The Commonwealth August/September 2016

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The CBS newswoman turns her sharp reporter’s eye on the science and possibilities of grandparenting

STAHLLesley

LARRY BRILLIANTpage 8

ASHANTIBRANCH page 36

JUAN WILLIAMS page 32

Detailed brochure online at commonwealthclub.org/travel | 415.597.6720 | [email protected]

Background photo: Tibor Kovacs/Flickr ; CST# 2096889-40

Take an epic 23-day journey from Cairns to the Great Barrier Reef to the storied Outback to sophisticated Sydney to the breathtaking Milford Sound. Visit the mountain village of Kuranda, the Anzac Hill Monument, Mt. Cook National Park and Queenstown. Watch the sunset over Ayers Rock and see Rotorua’s geysers. Learn about the Walpiri and Maori cultures. Explore Auckland’s museums and America’s Cup Village, or visit nearby wineries and islands.

$9,357 per person, double occupancy, including air, air taxes and fees from SFO; $7,795 per person, double occupancy if you book your own international air.

VOLUME 110, NO. 05

On the Cover“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl (lef t) with Judge LaDoris Cordell. Photo by Ed Ritger

Inside

Photo by Ed Ritger

Photo by Ed Ritger

T H E CO M M O N W E A LT H AU G U S T / S E P T E M B E R 2016

8LARRY BRILLIANT Confronting ZikaHow effective are today’s medical and scientific efforts to confront pandemics like the Zika virus?

5EDITOR’S DESK We’ve got good news for you this August

6THE COMMONS You never know who will show up at our Reading Californians book group; plus Kristol, KLIV, and more.

32JUAN WILLIAMS The New Founding “Fathers”Veteran newsman Williams explores what the Founding Fathers would think if they saw America today.

36ASHANTI BRANCH The New Habits for SuccessA teacher changed the direction of Branch’s life. Now he does the same for a new generation of students. 46

INSIGHTDr. Gloria C. DuffyPresident and CEO

EVENTS

Program Information 15

Language Classes 15

Two Month Calendar 16

Program Listings 18

We are giving them adoring, unconditional love, and they know it. That’s all a person needs.LESLEY STAHL

12BREXITA European Union Without the UKThe UK voted to exit the European economic community. How will this impact that country? Why did it vote for Brexit?

39BELLE LA FOLLETTE A Pioneering ProgressiveShe was a leading voice for women’s suffrage and other rights. Why isn’t writer and activist Belle La Follette better known today?

40LESLEY STAHL The Power of GenerationsPeople are changed by their grandchildren, and they in turn change their grandkids.

Photo by Rikki Ward

The 2016 August Forum Series at The Commonwealth ClubAre some problems too big to solve? Maybe. But let’s find out. Let’s find truth, and set it loose in the world.

The Commonwealth Club features solutions this August. Big solutions for big problems. New thoughts about ancient social issues, new approaches to intractable problems, new technical fixes previously unimaginable, new hope for endemic diseases, new ways to quash pandemic fears. Environmental problems, food waste issues, homelessness, mass incarceration, an aging population, geoengineering concerns, smart gun technology, the resurgence of restrictive racial rules and much more. Hope through change—changes in thinking, that is.

commonwealthclub.org/bigsolutions

Race and Relationships in HealthcareJuly 28 | 5:15 p.m.

Why Are Class Action Attorneys’ Fees So High and Judicial Oversight So Low?August 3 | 6:00 p.m.

Ending SlaveryAugust 8 | 6:00 p.m.

Understanding EvilAugust 9 | 6:00 p.m.

Fred Korematsu & His Quest for JusticeAugust 10 | 6:00 p.m.

Is There A Way to Use Geoengineering to Address Climate Change?August 11 | 6:00 p.m.

Israeli Innovations to Solving Big ProblemsAugust 12 | 12:00 p.m.

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal IconAugust 15 | 12:00 p.m.

Women at the Table: Leaders in the Good Food MovementAugust 15 | 6:30 p.m.

Safer Guns: A Tech Remedy for the Gun EpidemicAugust 16 | 6:00 p.m.

Francis FukuyamaAugust 18 | 6:00 p.m.

Interfaith Power and LightAugust 19 | 12:00 p.m.

Music As An Alternative to AdversityAugust 23 | 5:15 p.m.

Can Technology Make Aging Better and Cheaper?August 24 | 5:15 p.m.

Middle East Forum DiscussionAugust 29 | 6:00 p.m.

The UC’s Role in Confronting Climate ChangeAugust 29 | 6:00 p.m.

Helping the Homeless of San Francisco: What Works?August 30 | 6:00 p.m.

The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women August 31 | 6:00 p.m.

The Commonwealth Clubputting you face-to-face with today’s thought leaders

Generously sponsored by:

5AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

to move public opinion or policy on those issues. Water policy, the Golden Gate Bridge, public defenders, and more in this state originated in such studies right here at The Commonwealth Club. The member-led forums—a series or subject-specific groups (see page 15) that are organized, planned, and run by volunteer Club members—are themselves the modern descendents of the study groups, and they put together hundreds of new programs every year.

For more than a decade, forums Chair Dr. Carol Fleming has led the effort each August to tackle some important topic, with each forum handling it from its unique vantage point. Past August series have explored recov-ery from the Great Recession, a rising China and a rising India, the changing workforce, the role of women, LGBT issues, and more.

This year, as you can see on page 4 and in this month’s program listings (beginning on page 18), Big Solutions for Big Problems will highlight answers, people and organizations proving that seemingly intractable problems can indeed be solved.

In a world of never-ending challenges, that is good news, indeed.

BAD NEWS CAN REAL- ly build up and tear you down. As I write this, we have just experienced a week in which terrorists have killed hundreds of people in multiple attacks around the

world, including in the second-most holy city of Islam, Medina. Europe—broadly speak-ing—is in shock over the UK’s vote to leave the European Union; the stock markets have been up-and-down over Brexit. Louisiana and Minnesota sparked a new uproar over police-involved shootings of African-Amer-ican men. There has been a lot of bad news.

This August, we’re going to see if we can change that. All throughout August, The Commonwealth Club’s forums are offering a special series called Big Solutions for Big Problems. It is a collection of programs that gives you a front-row seat for conversations with people who are solving problems, from legal justice to geo-engineering, from gun safety to interfaith understanding, and beyond.

It is also a nice throwback to the Club’s early years a century ago, when we had study groups that would investigate topics and produce reports that would be attempts

Good News at Last

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EDITORIAL TRANSCRIPT POLICYThe Commonwealth magazine covers a range of programs in each issue. Program transcripts and question and answer sessions are routinely condensed due to space limitations. Hear full-length recordings online at commonwealthclub.org/media, podcasts on Google Play and Apple iTunes, or contact Club offices to buy a compact disc.

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J O H N Z I P P E R E R

V P, M E D I A & E D I TO R I A L

Editor’s Desk

Image by Nevit Dilmen

THE COMMO N WE AL TH6

With the recent format change from news to music by Silicon Valley radio station KLIV, some people have wondered if our KLIV broadcasts would continue. We are pleased to report that yes, our 7 p.m. Thursday broadcasts will go on and will continue to feature our lively Silicon Valley programs.

In other radio news: Listeners to Alice radio (97.3 FM) found that it was rebranded on May 8 as “Kathy Radio.” It was the result of a competition; listeners were asked to write about their mothers for Mother’s Day. The honoree was Club member (and active Club traveller) Kathy Hallock, who had been nominated by her son. The station is back to being called Alice radio now, but for one day, it was Kathy’s place on the dial.

WE KNEW WE WERE on to something when our mem-ber-led forums launched a new book discussion series called Reading Califor-nians. The group focuses on books from our California

Book Awards program. That local tie-in provided an unexpected pleasure at the group’s first meeting in June, which focused on California Book Awards gold medal-winner A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin. Mary Ellen Hannibal (at right in photo, above right)—herself an author—reports: “First of all, we had Molly Giles leading the discussion; she brought so much wit and nuance to her comments, it was like listening to one of her stories. She also brought per-sonal reminiscences of a long friendship with Berlin.” Two of Berlin’s sons (in photo, above left) attended, having heard about the meeting on Facebook. “They had a lot to say, and the experience of listening to them was uncanny, kind of like watching the ‘B’ roll of a polished film and understanding that there are many other stories to be told in all the footage,” Hannibal said. “It was a painful and also reconciling on some level, just like the Berlin book!”

The Reading Californians discussion group will hold its second meeting Monday, August 15, at which Viet Thanh Nguyen’s acclaimed novel The Sympathizer will be discussed. The book won a gold medal in the California Book Awards and picked up a Pulitzer Prize.

Reading CaliforniansYou never know who you’ll meet

On the Air in Silicon ValleyWe’re a fixture on KLIV

IN THE NEWS

The Commons

BRIEFLY NOTED

USA TODAY: “Sub-Saharan Africa is home to some of the most rapidly growing economies and ... boasts as many as 200 innovation centers that . . . act as the [focus] for a newly emerging tech culture, a panel of Africans and tech experts speaking at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club said.”MOTHER JONES: “It’s all Democratic hands on deck in the gun control fight. As House Democrats staged a sit- in on the House floor..., White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett did her part in an appearance before San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. ‘It’s our view that we shouldn’t have assault weapons available,’ she said. ‘They’re really dangerous. They really are common-sense reforms that we’ve been asking for.’ Beyond pushing the White House’s goal of banning assault weapons, Jarrett urged expanding background checks....”ALSO: When UC Berkeley’s T.J. Stiles spoke at the Club in February, he was already a Pulitzer Prize winner for his 2010 biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt. But this speech to the Club explored his latest book, Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America; two months later, that book earned him a California Book Award nomination and his second Pulitzer.

TA L K O F T H E C LU B

Photo by Elese Moran

As a leader of the #NeverTrump effort, conservative strategist and Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol is a very busy man. But he found time to speak to the Club June 21, in a lively conversation with Hoover In-stitute Research Fellow Kori Schake (see photo above).

In a newsletter, Kristol reported back to his readers: “The highlights of the Commonwealth Club visit ... were several interesting conversations with various attendees, including one with a gentleman who intro-duced himself as a TWS subscriber and announced that he’d read all 1,000 issues of The Weekly Standard. I told him that really was impressive, somehow more so than merely working on the first 1,000 issues, as several of my colleagues and I have, and that he deserved some kind of medal. He agreed.”

Kristol ClearWeekly Standard subscriber service


Larry Brilliant, chairman of Skoll Global Threats and former executive director of Google.org, in conversation with Shannon Bennett, Ph.D., chief of science and dean of Science Research Collections, California Academy of Sciences. From the May 3, 2016, program in San Francisco “Dr. Larry Brilliant, Chairman of Skoll Global Threats: Fighting Zika and Other Pandemics.” Photos by Ed Ritger.

SHANNON BENNET: What advice do you have for any of us who take a lot of plane flights? In terms of preventing the spread of serious illness, how quickly pathogens move around to the four corners of the Earth.LARRY BRILLIANT: What you were really asking is, we sort of live in a world where we have two lines that are crossing. [The first line is] modernity, which is increasing the likelihood of pandemic spread of diseases. One of those things in modernity is technology, and one of the parts of technology that increased the chance of a spread is air travel.

The other line that crosses is the tools that we get from modernity to stop these diseases. Digital disease surveillance, point-of-cure diagnostics, better hospitalizations, antivirals—all these things. And it is a war out there between the factors that increase the likelihood of bad things and the factors that decrease it. What you can do personally is look at the CDC website. You can monitor the place that you go into. You’ll get really good advice on what vaccinations to get and what you should do to keep yourself safe. Which mosquitoes bite at night, which mosquitoes bite during the day, which ones take little sips, and which one takes big gulps, and what kind of anti-mosquito preparations you can use.BENNET: There’s a couple of questions from the audience about the political climate of the world, the lack of we-are-all-in-this-together sentiment, and your thoughts on how this might present a barrier to fighting these unifying calls to

CONFRONTING

ZIKAThe scientist and physician who helped

eradicate smallpox talks about modern diseases, approaches to dealing with them, and how to keep your head when others are overreacting.


arms like pandemics, and specifically bio-terrorism, if that.BRILLIANT: Yeah, during the smallpox program and during the polio program, we’ve had terrific examples of countries that don’t like each other very much working very well together.

Saudi Arabia has participated very well in the polio eradication program. When much of the Muslim world hates the idea of vaccinations, but Saudi Arabia has issued a fatwa making it illegal to come to Saudi Arabia unless you’re vaccinated against polio. In the smallpox program, Russians and Americans worked side-by-side right in the middle of the Cold War. I do think these large campaigns against a common enemy bring out the best in people. Same thing in the fight against guinea worm. We saw some good example in 2008 in the fight against influenza.

We’ve made a lot of progress. The 2006 International Health and Sanitary Regulations, boy does that sound like a boring name, that has changed the world. Prior to 2006, people kept all these things a secret. Now, after 2006, every country must allow the reporting of epidemics from NGOs, from churches, from digital systems, so you can’t hide this stuff anymore. I wish I could say that the bigger viruses of hate, selfishness, greed, corruption—I wish I could say we had a vaccine against those. But we don’t. BENNET: Here is an interesting question from the audience about vaccines. You’ve presented lots of success

stories about vaccines. How do we know as a people when a vaccine would be ready to be effective and deployed? BRILLIANT: We have a couple of different time scales, and they don’t go well together. The timescale of knowing that a vaccine is effective is pretty short. The timescale of knowing that there are no bad side effects or adverse consequences or bad knock-on effects, well that’s very long, and so this is true for almost anything in medicine.

Sometimes desperation to fight a disease drives short-term decision-making. I, for one, have never, ever liked the chickenpox vaccine. I think now we’re stuck with it. But it seemed to me to be an exercise in excess. There are 35 vaccines that children get before the age of 5 now, and it’s creating this terrific reaction. A lot of this reaction you might say is not rational, in the sense that the vaccine works, we know it works, we know that it doesn’t create the side-effects that people say. But emotionally, I can understand the reaction against vaccines.

But there’s been a lot of craziness in the pro- and the anti-vaccine world. And we need to tone down a little bit and have really a reasonable conversation. I live in the coun-ty that has the highest concentration of the anti-vaccine movement in the world, Marin County. So my neighbors don’t always celebrate the fact that I’m an epidemiologist. BENNET: We have some questions about Zika from the audience. There’s some concern amongst the audience

Brilliant says that the work today to

counter pandemics is informed by

past efforts against other diseases, now

aided with im-proved technology

and policy.


that Zika has this incredible potential to spread. What do you think is the likelihood of it becoming a pandemic that affects the United States directly? BRILLIANT: We use these fancy terms, genetic shift and drift and reassortment, to use genomic explanations for why viruses change rapidly. I don’t think that’s the problem with Zika. I think the problem with Zika is climate change. The Aedes aegypti mosquito for the most part is the only mosquito of epidemiological importance. There are two other mosquitos that carry Zika, but they don’t in any appreciable quantity. The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the Zika virus—they are creatures of the equator. They lived only at the equator plus or minus 10 miles. They didn’t go outside of the equator.

Then human beings, burning fossil fuel, increases in temperature, you’re now seeing that the temperature that’s comfortable for the Aedes aegypti mosquito is increasing in both north and southerly directions from the equator. Not only that, but it’s creeping up the mountains. When I lived in India, there was an expression that the British had created: hill stations. They were places that the mosquitos didn’t go, because they were located over 6,000 feet. Well, now mosquitoes are very comfortable at 8, 9,000 feet cuz it’s warmer. So I saw an article that the Anopheles mosquito, which carries malaria, now has a sway over 1.5 billion more people than it did 10 years ago because of climate change.

We’re seeing the same thing now with Aedes aegypti, and Aedes aegypti is an urban mosquito. It’s also a sipper, it’s not a drinker. It sips little aliquots of blood and goes to lots of different people to fill up. Whereas Anopheles takes a big drink, so it doesn’t spread as much because it’s not taking the virus and spreading it out in its afternoon meal. I can’t tell you how badly climate change is messing with the life of these mosquitoes and the viruses they carry.

We have to really understand this phenomenon of birth defects, of microcephaly. But this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen viral infections in pregnancy that cause birth defects. We’ve forgotten all about the major cause of childhood blindness, German measles in pregnancy. This is not a new phenomenon, we’re just kind of becoming re-acquainted with it right now. I personally think that there’s so much we’ve been sensitized to being afraid of Ebola, we’re sort of carrying that over to Zika as a community.

