Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

A Healthy Society Series: Ethics and Value in Health Crises May 29, 2020

Show notes

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 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

Alex Kantrowitz: Inside the Tech Titans May 29, 2020

Show notes

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 everyone has to start somewhere, and that with the right strategy, hopeful startups can take on the major players and compete at their level. Join us for a conversation with Alex Kantrowitz as he outlines the blueprint for sustainable success in a business world where no advantage is safe. NOTES Please visit Barnes & Noble to purchase his book. 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

Moral Leadership in a Time of Crisis: Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz May 29, 2020

Show notes

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Filippenko: Astronomer to the Stars May 29, 2020

Show notes

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 Don't Want to Die with the Lie: Out College Coach Matt Lynch May 29, 2020

Show notes

"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

Cooking in Quarantine with J. Kenji López-Alt May 28, 2020

Show notes

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 about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown May 28, 2020

Show notes

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

David Bodanis: Einstein’s Big Mistake and Voltaire’s Brilliant Mistress May 28, 2020

Show notes

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

Reopening the Economy: How Fast Is Too Fast? May 27, 2020

Show notes

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

Fast Carbs. Slow Carbs. May 27, 2020

Show notes

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 Kessler served as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is the author of A Question of Intent and The End of Overeating, a New York Times best seller. He is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the UC San Francisco. Kessler is a graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Medical School. MLF ORGANIZER Patty James NOTES MLF: Health & Medicine Visit BarnesandNoble.com to purchase Dr. Kessler's book. This program was rescheduled from April 28. 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