KQED's Forum

“I’ve completed another year of delights. Or maybe I should say another year of delights has completed me.” So writes poet and author Ross Gay at the end of his new book, “The Book of (More) Delights,” which once again celebrates life’s daily joys, wonders, gifts and surprises, both small and all-defining. As he did in 2019’s New York Times bestseller “The Book of Delights,” Gay unearths the profound in his quickly written daily odes, each praising friends, everyday items, natural wonders and personal joys, like that of turning around before reaching a hike’s summit. We’ll talk with Gay about the pleasure of continuing this project and hear from you: Whether it’s a coworker’s pear tree or a compliment from a friend, what’s one recent delight from your life?

Guests:

Ross Gay, poet; essayist; author, "The Book of (More) Delights" - His previous books include "Inciting Joy," "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" and "The Book of Delights"

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Everyday people share millions of photos on websites and social media networks. For decades, tech companies have been trying to figure out ways to make the faces in those photos searchable – and monetizable. While that technology has practical uses, it also raises serious privacy questions and has led to problematic cases of mistaken identity. In her book, “Your Face Belongs to Us,” New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill investigates the perils of facial recognition software. She chronicles the trajectory of Clearview AI, a company that prioritized speed and profits over ethics, putting millions of unsuspecting people at risk. We’ll talk with Hill about the rise of facial recognition and how to reduce its harms.

Guests:

Kashmir Hill, tech reporter, New York Times; author, "Your Face Belongs to Us"

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For years, Solano County residents wondered who was secretly spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy up family farms in their community. The rumors swirled: was Disney planning a new theme park? Was it some sort of Chinese government land-grab? In August, the mystery was solved: the New York Times reported that a group of tech moguls including billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and were making the purchases as part of a plan to build a city from scratch, on 50,000 acres of agricultural land. They’ve now gone public, under the name California Forever, and are promising to bring benefits like good paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space. But many questions remain. In this hour of Forum, we’ll talk to the group’s CEO as well as one of the local lawmakers raising concerns about the plan.

Guests:

J.K. Dineen, Bay Area housing reporter, San Francisco Chronicle

Jan Sramek, Founder and CEO, California Forever

Catherine Moy, Mayor, Fairfield

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Rental rates for homes are dropping across the Bay Area. They first fell in 2020 during the pandemic and never fully recovered. Some renters are spending less on rent, but nearly half of Bay Area residents are considered rent-burdened. That leaves housing advocates and experts doubtful the region will become more affordable in a meaningful way. We’ll talk about what lower rents could mean long term and how renters can take advantage of the current market.  

Guests:

Ben Metcalf, managing director, Terner Center of Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, former director of California Department of Housing and Community Development

Shanti Singh, communications and legislative director, Tenants Together

Chris Salviati, senior housing economist, Apartment List

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California’s coast is vanishing, surely and no longer so slowly, writes LA Times environment reporter Rosanna Xia. By the end of the century, climate change and storm and tidal patterns could cause sea levels in California to rise by as much as seven feet, destroying coastal towns and causing billions in damages. But Xia says it’s not too late to chart a different course. We’ll talk to Xia about California communities that are managing sea level rise successfully and about strategies – like seawalls and sand replenishment – that may need to be reconsidered. And we’ll learn why Xia wants us to adopt a deeper way of thinking about our coastline, one that would reframe sea level rise as “an opportunity to mend our fractured relationship with the shore.” Xia’s new book is “California Against the Sea.”

Guests:

Rosanna Xia, staff writer, Los Angeles Times. Her new book is "California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline"

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What if you had a doppelganger – someone who you’re routinely mistaken for – but that double is someone whose politics and worldview are diametrically opposite of yours? That’s what happened to writer and intellectual Naomi Klein. At times in her career, Klein has been mistaken for writer Naomi Wolf, which was sometimes funny and sometimes annoying. But when Wolf evolved into a conspiracy theorist and a regular commentator on Steve Bannon’s podcast, the mix-up became more troubling to Klein, a climate activist and anti-capitalist. The quandary of having a double who stands for ideas that are the polar opposite of your own is the subject of Klein’s new book, “Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.” We talk to Klein about her work…and her double.

Guests:

Naomi Klein, author and columnist with The Guardian. Klein's latest book is "Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World"

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Walking instead of driving to work, school or the store is good for the environment and our physical and mental health. But being a pedestrian isn’t easy in California’s car-centric culture. Our infrastructure is built with cars in mind, and that means that walkers and wheelchair-users can confront serious safety risks in a state where an average of three pedestrians are killed every day. This hour on Forum, we’ll look at how the state is addressing pedestrian safety issues and we’ll hear from you: What do you notice when you don’t use a car?

Guests:

Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law; host of the podcast "Climate Break"

Tim Weisberg, deputy director, marketing and public affairs, California Office of Traffic Safety

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Have you ever seen a weird bug or plant and thought, “Oh my God. What is THAT?” Then iNaturalist, a Bay Area invention, is the social platform for you. Begun as a graduate school project at UC Berkeley, it now receives hundreds of thousands of monthly submissions from nature enthusiasts across the globe. Users post photos of what they have seen and where they found it, and fellow citizen scientists, and often actual, scientists help identify the flora, fauna and habitat. Some iNaturalist aficionados have even identified new species. Now the site is going independent with the help of a $10 million grant. We’ll survey the past and future of this remarkable Bay Area contribution to our collective understanding of the world.

Guests:

Ken-ichi Ueda, co-director, iNaturalist

Scott Loarie, co-director, iNaturalist

Jennifer Rycenga, professor emeritus in the Humanities Department, San Jose State University; former president of the Sequoia Audubon Society in San Mateo.

Prakrit Jain, student of evolutionary biology, University of California, Berkeley

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Brown v Board of Education, the landmark civil rights decision banning racial segregation in public schools, was supposed to give Black children greater educational opportunities. But instead, according to Columbia Teachers College professor Bettina Love, it marked the beginning of an anti-Black educational agenda, characterized by low academic expectations, excessive suspensions, surveillance and physical violence. Love grew up in the 1980s and 90s, a period when the Reagan and Bush administrations pushed ideas of “school accountability” and “school safety” that she says were used to justify punishment of Black children and that have harmed a generation. We talk to Love about her and her peers’ experiences in school as “eighties babies” and why she thinks reparations are essential to repair public education.

Guests:

Bettina Love, William F. Russell professor, Teachers College, Columbia University; author, "Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal"

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It’s hard enough to train for a marathon. But what if you could only train in a crowded prison yard, with borrowed running shoes, on a small track with potholes and six 90-degree turns? That’s what the members of the San Quentin 1000-Mile Club running group face – on top of the harsh living conditions in California’s oldest prison – as they prepare for their annual marathon. A new documentary, 26.2 to Life, goes inside the prison to tell the story of the San Quentin Marathon, its participants, and why they run. We talk with the film’s director as well as the club’s running coach, and one of its former members.

Guests:

Christine Yoo, director, the new documentary "26.2 to Life" - Opens Fri (September 22) at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley and Rialto Cinemas Sebastapol

Markelle Taylor, former member, San Quentin 1000-Mile Club

Frank Ruona, coach, San Quentin 1000-Mile Club

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