Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Join us for an exploration of a side of the Vietnam War that is little known in the United States. Learn about the unexploded ordnances left behind after the United States withdrew from the war, and hear about the "Secret War" in which people from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam fought alongside American troops.

Meet the Speakers

Sera Koulabdara serves as executive director of Legacies of War, the only international educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. Legacies of War is working to address the impact of conflict in Laos during the Vietnam War-era, including removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and survivor assistance. Prior to this role, Sera was a long-time volunteer and served on Legacies’ board for four years in multiple leadership positions, including vice chair. Under Sera’s leadership, U.S. funding for UXO clearance in Laos reached $40 million for 2021—the highest level in history—and the Legacies of War Recognition and UXO Removal Act was introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin. If approved, this historic bill will recognize the people of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam who fought alongside American troops during the Vietnam War and authorizes landmark funding of $100 million for five years divided among the three countries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Khao Insixiengmay is a former Royal Lao Army Colonel who received military training in Laos, France and in the United States. He was recruited by the CIA and fought in Military Region 3 for six years, and fought all over Laos.

David Phommavong is a father, husband and son of a Secret War veteran, the late Keosond Phommavong of SGU Scorpion Unit. He is the co founder of Laotian American National Voice (LAN-V), co-chair of LAN-V Secret War Veteran’s Benefit, and Lao Global Heritage Alliance Board of Director. Phommavong is an advocate and a community activist. He and his wife have a private charity, Nourish Lao Children, through which they provide financial and educational support to impoverished children in Lao PDR.

Thomas Leo Briggs is retired from the U.S. federal government after 32 years of service. He spent three years in the U.S. Army with one year in Vietnam as a military police platoon leader, three years in the Drug Enforcement Administration as a special agent, and 26 years in the CIA as an operations officer. He entered duty with the CIA in 1969. His first assignment was as a special operations case officer in Laos from 1970 to 1972. During that assignment, he directed all small team special operations in Military Region IV in southern Laos. He published a book in 2009, Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos, which describes his experiences fighting the Secret War in cooperation with the Royal Lao Government against the North Vietnamese Army invaders of the Kingdom of Laos.

SPEAKERS

Sera Koulabdara

Executive Director, Legacies of War

Khao Insixiengmay

Former Royal Lao Army Colonel

David Phommavong

Co-Founder, Laotian American National Voice (LAN-V); Co-Chair, LAN-V Secret War Veteran's Benefit; Member, Lao Global Heritage Alliance Board of Directors

Thomas Leo Briggs

Former Operations Officer, CIA; Former Special Agent, Drug Enforcement Administration; Former Military Police Platoon Leader, U.S. Army

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW/KPIX and Podcast; Member, The Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Host

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 May 20th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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We'll begin our program sharing war stories from Lao veterans who fought in the secret war. We'll also discuss AB1393, an effort to include Lao history and cultural studies in CA's K-12 curriculum, starting a fish sauce business, and "nung pee"—Lao horror films with the only female film director in Laos.

The evening will end with a special performance by Lookthung/Morlam Esan singer Tookta. 

Meet the Speakers

Lao Secret War Veterans:

David Phommavong is a father, husband and the son of a Secret War veteran, the late Keoson Phommavong of SGU Scorpion Unit. Co Founder of Laotian American National Voice (LAN-V), Co Chair of LAN-V Secret War Veteran’s Benefit, and Lao Global Heritage Alliance Board of Director. David is an advocate and a community activist. David and his wife have a private charity Nourish Lao Children where they provide financial / educational support to impoverished children in Lao PDR.

Chantho Vorasarn, former Royal LAO Armed Forces Major (1972), 11 year POW (1975-1986) after US pull out from VN and communist took over Laos. Fled to to Thailand in 1986 and resettled in the USA in August 1987 (St.Petersburg, FL). Retired High School Teacher in 2013 and presently residing in Pinellas Park Florida as Chairman of the Board of Director of the LAO Arts and Cultural Foundation of Florida, Inc. and Associate Director of the United Royal LAO Armed Forces & Special Guerrillas Units Veterans, Inc. (URLAF&SGU). Vice Chair of Laotian American National Voice, Secret War Veteran’s Benefits Subcommittee.

Medd Rattana married two children, three grand children. Residence,Dallas Texas. Retired from Insurance & Financial services. Graduated, Saint-Cyr (French Military Academy). Ex Royal Lao Army Major. Infantry battalion and GM(brigade) commander. Liaison Officer @ US Allied Officer’s Training School. Graduate: Us Army Airborne-Ranger Course. Advanced Artillery’s Officers School. Current Chairman,BD Lao American Senior Mutual Assistance,Inc. Past chairman BD Wat Lao Siri Buddhavas of Dallas. Vice Chair of Laotian American National Voice, Secret War Veteran’s Benefits Subcommittee.

Khambang Sibounheaung joined the Royal Army in 1960. In 1961 he was recruited into the Secret War, where he was wounded twice, captured and spent 8 months in hard prison 1964. He immigrated to USA in December 1975, where he spent 4 years teaching World Cultural, worked 15 Years worked for Metro Government in Nashville as Court Officer, spent 11 Years With Tennessee Military Department as LTC TNSG As a Battalions Commander, and 5 years with NUSC as Major General. He was promoted to Lieutenant General in 2013 By Admiral Carlos Martinez. He is a member of the RLA Committees since 2006.

Additional Speakers

Alex Sirivath - Founder & CEO of Sirivath Corporation (Ninja Foods)

Bobbie Oudinarath - Founding member and the Communications Director for Lao Advocacy Organization of San Diego (LAOSD)

Tookta - Musician

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

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Dr. Ralph Moss details the origin of cancer immunotherapy and how it disappeared for almost 100 years. Recently, it has been rediscovered and has become one of the most widely used cancer treatments. Inducing fever with compounds of killed viruses, immunotherapy triggers the human immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy generally provides a higher quality of life during treatment, while being less harmful than most conventional cancer treatments available today.

Ralph Moss, Ph.D., has been writing about alternative and complementary cancer treatments since the 1970s. At the National Institutes of Health, he co-founded what became the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. He has produced 4 films, 12 books, a podcast, and 38 diagnosis-based "Moss Reports" for cancer.

MLF ORGANIZER

Adrea Brier

NOTES

MLF: Health & Medicine

SPEAKERS

Ralph Moss

Ph.D., Co-founder, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; Author; Filmmaker

Adrea Brier

CHNP, CLC, Vice Chair, Health and Medicine Member-Led Forum; International Integrative Epigenetic Cancer Consultant and Life Coach—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 May 25th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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One of the final things Abraham Lincoln did on the day of his death was approve legislation that created what would become the Secret Service. Originally created to suppress counterfeit currency, the Secret Service has since become the primary agency to protect prominent politicians and their families. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Secret Service was whipped into shape. The agency transformed into a proud, elite unit that would redeem themselves again two decades later by successfully thwarting an assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan.

Now, in the 21st century, the Secret Service is better defined by its failure to avert break-ins at the White House, armed gunmen firing at government buildings, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other instances of negligence. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service since 2000, and her new book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, exposes the triumphs and failures of the Secret Service, documenting a broken agency in desperate need of reform. Through interviews with whistleblowers, current agents and former agents, Leonnig reveals what she says is the Secret Service’s toxic work culture, outdated training techniques and deep resentment among the ranks with the agency's leadership.

Join us as Carol Leonnig unmasks the rise and fall of the Secret Service, and puts out a much-needed call for the agency’s improvement and action.

SPEAKERS

Carol Leonnig

Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post; Author, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service

In Conversation with Marisa Lagos

Correspondent for California Politics and Government, KQED; Twitter @mlagos

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 May 20th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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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 also recently 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 at Shearwater Law, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund 

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

Carol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog, activist

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Join us for a virtual discussion with the three co-authors of Framers, which focuses on the essential tool that can enable humanity to find its way through the challenges of pandemics, populism, AI, ISIS, wealth inequity, climate change, and other worldwide problems that threaten our current civilizations. To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to see patterns, predict how things will unfold, and make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we obtain. Science has long focused on traits like memory and reasoning, but has often ignored framing. But with computers becoming better and better at those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and one only humans can do.

Illustrating their case with compelling examples and the latest research, Cukier, Mayer-Schönberger and de Véricourt examine: why advice to “think outside the box” is useless; why the Wright brothers, with no formal physics training, were the first to fly; what enabled the 1976 Israeli hostage rescue at Entebbe to succeed; and how the #MeToo twitter hashtag reframed the perception of sexual assault. They also show why framing Covid-19 as equivalent to a seasonal flu failed, and how modeling it on SARS succeeded in New Zealand. Framers shows how framing is not just a way to improve how we make decisions in an era of algorithms, but is also an ever more crucial tool in a time of societal upheaval and machine prosperity.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Kenneth Cukier

Journalist, The Economist; Host, "Babbage" Tech Podcast; Co-Author, Framers

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

Professor, Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Member, Digital Council, Tech Advisors to German Government; Co-Author, Framers

Francis de Véricourt

Professor, Management Science, and Director, Center for Decisions, Models and Data, ESMT Berlin; Co-Author, Framers

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 May 20th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The East Bay Sanctuary was organized in 1982 to assist refugees fleeing the terrible violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America. While refugees from El Salvador and Honduras were fleeing, mainly political persecution, the vast majority of Guatemalan refugees were Maya, fleeing persecution on account of their race. More than 200,000 Maya fled into Mexico at the height of the violence, and many eventually made their way to the United States, crossing the southern border without papers. Currently there are around 5,000 Mam Maya living in the East Bay, and thousands more working in the fields of the Central Valley of California, the forests in Washington, the meat packing plants in Iowa and Nebraska, the blueberry fields in Michigan, and the fields in many states in the Deep South.

Through the years the sanctuary has assisted thousands of indigenous Guatemalans and currently has 5 attorneys and 9 paralegals on staff, as well as numerous volunteer attorneys, law students and undergrads. This summer, sanctuary is predicted to win its 4,000th asylum case.

Michael Smith is the director of the Refugee Rights Program at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant in Berkeley, CA. His background is in anthropology and archaeology, and he worked for many years on a project in Nicaragua for the National Museum. In 1984, he began work at East Bay Sanctuary and has been at sanctuary ever since. He has received awards from Helen Bamber and the Dalai Lama for his work in refugees and from Berkeley Law for his work with law students.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patrick O'Reilly

SPEAKERS

Michael Smith

Director, Refugee Rights Program, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

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 May 19th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Many critics and patients agree: The American health-care system is broken. They say the quality is poor, the cost is high and the system has a dominant disease-care orientation. "I would like to tell you that 21st century medicine should be about wellness and how we can get there," says Dr. Leroy Hood. "I have a vision of a data-driven health-care system where we can follow the health trajectory of each individual throughout their lifetime to optimize their wellness and healthy aging, while avoiding transitions to chronic diseases.

Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., is a recipient of the National Medal of Science, co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), and senior vice president and and chief science officer at Providence St. Joseph Health. Dr. Hood has played a role in founding 15 biotech companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Arrivale and Nanostring. In addition to having received 18 honorary degrees from prestigious universities in the United States and abroad, Dr. Hood has published more than 850 peer-reviewed articles and currently holds 36 patents. 

Join us for a conversation about what you can do to begin practicing a new vision of 21st century medicine with a wellness orientation.

MLF ORGANIZER: Robert Lee Kilpatrick

SPEAKERS

Leroy Hood

M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder, Institute for Systems Biology; Senior Vice President and and Chief Science Officer, Providence St. Joseph Health

Robert Lee Kilpatrick

Ph.D., Chair, Health and Medicine 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 May 19th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Two new mothers, a murder, and a question about crime: in her new thrilling debut novel A Good Mother, law professor Lara Bazelon examines the intricacies of motherhood, the legal system, and moral obligation. As a writer, attorney and mother herself, Lara Bazelon writes about crime, love, work and family with a voice that wonders what is right and fair for all.

When a soldier is found dead at a U.S. Army base, there is no doubt that his wife, Luz, is to blame. But was it an act of self-defense? An attempt to save her infant daughter? Or the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man? Public defender and new mother Abby strives to keep Luz out of prison, sympathizing with the struggles of parenthood. When new evidence emerges and the trial turns toward an outcome no one expects, Abby and Luz must answer the riveting question: What does it mean to be a good mother?

Join us as Lara Bazelon illustrates the answers to motherhood through a discussion of A Good Mother. She'll be joined in conversation by Piper Kerman, author of the hit bestseller Orange Is the New Black. Kerman's book served as the source material for the eponymous hit Netflix series.

NOTES

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

SPEAKERS

Lara Bazelon

Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinical Programs, University of San Francisco; Author, A Good Mother: A Novel

In Conversation with Piper Kerman

Author, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

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 May 18th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

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

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