It seems like whenever anybody says the name Zika, there is a paroxysm of fear. We’ll figure this out. This is not the end of civilization as we know it. It’s not a nice thing, and nothing could make you cry more than seeing one of these little children with microcephaly.

But there’s been, by most estimates, 7, 8, 9, 10 million people who’ve got Zika in Brazil alone. And there have been 3,000 or 4,000 cases of microcephaly. These are numbers that we’re going to have to get used to and to manage, but we’ll get it. It’s just gonna take a while, and we will get a vaccine. It’s not like AIDS; it doesn’t infect the cells of the immune system, making it almost impossible to get a vaccine. We will have a vaccine against Zika.

BENNET: The fact that the mosquito plays such an im-portant role in the transmission of the virus leads to a great opportunity for some grassroots movements, some com-munity type movements to reduce mosquito abundance. One of the audience members asked how you see the role of these grassroots community movements. And maybe using different cultural traditions to bring to bear as well as a top-down approach, looking for vaccines, developing antivirals, solving the disease itself. BRILLIANT: Well, the one thing about Aedes aegypti is it likes little tiny bits of water, or like old tires that are lying around, or old children’s sand pails filled with water. There’s a lot we can do to rid those from the environment. And the more we learn about the habits of the mosquito, the more that we’ll be able to drain swamps and to clean things out as we always have done.

I do want to mention something though, on the top-down side. How many of you consider yourself

environmentalists? Yeah, I sure consider myself an envi-ronmentalist, and I remember the day that I became an environmentalist—that’s when Rachel Carlson’s book Silent Spring was published. I learned what DDT was doing to avian eggs. So I wish I could rethink that a little bit.

After Silent Spring was published and we realized what DDT was doing to the environment, we overreacted terribly, we banned all programs that use any DDT at all. USAID stopped funding any program anywhere in the world that was using DDT, without any care for where it was in the course of the program.

On the six month anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, there were 17 cases of malaria left in South Asia. They were all in Sri Lanka. India had eradicated malaria, Bangladesh was East Pakistan then, it had eradicated malaria. I mean there were 17 cases; we were that close to eradicating malaria. Now every year there’s 5, 6, 7 million cases of malaria in India alone. I wish we could replay that decision and kept using DDT, as much as I hate it, for a little bit longer just until we got over the edge. Now we don’t have enough research to have insecticides that are like DDT but don’t cause the damage of DDT.

That’s one of the things we need to do. There are eight insecticides that the federal government is evaluating for that right now, we have to fix that. We have to simultane-ously be environmentalists and people-ists, [laughter] or else we’re going to get our knickers in a twist.

Whenever anybody says the name Zika, there is a paroxysm of fear. We’ll figure this out. This is not the end of civilization as we know it.


BREXIT: A EUROPEAN UNION WITHOUT THE UKWhen British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a referendum on the UK’s membership in the EU, most people thought it would fail. It didn’t. What next?

Barry Eichengreen, professor of economics and political science at the University of California Berkeley, and Doug Rivers, professor of political science at Stanford and president and CEO of YouGov/Polimetrix, in conversation with Richard Waters, West Coast editor of the Financial Times. From the May 13, 2016, program in San Francisco“Brexit: What happens if the UK leaves the European Union?” Photos by Sonya Abrams.

RICHARD WATERS: This year is the year of the anti-es-tablishment. So how do we take the temperature of the

extent of people’s antagonism here? DOUG RIVERS: Well, the politics look similar to the politics of immigration in the U.S. The support for Leave is almost entirely anti-immigrant. It’s not that people think that leaving the EU will help the UK economy, but that yes, we’re definitely seeing the situation where support of elites for something, in particular business leaders, mod-erate politicians and so forth doesn’t seem to command public support.BARRY EICHENGREEN: There is underlying eco-


nomic reality behind that dissatisfaction with elites, I think, in the same way that there is a groundswell of anti-immigrants, anti-trade sentiment in the United States. In reaction rightly or wrongly to the perception of growing inequality and that less-educated people are being left behind.

I think you see the same thing in the UK. The polls that I’ve seen suggest that the Leave side is disproportionately supported by less-educated people in the UK who have been left behind, to an extent, by globalization broadly defined. And they blame that rightly or wrongly on trade, on the European Union, on immigration.RIVERS: Barry’s right that the support for Leave tends to be lower social grades. It’s largely Tory voters, UKIP [UK Independence Party] voters, and so forth.

It is interesting that while trade in the U.S., and par-ticularly trade agreements, have become a hot issue in American politics, opposed by both the left and the right, in Britain the politics are a little different in that the Re-main side is across the board believed to be the side for a better economy.

A big chunk of the support for leave comes from older voters. The Leave campaign has run a very effective message that’s saying that the EU’s social contributions are crimping support, for example, for the NHS, the National Health Service. So you don’t have quite the same anti-trade agree-ment animus in the UK that you do in the U.S.WATERS: Let’s move on to some of the consequences if this were to happen. Maybe we can start with trade, since we’ve touched a bit on this. The people who want to get out say, don’t worry, Britain can make its own way, we can forge trade agreements and nothing really will change, because Europe wants to trade with Britain.

How realistic is that for an independent Britain? EICHENGREEN: It is not realistic. I’m reminded of that George Bernard Shaw quip about you can lay all the economists end to end and they never reach a conclusion, here’s a case where they have. They are pretty much unan-imous with regard to the economic consequences and the consequences for trade. They would be strongly negative for the UK. So there would be a long period of uncertainty during which the UK would negotiate with the European Union about terms of the access to the single market.

Canada has been negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU for 10 years. It takes a while, and having withdrawn from the European Union, the UK would have effectively withdrawn from all of the EU’s free-trade agreements with the rest of the world. The United Kingdom has skilled diplomats, [but] I don’t know if they have enough skilled diplomats to renegotiate all these trade agreements.

They could try to go the way of Norway and become a member of what is called the European Economic Associa-tion, along with Norway and Iceland and a few other small countries in the neighborhood. But, the quid pro quo for that is they have to accept all the EU rules that the Leave camp is campaigning against.

So whether that would be politically viable in the wake of a vote to leave is uncertain. They could try to negotiate a looser agreement with the EU, a la Switzerland, where they negotiated free trade sector-by-sector, but how suc-cessful they would be is uncertain. Finally they could rely on global institutions like the World Trade Organization in the same way we in the United States do for free and fair access to the European single market. But the WTO governs mainly trade in merchandise, and not trade in services. What’s important for the UK? Financial services. The City of London. And that would be a big problem.WATERS: So Britain effectively has no option; it has to stay in some sort of preferential European trading zone. To do that, they’re going to end up giving up much of what they already give up, but they’re also giving up the power to influence how those rules are set.

In fact, they’re in weaker positions. EICHENGREEN: Right, so if you think back to the

1970s when the UK held another referendum about whether to go into the European Union, they were mem-bers of this looser group, the European Free Trade Asso-ciation. They were unhappy because they had no control over the rules, which were set by the European Union. It was on those grounds they decided 40 years ago to go in. RIVERS: One reason there is some skepticism about what the economic effects are is that some years ago the same set of people were saying that Britain should be part of the eurozone and at this point, you know, it appears that the UK escaped that bullet.

I think the problem here is most people who are voting on this have very little idea what the effect is and don’t really have any specific things of the type that Barry was talking about that they want done differently if Britain were to exit the EU. In fact, people have no idea what happens the day after the referendum if it happens to pass.

David Cameron has said that he would invoke Article 50, which is the normal mechanism for a country to leave the EU. Some of my British friends have said that that would be an act of treason, that the effect of that is that Britain would lose its vote in the EU and any concessions would require unanimous approval by the rest, which would leave Britain in a very bad situation.

Another approach is to say we’re going to abrogate the treaty. That has a huge amount of uncertainty. It would avoid some of the costs that Britain would be required [to pay] under a normal exit. More likely I think is they

The UK has skilled diplomats, but I don’t know if they have enough skilled diplomats to renegotiate all these trade agreements.


would say, we want to negotiate more concessions, and come back again.WATERS: One of the arguments over the years that’s been made for Britain to get out is that Europe imposes too much regulation, and too much pointless red tape that hurts the British economy, hurts product markets, and doesn’t actually benefit anybody. So the British populist press has always been full of stories about how Brussels wants to regulate our sausages. You know, Brussels rules out British chocolate, because British chocolate doesn’t have enough cocoa content in it. Is there anything in this? Is membership of Europe hampering the British economy? EICHENGREEN: No, there is not anything in it if you actually get beyond the emotion and look at the num-bers. You see that the UK has the most lightly regulated economy in Europe. So, that may be a good thing or a bad thing. But it’s not consistent with the idea that they are over-regulated as a result of the European Union rules. Or that they would be able to or choose to deregulate their economy further in the event of exit. RIVERS: I think Barry’s right on the policy side of that.The politics are that there’s a big chunk of the conservative party that these sorts of arguments appeal to. If you look at the map of Britain, where support is for Brexit—in London, there’s strong support for Stay; Scotland and Wales will vote overwhelmingly for Stay. And the rest of England sort of looks like an American map, where if you color the Leave as red they’re all gonna vote against it.

So I think that’s what the political side of that looks like. WATERS: When it comes to the financial services indus-try, and you know London is in many ways the financial center still for Europe, some of us might think that actu-ally that could do with more regulation. But leaving that particular question aside, if Britain pulls out, what does that mean for finance in Europe? Does it just leave Britain?EICHENGREEN: I think much euro-related business leaves Britain. It’s peculiar that financial business in euros is mainly done outside the euro area. It’s done in London because London has been Europe’s leading financial center for centuries. They have a head start, and people come from around the world to work in finance there.

That would no longer be the case with regard to trad-ing and underwriting securities in euros for two reasons. Number one is that UK financial institutions would lose their passport, their automatic right to do business in the European Union, and they would have to negotiate terms of access, subject to EU regulations, which they would have to accept without the ability to influence.

And number two, the European Central Bank would feel queasy about providing liquidity, providing emergency loans in the event of need to a financial center outside the euro area over which it had no regulatory control, whatso-ever. So clearing and settlement of stock market and bond market and foreign exchange transactions, much of which is for euros, [that] currently occurs in London would move to Paris and Frankfurt.

Left to right: Pollster Doug

Rivers, economist Barry Eichengreen, and the Financial

Times’ Richard Waters discuss the

UK’s options.


The Commonwealth Club organizes more than 450 events every year—on politics, the arts, media, literature, business and sports. Programs are held throughout the Bay Area.

STANDARD PROGRAMSTypically one hour long, these speeches cover a variety of topics and are followed by a question and answer session. Most evening programs include a networking reception with wine.

PROGRAM SERIESCLIMATE ONE programs are a conversation about America’s energy, economy and environment. To understand any of them, it helps to understand them all.

GOOD LIT features both established literary luminaries and up-and-coming writers in conversation. Includes Food Lit.

INFORUM is for and by people in their 20s to mid-30s, though events are open to people of all ages.

MEMBER–LED FORUMS (MLF)Volunteer-driven programs focus on particular fields. Most evening programs include a wine networking reception.

Prepayment is required. Unless otherwise indicated, all Commonwealth Club events—including “Members Free” events—require tickets. Programs often sell out, so we strongly encourage you to purchase tickets in advance. Due to heavy call volume, we urge you to purchase tickets online at commonwealthclub.org; or call (415) 597-6705. Please note: All ticket sales are final. Please arrive at least 10 minutes prior to any program. Select events include premium seating; premium refers to the first several rows of seating. Pricing is subject to change.

Subscribe to our free podcast service on iTunes and Google Play to automatically receive new programs: commonwealthclub.org/podcast.

To request an assistive listening device, please e-mail Valerie Castro seven working days before the event at [email protected].

Hear Club programs on more than 200 public and commercial radio stations throughout the United States. For the latest schedule, visit commonwealthclub.org/broadcast. In the San Francisco Bay Area, tune in to: KQED (88.5 FM) Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 2 a.m. KRCB Radio (91.1 FM in Rohnert Park) Thursdays at 7 p.m.KALW (91.7 FM) Inforum programs on select Tuesdays at 7 p.m. KLIV (1590 AM) Thursdays at 7 p.m. KSAN (107.7 FM) Sundays at 5 a.m. KNBR (680 and 1050 AM) Sundays at 5 a.m. KFOG (104.5 and 97.7 FM) Sundays at 5 a.m.TuneIn.com Fridays at 4 p.m.

FORUM CHAIRS

TICKETS

Free for members Contact group leaders below for information

FRENCH, Advanced Conversation Gary Lawrence [email protected]

GERMAN, Int./Adv. Conversation Sara Shahin [email protected]

SPANISH, Advanced Conversation (fluent only) Luis Salvago-Toledo, [email protected]

Watch Club programs on the California Channel every Saturday at 9 p.m., and on KRCB TV 22 on Comcast. Select Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley programs air on CreaTV in San Jose (Channel 30). View hundreds of streaming videos of Club programs at fora.tv and youtube.com/commonwealthclub

Programs

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

FOREIGN LANGUAGE GROUPS

RADIO, VIDEO & PODCASTS

HARD OF HEARING?

MEMBER-LED FORUMS CHAIRDr. Carol Fleming [email protected]

ARTS Anne W. Smith [email protected]

Lynn Curtis [email protected]

ASIA–PACIFIC AFFAIRS Cynthia Miyashita [email protected]

BOOK DISCUSSION Carol Fleming [email protected]

BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP Kevin O’[email protected]

ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Ann Clark

[email protected]

FOOD MATTERS

Cathy Curtis

ccurtis873@gmail

GROWNUPS

John Milford

[email protected]

HEALTH & MEDICINE

William B. Grant

[email protected]

Patty James

[email protected]

HUMANITIES

George C. Hammond

[email protected]

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Norma Walden

[email protected]

LGBT James Westly McGaughey [email protected]

MIDDLE EASTCelia Menczel [email protected]

PERSONAL GROWTHEric Siegel [email protected]

PSYCHOLOGY Patrick O’Reilly [email protected]

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Gerald Harris [email protected]

Beau Fernald [email protected]

SF DEBATE Deborah Binder [email protected]

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12 p.m. Noted Trial Attorney Talmage Boston: What Makes a Great President

2 p.m. Nob Hill Walk-ing Tour6 p.m. Interfaith Power and Light FM

6 p.m. Helping the Homeless of San Fran-cisco: What Works?6:30 p.m. An Evening with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: An American Icon Lets Loose on Politics, Race, Religion, Inequality, Sports, and Media

6 p.m. Why Are Class Action Attorneys’ Fees so High and Judicial Oversight so Low?

2 p.m. Waterfront Walking Tour

TWO MONTHS CALENDAR

1 2 3 4 5 6/76:30 p.m. Paulette Brown, President, American Bar As-sociation: Making the Justice System Just

6 p.m. Ending Slav-ery FM6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Round-table & Member Social

6 p.m. Understand-ing Evil

6 p.m. Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice6 p.m. Meet the Geniuses: Inside the MacArthur Founda-tion’s Creative Thinking Awards

6 p.m. Is There a Safe Way to Use Geo-Engineering to Address Climate Change?

12 p.m. Israeli Inno-vations in Solving Big Problems FM

12 p.m. Bobby Ken-nedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon FM6 p.m. Reading Califor-nians Book Discussion Group FM6:30 p.m. Women at the Table FM6:30 p.m. Author Carla Power FM7 p.m. Building a Culture of Success

12 p.m. Former SF Giant Jeremy Affeldt: There Is Life After Baseball6 p.m. Safer Guns: A Tech Remedy for the Gun Violence Epidemic6:30 p.m. Above the Law? Addressing Sexual Assault on Cam-pus and Beyond

6:30 p.m. Will Durst: 2016 Election Madness!

6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Round-table & Member Social

5:15 p.m. Music As an Alternative to Adversity6:30 p.m. Can Califor-nia Get to 100-percent Clean Power?

5:15 p.m. Can Technol-ogy Make Aging Better and Cheaper?

12 p.m. BBC Correspon-dent Bill Hayton: Who Owns the South China Sea?

6 p.m. The University of California’s Role in Confronting Climate Change and Leading the World on a Sustain-able Environmental Path FM6:30 p.m. Socrates Café FM

6 p.m. Cultural Odys-sey’s Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women and HIV Circle6:30 p.m. Tristan Walk-er and John Maeda: Redefining Design

Talmage BostonAugust 5

Paulette BrownAugust 2

Tristan Walker & John MaedaAugust 31

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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5:15 p.m. Expand Social Security Now!

2 p.m. Chinatown Walking Tour

3:30 p.m. Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents.6 p.m. Patriotic Be-trayal: Inside a Secret CIA Campaign FM

5:15 p.m. A Blinding Flash of the Obvious: Rewiring Your Brain for Success7 p.m. Election 2016 Political Roundtable: A Week to Week Special

6 p.m. Navigating the Health Care Crisis6:30 p.m. The Future of Work 7:45 p.m. Anger and Mourning on the American Right

2 p.m. North Beach Walking Tour

12 p.m. Steve Forbes: Where Are the Coun-try and Economy Headed?

6 p.m. The Way of Wanderlust6 p.m. Being Well While Dying FM

6 p.m. Matthew Fox: Evolution of Religion Toward a Broader Spiritual Path7 p.m. Susan David: Un-derstanding Emotional Agility

6 p.m. Mad Enchant-ment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies

6 p.m. At the Cross-roads: Oppression and Resilience in Diverse LGBT Com-munities

5 p.m. Humani-ties West Book Discussion: A Nervous Splendor, by Frederic Morton FM6:30 p.m. Socrates Café FM6:30 p.m. Elizabeth Lesser in Conversation with Isabel Allende

6 p.m. The Dark Side of Social Media: Privacy, Manipulation and Terms of Use6:30 p.m. Robert Reich: The Oddest Presiden-tial Election in Living Memory

6 p.m. Solar for All: Energy for All the Planet and All the People

2 p.m. Waterfront Walking Tour6:30 p.m. Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize Winner; Author, A Truck Full of Money

Steve ForbesSeptember 16

Arlie HochschildSeptember 14

Tracy KidderSeptember 29

THE COMMO N WE AL TH18 SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to common wealthclub.org

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2

Paulette Brown, President, Amer-ican Bar Association: Making the Justice System JustPaulette Brown, President, ABA; Part-ner/co-chair, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Locke Lord LLPPaulette Brown is the first woman

of color to become president of the ABA and has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the “50 most influential minority lawyers in America.” She has been a municipal court judge, in addition to focusing on all facets of labor and employment litigation. Brown has devoted her presidency to “rebuild-ing the nation’s confidence in our justice system” by “working to elim-inate bias and enhance diversity and inclusion” and offer “tangible, sustainable solutions that will have a positive impact on the perception of our justice system.”SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3

Why Are Class Action Attorneys' Fees so High and Judicial Over-sight so Low?Lawrence Schonbrun, Attorney Repre-senting the Petitioning Class Member in Laffitte vs. Robert Half InternationalBig Solutions to Big Problems, the

2016 August Forum series at the Club, investigates whether excessive legal fees in class action lawsuits can be reined in without eliminating the incentives needed to prosecute such actions. Schonbrun’s talk will discuss the recent California Su-preme Court case, Laffitte v. Robert Half Int'l., Inc., which establishes the rules that courts must follow in awarding reasonable attorneys' fees from class action settlements.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program or-ganizer: George Hammond • Notes: Part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4

Waterfront Walking TourJoin Rick Evans for his new walk-

ing tour exploring the historic sites of the waterfront neighborhood that

surrounds the location of the future Commonwealth Club headquarters. Hear the dynamic stories of the en-trepreneurs, controversial artists and labor organizers who created this recently revitalized neighbor-hood. This tour will give you a lively overview of the historic significance of this neighborhood and a close look at the ongoing development.SF • Location: Meet in front of Boulevard Restaurant, 1 Mission Street, San Francisco •Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Tour operates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5

Noted Trial Attorney Talmage Boston: What Makes a Great Pres-identTalmage Boston, Attorney; Author, Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets An-swers from the Experts About Our PresidentsFor more than 38 years, Talmage

Boston’s vocation has been getting to the heart of his cases by asking the right questions—and not stopping until he gets answers. Three years ago, he had an epiphany: What if he used his examination skills to go deep-er into his lifelong avocation—the study of presidential history? He in-terviewed some of America’s leading presidential historians and presiden-tial insiders, including former Secre-tary of State James A. Baker III, Pulit-zer Prize-winners David McCullough and Jon Meacham, and historian Douglas Brinkley. In this historic election year, hear from this seasoned trial lawyer on the most important questions Americans should have about our commanders-in-chief.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:45 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • Notes: The program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

MONDAY, AUGUST 8

Ending SlaveryGeorge Hammond, Author, Rational Idealism and Conversations with SocratesMonday Night Philosophy con-

tributes to our special August series with a close look at the resilience of slavery in the 21st century. Ending slavery was a 19th century obsession that appeared quite successful, as did

the attempt to end intemperance. But was slavery, like drunkenness, just pushed underground when it was criminalized? The intense psy-chological desire for hierarchical status, and the economic desires that reinforce that, explain why slavery is as hard to eliminate as other so-cial ills, as is evidenced by the con-tinuing mass incarceration of Afri-can-Americans and the endurance of various forms of female slavery.The big solution to this big problem

is an easily understood and almost as easily adopted perspective that effectively undermines the psycho-logical need for hierarchy. There are also legal incentives, and technical half-solutions, which could help minimize the demand for enslaving each other in the meantime.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: This program is part of our special series Big Solu-tions for Big Problems

Week to Week Political Roundta-ble & Member Social Panelists TBAIt's general election time, and you

don't want to take your eyes off of the presidential campaign now. We'll explore the most interesting, contro-versial, and surprising political issues with expert commentary by panel-ists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our pan-elists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, audience discussion of the week’s events, and our live news quiz! Come early before the program to meet other smart and engaged in-dividuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our social hour.SF • WEEK TO WEEK PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9

Understanding EvilGeorge Hammond, author, Rational Idealism and Conversations with SocratesThe dichotomy between good and

evil was popular long before Zoro-aster was born, and it will proba-bly continue to be long after Man-ichaeism's last influences subside. But is evil a useful concept? Or an

Paulette BrownAugust 2

Lawrence SchonbrunAugust 3

AUGUST 2-9

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2

Talmage BostonAugust 5

George HammondAugust 8 & 9

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5

MONDAY, AUGUST 8 TUESDAY, AUGUST 9

19AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016commonwealthclub.org/events


obfuscating one? The big solution to this big problem in understanding reality comes from comparing the concepts of good and evil to the less emotionally fraught concepts of hot and cold. They appear to be oppo-sites at first, but are actually relative labels we apply to our experiences that depend both on an objective re-ality and on the relative perspective of the perceiver. Understanding evil this way vastly reduces the fears that have scared us silly for centuries, and provides a tremendous boost to the effectiveness of our pursuit of happi-ness—a big solution indeed.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program or-ganizer: George Hammond • Notes: Part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10

Enduring Conviction: Fred Ko-rematsu and His Quest for JusticeLorraine Bannai, Professor of Lawyer-ing Skills and Director, Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, Seattle Uni-versity School of Law; Author, Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for JusticeThe vulnerability of minority com-

munities has always been a big prob-lem, but it is particularly so when fear exacerbates ignorance. Not long ago, it was Japanese Americans; now it is Muslims. Professor Bannai il-luminates this theme through the story of Fred Korematsu, a 22-year-old Oakland welder who refused to comply with orders that led to the incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In Korematsu v. United States , the

wartime Supreme Court rejected his challenge to the government in one of its most infamous cases. More than 40 years later, Professor Bannai was part of the legal team that successfully challenged Korem-atsu's conviction based on proof that the government had falsified the record.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Pro-gram organizer: George Hammond • Notes: This program is part of our special August se-ries Big Solutions for Big Problems

Meet the Geniuses: Inside the MacArthur Foundation’s Creative Thinking AwardsManeesh Agrawala, Computer Vision Technologist; MacArthur Foundation “Genius” GranteeCamille Utterback, Digital Artist; MacArthur Foundation “Genius” GranteeCecilia Conrad, Managing Director, John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation; Former Vice President for Academic Affairs, Pomona CollegeIt’s the 35th anniversary of the John

D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program, the so-called “genius grants” that recognize exceptionally creative people who inspire us all. Past MacArthur fellows include “Hamilton” creator Lin-Man-uel Miranda, Harvard Professor Hen-ry Louis Gates, choreographer Twyla Tharp and world wide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. Join us for a fasci-nating conversation with MacArthur Fellows from the Bay Area about cre-ative problem solving.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:15 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11

Is There a Safe Way to Use Geo-En-gineering to Address Climate Change?Leslie Field, Ph.D., Founder and Presi-dent, Ice911 Research; Founder, Small-Tech ConsultingArmand Neukermans, Ph.D., Founder, Xros; Author; InventorCan geo-engineering help us stave

off even more dramatic climate dis-ruption? Dr. Field and Dr. Neuder-mans will be interviewed by Gerald Harris, chair of The Commonwealth Club's Science & Technology mem-ber-led forum. He will inquire about the latest approaches to geo-engi-neering to address climate change, the need for such work, the risks involved and the potential bene-fits. Mr. Harris has been consulting to the electric power industry on long-term planning for more than 25 years and has been an executive at both Bechtel Engineers and Pacific Gas & Electric Company.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Science and Technology • Program organizer: Gerald Harris • Notes: Part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12

Israeli Innovations in Solving Big ProblemsRavit Baer, Deputy Consul General for Israel for the Pacific NorthwestNathan Miller, President, Miller Ink; Consultant, Israel 21cRiva Gambert, Director, East Bay Interna-tional Jewish Film Festival—ModeratorA distinguished panel will dis-

cuss the impressive contributions the tiny state of Israel (known as the Start Up Nation) has made in finding and sharing solutions to big problems threatening the en-vironment, health and economies throughout the world. In particu-lar, DCG Baer will speak to how the government supports Israeli tech-nology, research and development, as well as assisting other societies, such as California with our drought.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Ce-lia Menczel • Notes: This program is part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

MONDAY, AUGUST 15

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal IconLarry Tye, Author, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal IconSome say nobody was better, half

a century ago, at thinking about the biggest solutions for the problems of his age than RFK, whether it's race riots roiling in cities across America, and especially in California; the war raging in Vietnam; or the general issue of inequality that was dividing people along lines of class, race, gen-der and generation. Those issues, of course, are a mirror of those facing the country today, when RFK's mes-sage is more resonant than ever. He predicted we'd have a black president almost to the day, when no white politician dreamed of it. He talked about how our problems made us ripe for demagogues, though he'd never met Donald Trump but did know George Wallace better than anyone. And he offered ways out of all of that, in compelling enough terms to win the California primary and seem poised for the presidency.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1

AUGUST 9-15

Lorraine BannaiAugust 10


THURSDAY, AUGUST 11

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12

MONDAY, AUGUST 15



p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities, Health & Medicine • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: Part of the August Forum series: Big Solutions for Big Problems; part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Ber-nard Osher Foundation

Reading Californians Book Dis-cussion GroupThe acclaimed novel The Sympa-

thizer, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, will be discussed. Nguyen was the gold medal winner at the Club's recent California Book Awards. His novel has been described as “a cerebral thriller about Vietnam and its aftermath” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post) and “A dark fun-ny—and Vietnamese—look at the Vietnam war” (NPR Books). Find out for yourself what all of the ex-citement is about.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: San Francisco Book Discussion • Pro-gram organizer: Betty Bullock

Carla Power, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Author of "If the Oceans Were Ink"Carla Power, Author, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the QuranGet inside of Carla Power's

eye-opening story of how she and her longtime friend Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi found a way to con-front ugly stereotypes and persistent misperceptions that were cleaving their communities. Their friend-ship—between a secular American and a madrasa-trained sheikh—had always seemed unlikely, but now they were frustrated and bewildered by the battles being fought in their names. Both knew that a close look at the Qu-ran would reveal a faith that preached peace and not mass murder; respect for women and not oppression. So they embarked on a year-long jour-ney through the controversial text.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

Building a Culture of SuccessRichard Belluzzo, Entrepreneur; Ven-ture Partner; Tech ExecutiveThe culture of a company has never

been more important than it is today.

Company culture is what defines the natural reflexes of an organization, and it is the culture that impacts the performance of a team. Belluzzo, for-mer tech executive for HP and Mi-crosoft, discusses how to build and change cultures, and why companies should make it a part of their vision and strategic plan.SV • Location: Silicon Valley Bank, 3005 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7–8 p.m. program • Notes: In as-sociation with IDEA-TO-IPO

Women at the Table:Joann Lo, Exec. Dir., Food Chain Work-ers Alliance; VP, Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Leadership BoardBrittni Chicuata, Government Rela-tions Director, American Heart Associa-tion | American Stroke AssociationShakira Simley, Community Develop-ment Director, Bi-Rite Market—ModeratorCritics argue that the industrial food

system in the United States is beset with big problems; corporate con-solidation of the food supply, huge inequities in pay and benefits for food workers, lack of rights for farm workers, and farming practices that prioritize profits over the health of the planet. But there is a growing move-ment demanding that these problems be addressed, and we have called to-gether the women at the helm of the movement.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. reception catered by Bi-Rite Market and CUESA • MLF: Food Matters • Program organizer: Cathy Curtis • Notes: In associ-ation with CUESA, Bi-Rite Market, and Civil Eats; this program is part of our special Au-gust series Big Solutions for Big Problems

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16

Former San Francisco Giant Jer-emy Affeldt: There Is Life After BaseballJeremy Affeldt, San Francisco Giants Pitcher 2008-2015; Philanthropist; Au-thor, To Stir A Movement: Life, Justice and Major League BaseballIn conversation with Lenny Mendon-ca, Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Com-pany; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of GovernorsCome out and meet a superstar

athlete who has turned his attention to helping to solve problems off the field. Jeremy Affeldt is a major league

baseball pitcher, philanthropist, hu-manitarian, public speaker and au-thor. His baseball career spanned 14 years with the Kansas City Royals, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds and the last seven years with the San Francisco Giants. He played on all three Giants World Champion teams—2010, 2012 and 2014. For his career, Affeldt has a record of 2-0, 0.86 ERA in 33 post-season games, the third-lowest in history among pitchers with at least 30 innings. He has 22 straight scoreless post-season appearances since allowing one run in Game 1 of the 2010 World Series. He retired from baseball on Sunday, October 4, 2015.Jeremy is an active leader to end

human trafficking and modern day slavery and is an advocate to support and feed the hungry at home and around the globe. He is the co-found-er of Generation Alive, a non-profit organization that works to teach and inspire a generation of young people to act by serving others. He is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Medium.com. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11 a.m. check-in, noon program

Safer Guns: A Tech Remedy for the Gun Violence EpidemicMargot Hirsch, President, Smart Tech Challenges FoundationMatt Drange, Technology and Business Writer, ForbesWith federal standards for smart

guns coming this fall, along with grants for law enforcement to pur-chase smart firearms, there is re-newed interest in technology to prevent the harm done when guns fall into the wrong hands. Each year there are 20,000 injuries and deaths caused by accidental shootings and teen suicides, nearly all of which ad-vocates say could be prevented with personalized firearms. A recent Johns Hopkins study found that 6 in 10 Americans support the development of smart gun technologies, including modifications to the existing 300 mil-lion guns in America today—a rare middle ground politically.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: International Relations • Program or-ganizer: Norma Walden • Notes: This pro-gram is part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

AUGUST 15-16

Carla PowerAugust 15

Richard BelluzzoAugust 15

Jeremy AffeldtAugust 16

Margot Hirsch & Matt DrangeAugust 16

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16



Above the Law? Addressing Sexu-al Assault on Campus and BeyondMichele Dauber, Frederick l. Richman Professor of Law, Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology, Stanford University Jeffrey Rosen, Santa Clara County Dis-trict Attorney Jackie Speier, U.S. Representative (D, CA-14)In the wake of the recent contro-

versy over the sentencing of Stanford student Brock Turner for the rape of an unconscious fellow student, many are beginning to question the effica-cy of the current policies and laws in place regarding sexual assault on college campuses and in the broader community. The public is debating whether current legal and campus practices are fair and meet intend-ed goals of educating and protecting students, supporting survivors and holding colleges and communities accountable. Join INFORUM for a powerful discussion about this issue with leaders across the legal, aca-demic, government and advocacy fields who are playing pivotal roles in shaping how assault is addressed on college campuses and beyond.SF • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program


Will Durst: 2016 Election Mad-ness!Will Durst, Political SatiristMelissa Caen, Political Analyst, CBS SF—ModeratorIn possibly one of the most conten-

tious and hotly contested elections in our lifetimes, don’t miss Will Durst’s take on the 2016 election cycle and the candidates seeking the White House. A five-time Emmy nominee, Will Durst has been hailed by The New York Times as “quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today.” Durst frequently ap-pears on numerous television broad-casts, including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. His Off-Broadway one-man show, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” and book of the same name received rave re-views from The New York Times and The New York Post, and he continues to be a leading voice in American political satire. He is currently per-

forming his one-man show, "Elect to Laugh: 2016," at theaters around the Bay Area, including every Tuesday at The Marsh in San Francisco.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

Interfaith Power and Light Reverend Sally Bingham, Exec. Dir., Inter-faith Power & Light's Regeneration ProjectRabbi Marvin Goodman, Exec. Dir., Northern California Board of RabbisSumbul Ali Karamali, Author, The Mus-lim Next DoorMichael Pappas, Exec. Dir., San Francis-co Interfaith Council—ModeratorRepresentatives of the three Abra-

hamic faiths will discuss their faiths' views about protecting the Earth, caring for the environment and be-ing proactive in combatting climate change. Rev. Bingham will also de-scribe the work of the Regeneration Project, which promotes renewable energy and conservation as part of Interfaith Power and Light, an inter-faith climate change initiative.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel • Notes: This program is part of our series Big Solutions for Big Problems

Nob Hill Walking TourExplore one of S.F.'s original “Seven Hills.” Because of great views and its central position, Nob Hill became an exclusive enclave of the rich and famous on the West Coast who built large mansions in the neigh-borhood. This included prominent tycoons such as Leland Stanford and other members of the Big Four. Highlights include the history of four landmark hotels; visit the city’s largest house of worship, Grace Ca-thedral; and discover architectural tidbits and anecdotes about the rail-road barons and silver kings. SF • Location: Meet in front of Caffe Cento, 801 Powell St., San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Tour op-erates rain or shine; limited to 20 particpants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

MONDAY, AUGUST 22

Week to Week Political Roundta-ble and Member Social

Panelists TBAWe'll explore the biggest, most

controversial, and sometimes the surprising political issues with ex-pert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging com-mentary on political and other ma-jor news, audience discussion of the week’s events, and our live news quiz!And come early before the program

to meet other smart and engaged in-dividuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member so-cial (open to all attendees).SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program

TUESDAY, AUGUST 23

Music As an Alternative to Adver-sityPeter Lewis, Musician; Composer; Song-writer; Guitarist; Founding Member, the San Francisco Rock Band Moby GrapeArwen Lewis, Musician; Composer; Songwriter; Guitarist; Primary Artist and Lead Singer, Recent Album of Classic Moby Grape CompositionsPeter is Arwen's father, and togeth-

er they travel and perform acous-tic shows featuring original music written by both of them as well as classic Moby Grape compositions.Peter and Arwen Lewis will dis-

cuss how music, from the perspec-tives of both the composer and the audience, has been used throughout history to "escape" from adversi-ty. They will talk about the heal-ing components of music and how music allows people to connect with each other. Peter and Arwen will also perform songs composed by Alexander "Skip" Spence and songs written by Peter and Arwen. The presentation will include their own personal experiences with the healing components of music; they also will talk about the process of composing and how this takes the composer into an alternative reality.There will be live music during

their presentation, including won-derful Moby Grape songs, and this presentation will be a treat not to be missed.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Psychology • Program

AUGUST 16-23

Will DurstAugust 17


FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

TUESDAY, AUGUST 23

MONDAY, AUGUST 22



organizer: Patrick O'Reilly, Ph.D. • Notes: Part of our special series Big Solutions for Big Problems

Can California Get to 100-percent Clean Power?Mark Ferron, Member, California Inde-pendent System OperatorMark Jacobson, Professor, StanfordGeisha J. Williams, President, PG&EMark Jacobson leads a team that

says California and other states can get to 100-percent renewable pow-er by 2050. Celebrity activists Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio are backing him. But critics say the theo-retical plan doesn’t consider the hard realities of the power grid and that renewables are sometimes oversold. California recently passed a law re-quiring half of the state’s power be renewable by 2030. Should the state be more ambitious to battle climate disruption? What does PG&E think about going all-in on renewable power?SF • CLIMATE ONE PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. net-working reception


Can Technology Make Aging Bet-ter and Cheaper?Richard G. Caro, Ph.D., Co-founder, Tech-enhanced Life, PBCWhile much of the West worries

about economic and human costs of an aging population, Dr. Caro argues that there is room for optimism—and that by harnessing the power of technology and the untapped wis-dom of the older adult population, we can improve the quality of life as we age, expand the capabilities of caregivers, and perhaps even make the process of aging less costly.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. check-in, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford • Notes: Part of our special August se-ries Big Solutions for Big Problems

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

BBC Correspondent Bill Hayton: Who Owns the South China Sea?Bill Hayton, BBC Correspondent, Au-thor, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in AsiaFrank Wu, Professor and Former Dean,

UC Hastings Law School; Chairman, Committee of 100—ModeratorThe South China Sea is where Chi-

na’s rising ambitions are colliding with the United States’ global role. This strategic competition is inter-acting in dangerous and unpredict-able ways with tensions about the fate of the atolls and islands that dot the sea: the Spratly islands, the Paracels and Scarborough Shoal. Bill Hayton will explain the — sometimes bizarre — origins of the various claims and suggest how they might be resolved.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:15 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing

MONDAY, AUGUST 29

Middle East Forum DiscussionSee website for details.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5 p.m. check-in, 5:30 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

The University of California's Role in Confronting Climate Change and Leading the World on a Sus-tainable Environmental PathTeenie Matlock, McClatchy Chair of Communications and Professor of Cog-nitive Science, UC MercedChristine Gulbranson, Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepeneurship, University of CaliforniaDaniel Kammen, Class of 1935 Distin-guished Professor of Energy, UC BerkeleyJoel Makower, Chairman and Exec. Ed-itor, GreenBiz Group Inc.; Lead Author, The Annual State of Green Business Re-port—ModeratorCalifornia and the University of

California are leaders in confront-ing one of the world's most complex and daunting issues: climate change. Three distinguished UC professors from across the university system will discuss how the UC and the state of California lead and plan to contin-ue leading the world on a path to a sustainable environmental future.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Environment & Natural Resources, Business & Leadership • Program organizer: Ann Clark • Notes: Part of our spe-cial series Big Solutions for Big Problems

Socrates CaféSocrates Café is devoted to the

discussion of a philosophical topic chosen at that meeting. The group's facilitator, John Nyquist, invites par-ticipants to suggest topics, which are then voted on. The person who proposed the most popular topic is asked to briefly explain why she or he considers that topic interesting and important. An open discussion follows, and the meeting ends with a summary of the various perspectives participants expressed. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6:30 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program Organizer: George Hammond

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30

Helping the Homeless of San Francisco: What Works?Sam Dodge, Director, Mayor's Office of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE)Mark Farrell, SF Supervisor, District 2C.W. Nevius, Columnist, SF ChronicleWe see the sad lives of the homeless

in our beautiful city, and our hearts sink. But is there an answer? In dif-ferent ways, our three panelists have given a great deal of attention to the problem. They will share their obser-vations and possible remedies.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: International Relations • Program or-ganizer: Norma Walden • Notes: This pro-gram is part of our series Big Solutions for Big Problems

An Evening with Kareem Ab-dul-Jabbar: An American Icon Lets Loose on Politics, Race, Religion, Inequality, Sports, and MediaKareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA Hall of Fame Inductee; Columnist, Time Mag-azine; Author, Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and WhiteSince retiring from profession-

al basketball as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, Kareem Abdul-Jab-bar has become a lauded observer of culture and society, a New York Times bestselling author, and a reg-ular contributor to The Washington Post, Time magazine and Time.com. At a pivotal time in our history and in the midst of a presidential race that threatens to divide us, Mr. Ab-dul-Jabbar will give his take on the origins of bias and inequality that re-main a stubborn part of America, 240

Richard G. CaroAugust 24

Bill HaytonAugust 26

AUGUST 23-30

Kareem Abdul-JabbarAugust 30


FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

MONDAY, AUGUST 29

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30

February 26 - March 3, 2017

SAND DUNES, CANYONS & WILDFLOWERS

Sunday, February 26 Arrive in Las VegasArrive in Las Vegas independently, and gather at 6:00 p.m. at the DoubleTree hotel for a welcome drink, introduc-tions, and a trip orientation on the park by your study leader. Dinner will follow near the hotel.DoubleTree Hotel (D)

Monday, February 27 Shoreline Butte, Badwater & Harmony Borax WorksTransfer to Death Valley National Park. En route stop at Ashford Mill for the chance to see wildflowers in bloom and to witness evidence of the shoreline of the historic Lake Manly. At its zenith 22,000 years ago, the lake was over 80 miles long and over 600 feet deep, but given the changing climate, it disap-peared thousands of years ago. Stretch your legs at Badwater; at 282 feet below sea level, this salt flat is the lowest place in North America and the eighth lowest place on Earth! The dramatic depth is enhanced by the backdrop of the Pan-amint Range rising over 11,000 feet. After lunch at Furnace Creek, stop by the visitor center before touring Har-mony Borax Works and learning about the mining history of “the white gold of Death Valley.” Enjoy a welcome dinner at the Furnace Creek Inn.Furnace Creek Resort (B,L,D)

Tuesday, February 28 Dante’s View, Salt Creek & Mesquite Flat Sand DunesExperience Dante’s View, located at 5,475 feet, and take in a stunning pan-orama of all 11,049 feet of Telescope Peak. Learn about the creation of the park’s many alluvial fans, the product of millions of years of sporadic yet constant erosion. Later visit Salt Creek and learn about the amazing pupfish, endemic to Death Valley and uniquely adapted to survive in the desert’s harsh environment. End the day’s activities with the chance to walk among the picturesque sand dunes. After dinner enjoy the chance of some stargazing and see firsthand why Death Valley is an officially recognized “Gold Tier” Dark Sky Park. (B,L,D)

Wednesday, March 1 Titus Canyon & Ubehebe CraterExplore the Titus Canyon narrows and hike among the stratifications of rock marking millions of years of geolog-ical history. The opening of the can-yon affords the best chance to see a chuckwalla in its natural habitat. These sizable lizards have evolved to inflate their bodies to wedge themselves in the cracks in the rock they live in to deter predators. Marvel at Ubehebe Crater, site of a massive volcanic explosion leaving a pit in the earth over 500 feet

deep and a half-mile across. If you feel up to it, enjoy a 2-mile hike around the rim of the crater. (B,L)

Thursday, March 2 Zabriskie Point, Golden Canyon & Artist’s Palette Wake just before dawn and transfer to Zabriskie Point to watch as the sun-light slowly illuminates the surround-ing mountains. After breakfast, hike through the multi-hued walls of Gold-en Canyon toward the Red Cathedral with the option to continue for a lon-ger hike through Gower Gulch. After lunch, relax at the hotel. This evening enjoy a sunset visit to the pastel-colored volcanic ash deposits of Artist’s Palette before our farewell dinner. (B,D)

Friday, March 3 Amargosa Opera House & Ash Meadows After breakfast in the park, visit the Amargosa Opera House, the passionate creation of a dancer and artist, Marta Becket. Transfer to the visitor center at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to learn of the plight of the pupfish and explore the Crystal Spring boardwalk. After lunch, return to Las Vegas for flights home. Please book your return flights for 6:00 pm or later. (B,L)

Itinerary

Trip DetailsDates: February 26-March 3, 2017

Group Size: Minimum 8, maxi-mum 20 (not including staff)

Cost: $2,995 per person, double occupancy; $3,495 per person, single occupancy.

We are staying in deluxe rooms at the Furnace Creek Ranch. If you would like to upgrade to the Furnace Creek Inn, the supplemental charges are: $600 per person, double occupancy and $975 single occupancy, added to single rate above

Included: 1 night at the Double-Tree, Las Vegas; 4 nights at the Fur-nace Creek Ranch; daily breakfast (5) at the hotel, 4 lunches and 4 dinners; welcome and farewell dinners with beer and wine; round-trip transfers from Las Vegas Airport to Death Val-ley National Park; tours, entrances, and events as specified in the itin-erary; mini-bus transportation for all excursions; gratuities for hotel staff and restaurant staff; joining us all week will be expert guide Frank Ackerman; services of a professional Tour Manager; Club host to assist you throughout the program (with a min-imum of 15 travelers); the camarade-rie of the Club’s travelers.

Not Included: Air transportation to and from Las Vegas, Nevada; meals and beverages other than those spec-ified as included; gratuities to tour manager and drivers; optional excur-sions and other activities done inde-pendently; trip cancellation/interrup-tion and baggage insurance; personal items such as e-mail, telephone and fax calls, souvenirs, laundry and gra-tuities for non-group services.

What to ExpectAverage temperatures during this time range from 53-80°. Our transportation around the park is by vans. Travelers should be in active good health to participate in this trip. Though walks are not too strenuous, they are over uneven terrain and may require the use of hands and feet to climb over obstructions. Our longest hike is about 2 miles, with approximately 500 feet in elevation gain. Almost all walks are “out and back” so participants can go as far as they like, and then wait for the group to return. For those who would like more active hiking, we can help arrange that during your free time.

Study Leader: Frank AckermanStudy leader Frank Ackerman is a retired National Park Service ranger who worked in Death Valley for four years. His 30-year career included posts at the Grand Can-yon and Voyageurs National Parks, and he served as the chief of interpretation for Cape Cod National Seashore. Frank helped create an award-winning interpretative program as part of a joint venture between Amtrak and the National Park Service to provide educational commentary on select passenger trains in the Northeast. Frank is excited to teach you about the spectacular desert flora and fauna, and the geology and human history of Death Valley.

The Furnace Creek RanchThe Furnace Creek Resort is situated in a lush oasis surrounded by the vast and arid desert of Death Valley National Park, California. The resort has two properties – the Ranch and the Inn. We have reserved deluxe rooms at the Ranch, which has been welcoming guests since 1933. The property has a gift shop, saloon, a spring-fed swimming pool, tennis courts, a children’s playground, and the National Park Service Visitor’s Center is just a stone’s throw away. One mile away is the 4-diamond Furnace Creek Inn. Upgrades to the Inn are available.

(415) 597-6720

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commonwealthclub.org/travel

Commonwealth Club Travel

Phone: (415) 597-6720Fax: (415) 597-6729

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Reservation Form February 26 - March 3, 2017

Terms & ConditionsELIGIBILITY:We require membership to the Commonwealth Club to travel with us. People who live outside of the Bay Area may purchase a national membership. To learn about member-ship types and to purchase a membership, visit common-wealthclub.org/membership or call (415) 597-6720.

DEPOSIT & PAYMENTS: To make a reservation, a deposit of $500 per person is required by check or credit card. Please mail your check (payable to “Black Sheep Adventures, Inc”) or charge instructions, with your completed reservation form to the address on the reservation form. You may also fax in your reservation form or call our office or call (415) 597-6720. Final payment is due no later than December 26, 2016.

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS:Your deposit and payments are refundable, less the following cancel fees:

• 91+ days prior to trip start date, $200 per person • 61-90 days prior to trip start, $500 deposit• 0-60 days prior to trip start, No refund

We recommend trip-cancellation insurance; applications will be sent to you. Tour can also be canceled due to low enrollment. Neither CWC nor Black Sheep Adventures accepts liability for cancellation penalties related to domestic or international airline tickets purchased in conjunction with the tour.

MEDICAL INFORMATION: Participation in this program requires that you be in good health. It is essential that persons with any medical problems and related dietary restrictions make them known to us well before departure.

RESPONSIBILITY:The Commonwealth Club of California and our ground operators and suppliers act only as agents for the travelers with respect to transportation and arrangements, and exercise every care possible in doing so. However, we can assume no liability for injury, damage, loss, accident, delay or irregularity in connection with the service of any automobile, motorcoach, or any other conveyance used in carrying out this program or for the acts or defaults of any company or person engaged in

conveying the passenger or in carrying out the arrangements of the program. We cannot accept any responsibility for losses or additional expenses due to delay or changes in air or other services, sickness, weather, strike, war, quarantine, force majeure or other causes beyond our control. All such losses or expenses will have to be borne by the passenger as tour rates provide arrangements only for the time stated. We reserve the right to make such alterations to this published itinerary as may be deemed necessary. The right is reserved to cancel any program prior to departure in which case the entire payment will be refunded without further obligation on our part. No refund will be made for an unused portion of any tour unless arrangements are made in sufficient time to avoid penalties. The Commonwealth Club of California accepts no liability for any carrier’s cancellation penalty incurred by the purchase of a nonrefundable ticket in connection with the tour.

CST: 2096889-40

We require membership to The Commonwealth Club to travel with us. Please check one of the following options:

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PLEASE RETURN THIS FORM ALONG WITH YOUR DEPOSIT TO:

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You may also fax the form to 415.597.6729



years after its founding document de-clared that all Americans are created equal. He contends that many Americans,

out of fear and sometimes ignorance, make too many false assumptions about fellow citizens who aren’t like them.SF • Location: Herbst Theatre, War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: Tickets must be purchased through City Box Office (415) 392-4400


Cultural Odyssey's Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women and HIV CircleRhodessa Jones, Co-Artistic Director, Cultural Odyssey; Actress; Teacher; Writ-er; Director, Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women and HIV Circle; Former Visiting Artist in Residence, UC Berkeley Black Theater WorkshopIn 1989, on the basis of material

developed while conducting class-es at the San Francisco County Jail, Rhodessa Jones created “Big Butt Girls, Hard Headed Women,” a per-formance piece based on the lives of the incarcerated women she encoun-tered. Based on this observation, Jones founded The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women to explore whether an arts-based ap-proach could help reduce the num-bers of women returning to jail.In 2008, The Medea Project: The-

ater for Incarcerated Women joined forces with UCSF’s Women’s HIV Clinic to create theater that ex-plores what it means to be living with the virus in the 21st century. For the past seven years, The Medea Project: HIV Circle has performed shows all around the United States, sharing the truth and the stories of what it means to be female and in-fected or affected.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: The Arts • Program organiz-er: Anne Smith • Notes: This program is part of our special August series Big Solutions for Big Problems

Tristan Walker and John Maeda: Redefining DesignTristan Walker, Founder & CEO, Walker & Company Brands, Inc.

John Maeda, Design Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers—ModeratorAfter recognizing the need for bet-

ter-designed personal care products for people of color, Tristan Walker, a former entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz and di-rector of business development at Foursquare, struck out on his own and launched Walker & Company Brands, Inc.Now, Walker & Company is an

emerging leader in the field of product design, and his company's wares are being met with both crit-ical acclaim from health and beauty industry heavyweights and financial backing from celebrities like John Legend and Magic Johnson.Join INFORUM, Tristan Walk-

er and design industry guru John Maeda for an insightful discussion about how companies like Walker & Company Brands are finding suc-cess and redefining product design by making products that are both visually appealing and highly effec-tive available to the masses.SF • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

Expand Social Security Now!Steven Hill, Senior Fellow, New Amer-ica Foundation; Holtzbrinck Fellow, American Academy in Berlin; AuthorThree-quarters of Americans de-

pend heavily on Social Security in their elderly years and nearly half would be living in poverty without it. But as important and popular as it is, Social Security has become a political football. A well-financed campaign — supported by conser-vatives, special interest groups, and even leading Democrats — has lob-bied for cuts and significant “enti-tlement reform,” proclaiming that Social Security is going broke. Pol-icy expert Steven Hill argues that Social Security not only should be defended, it should be substantially expanded.Learn about his proposal to dou-

ble the monthly benefit and how to pay for it by closing many of the tax loopholes and deductions that dis-proportionately favor the wealthy few.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

Chinatown Walking TourEnjoy a Commonwealth Club

neighborhood adventure. Join Rick Evans for a memorable midday walk, and discover the history and mysteries of Chinatown. Explore colorful alleys and side streets. Vis-it a Taoist temple, an herbal store, the site of the first public school in the state, and the famous Fortune Cookie Factory.SF • Location: Meet in front of Starbucks, 359 Grant Ave. (corner of Grant and Bush, near Chinatown gate), San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2-4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Tem-ple visit requires walking up three flights of stairs; tour operates rain or shine; limited to 12 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in; photo by H Sanchez/Flickr

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents.Richard G. Caro, Ph.D., FacilitatorThis regular discussion group ex-

plores new and emerging solutions to the challenges of growing older. Not only do we uncover interesting new products at the intersection of aging and technology, we also con-duct a series of ongoing deep-dive discussions into topics such as brain health, apps for seniors, hearing and wearables for seniors. The results of our discussions will be shared with a larger community of older adults interested in improving their qual-ity of life through our partner in this initiative, Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. The discussions are facilitated by Dr. Richard Caro, whom many of you have heard speak at prior Grownups forum events.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 1:30 p.m. networking reception, 3:30 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

Patriotic Betrayal: Inside a Secret CIA CampaignKaren Paget, Author, Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Cam-

Rhodessa JonesAugust 31

AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 12

Tristan Walker & John MaedaAugust 31





Steven HillSeptember 7

Karen PagetSeptember 12



paign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against CommunismMonday Night Philosophy con-

siders the social ramifications of a democratic society allowing internal spying. In 1967, Ramparts magazine exposed a CIA secret: a decades-old project to enroll American students in the crusade against communism by suborning the National Student Association. Patriotic Betrayal tells a story filled with self-serving ratio-nalizations, layers of duplicity, and bureaucratic double-talk. Author Karen Paget, herself a former mem-ber of the NSA, mined hundreds of archival sources and declassified documents, and interviewed more than 150 people, to uncover precise-ly how the CIA turned the NSA into an intelligence asset during the Cold War. Her answer throws a sharp light on the persistent argument about whether America’s national security interests can be secured by skulldug-gery and deception.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francis-co • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

A Blinding Flash of the Obvious: Rewiring Your Brain for SuccessSteven R. Campbell, M.S., Information SystemsCampbell presents an eye-opening

look at the latest research on how our brains conform to the messages we give it: When we optimize those messages, our brains will literally rewire themselves again to create new, positive self-images of who we want to be. This is formally called “neuroplasticity,” and understand-ing it could open doors to creating more success in our health, personal relationships and in our businesses.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

Election 2016 Political Roundta-ble: A Week to Week SpecialLarry Gerston, Ph.D., Professor of Polit-ical Science, San Jose State University; Political Analyst, NBC Bay Area; Author, Reviving Citizen Engagement, and The Road to Hana

Additional Panelists TBAIn this special edition of our polit-

ical roundtable series, we'll have fo-cus on the candidates, referenda, and issues that impact the South Bay, as well as some statewide and nation-al topics. We'll explore the biggest, most controversial, and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Before the program, meet other smart and engaged in-dividuals and discuss the news over refreshments at our member social (open to all attendees).SV • WEEK TO WEEK PROGRAM • Location: Recital Hall, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara • Time: 6 p.m. so-cial, 7 p.m. program • Notes: This program is sponsored by Applied Materials


Navigating the Health Care CrisisJohn Dearborn, M.D.The United States is in the midst

of a crisis in health care. With the many advances in biomedical tech-nology and pharmacology, fueled by research in academia and industry, we have never been better cared-for and are enjoying longer productive lives. But the growing cost of deliver-ing that care, especially for an aging population, has us in the middle of a battle between the health-care de-livery system and third-party payers, including Medicare. Premiums have soared, and coverage has waned to keep the insurers in the black, but Medicare has been badly underfund-ed for decades. Can physicians and hospitals strike a balance between high-quality care and cost? SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health and Medicine • Pro-gram organizer: Patty James

The Future of WorkSee website for panelistsAs the economy has improved

across the Bay Area, not everyone has benefitted equally from eco-nomic gains and job growth. In fact, many haven’t benefitted at all. While there is seemingly no shortage of high-paying jobs for workers with advanced degrees and a surplus of low wage jobs with little hope for advancement, there simply are not

enough jobs that pay a wage that provides safety, security and hope for a better future. In this session, we will bring together leaders from the advocacy community and the busi-ness world to talk about what it will take to create good jobs that allow people to make a meaningful contri-bution to their community and the local economy, and to build a better life for their kids.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • Notes: Sponsored by the San Francisco Foundation as part of the People, Power, Place Series, which addresses access and eq-uity in the Bay Area

Anger and Mourning on the American RightArlie R. Hochschild, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Department of Sociology, Uni-versity of California, BerkeleyIn Strangers in Their Own Land,

renowned sociologist Arlie Hoch-schild embarks on a thought-pro-voking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country. In the right-wing world she explores, Hochschild discovers powerful forc-es that override self-interest, as pro-gressives see it, and help explain the emotional appeal of a candidate like Donald Trump. Hochschild draws on expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in “red” America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of con-temporary American politics: Why do the people who seem to benefit most from “liberal” government in-tervention abhor the very idea?NB • MARIN CONVERSATIONS PROGRAM • Location: Outdoor Art Club, One West Blith-dale, Mill Valley • Time: 7 p.m. check-in and light hors d'oeuvres, 7:45–9 p.m. program • Notes: Photo by Paige Parsons


North Beach Walking TourJoin another Commonwealth

Club neighborhood adventure! Explore vibrant North Beach with Rick Evans during a two-hour walk through this neighborhood with a colorful past, where food, culture, history and unexpected views all in-tersect in an Italian “urban village.” In addition to learning about Beat

John DearbornSeptember 14

Arlie HochschildSeptember 14

SEPTEMBER 12-15

Steven CampbellSeptember 13






generation hangouts, you’ll discov-er authentic Italian cathedrals and coffee shops.SF • Location: Meet at Victoria Pastry Cafe, 700 Filbert Street, San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: You can get there with Muni Bus 30, 41, 45; North Beach Parking Garage, 735 Vallejo St.; tour operates rain or shine; limited to 20 partici-pants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in; photo by Flickr user Clemson

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Steve Forbes: Where Are the Country and Economy Headed?Steve Forbes, Chairman and Edi-tor-in-Chief, Forbes Media; Author, Reviv-ing America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code and Reforming the Fed Will Restore Hope and ProsperityWith a turbulent election and Brex-

it on the horizon, a leading conser-vative voice offers his thoughts on the political and economic climate in the U.S. and the world. Steve Forbes is chairman of Forbes Media, which publishes Forbes magazine. In 1996 and 2000, Forbes campaigned vigor-ously for the GOP presidential nom-ination. Key to his platform were a flat tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice for schools, term limits and a strong national defense. Forbes continues to energetically promote this agen-da. Here’s a chance to hear his views on how to make the country stronger and Americans more prosperous.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program • Notes: Signed copies of Mr. Forbes’ book will be available for purchase; photo by Glen Davis

Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of GodSteven Nightengale, AuthorJonathan Curiel, Journalist; Author—ModeratorNightengale will share insights

from his beautifully written book Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God, which describes his family's adventurous, rewarding move to an ancient neighborhood in Granada with its charming life-style, beautiful gardens and fasci-nating history so greatly influenced by Muslim and Jewish immigrants. He will also trace Granada's re-

markable past when Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together, in relative harmony during a truly im-pressive time of important scientif-ic, artistic, poetic and mathematical achievements, until religious funda-mentalism and power hunger ended that marvelous period.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • MLF: Middle East • Pro-gram Organizer: Celia Menczel


The Way of WanderlustDon George, Travel Writer; Author, The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don GeorgeHear George reflect upon his global

expeditions and reignite your own wanderlust. A professional travel writer and editor for the past four decades, Don George has explored the furthest corners of the world. In his book, The Way of Wander-lust, George includes many of his adventurous tales from the last 40 years—climbing Mount Kilimanja-ro, ascending Yosemite’s Half Dome, a moving homestay experience in Cambodia. The former travel editor for the SF Examiner and Chronicle, George founded the Wanderlust sec-tion of Salon.com.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7pm book signing • MLF: Human-ities • Program organizer: George Ham-mond

Being Well While DyingIra Byock, M.D., Palliative Care Physi-cian; Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Institute for Human Caring, Providence Health and Services; Professor of Medi-cine and Community & Family Medicine, DartmouthAmericans tend to consider illness

and dying as fundamentally med-ical problems. Doctors and nurses focus their attention on alleviating suffering at end of life. But though suffering is undeniably part of ill-ness and dying, with good palliative care many people retain a capacity for subjective well-being through the end of their lives. Dr. Byock will explore the surprising possibility of contentment and joy in dying and the implications for our under-standing of full and healthy living.

A renowned author, Dr. Byock has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered," CBS "60 Minutes," "Fox and Friends," and PBS "The News Hour."SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Mark Zitter


Matthew Fox: Evolution of Reli-gion Toward a Broader Spiritual PathMatthew Fox, Ph.D., Episcopal Priest; Author, Original Blessing, The Reinven-tion of Work, A Spirituality Named Com-passion, A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey, and Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our TimesDr. Fox sees an ongoing, rapid

shift from formal religion toward a broader-based, gender-neutral path that includes Eastern spirituality, the Wisdom Tradition in the He-brew Bible, respect for the Earth and native traditions, and awe about na-ture and creation. Former Domini-can priest Matthew Fox, "the most-read theologian in North America," has written more than 30 books on the topic, selling more than 1.5 mil-lion copies in dozens of languages. He will discuss the causes of this shift and show how, for example, the four paths of Creation Spiritual-ity can bring joy, life, spiritual depth (and dance!) to the practice of spir-ituality. He will also discuss other traditions and the works of the Ro-man Catholic theologians and mys-tics Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, and Meister Eckhart.Come to the Club to experience

how, in the words of Merton, "our real journey in life is interior; it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever-greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts."SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Personal Growth • Program organizer: Eric Siegel

Susan David: Understanding Emotional AgilitySusan David, Psychologist, Harvard Medical School; Author, Emotional Agil-ity: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life

SEPTEMBER 16-20

Steve ForbesSeptember 16

Matthew FoxSeptember 20

Susan DavidSeptember 20

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19




Jenny Dearborn, Chief Learning Offi-cer, SAP—ModeratorWhy is understanding emotion-

al agility so important? With more than 20 years of research, David found that no matter how intelli-gent, resilient or creative people are, when they ignore how situations make they feel, they miss opportu-nities to reach their full potential. By understanding emotional agility, says David, individuals learn how to adapt and thrive in stressful situa-tions. She’ll provide advice for navi-gating life’s twists and turns with an open mind for success.SV • Location: TBA • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing • Notes: Photo by Dana Patrick Photography


Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lil-iesRoss King, Author, Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Wa-ter LiliesWe have all seen Claude Monet's

legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness. As World War I exploded within hearing distance of his house at Giverny, Monet's personal losses piled up and formed the tragic back-drop of his last and largest creations. Using letters, memoirs and other sources, Ross King reveals a more complex, more human, more inti-mate Claude Monet than has ever been portrayed, and firmly places his water lily project among the greatest achievements in the history of art.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Human-ities • Program organizer: George Ham-mond • Notes: Part of our Good Lit series, un-derwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation;


At the Crossroads: Oppression and Resilience in Diverse LGBT CommunitiesKimberly F. Balsam, Ph.D. Profes-sor; President-Elect, APA's Division 44; Co-Director, Center for LGBTQ Evi-

dence-Based Applied Research, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, Palo Alto UniversityThe past five years have been times

of rapid change for LGBT communi-ties in the United States. With the re-peal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011 and the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, LGBT peo-ple have experienced rapid gains in visibility, acceptance and legal rights. However, this progress has dispro-portionately advanced the well-being of those who are white sexual minori-ties, leaving issues of racial and eth-nic diversity, social class and gender identity in the margins. These devel-opments have led many to argue that we find ourselves at a crossroads in LGBT history that requires new par-adigms that will broaden justice to more people. Balsam will discuss psy-chological perspectives on oppression and resilience, offering a lens through which to envision the path forward in this challenging and ever-changing social context.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: LGBT • Program organizer: Wes McGaughey


Ayesha Curry: The Seasoned LifeAyesha Curry, Host, Food Network’s “Ayesha’s Homemade”; Author, The Sea-soned Life: Food, Family, Faith, and the Joy of Eating WellLate-breaking event: See website for

details.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • Notes: Part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

Humanities West Book Discus-sion: A Nervous Splendor, by Frederic MortonJoin us to discuss A Nervous Splen-dor. Frederic Morton deftly tells the haunting story of the Crown Prince Rudolf and his city, where, in the span of only 10 months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." Morton's story studies other young men just as frustrated as the prince, includ-ing young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic

drama of the fin de siecle. Morton in-terweaves their fates with that of the doomed prince and the entire city. Discussion led by Lynn Harris.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:30 p.m. check-in, 5 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

Middle East Forum DiscussionSee website for details.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5 p.m. check-in, 5:30 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

Socrates CaféSocrates Café is devoted to the

discussion of a philosophical topic chosen at that meeting. The group's facilitator, John Nyquist, invites par-ticipants to suggest topics, which are then voted on. The person who proposed the most popular topic is asked to briefly explain why she or he considers that topic interesting and important. An open discussion follows, and the meeting ends with a summary of the various perspectives participants expressed. Everyone is welcome to attend. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6:30 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program Organizer: George Hammond

Elizabeth Lesser in Conversation with Isabel AllendeElizabeth Lesser, Co Founder, Omega Institute; Author, Marrow: A Love StoryIn Conversation with Isabel Allende, Novelist and Human Rights ActivistThe author of The New York Times

bestseller Broken Open returns with a visceral and profound memoir of two sisters who, in the face of a bone marrow transplant—one the donor and one the recipient—begin a quest for acceptance, authenticity, and most of all, love. Throughout her life, Eliza-beth Lesser has sought understanding about what it means to be true to one-self and, at the same time, truly con-nected to the ones we love. But when her sister Maggie needs a bone mar-row transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a far more immedi-ate and complex question about what it really means to love—honestly, gen-erously, and authentically. They leave the bone marrow transplant up to the doctors, but take on what Lesser

SEPTEMBER 20-26

Ross KingSeptember 21

Elizabeth Lesser & Isabel AllendeSeptember 26




Ayesha CurrySeptember 26

Kimberly BalsamSeptember 22



calls a "soul marrow transplant," ex-amining their family history, having difficult conversations, examining old assumptions, and offering forgiveness until all that is left is love for each oth-er’s true selves. Their process—before, during, and after the transplant—en-courages them to take risks of authen-ticity in other aspects of their lives.SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: Part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation; Lesser photo by Dion Ogust


The Dark Side of Social Media: Privacy, Manipulation and Terms of UseScott Allan Morrison, Former Silicon Valley Journalist; Author, Terms of UseIn conversation with Lisen Strom-berg, Independent Journalist, CEO and Founder, AcceleratingWomenFacebook has vowed that it will not

attempt to influence the outcome of an election. But as veteran Silicon Valley journalist Scott Allan Mor-rison shows us in his debut thriller Terms of Use, social media compa-nies can manipulate voters, and there are no laws to prevent them from doing so. Join Scott as he discusses his novel, Internet privacy and social media’s growing influence.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Pro-gram organizer: George Hammond

Robert Reich: The Oddest Presi-dential Election in Living MemoryRobert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary of Labor; Au-thor, Saving CapitalismIn the midst of an unpredictable

presidential election, get insight from a veteran political figure who knows Washington inside and out. Time magazine named Reich one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He is a found-ing editor of The American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. Come hear his provocative thoughts on the presidential election and the future of America.SF • Location: Marines' Memorial Theatre, 2nd Level, 609 Sutter Street (at Mason), San

Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m.

program, 7:30 p.m. book signing


Solar for All: Energy for All the Planet and All the PeopleAdam Browning, Exec. Dir., Vote SolarVien Truong, Director, Green for AllErica Mackie, Co-Founder and CEO, Grid AlternativesThe clean energy revolution has the

power to transform our planet and our communities. Current massive solar cost reductions mean that solar energy will be able to deliver health and economic benefits to everyone, including low-income and impov-erished areas. Solar has the power to lower utility bills for every American, including 22 million low-income families, enabling them to invest dol-lars in their living and in their futures rather than in ever-rising energy bills. Advocates say that harnessing local sunshine will create good jobs and a pathway for everyone. Join our dis-tinguished panel in a discussion of promise, progress and challenges to build a new solar economy available for all our planet and all our people.SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco

• Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program •

MLF: Environment & Natural Resources, Busi-

ness and Leadership, Science and Technolo-

gy • Program organizer: Ann Clark


Waterfront Walking TourJoin Rick Evans to explore the his-

toric sites of the waterfront neigh-borhood that surrounds the loca-tion of the future Commonwealth Club headquarters. Hear the dy-namic stories of the entrepreneurs, controversial artists and labor or-ganizers who created this recently revitalized neighborhood. This tour will give you a lively overview of the historic significance of this neigh-borhood and a close look at the on-going development.SF • Location: Meet in front of Boulevard

Restaurant, 1 Mission St. (corner of Mission

& Steuart), San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m.

check-in, 2-4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Tour oper-

ates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants;

tickets must be purchased in advance and

will not be sold at check-in

Author Tracy Kidder: Profiling the Pied Piper of GeeksTracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize Winner; Au-thor, A Truck Full of MoneyKidder’s Soul of a New Machine, cel-

ebrated for its insight into high-tech corporate America, earned a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. His enormously influential book Moun-tains Beyond Mountains captured global health crises through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of some of the poorest people. In his latest work, A Truck Full of Money, he profiles Paul English, an unconventional entre-preneur and founder of Kayak.com, known as “the Pied Piper of Geeks,” who seeks to give away his fortune. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This event is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation; photo by Ga-briel Amadeus Cooney

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5

KQED’s Michael Krasny: Oy, Does He Have Jokes for YouMichael Krasny, Host, "Forum"; Author, Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It MeansPeter Coyote—ModeratorMichael Krasny has been telling

Jewish jokes since his bar mitvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He has now put together a compendium of Jewish jokes that packs the punch-es with riff after riff and also offers a window into Jewish culture. Let There Be Laughter borrows from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy leg-ends and new voices as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer. Krasny also delves deeply into the themes, topics and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, includ-ing the use of Yiddish. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation; photo by Howard Schatz

Scott Allen Mor-risonSeptember 27

Robert ReichSeptember 27

SEPTEMBER 27-OCTOBER 5

Adam BrowningSeptember 28

Tracy KidderSeptember 29

Michael KrasnyOctober 5




WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5


THE NEW FOUNDING “FATHERS” What would the Founding Fathers say if they were

on a Commonwealth Club panel? What would they make of their country today?

Juan Williams, political analyst at Fox News Channel; Author, We the People: The Modern-Day Figures Who Have Reshaped and Affirmed the Founding Fathers’ Vision of America, in conversation with Doug Sovern, political reporter at KCBS Radio. From the April 19, 2016, program in San Francisco “Juan Williams, Fox News Political Analyst.” Photos by Rikki Ward.

DOUG SOVERN: What was the conceit—the vision —for this book?JUAN WILLIAMS: So many people revere the Found-ing Fathers. I think the Founding Fathers, if they came back to The Commonwealth Club, everyone would say, “These guys are rock stars. We’ve got to have them.” And the room would be jammed with people to hear what the Founding Fathers had to say about 21st century America.

So many people have said to me, “America is not the country I grew up in. I feel like a stranger in my own

country. What happened to my country?” And in general when you hear that kind of sentiment you associate it with older white conservatives Republicans. But in fact, it’s true. I think it’s 60 percent of Republicans hold those sentiments. But you should know it’s over 50 percent of independents who hold those sentiments, and over a third of Democrats who say the same thing. Maybe the most interesting of all, it’s over 50 percent of African Americans who say the same

thing, that this is a time of so much churning and change that it discomforts them.

It leads people to have great anxiety. I think we see this play out in terms of the 2016 political cycle, with Trump, but also with a Bernie Sanders. Where is this change? Where is the locus of it? Well, it’s in the economic front for sure, in terms of the anxiety over trade and the resis-tance to the current trade deal. You see Hillary Clinton flip-flopping on the trade deal. For just that reason, I think so many people say, “Hey, is anybody paying attention to blue collar workers in the United States? You say trade is so good, how come it’s impacting so many working class families in this country?”

The second locus of tremendous change is demographics. Wow, I mean the level of immigration in the country, again sky high, almost at a historic high in terms of percentages. Then factor in birth rates. Birth rates among immigrants and children of immigrants is just sky-high. So it amplifies the impact of immigration in the United States today.

The final point I make on the weight of tremendous change taking place in America is the politics. If you look at the increasing rate at which women, especially young women, are coming into the political forum, and combine them with minorities—and we have a higher percentage of minorities than ever in the country—so we have young people, women, and minorities. That’s the Obama coa-lition. It’s the coalition that Hillary Clinton is trying to recreate in order to win. So that coalition’s rise as we see the Baby Boomers and the older end of the spectrum sort of begin to fade, and we see the Millennials now occupy a larger space, again [it] means a tremendous change in who’s getting elected in the United States today.

All of this led me to what Doug called my conceit; I called it my sugary indulgence. Which is to say: Imagine if the Founding Fathers came be back to life, and I think they would be shell-shocked at 21st century America.SOVERN: Of course.

Many people say, ‘You say trade is so good, how come it’s impacting so many working class families in this country?’


WILLIAMS: But what would they say? And how would you explain 21st century America to them? If they ran into Doug and said, “Hey, Doug, you’re a great reporter. Tell me exactly how it is that there are cameras on the lamppost outside.” Doug would say, “That’s for red lights—people running red lights and speeding and crime.”

They say, “But Doug, you mean the government is watching you as you go about your private business?” Doug would say, “Of course.”

They’d say, “Doug, that’s not the America we created.” Or they would say, “My God, Doug, we were in the bar over there and there were men holding hands.” And Doug would say, “What’s wrong with that? Gay people have rights, gay people can marry.”

And they would say, “Gay people can marry? That’s not the country we created.”SOVERN: First they’d say, “What are gay people?”WILLIAMS: Right, right, yeah.

SOVERN: “Happy people can marry.” [Laughter.]WILLIAMS: And then let’s say they were listening to Doug on the radio and Doug is talking about a woman as the leading candidate for the Democratic party’s pres-idential nomination. They’d say, “Doug, what are you smoking? What is going on? A woman?” Because there were no women signing the Declaration of Independence. No women participating or affirming the Constitution. Women could not own property and certainly couldn’t vote. So the idea that you have a woman in that kind of position—or a woman as attorney general, or I think there are 20 women in the Senate and like 80, 90 in the House. All of this to them would lead them to just think, “Wow, what has gone on?” So I wrote the book almost as if I would hand it to the Founding Fathers and say, “Here are the dynamic issues that are driving this tremendous rate of change in American society at the start of the 21st century. And the way I want to explain it to you is I want

Juan Williams (left) tells Doug Sovern about the changes the Found-ing Fathers would note if they visited America today.


to attach personalities, people to it.” Let’s take immigration, I would say, “I want to introduce

you to the Kennedy brothers.” Let’s take policing and sur-veillance, “I want to introduce you to Bill Bratton.” Let’s take the courts and the fight over whether or not you read the Constitution strictly, with originalist intent, or you say it’s a living document, “Let me introduce you on the one hand to Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese, and on the other hand to Earl Warren,Thurgood Marshal.”

You get the idea. So the conceit or the indulgence is this act of imagination. I’m not starting with the personalities, I’m starting with the issues, and then I’m working back to say, here are the people who personify this tremendous change in American society.SOVERN: How did you come up with a list of people you wanted to attach? Some were obvious like Thurgood Marshall. You’ve written about him before. But others like Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater when you get to gay rights are less so.WILLIAMS: This is interesting, because given American media today where people say, “So is this book a liberal book or a conservative book?” I didn’t start on that premise; I started from the premise that I’m trying to explain some of the issues that so drive and consume us as Americans—especially politically aware, and I gotta believe all of you in this audience are extremely politically aware people. So many of the issues that preoccupy us, like let’s take something like income inequality. We all

know about Bernie Sanders saying, “Gosh, Wall Street is corrupt, the game is rigged against the working man, working woman.” How do you explain this [concept of a financial] institution’s too big to fail? And when Wall Street fails, the government bailing it out but not bailing out the little guy who had problems with his or her mortgage.

So my thought was, there must be a line of thought that connects to this. And of course, the line of thought has to do with, people who win in American society at the start of the 21st century are royally rewarded. And you would know that in this community in San Francisco, people who are at the cutting edge of the technological revolution, they live large. They have huge dollars. Other people who are not associated with that who don’t have that high level of education or expertise, are more struggling, and we know that in the aftermath of the recession. So my thinking was, who is the one person that you would associate this argument with?

In conversation with economists [and] politicians, the name Milton Friedman kept coming up. So I started looking into Milton Friedman and found, yes, in fact, Milton Friedman is the guy who said we shouldn’t even have national parks. He’s telling Richard Nixon, “You don’t need a draft, it should be voluntary.” And he’s a guy who said marijuana and drugs should be legal. If people want to use drugs, let them use them. But his real imprint, if you think of it as an imprint on 21st century America, is

Juan Williams says there are new faces

that could go on Mount Rushmore.


that he said corporations have one responsibility, and that is to make money for their shareholders.

He really put in a secondary, maybe even in a third-lev-el, the relationship the corporation has to its employees and certainly to unions. Even to its customers with the argument being, if the customers see a better deal they’re gonna take it, they’re going to go away. So your job is to make money by keeping that customer, but not to the point that you would sacrifice making money for the shareholder. From that line of thinking comes high level pay for CEOs, who in fact reward the shareholders. And that line of thinking, of course, leads to the great disparity between people at the top of the corporate feeding chain and people at the bottom. That’s what we live with today as part of this anxiety over income inequality. SOVERN: You’ve got Rachel Carson on the environ-ment. You’ve got Charlton Heston symbolizing the NRA. You’re not necessarily exalting and enshrining all the figures in this book. It’s more about their impact and their connection to that issue for good or for ill.WILLIAMS: Right, so, I like the way you put it, “en-shrined.” So on the cover of the book, there’s a new Mount Rushmore. So instead of the original Founding Fathers, I’ve got Billy Graham. Why do I talk about Billy Graham? Religion, There’s Ronald Reagan, again coming back to how Reagan tried to push back against the idea of a living Constitution, the new rights being found in the Constitution, by putting people like Justice Scalia on the court, who believed in the original strict construction reading of the Constitution. And then Eleanor Roosevelt; Eleanor Roosevelt after World War II, so instrumental in advocating for the creation of a United Nations, but even more centrally, arguing for a universal declaration of human rights and then projecting the idea of human rights as a global concern, that the United States should be using its influence to protect rights of people around the entire world, people who aren’t even American citizens.

And then finally Thurgood Marshall is up there on my new Mount Rushmore. Thurgood Marshall of course was the lead counsel for the NAACP legal defense fund and helped to change the nature of race relations in the country, so that what we experience here in the early 21st century is radically different than what we knew, gosh, not only in Thurgood Marshal’s time but even subsequent in the late ’80s and early ’90s. We lived in a totally different racial world than we have ever.SOVERN: What do you think they would make of Donald Trump?WILLIAMS: [Alexander] Hamilton warned against peo-ple who appealed to the zeal or discontent in the country then become demigods, and he’d fear that that would lead to tyranny and tyrants.

So I think that would be Hamilton’s take. I think that for George Washington, he was a guy that didn’t believe in political parties. He wanted one American identity, and he feared that the political parties would divide us. I think he

would be, “Well, wait a second. Are you speaking about the interest of the American people and holding us together, or are you polarizing us?”

So I think those are the terms. You can go down the list of the founding fathers in terms of how each of them would approach someone like Trump, who’s clearly the defining character of this 2016 political cycle.SOVERN: Let’s talk about the Democratic side. You liken the Bernie Sanders energy to the Donald Trump populist energy, and he’s tapping into a lot of the same sentiment, I think, among a different demographic. How do you see the Democratic race playing out?WILLIAMS: I think that without a doubt that this cycle will be remembered for Donald Trump’s impact. But the second largest character would be Bernie Sanders. Not only has he exceeded expectations, what he has done in terms of fundraising is phenomenal, by any measure. He raises more money than Hillary Clinton. Of course, he then turns around and says that he’s in the pocket of

the people with the money, but he’s raising more money.So to me what Doug said is exactly right, that Trump

and Sanders share this populist energy. They are the vehicles for the tremendous amount of discontent with the rate of change and the degree of change that’s taking place in American society, and for people who feel that they’re being lost as so much of that change takes place.

So if you were trying to write about Trump and Sanders, I think you write about people who are attuned to the idea of people who worry about immigration, worry about it’s impact. People worry about the big banks and Wall Street and the game being rigged. People worry about the young people. And the young people, especially the young women and their attitudes and family structure. All of these things are really what’s behind, I think, Trump and Sanders.

So I’m not a prophet. I can just tell you, as of today, I think there’s no question Hillary Clinton will be president.SOVERN: How have so many instances of the last couple of years changed the debate on policing? WILLIAMS: I think part of the difficulty we have even in thinking about this issue is we don’t directly say a lot of this has to do with race. And it’s not just about race, because it’s not black people like me that really live in fear of police. There are moments where police might stop me and profile me and the like, but we’re really talking about poor black people in poor black neighborhoods and the interaction they have with police.

I’m not a prophet. I can just tell you, as of today, I think there’s no question Hillary Clinton will be president of the United States.


THE NEW HABITS FOR SUCCESS Ashanti Branch was certain of one

thing: He would never become a teacher. Now this award-winning teacher explains how his students helped make him a success, even as he helps them succeed.

Ashanti Branch, M.Ed., project fellow at Stanford’s d.school; studied in Civil Engineering, Cal Poly–San Luis Obispo; Ful-bright Exchange Fellowship to India, a Rotary Club Cultural Ambassadorial Fellowship to Mexico, and a 2010 Teacher of the Year Award from the Alameda-Contra Costa County Math Educators. From the May 24, 2016, program in San Francisco“‘Taking off the Mask’ in the Ever Forward Club.”

I was born in Oakland, California, and I was raised by a single mother; we were on welfare most of my life. Grow-ing up I never could have envisioned this moment today. You see, if I tell you I was raised poor, your recollection of understanding what I’m saying only matters if you understand or you really have a deep empathy for what it means to be poor.

I grew up in a community where being smart was not seen as okay. Like, when I showed up here on the planet, when I entered the world from the womb, life had already

thrown some obstacles in my way. My father died three months before I was born. And it wasn’t my fault. No one gave me an option. If you had handed me a checklist in the womb and said, “Hey how do you want this life thing to work out?” I would have chosen things to look very differently. I wouldn’t have chosen to grow up poor. But as my mom was preparing for this boy to come into the world, all of a sudden these generations of legacy were taken away. My father was looking forward to being a father. He loved my mom. So I showed up, and then things are a mess, things are in shambles, we’re trying to figure it out, like I’m just getting carried along, drifting along, hoping that we can just make it for the next day.

I want you to know that I never ever expected to be a teacher. That was never in my list of things that was going to happen in my life. The dream is go to college, get a good job, make some money, then live happy; that’s how it’s going to work out.


Let me start back at elementary school; you can be smart and it’s still okay, because you’re only with 30 kids all day. So you can kind of just deal with people talking smack about you, you can deal with these 30. When you went to middle school you had 150 kids, you got six classes, you got multiple people looking at you funny because you want to be smart. So I learned that smart is not cool; I fell into that trap. It was like, “Hey, I will act like I don’t know this stuff, I don’t care about this stuff. Do whatever you want. Give me detention—no, don’t call my mom.” [Laughter.] That’s one thing I don’t want you to do.

But I’m not doing your work. I don’t care about your class. If I think that you care more about science than I think you care about me, we’re done. Our relationship, teacher, is over. If you care more about history than you do about my life, if you care more about physical education than the fact that there are people dying in the street in front of my house, then we’re done.

And I can tell. So when I got to middle school, it was a mess. If it wasn’t for a teacher, Ms. Bartlett-Preston—I’ll never forget her; we called her Ms. BP—Ms. BP saved my life.

One day I got in trouble. It wasn’t my fault, right. I told her somebody put a tack in my chair. They use to do that back in the day, put a little tack in your chair. You sit on a tack, you yell. She said, “I’ll see you after school.” I’m like, “What?”

So I come back after school, because she can’t call my house; I’ve got to show up, because if I don’t show up she’s gonna call my house. She starts talking to me, and in my mind I’m like I’m not listening to anything she has to say. I’m gonna look at the ceiling in the corner, I’m gonna hear her talking, I’m gonna agree to everything she says, because that’s what we do. We don’t really want to hear. We just agree to whatever you say. You’re supposed to do that right? Yep, you’re right. Like our teenagers know that. So I knew that all I had to do was answer [with] the right answer, and she’s gonna let me go.

But this is one thing I did here, because I ignored everything else. She said, “I know you’re upset and sad that your father is dead, that your father’s not around, but life doesn’t give us what we want. Life gives us what we get, and we have to make the most out of it.” I don’t know how long she was talking, but that statement I remembered, and it changed my life.

I began to act like I had a focus, I had a dream. Even though my father had died before I was born, my vision then, instead of being angry about that, was I want to make sure that if he could see me, he would be proud to call me his son.

My context changed in about 24 hours. My teachers are like, what happened to this kid? What’s wrong with you? You’re paying attention, you’re doing work. Because it wasn’t that I couldn’t do the work, I didn’t care about the work. From that point on, it began to change. So I

go to high school, they’re like, “Okay, work hard, get a degree, go to college.” So sophomore year, I applied to this program called Upward Bound, and the lady says, “Well, unfortunately, you can’t qualify because you’re not first-generation.” I said, “Of course I am, I’m first-gener-ation. “No, no, no, your mom’s a teacher.” I said, “You mean, my mom went to college? You mean, we’re this broke and my mom actually has an education? Something is wrong. Who chooses to go to college to have a job where you can barely pay your bills?” So I knew one thing at that moment, I would never ever be a teacher. [Laughter.]

That was one thing I knew for sure.But the other thing I was thinking was, “Man, some-

thing has to change. Something absolutely has to change in my life that I’m going to make sure that I’m focused on education, that I’m focused on doing something better in my life, that I’m not going to be a teacher.” So I go off to college, become an engineer, and I’m working. I’m making really good money in engineering. Yeah, I’m a poor boy from Oakland, and now I’m an engineer. I’m making really good money. That feels really good, you should be happy. You should be really happy about the fact that you now make money and that you can pay all the bills and then still have something left over at the end. That was a very novel idea for me. All the bills are paid, and I still have something left over in the bank. But why am I not happy? Why does this thing that people told me I was working hard for happening to me and I’m not happy? I’m coming home every day, I’m playing video games, having a good time with that, but really something’s missing.

One day I was leaving my office and I noticed these kids in the lobby. I [wonder] why are there kids in the lobby at this office building? So one day having lunch, I just pop around that corner where I saw the kids coming from, and the lady was like, “Are you looking for a job?”

I said, “I ain’t looking for no job, I am an engineer. What do you think? I don’t need no job.”

She said, “Well, we need somebody to tutor math. Could you tutor for us?”

I said, “Tutoring?” Now, all I was doing when I left work anyway was going home playing video games. So I was like, “Well, hey, $20 an hour, that’s some good travel-ing money. I love math, I can do the math pretty quick.”

And so this is when it all started to change, right? I told you I was never ever going to be a teacher. Didn’t see it coming.

So one day, I’m tutoring a kid named Lucas. Lucas doesn’t do well multiplying polynomials. I love multi-plying polynomials. Multiplying polynomials I do just for fun. And he can’t do them. I said “Well, then can I show you a shortcut?” He said, “If you think it will work.”

I’m like, ”Well, let me try.” So I show him a little shortcut; he does it, he says, “Is it right?” I say, “I don’t know; check the back of the book.” He checks the back of the book. Light turns on. And that feeling, that mo-


ment—well, actually, let me take it back.It wasn’t just, he checked the back of the book, he got

the right answer. It was like, he turned the back of the book, he looked at the answer, and then the page started to glow. And this glow was on his face that I saw and I felt, and I was like “No, no, why am I feeling this right now?” I just helped the kid learn some math, but it was clear that something was changing my life. I was clear. And so, I went to the front desk after I finished tutoring him; I said “Hey, I’m going to take a couple weeks off because I can’t have this happening. Because if you’re telling me this is what makes me feel really enlivened, it makes me feel like I come alive, and I know teachers don’t make money.” I was already clear about what was happening, and I ran from it.

They kept calling, “Can you come help us?” I said I’ll help with this one kid, but then after that, I’m out. But it changed my life. And as much as I ran from it, teaching called me, and so I went back to school. I said, “Well, at least I can always go back and do engineering.” So I’m just going to do this teaching thing for a little while, I’m just going to test it out, I’m just going to play around with it.

So first year teaching, San Lorenzo High School and I’m failing. I’m a teacher who came to teaching because I wanted to teach, and I’m failing. There are young men in my class who are really smart, but they’re failing my class. At the moment, I didn’t see the connection. But I knew that I had to do something. I was going to go back to make money; I can’t do this well.

I accepted that as a teacher, I’m not going to get paid well. I was cool with that, but I didn’t sign up to be a failure. I’m going to be broke and a failure.

So I invited some young men to lunch. I said “Look, I’ll buy you lunch once a week; in exchange for lunch, teach me how to be a better teacher. Tell me what I’m doing wrong, because I’ll fix it. I don’t really want to be failing you in my class, and you’re smart enough to pass my class. So tell me what I need to do differently, and I’ll fix it.”

And it wasn’t till those conversations happened over lunch where I began to see them in me, I began to see myself in them. It ain’t cool being smart, man; I ain’t walking around with a big old backpack. I ain’t no nerd, I ain’t no geek, I ain’t no teachers pet. Everything about smart to them was negative. Now, as an adult, because I re-member being them, no matter what I tell them, it doesn’t really matter. I could tell them, “Hey, it’s not true, there’s nothing wrong with being smart, smart is good.” But if you believe that, if the society around you makes you believe that, then it’s real. Especially being 14, 15, 16, a teenager and the years of absolute influence by your peers is really real. So we began to figure out systems around it, and that’s how the Ever Forward Club was born.

I was not trying to start a nonprofit organization. The way I realized that nonprofit organizations existed was somebody said “Hey, I would love to give you a check. Do you have a nonprofit number?” I’m like, “What is that? ...

I’m not creating a nonprofit. I’m a teacher helping some students pass algebra.” Because do you know that passing algebra is not just passing algebra? That if you don’t pass algebra, you don’t graduate high school? So not passing my class—I was an algebra teacher—means that you are not going to qualify to graduate high school. So the stakes are much bigger than just this one class.

The Ever Forward Club started in 2004. I was a first-year teacher just trying to figure it out. Twelve years later, we are now in nine schools, we’re growing.

Meet Some Ever-Forward Club MembersBut I want you to hear from some of the young men

who are currently in our program. Who’s going first?CHRISTIAN: My name is Christian. I live in San Lo-renzo. I attend Edendale Middle School and joined Ever Forward Club two years ago. Something I learned from the Ever Forward Club is how to be a better man and how to show integrity. I’m in eighth grade.BRANCH: And where are you going next year?CHRISTIAN: San Leandro.AMBROSIO: My name is Ambrosio, and I go to Rise High School. I’m about to graduate, I’m a 12th grader right now. And I’m headed for Berkeley with a full ride. Yeah. [Applause.]

So I joined Ever Forward Club as a freshman. [Branch] would track us down to make us go to the club. At first I didn’t want to join a club, I was just trying to go home after school. So then I went and the first thing was we ate; that got me into his club a little bit, and then throughout he just started talking to us and making us form groups.

I was a good student, I had my grades up, so it wasn’t much of a help that he was there. But throughout 11th grade to 12th grade, he was on my back on everything. Throughout that, up till today, he’s always on my back, always telling me to do my work and everything, and so it was really great to have him in my life. Because I feel like he was part of my—how do you say this? He was part of what I have accomplished. He was the main reason why I have accomplished what I’ve accomplished, and that is getting to college. [Applause.]DIANTE: My name is Diante. I [have been] in the Ever Forward Club for a year now. I got introduced by these two; that’s the only reason why I came. But when I started going more, I liked it a little more, and they showed me that they cared about me. And it taught me to be a better man, make better choices, and that’s it. [Applause.]DANA: My name is Dana. I’ve been here for two years. I got introduced by Branch. At first I didn’t want to go, because it sounded like a boring name: Ever Forward Club. So the first two weeks I didn’t go. But then the week after, I went and it was kind of cool. But the stuff that we were talking about was like I was pressured, they were asking too many questions and I didn’t feel like answering them. But this group had me learn how to become more of a man than I was back then. That’s it.


A PIONEERING PROGRESSIVEA century ago, a young Midwestern woman was determined to avoid the social expectations of the time for her gender. She became a legal pioneer and a leading light in the fight for women’s suffrage and other rights.

Nancy C. Unger, author, Belle La Follette. From the May 19, 2016, program in San Francisco“The Unexpected Belle La Follette: Progressive Model for 2016.”

Though The New York Times eulogized Belle Case La Follette in 1931 as perhaps “the most influential of all American women who have come to do with public affairs in this country,” she faded quickly from popular memory, and I am afraid that I contributed to this approach to her in my biography of her husband, Fighting Bob La Follette. This minimization of his wife’s accomplishments began with this great progressive reform giant famously calling her “my wisest and best counselor,” which she was. Bob openly deferred to Belle’s judgment throughout his storied professional life, as district attorney, three-term congress-man, lawyer, three-term governor of Wisconsin, and most significantly during his 19 years in the U.S. Senate.

Books, articles, essays, a short film, and a play all hailed

Belle La Follette as the little woman behind the great man. Only a few recognize her as a reformer in her own right. She was far from being merely his assistant.

She held no elected office and could not even cast a ballot until she was 61 years old. Yet she overcame her natural shyness to wield tremendous influence, as a journalist and a public speaker.

Born Belle Case in 1859, she grew up in the farming

community of Baraboo, Wisconsin, where her commit-ment to feminist principles was cemented at a very young age. In her experience, men and women were both so indispensable to the success of farm life that few couples quibbled over whose work was more important. Such a perspective was consistent with her family’s religious views. When her mother, Mary Case, heard Anna Howard Shaw lecture at the family’s Free Congregational Church promoting women’s right to vote, she was captivated by the words of this pioneering minister and physician. Mary Case later told her daughter that she felt “quite indignant that women did not have the same rights as men.” Belle’s brother agreed, stating matter-of-factly “I do not see any reason why I should vote if Belle does not.”

Belle La Follette refused to accept the deferential, meek role assigned to girls. A friend recalled that young Belle “frequently discomfited her teachers and fellow pupils by questioning and challenging things.... She was fearless in insisting on things being understood and being worthwhile before she would accept them.”

Her years as a student at the University of Wisconsin fueled her fearlessness. Belle Case’s classmate, Bob La Follette, pursued her avidly. It was at her insistence that their engagement remained secret, and Bob grew increas-ingly frustrated when Belle seemed far more interested in pursuing her career rather than planning a life with him. Only after Belle completed two years of teaching did she marry Bob in 1881. [She became] in 1885 the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Belle La Follette urged all women to start recognizing that problems they thought of as personal were in fact political and therefore required women’s political activism. “How much we pay for coal, food, and clothing is very largely determined by the control of natural resources, the tariff, the distribution of tax, and by the regulation of the great private monopolies and freight rates. These are women’s issues.”

Bob grew increasingly frustrated when Belle seemed far more interested in pursuing her career rather than planning a life with him.


THE POWER

OF GENERATIONS

Veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl has faced presidents and other tough leaders. But when she faced her first grandchild, her life unexpectedly changed. So she set out to do what good reporters have always done: She learned the science

and sociology behind the grandparent effect.


Lesley Stahl, Correspondent, “60 Minutes”; Author, Be-ing Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grand-parenting, in conversation with Judge LaDoris Cordell (ret.), Chair, Santa Clara County Jail Commission. From the April 25, 2016 program in San Francisco “Spend 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl.” Photos by Ed Ritger.

LADORIS CORDELL: I didn’t realize until I read your book that there are a variety of species of grandparents. Bi-ological, grandparents-in-law, step-grandparents, surrogate grandparents, trans-grandparents, granny nannies, retired grandfather nannies, working grannies. It goes on and on.

So, let’s start with you. Can you tell us a little about your grandparents, your parents and your own family?LESLEY STAHL: Well, the only grandparent I really knew was my grandfather on my father’s side. He lived near us, and I was his first. So, I knew he loved me more than anything on Earth. [Laughter.]

My father worked for him, and the truth is my dad was afraid of his father. He was a big guy; everyone called my grandfather Boss, except I wasn’t afraid of him. So my dad used to have me go and tell him bad news, because he didn’t want to do it. I’m not even kidding. I adored my grandfather. I grew up down the street from him.CORDELL: This was in New York?STAHL: This was in a small town in northern Massachu-setts called Swansea, Massachusetts. My dad grew up in Peabody, Massachusetts. My grandparents lived in Peabody

until I was probably about 10, and then they moved down the street from us like grandparents are doing today all across the country.CORDELL: So what was it your mother said to you about having a child?STAHL: My mother, whose name was Dolly, said, “Do not have children; they’ll ruin your life.” [Laughter.] So, we know what we’re dealing with with my mother right there and then.

Then when I got to what then was considered the ab-solute last year that a woman could ever have a child, 35, she panicked and said, “My God, I made a big mistake.”

I was 35; she was still buying my clothes for me. And if she said, “Don’t do it,” I didn’t do it. She said, “You have to have a child.” And I did. And thank goodness I can say that.CORDELL: In the title of your book, the second part of it is “joys and science of the new grandparenting.” What do you mean by the science?

STAHL: Well, there’s someone in the audience tonight who taught me about the bio-chemistry of grandmothering.

Now when I had my first grandchild and I held her for the first time, I had the most extraordinary, enormous thunderbolt of elation and emotion that just went through my whole body, and I’d never felt like that before. I’d never felt loving like that before. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love my child, I did. But this was different, and it was almost deeper, if that’s possible.

I was asked to write the book, and when I agreed to do it, I thought, “Well, I’m going to go out and try to figure out what that was and do other grandmothers have this feeling.” And I called Dr. Louann Brizendine, who’s sitting in the front row up here, who had written the most won-derful book that you have to read called The Female Brain. Strongly recommend it. In the book, she talked about how mothers when they hold their newborn babies or even when they just give birth, their whole brain is rewired.

An astonishing amount of the mother’s brain is changed. She starts secreting all kinds of new hormones, particularly bonding hormones; and grandmothers do the same thing. So this emotion was really down here in my front part, and coursing all the way through my body.

It was real. It was big and my brain was being rewired, and I was secreting all kinds of bonding hormones that changed me deeply.

So that’s one part of the science. There’s more science in here—CORDELL: Right.STAHL: —about why there are grandparents, particularly grandmothers, in the first place. Most animals on the planet die when they can no longer reproduce. So you don’t see bear grandmothers, you don’t even see gorilla grandmothers. Because if you do, they’re still reproducing. You might have a grandmother, but she’s having her own babies at the same time.

Humans, elephants and whales. We’re the only ones who have menopause and live—and why? Why? The very wise anthropologist came up with the reason and the reason is to babysit. [Laughter.]

Well, you’re laughing, but going back to the stone age, the grandmother stayed back and took care of the babies. Both parents went out and hunted, both parents tilled the field. And grandmothers are meant from all of time to stay at home and take care of babies. So when we wanna babysit and we beg to babysit, it’s because we need to babysit.CORDELL: What kind of a grandmother was Dolly?STAHL: My mother. First of all, she was a seriously tough mother. And the minute she became a grandmother—and I confess this happened to me, too; I turned into a ball of mush.

She was so adorable with my daughter, my daughter could do no wrong. Things that my mother didn’t want to do with me, she would do with her grandchild. I discov-ered that this transformation is universal; all mothers are policemen, and all grandmothers are playmates. Fathers

When mothers hold their newborn babies or even when they just give birth, their whole brain is rewired.Grandmothers do the same thing.


go through exactly the same thing; fathers can’t believe what happens to them when they fall madly in love with their grandchildren.CORDELL: You write that 3 million grandparents in the United States have legal custody of their grandchildren, and 18 percent of them live below the poverty line. And you write that there’s a misconception that most custodial grandparents are African American. You did two “60 Min-utes” pieces where grandparents were the subject. One was called “The Loneliest People on Earth” and the other was “The Grandparent Family Apartments in New York.” So what can you tell us about that?STAHL: Okay, I’ll do the first one first, because this one really touched me; this was about children in foster care. Children who have nobody who would take them in, no aunt, no cousin, nothing; they knew nobody. And a project was developed to try to find one relative for them to connect to.

It was really a heart-breaking story. We focused on one child. I mean, the emotional, mental issues that they went through. She found her father and he was a son of—it was horrible, and she adored him and he just could have cared less. And she still adored him.

I’ve been trying to find her. I wasn’t allowed to know her last name, so I don’t know her last name; her first name was Beverly. I just wanna know her story, I want to know what happened, is she okay? But what I learned from that

story and from a psychiatrist I talked to is that if you have one relative who loves you, that’s all, that’s all you need. Doesn’t even have to be a relative, [it can be] somebody who’s close to you. For the book, I interviewed a psychi-atrist, and she told me that the first question she always asks a new patient is, “When you were young, who loved you?” And if the answer was “nobody,” she said “I knew I was in deep trouble. I was probably not going to be able to help very much.” I said to her, “What if the answer is ‘my grandmother’? Is that enough?” And she said, “Absolutely.”How many of you are grandmothers?

There you go. Well, we know that we are giving them adoring, unfettered, unadulterated, unconditional love, and they know it. We feel it, and we are conveying it to them, and that’s all a person needs. A little kid needs to have that adoring, because their parents are really trying to whip them into shape, and along comes granny saying “You’re perfect, everything,” “Did you put that right shoe on the right foot? My God, you’re a genius.” [Laughter.]CORDELL: So what about the Grandparent Family Apartments in New York.STAHL: The Grandparent Family Apartments I call the house in the Bronx. The city of New York was inundated first during the crack epidemic and then again during this past recession with grandparents gaining full legal custody of their grandchildren. The reason for that is never pretty. Both parents are in jail, both parents are drug addicts,

Judge LaDoris Cordell (right) interviews veteran interviewer Lesley Stahl.


maybe there’s only one parent, who dies; it’s never a good reason. Granny comes along and says “I’m not gonna throw this kid into foster care. I know what happens in foster care, I’m gonna take this child [into my] legal custody.”

Then what? If she was living in subsidized housing for the elderly, which was very likely, once she has a child, they kick her out. No children allowed in subsidized housing for the elderly. So the city of New York built this gorgeous apartment building in the worst congressional district in the country in the Bronx, for grandmothers and great-grandmothers who are raising children. It isn’t just that they provided them with these beautiful apartments; they give them all kinds of services. Health. They give the grandmothers tutoring in how to talk to a surly teenager. And they tutor the kids. They make sure those kids finish high school. The high school graduation rate out of that building is quite astonishing, given where they grow up. The grandparents are taken on outings and treated for morale’s sake to fun things to do. Because it is really hard, really hard for an elderly person to raise a young kid who’s been rejected in some way or another by his parents.CORDELL: Let’s talk about grandfathers. First of all, what kind of a granddad is your husband, Aaron?STAHL: Well my, let me step back for one second. Baby boom fathers changed the way fathering was conducted in the United States. Their wives were working, first wave of working women. They were obliged by the fact that their wives were, probably, not cooking very much, or doing

much housework, whatever, to really step in. So they were the first wave of fathers who went to the soccer match, coached the soccer team or whatever else, basketball team in our case, and were more involved fathers.

They have gone over the edge as grandfathers, they are deep in the pool, insanely in love with their grandchildren. Grandfathers today are just as smitten, just as madly in love with their grandchildren, just as surprised at themselves, being little mush balls, as women are. CORDELL: So another kind of grandparent, a surrogate. I found your story in the book describing Hope Meadows to be so inspiring and so touching. What is Hope Meadows?STAHL: This is a community that started in Rantoul, a small [town] in northern Illinois, by a woman who was appalled by the foster care system. She was an academic; she was writing her Ph.D. thesis on the foster care system, and was appalled that children were being shunted from one family, then rejected, sent to another family, rejected again. And they’re in the foster care system to begin with because they were rejected. She couldn’t stand it, she just couldn’t bear it; she said, “I have to do something.” So she talked the Pentagon, and this took 1,000 phone calls, into giving her a tract of land at an airbase that was closing.

She said, “I need 12 houses. I’m going to put these foster care children in these houses, I just need 12.” They gave her 80, they said “Take it or leave it.” They sold her 80 gorgeous, beautiful houses, in a beautiful, lovely suburb really, for $250,000. Eighty houses for $250,000, she said

Stahl told the Commonwealth

Club audience that grandfathers are just like grand-mothers in that

they fall head over heels in love with

their grandchil-dren.


“I couldn’t say no to that,” so she had 80 houses.Her plan was to persuade 12 parents—and in some cases

they were single women—but 12 parents, to adopt a family of foster kids in return for free housing and the community of all these people living together. So that if they had the urge to reject, the community would come in and support them and get them over the hump.

That was the concept. What’s she going to do with the other 70-odd houses? She decides she’s just going to rent them out to senior citizens at very low rent, just to fill up the neighborhood, because you can’t have empty houses. So she puts ads in AARP magazines and things like that, and she fills up all her houses with senior citizens.

And organically, without plan, without anybody telling them what to do, these elderly people become grandma and grandpa, not to everybody, but to this kid and that kid. And these senior citizens are helping the parents. You can’t imagine, they take four and five kids because they take all the siblings.

It’s really a job for 19 people. And these seniors come in, and when the mother can’t take it anymore and just doesn’t know what she’s gonna do except run off, the seniors come in and they let the mother go drive around for an hour and cool off.

The kids are different with the seniors. That’s grandma and grandpa. And those seniors love those kids the way we love ours. They think they’re wonderful, they have that face of adoration on those children. And this community is totally thriving. These kids are finishing school, the seniors are getting them through school.

There’s a story I tell in there, about a little boy who was really a tough kid. He was hitting the other kids. He was belligerent. He had behavioral issues. He’d already been kicked out of one school. So two grandfathers, George and Henry, two grandfathers, decide they’re gonna take him to school every day and sit with him. Every other day, one did. They went to school with him and sat beside him. And if he started to act up, put their arm around him, calmed him down. And they brought this kid around to become a person who could control his impulses.

It is a community and a half. They’re building others. There’s one in Portland, Oregon, one in Amherst, Massa-chusetts, one in D.C., one now in New Orleans. It’s really a successful project. Senior citizens who are retired and sit home and watch television all day have had their lives transformed, their health improved, their sense of mission, their purpose; [they have told] me that this is the happiest chapter of their lives. CORDELL: [A question from the audience]. I love your interview style; of which interview are you most proud?STAHL: I’ll tell you maybe one of the most difficult in-terviews I’ve ever had, and how much the audience loved that it was difficult for me to have this interview. It was live, it was on “Face the Nation,” so a long time ago, with Margaret Thatcher. She had come to the United States to see her pal Ronald Reagan. This was the height of the

Iran Contra scandal, when Reagan was really taking a big hit; we think that he was popular the whole time, but he wasn’t. He had his ups and downs, and this was a serious down. He was accused of not being honest, because he always said he wasn’t selling arms to Iran, or giving arms to Iran. He was really suffering. So she comes over to kind of buck up her pal.

She came on “Face the Nation.” So I asked her how she could trust Ronald Reagan. He lied to her about these weapons. She said, “My dear, the relationship between our two countries is solid. Solid. And there is no problem between us, whatsoever.”

So I didn’t think that was a good answer. [Laughter.] So basically, I asked it again in a slightly different way, but she knew I was asking it again.

So now, she’s sitting up straight, she’s leaning in toward me in a slightly aggressive way. And I ask her, “How can you? But he lied to you. He lied to your government.

How can you possibly stay pals with him?” Now, it’s “My personal relationship with Ronald Reagan has never been better. It’s as firm as it’s always been, we are together.” And she kinda slaps me around a little bit. [Laughter.]

Can you believe that I asked it again? What was I think-ing? Now it’s me. She is gonna get me. [Thatcher said] “Why does it seem that I love your country more than you do?” She did [say that]. My God. Live television.

Well, that interview ended really quickly after that, and she stormed out. I said thank you, it ended. It wasn’t that she tore off the mic, but she left quickly. And honestly, my impression sitting there was that she wasn’t really angry, that she’s appalled. She’s been in situations like that—if you’ve ever seen that question time in Parliament—and it was a little game for her. I was wrong; she was really mad.

The guy who had arranged the interview feared for his job. However, she, first of all, had never gotten any mail ever for the interviews that she had done every single year ... in the United States. [This time] she gets bags and bags and bags of mail, telling her, “Thank God, you told her a thing or two,” and on and on. And I got bags and bags of mail saying, “Thank God, she told you where you sit” and so forth. So I wrote her a note telling her about my mail and that I had heard about hers, and she wrote back: “Dear Ms. Stahl: cheer up. Margaret Thatcher. [Laughter.]

She’s a pro. She wasn’t mad after she got all that mail. Then she thought she’d done a really good thing.

These elderly people became grandma and grandpa, not to everybody, but to this kid and that kid. They are helping the parents.


THE HOOVER INSTITUTION, the 92nd Street Y and Citizen University have started a nation-wide project called the Ben Franklin Circles. They are encouraging the formation of adult learning groups around the country that strive for self-improvement and the improvement of society through discussing and embracing Benjamin

Franklin’s values.We are all familiar with Franklin’s aphorisms, including “a

penny saved is a penny earned”; “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”; “in this world nothing can be said to be certain with the exception of death and taxes”; “God helps those who help themselves”; and “honesty is the best policy.”

Less well-known is the fact that in 1727 Franklin formed a mutual improvement club in Philadelphia called the Junto, whose members debated morals, politics and natural philosophy. These merchants and tradesmen, more colorfully called The Leather Apron Club, identified desirable virtues, including temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, chastity, tranquility and humility. They debated these and applied them to personal and social improve-ment. Among other deeds, the Junto formed the country’s first subscription public library, to which they donated their own books.

The Junto inspired Hoover and the other organizations to create the current Ben Franklin Circles. They hope that circles launched in New York, Washington, South Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Massachusetts, California and other states will be building blocks for civic engagement and social reform. They have contacted the Club about being involved in this effort.

Their inquiry reminded me of the importance of core values, and how infrequently we focus attention on them at a time when we are bombarded with so much information and so many ideas. We don’t always look below the surface to the basic values behind today’s debates.

I have always found Franklin’s values to be estimable, and his sayings to provide wise guidance. I also find another set of life advice worth considering, alongside Franklin’s, and it comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Laertes, sister of Hamlet’s beloved Ophelia, is leaving Denmark to attend university in France. His father, Polonius, chief counselor to the king, gives Laertes this parting advice:

Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to

thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with

entertainment Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

It’s interesting how much commonality there is between Shakespeare’s advice and that of Franklin. Frugality, discretion and honesty play central roles in their values systems. And it’s interest-ing that both were put forth as essentially secular values systems, at a time when values were mostly the province of religions.

One might ask, in this modern era of technology and rapid change, of what worth are such fundamental and simple concepts as those posed by Ben Franklin and William Shakespeare? Are they just anachronistic sayings, sometimes to be mocked as obvious truisms? Some, like Polonius’ advice about dressing in as costly a manner as one can afford, because the French value this, seem a bit silly or irrelevant today.

Some of these values can also be debated. Is honesty always the best policy? For example, should a terminally ill individual always be informed of his medical status? Compassion might trump honesty, in certain circumstances. And what about com-passion and caring for others, in an era when human needs are so dramatic, for those being abused, for refugees, for the homeless, for the mentally ill? Neither of our 17th and 18th century friends says much about this.

Nonetheless, many of these are important values that can inform personal choices and social reform. If more people acted on the basis of these values, the world would be a better place. So kudos to Hoover and its partners for their effort to bring Mr. Franklin’s wisdom back into focus. And let’s not forget Shake-speare’s final advice about being true to oneself; self-awareness is as important a core value as any of Franklin’s virtues.

Photo courtesy of Gloria Duffy

Junto and Hamlet

InSight

Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, President and CEO

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Havana & the Viñales ValleyDecember 7 - 14, 2016

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


Elizabeth Lesser & Isabel Allende

The author of The New York Times bestseller Broken Open returns with a visceral and profound memoir of two sisters who, in the face of a bone marrow transplant—one the donor and one the recipient—begin a quest for acceptance, authenticity, and most of all, love. When her sister Maggie needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a immediate and complex question about what it really means to love.

Elizabeth Lesser, co founder, Omega Institute; author, Marrow: A Love Story, in conversation with Isabel Allende, novelist and human rights activist


Robert Reich


Tristan Walker & John Maeda

After recognizing the need for better-designed personal care products for people of color, Tristan Walker launched Walker & Company Brands, Inc. Now, Walker & Company is an emerging leader in the field of product design. Join INFORUM, Tristan Walker and design industry guru John Maeda for an insightful discussion about how companies like Walker & Company Brands are finding success and redefining product design by making products that are both visually appealing and highly effective available to the masses.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA Hall of Fame Inductee; Columnist, Time Magazine; Author, Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White

Robert Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley; Author, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, not the Few, in conversation with Judge LaDoris Cordell (ret).

Tristan Walker, Founder & CEO, Walker & Company Brands, Inc.In conversation with John Maeda, Design Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers

Reich argues that power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in 80 years. He says the veneration of the “free market” has masked the power of moneyed interests to tilt the market to their benefit.To him, the critical choices ahead are about who government is for: we must choose between a market organized for broad-based prosperity and one for delivering the most gains to the top.

Since retiring from professional basket-ball as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has become a lauded observer of culture and society, a New York Times bestselling author, and a regular contributor to The Washington Post, Time magazine and Time.com. At a pivotal time in our history and in the midst of a presidential race that threat-ens to divide us, Mr. Abdul-Jabbar will give his take on the origins of bias and inequality that remain a stubborn part of America.

The Commonwealth August/September 2016

Documents

Transcript of The Commonwealth August/September 2016