Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

David Bodanis: The Power of Decency in a World Gone Mean Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Join us to hear David Bodanis make a fresh, detail-rich argument that the most productive way to lead is to be fair to others. Conventional wisdom is that "nice guys finish last," but maybe that just means that too many nice guys are too conventional. And it probably does not mean that one has to be a bully, schooled in Machiavellian tactics, to succeed.

The Art of Fairness reveals how it was fairness, applied with skill, that led the Empire State Building to be constructed in barely a year. And how the same techniques transformed a quiet English debutante into an acclaimed guerrilla fighter. In 10 vivid profiles featuring pilots, presidents, and even the producer of "Game of Thrones," Bodanis demonstrates that the path to greatness doesn't require crushing displays of power or a tyrannical ego. With surprising insights from across history, including the downfall of the very man who popularized the phrase “nice guys finish last,” Bodanis charts a refreshing and sustainable approach to cultivating integrity and influence.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

David Bodanis

Author, The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Gone Mean

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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Homer: The Very Idea Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

Join us to discuss with James Porter our ongoing fascination with Homer—the man and the myth. The poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey was revered as a cultural icon in antiquity and remains millennia later a figure of lasting influence. But his identity is shrouded in questions about who he was, when he lived and whether he was an actual person, a myth or merely a shared idea. Whatever his source, Homer is a cultural invention nearly as distinctive and important as the poems attributed to him.

Porter follows the cultural history of the idea of the great poet and of the obsession that is reborn every time Homer is reimagined. Offering novel readings of texts and objects, the idea of Homer is elucidated from its origins to its most recent imaginings in literature, criticism, philosophy, visual art and classical archaeology. Porter explores the many sources of Homer’s mystique and their cultural impact, starting with the first recorded mentions of his name in ancient Greece.

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

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

SPEAKERS

James Porter

Irving Stone Professor of Literature, University of California, Berkeley; Author, Homer: The Very Idea

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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 January 13th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Daniel Sokatch: Talking about Israel Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

The conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians is one of the most complex and controversial disputes in the world today. It is a complicated conflict that plays a role in the foreign affairs of many countries around the world, including the United States. Yet many issues related to the conflict are misunderstood by people and groups across the political spectrum, sometimes intentionally, sometimes from just a lack of knowledge.

Daniel Sokatch, the head of the New Israel Fund—an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis, not just Jews—is often asked to explain these issues as part of his job. In his new book, Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted, Sokatch offers his own primer on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The book provides the long story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gives basic explanations for the centuries-long conflict. Sokatch also attempts to explain why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings—why it seems as if Israel is the answer to "what is wrong with the world" for half the people in it, and "what is right with the world" for the other half.

As Sokatch asks in his book, is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little? This program will offer some background on this often misunderstood and complicated topic.

SPEAKERS

Daniel Sokatch

CEO, New Israel Fund; Author, Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted

Daniel Handler

Writer; Musician; a.k.a. Lemony Snicket—Moderator

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An Evening with Kal Penn and Huma Abedin Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

Kal Penn and Huma Abedin had vastly different journeys into the world of American politics. As a collegiate-level White House intern during Hillary Clinton’s time as the first lady, Abedin never predicted she’d go on to witness some of the most crucial moments in America’s modern political history; including Clinton’s watershed nomination as the first female candidate for president. Penn, too, has both witnessed and shaped political history as a liaison for the Obama administration—something that he, a prominent Hollywood actor who’d experienced countless discriminations in the entertainment industry, never saw coming.

While their foray into politics were poles apart, Abedin and Penn do share a similar vision of the American Dream molded by their immigrant families. In their own professional endeavors—from Penn’s shift to politics to Abedin’s powerful tenure as Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman—they’ve done more than just manifest this dream. Instead, they’ve disrupted it’s very core.

Together at INFORUM, Huma Abedin and Kal Penn will bring to life the remarkable experiences they’ve detailed in their new memoirs, Both/And and You Can’t Be Serious, respectively. In doing so, they will provide the audience with more than just powerful insights toward the meaning of the American Dream—instead, they’ll challenge its “one size fits all” narrative in order to reconstruct its meaning for a more inclusive future.

SPEAKERS

Huma Abedin

Former Vice Chairperson, Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign; Author, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds

Kal Penn

Actor; Former Principal Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Author, You Can’t Be Serious

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 November 9th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague: Inside Trump's Attempted Election Steal Jan 14, 2022

Show notes

The story of January 6, 2021 is one that will go down in the history books. In the 64 days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. In The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues and their families. They provide an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the heroic individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system to ensure that every legal vote was counted and the will of the people prevailed.

Join us as Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague discuss their research and offer their thoughts and commentary on the events leading up to January 6.

SPEAKERS

Mark Bowden

Contributing Writer, The Atlantic; Co-author, The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It

Matthew Teague

Contributor, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and Esquire; Executive Producer, "Our Friend"; Co-author, The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It

In Conversation with John Boland

President Emeritus, KQED Public Media; Vice Chair, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors

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 January 12th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: REWIND: Should Nature Have Rights? Jan 14, 2022

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 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, formerly with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

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

Carol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog, activist

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Grief Vampire: Operation Onion Ring Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

The February 2019 New York Times Magazine reported on Susan Gerbic and her team's successful work exposing psychic medium Thomas John in a sting called Operation Pizza Roll. Throughout the pandemic Gerbic's team (Guerilla Skeptics) researched and exposed multiple mediums operating on Zoom using hot and cold reading to appear to be in communication with the dead; this series of reports was called Operation Lemon Meringue.

In April 2021, medium Thomas John scheduled an 8-person Spirit Circle for children ages 5–12, charging $400 per reading. After trying unsuccessfully to get the Spirit Circle cancelled, the Guerilla Skeptics decided to attend and report back on the event. Susan will be discussing what happened in Operation Onion Ring and how they say they once again caught "grief vampire" Thomas John.

For more information on the work the Guerilla Skeptics have done concerning various "grief vampires," visit their website.

About the Speaker

Affectionately called the Wikipediatrician, Susan Gerbic is the founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) and the Monterey County Skeptics, and is a self-proclaimed skeptical junkie. A Skeptical Inquirer contributor Gerbic is a fellow of CSI and winner of the James Randi Foundation award for 2017. In 2018, Susan founded and manages About Time, a nonprofit organization focusing on scientific skepticism and activism. While her particular focus has been “Grief Vampires” (psychics), her activism encompasses all areas of skepticism. You can find out more at AboutTimeProject.org.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patrick O'Reilly

NOTES

MLF: Psychology

SPEAKERS

Susan Gerbic

Founder, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW); Founder, Monterey County Skeptics; Founder and Manager, About Time

Patrick O'Reilly

Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist; Chair, Psychology Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator

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 January 10th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt: Fighting Hate Now Jan 12, 2022

Show notes

With a significant increase in hate crimes on the streets of America's cities as well as a rise in online hate, America finds itself on a terrifying path, one that could hardly be imagined just several years ago. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt's current mission is making sure that what has happened in our lifetimes in Europe, the Middle East and Asia does not happen here.

In his new book, It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop It, Greenblatt demonstrates how antisemitism, racism, and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society, taking root as quiet prejudices but mutating over time into horrific acts of brutality. His book sounds an alarm, warning that this age-old trend is gathering momentum in the United States—and that violence on an even larger, more catastrophic scale could be around the corner if we don't change our direction.

Greenblatt believes a more positive future can awaits us and that society doesn't have to succumb to hatred. Drawing on ADL’s decades of experience in fighting hate through investigative research, education programs, and legislative victories, as well as his own personal story and his background in business and government, Greenblatt offers a bracing primer on how we—as individuals, as organizations, and as a society—can strike back against hate.

Please join us for an important conversation with a national leader on the frontlines of fighting prejudice.

SPEAKERS

Jonathan Greenblatt

CEO, Anti-Defamation League; Author, It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop It

Roger McNamee

Silicon Valley Investor, Author, Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe—Moderator

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Barton Gellman: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State Jan 11, 2022

Show notes

The threat to American democracy and the U.S. electoral system did not end when the U.S. Capitol building was cleared and the presidential vote was certified on January 6, 2021. In fact, because of actions taken in states around the country throughout 2021, the threat today is as serious as it was one year ago, according to one prominent writer.

In his new and troubling cover story article for The Atlantic's January/February 2022 issue, journalist Barton Gellman explains that the collapse of America's democratic principles and underpinnings is already underway and that the country is close—closer than most ever thought possible—to losing not only the country's constitutional democracy, but what’s left of America's shared understanding of civic reality.

Gellman's new article, “January 6 Was Practice,” builds on an article he wrote before the 2020 election for The Atlantic. That piece, “The Election That Could Break America," focused on the ways that then-President Trump was weakening the norms and structures of American democracy. In many ways, Gellman predicated what would happen on January 6, 2021. What he could not predict is that though the system held one year ago, former President Trump and his supporters would continue their attack on America's electoral system by enacting restrictive new voting laws, removing nonpartisan election administrators in key states, and shifting how elections are administered at the state levels. He says what the country may find in 2024 is that what happened in 2021 was, indeed, just a practice run toward the end of American democracy as it is known, in favor of autocracy.

Please join us for a special conversation with Gellman on the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack, and hear why he is more concerned than ever about the future of America democracy, and what he sees as the very real threats to the country's constitutional order.

SPEAKERS

Barton Gellman

Investigative Reporter; Writer, The Washington Post; Author, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State

Roy Eisenhardt

Lecturer, University of California Berkeley School of Law—Moderator

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 January 6th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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January 6 and the Insurrection: A Week to Week Political Roundtable Special Jan 07, 2022

Show notes

Exactly 12 months after a riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, we are going to take a look at what January 6 wrought, how it has affected the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, and what are the prospects for another violent attempt to overturn a democratic election.

SPEAKERS

Melissa Caen

Political Analyst; Attorney

Francis Fukuyama

Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; Director, Ford Dorsey Masters in International Policy, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Twitter @FukuyamaFrancis

Tim Miller

Founder, Light Fuse Communications; Contributor, The Bulwark; Communications Director, Jeb Bush 2016; Founder, America Rising; Twitter @timodc

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-host

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