KQED's Forum

Judith Heumann, known as the mother of the disability rights movement, died this month at the age of 75. Heumann’s activism and leadership in Berkeley’s pioneering disability rights movement included the “504 sit-in,” a 26-day occupation of San Francisco’s federal building that eventually led to the passage of the Americans with Disability Act. Heumann used a wheelchair following a childhood case of polio, and when she tried to attend school, the administration denied her as “a fire hazard.” Heumann went on to work with the Clinton and Obama administrations as well as the World Bank on issues of accessibility. We’ll talk with disability rights advocates who knew her about her legacy, and where the movement is headed going forward.Guests:Sandy Ho, philanthropist; founder, Disability and Intersectionality Summit; director, the Disability Inclusion Fund at Borealis PhilanthropyYomi Sachiko Wrong, Oakland-based disability justice activist, dreamerJim LeBrecht, filmmaker and co-director with Nicole Newnham, "Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution"Arlene Mayerson, directing attorney, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Communities throughout California are bracing for another round of severe storms this week. An atmospheric river is poised to dump several inches of rain, which could melt snow reserves in mountains and cause flooding. Mountainous areas of the state are already dealing with power outages, road closures, and collapsed roofs after a series of heavy rain and snow during the past couple of months. We’ll talk about how Californians are managing severe weather and what to expect in the days to come.Guests:Gerry Díaz, newsroom meteorologist, San Francisco ChronicleKatie Kay Mead, resident, Lake Arrowhead, CaliforniaBob Thurman, resident near Nevada City, CaliforniaMike Scrivano, contractor, North Lake Home Services in TruckeeHanna Lykke, reporter, San Bernardino Sun, Southern California News Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if time isn’t money? What if time is actually rocks and beans? And what if time is not running out? Jenny Odell, author of “How to Do Nothing,” ponders these questions as she takes us on a road trip through the Bay Area in her new book, “Saving Time.” Pausing at the Port of Oakland, reflecting in Pescadero and Pacifica, and nodding at the Interstate 880 minion, Odell questions who benefits when we see time as hours or minutes, rather than the changes in place, space and ourselves. She joins us to explain how advocating for a better future begins with looking beyond the clock.Guests:Jenny Odell, author, "Saving Time: Discovering A Life Beyond the Clock." Odell is also the author of "How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch did not believe that Dominion Voting Systems stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump, according to testimony released Tuesday. The evidence is part of the record in Dominion's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, set for trial in April, arguing that Fox executives and hosts deliberately spread the falsehood that Dominion's electronic machines manipulated the vote count. We’ll talk about the case and look at the impact Fox News has had on our culture — and democracy. And we’ll hear from you: How has Fox News affected you, your views and your relationships?Guests:Jeremy W. Peters, reporter covering the media and its intersection with politics, culture and law, The New York Times; author, "Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted"Sarah Ellison, reporter covering media and its intersection with politics and technology, The Washington Post Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After two decades of trying, the United Nations has finalized a treaty to protect the high seas – that part of the ocean which covers nearly half the earth’s surface and falls outside of the jurisdiction of individual nations. There beneath the lens of blue water is an ecosystem with more species than exist on land. There are seamounts in the Pacific covered in golden corals that are the oldest living animals on the planet, having existed since the time of the pyramids. There is an underwater fertile crescent off South America where the interplay of plants, fish, and predators create a world unto its own. There are Yosemites and Everests beneath the surface of the ocean that we are only just learning about. And all of this is endangered by pollution, overfishing, and even deepsea mining. We’ll talk about what it means to protect the high seas and the impact the treaty will have on California’s coastal waters and ocean life.Guests:Kristina Gjerde, lawyer and Senior High Seas Advisor, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Global Marine and Polar Programme. Gjerde is also an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at MontereyDouglas McCauley, associate professor, Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara. McCauley also heads the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California Santa BarbaraChristopher Chin, executive director, Center for Oceanic Awareness Research and Education based in the Bay Area Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meg Zucker was born with one finger on each hand, shortened arms and one toe on each foot, a result of a hereditary condition called ectrodactyly. With the support of her parents who championed her abilities, Zucker learned to ignore how others perceived her and went on to become a successful attorney. But when she passed the same condition to her sons, Zucker says her “old innate pangs of shame” returned, and she had to start the learning process all over again. Zucker joins us to talk about her new book “Born Extraordinary” and the wisdom she’s gained about how to empower kids to talk about – and flaunt – what makes them different.Guests:Meg Zucker, author, “Born Extraordinary: Empowering Children with Differences and Disabilities;" president and founder, "Don't Hide It, