KQED's Forum - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

Five Years Since Prop 64, California's Cannabis Industry Is in Disarray Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

It’s been five years since California legalized marijuana under Proposition 64 and opened the doors to a new legal market. Yet today, the majority of cannabis consumed here is not legal. A key reason: it’s difficult and costly to start and maintain a state-licensed cannabis business. Meanwhile, a robust system for setting up shop as part of the illicit market has been in place long before voters approved Prop 64. Last week cannabis farmers, business owners and advocates gathered at the State Capitol to demand reform to the burdensome tax system that’s frustrating businesses and growers of all sizes but making small businesses and farms especially vulnerable to collapse. In outlining next year’s state budget proposal this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he “supports cannabis tax reform and plans to work with the Legislature to make modifications to California’s cannabis tax policy to help stabilize the market.” We’ll take stock of California’s cannabis industry and proposed reforms.

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

Millennium Tower Engineers Propose New Fix as Building Leans by More Than Two Feet Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

In 2016, the public learned that Millennium Tower, a 60-story luxury condo highrise in downtown San Francisco, was tilting to the northwestby 16 inches. Fast forward five years and the lean is now at about 26 inches. The tower has been sinking at a rate of about 3 inches per year despite tens of millions of dollars being spent to stop it. . Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, the firm hired to fix the leaning tower, recently submitted a revised plan to city officials after their previous efforts resulted in increased titling. We talk about the latest developments in the Millennium Tower saga.

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

A Murder of Crows Is Bedeviling Sunnyvale Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

The city of Sunnyvale is at war with thousands of crows that have invaded downtown. To try and drive the birds away, city employees have been armed with $20 green laser pointers. Ideas for other solutions abound: hang effigies of dead crows off of buildings, blast crow distress sounds from boomboxes, light up the sky with pyrotechnics. What is it with all the crows? And what will it take to shoo them away?

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

How the Movie ‘Encanto’ Became a Pop Song Powerhouse Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

You may not know who Bruno is, but you do probably know that we don’t talk about him thanks to a song from the animated film “Encanto.” The movie, about a magical Colombian family struggling to maintain their special powers, hit movie theaters in late November and has since infiltrated households across the country with its catchy songs – six of which have landed on the Billboard Hot 100 list this week. Disney, the studio behind the film, is known for pumping out hit songs such as “Let it Go” from “Frozen” or “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin”, but the multi-track success of Encanto is unprecedented. We talk about why songs like, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” “Surface Pressure,” and “What Else Can I Do,” are stuck in so many heads of kids and adults alike.

Guests: Pamela Avila, Los Angeles-based entertainment editor, USA Today, and author of the article, “What Disney’s 'Encanto' teaches us about self-worth and overcoming intergenerational family trauma.”

Bethonie Butler, reporter covering television and pop culture, The Washington Post, and author of the recent article, “How ‘Encanto’ and its vibrant soundtrack became a viral phenomenon”

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

Assessing the Biden Presidency, One Year In Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

President Biden called his first year in office one of "enormous progress" in a press conference Wednesday, citing a successful vaccine rollout, record job creation and the enactment of his bipartisan infrastructure law. But his voting rights and "Build Back Better" plans remain stalled in a bitterly divided Congress, and ongoing supply chain issues and fears of inflation threaten economic recovery and, potentially, Democrats' ability to maintain their House and Senate majorities. We'll look back at Biden's first year and the thorny challenges that lie ahead.

Guests: Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent, NPR

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

Kathryn Schulz’s Memoir ‘Lost & Found’ Contemplates When Joy and Grief Arrive at the Same Time Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

Writer Kathryn Schulz says her father’s death at 74, surrounded by people he loved, was “not a tragedy.” But it was still cataclysmic. “Popular wisdom will tell you that it comes in stages,” she writes about grief, “denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — and that may be true. But the Paleozoic Era also came in stages … and it lasted 290 million years.” In the midst of despair, Schulz also reveled in the joy of new love, having met her future wife the year before. Forum talks with the New Yorker staff writer about the confluence of major events in her life, the experience of deeply feeling opposite emotions at the same time and her memoir, “Lost & Found.”

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

The Joys and Challenges of Parenting as an Immigrant Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Raising children is a daunting task, but when you are an immigrant, there can be so many more obstacles and opportunities to navigate: Should you raise your child to speak your native language? How much of your culture do you want to celebrate and what might you want to leave behind? How should you react when your child rejects your lovingly made bento or tiffin filled with homemade delicacies for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Author and immigrant Masha Rumer has pondered these questions in her new book, “Parenting with an Accent,” and we’ll talk to her and a panel of parents about the joys and heartaches of raising a child far from the country you came from.

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

New Frontiers in the Fight Against Depression Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

When patients with severe depression don’t respond to medication, psychiatrists sometimes turn to a treatment known as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The non-invasive therapy uses pulses of magnetic activity to stimulate the brain, and about half of patients see their symptoms improve. Now, researchers at Stanford say they have developed a new and improved version of rTMS, tailored to each patients’ neurocircuitry. In one study, nearly 80 percent of severely depressed patients experienced a normal mood within five days. We’ll talk to the lead researcher on the Stanford study and other experts in the field about the latest developments in rTMS and other methods of treating depression and mental illness.

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

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones on ‘The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story’ Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

“Many historians have been seduced by the desire to manage the story of our founding, protecting our identity as an exceptional, fundamentally just nation,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in the preface to “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story.” The project, created by Hannah-Jones, reframes our popular understanding of U.S. history and considers “a new origin story” that started not with the Declaration of Independence, but rather with the introduction of slavery in late August 1619, when the first ship carrying enslaved people from Africa arrived in the British colony of Virginia. Originally launched as a special edition of the New York Times Magazine in 2019, an expanded book version of the project came out in November. We’ll talk to Hannah-Jones about the new book, the debates the project has sparked about how we write and teach U.S. history and the power of shared national memory

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

Battered by Omicron Surge, Schools and Youth Confront a Future with COVID Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

The fast-spreading omicron variant has snarled schools and made this return from the holidays particularly difficult. As record numbers of California children have tested positive for COVID and even been hospitalized, many students and teachers are reluctant to return to the classroom, especially without adequate protection and safety protocols. We’ll check in with an Oakland student organizer about a petition that’s gained over a thousand signatures to boycott classes until demands over safety are met. And, as omicron looks to be nearing its peak, we talk with experts about what to expect in the next few weeks, and what lies beyond. Given all we know now, given how tired we all are, what would count as “winning” when the next surge hits?

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