Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

When Isaac Newton established the laws of motion in 1687, he created a foundation of understanding that still guides physicists to scientific discoveries today. As studies evolve, scientists get closer to understanding the deepest mysteries of space and time. Once physicists can successfully combine theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, all forces in the universe will be recognized and tied into one. Physicist Michio Kaku seeks to document this epic journey of uniting theories of space in his new book The God Equation.

Dr. Kaku, once mentored by theoretical physicist Edward Teller, graduated summa cum laude and first in his physics class from Harvard University. Now, Dr. Kaku strives to continue Einstein’s search for a “theory of everything,” seeking to popularize science and unify the four fundamental forces of the universe—the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism.

Join us as Michio Kaku talks about physics pioneers looking to understand the complexity of the universe.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Michio Kaku

Professor of Theoretical Physics, City College of New York; Author The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything; Twitter @michiokaku

Kara Platoni

Science Editor, Science, Wired.com—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 16th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

The real-life tale of Ted Ngoy, "the Donut King," is one of fate, love, survival, hard knocks, and redemption. It's the rags to riches story of a refugee escaping Cambodia, arriving in America in 1975 and building an unlikely multi-million-dollar empire baking America's favorite pastry, the donut. He sponsored hundreds of visas for incoming refugees and helped them get on their feet teaching them the ways of the donut business.

His life has been turned into the documentary The Donut King by award-winning filmmaker Alice Gu. A Los Angeles native, Gu began her career as a director of photography, working with renowned directors Werner Herzog, Stacy Peralta, and Rory Kennedy, among others. Her commercial clients for print and live action include TBWA/ Chiat Day, Media Arts Lab, Deutsche, Edelman, Berlin Cameron, Cole & Weber, Pereira & O’Dell, Doremus, Publicis, Beats by Dre, Laird Hamilton, ESPN, FIFA, NFL, NHL, NBA, the WSL, Apple, Peta, and the American Humane Association. Take Every Wave: the Life of Laird Hamilton made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, a documentary film directed by Academy Award nominated director, Rory Kennedy, and lensed by Alice Gu.

The Donut King is Alice’s feature directorial debut; it was slated to premiere in the canceled 2020 SXSW film festival. Despite the cancellation, the film won the Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling, as well as the One in a Million Award at the canceled 2020 Sun Valley Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize at the Bentonville Film Festival. A feature-length documentary about the rise and fall of a Cambodian refugee turned donut tycoon, The Donut King is executive produced by Academy Award-winners Ridley Scott and Freida Lee Mock.

Join us for a discussion with Alice Gu.

SPEAKERS

Alice Gu

Filmmaker, The Donut King and Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW/KPIX and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-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 April 8th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

Join us for a virtual discussion with Mustafa Akyol, who takes us on a fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, and argues that the next "Islamic Enlightenment" may be on the horizon.

Akyol diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he says Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He demonstrates how values often associated with the Western Enlightenment―freedom, reason, tolerance and an appreciation of science―had Islamic ancestors that were cast aside, for political reasons, in favor of more dogmatic views. Akyol borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes), to show how they shared a strikingly modern worldview on a range of sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, or freedom from religion.

While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Mustafa Akyol

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; Contributing Opinion Writer, The New York Times; Author, Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom and Tolerance

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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 8th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent her decades in public service advocating for guaranteed rights and protections of all people. She transformed the legislative landscape by pioneering conversations on American freedom with a particular focus on gender equality. In the new book Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue, UC Berkeley law school professor Amanda Tyler celebrates the life work of RBG to tell the story of Justice Ginsburg's unwavering commitment to the achievement of "a more perfect Union." With a research focus in the Supreme Court, legal history and civil procedure, Tyler encapsulates the life of RBG and what we can learn from her experiences in politics.

Drawing from personal conversations and additional materials on Justice Ginsburg’s life, Tyler dives into her notable briefs and oral arguments, last speeches and favorite opinions, along with the statements that she read from the bench in her most important cases. She emphasizes Ginsburg’s pursuit for constitutional interpretation that defends all people based on humanity rather than status—a mission she said all politicians should strive to follow. Dubbed “The Notorious RBG,” her tireless work in the government will have a lasting impact on our nation’s political culture.

Join us as professor Amanda Tyler and award winning journalist Soledad O’Brien commemorate the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and tell us what we can learn from the late justice’s life work.

SPEAKERS

Amanda Tyler

Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley School of Law; Author, Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union

In Conversation with Soledad O’Brien

Journalist

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 15th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

Theoretical physicist Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein wants to share the wonders of the universe with people who might think they are inaccessible. As a professor at the University of New Hampshire in theoretical physics and women’s studies, Prescod-Weinstein teaches and studies the outer reaches of scientific understanding and seeks to make complex concepts understandable. In her new book The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, Prescod-Weinstein provides a unique chronicle of the physics of our cosmos through the lens of the Star Trek universe.

Join Prescod-Weinstein at INFORUM to learn about the universe from her perspective, formed by Black feminism and a view of our cosmos as, despite its intricacies, accessible to all.

SPEAKERS

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physics and Core Faculty Member in Women’s Studies, University of New Hampshire; Author, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred

Raja GuhaThakurta

Ph.D., Professor/Astronomer & Department Chair, Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz

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 6th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

Join us for a far-reaching conversation with co-authors Dr. Jane Mahakian and Alyson Kuhn about their practical guide for caregivers and the rest of us. Learning to communicate with someone with dementia is an enormous first step toward making that person’s life easier and richer in the moment. The more of us who want to talk and listen to people with dementia, the less “socially disappeared” they will be.

Dr. Mahakian and Kuhn will share several of the book’s vignettes, giving us glimpses into the realm of forgetfulness and demonstrating ways to connect with someone with dementia. They will also share reader responses to I Hear You, which are diverse, touching and thoughtful.

The co-authors met in 2003, when it became prudent to move Caroline, Kuhn’s mother, from her home of 50 years—before her dementia posed serious risks to her physical and social well-being. Dr. Mahakian masterminded the successful move, and Kuhn’s extensive email exchanges with Dr. Mahakian over several years formed the basis for the I Hear You writing partnership.

MLF ORGANIZER

Denise Michaud

NOTES

MLF: Grownups

SPEAKERS

Jane Mahakian

Gerontologist; Author, I Hear You

Alyson Kuhn

Freelance Writer and Editor; Co-author, I Hear You

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 th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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

For many of us, the story of the American wilderness begins when Europeans arrived on these shores and began conquering it. The wide open spaces of the American West loom large in our country’s mythology. But what often gets written out is the history and culture of those native societies who were here to begin with - and whose relationship to this land is very different. And while one-percenters have contributed generously to preserve and protect the pristine wilderness they love, the people who work for them are often struggling, working two or three jobs. How are public and private land interests competing in the American West? Can conservation and recreation coalesce in a way that is inclusive of all communities?

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

There have always been officials in the political arena who lie to appease their constituents and undermine their opponents. In recent years, lying and falsehoods have only worsened. All over the world, people circulate and amplify damaging lies through social media platforms that influence the masses. These untruths serve to plant seeds of doubt in everyday citizens, citizens who can no longer tell what’s real and what’s fake. In his new book Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception, legal scholar and Harvard professor Cass Sunstein seeks to understand society’s role in regulating lies and falsehoods without threatening the right to freedom of speech.

Generally, he says society must allow lies to circulate to some extent; the government cannot make unbiased judgements about what counts as "fake news.” Still, public officials and private institutions, such as Facebook and Twitter, have the responsibility to regulate the kinds of falsehoods that endanger health, safety and the capacity of the public to govern itself. Sunstein says that as of now, we are allowing far too many lies that both threaten public health and undermine the foundations of democracy itself.

Join us for a conversation with Cass Sunstein as he discusses the tactics used by powerful figures to spread lies, and shows how the government and private institutions can control false information.

SPEAKERS

Cass Sunstein

Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University; Author, Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception

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

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

Women in male-dominated industries face a wide-range of sexist and misogynist obstacles that bring moral and societal dilemmas to the forefront. In these industries, CNN's Brooke Baldwin says that women-led “huddles” are necessary to provide young women in the workplace with the necessary support, inspiration, and strength to succeed. These all-girl learning and work environments ensure that self-care, skill-building, and intersectionality are prioritized to uplift other women. According to Baldwin, trailblazing women have been doing this for generations to break glass ceilings and pave new paths for women everywhere. In her new book Huddle: How Women Unlock their Collective Power, Baldwin explores this group phenomenon and what it means for gender equality and female empowerment.

Through Huddle, Baldwin investigates the periods of “huddle” droughts, the benefits of participating in all-women spaces, and her own input from personal experiences growing up in the South and climbing the ladder of a male-dominated industry. To Baldwin, anything is possible for women in a huddle: success in the workplace, effective grassroots change, confidence in girlhood, and a better physical and mental health profile in adulthood.

Join us as Brooke Baldwin and CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota explore the rewards of women-led spaces for mental health, workplace assistance and overall wellness.

SPEAKERS:

Brooke Baldwin, Anchor, CNN; Author, Huddle: How Women Unlock their Collective Power; Twitter @BrookeBaldwin

In Conversation with Alisyn Camerota, Anchor, New Day on CNN

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

Monday Night Philosophy celebrates National Poetry Month (in partial atonement for a few harsh words about poetry in Plato's Republic) by virtually welcoming acclaimed poet Phillis Levin, the author of five books of poetry, to San Francisco. Since its inauguration in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with poets, publishers, booksellers, libraries and schools celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.

Join Phillis Levin, and poet-lawyer Paul Gupta, for a dive into the pleasures of poetry and for readings from each of their own works. We will also hear from some of the Bay Area's student poets, and then from all of you. Instead of the usual Q&A, livestream audience members can either ask the poets a question using the chat room or send us one of their own poems for us to read. Given our time constraints, if you are an epic poet, remember that brevity is the soul of wit.

MLF: Humanities

MLF: Organizer: George Hammond

SPEAKERS:

Phillis Levin

Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence, Hofstra University; Editor, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet; Author, Mr. Memory & Other Poems

Paul Gupta

Cybersecurity and IP Litigation Attorney; Author, “Holding Lady Liberty’s Hand,” Headcount's Voter Registration Poem

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