Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Monday Night Philosophy features author Benn Steil, winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Prize for best book. Steil will discuss the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan. In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct Western Europe as a bulwark against Communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union and a Western identity that continues to shape world events. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Steil’s account brings to life the Prague Coup, the Berlin Blockade, the division of Germany, and Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe. As Putin’s Russia is again rattling the world order, the tenuous balance of power and uncertain order of the late 1940s is as relevant as ever. MLF ORGANIZER NAME George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The last five years have been the hottest on record globally. But this past winter, plunging temperatures, snowstorms and torrential rains throughout the country have a lot of people questioning the reality of climate change. If the planet is warming up, why is the Midwest suffering record cold temperatures? Climate scientists, communicators and educators join us to talk about about why, after one of the hottest years on record, the country has suddenly gone into deep freeze. On today’s Climate One: climate science explained, and climate myths debunked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come for a gathering of San Francisco business leaders and philanthropists. They will discuss the importance of and need to give youth a voice, enabling them to make change happen in their own communities. The conversation will focus on the disparities that exist for our youth and families and how local entities are working to close the gap in health, education and access to the outdoors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day with an intimate conversation with San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Following her election in 2018, Mayor Breed is the city’s first African-American female mayor and just the second woman to ever hold the office, elected during a historic year for women’s representation in local and national politics. The mayor has lived a life of public service. Prior to her election as District 5 supervisor in 2012 and her service as Board president from 2015–2018, she served as executive director of the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Western Addition for 10 years. She also served as a San Francisco Redevelopment Agency commissioner for five years and in 2010 was appointed by the then Mayor Gavin Newsom to be a San Francisco fire commissioner. Join INFORUM as we hear from Mayor Breed on the priorities for her administration, with a lens of economic justice, on the biggest issues of our day, including housing, criminal justice reform, education and public safety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This program is part of our Marin Conversation Series, which is supported in part by the Marin Community Foundation and Relevant Wealth Advisors. Art is good for you: It nourishes your spirit and feeds your mind. Home to a diverse, vibrant and rapidly-expanding art scene, the Bay Area is a hive of creativity, brimming with artists, gallerists and curators who labor tirelessly to make, collect and present art for our enjoyment and contemplation. And yet they face ever-mounting challenges: lack of space and skyrocketing rents; market pressures and cautious patronage; competition for private funding and institutional support. These challenges threaten the very health of Bay Area art and culture. Please join three of the Bay Area art scene’s leading lights—Wendi Norris, sharon maidenberg and Natasha Boas—at The Commonwealth Club’s Marin Conversations series. They will provide a “report from the field of aesthetics,” discussing the challenges and opportunities of making, collecting and curating art in the Bay Area and beyond. This conversation is part of an extended series of discussions that The Commonwealth Club will present in Marin over the course of 2019 on an expanded notion of health. Future conversations will address political and democratic health, China and trade health, as well as youth, creativity and physical health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New technology is constantly being developed for home care. What solutions work best, and how can technology successfully enhance the very personal side of home care? We will explore how to find the right balance between using and not using technology with home care. This technology may allow your aging parents and loved ones to remain safely at home. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Denise Michaud NOTES MLF: Grownups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone is looking down—but especially kids. There is something unnatural about a 15-month-old using an iPad to soothe him or herself. Many assume this is just the natural progression of our high-tech society. But what if this is causing us harm? And what if children are more vulnerable than adults? Numerous politicians are calling for reining in of the Internet. Is this necessary? Robert Lustig will answer five key questions: Is there such a thing as tech addiction? Is it similar to or different than drug addiction? Does technology lead to depression and suicide? Have our minds been hacked? Are children at more risk? The answers to these questions will provide us with a blueprint to harnessing technology for good. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Patrick O'Reilly NOTES MLF: Psychology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. Today's in-studio guest: Rimi Born in Hyderabad, India, blossomed in Toronto and living in Oakland, Rimi has been on the gender journey proudly with confidence and realness. She has performed at various South Asian queer events through dance forms and poetry, depicting the anguish and eventual liberation of her gender journey, transcending the paths of survival, rejection, isolation and stress. Rimi lives in Oakland, is working in a leadership role at Walmart.com, and leads PRIDE Associate Resource Group as well, driving inclusion for TGNC lives at workplace inclusion. While staying visible and present for TGNC, Rimi finds herself vulnerable and targeted at times. Rimi seeks to have the world to accept transgender identities as equals and as capable individuals for holding jobs, earning degrees, and having relationships and a dignified life. **This program contains explicit language.** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Norman Eisen moved into the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Prague and returned to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. Looking into the building’s history, Eisen discovered a remarkable story stretching back over 100 years. In his new book, The Last Palace, Eisen tells a captivating tale of the upheavals that transformed Europe over the past century and of four remarkable people who have called the ambassador’s residence home. Otto Petschek, an optimistic Jewish financial baron who built the palace, and Shirley Temple Black, famed child star and U.S. ambassador, both lived there. Eisen dives into the personal and political history that shaped both a country and a continent. Join us for a conversation about history, diplomacy and the triumph of liberal democracy in the face of tragedy and dictatorship. This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steven Campbell's talk is an eye-opening presentation on cognitive psychology, which began in the 1960s. He explores how our brains conform to the messages we give them. When we optimize those messages, our brains literally rewire themselves to create new, positive self-images of who we want to be and how we want to learn and grow even more. However, Campbell's presentation does not stop there. Since we are not thinking people who feel but feeling people who think, we also explore where those feelings are coming from. It turns out that our feelings do not primarily come from how we were raised or what has happened to us. Instead, they come from our beliefs about how we were raised and our beliefs about what has happened to us. By first learning that when we change our beliefs, our feelings follow, we learn how to change those beliefs. It's not magic … it’s science! MLF Organizer Name: Denise Michaud Notes: MLF: Grownups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices