KQED's Forum

Michael Andor Broudeur is a classical music critic for the Washington Post and he’s also a self-described “meathead” with an relentless desire to make his body bigger. In his book “Swole: The Making of Man and the Meaning of Muscle” Broudeur grapples with the contradictions and complexities of male body image and masculinity. He embraces the gay male gym culture he’s a part of but writes that it would be silly “to try and distance the symbol of the buff male bod from its long and wide lineage of unsavory cultural signifiers. As a mascot for classical beauty, the meathead must also embody white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and a vast panoply of nationalisms.” We listen back to our June conversation with Brodeur about how weight training has shifted his perspective on what it means to be a man.

Guests:

Michael Andor Brodeur, author, "Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle"; classical music critic, The Washington Post

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

The Darién Gap, the perilous mountain region connecting Central and South America, was thought for centuries to be all but impossible to cross. But now, hundreds of thousands of migrants are doing just that to reach the U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson took three trips to the Darién Gap over five months, following groups of migrants on their 70-mile trek from northern Colombia into southern Panama. They risked hunger, thirst, drowning, disease, violence, sexual assault and death. We talk to Dickerson about what she witnessed and what she calls the “flawed logic” of U.S. immigration policy – “that by making migration harder, we can limit the number of people who attempt it.” Her new article in the Atlantic is “Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap.”

Guest:

Caitlin Dickerson, staff writer, The Atlantic; Dickerson won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on immigration; her new article is "“Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap.”

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

The son who traveled 2,500 miles to save his parents’ dog. The stranger who picked up the tab for a girl who was trying to buy a prom dress at Goodwill. The airport janitor who stopped to feed and comfort a stranded passenger. These are some of the small and big acts of kindness website Upworthy compiled into a new book, “Good People: Stories from the Best of Humanity.” We’ll talk to the editors and hear from you: What is a memorable act of kindness you have received or given?

Guests:

Lucia Knell, co-author, "Good People: Stories From the Best of Humanity "; Knell is the vice president of the media company Upworthy. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Glamour and Vogue, among other publications.

Gabriel Reilich, co-author, "Good People: Stories from the Best of Humanity"; Reilich is the head of content and innovation at the media companies Good and Upworthy. He developed the Upworthy Instagram account which now has five million+ followers.

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

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi says that she’s won nearly all the legislative battles that she started — and she characterizes those she hasn’t won simply as “not yet achieved.” Pelosi has exerted her powers of persuasion and negotiation for 37 years as San Francisco’s congressional representative, pushing forward the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and leveraging behind-the-scenes influence in both Congress and the White House. We talk to Pelosi about the people and principles that motivate her and why she says managing differences in her caucus is like being “a weaver at the loom.” Pelosi’s new memoir is “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House.”

Guests:

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Emerita of the House and U.S. Representative for California's 11th District (San Francisco); author, "The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman House Speaker"

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

California lawmakers approved a landmark bill regulating artificial intelligence on Wednesday. SB 1047, co-authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), aims to curb potential dangers of AI such as misinformation, cyberattacks and the creation of novel biological weapons. It would mandate safety testing for advanced AI models that cost more than $100 million dollars, allow a kill switch for ones that go awry, and add protections for whistleblowers. We’ll talk about how the bill, if signed into law by Governor Newsom, could impact the future of AI in California and across the nation.

Guests:

Rachael Myrow, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk, KQED

Cecilia Kang, tech reporter, The New York Times

Shirin Ghaffary, AI reporter, Bloomberg

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

The smell of ink on paper. The handwritten staff recommendations. The plan to only buy one book, and the inevitable exit with five. Visiting a brick-and-mortar bookstore is not just a serotonin-releasing individual experience. Bookstores build community among the aspiring writer employee, the bookworm regular and everyone else who has “an attachment to the store and the store to them.” That’s according to Evan Friss, author of “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.” We’ll talk with Friss and with some California bookshop owners about the communities they serve, and we’ll hear from you: What’s your favorite bookstore? Why?

Guests:

Evan Friss, professor of history, James Madison University; author, "The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstores

Brad Johnson, owner of East Bay Booksellers in Oakland

Jhoanna Belfer, owner and head booknerd, Bel Canto Books in Long Beach

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

As a new school year kicks off, San Francisco Unified School District faces several big challenges including pending school closures set to be announced later this month. The district, with a budget of $1.3 billion for this fiscal year, has been overspending for years as enrollment has declined. With its financial reserves running dry, district leaders and school board members have to wrangle in spending to close a $420 million deficit or confront a state takeover. We’ll talk to SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne and other experts about the district’s financial problems, what could happen next, and take your questions.

Guests:

Jill Tucker, K-12 Education Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle

Mark Sanchez, commissioner, San Francisco School Board of Education - San Francisco Unified School District

Matt Wayne, superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District

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

Tech companies often portray their AI products as self-sufficient systems that learn from large datasets. However, AI development in reality relies heavily on a global workforce of undervalued workers, including data annotators, content moderators and machine learning engineers, who endure long hours for low pay while performing repetitive tasks. A new book, “Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.”, exposes the harsh conditions these workers face and the human labor essential to AI’s growth. We talk with one of the book’s authors, James Muldoon, to learn more and how we can better protect the rights of low-wage AI workers.

Guests:

James Muldoon, Associate Professor, University of Essex - Research Associate at University of Oxford’s Internet Institute

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

The crisis in Sudan, now in its second year, has been called the “Forgotten War.” While in the early 2000s, ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a region of Sudan, attracted the attention of politicians, journalists and celebrities, the current conflict – which pits two military factions against each other and the civilian population –rarely makes the front page. But the crisis in Sudan is acute: Since the war began, 150,000 people have been killed, 10 million more displaced, women and girls have been subjected to systemic sexual violence rooted in ethnic cleansing, and now, the nation is on the brink of a manmade famine that threatens to cause a “catastrophic level of hunger.” We’ll talk to experts about the war and efforts to stem the humanitarian crisis.

Guests:

Khalid Mustafa Medani, associate professor, McGill University - Medani is director of the Institute of Islamic Studies and Chair of the African Studies Program; his most recent article is "The Struggle for Sudan"

Gabriele Steinhauser, Africa Bureau Chief, Wall Street Journal - Steinhauser is based in Johannesburg, and reported from Sudan in June. Her most recent piece is titled "War Tears Apart Sudan's Capital City"

Akshaya Kumar, director of crisis advocacy, Human Rights Watch

Alaa Suliman, human and professional development officer, Sudanese Association of Northern California, which is based in Hayward, California

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

Ketamine is perhaps best known as a party drug, and it has long been used in hospitals as an anesthetic. In recent years, it has also been touted as a promising, experimental psychiatric treatment. But when Friends actor Matthew Perry overdosed on ketamine last year, it exposed a network of unregulated clinics and unscrupulous doctors distributing the drug for off-label uses. In this hour, we’ll talk with experts about what we know — so far — about ketamine’s efficacy and safety.

Guests:

Smita Das, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford Medicine; vice president of complex care and psychiatry, Lyra Health

Gerard Sanacora, professor of psychiatry and director, Yale Depression Research Program at the Yale School of Medicine

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