Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Carol Leonnig: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service May 28, 2021

Show notes

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 into shape. The agency transformed into a proud, elite unit that would redeem themselves again two decades later by successfully thwarting an assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan.

Now, in the 21st century, the Secret Service is better defined by its failure to avert break-ins at the White House, armed gunmen firing at government buildings, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other instances of negligence. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service since 2000, and her new book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, exposes the triumphs and failures of the Secret Service, documenting a broken agency in desperate need of reform. Through interviews with whistleblowers, current agents and former agents, Leonnig reveals what she says is the Secret Service’s toxic work culture, outdated training techniques and deep resentment among the ranks with the agency's leadership.

Join us as Carol Leonnig unmasks the rise and fall of the Secret Service, and puts out a much-needed call for the agency’s improvement and action.

SPEAKERS

Carol Leonnig

Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post; Author, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service

In Conversation with Marisa Lagos

Correspondent for California Politics and Government, KQED; Twitter @mlagos

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 20th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CLIMATE ONE: Should Nature Have Rights? May 28, 2021

Show notes

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 later, a federal judge struck it down.

As Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, an attorney who represented Lake Erie, explains, the problem stems from a 500-year history of Western property law. Our legal system grants rights to property owners, but not to property itself.

“If we’re treating ecosystems as property, then ultimately, we as property owners have the right to destroy our property and that fundamentally has to change,” Schromen-Wawrin says.

Rebecca Tsosie, a law professor focused on Federal Indian law and Indigenous peoples’ human rights, says there are other rights frameworks to consider. “If we go into Indigenous epistemology, many times it’s a relational universe that comes with mutual responsibility.”

Guests:

Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, attorney at Shearwater Law, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Rebecca Tsosie, Regents Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, Indigenous Peoples’ Law and Policy Program

Carol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog, activist

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil Play May 27, 2021

Show notes

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 unfold, and make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we obtain. Science has long focused on traits like memory and reasoning, but has often ignored framing. But with computers becoming better and better at those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and one only humans can do.

Illustrating their case with compelling examples and the latest research, Cukier, Mayer-Schönberger and de Véricourt examine: why advice to “think outside the box” is useless; why the Wright brothers, with no formal physics training, were the first to fly; what enabled the 1976 Israeli hostage rescue at Entebbe to succeed; and how the #MeToo twitter hashtag reframed the perception of sexual assault. They also show why framing Covid-19 as equivalent to a seasonal flu failed, and how modeling it on SARS succeeded in New Zealand. Framers shows how framing is not just a way to improve how we make decisions in an era of algorithms, but is also an ever more crucial tool in a time of societal upheaval and machine prosperity.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Kenneth Cukier

Journalist, The Economist; Host, "Babbage" Tech Podcast; Co-Author, Framers

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

Professor, Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Member, Digital Council, Tech Advisors to German Government; Co-Author, Framers

Francis de Véricourt

Professor, Management Science, and Director, Center for Decisions, Models and Data, ESMT Berlin; Co-Author, Framers

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Smith: The East Bay Sanctuary Covenant May 26, 2021

Show notes

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 eventually made their way to the United States, crossing the southern border without papers. Currently there are around 5,000 Mam Maya living in the East Bay, and thousands more working in the fields of the Central Valley of California, the forests in Washington, the meat packing plants in Iowa and Nebraska, the blueberry fields in Michigan, and the fields in many states in the Deep South.

Through the years the sanctuary has assisted thousands of indigenous Guatemalans and currently has 5 attorneys and 9 paralegals on staff, as well as numerous volunteer attorneys, law students and undergrads. This summer, sanctuary is predicted to win its 4,000th asylum case.

Michael Smith is the director of the Refugee Rights Program at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant in Berkeley, CA. His background is in anthropology and archaeology, and he worked for many years on a project in Nicaragua for the National Museum. In 1984, he began work at East Bay Sanctuary and has been at sanctuary ever since. He has received awards from Helen Bamber and the Dalai Lama for his work in refugees and from Berkeley Law for his work with law students.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patrick O'Reilly

SPEAKERS

Michael Smith

Director, Refugee Rights Program, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 19th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Healthy Society Series: The Science of Wellness—and You May 25, 2021

Show notes

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 of each individual throughout their lifetime to optimize their wellness and healthy aging, while avoiding transitions to chronic diseases.

Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., is a recipient of the National Medal of Science, co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), and senior vice president and and chief science officer at Providence St. Joseph Health. Dr. Hood has played a role in founding 15 biotech companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Arrivale and Nanostring. In addition to having received 18 honorary degrees from prestigious universities in the United States and abroad, Dr. Hood has published more than 850 peer-reviewed articles and currently holds 36 patents.

Join us for a conversation about what you can do to begin practicing a new vision of 21st century medicine with a wellness orientation.

MLF ORGANIZER: Robert Lee Kilpatrick

SPEAKERS

Leroy Hood

M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder, Institute for Systems Biology; Senior Vice President and and Chief Science Officer, Providence St. Joseph Health

Robert Lee Kilpatrick

Ph.D., Chair, Health and Medicine Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lara Bazelon with Piper Kerman: A Good Mother May 25, 2021

Show notes

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.S. Army base, there is no doubt that his wife, Luz, is to blame. But was it an act of self-defense? An attempt to save her infant daughter? Or the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man? Public defender and new mother Abby strives to keep Luz out of prison, sympathizing with the struggles of parenthood. When new evidence emerges and the trial turns toward an outcome no one expects, Abby and Luz must answer the riveting question: What does it mean to be a good mother?

Join us as Lara Bazelon illustrates the answers to motherhood through a discussion of A Good Mother. She'll be joined in conversation by Piper Kerman, author of the hit bestseller Orange Is the New Black. Kerman's book served as the source material for the eponymous hit Netflix series.

NOTES

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Lara Bazelon

Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinical Programs, University of San Francisco; Author, A Good Mother: A Novel

In Conversation with Piper Kerman

Author, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 18th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Commonwealth Club Week in Review for May 21, 2021 May 23, 2021

Show notes

John Judis: The Politics of Our Time May 21, 2021

Show notes

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 unexpected political movements in the United States and Europe that have grown in impact in the wake of the Great Recession, the conflict with al-Qaeda and ISIS, and encroaching climate change. These three books have all been updated and combined into a new volume that expands Judis's focus to include the Trump presidency and the response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. This new book, The Politics of Our Times, is an important guide to understanding the significant currents and emotions that have transformed the world and influenced political parties and politicians on both the Right and Left.

As the United States and Europe look to emerge from the global pandemic, understanding the major political trends that help guide our civic discussion are critical. Please join us for this important conversation.

SPEAKERS

John Judis

Editor-at-Large, Talking Points Memo; Author, The Politics of Our Time

George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates—Moderator

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music: Comfort and Joy May 21, 2021

Show notes

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 comfort? And maybe a bit about what doesn’t do that as a rule."

Foglesong is a pianist, musician, teacher, writer, cat-lover, music history devotée, occasional computer geek and sometime programmer. He is the chair of the Department of Musicianship and Music Theory at San Francisco Conservatory of Music; a member of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, and The Fromm Institute of the University of San Francisco; a contributing writer and lecturer at the San Francisco Symphony. Professor Foglesong was formally educated at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and the San Francisco Conservatory, but he says his "informal education continues everywhere, without cease."

NOTES

MLF: Arts

SPEAKERS

Scott Foglesong

Chair, Department of Musicianship and Music Theory, San Francisco Conservatory of Music; Faculty, UC Berkeley, The Fromm Institute, USF; Contributing Writer and Lecturer, San Francisco Symphony

Carol Fleming

Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Chair, Commonwealth Club Member-Led Forums

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CLIMATE ONE: Hot Cities, Methane Leakers and the Catholic Church May 21, 2021

Show notes

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 communities has been more elusive.

Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, has said, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Carbon Mapper, a public-private partnership that includes universities and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and is backed by philanthropists, uses satellites to pinpoint super emitters of both CO2 and methane in real time with the goal of reducing emissions.

But this isn’t the only technology that may point the way toward a better understanding of climate threats and potential solutions. The Catholic Church, for example, holds vast tracts of land across the globe. But until Molly Burhans came on the scene, the Vatican had no real understanding of what they own. Burhans founded her nonprofit mapping organization Goodlands to provide the Church with the tools to use their landholdings to address issues ranging from erosion and biodiversity loss to climate migration.

On the local level, Ariane Middel’s research uses a human-sized mobile weather station to look at variations in actual heat on the ground, chronicling how small differences in landscape and urban design can add up to major differences in heat impacts experienced by those who live and work in various built environments.

Guests:

Molly Burhans, Founder / Executive Director, GoodLands

Riley Duren, CEO, Carbon Mapper

Ariane Middel, Senior Sustainability Scientist, Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices