KQED's Forum

A recent DNA analysis has found that the federally unrecognized Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has been in the Bay Area for at least 2,000 years. The evidence bolsters the tribe’s decades-long case to reinstate their federal recognition which they lost, along with dozens of other California Indian tribes, in the 1920s. Tribal leaders say recognition is a necessary first step for the Muwekma Ohlone to establish a reservation. But tribal law experts say the process for gaining federal recognition is complicated and political. We’ll talk about why some tribes are– or are not – recognized, what federal recognition means for them, and the current efforts from tribes such as the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe to gain recognition.

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Next month, Berkeley’s Cafe Ohlone will reopen in a new space in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. The restaurant, which serves traditional dishes of the Bay Area’s original inhabitants, closed during the pandemic. Cafe Ohlone’s owners say they hope to repair the fraught relationship the Ohlone people have with the Hearst Museum, which contains a large collection of Ohlone artifacts. We’ll talk about the next iteration of Cafe Ohlone and their goal of affirming Ohlone culture.

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Dating, for everyone, is full of tricky social conventions. How long should you wait to call someone after getting their number? Who should cover the dinner bill? And navigating some of these situations can be extra difficult for autistic people. Netflix’s new season of “Love on the Spectrum,” an American version of the Australian docuseries, produced by Northern Pictures, premieres on Wednesday and explores the unique hurdles – and joys – that autistic people face when entering the dating pool. We’ll talk about love, heartbreak, and how autism plays into the beautiful messiness of it all with some of the people who made the show possible.

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Jane Stanford and her robber baron husband Leland founded what would become Stanford University in 1885. 20 years later Jane Stanford was murdered, poisoned by strychnine. Historian Richard White dives into the corruption and coverups shrouding the unsolved murder in his new book, “Who Killed Jane Stanford?” His book is both a true crime mystery and a history of the corruption, inequality, yellow journalism, pseudo-science and racism of California’s Gilded Age. Forum talks with White about reviving a cold case more than a century old and the present day resonance of examining “the rich people who created monuments to themselves, and whose lives are reminders that the problem with philanthropy is very often philanthropists.”

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Barely a day after a gunman killed 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, another gunman at a church service for a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California, killed one person and injured several others. “This should not be our new normal,” said Orange County representative Katie Porter. And yet, these incidents and their impacts feel all too familiar: Communities of color feeling unspeakable grief and terror. We’ll discuss the hate-filled ideology and so-called “replacement theory” being mentioned in the wake of the Buffalo massacre.

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For about a quarter century, KQED Forum listeners have been getting dressed, brushing their teeth and driving to work to the sounds of “Peter Pan” by musician Mike Marshall. On Monday, they will have a new soundtrack. Each hour of the show is getting its own new theme song, composed by NPR’s Ramtin Arablouei. To mark the occasion, we’ll talk about what makes a great theme song, including the best TV themes through the decades. And we’ll open the phone lines to ask our listeners: What TV theme song do you never skip?

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Jigsaws, crosswords, Sudokus, cryptics and even scavenger hunts: A.J. Jacobs is convinced that puzzles of all kinds have made him a better person. In his new book, “The Puzzler,” Jacobs takes readers along as he enters all manner of puzzle competitions, talks to puzzle makers and solvers and looks at the history of some of the most popular puzzles around. His book also has embedded within it a specially crafted puzzle with a $10,000 prize for the first person to solve it. We’ll talk to Jacobs about why he thinks puzzles shift our worldviews, build community and make us better thinkers.

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Bay Area singer-songwriter Sean Hayes has been singing the blues for the last 30 years, but his music seems especially necessary these days. “Pain, suffering, worry meet pain again,” he sings on his newly released album “Be Like Water.” Hayes describes himself as a songwriter who “makes music to dance to or cry to, or maybe both at the same time.” He joins us in the studio to play live from his new album.

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"Any kind of comfort or satisfaction is poisonous to any kind of growth,” choreographer Alonzo King told Forum ten years ago on the 30th anniversary of his company LINES Ballet. “You want to expand your heart and expand your mind. And that wants to continue going until you leave the planet,” he said. Now, with his 40th anniversary ballet “Deep River” opening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, King joins Forum to talk about his expansive career and the process of making art in uncomfortable times.

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According to a recent survey by Pew Research, the majority of Americans favor abortion rights. But in the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel A. Alito writes “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” Public reaction, however, has been swift. Demonstrators decrying the opinion have gathered outside the Supreme Court, the homes of Supreme Court justices and in demonstrations across the country. In response to the draft opinion, some states have indicated they intend to introduce laws to ban and even criminalize abortion, while other states have begun drafting legislation to create safe havens for reproductive rights. Given the divide between the majority of the Court who voted in favor of this draft and the public’s support of abortion rights, has the Supreme Court lost its legitimacy as a branch of government that is blind to politics? We’ll talk to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick about the future of the Court and what is at stake.

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