Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Tim Shriver and Simon Sinek: The Call to Unite Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

As the world concludes a a full year under the COVID-19 pandemic, many people and communities around the globe have felt a sense of doom and unrest. In the United States particularly, political and social divisions fueled a sense of societal darkness and sadness. However, there are signs of hope, particularly among a group of prominent spiritual and religious leaders, poets and thinkers, singers and writers brought together by Tim Shriver, longtime chairman of the Special Olympics.

At the start of 2020, despite the challenging times, Shriver saw an opportunity for those hungry for community to answer a call to heal, a call to hope, a call to unite. He asked monks and nuns, artists and activists, nurses and doctors, ex-presidents and ex-cons to come together to share messages of inspiration, transformation and love. The result? His new book, The Call to Unite—featuring stories and insights from Bishop TD Jakes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Van Jones, Amy Grant, Dr. Rheeda Walker, Pastor Rick Warren, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Jewel, Deepak Chopra and many others—offers readers a book of wisdom to turn to in hard times. It is filled with prayers, poems, spiritual insights and lessons to live by that will stand the test of time.

In this conversation, Shriver and inspirational author Simon Sinek will offer those seeking affirmation, solace and inspiration guidance for finding the light at this challenging time. Please join us for a special program about coming together so we can we be our happiest—and our best.

SPEAKERS

Tim Shriver

Founder, UNITE; Chair, Special Olympics; Author, The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening

Simon Sinek

Author, Start with Why—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 March 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Vaccination Equity: The Need to Protect All Communities Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, equity issues have shaped our understanding of the pandemic and its disparate impacts. Since early 2020, African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus, shining a light on a range of socio-eonomic issues and disparities in housing, employment and access to public health services. Now, as the Bay Area begins to slowly re-open with the increasing availability of vaccines, the region is facing challenges in ensuring that vaccination rollout efforts are equitable.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a significant voice on COVID equity issues regionally and nationally throughout the pandemic. She is currently working to ensure that shots reach not only the most impacted communities, but that leaders address what caused the stark pandemic inequities to begin with.

Please join us for an important conversation on the road ahead for vaccination equity, and the race to ensure all communities are protected in the weeks and months ahead.

NOTES

This important community program is made free to the public thanks to Salesforce.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo

Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco

Paula Goldman

Vice President, Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer, Salesforce—Moderator

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Healthy Society Series: The National Campaign to Vaccinate America Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

Dr. Choucair will describe the Biden administration's national vaccination campaign to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

The challenges ahead are enormous, but Dr Choucair is known as an innovator, and his previous work has set him up to handle this project. He is used to planning for large numbers of people. Prior to joining the administration, Dr. Choucair served as senior vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente. He oversaw the organization’s efforts focused on addressing the social health of its 12.2 million members and the 68 million people who live in the communities it serves. This work included the creation of the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of its members. He also managed Kaiser Permanente’s community health portfolio, including $3.4 billion dedicated to supporting medical financial assistance and charitable care as well as grants and community health initiatives. Before his time at Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Choucair was the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health for five years before serving as senior vice president of Safety Net and Community Health at Trinity Health. He has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 50 Most Influential Health Executives in the U.S., one of the Most Influential People in Healthcare and as one of the Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare.

MLF ORGANIZER

Robert Lee Kilpatrick

NOTES

MLF: Health & Medicine

SPEAKERS

Bechara Choucair

M.D., Vaccinations Coordinator, White House COVID Response Team

Robert Lee Kilpatrick

Ph.D., Chair, Health and Medicine MLF; General Advisor, Berkeley SkyDeck incubator and Accelerator; Advisor, Columbia University Master of Science Program in Bioethics; CEO, Health Innovation for People, Inc. (HIP)—Moderator

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Mine!—How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

Join us for a virtual discussion with law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman to discuss the hidden set of rules that reveals how things become "mine"—the favorite word of every two-year-old.

As adults, of course, the idea of ownership feels natural, whether we are buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: your reclining self or the squished laptop user seated behind you? And why is plagiarism wrong, but it's okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? After a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose both the space and the chair?

Heller and Salzman explain these puzzles and many more using six simple stories that almost everyone uses to claim almost everything. And although choosing which story to use is often based on our most obvious legal rights, we can always pick a different story to use. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change and wealth inequality. As Heller and Salzman demonstrate with stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending and sometimes infuriating, ownership is always up for grabs.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Michael Heller

Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law, Columbia Law School; Co-Author, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives

James Salzman

Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, with Joint Appointments at the UCLA School of Law and the UCSB Bren School of the Environment; Co-Author, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives

In Conversation with George Hammond

Attorney; 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 March 16th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Orville Schell and Winston Lord: A Novel Approach to China Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

In his debut novel, renowned China expert Orville Schell delves into the complexities of people whose lives have been historically upended by the tumult of political change, the pain of migration, and the separations of the Cold War that made it impossible to live in both worlds.

In moving from non-fiction to fiction, Schell's sweeping historical novel takes us on a journey from the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949 to the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, as a classical musician and his son are swept away by a relentless series of devastating events. Through their lives, we follow the fault line between the United States and China—a divide that at times has been narrow and easily crossed, while at other times perilously wide. At a time when the U.S.-China divide is once again widening, Schell’s fictional characters speak volumes about the agonies of separation that may yet again become a reality.

Join a unique discussion on U.S.-China relations (focusing on culture, music, religion and art as well as policy) with Schell and his longtime friend Ambassador Winston Lord, who served as Henry Kissinger’s main aide on his game-changing trip to China with President Richard Nixon in 1972 and subsequently became U.S. ambassador to China under President Reagan.

Part of our Good Lit Series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Winston Lord

Former U.S. Ambassador to China; Former President, Council on Foreign Relations

Orville Schell

Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; Former Professor and Dean, University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism; Author, My Old Home: A Novel of Exile

In conversation with James Fallows

National Correspondent, The Atlantic

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 February 16th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Andy Slavitt on the Pandemic Endgame: Looking Back and Looking Ahead Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

On March 16, 2020, the leaders of the Bay Area announced a regional stay-at-home order that transformed life for millions in the Bay Area. At the time, it was one of the largest and most visible public actions taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Other regions soon followed. Exactly one year later, the Bay Area, California and United States are finally emerging from a public health crisis that has led to over 500,00 deaths and transformed life throughout the country. With vaccine supply increasing, the end of the pandemic is finally in sight.

Andy Slavitt, the new White House senior advisor on COVID-19, has been at the center of the fight against the pandemic since early 2020. Last year, he informally advised leading Republicans as well as Democrats across the country on effective strategies against COVOD-19. Early on, Slavitt teamed with former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb to propose a $46.5 billion plan for COVID-19 contact tracing and isolation and was lead author of an early open letter entitled “Stay Home, Save Lives” signed by 16 top Republican and Democratic figures. His impact and influence was felt by millions of people across the county.

Today, Slavitt is helping lead the new Biden administration's COVID-19 response efforts. As new variants of the virus continue to spread across the United States and some states reopen as the drop in cases plateaus, the Biden administration is working to increase the production and delivery of vaccines, create new places for people to get vaccinated, and address vaccine hesitancy in diverse communities. Slavitt is at the center of all these discussions.

Please join us for a discussion with one of the country’s savviest health professionals as we reflect on what we have learned over the past year and what it will take to finally return life to normal in the Bay Area, California and the United States as a whole.

SPEAKERS

Andy Slavitt

Senior Advisor, White House COVID-19 Response Team

Mark Zitter

Chair, The Zetema Project; Member, The Commonwealth Club of California Board of Governors—Moderator

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Silicon Valley Reads: Always Home with Fanny Singer and Alice Waters Mar 16, 2021

Show notes

In Always Home: A Daughter’s Recipes and Stories, Fanny Singer, daughter of food icon and activist Alice Waters, chronicles her unique world of food, wine and travel. Singer shares the story of her own culinary coming of age and reveals the dynamic relationship between a mother and daughter through connecting, recipes and, cooking.

SPEAKERS

Fanny Singer

Author, Always Home: A Daughter’s Recipes & Stories

Alice Waters

Chef, Chez Panisse

Carolyn Jung

Food Writer; Author, East Bay Cooks—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 March 11th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Mental Health and Communities of Color: From Stigma to Solutions Mar 16, 2021

Show notes

Experts widely report that mental health treatment in Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities is severely lacking. Cultural differences and misunderstandings lead to diagnostic problems and hesitancy to seek treatment. The National Alliance on Mental Illness found that Black adults are more likely to report persistent symptoms of emotional distress than white adults, yet only one in three Black Americans who needs support gets it. Latinx, Asian and Indigenous people similarly have poor access to quality mental health services. BIPOC youth are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system, with their needs untreated. And the age of COVID has amplified the depth of these disparities and the ongoing systematic inequities for people of color.

How can medical professionals, government and the private sector work together in this challenging time to improve conditions and treatment as well as eliminate stigma for those needing care? UCSF Psychiatry Chief Dr. Lisa Fortuna will moderate and address solutions. San Francisco Human Rights Commission Director Sheryl Davis will focus on the impact of COVID-19 and racism across different populations. Stanford University psychiatrist Dr. Rona Hu will discuss treatment needs in Asian, Black and LGBTQ populations. YMCA President Emeritus Chuck Collins will provide community context based on his work with varied populations over the years. And youth activist Nicole Elmore will discuss her personal experiences.

Join this compelling conversation featuring health, community and human rights perspectives.

NOTES

Part of The Commonwealth Club’s series on mental health, dedicated in memory of Nancy Friend Pritzker, with support from the John Pritzker Family Fund.

SPEAKERS

Chuck Collins

President Emeritus, YMCA, San Francisco

Sheryl Davis

Executive Director, San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

Nicole Elmore

Community Youth Activist; Program Assistant, Opportunities for All (Mayor London Breed’s Youth Initiative for Workforce Development, Partnered with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission)

Dr. Rona Hu

Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine; Founder, Stanford Mental Health for Asians Research and Treatment (SMHART) Clinic

Dr. Lisa Fortuna

M.D., Chief of Psychiatry Department, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

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

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Commonwealth Club Week in Review for March 12, 2021 Mar 15, 2021

Show notes

This is your Commonwealth Club week in review. Hear what you missed this week, and what we’ve got lined up for you next week.

We’re always adding new programs - check out commonwealthclub.org/online for all of our upcoming events.

If you haven’t already - please consider becoming a member of the Club. Enjoy exclusive discounts and access to special programs all while knowing your contributions directly support our many public programs and civic initiatives.

Visit commonwealthclub.org/special, for special rates on memberships.

Thanks for your support and as always - thanks for listening!

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CLIMATE ONE: The Political Reality of Climate Action Mar 15, 2021

Show notes

True to his campaign promise, President Biden dove right into the climate crisis on Day One, signing a stack of executive orders that signaled his determination. But how effective are they?

“Executive orders, I think, are often very splashy when they're introduced, and they get a lot of attention,” notes Axios reporter Ben Gemen. “I think the better way to look at an executive order is sort of firing a starting gun for an extraordinarily long race.” But while he faces certain blowback from Republicans in Congress, there are signs that when it comes to conservative thought, the wind may be changing.

What can the Biden Administration accomplish using existing authority? How much will conservatives and businesses step in and step up on climate?

Guests:

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), Chair of House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis

Rich Powell, Executive Director, ClearPath

Ben Geman, Energy Reporter, Axios

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