Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Ethan Russell is a multi-Grammy nominated photographer and director, and was the tour photographer for The Rolling Stones on the 69 Let it Bleed tour. Russell was almost literally on the last chopper out of the Sixties when he was airlifted with The Rolling Stones from Altamont in the far East Bay of San Francisco.

These moments and many more fill the pages of Russell's recently released career retrospective Best Seat in the House, a 200+ page coffee table photography book. The beautiful book includes rare and iconic images of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors, The Eagles, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, James Taylor, Steve Winwood and many, many more.

Russell's photographs are about history----his own, that of his subjects, and the music industry. Russell's photographs show us rock and roll as it grows into a bigger and bigger business through the increased number of managers and handlers. It is a story of particular relevance to San Francisco—and to anyone who cares about rock and roll.

Please join us for an intimate conversation and special interactive presentation with Russell. If you like rock and roll or photography, it's a program you don't want to miss.

About the Speaker

Ethan Russell was born on November 26, 1945, in Mount Kisco, New York, and moved to San Francisco in the early 1950s. The multiple Grammy-nominated photographer, author, and director is the only photographer to have shot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Just a boy from California, Russell was barely established when he took his first pictures of Mick Jagger; he became one of the foremost rock photographers in the world only a few years later. A pioneer in music video, he is an award-winning creative director and the author of three previous books: Dear Mr. Fantasy, Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones 1969 U.S. Tour, and Ethan Russell: An American Story.

Note: This program contains Explicit Language

SPEAKERS

Ethan Russell

Photographer; Author, Best Seat in the House

Paul Liberatore

Correspondent/Columnist, Marin Independent Journal

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 1st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Celebrate April Fool's Day by joining us for a virtual discussion with Shankar Vendantam about how useful fooling ourselves can actually be. It is of course clear that self-deception does terrible harm to ourselves, to our communities and to the planet. But if it is so irretrievably bad for us, why is it so ubiquitous?

Paradoxically, Vedantam argues that self-deception also plays a vital role in our successes and our well-being. Most of us are at least vaguely aware that the lies we tell ourselves lubricate our daily interactions with our friends, lovers and co-workers. But those lies can also explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, and why some nations hold together while others splinter. Drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy, Vendantam comes to the fascinating conclusion that, if we were just honest about our lies, we might begin to understand ourselves, and our human lives, much better.

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Shankar Vedantam

Host, "Hidden Brain" Podcast and Public Radio Show; Co-Author, Useful Delusions

In Conversation with Dacher Keltner

Ph.D, Founding Director, Greater Good Science Center; Professor of Psychology, University of California Berkeley; Host, "The Science of Happiness" Podcast

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 1st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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San Francisco-based Michael Pritchard travels America teaching the art of learning through laughter and play. He has done voices for many characters on television and in movies and cartoons. A first-prize winner in comedy and counseling, Michael will use humor and humanitarian observations from his decades of working in the education and justice fields to talk (and laugh) about building compassion and community.

About the Speaker

Michael Pritchard began his career on both the comedy stage and as a juvenile counselor in San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center. In 1980, Michael Pritchard won first place in the San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition as well as winning the prestigious California Probation Officer of the Year. Drawing from his counseling background, Michael Pritchard began using humor to inspire, teach communication skills, anger management, diversity, conflict resolution and overcoming burnout and stress. In recognition for his award winning work in social emotional education and promoting nonviolence with youth, Michael Pritchard was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Hartwick University.

MLF ORGANIZER

Anne W. Smith

NOTES

MLF: Arts

SPEAKERS

Michael Pritchard

Comedian

Carol Fleming

Principal, The Sound of Your Voice—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 April 1st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Discussions on immigration policy often focus on building and tearing down walls, keeping people out of the country, and maintaining law and order. Debates over the social contract and the rights of citizens versus noncitizens shape our understanding of immigration and influence the extent to which protections are provided for immigrants. In her new book The Walls Within, historian Sarah Coleman seeks to shift discourse on immigration politics away from the security of international borders and toward domestic policy and its effect on civil rights.

Drawing on new materials from past presidential administrations, immigration groups and civil rights organizations, Coleman examines who is entitled to the American dream, and how such dreams can be subverted for those already calling the country home. She shows that immigration politics is not just about building walls, but about employer sanctions, access to schools, welfare and the role of local authorities in implementing policies.

Join us as Sarah Coleman dives deep into the politics of immigration control and its implications for the idea of citizenship for all.

SPEAKERS

Sarah Coleman

Assistant Professor of History, Texas State University; Author, The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America

In Conversation with Marshall Fitz

Managing Director of Immigration, Emerson Collective

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 31st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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America prides itself on freedom and guaranteed rights for all its citizens, but has the explosion of rights resulted in a partisan divide among its citizens?

You have the right to remain silent and the right to free speech. The right to worship, and to doubt. The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. These rights were not written at the founding of our country, but rather an afterthought of our country’s founding fathers. It wasn't until the racial strife resulting from the Civil War and missteps by the Supreme Court that rights gained a great deal of controversy. This controversy has falsely led many Americans to believe that awarding rights to one group means denying rights to others.

Columbia professor and constitutional law expert Jamal Greene seeks to understand this phenomenon in his new book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart. Greene says that in order to prevent society from complete division, we must recouple rights for all with justice for all.

Join us as Greene grounds us in the foundations of our country and envisions a future of equity and guaranteed rights for every American.

NOTES

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s Future of Democracy Series, supported by Betsy and Roy Eisenhardt.

SPEAKERS

Jamal Greene

Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Author, How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart

Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell

(Ret.), Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—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 31st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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American life is dominated by machines: our computers, our televisions, our phones. This has been especially true over the past year as technology kept us connected—to our jobs, our friends, our families, even our doctors. But, as the country sees the light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic, what now? What has our reliance on technology done to us for not only the past year, but for the past decade (or longer)?

Two authors, Sherry Turkle and Tiffany Shlain, will use the occasion of the publications of Turkle's new book (The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir) and the paperback version of Shlain's book (24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection) to have an intimate and timely discussion on the urgent need to reclaim humanity and empathy in this technological age.

Turke's latest book illuminates our present search for authentic connection in a time of uncharted challenges. Her book ties together her coming-of-age and her pathbreaking research on technology, empathy and ethics. Growing up in postwar Brooklyn, Turkle searched for clues to her identity in a house filled with mysteries. She mastered the codes that governed her mother’s secretive life. She learned never to ask about her absent scientist father—and never to use his name, her name. Before empathy became a way to find connection, it was her strategy for survival.

Shlain's book recounts the efforts she and her family have made to gain more time, productivity, connection and presence in their lives by giving up screens for one day a week. Her book takes readers on a thought-provoking and entertaining journey through time and technology, introducing a strategy for flourishing in our 24/7 world. Drawn from the ancient ritual of Shabbat, she says that living 24/6 can work for anyone from any background. With humor and wisdom, Shlain shares her story, offering the accessible lessons she has learned and providing a blueprint for how to do it yourself.

Please join for this special event about the critical need to reclaim our lives from technology.

SPEAKERS

Sherry Turkle

Author, The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir

Tiffany Shlain

Author, 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection

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 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history, one that’s driving both climate change and global health crises. Best-selling food authority Mark Bittman will offer a panoramic view of the story and explain how we can rescue ourselves from the modern wrong turn.

Mark Bittman has been a leading voice in global food culture and policy for more than three decades. Born in New York City in 1950, Bittman began writing professionally in 1978. After five years as a general assignment reporter, he turned all of his attention to food. His first cookbook, Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking, was published in 1994 and remains in print; since then he has written or co-written thirty others, including the How to Cook Everything series.

Bittman was a distinguished fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists; he remains a fellow at Yale and is now on the faculty of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. He has received six James Beard Awards, four IACP Awards, and numerous other honors. He is also the editor-in-chief of "The Mark Bittman Project," a newsletter and website focusing on all aspects of food, from political to delicious. His most recent book is his history of food and humanity, Animal, Vegetable, Junk.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patty James

NOTES

MLF: Health & Medicine

SPEAKERS

Mark Bittman

Fellow, Yale University; Faculty Member, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; Winner of 6 James Beard Awards; Editor-in-Chief, "The Mark Bittman Project"; Author, Animal, Vegetable, Junk

Patty James

M.S., N.C. Nutritionist; Chef; Author—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 24th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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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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Before the challenges of 2020, most of higher education was already facing intense demographic, financial and cultural pressures. Now, with the likelihood of some online learning remaining part of college curriculum even post-pandemic, what does the future hold for higher education? What questions should students and families be asking institutions as they prepare to return to campus in the fall? Will higher education as we once knew it return, or has the pandemic fundamentally changed how students will experience college? Join us for this engaging conversation between two seasoned experts on the rapidly changing state of higher education, and how colleges are preparing to meet the needs of students for generations to come.

Dr. Marcy is the ninth president of Dominican University of California, serving since 2011. Her research focuses on higher education innovation and transformation. She has published and presented extensively on issues of leadership, strategy and diversity. She holds a doctorate and master's degree in politics from the University of Oxford.

As California Governor Gavin Newsom's senior policy advisor for higher education, Dr. Ajose is responsible for developing and shaping the governor’s higher education policy agenda, which is focused on protecting college affordability, preserving college access and increasing system efficiency to meet the state’s need for a skilled and educated workforce. Most recently she led the Governor's Recovery with Equity task force. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Mary Marcy

Ph.D., President, Dominican University of California; Board Member, Commonwealth Club; Author, The Small College Imperative: Models for Sustainable Futures

In Conversation with Dr. Lande Ajose

Ph.D., Senior Policy Advisor for Higher Education to Governor Gavin Newsom

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 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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In a recent article on The Daily Beast, Dr. Steven Hassan refers to the cult leaders’ “playbook” and lists some of the mind-control strategies employed by former President Donald Trump: These include his grandiose claims, his practice of sowing confusion, his demand for absolute loyalty, his tendency to lie and create alternative "facts" and realities, his shunning and belittling of critics and ex-believers, and his cultivating an "us versus them" mindset. Of all these tactics, the "us versus them" mindset is probably one of the most effective. He says that from the moment you are recruited into a cult, you are made to feel special, part of an "inside" group in opposition to unenlightened, unbelieving, dangerous "outsiders."

Join us for an intriguing talk with Dr. Hassan on cult-like behavior in the political world.

Steven Hassan, Ph.D., is a mental health professional who has been helping people leave destructive cults since 1976 after he was deprogrammed from Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. He is the author of four books Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults; Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves; Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Thoughts & Beliefs; and The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patrick O'Reilly

NOTES

MLF: Psychology

SPEAKERS

Steven Hassan

Ph.D., Author, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

Patrick O'Reilly

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 March 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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