Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

When historian and California state librarian Kevin Starr passed away in 2017, he left behind a legacy of historiography and storytelling that was unrivaled, including his mammoth California Dream series. Former Governor Jerry Brown said that Starr "chronicled the history of California as no one else. He captured the spirit of our state and brought to life the characters and personalities that made the California story. His vision, like California itself, was bigger than life."

Now a group of academics is taking a new look at Starr and his works, including the largely unexplored role of his Catholic faith on how he interpreted California and its history, as well as reinterpreting his works in light of new trends in academia. Jason Sexton, the editor and Russell Jeung and Peter Richardson, two contributors to the new book Redemptive Dreams: Engaging Kevin Starr's California will take Club audiences through some of the challenges involved in interpreting Starr's work and his impact on our understanding of California's past, present and future, and what they mean for Starr's view of the California dream.

MLF ORGANIZER: George Hammond

A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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This is a special episode of On shifting Ground is made available from the Club's newly merged sister organization, World Affairs of Northern California. We're thrilled to now offer thousands of podcast episodes on important current events, critical global issues and the inside scoop from thought-leaders located around the world on our three podcast channels. Each of our media departments also distributes radio programs heard across the country each week.

World Affairs

Climate One

The Commonwealth Club of California

About this episode:

As the war on Gaza continues with no end in sight, two peace activists – one Palestinian and one Israeli – are already charting a non-violent path forward. Ray Suarez sits down with Luxembourg Peace Prize laureates, Ali Abu Awwad, founding leader of the Taghyeer (Change) Palestinian National Nonviolence movement, and Dr. Gershon Baskin, the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization, to learn why they maintain hope for a peaceful, two-state solution.

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If you have trouble sleeping, you’re not alone: 50–70 million people in the United States struggle with ongoing sleep disorders. What many of us don’t realize is that poor sleep can impact your health in many ways.

Insomnia is defined as a lack of sleep and includes common symptoms like trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up frequently. Multiple factors can cause insomnia, yet many people don’t yet realize how wearable technology can give them insights into their sleep. Lifestyle factors such as proper nutrition and exercise are imperative as well to obtain a good night's sleep.

This lecture will describe optimal sleep and discuss the relationship between sleep and alcohol, depression and weight gain. Eric Pifer, M.D., will explain how new technology collects sleep measurements at home and uses it with integrative therapies to promote restorative sleep. Find out how to optimize sleep through wearable tech that can measure sleep quality, physical activity, and heart rate variability. Use data collected to create, develop and track sleep goals.

About the Speaker

Eric Pifer, M.D., is a board-certified physician in internal medicine, and he serves as the medical director of San Francisco Concierge Medicine at Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation. His passion for the highest quality clinical care led him to become a clinical educator and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a two-time chief medical officer who developed a wide variety of innovative programs for cancer, heart disease, women’s health, and brain wellness. Dr. Pifer is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Drexel University of Medicine. 

MLF ORGANIZER: Patty James

A Nutrition, Food, & Wellness Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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Join Rob Mintz, chief curator at the Asian Art Museum, and Laura Allen, the museum's Senior Curator of Japanese Art for an engaging conversation about Murakami's blockbuster exhibition Unfamiliar People: The Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego. The show, four years in the making, takes anime and manga to new heights. This is Takashi Murakami's first solo exhibition in San Francisco. The exhibit is not only a commentary on our society, it's a nuanced examination of human behavior within an extraordinary artistic framework.

Laura Allen has known Murakami since the Fall of 2019, when she visited the artist in his Tokyo studio. Together with Rob Mintz, she'll provide insight into Murakami's personality, both as an artist as well as a social scientist. She'll also talk about her collaboration with Murakami; discuss the many pitfalls she encountered along the way as well as what finally convinced him to create this extraordinary exhibit and display it at the Asian Art Museum.

About the Speaker Dr. Laura W. Allen is senior curator of Japanese art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. After receiving a doctorate in Japanese art history at UC Berkeley, Dr. Allen spent more than two decades teaching, consulting, and publishing on Japanese art before joining the Asian Art Museum staff in 2012. Since then, she has overseen an ambitious program of exhibitions, including two very different shows opening in the fall of 2023, Takashi Murakami: Unfamiliar People – Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego and The Heart of Zen. 

Dr. Robert Mintz is the chief curator at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He oversees the curatorial research program and guides the growth and preservation of the museum’s art collections. Mintz is a specialist in Japanese art history with a keen interest in painting. With degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Washington, he has spent his career working in public art museums trying to make the arts of Asia accessible and inspirational to the widest possible range of audiences.

Main image: Bacon: Scream, 2019, by Takashi Murakami (Japanese, b. 1962). Acrylic, gold leaf, and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on aluminum frame. Collection of D.K., courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © 2019 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

MLF ORGANIZER: Jim Brown

An Asia Pacific Affairs Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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Conceived in the Gilded Age, the Ferry Building opened in 1898 as San Francisco’s portal to the world―the terminus of the transcontinental railway and a showcase of civic ambition. In silent films and World’s Fair postcards, nothing said “San Francisco” more than its soaring clocktower. But as architectural critic John King reminds us, the rise of the automobile and double-deck freeways severed the city from its beloved structure.

King recounts the rise and fall and rebirth of the Ferry Building, introducing the colorful figures who fought to preserve its character, and the city’s soul, from architect Arthur Page Brown and legendary columnist Herb Caen to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Senator Dianne Feinstein. A microcosm of the changing American waterfront, the saga of the Ferry Building explores the tensions of tourism and development―and the threat that the expected sea level rise poses to a landmark that in the 21st century remains as vital as ever.

MLF ORGANIZER: George Hammond

A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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

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Mass produced. Industrially farmed. Corporate owned. Ordinary. To Food & Wine editor Ray Isle, those words describe much of today's wine. He says the way that a wine is made, and who made it, can make a huge difference when you drink it—and that information matters much more than knowing it scored 90 points in some competition. Or that it tastes like blueberries. Or it has "hints of violets and black pepper."

Isle aims to help readers choose more delicious, interesting and environmentally friendly wines without breaking the bank. He examined several hundred independently owned wineries around the world, from France to Oregon to southern Chile, and says that a glass of wine can express the place it comes from and capture the essence of the person who made it. He focuses on wines people can afford, rather than $500 rarities, and he'll help you learn where and how to find the most interesting bottles available today.

In this special December program, join us for a discussion with Isle followed by a delicious—and interesting—wine tasting.

Wine tasting featuring:

Cruse Wine Co. 

Hirsch Vineyards 

Massican 

Matthiasson 

Ridge Vineyards 

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Ben Santer has spent decades researching and identifying the human fingerprints on the climate system changes we’re now all seeing. He was lead author on the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which proclaimed that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” That was the first time the IPCC authoritatively stated humans are causing climate change.

At the time, Stephen Schneider told Ben Santer that the sentence he wrote would change the world. Santer’s foundational work also laid the groundwork for the expanding field of attribution science, which enables activists and lawyers to ascribe proportionate blame to specific polluters in lawsuits demanding damages for climate-disrupting emissions. Climate One is delighted to present the 2023 Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication to atmospheric scientist Ben Santer.

Guests:

Ben Santer, Fowler Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Woods Hole; Visiting Researcher, UCLA

Kassie Siegel, Director, Climate Law Institute, Center for Biological Diversity

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

📞 Call us at (650) 382-3869 to share your clothing story for a chance to be featured on an upcoming episode!

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In 1964, Ronald Reagan told Americans it was “a time for choosing.” Sixty years later, Republicans have their own choice to make: Are they tired of winning?

Perhaps no one has changed the Republican Party in the modern era as much as Ronald Reagan and one of his successors in office, Donald Trump. But Trump's post-presidency has been as filled with controversy and chaos as his time in the White House. 

Journalist Jonathan Karl has known Trump since his days as a New York Post reporter in the 1990s, and he covered every day of Trump's administration as ABC News's chief White House correspondent. Now he follows up his bestselling book Betrayal with Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party. Karl tracks Trump's improbable journey from defeated former president to the dominant force, yet again, in the Republican Party. 

Karl says that from his exile in Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has become more extreme, vengeful and divorced from reality than he was on January 6, 2021. His meddling damaged the GOP’s electoral prospects for a third consecutive election in 2022. His legal troubles are mounting. Yet he’s re-emerged as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Join us for this special online-only program when Karl details the former president’s quest for retribution and provides a glimpse at what the GOP would be signing up for if it once again chooses him as its standard bearer.

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Sam Lebovic demonstrates how The Espionage Act, passed in 1917 to punish the critics of American participation in World War I, gave rise over time to a vast American security state designed to keep its citizens in the dark. When Americans began to balk at the act’s restrictions on political dissidents and the press, the government turned its focus toward keeping its own secrets under wraps. The resulting system for classifying information is shrouded in secrecy, absurdly cautious, and staggeringly costly, preventing ordinary Americans from learning what their country is doing in their name, both at home and abroad.  

Shedding new light on the bloated governmental security apparatus that’s weighing our democracy down, Lebovic sets out in detail the history of America’s ever-increasing drift toward secrecy—and the staggering human and political costs that has had on our society. 

Join us online for an in-depth look at this far-reaching law.

MLF ORGANIZER: George Hammond

A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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

It's that time of year again when we gather together to remember the year that was, share expectations for the year ahead, and celebrate. We'll start our evening with Michelle Meow interviewing the two Jeffs—Jeff Yang, author of the new book The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America (which features a foreword by Michelle Yeoh and an afterword by Jon M. Chu), and Jeff Chang, author and editor of numerous books, including the forthcoming Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. After that, we'll head to our beautiful second-floor lounge for some food, drink, music and togetherness. 

Reserve your ticket early and join us in-person for our once-a-year tradition at The Commonwealth Club's bayfront home!

See more  Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

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