Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

In his new book Say It Loud, acclaimed Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy chronicles his reactions over the past quarter-century to arguments, events and people that have compelled him to put pen to paper.

Three beliefs that are sometimes in tension with one another infuse these pages. First, Professor Kennedy says a massive amount of cruel racial injustice continues to beset the United States, an ugly reality that Kennedy says has become alarmingly obvious with the ascendancy of Donald J. Trump and the various political, cultural and social pathologies that he and many of his followers display and reinforce. Second, Kennedy observes there is much about which to be inspired when surveying the African American journey from slavery to freedom to engagement in practically every aspect of life in the United States. Third, he says an openness to complexity, paradox and irony should attend any serious investigation of human affairs.

Join a compelling conversation with this acclaimed legal scholar and public intellectual about what the past 25 years tell us about the future of race relations in America.

SPEAKERS

Randall Kennedy

Michael R. Klein Professor, Harvard Law School; Author, Say It Loud

In Conversation with Sheryl Davis

Executive Director, San Francisco Human Rights Commission

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 September 15th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Prior to the COVID–19 pandemic, many cities, particularly in the United States, were experiencing somewhat of a renaissance. Population was increasing, abandoned areas were being redeveloped into walkable neighborhoods, crime was dropping, and public spaces were engaging both a new generation of citizens and an older cohort who had moved to cities for the first time. In many ways, cities were fulfilling the vision of renowned urban economist Edward Glaeser as places that were the healthiest, greenest and richest (in both cultural and economic terms) places to live, and as areas that were rich in creativity and innovation.

The 18 months since March 2020 have tremendously challenged this rosy view of cities, and today cities like San Francisco stand at an unexpected crossroads. During the global coronavirus crisis, cities grew silent as many office workers worked from home—if they could work at all. The normal forms of socializing ground to a halt. Theaters and restaurants were quiet, and cultural arts organizations scaled back public programming. Things were supposed to return to normal for cities this fall, but the delta variant of the coronavirus has raised new questions about urban life: How permanent are these changes? Advances in digital technology mean that many people can opt out of city life as never before. Will they? Are we on the brink of an unexpected, post-urban world?

In their new book, Glaeser and his Harvard colleague David Cutler explore the future of cities. Though they believe city life will survive overall, individual cities face terrible risks, and a wave of urban failure could pose a threat not only to urban residents of particular cities but to all of those who rely on them. Glaeser and Cutler examine the evolution that is under way and describe the possible urban futures that lie before us: What will distinguish the cities that will flourish once again from the ones that won’t? The authors discuss San Francisco in the book and how COVID-19 allowed for wealthy citizens to flee the city in search of more space to do remote work.

Please join us for an important conversation on the future of cities, and what it means for the future of the country.

SPEAKERS

Edward Glaeser

Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Co-author, Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation

David Cutler

Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University. Co-author, Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation

Alicia John-Baptiste

President and CEO, SPUR—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 September 14th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Transforming your life can be easier than you think. In his New York Times best selling book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, a world-renowned expert on habit formation shares his groundbreaking methods for the first time in print.

A behavior scientist at Stanford University, BJ Fogg combines his academic research with his massive real-world experience (he has personally coached more than 40,000 people) to create a book full of new insights about how he says behavior really works. With true stories and concise examples, Fogg shares his systematic approach to design for lasting change using his simple and effective methods, including his trademarked Tiny Habits Method. No willpower required. You might be pleasantly surprised to learn about a major theme in this book: People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

In this talk, Fogg will explain how to tap into the precise emotion that will build new habits and ultimately transform your life. A lively speaker and an award-winning teacher, Fogg’s playful approach will surprise you—in the best way. You’ll discover why this landmark book is on so many reading lists.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patty James

NOTES

MLF: Health & Medicine

SPEAKERS

Dr. BJ Fogg

Ph.D., Behavior Scientist; Director of Research and innovation, Behavior Design Lab, Stanford University

Patty James

Chair, Health & Medicine Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club—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 September 14th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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On August 27, 2010, three CIA officers met with then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. Their secret session revealed a courier with deep Al Qaeda ties who had been tracked to a three-story, heavily protected fortress at the end of a dead end street in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Without ever having to say the name bin Laden, there exists a mutual understanding that finally, after nearly a decade, they may have just found the world’s most wanted man.

In Countdown bin Laden, celebrated journalist and anchor of "Fox News Sunday" Chris Wallace delivers a thrilling account of the final 8 months of intelligence gathering, national security strategizing, and meticulous military planning that leads to the climactic mission when SEAL Team Six closes in on its target. Wallace reveals new information collected from in-depth interviews with more than a dozen central figures—including Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the special operator who killed bin Laden. Personal accounts from families who fell victim to 9/11 and relatives of SEAL Team Six are brought to life in Wallace’s narrative, published on the 20th anniversary of the most consequential terrorist attack in American history.

Join us as Chris Wallace brings us fresh reporting about the race to apprehend and bring to justice the architect of 9/11.

SPEAKERS

Chris Wallace

Anchor, "Fox News Sunday"; Author, Countdown bin Laden: The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice

In Conversation with Kirk Hanson

Senior Fellow and Former Executive Director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University

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 September 14th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions, infected hundreds of millions, and laid bare the deep vulnerabilities and inequalities of our interconnected world. The ensuing economic collapse was the worst since the Great Depression, undoing more than two decades of progress in reducing extreme poverty. Tensions between the United States and China boiled over, and the worldwide contest between democracy and authoritarianism deepened. At a time when this global crisis required a truly collective response, international cooperation had almost entirely broken down, with key world leaders hardly on speaking terms.

