Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels has led to climate disruption and inequality. Underserved communities are the ones most harmed by pollution, lack of green space and heat-related illness. Transitioning to clean energy would seem to be the obvious answer. But in the process of trying to right old wrongs, do we risk leaving some communities behind? What does a just transition to a cleaner, greener economy look like? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2020, the United States will conduct its 24th census. Will LGBTQI+ people be counted? Will they even bother to fill out the census forms? The results of the country's every-10-years census are used in everything from apportioning representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives to the provision of social services. Join us for a timely discussion about why the census is important to LGBTQI+ people and how it impacts resources for members of our community. El Censo del 2020 y la Comunidad LGBTQ+ En el 2020, los Estados Unidos llevará a cabo el censo por vigésimocuarta vez. ¿Se contará a las personas LGBTQI+? ¿Se molestarán siquiera en rellenar los formularios del censo? El censo ocurre cada 10 años y los resultados se usan para tomar decisiones importantes, desde cuántos representantes del Congreso recibe cada estado hasta la provisión de servicios sociales. Únete a una conversación oportuna sobre por qué el censo es importante para las personas LGBTQI+ y cómo afecta los recursos disponibles para miembros de nuestra comunidad. Notes In association with the the Office of Transgender Initiatives, the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs, and the SF LGBT Center; Este evento esta copatrocinado por la Oficina de Iniciativas Transgénero, la Oficina de Participación Cívica y Asuntos de Inmigrantes, y el Centro LGBT de SF como parte de una serie de eventos para la campaña SF Counts. This program is part of a series of events for the SF Counts campaign Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can we live forever? Science journalist, Chip Walter reveals the ground-breaking research and visionaries who are trying to answer that very question. Find out more from Walter and leading rejuvenation, stem cell research and genetic experts who are redefining our understanding of life, aging and mortality. ** This Podcast Contains Explicit Language ** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

American musical theater conjures images of bright lights and big cities, but its lifeblood courses through local and amateur productions around the country. In Beyond Broadway, Stacy Wolf examines the widespread presence and persistence of musical theater in U.S. culture as a live, pleasurable, participatory experience. Wolf traveled from Maine to Hawaii, visiting schools, performance festivals, summer camps, outdoor theaters, community theaters and dinner theaters, where she interviewed over 200 practitioners and spectators, licensors and administrators. Wolf’s talk illuminates musical theater’s enduring power as a joyful activity that touches millions of lives. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker are two of The Washington Post’s leading reporters. Their Pulitzer Prize-winning work covered NSA spying, Secret Service misconduct and Donald Trump’s unprecedented 2016 campaign. Now, Leonnig and Rucker are focusing on the unorthodox Trump presidency. Their new book, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America, is a fresh report on the Trump presidency. A Very Stable Genius argues that rather than being an accidental creature of chaos, Trump’s first term is a careful and purposeful pattern of disorder. Drawing on in-depth interviews, firsthand witnesses and previously never before seen material, Leonnig and Rucker explored how Trump has shaken up alliances, reinvented the presidency and compromised the integrity of American institutions such as the FBI. Join us for an important conversation as Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker tackle the unique case of the Trump presidency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Spouses Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell write about death but lead a most interesting life. They are the New York Times best-selling co-authors of the memoir Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and The Making of a Medical Examiner as well as the novel First Cut. Melinek studied at Harvard and UCLA, was a medical examiner in San Francisco for nine years, and today works as a forensic pathologist in Oakland and as CEO of PathologyExpert Inc. T.J. Mitchell is a writer with an English degree from Harvard, and he worked in the film industry before becoming a full-time stay-at-home dad to their children. First Cut is the debut novel in their Jessie Teska detective series, centering on San Francisco’s newest medical examiner who uncovers a constellation of deaths that point to an elaborate plot involving nefarious opioid traffickers and flashy tech titans who got rich off Bitcoin. Autopsy means “see for yourself,” and in Melinek and Mitchell's novel, Teska won’t stop until she has seen it all—even if it means the next corpse on the table could be her own. Come for an entertaining conversation with this unique writing team, who are partners in life and work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shouting and shaming, lying and trolling: How did we ever learn to speak to one another the way we do now? In matters political and cultural, public and private, on social media and in major newsrooms, it seems as though over the past few years a bizarre and frightening irrationality has taken hold of our discourse. But what is irrationality, and what is that thing—reason—with which we oppose it? The historical period known as the Enlightenment represented a triumph of reason over the dark forces of irrationality and superstition. And yet some of today's most ardent defenders of the Enlightenment’s legacy—from scientists to artists, from atheists to political theorists—express themselves in ways that often seem suited to zealots and dogmatists. Reasoned political debate has been supplanted by trolling, with the occupants of some of the highest offices in the world reflecting and at times encouraging such discourse. In this conversation at the very beginning of the century’s third decade, on the eve of Brexit and the first presidential primaries if one of America’s most important presidential elections, two experts in the history of modern science and philosophy will apply their work to the mad cacophony of the present moment. How can the intellectual history of the past few centuries help us in our effort to reinvigorate reasoned political and cultural debate? Join them at The Commonwealth Club for an evening that will celebrate and encourage the life of the mind and the power of thinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join John O'Grady in a lively and enlightening session where he will address essential questions such as: protecting property rights; planning for care without giving up control of your affairs; passing your values on to the next generation; providing for your loved ones and your favorite causes; documenting your intentions to prevent misunderstandings; and how you can save on tax dollars, professional fees and court costs. John O'Grady is an estate planning attorney who can help you navigate family conflicts about aging, death, taxes, inheritance and property rights while addressing the true underlying conflicts. He leads O'Grady Law Group, a full-service estate planning law firm in San Francisco. MLF Organizer: Denise Michaud MLF: Grownups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Wong is an award-winning director and cinematographer. His newest feature, Come as You Are, premiered at SXSW and will be released by Samuel Goldwyn. His first feature was the critically acclaimed Colma: The Musical, which premiered at Sundance and garnered him nominations for a Spirit Award and a Gotham Award. Wong started his career in production and segued to being a cinematographer, lensing films such as the upcoming immigration drama Saint Judy for director Sean Hanish, starring Michelle Monaghan and Common, Girlfriend's Day with Bob Odenkirk, Spare Parts with George Lopez, Sundance favorite To the Bone for director Marti Noxon, starring Lily Collins and Keanu Reeves, and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for acclaimed director Wayne Wang. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrea Bernstein is a senior editor at WNYC and co-host of the “Trump, Inc.” podcast. A Peabody and duPont-Columbia award-winning journalist, Bernstein’s new work is an exposé on two families at the pinnacle of American power. American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, is Bernstein’s investigative journey into two emblematic American families—the Kushners and the Trumps. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump enjoy limitless access to the Oval Office, but beyond their marriage, little about the families’ relationship is public knowledge. Throughout American Oligarchs, Bernstein reveals their campaign into the White House by tracing history stretching from the Gilded Age to WWII to the 21st century. Bernstein draws on private interviews, never-before-seen documents and forgotten files in order to expose the families’ accumulated wealth through real estate, manipulation and crime. Bernstein’s American Oligarchs is a serious examination of the half-truths, secrecy and media manipulation weaponized by the Trumps and the Kushners. Join us as she discusses the Trumps, Kushners, and the marriage of money and power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices