KQED's Forum

In Miranda July’s new novel, “All Fours,” a 45-year-old artist embarks on a solo roadtrip to New York from her Los Angeles home. She makes it as far as Monrovia, a small town a half-hour from L.A., and waits out the rest of her trip in a motel room while pursuing an infatuation with a Hertz rental car employee. The novel, which shares similarities with July’s own life, explores themes of marital ennui, the fear of sexual irrelevance and the contours of the female midlife crisis. July grew up in Oakland and is known for her performance art, her films “Me and You and Everyone We Know” and “Kajillionaire,” and her fiction “No One Belongs Here More Than You” and “The First Bad Man.” We talk to her about her new novel and why she describes it as “closer to the bone.”

Guests:

Miranda July, actor, screenwriter, director and author - She’s known for her films “Me and You and Everyone We Know” and “Kajillionaire,” and her fiction includes “No One Belongs Here More Than You” and “The First Bad Man”. Her new novel is "All Fours"

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What it means to be American and who gets to claim that identity are questions that animate Rachel Khong’s newest novel “Real Americans.” The book follows three generations of a Chinese American family, and grapples with not just race, but class and genetic identity. Khong is a former editor of the food magazine “Lucky Peach” and the founder of The Ruby, a work and event space in the Mission for women and nonbinary writers. We talk to Khong about her book and work.

Guests:

Rachel Khong, author, "Real Americans" - Khong is also the author of "Goodbye, Vitamin," which won the 2017 California Book Award for First Fiction. She founded The Ruby, a work space in San Francisco's Mission district for women and nonbinary writers.

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Craig Foster may be best known for “My Octopus Teacher,” the Oscar-winning documentary about his tender relationship with a wild female octopus who inhabited the kelp forests off the coast of South Africa. He’s now written a new book called “Amphibious Soul,” which invites us along on his underwater excursions and shows us how, through techniques like tracking, we can connect with creatures and our wild selves. Is there a wild animal or place that you’ve built a connection with?

Guests:

Craig Foster, author, "Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World," natural history filmmaker, creator, "My Octopus Teacher," co-founder, Sea Change Project

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The gig economy, as it has been known, was built around a controversial idea — that an Uber driver, for instance, did not work for Uber. These apps, instead, were merely making a market for workers, which a user could access to hire someone. Many labor leaders rejected this idea, and it has led to fights in the legislature, courts and over Proposition 22 in 2020, when voters handed the gig economy a huge win. The constitutionality of Prop. 22 is now before the California State Supreme Court, and we’ll go over the arguments, which the court heard this week, and discuss how gig workers have fared since it became law.

Guests:

Levi Sumagaysay, economy reporter, CalMatters

Ken Jacobs , co-chair, Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley

John Mejia, rideshare driver and member of California Gig Workers Union

David Lewis, dasher, Doordash

Molly Weedn, spokesperson, Protect App-Based Drivers & Services coalition

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“It’s difficult to think of a public health crisis more inevitable than the impending end of Roe v. Wade,” writes journalist Shefali Luthra, “and yet, on June 24, 2022, the country was profoundly unprepared.” Luthra argues that we’re now in the midst of that public health crisis, as millions of Americans seeking abortions face overwhelming obstacles to care, and as abortion providers reach a “breaking point to attempt to meet demand.” Luthra’s new book “Undue Burden” chronicles what she calls the human stories of abortion access — the patients with medically complex pregnancies who spend life savings on out-of-state care, the doctors who work under fear of legal reprisal and the lawmakers who struggle to respond. We talk to Luthra about the personal and systemic impacts of the loss of the constitutional right to abortion, nearly two years after Dobbs.

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If you’re looking for a great meal after midnight, you’re unlikely to find a wealth of options in downtown San Francisco. But expand your search to the Bay Area’s suburban communities, and you’ll find a late-night dining scene that’s brimming with hot pot restaurants, noodle shops, taco carts, and 24-hour casino buffets. Nocturnal noms are the subject of a new collaborative series from KQED’s food editor Luke Tsai and illustrator Thien Pham, called “Midnight Diners.” On the next edition of All You Can Eat, we’ll talk about the local restaurants that keep us fed when we’re staying up late and whether the Bay Area deserves its early-to-bed reputation.

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Longtime New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has reported from war zones and humanitarian crises and has examined our own nation’s struggles with poverty, addiction and homelessness. And yet, in his new memoir, “Chasing Hope,” Kristof calls himself an optimist. Journalism, he says, is an act of hope in itself. We talk to Kristof about what he’s learned about the power of storytelling to make people care about issues near and far.

Guests:

Nicholas Kristof, columnist, New York Times; his new memoir is "Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life"

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Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for swifter reforms to California’s beleaguered home insurance market as homeowners across the state continue to lose coverage or face rate hikes. A growing number of insurance companies have stopped writing new policies in the state, citing increased climate-related risks and higher costs. Meanwhile, the state’s fire coverage of last resort, the FAIR plan, is overwhelmed and facing its own financial crisis. Newsom said this month he is drafting legislation that would speed up how quickly insurance companies can increase rates, a change insurers say they need to do business in the state. We’ll get the latest on the home insurance crisis and take your questions.

Guests:

Danielle Venton, science reporter, KQED News

Amy Bach, executive director and cofounder, United Policyholders - a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for insurance consumers

Karl Susman, president and principal agent, Susman Insurance Services, Inc.

Michael Soller, deputy insurance commissioner for communications and press relations, State of California

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Humanitarian aid groups are reporting “unprecedented” levels of starvation for over 2 million people in Gaza, after nearly eight months of Israeli military bombardment and blockades. Another 5 million people are estimated to face “acute” food shortage in Haiti between March and June, and according to the United Nations, the threat of famine looms for 18 million people in east Africa as Sudan enters its second year of civil war. These hunger crises could have long-lasting effects; according to biologist and early development specialist Tessa Roseboom, the impacts of near starvation are likely to be experienced by generations to come. Her research focuses on people who were born during or shortly after the Dutch “Hunger Winter,” a result of German blockades in the final months of World War II. We speak with Roseboom about her research and its implications for people experiencing starvation in current conflicts around the world.

Guests:

Abby Maxman, president and CEO, Oxfam America

Dr. Tessa Roseboom, professor of early development and health, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam

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During the Trump Administration, scenes of children separated from parents and placed in chain link cells that looked like cages caused a national outcry. But the policy of immigration detention in the U.S. is far from new. With historical roots in slavery and the treatment of indigenous people, it has been used on Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, migrants from civil wars in Central America and immigrants from around the world since the policy was codified in 1891. In her new book, “In the Shadow of Liberty,” Stanford professor Ana Raquel Minian traces the nation’s detention policy by focusing on individual stories of immigrants past and present. We talk to Minian about why she believes immigrant detention doesn’t make us safer and her recommendations for a different path forward.

Guests:

Ana Raquel Minian, associate professor of history, Stanford University; author, "In the Shadow of Liberty" and "Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration"

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