KQED's Forum

A study published in the journal Nature this week documented yet more symptoms – including hair loss and sexual dysfunction – associated with long covid, a syndrome the CDC reports afflicts roughly a fifth of people who contract Covid-19. The Nature study also found that long covid sufferers are more likely to be young, members of ethnic minority groups, and economically disadvantaged. We’ll talk about the latest long covid science and hear from long haulers about how they have adjusted to life with a chronic illness.Guests:Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine and executive vice president, Scripps Research InstituteAngela Meriquez Vázquez, long COVID patient and President of Body PoliticPaige Morrisey, 25-year-old COVID long-hauler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The sizzler, a popular dish in Mumbai, is an over-the-top melange of pasta, paneer, grilled onions and peppers, samosas, cabbage and shredded Mexican cheese – all piled on a sizzling hot platter. It was inspired, so the story goes, by a visit to a Sizzler chain restaurant in California in the 1960s, and it has returned to California in some South Bay restaurants. But as any child of immigrants knows, cultural food mashups don’t have to be flashy. For KQED reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi, whose article tracked down the history of the Sizzler, it was grilled paneer tacos. For San Francisco Chronicle food critic Soliel Ho, it was Ho’s grandmother’s jasmine rice with maggi seasoning, topped with turkey cold cuts. Ho calls it “assimilation food”: “food that’s made to close the gap between homes: a critical need when one lives in exile.” As part of our ongoing segment on Bay Area food cultures, we’ll talk about all kinds of food mashups, from that Indian Sizzler to hot cheetos in a burrito to putting a splash of fish sauce in the mac and cheese.Guests:Luke Tsai, food editor, KQEDSoleil Ho, restaurant critic, San Francisco ChronicleAdhiti Bandlamudi, Silicon Valley Reporter, KQEDAlan Chazaro, food reporter, KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Pregnant people,” a phrase to include those who can bear children, but don’t identify as women, has been used more often in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade. Some feminists have pushed back against the term and other gender-inclusive language like “birthing people” and “people who menstruate,” saying that these terms obfuscate gender-specific violence against women and reduce people to their body parts. Others have pushed back to that pushback, saying that the explicit inclusion of trans and nonbinary people only strengthens the fight for gender equity. We’ll talk about why the term evokes such strong emotions, and hear your thoughts, with powerhouse feminist thinkers Judith Butler and Roxane Gay.Guests:Susan Davis, senior editor, ForumJudith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, UC BerkeleyRoxane Gay, author, "Difficult Women," "Hunger," and "Bad Feminist;" editor, the new anthology "The Selected Works of Audre Lorde" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Millions of renters could face evictions now that rental relief programs and bans on evictions have expired, or will soon. Those government programs targeted people who lost income during the pandemic, but many Californians have yet to recover financially and owe thousands in back rent. Even under existing programs, more than 135,000 households in California, nearly a third of the total, had their rent relief applications rejected, according to CalMatters. All of that along with rents creeping back up to pre-pandemic levels, could make way for a wave of new evictions. We’ll talk about vulnerable tenants and what local, state and federal agencies could do to help.Guests:Erin Baldassari, housing affordability reporter, KQED; co-host, "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America" podcastManuela Tobias, housing reporter, CalMattersBonnie Bertram, producer and writer, Retro Report; partnered with Frontline, documentary "Facing Eviction" debuts on July 26. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By his own account, journalist and author Alec Wilkinson was a terrible math student -- and passed his high school math classes only by cheating. But at age 65, he decided he’d try again to learn the subject that had left him feeling abused and aggrieved. His joyful and humbling quest is the subject of his new memoir "A Divine Language.” We'll talk to him about what he learned and we'll hear from you: have you tried to master a subject later in life?Guests:Alec Wilkinson, author, "A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age" - He's also a contributing writer for the New Yorker; his previous books include "The Ice Balloon," "The Protest Singer" and "The Happiest Man in the World." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks to a series of recalls, resignations and re-shuffles, San Francisco has a new district attorney, new school board members, and a new city attorney, all of whom were appointed by Mayor London Breed. Now that the mayor has a team in place that is mostly of her choosing, what will she do to confront the city’s considerable challenges? Is the city in for a major course change? We’ll talk about San Francisco’s post-recall politics with a roundtable of reporters.Guests:Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Reporter/Producer, KQED News.Scott Shafer, senior editor for KQED’s California Politics and Government desk and co-host of Political Breakdown.Annie Gaus, editor, SF Standard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Jan. 6 House Committee is wrapping up its summer hearings this week with testimony from two former Trump staffers who both resigned the day of the insurrection: Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a former White House deputy press secretary. The focus of recent hearings has been to detail former President Donald Trump’s role in inciting the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol and his repeated attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. We’ll talk about the latest revelations from the committee hearing, what could happen next and the political implications of the hearings so far.Guests:Shanlon Wu, criminal defense attorney and CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor who also served as counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno.Grace Panetta, Senior Politics reporter, Business Insider.Clara Jeffery, editor in chief, Mother Jones - San Francisco-based national magazine specializing in investigative, political, and social justice reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kids aged 14 to 17 should get a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. But more than three-quarters of U.S. high school students report sleeping less than that on school nights, CDC surveys show. To help teens sleep better, California became the first state in the nation to set new start times for public schools: as of July 1, high schools cannot start earlier than 8:30, and middle schools no earlier than 8:00. We'll hear what you think of the new schedules and take your teen and adolescent sleep questions.Guests:Dr. Rafael Pelayo, clinical professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center; author, “How to Sleep: The New Science-Based Solutions for Sleeping Through the Night”Lisa L. Lewis, author, "The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, and How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In life, friends come in many buckets: school friends, teammates, neighbors. And then there is the work friend: the co-worker who understands how you spend eight hours of your day, the person who you seek out for coffee breaks to commiserate and who shares the workplace lingo. Work friends often remain just friends at work, but sometimes you start hanging out away from work and introduce them to your other friends and family. The importance of the work friend cannot be underestimated: a recent survey found that 70% of workers cited having friends at work as a critical component of a satisfying work place, and workers who report having a work friend are more likely to stay with their company. We’ll talk about friendships at work, the thrill of making your first work friend, and how to form work friendships in this pandemic-inflected world.Guests:Julie Beck, senior editor, The Atlantic - Beck has written extensively about friendships as part of The Atlantic's "Friendship Files." Her most recent piece is titled "The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship"Emma Goldberg, reporter, New York Times - Goldberg covers the future of work for the New York Times. She wrote the article "The Magic of Your First Work Friends"Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist and friendship expert; author, her forthcoming book is titled "Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help you Make -- and Keep -- Friends" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you overheard someone shout, “nice dink in the kitchen!” you probably just walked by a pickleball court. Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the United States, is taking over park and rec centers all over California as players clamor for more court time. Invented in 1965 by a Washington state congressman and his friend to entertain their bored kids, pickleball’s popularity took off during the pandemic, with an almost 40% increase in players. Across the country over four million people are playing pickleball, and its enthusiasts have formed a variety of professional organizations, leagues and tournaments with an eye to getting certified as an Olympic sport. We’ll look at how and why pickleball has become an American obsession. Have you picked up a paddle?Guests:John Walters, sportswriter, Sports Illustrated; adjunct professor of Sports Media, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Walters wrote the Sports Illustrated cover story about pickleball "Barbarians in the Kitchen"Rachel Simon, author, "Pickleball for All: Everything But the 'Kitchen' Sink" which comes out on August 30Jordan Briones, pickleball professional and instructor; co-founder, Primetime Pickleball; creator, pickleball YouTube instruction channel: @brionespickleball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices