Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Dr. Jen Gunter, the outspoken and digitally savvy Bay Area doctor who has been called "the world's most famous gynecologist" returns to The Commonwealth Club for what should be a fun discussion on her new book, The Menopause Manifesto, with television comedian Samantha Bee. Dr. Gunter, who has made waves with her fierce advocacy of women's health, saw great success with her previous book, The Vagina Bible. The Menopause Manifesto takes on stubborn myths and misunderstandings about menopause in Dr. Gunter's traditional fashion: hard facts, real science, fascinating historical perspective, expert advice, and strong doses of humor. As the book notes, the only thing predictable about menopause is its unpredictability. Factor in widespread misinformation, misogyny, a lack of research, and the culture of shame around women's bodies, and it's no wonder women are unsure what to expect during the menopause transition and beyond. Dr. Gunter believes women (and men) should be educated on what's to come with menopause ye

One of President Biden’s first acts in office was to extend the New START Treaty with Russia. Concluded in 2010, the treaty cut the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia in half. It was set to expire on February 5, 2021, and is now in force for another five years. That treaty—which is holding back a new nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia—was negotiated by Rose Gottemoeller, former U.S. under secretary of state and former deputy secretary general of NATO. But now, what comes next—in arms control and in dealing with Russia? Fueled by petro-rubles, a stronger economy has enabled the Russians to fund a decade of investments in high-tech nuclear and conventional weapons, including cybermeasures targeting the internal information systems of the United States and other countries. How should the United States respond to those threats, and to possible new opportunities for cooperation with Russia? What dangers, and opportunities, are presented by flash-points like the recent Ru

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it. Apple demonstrates how Warburg's midcentury work may well hold the secret to why cancer became so common in the modern world and how we can reverse the trend. A tale of scientific discovery, personal peril, and the race to end a disastrous disease, Ravenous would be the stuff of the most inventive fiction were it not, in fact, true. MLF ORGANIZER Patty James NOTES MLF: Health & Medicine SPEAKERS Sam Apple Faculty Member, Johns Hopkins University; Writer; Author, Ravenous: Otto Warburg, The Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection Patty James M.S., N.C. Nutritionist; Chef; Author—Moderator In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of o

Over the last few decades, San Francisco has experienced radical changes with the influence of Silicon Valley, tech companies and more. Countless articles, blogs and even movies have tried to capture the complex nature of what San Francisco has become, a place millions of people have loved to call home, and yet are compelled to consider leaving. In the new book The End of the Golden Gate, 25 acclaimed writers take on the eternal question: "Should I stay or should I go?" Subjects include: the tech-industry invasion and the evolution, gentrification, and radical cost of living that has transformed San Francisco's most beloved neighborhoods; the lasting imprint of the 1960s counterculture movement; and the fight to preserve the art, music and other creative movements that make San Francisco forever the city of love. Come hear the compelling thoughts of three of the book's contributors: journalist and historian Gary Kamiya; poet, essayist and cultural critic Kimberly Reyes; and writer and musician Daniel Handler,

Join us for a virtual discussion, live-streamed direct from Berlin, Germany, with Heino Falcke, the German astrophysicist, about his research into the nature of black holes. His new book A Light in the Darkness is the story of how the first photographic evidence of black holes was achieved by Falcke in April 2019, and what its significance for humanity might be. Falcke wrestles with the ways in which black holes force us to confront the boundary where human life ends and the celestial begins. He also ponders why black holes are so difficult for most of us to understand, comparing that to our inability to envisage our own inevitable death. Black holes develop when a massive star dies, and its matter is condensed. That extreme amount of mass contained in a small space generates a gigantic amount of gravitational force, allowing the black hole to suck up everything that comes near, including light. These astronomical wonders are the subject of intense scientific and philosophical theorizing—the journey to a blac

In 1968, San Francisco made history when, as a result of the student strike at San Francisco State University, the country’s first ethnic studies department was born. Over the years, community advocates have continued to find inadequacies in educational programs for students, citing a lack of inclusion of instructional materials for the teaching of history and culture regarding diverse population demographics. They also believe the learning and understanding of diverse cultures will help foster understanding and mutual respect between and among people from different ethnic backgrounds.  Join us for an in-depth discussion with panelists who will discuss their personal stories about the origins of ethnic studies and their individual advocacy within the movement. Learn how and why they have devoted their efforts to advocate for the programs and hear their visions about how ethnic studies can shape our society’s future. This is one of an occasional series sharing perspectives on the subject of ethnic studies.  NO

Disasters are inherently inevitable in life. We cannot predict the next earthquake, wildfire, financial crisis, war or pandemic, but we can predict how to handle each situation better. Unexpected calamities have happened all throughout human history, yet even in the 21st century we are ill-prepared to recover from them. In the new book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, popular historian Niall Ferguson explores the reasoning behind this phenomena and offers solutions on how to handle unforeseen circumstances of mass misfortune. Ferguson has spent his academic career lecturing on the international, financial, and economic history of British and American imperialism. In his new book, Ferguson uses centuries of knowledge to understand the complex pathologies at work that make societies fail in the face of disaster. He offers the lesson he says the West urgently needs to learn if we want to handle the next crisis better and avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline. Join us as Niall Ferguson offers an expla

Ever have a difficult conversation about climate? Pretty much everyone has. Knowing all the facts and figures only goes so far when talking to someone who just doesn’t agree. So how do we break through the barriers? Scientists trained to present information in a one-way lecture format face a particular challenge: they first need to unlearn old habits. “Everybody's trying to figure out ‘how do we move past this idea that just arming people with facts will lead to a better world,’ right, because we’ve just seen that that’s absolutely not true,” says Faith Kearns, author of Getting to the Heart of Science Communication.  Kearns argues that we all need to move from an “information deficit” model of communication – where it’s assumed that the audience simply needs more information – to a relational model, where the science communicator does as much listening as talking in order to first find empathy and common ground. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As attacks on Asian Americans repeatedly make the news, there is also a bigger story to tell: What the challenges of the future are, and how Asian Americans will help America be more competitive in this brave new world. Join this insightful discussion with prominent Asian American leaders not only about the history of Asian Americans in the United States, but about what Asian Americans are contributing today, and what all Americans should think about doing as we fight together against modern stereotypes and broken systems, and face current and future challenges. In association with The Committee of 100, Northern California. SPEAKERS Daniel Chao Ph.D., Board Chair, 1990 Institute; Member, Committee of 100; Former Senior Vice President, TerraPower, LLC; Former Chairman, Bechtel, China Dennis Wu Chair, Asia Pacific Islander American Public Affairs, San Francisco; Managing Partner, WuHoover & Co., CPA Advisory Firm; Retired Partner, Deloitte; Past Chair, Commonwealth Club's Board of Governors In Conversation with

In 2021, as we begin to emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the country continues to grapple with well-publicized incidents of police violence against Black Americans, a wave of anti-API discrimination and violence, and spreading political and other attacks on the transgender, gender nonconforming and intersex communities. In response to these harrowing realities, The Commonwealth Club and The Transgender District of San Francisco bring together a roundtable of thought leaders from across the nation to speak openly about their unique experiences regarding race and gender identity, in hopes that this summit can provide context, connection and solidarity between three communities that are far too often pitted against each other. Note: This program contains EXPLICIT language SPEAKERS Andy Marra Korean American Trans Woman Activist; Executive Director, Transgender Legal Defense Fund Oluchi Omeoga Transmasculine Advocate and Co-Director of BLMP (Black LGBT Migrants Project) Diamond Stylz Transgender Activist

Bloomberg's Brad Stone is one of the country's leading experts on the global commerce company Amazon. His bestselling book from a decade ago, The Everything Store, gave one of the most detailed pictures of Amazon’s unprecedented growth and its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos. His coverage in Bloomberg Businessweek has helped shaped our understanding of the internet giant. Since Stone's first book on Amazon was published, the company has expanded to become the most valuable internet company and one of the globe's largest retailers. Its workforce has quintupled in size and its valuation has soared to well over $1 trillion dollars. The company's holdings also include Whole Foods, Prime Video, and Amazon’s cloud computing unit, AWS, which powers many of the country's largest websites. Throughout the pandemic, Amazon became a lifeline for many people and small businesses around the world for home supplies, cleaning products and PPE. Bezos also has a personal ownership of The Washington Post, expanding the Amazon o

Former congresswoman Jane Harman says America has used the same tactics to solve defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. She says many of these strategies haven't worked and that the United States has become too self-satisfied as the lone superpower of global politics. Harman further says that many nations no longer defer to America as they once did. In her new book Insanity Defense, Harman chronicles how the United States has failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy issues and discusses what that bodes for our national security. Harman has gained the expertise to discuss security and public policy issues. During her nine terms in Congress, she served on all major security committees, including six years on Armed Services and eight years on Intelligence. She is currently a distinguished fellow and president emerita of the Wilson Center, the nation’s key nonpartisan policy forum for independent research to tackle global issues. Through her work, Harman says she wi

The COVID-19 global pandemic has shined a bright light on our medical system unlike perhaps any other time in this country's history. For more than a year now, we have seen how the daily work of making important, even life-and-death decisions is frequently made harder by factors and variables outside the control of an individual doctor and patient. Meanwhile, even before the pandemic, hospitals and medical offices faced tremendous budget problems, and big pharmaceutical and insurance companies continued to shape the delivery of medical care in all corners of the country; the pandemic only exacerbated these trends. In a new book, Uncaring, Dr. Robert Pearl—former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group and a Stanford professor—shows how all these stresses have led to a toxic culture in medicine, particularly for physicians. He says doctors resist change, leading to important clerical mistakes. They don't offer equal treatment to all patients. Their competitive work ethic leads to burnout and bad decisions. All the

In the Bay Area, as elsewhere, the coronavirus and its economic fallout have hit hardest the very same people who were on the economic margins before the pandemic, including Black, Latinx, low-wage workers, and immigrant communities (especially undocumented workers). For our region to recover, and thrive, racial equity must be at the forefront of our recovery efforts. In this program, San Francisco Foundation CEO Fred Blackwell will lead a conversation on the central role that racial equity must play in the Bay Area's recovery from COVID-19 for our region to recover and thrive. We'll review key data findings from the Bay Area Equity Atlas on how COVID-19 has impacted different racial and ethnic communities in our region, presented by Senior Associate Jamila Henderson of PolicyLink. Experts and advocates Chris Iglesias of Unity Council and Tomiquia Moss of All Home will help us make meaning of the data and share their perspectives on what is needed to ensure an equitable recovery for all people in the Bay Area

Over the past several years, questions about the stability of America's democratic system have been raised by experts in many fields, from across the political spectrum. After years of polarization, the United States has become highly divided, and there is a widespread loss of confidence in our very form of government and civic order. A movement for a renewed focus on civics and history education has arisen to address these concerns. Earlier this year, with the launch of the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative, the country has its first significant comprehensive roadmap that states, local school districts, educators and organizations such as the Club can use to transform the teaching of history and civics to meet the needs of America in the 21st century. One of EAD's most significant features is that it recognizes that powerful and effective civics education is everyone's responsibility, not just civics and social studies teachers, and not just schools themselves. It asserts that we need all sec

The stories are horrifying and heart-breaking. An 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco died after being violently shoved to the ground during his morning walk. In Oakland, a 91-year-old senior was shoved to the pavement from behind. An 89-year-old Chinese woman was slapped and set on fire by two people in Brooklyn, New York. A stranger on the New York subway slashed a 61-year-old Filipino American passenger's face with a box cutter. The only Asian American lawmaker in the Kansas legislature says he was physically threatened in a bar by a patron who accused him of carrying the coronavirus. The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate says it has received more than 2,800 nationwide reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans since the pandemic began. More than 6 million Asian Americans live in California, by far the most in any U.S. state. Of those reports, 1,226 incidents took place in California, and 708 in the Bay Area alone. The majority of incidents in the Bay Area—292—took place in San Francisco, fo

Join us for an exploration of a side of the Vietnam War that is little known in the United States. Learn about the unexploded ordnances left behind after the United States withdrew from the war, and hear about the "Secret War" in which people from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam fought alongside American troops. Meet the Speakers Sera Koulabdara serves as executive director of Legacies of War, the only international educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. Legacies of War is working to address the impact of conflict in Laos during the Vietnam War-era, including removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and survivor assistance. Prior to this role, Sera was a long-time volunteer and served on Legacies’ board for four years in multiple leadership positions, including vice chair. Under Sera’s leadership, U.S. funding for UXO clearance in Laos reached $40 million for 2021—the highest level in history—and the Legacies of War Recognition and UXO Removal Act was introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin. If ap

We'll begin our program sharing war stories from Lao veterans who fought in the secret war. We'll also discuss AB1393, an effort to include Lao history and cultural studies in CA's K-12 curriculum, starting a fish sauce business, and "nung pee"—Lao horror films with the only female film director in Laos. The evening will end with a special performance by Lookthung/Morlam Esan singer Tookta.  Meet the Speakers Lao Secret War Veterans: David Phommavong is a father, husband and the son of a Secret War veteran, the late Keoson Phommavong of SGU Scorpion Unit. Co Founder of Laotian American National Voice (LAN-V), Co Chair of LAN-V Secret War Veteran’s Benefit, and Lao Global Heritage Alliance Board of Director. David is an advocate and a community activist. David and his wife have a private charity Nourish Lao Children where they provide financial / educational support to impoverished children in Lao PDR. Chantho Vorasarn, former Royal LAO Armed Forces Major (1972), 11 year POW (1975-1986) after US pull out from

Dr. Ralph Moss details the origin of cancer immunotherapy and how it disappeared for almost 100 years. Recently, it has been rediscovered and has become one of the most widely used cancer treatments. Inducing fever with compounds of killed viruses, immunotherapy triggers the human immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy generally provides a higher quality of life during treatment, while being less harmful than most conventional cancer treatments available today. Ralph Moss, Ph.D., has been writing about alternative and complementary cancer treatments since the 1970s. At the National Institutes of Health, he co-founded what became the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. He has produced 4 films, 12 books, a podcast, and 38 diagnosis-based "Moss Reports" for cancer. MLF ORGANIZER Adrea Brier NOTES MLF: Health & Medicine SPEAKERS Ralph Moss Ph.D., Co-founder, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; Author; Filmmaker Adrea Brier CHNP, CLC, Vice Chai

One of the final things Abraham Lincoln did on the day of his death was approve legislation that created what would become the Secret Service. Originally created to suppress counterfeit currency, the Secret Service has since become the primary agency to protect prominent politicians and their families. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Secret Service was whipped into shape. The agency transformed into a proud, elite unit that would redeem themselves again two decades later by successfully thwarting an assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan. Now, in the 21st century, the Secret Service is better defined by its failure to avert break-ins at the White House, armed gunmen firing at government buildings, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other instances of negligence. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service since 2000, and her new book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, exposes the