Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Sir Francis Drake’s 1579 Plate of Brasse was left at Point Reyes, claiming California for England. Its 1937 recovery became California’s greatest historical hoax. The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV), whose members are commonly known as Clampers, is a spoof on all other fraternal organizations. It was revived in 1932 by professional and successful businessmen, prominent collectors of Californiana, published historians, fine press printers, bibliophiles and University of California academics, who threw off scholarly stuffiness to have fun. From the Roman Empire, ECV spread throughout Europe, China and to the New World via the Spanish. It was brought to California by Chinese mariners. Not until the 21st century did the Clampers’ background with the Plate of Brasse become revealed. Robert Chandler, the speaker, will appear in full regalia and lead the presentation with PowerPoint. MLF Organizer Name Anne W. Smith Notes MLF: Arts

Carl Pope is a veteran leader in the environmental movement and spent nearly 20 years as the executive director of the Sierra Club. He offers an optimistic look at the challenges of climate change, the solutions that hold the greatest promise and the practical steps that are necessary to achieve them. Pope also highlights the contributions and bold actions that cities, businesses and citizens are making to reshape and jump-start a new type of conversation about climate change. Notes Co-hosted by the American India Foundation

San Francisco can be a tough place to find love. There are plenty of apps to help you find casual connections, but what works for finding a longer lasting relationship or even true love? Where should you go, and how can you catch his or her eye? How can you handle rejection without feeling discouraged? And how can you quickly recognize that you're talking to the wrong person? If you're ready to find the lifelong partner you truly want, come get advice from our speaker, Rich Gosse, the worldwide authority on dating. He has run over 2,000 dating parties over more than 30 years, many of which have been in the Bay Area. He’s been interviewed by dozens of major newspapers and TV shows to provide expert insight. And he found his wife by following his own advice. So stop wasting time by falling into impulsive traps that all your friends can see but you can't, or by making endless lists that never seem to lead to an enduring relationship. Come listen to Gosse and move forward with your life. MLF Organizer Name Eric Siegel Notes MLF: Personal Growth, Grownups Co-sponsored by INFORUM

In his new book, How to Fix the Future, Andrew Keen focuses on what we can do to prevent the Internet from further damaging our culture and society. Looking to the past to learn how we might change our future, Keen describes how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments and altered the business world beyond recognition. Keen travels the world to interview experts in a wide variety of fields, including Margrethe Vestager, EU commissioner for competition, whose recent 2.4 billion euros fine to Google made headlines around the world; successful venture capitalists who nonetheless see the tide turning; and CEOs from companies such as The New York Times. According to Keen, there are five key tools for fixing the future: regulation, competitive innovation, social responsibility, worker and consumer choice, and education. His journey to discover how these tools are being practiced around the globe took him to digital-oriented Estonia, the place where Skype was founded, where every citizen can access whatever data the government holds on them, and where an e-residency program allows the country to expand beyond its narrow borders. Keen also traveled Singapore, where a large part of the higher education sector consists of professional courses in coding and website design. Join us and learn more about the Internet’s hold on both American and world culture and how, according to Keen, we can disrupt this negative pattern. MLF Organizer Name Gerald Harris Notes MLF: Science & Technology

There is an information vacuum among government, media and the public about the relative role of wired communications and the reasons hard wires, such a copper cable and optical fiber, usually offer better telecommunications options. From the perspective of public investment, health and ecosystem impacts, and energy efficiency, a strong case can be made that hard wiring is preferable to wireless, yet few understand this. Instead, we seem to believe there is innate value to championing wireless over wired technologies, obsessing about how we can get and pay for more of it without first doing comprehensive cost–benefit analysis or understanding the risks. This program will feature a report by the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy, Reinventing Wires—The Future of Landlines and Networks by Timothy Schoechle. MLF Organizer Name Bill Grant, Camilla Rees (co-chair), Ellen Marks (co-chair) Notes MLF: Health & Medicine

Monday Night Philosophy revisits Pythagoras's conception of harmonious order in the universe. While most of us are familiar with Pythagoras only through the theorem we imbibed as high school students, his place in history is far deeper and greater: first philosopher, hidden root of Platonic ideals, father of western music harmony, architect of medieval education, and demigod of myth and legend. In this multimedia presentation, learn how the Pythagorean search for underlying patterns in the cosmos shaped much of western civilization and has renewed relevance for us today. MLF Organizer Name George Hammond Notes MLF: Humanities In association with Humanities West

Climate chaos looks different in different places, and in the West, it's all about water: drought, floods, fires, unhealthy drinking water. Communities across the West are facing these challenges in interesting and unique ways. Carpe Diem West supports a network of diverse western water leaders who are implementing innovative and equitable responses to the impacts of the warming climate on our water resources in the American West. MLF Organizer Name Ann Clark Notes MLF: Environment and Natural Resources

Rachel Khong and Mark Lukach bring together the stories of two families that found renewed love and commitment after being thrust into caregiving roles. Khong’s novel, Goodbye, Vitamin, chronicles the life of a young women who returns home to care for her father who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Lukach’s memoir, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward, is about his wife’s experience with mental illness. Together, Khong and Lukach look at the role of caregivers and how it often takes a community to tackle life’s most challenging situations. Notes: Presented by the Santa Clara County Library District, the San José Public Library, the Santa Clara County Office of Education and De Anza College

This is a Food Lit program, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Who started the organic food craze that now is a cornerstone of popular American eating? Who is responsible for getting whole food staples such as sprouts, tofu, yogurt, brown rice, and whole grain bread onto every grocery and home shelf? It’s more than a corporate marketing effort, and although it’s a way of life for many, it wasn’t always like this. Food journalist (and former line cook) Jonathan Kauffman digs deep into funky food history in his new book, Hippie Food, shedding light on the cultural revolutionaries who shaped a more idealistic and communal way of life and food in the United States. Food is deeply woven into our cultural history. Join Kauffman as he shares a chapter from hippie food history, including stories about cults, the Summer of Love, and a coast-to-coast journey of culture and cuisine. Before the program, enjoy juices and plant-based snacks from in-kind sponsor Urban Remedy.

In Troublemakers, historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the Internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, Ask and the iconic venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. In the space of only seven years and 35 miles, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital and advanced semiconductor logic—were born. In addition to well-known innovators such as Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Don Valentine, Berlin’s book features Mike Markkula, former Apple chairman; Bob Taylor, who kick-started the ARPANET and masterminded the personal computer; Sandra Kurtzig, the first woman to take a technology company public; Al Alcorn, the engineer behind the first wildly successful video game; Fawn Alvarez, who rose from an assembler on a factory line to the executive suite; and Niels Reimers, who changed how university innovations reach the public. These troublemakers rewrote the rules and invented the future. MLF Organizer Name Gerald Harris Notes MLF: Science and Technology