California Sun Podcast

Mizgon Zahir Darby, a longtime leader in the Bay Area's Afghan community, helps give voice to the large diaspora of Afghans living in California. She says they are in mourning over recent events. Families may never be able to go home again, and they are thinking about refugees that may soon arrive. Listening to her tells us the personal stories that bring these events home.

Jaime Lowe connects us with the female inmates who are battling California's wildfires. In her new book "Breathing Fire" she takes readers inside the fire camps where inmates are paid $5 a day and pay a physical and emotional price for putting their lives on the line to protect us.

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, based in San Jose. He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana. Doblin has devoted his life to the development of both of the drugs and a legal framework for the beneficial uses of psychedelics in the treatment of mental illnesses, including PTSD and long-term depression. Rick is also a licensed psychedelic therapist. Ismail Ali, who joins him in this week's podcast, directs legal and legislative policy for MAPS and is the former board chairman of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

Katie Hill, once a congresswoman and now a private citizen, has seen a lot of politics in her 33 years. In 2019, in the course of ten months, she lived through what some have experienced in an entire career. Now back home in her Southern California district, she candidly shares her personal and political story, as she contemplates her second act.

Matt Haney grew up in the Bay Area. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Stanford and is now a supervisor for San Francisco's 6th district, which includes some of the poorest and wealthiest parts of the city. He talks about San Francisco's lack of long-term planning, its resistance to change, the stubborn consistency of so many of its problems, and the sense that in a city so economically successful there must be a better way.

George J. Sanchez, a USC professor and author of the new book "Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy," shares his appreciation for his birthplace, the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. He sees it as a rare living example of the great melting pot of ethnic and cultural diversity that was supposed to define America.

Rosecrans Baldwin, a novelist and journalist, adds his unique voice in trying to make sense of what he calls the "city-state" of Los Angeles. He talks about L.A. as welcoming but somehow detached from the rest of America. While Baldwin argues that no single story can possibly represent all of L.A., in his new book "Everything Now," he adds to the canon of LA. writers trying to define 5,000 square miles and 88 cities.

Steve Wasserman was born and raised in Berkeley, but launched his literary life in Los Angeles, first as deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times then as the long-time editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He then sampled a rich life among the New York publishing elites. In 2016, Wasserman and his 15,000-book library came home. He talks to us as the publisher of Berkeley's Heyday Books, an imprint dedicated to social justice and California's rich history and natural abundance.

In January, Colleen McCain Nelson was named executive editor of the Sacramento Bee and the regional editor for McClatchy's California news outlets, including the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, the Tribune in San Luis Obispo, and the Merced Sun-Star. A journalist since high school, she talks to us about the value of local news, the future of printed newspapers, and how we can keep tabs on our state and local leaders.

Mick LaSalle, author of his new book "Dream State," shows how movies have historically captured the essence of California. For almost a century, the movies have defined the California dream and projected it out to the world. The long-time film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle talks about the mythology of California and the big screen, the future of movie stars, and Hollywood navel-gazing.