself to find justice for her daughter after she was kidnapped in 2014 by one of the most violent gangs in Mexico. Rodriguez would eventually lead law enforcement to arrest nearly a dozen cartel members, doing much of the investigation and research herself, despite great ris...

An estimated 80 percent of criminal defendants in state courts in the US are represented by public defenders, who typically have huge caseloads. And their clients often need more than just legal help, many are dealing with poverty, homelessness, mental illness and other challenges. Operating in Alameda County and other places around the country, the non-profit Partners for Justice supports the wor...

On October 3 the House of Representatives ousted California Congressman Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. After the withdrawal of initial GOP nominee Steve Scalise, their next nominee, Jim Jordan, failed to receive a majority of votes in an election held Tuesday. The House leadership vacuum becomes increasingly problematic as President Biden continues to pledge U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel....

For more than 35 years, British comedian Eddie Izzard built a career as an openly trans woman, winning Emmy awards, acting for both film and TV and performing in one-woman shows on Broadway. Now, she’s juggling a campaign for a seat in Parliament while making stops in North America for her Remix Tour, which revisits some of her favorite comedy sets. Ahead of her San Francisco shows, we’ll talk wit...

Contemporary efforts to undermine democracy, spread disinformation and subvert elections are not without precedent in American politics, according to Rachel Maddow, the longtime MSNBC host, author and podcast creator. Rather, they’ve got a “prequel,” a period of American history before and during World War II when an “ultra-right authoritarian movement, weirdly infatuated with foreign dictatorship...

Next month will mark one year since the public release of ChatGPT, the AI-enabled chatbot. The technology immediately sent shockwaves across college campuses: Would it revolutionize higher education, or simply lead to widespread cheating and plagiarism? We’ll look at how chatbots and AI are impacting higher ed, from college essays to classroom teaching. Guests: Francesca Caparas, professor of engl...

Literary translators are why we can read poems, novels and essays written in languages we don’t speak, exposing us to otherwise inaccessible ideas and worlds. But even though translators wrestle page by page, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, to convey meaning,humor and pathos, their names don’t always appear on book covers. And translators say their industry is mired in problems of inequitabl...

Slamming a bedroom door is one of the first signs a young person is entering puberty. Then come the physical changes, first periods, wet dreams, acne, mood swings and many other shifts. But, today’s young people are experiencing puberty in different ways than their parents’ generation. It starts sooner and lasts longer, making a complex stage of life even more challenging. The authors of a new boo...

This week we smash the patriarchy with interviews with multidisciplinary artist, poet, and author Mimi Tempestt on her new collection of poetry, "The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals" and writer and researcher Cat Bohannon on her book “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” Catch up on the week's most compelling interviews in 30 minutes or less. Learn more about your ad...