KQED's Forum

Earlier this month, the FBI indicted a major local real estate developer for bribing three San Francisco officials to obtain permits and expedite inspections. This episode is just the latest in a series of corruption scandals that began in 2020 and brought down officials in the Department of Power and Water, the Department of Building Inspection, and the city’s public utilities commission, among others. Is there something systemic or cultural that leaves San Francisco more vulnerable to corruption by public officials? We talk to experts and hear from you.

Guests:

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, reporter/producer covering politics, KQED News

Jason McDaniel, associate professor of political science, San Francisco State University. He teaches urban politics and campaigns and elections.

JoAnne Speers, principal, S2 Ethics Strategies. Speers is the former chief executive of the Institute for Local Government and former general counsel of League of California Cities

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Beneath the surface of a coffee bean or a red pepper flake or a nutmeg seed — or any of the plants we rely on for medicine, food and drink — lie a “bevy of poisons,” writes UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman. But the chemical compounds that treat our infections, spice up our meals and calm our nerves didn’t evolve for our benefit. Instead, plants, fungi and even some small animals produce toxins to defend themselves against predators, attract pollinators and engage in battles of chemical warfare. We’ll talk about the biology and influence of “nature’s pharmacopeia” with Whiteman, whose new book is “Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature’s Toxins — From Spices to Vices.”

Guests:

Noah Whiteman, professor of Integrative Biology and Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley; director, Essig Museum of Entomology; author, “Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins — from Spices to Vices”

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In the last several years, a cult industrial complex has emerged to capitalize on Americans’ fascination with groups such as Jonestown, the Manson Family, the Branch Davidians, and the Rajneeshpuram community in Wasco County, Ore., argues UC Berkeley professor Poulomi Saha. But in her highly sought-after class called Cults in Popular Culture, they emphasize that it’s important to look beyond the sensational examples and recognize how cult-like behavior shows up in many facets of our lives and society. We’ll talk with Saha about why some groups are labeled as cults, why people are drawn to them, and what cults reveal about spirituality and culture in America.

Guests:

Poulomi Saha, associate professor of English and co-director of the Program in Critical Theory, UC Berkeley. Saha teaches a course called Cults in Popular Culture.

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California’s stray animals face a slew of challenges that might sound familiar to human residents of the state: a lack of affordable housing, prohibitive health care costs, and a shortage of service providers. Animal shelters that emptied during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic have since refilled, and placing those animals in homes can be a struggle. We speak with a veterinarian and two shelter administrators about how they’re adapting to the volume of animals – and people – in need of their services, and how community supporters can help. We’ll also hear from a journalist covering animal welfare at the national level, and from you: Have you tried to adopt, or rehome, a pet? What was your experience?

Guests:

Ann Dunn, director, Oakland Animal Services

Cynthia Karsten, director of outreach and shelter medicine, University of California-Davis

Kenny Torrella, staff writer, Vox

Sarah Aguilar, director, Santa Barbara County Animal Services

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Thirty years ago, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn and pledged to work together for peace. At that historic meeting, they signed what became known as the first Oslo Accord, ushering in an era of renewed optimism that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved. Was its failure inevitable? Amid the tragedy of the current Israel-Hamas war, The New York Times magazine recently assembled a panel of experts — three Palestinian, three Israeli and one American – to discuss the Oslo peace process and why it broke down. Two of the participants in that discussion and journalist Emily Bazelon, who moderated it, join us to look back at what happened before and after the handshake and what it can tell us about the possibilities for negotiating peace.

Guests:

Emily Bazelon, staff writer, The New York Times Magazine; author, "Was Peace Ever Possible?" in the New York Times; co-host, Slate's political gabfest

Efraim Inbar, professor of political studies, Bar-Ilan University; president, Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

Omar Dajani, former senior legal advisor, Palestine Liberation Organization's Negotiations Support Unit; professor of law, University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law

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Proposition 8 passed 15 years ago this month, banning same-gender marriage in California. Two couples — one lesbian, one gay — sued to overturn the proposition and succeeded, with gay marriage made legal in California in 2013. The trial was videotaped, but those tapes didn’t become public until last year. That inspired KQED reporters Scott Shafer and Carlos Cabrera-Lomeli to invite those two couples to watch their testimony and reflect on how much LGBTQ rights have changed — and how far we’ve yet to go. We’ll talk with them and with plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, and we’ll hear from you: What do you remember from Prop 8?

Related link(s):

Inside the Trial That Overturned California’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban | KQED

Guests:

Carlos Cabrera-Lomeli, community engagement reporter, KQED

Scott Shafer, senior editor, KQED’s California Politics and Government desk; co-host, Political Breakdown

Kristin (Kris) Perry, plaintiff, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger

Sandy Stier, plaintiff, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger

Vaughn Walker, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1989 to 2011; presided over Perry v. Schwarzenegger

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With $1.6 billion in assets, the San Francisco Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country. The organization is now in its 75th year of using philanthropy to try to improve the lives of residents across the Bay Area by funding nonprofit programs, pushing for policy change, and training leaders. Some of the foundation’s efforts include helping hotel workers win fair wages and benefits, advocating for mixed-income public housing in San Francisco to prevent displacement, and implementing a volunteer-based policing program in Oakland’s Chinatown to combat anti-Asian hate crimes. We talk with the foundation’s CEO Fred Blackwell about their biggest successes, challenges, and goals as well as the changing role of philanthropy in a time of vast economic inequality.

Guests:

Fred Blackwell, CEO, San Francisco Foundation

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University of Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy loves games. He’s spent much of his career popularizing math — and for him, games are a way to “play mathematics.” But playing math might not be the first reason your nephew gives when you ask him why he loves video games, or your friend when she describes her undying love for “Risk”. There are elements of social psychology, from competition to collaboration, that also draw us toward getting the “Scrabble” board out of the closet and onto the dining room table. For many of us, games not only inform our identities — they build our sense of selves and community. “Tell me the game you play and I will tell you who you are,” writes du Sautoy in his new book, “Around the World in 80 Games”— and we want to hear from you: What’s your game? Du Sautoy joins us to hear your answers, as well as share the history and power our favorite games hold over us.

Guests:

Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi professor for the public understanding of science and professor of mathematics, the University of Oxford

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The New York Times has called Rick Prelinger “one of the great, undersung historians of 20th century cinema.” But the Bay Area-based archivist isn’t known for books on Chaplin or Bergman. Instead, Rick and partner Megan Prelinger collect the film history of everyday life: home movies, industrial films, studio outtakes and other works that would otherwise be lost or forgotten. The duo may be best known for the free movies they make available through the Internet Archive digital library. And locally, they’ve gained a following for their “Lost Landscapes” film project, a compilation of historic Bay Area footage from their archives. We’ll talk to Rick and Megan about the 18th and latest installment of “Lost Landscapes”, entitled “City and Bay in Motion: Transportation and Communication.”

Guests:

Rick Prelinger, founder, Prelinger Archives, whose moving image holdings may be found online at archive.org; co-founder, Prelinger Library, a publicly-available collection of historical periodicals, books, print ephemera, maps and government documents

Megan Prelinger, co-founder, Prelinger Library; co-director, Prelinger Archives film digitization project. Prelinger is also the author of the books Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957–1962 and Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age

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Americans are doing a lot more of their shopping online, and thanks to generous return policies we’re also sending back more of the stuff that doesn’t fit, doesn’t work or just doesn’t look like its JPG. Many of us even regularly buy clothes in multiple sizes and colors and simply send back anything that we don’t like the look of. But very little of what we return, from bathing suits to defective barbeque grills, is repaired or resold as new. Returned inventory created 9.5 billion pounds of landfill waste last year, according to one estimate. And the shipping of returned inventory in the US, to retailers, resellers and repairers, emitted over 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022. We’ll talk about the logistics of the reverse supply chain and the environmental consequences of all the stuff we buy and don’t want.

Guests:

Amanda Mull, staff writer, The Atlantic. She writes the column “Material World” on American consumerism

Tobin Moore, co-founder and principal, Optoro, a returns technology company

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