In Thomas Wright and Colin Kahl’s Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, the two national security experts offer a definitive account of the global impact of COVID-19, the political shock waves it will have on the United States, and myriad ways in which the crisis exposed the limitations of the old world order. This comprehensive account of the year 2020 draws on interviews with officials around the world and extensive research to tell the story of how nationalism and major power rivalries constrained the response to the worst pandemic in a century.

Co-author Thomas Wright is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He has written several extensively researched pieces analyzing Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

Join us as Thomas Wright delves into his latest analysis of one of the strangest and most consequential years on record.

SPEAKERS

Thomas Wright

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Co-author, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order

In Conversation with Edward Luce

Associate Editor, Financial Times

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 September 13th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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In a revolutionary new vision of human biology and the scientific breakthroughs that will transform our lives. Professor Daniel M. Davis shows how radical new possibilities are becoming realities thanks to the visionary efforts of scientists who are revealing the invisible and secret universe within each of us.

Focusing on six important frontiers, Davis describes what we are learning about cells, the development of the fetus, the body's immune system, the brain, the microbiome, and the genome — areas of human biology that are usually understood in isolation. Bringing them together, Davis offers a new vision of the human body as a biological wonder of dizzying complexity and possibility.

SPEAKERS

Daniel M. Davis

Ph.D., Professor of Immunology, University of Manchester (UK); Author, The Secret Body. How the New Science of The Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live; The Beautiful Cure and The Compatibility Gene

Robert Lee Kilpatrick

Ph.D., Chair, Health & Medicine Member-Led Forum, 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 September 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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This September marks the 50th anniversary of the seminal work Diet for a Small Planet, in which Frances Moore Lappé argued that cattle constitute “a protein factory in reverse.” Lappé’s book inspired countless people to adopt vegetarian diets for environmental reasons. 

But in the last 50 years the industrial food systems in America have only grown bigger and more concentrated, and – as the Lappés would argue – more powerful. Together with her daughter Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet, the two now focus on the intersections between democracy, environment, food, and justice. 

“It's really important that we understand that in order to change our food environment, we need to really work to get money out of politics, and we really need to work on how to take on that kind of consolidated power in the industry,” Anna Lappé says.  

Guests:

Frances Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small Planet 

Anna Lappé, author, Diet for a Hot Planet

Analena Hope Hassberg, Associate Professor, Ethnic and Women's Studies Department, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Ruth Richardson, Executive Director, Global Alliance for the Future of Food

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COVID-19 has disrupted many of our lives, with impacts ranging from job loss to housing changes, physical health issues to mental health challenges. At the same time, drug use has increased since the pandemic first struck and has deeply affected many LGBTQ people. 

Join us for an important discussion on the impact of drugs and the search for healthy ways of coping with the pandemic and life's other challenges.

SPEAKERS

Kristen Marshall

Associate Director of San Francisco Programs, National Harm Reduction Coalition

Wayne Rafus

Manager of Contingency Management, 6th Street Harm Reduction Center

Sister Roma

Member, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; Entertainer; Activist

Juniper Yun

Artist, Director of Cultural Affairs, The Transgender District in San Francisco

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—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 September 9th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had near-unanimous public support at the time. Their goals were straightforward: defeat Al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. But after the Taliban was ousted from power, U.S. officials lost sight of their original objectives as the military became mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand.

Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock brings us The Afghanistan Papers, which, similarly to the Pentagon Papers after Vietnam, contains startling revelations from people who played a direct role in the war, certain to change the public’s understanding of the conflict. From leaders in the White House and Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines, many are candidly admitting that the U.S. government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stronghold over their allies in the Afghan government. Whitlock’s account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the U.S. government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground—all upheld by three presidents unwilling to admit failure.

Join us for this timely event with Craig Whitlock as he reveals the alarming truth behind the longest war in American history, forcing us to reckon with what went so horribly wrong in Afghanistan.

SPEAKERS

Craig Whitlock

Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post; Author The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War

In Conversation with Mitch Jeserich

Host, "Letters and Politics," KPFA Radio

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 September 8th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Americans today face a deeply divided nation beset with political dysfunction. It is here in the United States where identity is questioned, equality is fought for, and history is debated. How can we face the past and simultaneously envision a new future? In her new book Renewal, lawyer and foreign policy analyst Anne-Marie Slaughter encourages self-reflection and growth to change the way individuals and institutions lead and learn.

Slaughter’s years of government service, particularly as the former director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, has prepared her for understanding how identity and values shape the crisis America now faces. Through personal reflections and insights on the latest research in the social sciences, Slaughter will explain how to understand how our country must accept its past, renew, and face the future. Renewal highlights a story of crisis and change that can help us find renewed honesty and purpose in our personal and political lives.

Join us as Anne-Marie Slaughter offers honesty and hope in this essential reading for change makers of tomorrow.

SPEAKERS

Anne-Marie Slaughter

CEO, New America; Author, Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics

In Conversation with Lenny Mendonca

Former Chief Economic and Business Advisor, State of California; Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

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 September 8th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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