KQED's Forum

This week's Forum in Focus takes on rethinking infrastructure with engineering professor Debbie Chachra and the true toll of vehicular homelessness with New York Times Reporter Rukmini Callimachi and KQED callers.

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“Make one mistake each day.” “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying.” These adages might feel cliché. But mistakes, though often embarrassing, really are essential for learning, and how you handle them depends on your upbringing, education and even your neurology, according to USC professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. We’ll talk about what happens in our brains when we make mistakes, and we’ll hear how you react to a cringe-worthy blunder. Do you tend to shut down and deflect blame? Is it easy for you to regroup and figure out what went wrong? What has a mistake taught you?

Guests:

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, professor of education, psychology and neuroscience, University of Southern California; director, USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE)

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A black Victorian that once housed a Satanic church in San Francisco. The legend of star-crossed young lovers, murdered long ago in what is now Hayward. And of course, San Jose’s enigmatic Winchester Mystery House. The Bay Area is steeped in eerie legends and locations, and KQED’s Bay Curious podcast is exploring them in a special new series entitled “Boo Curious”. We’ll talk to host Olivia Allen-Price and reporter Carly Severn about the creepy local history and spooky stories their team has uncovered. What’s a location that makes your hair stand on end?

Guests:

Olivia Allen-Price, host, KQED's Bay Curious - a podcast that investigates questions asked by local residents about things both profound and peculiar that make the Bay Area unique.

Carly Severn, senior editor of audience news, KQED

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When does memory begin? That’s the question Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen poses in the first lines of his new book “A Man of Two Faces,” which he calls at once a memoir, a history and a memorial. Memory for Nguyen begins in part when at age four he fled Vietnam with his parents and his brother, stopping at a chain of American military bases abroad and then being placed in the homes of American sponsors in Pennsylvania, temporarily separated from his family. But Nguyen also likens memory to a sandcastle and a flickering single frame of a film, highlighting the fragility of the stories we tell about ourselves and our country. We talk to Nguyen about the intersection of art, memory and displacement, both physical and metaphysical.

Guests:

Viet Thanh Nguyen, author, "A Man of Two Faces." His previous books include the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Sympathizer"

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Pockets. They are something you don’t notice, until you don’t have one to stash your phone, wallet, keys, or the random Walgreens receipt. Invented in the 16th century, pockets have had a unique trajectory in fashion. Men’s clothes are full of practical pockets. Women’s clothing, not so much. In her new book “Pockets,” design professor Hannah Carlson explores all the ways this “humble component of dress” reveals how we live. We’ll talk with Carlson about the origins of pockets, what their contents say about us and the gender politics at play in their design. Could you live without a pocket?

Guests:

Hannah Carlson, senior lecturer of apparel design, Rhode Island School of Design; author, "Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close"

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Nursing homes aren’t generally equipped to care for the seriously mentally ill, who require specialized treatment and services. But a new investigation by LAist found that in the past year, 25 percent of California nursing home residents had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or psychotic disorder. And that percentage has increased over the past decade. Some advocates say the mentally ill are effectively being “warehoused” in nursing homes, a practice they say could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws.

Guests:

Keris Jän Myrick, vice president of partnerships, Inseparable - a mental health advocacy organization. She was referred to a nursing home after being hospitalized

Debbie Toth, executive director, Choice in Aging - which works to create opportunities where people can learn, grow, and age independently with dignity in community

Elly Yu, senior reporter, LAist

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Broc Cellars, an under the radar Berkeley winery, had a solid Japanese following. But when its Zinfandel “Vine Starr” was featured in the beloved manga “Drops of God,” its sales took off. You’ll often find loving descriptions of comfort food favorites like curries, ramens, and rice balls featured in mangas and animes. And cookbooks have been written about dishes featured in their plotlines. In the next All You Can Eat, a collaboration with the KQED Food Team, we’ll talk about the influence of manga and anime on food and vice versa. What are your favorite food anime and manga?

Guests:

Luke Tsai, food editor, KQED Arts & Culture

Deb Aoki, journalist specializing in comics; co-host, "Mangasplaining" - She previously had a comic strip, "Bento Box" in the Honolulu Star Advertiser

Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic, San Francisco Chronicle

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The Empress date. The Burbank tomato. The Sebastopol Gravenstein apple. Halali’i sugar cane. These are among hundreds of foods grown in the United States on the “Ark of Taste,” a list of endangered foods curated by Slow Foods International. For her new book “Endangered Eating,” culinary historian Sarah Lohman journeyed across the country to study some of the rare foods on the Ark, interviewing the farmers, activists, and scientists pioneering their resurgence. We talk to Lohman about the American heirloom crops and culinary traditions that are disappearing and what we can all do to help preserve them.

Guests:

Sarah Lohman, culinary historian; author, "Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods"

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The stay at home orders of 2020 and the shift to remote work drastically changed how people commute. Now, more than three years after the onset of the pandemic, ridership on most public transit still hasn’t recovered, and in some cases is consistently hovering below half of pre-pandemic levels. But car traffic has rebounded, and then some. Bay Bridge data shows that some mornings, congestion heading into San Francisco is even worse than in 2019. This comes at a time when experts agree we should be transitioning away from solo car trips. We’ll discuss how local transit agencies are adapting to these new transportation trends, and hear about efforts to get more people out of their cars and onto buses and trains.

Guests:

Dan Brekke, editor and reporter, KQED News

Joe McConnell, former traffic reporter, KQED - Joe recently retired after more than 36 years with the station

Rebecca Long, director of fegislation and public affairs, Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Daniel Rodriguez, director, Institute of Transportation Studies UC Berkeley

Janice Li, president, BART's Board of Directors

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An under-studied segment of our country’s homeless population are those who are experiencing “vehicular homelessness.” These are people who sometimes choose, but are often forced, to call their cars their home. The reasons are manifold, including unmanageable rents, bad credit, too much debt, and often just bad luck. For her new article, “I Live In My Car,” New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi went to the outskirts of Seattle to spend a few days with a family living out of their sedan in a church parking lot. We’ll talk to Callimachi about the dozens of people she met, both car dwellers and those trying to help them. And then we’ll speak to a researcher from UCLA to find out how they’re studying the topic in Los Angeles.

Guests:

Rukmini Callimachi, correspondent, The New York Times

Madeline Brozen, deputy director, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

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