Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

World AIDS Day: Are We Winning the Fight? Dec 04, 2025

Show notes

Is the HIV fight behind or ahead of us? On this World AIDS Day, we will have a panel with key players in the space. These doctors are working on clinical trials to develop drugs to prevent and treat HIV, they work on policies to help bring the interventions where they are needed, and they are also on the ground caring for the individuals needing the care.

Join us to hear how they feel about where we are with the fight.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

This program is sponsored by ViiV, along with the generous support of Kaiser Permanente.

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

Tim Wu: The Age of Extraction Dec 03, 2025

Show notes

Can we reclaim control of our economy to make it work for everyone? What needs to be understood about the big tech platforms before that could even be attempted?

Tim Wu has a plan. Wu, a scholar and the former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality,” has examined the rise of “platform power” and the risks and rewards of working within such systems. It’s a topic he explores in his latest book The Age of Extraction.

Drawing on lessons from recent history—from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements—Wu says the internet that was promised to be the provider of widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s instead created new economic classes and helped spread autocracy. Wu envisions a future in which tech advances can serve the greatest possible good, and he offers proposals for making a more balanced economy.

Wu has been named one of Scientific American’s 50 people of the year (2006), one of the “Politico 50” (2014 and 2015), one of The National Law Journal’s “America’s 100 Most Influential Lawyers” (2013) and one of 02138 magazine’s 100 most influential Harvard graduates (2007). Put him on your list of people to see in-person when he returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs in November.

This program is supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund.

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

The Status Kuo, with Jay Kuo Dec 02, 2025

Show notes

Join the multi-talented Jay Kuo for "political and legal analysis with a dose of humor." Jay will discuss issues ranging from the president's use of the National Guard, immigration, Supreme Court decisions and more.

About the Speaker

Jay Kuo is the chair-elect of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization with more than 3.3 million members. He currently leads its Public Policy Committee to help elect equality-focused candidates at the national, state and local level.

Jay is the CEO and founder of The Social Edge, a digital publishing and social media company. As head of "Team Takei,” he built actor and activist George Takei’s social media into an online juggernaut reaching more than 25 million fans. Jay writes a popular daily Substack on politics and law called "The Status Kuo," which has more than 5 million monthly reads.

Bu that is not all. He is a two-time Tony winning co-producer for Hadestown and The Inheritance and is currently developing two new musical productions in the U.K. Jay is also a musician and composed the score for the Broadway musical Allegiance.

Jay is a partner in Gaingels, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ investing group. He has worked as an appellate litigator admitted to practice before the Ninth Circuit, where he argued the first “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” challenge in 1996, and is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar.

Jay has previously served on the boards of the Northern California ACLU and the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom. He currently lives in New York City, where he is a single dad with two beautiful infant children, Riley and Ronan.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

See more Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

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

Mother of Methadone and Fighting Against Today’s Addiction Crisis Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

Dr. Melody Glenn was a burned-out emergency physician who had grown to resent the large population of opioid-dependent patients passing through her ER. While working at a methadone clinic, she realized how effective harm reduction treatments could be and set out to discover why they weren’t used more broadly. That’s when she found Dr. Marie Nyswander.

In the 1960s, Dr. Nyswander defied the DEA and medical establishment to co-develop methadone maintenance as a treatment for heroin addiction. According to some addiction specialists, its discovery could be considered as monumental as the discovery of penicillin. Yet, it still carries a stigma today.

As the United States continues to struggle with opioid and fentanyl use, Dr. Glenn shares Dr. Nyswander’s legacy and important lessons that can be used in dealing with today’s addiction crisis.

Dr. Melody Glenn is an author and associate professor of addiction and emergency medicine at the University of Arizona. She graduated with her M.D. from The University of Southern California, completed her emergency medicine residency at Maricopa Medical Center, and earned her EMS fellowship from The University of California, San Francisco.

Moderator Margaret Juhae Lee is the author of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History. She received a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korean Foundation in support of research for her book. Previously, she was an editor for the Books and the Arts section at The Nation magazine.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

A Psychology Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

OrganizerPatrick O'Reilly

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

The Case that Haunted California: D.A. Thien Ho on the Golden State Killer, with Dion Lim Nov 30, 2025

Show notes

Thien Ho, the current district attorney of Sacramento County, delivers the first official account of the investigation, capture and prosecution of Joseph DeAngelo, one of America’s most notorious serial predators. Known by many chilling names over the years, including the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the Original Nightstalker, and finally the Golden State Killer, DeAngelo terrorized California communities for more than a decade—and then disappeared without a trace for more than 30 years.

It's a tale Ho recounts in his new book The People vs. the Golden State Killer, from Third State Books. As the lead prosecutor on the case, Ho recounts the exhilarating and harrowing experience of bringing a cold-case killer to justice and putting him behind bars for life. Rather than focusing solely on the criminal and the crimes, Ho’s narrative centers the dedicated law-enforcement teams who never gave up their pursuit, and the courageous survivors of the GSK's crimes who fought to heal and regain control of their lives. Ho has hundreds of never-before-revealed details and firsthand insights, and this is the first time the public hears directly from the lead prosecutor who helped close the case.

A portion of the book’s proceeds will benefit Phyllis’s Garden, a nonprofit that honors a GSK survivor and champions victims’ rights.

Ho, who comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs for a discussion with award-winning journalist Dion Lim, will also share his compelling personal story: a Vietnamese refugee whose family fled Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War; he arrived in the United States knowing no English. He rose from being an intern to being elected Sacramento County district attorney in 2022, becoming one of only 10 Asian American district attorneys out of 2,400 nationwide.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

See more Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

Photos courtesy the speakers.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

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

Jeffrey Rosen: The Pursuit of Liberty Nov 29, 2025

Show notes

Commonwealth Club World Affairs welcomes back Jeffrey Rosen, this time to explore the clashing visions of Hamilton and Jefferson about how to balance liberty and power in a debate that continues to define—and divide—our country. Hamilton pushed for a strong federal government and a powerful executive, while Jefferson championed states’ rights and individual liberties. This ongoing tug-of-war has shaped all the pivotal moments in American history, including Abraham Lincoln’s fight against slavery and Southern secession, the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Ronald Reagan’s and Donald Trump’s conservative pushes to attempt to shrink the size of the federal government.

Rosen will explain how Hamilton’s and Jefferson’s disagreement over how to interpret the Constitution has shaped landmark debates in Congress and the Supreme Court about executive power, from John Marshall’s early battles with Andrew Jackson to the current divisions among the justices on issues from presidential immunity to control over the administrative state.

More than ever, the clash between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals resonates today in our most urgent national debates over the question of whether modern presidents have been consolidating power and subverting the Constitution—the very threat to American democracy that both Hamilton and Jefferson were determined to avoid. Rosen explores all of this in his new book The Pursuit of Liberty, and he'll join us in-person to offer a compelling history of the opposing forces that have shaped our country since its founding, and the ongoing struggle to define the balance between liberty and power.

A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

OrganizerGeorge Hammond

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

CLIMATE ONE: ENCORE - Small Dollar, Big Impact Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

The climate doesn’t care where emissions cuts come from; what matters is that the world transitions to renewable energy quickly and cheaply. If it’s significantly cheaper to install solar panels in India than on a rooftop in California, then isn’t that where they should be built? Similarly, transferring money directly to local people with the greatest stake in preserving their land can have outsized impact in conservation. Where does a climate dollar go furthest?

Guests:

Kinari Webb, Founder, Health in Harmony

Premal Shah, Founder, kiva.org, renewables.org

Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder and Executive Director, Environmental Voter Project

For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org

Highlights:

00:00 – Intro

04:30 – Origins of Kinari Webb’s nonprofit Health in Harmony

09:00 – Rainforests as lungs and heart of the planet

12:00 – Radical listening to communities about what they need

15:00 – Positive outcomes from responding to community needs directly

18:00 – Webb’s near-death experience from a jellyfish sting

22:00 – Rainforest conservation as a giant climate lever

29:00 – Premal Shah describes how he came to create Kiva.org

32:00 – How ⁠Kiva.org⁠ works

35:30 – Thought experiment from moral philosopher Peter Singer

38:40 – Kiva tries to reframe stories of poverty as stories of entrepreneurship

41:00 – Applying crowdfunded microfinance model to renewable energy

46:00 – Idea of “effective altruism”

49:30 – Nathaniel Stinnett: we’ve been taught to blame ourselves for the climate crisis

53:00 – How to shift public actions to make climate more political

*****

Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on ⁠Patreon⁠, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. ⁠Sign up today⁠.

Ad sales by ⁠Multitude⁠. Contact them for ad inquiries at ⁠multitude.productions/ads⁠

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

'All the Empty Rooms' Film Screening with Q&A Nov 27, 2025

Show notes

Veteran reporter Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp embark on a cross country journey to memorialize the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings, highlighting their urgent call for action against the rising epidemic of gun violence. Their story is told in the new documentary All the Empty Rooms, which follows Hartman and Bopp on their seven-year-long project. Hartman, known for his heartwarming human-interest stories on CBS News, takes a more serious turn in this exploration of absence, memory, and the unseen ripples of America’s gun violence.

Join us for a screening of All the Empty Rooms, followed by a Q&A with director Joshua Seftel. The directory says “We traveled from Steve’s home in upstate New York to Nashville to Uvalde to Santa Clarita and back to the CBS News studios to document Steve’s final news report. And we get to know the children through the rooms they left behind. They came to life for us and the weight of their absence was crushing."

All the Empty Rooms is a Netflix release by Smartypants Pictures, in association with Hyperobject Industries and Artemis Rising Foundation.

Photos courtesy Netflix and Smartypants Pictures; used with permission.

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

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

Ken Stern: The Secret to an Enduring and Thriving Life Nov 26, 2025

Show notes

What's the secret to a long, healthy life? Join us for a live conversation with longevity expert Ken Stern, who will discuss the research that went into his new book Healthy to 100.

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to living longer is not just about eating well, exercising, or getting regular checkups. Instead, successful aging depends on the nature of your relationships and your social connections. If you want to live a healthy and rewarding life, Stern says, you need to start with social health.

In Healthy to 100, Stern goes on a journey to some of the longest-lived countries in the world—Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Spain—places that have achieved great advances in longevity by intentionally strengthening social connections. Science shows that physical and mental health outcomes are all improved by the intergenerational connectedness, sense of purpose, and respect enjoyed by older people in these countries.

Their example offers a personal and societal guide for how people can improve the second half of their lives. Stern will weave in surprising, colorful stories from around the world, arguing that the key to healthy longevity involves a mindset shift and purposeful building of social connections.

About the Speakers

Ken Stern is a nationally recognized expert on longevity and aging. He is the founder of the Longevity Project and hosts the popular “Century Lives” podcast from the Stanford Center on Longevity. Stern is a best-selling author and has been a frequent contributor to a wide variety of publications, including Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and Slate. He is also the former CEO of NPR. He lives in Washington, D.C.

A Grownups Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

OrganizerDenise Michaud

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

Michael McFaul: Autocrats vs Democrats and the New Global Order Nov 24, 2025

Show notes

The international order in which most of us grew up is over, and a new cold war is setting in. That’s the growing consensus of people adjusting to the aggressive rise of China, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the reelection of President Donald Trump amid the growth of right-wing populist movements around the world. Michael McFaul says America’s future depends on how successfully it deals with this new global order.

McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and an international affairs analyst for NBC News, says new thinking is required. The new cold war isn’t the same as the old U.S.–Soviet Cold War. He argues in his new book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, that we should not underestimate the disruptive ambitions of Russia, nor should we overestimate China’s capabilities, and that the shift here at home toward isolationism and autocracy weaken America’s position in the world.

Join us to hear McFaul draw from historical analysis and a forward-looking perspective to craft a new grand strategy for the United States in the challenging new age of global disorder.

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected