Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During World War II Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

In her new book Safe Passage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Evelyn Iritani reveals one of World War II’s little-known diplomatic triumphs—the rescue of nearly 3,000 Allied civilians held by Japan in two exchanges at sea—and the high price that was paid by the thousands of innocent men, women and children, mostly of Japanese descent, who were traded to a country that was no longer, and may never have been, their home. Sojourners and immigrants, diplomats and thrill-seekers, storytellers and proselytizers. Uprooted by a conflict of someone else’s making, this eclectic mix of humanity from both sides of the Pacific found themselves on a voyage across war-torn waters that would transform them in surprising, often tragic, and sometimes inexplicable ways.

In the fall of 1943, during some of the Pacific theater’s bloodiest battles, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup: the exchange of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. Nearly 1,500 Allied civilians trapped in Asia, mostly Americans, sailed through dangerous waters to an Indian port city, where they were traded for an equivalent number of Japanese immigrants and their families sent from the Americas. The fate of the more than 10,000 Americans left behind rested on the success of this endeavor.

In Safe Passage, Iritani reveals the herculean efforts of the American diplomat James Keeley to engineer these wartime exchanges despite great resistance from within and outside his government; the shipboard conflicts among passengers, including missionaries, revelers, and sharp-tongued journalists; and the moral compromises involved in securing their safe passage. Faced with too few bodies to trade and desperate to free Americans from perilous conditions, the United States uprooted and repatriated Japanese citizens of Latin America, sometimes against their will, while Japanese imprisoned in camps, many of them American citizens, were forced to choose between expulsion to a war zone or an uncertain future behind barbed wire. The result is a revelatory account of the hurdles to pursuing humanitarian action in wartime.

About the Speakers

Evelyn Iritani is an author, historian and former reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Los Angeles Times, where her reporting garnered numerous awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series she coauthored on Wal-Mart. She also authored the book An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town.

Moderator Amanda L. Tyler is a professor of constitutional law at UC Berkeley Law School and author or contributor to numerous books and articles, including co-author with the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union. Recent article topics include the American and British approaches to internment of citizens during World War II and their lessons for today.

An Asia-Pacific Affairs 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.

Organizer: Lillian Nakagawa

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

Dr. Jennifer Grandis: Why Women Can't Get Ahead in Science and Health Care Jul 19, 2026

Show notes

Women continue to face systemic barriers in medicine and science, despite decades of progress. What is happening?

In Harsh Medicine, Dr. Jennifer R. Grandis draws on decades of experience as a physician-scientist, mentor and leader to expose how deeply gender bias is embedded in the structures of academic medicine and scientific research. Through rigorous analysis, real-world case studies, and personal insight, she argues that policies, funding systems, promotion practices and cultural norms continue to disadvantage women at every stage of their careers.

Although she focuses on academic medicine and science research labs, there are wider implications. Many women, no matter what their profession or circumstances, might see themselves in these pages. Dr. Grandis, who has experienced sexual harassment in her own workplaces, knows reporting on the problems is only half of the equation, and she offers resources and solutions to give readers hope that we still might be able to “shock the system” and effect great change in the workplace, making it more egalitarian for women and men alike.

In association with Wonderfest.

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

AI for Good: In Climate, Health and Investing Jul 18, 2026

Show notes

When should artificial intelligence supplant human intelligence? And when should human intelligence lead? For climate action, for impacts on health, for investing and portfolios, where can AI tools multiply productivity—and what situations cause a quality assurance minefield?

Learn from innovators around the world (from Europe to Oceania to the Americas) when and how AI tools bring new value, expand audiences—and where human intelligence and empathy is still required, and how we all can benefit.

We will delve into how AI can improve the expansion and sustainability of food systems, which can also enhance climate justice, and access to nutrition for low-income communities.

Wine Sponsor: Bonterra Organic Wines

A Business & Leadership 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.

Organizer: Elizabeth Carney

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

Ben Rhodes: All We Say, The Battle for American Identity Jul 18, 2026

Show notes

What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide?

Americans have debated those questions for 250 years. The issue of what it means to be an American shaped the compromises in the Constitution and the arguments we’ve been having ever since—spawning abolitionism, secession, and civil war; populism, mass migration, and global leadership; movements for reform and the backlashes to them.

Former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes has examined the speeches of 15 people that shaped and reflected the argument Americans have been having from our founding to the present day’s heated divisions.

Rhodes has traced the history of our battle over identity. The result is a revealing portrait of America itself: a nation divided between two stories—one of inheritance, power, and exclusion; the other of equality, striving, and belonging. Drawing on a decade writing for Barack Obama, Rhodes also shows us how words can redirect a nation, what makes a speech enduring, and why oratory is a unique form of persuasion in American democracy.

From Benjamin Franklin’s call for compromise at the Constitutional Convention, to Alexander Stephens’ case for white supremacy as the cornerstone of the Confederacy; from Martin Luther King’s dream of true equality to Donald Trump’s rallying cry against democracy itself, these speeches remind us that history is a living argument. At a time when American identity—and truth—is contested, Rhodes comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to offer a fresh and powerful look at who we really are and who we could still become.

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

Jonathan Weber: City on the Edge, the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco Jul 17, 2026

Show notes

From boom to collapse? Veteran San Francisco journalist Jonathan Weber joins us for a deep-dive into San Francisco’s meteoric transformation into a global capital of technology—and how the same forces that gave rise to its boom nearly engineered its end.
In the early 1990s, San Francisco was a beautiful if somewhat troubled mid-sized metropolis, still reeling from the AIDS epidemic and the Loma Prieta earthquake; its economy was stuck in a post-industrial torpor. The city that had once been considered the capital of the American West and later a home of counterculture, the city by the bay faced an uncertain future. But at that same time, a new wave of technology entrepreneurs were busy inventing the next stage of the internet, and the city would soon undergo an epic political, social and economic transformation into the tech capital of the world. Local politicians, including Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, became rising stars in the Democratic Party nationally.
So, crisis averted? No. A host of urban ills were waiting to grab the limelight: homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, and a crippling lack of new housing. The city’s famous left-wing political establishment struggled to get its arms around the problems, becoming a punching bag for President Trump and the resurgent right. When the pandemic arrived in 2020, it created new crises and laid old ones bare, shattering a “City Family” that had ruled for more than 30 years and prompting a sharp rightward turn by the once liberal tech industry.

Weber saw it all up close as a reporter and newsroom leader. In his new book City on the Edge, he offers a sweeping history of a city that rose to dizzying heights, only to be undone by the heedlessness of a tech industry it did so much to spawn and politicians who had lost the plot. Hear all about the war waged for the heart of San Francisco—one that anticipated the culture wars raging around the world. Its outcome would have an impact far beyond the city’s famed Golden Gate.

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

CLIMATE ONE: Cleaner Steel is Coming. Will the Communities That Built the Industry Benefit? Jul 17, 2026

Show notes

Making steel accounts for around 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry could reduce that number by removing coal from the steel-making process entirely. Three of the U.S.’s last seven coal-based steel mills are situated along Lake Michigan. Together, these facilities produce nearly half of the steel made in the U.S., supplying skyscraper beams, car doors, and appliances across the country. And right now, in Northwest Indiana, a once-in-a-generation decision is on the table.

Nippon Steel, the owners of the Gary Works steel mill, can either extend the life of their aging blast furnaces for another 20 years and continuing coal-based production, or invest in cleaner, next-generation steelmaking. Other steelmakers have already moved towards decarbonization. Will Nippon switch to cleaner steelmaking for the next generation, or double-down on coal?

Guests:

Terry Steagall, Retired Steelworker, United Steelworker Union activist

Hilary Lewis, Steel Director, Industrious Labs

Roger Smith, Asia Lead, SteelWatch

Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction

1:55 Terry Steagall on the importance of the steel industry in northwest Indiana

4:31 Terry Steagall on relining blast furnaces

11:16 Terry Steagall on cleaner steel for the next generation

14:27 Hilary Lewis on steel industry emissions

19:36 Hilary Lewis on the realistic path to decarbonizing the steel industry

23:03 Hilary Lewis on the pressure facing the industry to make cleaner steel

27:57 Hilary Lewis on the industry’s move to southern states

34:01 Roger Smith on the scale of US Steel’s acquisition by Nippon Steel

36:58 Roger Smith on the “golden share” the Trump administration received

46:33 Roger Smith on the viable technology for cleaner steel

For show notes, related links, and episode transcript, visit our ⁠⁠⁠episode page⁠⁠⁠ at climateone.org

***

Join Climate One for an induction cooking demonstration night on July 21, at 6 p.m. at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Come enjoy delicious food and wine, and learn about why cooking with magnets beats cooking with gas. Tickets available at ⁠⁠⁠climateone.org/events⁠⁠⁠

***

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

Healthy Society Series—America @250: What Kind of America Do You Want? Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was issued, and it contains the DNA of the future United States of America.

At the heart of this remarkable document that sought to overthrow existing governmental institutions is the profound statement that echoes through the ages. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter, or abolish it, and to establish a new Government . . . as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

As we celebrate 250 years since this document was created, we will ask the question: What kind of America do you want? This is at a time of great social disruption, with many people believing that their life, liberty and happiness are under daily threat. This discussion will focus on where we go from here.

A Health & Medicine Member-led Forum program. Forums and Chapters 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.

Organizer: Robert Lee Kilpatrick

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

A Story for Everything: An Afternoon with Corey Rosen, Host of ‘The Moth’ Jul 14, 2026

Show notes

Come and meet author and master storyteller Corey Rosen for an unforgettable evening as he talks about his new book, A Story for Everything, a practical and inspiring guide to telling meaningful stories in everyday life.

In this engaging discussion, Rosen will share his personal experiences behind the book, the storytelling frameworks he teaches around the country, and the surprising ways stories shape our relationships, careers and communities.

Rosen will share insights from hosting “The Moth,” why everyone has more stories than they think, the difference between a memory and a story, the “Moment, Meaning, Message” framework and how storytelling builds connection and trust.

About the Speaker

Corey Rosen is a writer, actor, visual effects producer and storytelling teacher based in San Francisco. He is the author of Your Story, Well Told: Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow an Audience, a laugh-out-loud, funny, practical and inspiring manual to develop true stories from concept through presentation. And his newly released book, A Story for Everything: Mastering Diverse Storytelling for Any Occasion, is a comprehensive guide to storytelling for professional, educational and personal success.

Rosen got his start writing for Comedy Central and Jim Henson Productions. As staff writer for Lucasfilm Animation and Tippett Studio, he wrote the screenplays for several films and theme park rides and attractions exhibiting around the world. He has been featured on “The Moth Radio Hour,” is a regular contributor and on-air personality for Alice Radio’s “The Sarah and Vinnie Show” and is a company performer at BATS Improv, one of the world’s foremost centers for Improvisational Theater. Rosen also hosts The Moth StorySlams and GrandSlams.

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.

Organizer: Denise Michaud

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

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

Simone Stolzoff: How to Not Know Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

Famously or infamously, in 2002 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that “[A]s we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

That comment stoked a lot of mockery among his critics, but he was addressing something that all people feel. It is difficult to deal with uncertainty at times when our lives have never felt less certain in a world of increasing change.

Now journalist and former IDEO design lead Simone Stolzoff comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to discuss his guide to navigating uncertainty, spelled out in his new book How to Not Know. From politics to our careers to our personal lives, we don’t know what the future holds. Yet, Stolzoff says, our capacity to tolerate this uncertainty is declining.

Stoloff shares stories of people who have grappled with big problems with no easy answers—such as an economist trying to predict the next market crash, or an island nation facing the existential impact of climate change. How can one be comfortable with ambiguity and the unknown? Join us to hear Stolzoff’s answers.

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

Humanities West Presents The Etruscans Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

The Etruscan culture, which flourished from the ninth to the first centuries B.C. in Tuscany, left behind a rich history with many unique traditions that are reflected in the artistic objects found in their tombs, temples, sanctuaries and homes. Renée Dreyfus and Lisa Pieraccini will discuss the latest advances in scholarship and archeological discoveries, and in the translation of the Etruscan language, which have been leading historians to an ever better understanding of the Etruscan contributions to Roman architecture, art and engineering.

Renée Dreyfus, the curator of the current exhibit on the Etruscans at the Legion of Honor, has worked on bringing that exhibit to San Francisco for years: “This exhibition tells the story of this overlooked culture, featuring icons of Etruscan art surrounded by equally stunning and fascinating works that are little known or even unknown. Many of these works have never been seen in the United States before.”

Lisa Pieraccini consulted on Dreyfus’s Legion of Honor exhibit. She also leads a project to study the Etruscan artifacts at the Phoebe Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley, where she teaches a seminar focusing on its largely unpublished collection.

Join us, either before or after attending the Etruscans exhibit at the Legion of Honor, to hear from the curator and the consultant all about the nearly 200 objects from that ancient civilization that are on display—such as terracotta vessels and sculptures, dazzling gold jewelry, mirrors, recently excavated bronze sculptures demonstrating the Etruscans’ renowned metalworking skills, and the Linen Book of Zagreb: a third-century B.C. calendar of rituals and sacrifices for specific days of the year that is the longest Etruscan inscription known to exist.

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.

In association with Humanities West and the Italian Cultural Institute.

Photos courtesy of the speakers; vessel image courtesy The Legion of Honor.

Organizer: George Hammond

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