Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

If war is here to stay, though, can we still tame it the way other social problems have been institutionalized or hemmed in by written and unwritten rules that almost everyone would be ashamed to violate? Can our daily life moral or ethical schemes be extended to restrain this most violent and destructive part of our lives? Our panel will discuss that in the 21st century context of drone wars, non-state actors, collateral damage, heightened security and an ever more level playing field for inflicting violence due to technology.

Our guests, Olivier Award winner and Tony Award nominee Conleth Hill and Tony, Academy, and Emmy Award winner Frances McDormand star as the notorious couple in Shakespeare’s murderous play about the lust for power and the fickleness of fate. Joining these two powerhouses of the stage and screen for the discussion is Berkeley Rep’s Michael Leibert Artistic Director, Tony Taccone.

Henrich explores how our cultural and social development produces a collective intelligence that explains both our success and our uniqueness.

From one of our most engaging political reporters and the author of Why Americans Hate Politics comes the story of conservatism from the Goldwater 1960s to the present-day tea party that he says has resulted in broken promises and an ideological purity that drives moderate Republicans away. Dionne argues that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater’s worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. The radicalism of today’s conservatism is not the product of the Tea Party; Dionne says tea partiers are the true heirs to Goldwater ideology, and the purity movement did more than drive moderates out of the Republican Party—it beat back alternative definitions of conservatism.

Roughly 70 percent of all medical decisions are based on clinical lab test results, yet we don’t know what medical tests are ordered or how results are interpreted. For 30 years, Dr. Alan Wu has conducted blood tests for patients and has written four paperbacks based on real cases, and he believes that an informed individual makes the best patient.

From one of our most engaging political reporters and the author of Why Americans Hate Politics comes the story of conservatism from the Goldwater 1960s to the present-day tea party that he says has resulted in broken promises and an ideological purity that drives away moderate Republicans. Dionne argues that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater’s worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. The radicalism of today’s conservatism is not the product of the tea party; Dionne says tea partiers are the true heirs to Goldwater ideology, and the purity movement did more than drive moderates out of the Republican Party—it beat back alternative definitions of conservatism.

In Eisler’s new novel, NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal to keep America safe: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. Evelyn Gallagher just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA’s camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash. But when Evelyn discovers the existence of an NSA program code-named God’s Eye and connects it with the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins.

Join our distinguished panel from the University of California, Berkeley, in a discussion of expansion, technology and new generations of clean energy innovations and solutions that are critical and essential for healthy and safe world wide environments. With clean energy pervasive and effective throughout our planet—land, sea and air—imagine what 2050 will be.

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt came out of retirement to challenge his close friend and handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, for the Republican Party nomination. To overcome the power of the incumbent, TR seized on the idea of presidential primaries, telling party bosses everywhere to “Let the people rule,” the title of Geoffrey Cowan’s new book. For more than 30 years, Geoffrey Cowan has been an important force in almost every facet of the communication world, as a public interest lawyer, academic administrator, best-selling author and award-winning teacher, playwright, television producer and government official. From 1996 to 2007, Cowan served as dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. In 2010, Cowan was appointed to serve as the first president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. In that role, he carries on the Annenbergs’ legacy, creating a world-class venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine. Mr. Cowan holds a joint appointment in the USC Gould School of Law, teaching courses in communication and journalism. Before his tenure as dean, Cowan was appointed by President Clinton to serve the United States as director of Voice of America, the international broadcasting service of the U.S. Information Agency. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

It shows how a relationship with a guide dog is unique among bonds, for it rests upon highly regulated connections yet touches deep emotional chords. For Krieger, those chords have resulted in these memorable stories, often humorous and playful, always instructive, and generative of broader insight.