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Nov 27, 2019 • 19min

Comedian Maz Jobrani on noticing the good in his life

Growing up in an immigrant family, comedian Maz Jobrani knew his parents wanted him to be a lawyer or doctor, maybe an engineer. When he became a comedian, he says, the whole community was sad for the family. "They were like, 'Did you hear about Jobrani's son? Yeah, it's a shame. He's almost a drug dealer."Jobrani was recently a guest on the Science of Happiness, a podcast from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. In his episode, called "Notice the Good in Your Life," Jobrani talks with host Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor and co-director of the Greater Good Science Center, about his 2017 stand-up special on Netflix, Immigrant."The reason I called my recent special Immigrant was because “immigrant” under Trump had turned into a bad word. It was a derogatory term. And really, people that that grasped onto that xenophobia, it broke my heart because I look around — first of all, I’m an immigrant. And then I look around and I know a lot of really good people that are immigrants, and then I’m looking at people like the Syrian refugees who are trying to come to America and flee hardship or the people come from Central America and I go, 'These people are leaving a really bad situation.' No one’s in a great situation is going, 'Oh we know the economy is great, there’s no violence in our country — let’s go somewhere where we don’t speak the language and we’re not wanted and see how it will go.’ No.""That’s so true, Maz," says Keltner. "You know, what really strikes me about the immigrants who I am friends with and who I work with is not only their perseverance, but their ability to stay focused on the brighter side of human nature in spite of the rise of white supremacy and xenophobia in our country today."In each episode of the Science of Happiness, a guest chooses a practice from the Science of Happiness free online course that’s been shown to increase happiness, connection and kindness. Jobrani chose a practice that focused on positivity — writing about three good things. When Jobrani got the assignment, he was on vacation with his wife and two kids in Japan, so the whole family participated. Each day, they would take 10 minutes to write down three good things, then they'd read what they wrote aloud to each other. It's something that Jobrani says encouraged them to look for positive things throughout the day.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 22, 2019 • 51min

Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on defending DACA

An important case of the current U.S. Supreme Court term is about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — a program that some 700,000 undocumented people depend on for the right to work and protection from deportation — and whether or not it was properly ended by the Trump administration in 2017. The program has been kept in place since then by federal court injunctions. The Supreme Court heard argument in these cases on Nov. 12. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and attorney Ethan Dettmer of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher's in San Francisco are key members of the litigation team that won one of the court injunctions, and are currently defending the program in the Supreme Court. In this Nov. 18 talk, they discuss what it's like litigating a case like this and the Supreme Court arguments that happened last week.Related Berkeley News content:How one DACA student found his community — and voice — at BerkeleyFor DACA academic counselor, it’s about helping all undocumented studentsListen and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 15, 2019 • 1h 6min

California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris on the health impacts of childhood stress

Nadine Burke Harris, California's first Surgeon General and an award-winning pediatrician, dives into the profound effects of childhood stress and trauma on long-term health. She emphasizes the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and serious health issues like heart disease and diabetes. Harris advocates for routine ACE screenings in California's Medicaid population and highlights the need for trauma-informed care. Her inspiring journey underscores the importance of advocacy in addressing health disparities and improving outcomes for vulnerable families.
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Nov 8, 2019 • 1h 13min

Berkeley Law's Ian Haney López on defeating racial fearmongering

People across the country, from presidential hopefuls and engaged voters to journalists and activists, are grappling with how to think and talk about racism in American politics.In this Oct. 11 talk, Berkeley Law professor Ian Haney López, one of the nation's leading thinkers on how racism has evolved in the U.S. since the civil rights era, discusses his new book, Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections and Saving America, offering insight and hopeful new strategy for defeating the right's racial fearmongering and achieving bold progressive goals."... Republicans have been saying for 50 years, 'Democrats only care about people of color.' And now, whenever folks hear a conversation about race, about racial justice, they immediately default to a frame, 'This is racial justice? That's for people of color.' We need to say expressly, 'Racial justice? That's for white folks, too.'"Whites need to hear that they will benefit from being part of a multiracial coalition ... When we tested this message with communities of color, they had far more confidence in a multiracial coalition when we said, 'Whites will benefit,' because that told people of color, 'Oh, this isn't just kumbaya and we're all going to do this because we should.' This is, 'White folks need to save their families, and to save their families, they've got to work with us.' And once they know that, people of color say, 'Yes, this might work. This might work.'"This talk was organized as part of a series of events under the banner of the 400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Injustice initiative, UC Berkeley’s yearlong commemoration marking the anniversary of the forced arrival of Africans in the English colonies in 1619. The initiative was launched in the spirit of the 400 Years of African American History Commission Act, federal legislation signed last year that acknowledged the impact of slavery in the United States and called for a national commission to help support events around the country to commemorate the anniversary.Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Learn about upcoming 400 Years events on the Haas Institute's website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 1, 2019 • 1h 11min

Author Andrew Marantz on the hijacking of the American conversation

To write his new book, ANTISOCIAL: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, New Yorker reporter Andrew Marantz spent three years embedded with alt-right trolls to better understand how they had become powerful enough to influence our politics, our media — our society as a whole.“I suppose I could have sat around and simply had an opinion, but I really wanted to know where these toxic ideas were coming from, what motivates people to do this and how they were promoting these ideas,” Marantz told Berkeley News earlier this month.Marantz joined Chancellor Carol Christ, Ed Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, and moderator Dan Mogulof, at UC Berkeley’s Alumni House on Oct. 16 to discuss the trends and discoveries described in his book.“The thing that surprised me about the book is how nihilistic and punk and really without convictions … a lot of these people were,” said Chancellor Christ said to Marantz during the discussion. “They were really basically driven by a desire for followers and notoriety rather than the horrible convictions that they said. Was that your take on it? Because that’s certainly what I took from the book. And that was actually as troubling to me as the virus of these hate sites.”“Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Marantz. “There’s a spectrum in the book from sincere ideologues to, as you say, nihilists, who don’t really seem to have any ideological agenda, but seem to have just a pure self-interest. Or, even self-interest is maybe generous, because all they want is attention. But it can be negative attention. It doesn’t really seem to matter to them. So, both of those areas existed within the taxonomy. And I agree, it’s hard to see which one is worse. Because, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism — at least it’s an ethos. You can work with an ideology, it’s hard to know how to work with a nihilist.”Christ first met Marantz in 2017, when he was working on a New Yorker story about free speech issues on campus, after the cancellation of an event with then-Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos led to a wave of criticism that Berkeley — home of the Free Speech Movement — had tried to shut down free speech.“When I was here covering the Milo circus,” said Marantz, “the underlying premise was, ‘This is a public university, therefore, the First Amendment applies, therefore, he has to be able to speak.’ …What I’m questioning is whether that should be the interpretation of First Amendment law for time immemorial, or whether we can change our interpretations of laws just like we’ve always changed our interpretations of laws.”Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 25, 2019 • 1h 54min

Biologist E.O. Wilson on how to save the natural world

In this talk, renowned biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson joins former U.S. secretary of the interior and interim CEO of the Nature Conservancy Sally Jewell for a discussion about the core science and common humanity that is driving the success of Wilson's Half-Earth Project — "a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to reverse the species extinction crisis and ensure the longterm health of our planet." It's made up of a team of thought leaders from a wide range of fields who are gathering expertise from around the world to achieve this goal."We need to build a science," says Wilson. "We know that our ecosystems, which are really what we try to protect — not just single species, but ensembles of species that have come together and have reached stability, sometimes over thousands, or in some places, millions of years ... We need an ecosystems science. And there is going to be one created. It should be, has to be, in the immediate future. So since I'm in a preacher's mood, I will say to you: If you want to go into science, please consider going into the coming development of a new biological science."E.O. Wilson spoke on Oct. 7, 2019, as part of the College of Natural Resources' Horace M. Albright Lecture in Conservation. It took place during the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation's Half-Earth Day, an annual event that explores how conservationists can make progress toward protecting half the earth for the rest of life. Half-Earth Day was held at UC Berkeley this year, and featured lectures, panels and workshops on education and citizen science, science and technology, conservation and community, and business and sustainability.Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 18, 2019 • 60min

Journalist Maggie Haberman on reporting on the Trump White House

The unrivaled political insight of reporter Maggie Haberman makes her one of today’s most influential voices in national affairs journalism. In this talk, the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist offers a riveting look into the Trump White House, the current political waters and the changing perceptions of journalism across the country."What Trump does with that language, which comes with a real degree of danger, in part for the obvious, but in part because his fans don’t realize that some of this is a game for him, and how much he truly has fed off of and enjoys the mainstream media attention," says Haberman. "He still brags to his friends that he’s on the front page of the Times more now than he ever was before he was elected. They have told me they detect a note of pride in his voice. Not everything that Trump is doing is new or something unseen before in U.S. presidential politics, including his attempts to influence how the press does its job. Reporters cannot lose sight of that. He is extreme, but aspects of what he does are not unique."Haberman spoke at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday, Oct. 6, as part of Cal Performances’ 2019–20 Speaker Series, a season-long series of public presentations by some of the leading creative and intellectual voices of our time including David Sedaris, Dan Pfeiffer, David Pogue, Jemele Hill, Laverne Cox and Jad Abumrad — thinkers, activists, strategists, satirists, journalists and pioneers at the leading edge of culture and politics.Maggie Haberman covered New York City Hall for the New York Daily News, the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign and other political races for the New York Post, and wrote about national affairs as a senior reporter for Politico. She and her team at the New York Times received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their coverage of the Trump administration and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, as well as the Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association. Her stories about covering a contentious administration offer a revealing insider’s look at what is sure to be known as our country’s most explosive era of modern journalism.Ed Wasserman, dean of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, moderated questions from the audience following Haberman’s presentation.Learn more about Cal Performances' speaker series.Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 11, 2019 • 43min

Barbara Simons on election hacking and how to avoid it in 2020

"There are a number of myths about elections that we've been hearing, saying that they are secure. And I want to shoot down two of those key myths," says Barbara Simons, board chair of Verified Voting, in a talk called "Can we recover from an attack on our election?" that she gave for the annual Minner Distinguished Lecture in Engineering Ethics on Sept. 18.The first myth, says Simons, is that because voting machines are never connected to the internet, they can't be hacked. The second is that there are so many types of voting systems that it's impossible to rig an election. She explains why both are untrue.She goes on to discuss how, in 2002, computers were introduced in U.S. elections without an analysis of the risks, how it led to states adopting paperless voting and what we need to do to avoid hacking in our 2020 presidential election."We have a solution, so that's the good news," says Simons. "We have a solution. You need voter-marked paper ballots. You need a strong chain of custody. And you need to physically sound, manually post-election ballot audits called risk-limiting audits."She says it's too late to have any laws passed in time for the 2020 election. Instead, we need the cooperation of local election officials and a national campaign. And, she says, it's up to volunteers and staff to help the election officials do risk-limiting audits. "If we can do that, there's a good chance we can avoid hacking of the 2020 election. But that's a big 'if.'"Simons is the former president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the nation’s largest educational and scientific computing society. An expert on electronic voting, she is the co-author of Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? and has been on the board of advisers of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission since 2008.The Minner Distinguished Lecture in Engineering Ethics is an annual lecture supported by the Minner Endowment, a gift from Berkeley Engineering alumnus Warren Minner and his wife, Marjorie.Listen and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Watch a video of Simons' talk on Berkeley Engineering's website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 4, 2019 • 21min

Nobel laureate Randy Schekman on new Parkison's research

On Sept. 17, UC Berkeley hosted the second annual Aging, Research, and Technology Innovation Summit, a daylong event that brought together researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers and health care workers to tackle some of the biggest questions in aging research. This year’s summit focused on the challenge of understanding and treating neurodegenerative diseases.Randy Schekman, a professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. He spoke at the summit about Parkinson's disease — what we already know about the disease and new research efforts that are underway."We have experienced a pandemic in Parkinson's disease," he told the audience. "The incidence ... is increasing dramatically in spite of the fact that the disease was first recognized and reported by clinical symptoms 200 years ago. As the population inexorably ages, we are experiencing a wave of this disease which inexorably takes the lives of those who are afflicted."Schekman, whose wife died from the disease two years ago, went on to describe a new collaborative research initiative — Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP). Led by Schekman, ASAP was created by the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy with support from the Sergey Brin Family Foundation to better understand the underlying causes of Parkinson's disease."We want to know where the disease begins, what the molecules and cells and neural circuits that are affected primarily by the disease, and then how it progresses," he said. "Much of the research that gone on in the clinic has been valuable and important, but there are no cures. ... Many of us feel that what we really need to do is get into the laboratory to understand these basic processes."ASAP's first journal article, "Point of View: Coordinating a new approach to basic research into Parkinson's disease," was published on Sept. 25 in the open-access journal, eLife.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Sep 27, 2019 • 1h 9min

Justice Elena Kagan on taking risks, finding common ground

"Law students are too risk-averse. There's too much planning and too little jumping in. You should experiment." That's U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in conversation with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on Monday, Sept. 23 in Zellerbach Hall."I think sometimes people look at my resume like mine, and they think, 'Oh, it's just like this golden life.' What you're seeing are the jobs I got. What you're not seeing are all the jobs I didn't get ... when a door closes, a window opens. Sometimes the things that you think you wanted, it turns out that you're better off not getting them."Kagan began her career as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, leaving to serve as Associate White House Counsel and later as policy adviser under President Bill Clinton. She then became a professor at Harvard Law School, and in 2003 was named its dean, its first woman dean. In 2009, she became Solicitor General of the United States, the officer responsible for representing the federal government before the Supreme Court. And in 2010, President Barack Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court itself to fill the vacancy arising from the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens.During the conversation, Kagan discussed the mutual respect among justices and their shared passion for the law."I find it perplexing that you can’t like someone you disagree with, even on important matters,” she added. “I was extremely close to Justice Scalia, and spent the past few days writing a foreword for a book of his opinions. I like all my colleagues and feel close to many of them. There’s more to people than what they think about issues.”Read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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