KQED's Forum

Jann Wenner started Rolling Stone magazine in San Francisco at the tender age of 21 – placing himself smack in the middle of 1967’s wild and groundbreaking music scene. We’ll talk with Wenner about San Francisco rock and roll, the legacy of Rolling Stone magazine and his new memoir, “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Guests:

Jann Wenner, founder, Rolling Stone Magazine; author of the memoir, "Like a Rolling Stone"

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Why do some people with mental illnesses recover while others with the same diagnosis don’t? According to New Yorker staff writer Rachel Aviv, the answer in part lies in the gap between people’s actual experiences and the language of contemporary psychiatry that names and defines their conditions. In her new book “Strangers to Ourselves” Aviv writes about people who she says “have come up against the limits of psychiatric ways of understanding themselves” -- a woman who stopped taking her meds because she didn’t know who she was without them, a man subject to years of failed psychoanalysis, and Aviv herself, who at age six was hospitalized for refusing to eat. We’ll talk to Aviv about her discoveries.

Guests:

Rachel Aviv, writer of "Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us"

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President Biden says he aims to end hunger and food insecurity in the United States by 2030. Next week the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health will consider the policy changes needed to reach that goal. The last conference on hunger and health was in 1969 during the Nixon administration, and it led to many of the nation’s major health policies like child nutrition assistance and food stamps. We’ll talk about what hunger and food insecurity looks like in the U.S. now, and what it would take to ensure no Americans go hungry.

Guests:

Ahori Pathak, director of policy, Poverty to Prosperity Program at Center for American Progress

Kassandra Martinchek, research associate, Urban Institute

Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and professor of nutrition, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University; co-chair of the Task Force on Hunger, Nutrition and health - an independent task force working to help inform the White House Conference

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Ukraine surprised both Russia and the world last week with sharp counter offensives in the northeast that have retaken land occupied by Russian troops. Ukrainian forces liberating these areas have discovered not only hastily abandoned Russian outposts, but also further signs of war crimes: outside the town of Izium, a mass grave containing over 400 bodies, primarily civilians, some bearing evidence of torture, is in the process of being exhumed. As winter approaches, both sides of the war hope to make decisive progress and the United States on Friday pledged an additional $600 million to assist Ukraine. We’ll talk about where the war stands.

Guests:

Franklin Foer, staff writer, the Atlantic

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Traveling on BART allows riders to move between Oakland to San Francisco in seven minutes – a modern convenience some people take for granted. The iconic light-rail system that makes it possible turns 50 this year. BART has grown from a dozen stations in 1972 to 50 connected by 131 miles of tracks. The milestone comes at a time when ridership hovers around 40 percent of pre-pandemic levels bringing major financial challenges. And, the current system still falls short of the original vision drawn up in the late 50s. We talk about how BART arrived at its current station and where the system plans to take us in the decades to come.  

Guests:

Dan Brekke, editor and reporter, KQED News

Robert Powers, general manager, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

Lateefah Simon, BART Board member; president of Akonadi Foundation; co-chair of Governor Newsom's police reform task force

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The tech startup Sanas transforms accented English to a white, midwestern American voice. Sanas contends that this technology can help overseas call center workers who are dealing with racist harassment. But those who have studied call centers and the "white voice" say this only puts a filter over the very problems the technology aims to remedy. We'll talk with experts about intolerance for accented speech, the challenges facing international call center workers and what it means to “sound white.

Related link(s):

- Sanas, the buzzy Bay Area startup that wants to make the world sound whiter

Guests:

Sharath Keshava Narayana, Co-Founder & COO, Sanas

Joshua Bote, assistant news editor, SFGATE

Winifred Poster, adjunct faculty in International Affairs, Washington University St. Louis; author, “Borders in Service: Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centres”

Tom McEnaney, associate professor of Comparative Literature and of Spanish and Portuguese, UC Berkeley

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Workers across the country keep talking about “quiet quitting” – the idea that employees should fulfill their job duties in the time they are paid to work – nothing more or less. It sounds logical, but quiet quitting has stirred a lot of feelings and debate this summer. Workplace experts can’t seem to agree on what it is or if it’s even real. In a recent article, Derek Thompson of The Atlantic argues that quiet quitting is not new or novel. Meanwhile, Boston Globe writer Beth Teitell says quiet quitting should extend to other facets of life beyond jobs. We’ll dive into the concept of quiet quitting and what it means to you.

Guests:

Mr. Derek Thompson, staff writer and the author of the Work in Progress newsletter, The Atlantic Magazine; author of the recent article, "Quiet Quitting Is a Fake Trend"

Beth Teitell, staff writer, The Boston Globe; author of the recent article, "Our obsession with ‘quiet quitting’ doesn’t seem to be going away"

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Fog is an indelible part of the magic and culture of San Francisco, providing inspiration for poets and artists and a sometimes-welcome buffer against summer heat. But a new New York Times story by John Branch warns that fog’s future is uncertain, imperiled by a changing climate. Branch joins us to talk about his reporting on the city's famous fog and its elusive future.

Guests:

John Branch, reporter, the New York Times.

Diane Frank, author, editor, "Fog and Light: San Francisco Through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here."

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In the 1950s, San Francisco’s Fillmore district was known as the Harlem of the West. It was famous for its jazz music, its artists and its writers and it served as a cultural hot spot for San Francisco. Writer Margaret Wilkerson Sexton captures the neighborhood’s zeitgeist in her new novel “On the Rooftop,” which tells the story of a single mother and her three daughters trying to make it in music. The Fillmore that Sexton’s characters occupy is a vibrant Black community in danger of being erased by an encroaching displacement campaign. We’ll talk to Sexton about her book and what made the Fillmore “Bop City.”

Guests:

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author, "On the Rooftop" - also author of "A Kind of Freedom" and "The Revisioners."

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Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California’s FAST Recovery Act on Labor Day, authorizing the creation of a council aimed to set minimum labor standards in fast food franchises. The council, composed of workers, franchise owners, corporate representatives and state officials, would also have the power to raise the minimum wage for fast food employees to $22. Of the 550,000 fast food workers in the state, most earn near minimum wage: $15 statewide for businesses with 26 or more employees, and higher in certain cities like San Francisco, where it’s $16.32. Advocates of the legislation say it would also create better redress for wage theft and health and safety hazards. Critics have filed a referendum to block the law and turn it into a ballot measure. We’ll talk about how the FAST Recovery Act could affect California’s economy and its fast food workers.

Guests:

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

Farida Jhabvala Romero, labor correspondent, KQED.

Christopher Thornberg, director, Center for Economic Forecasting and Development, UC Riverside School of Business; founding partner, Beacon Economics.

Crystal Orozco, worker, McDonald’s in Sacramento.

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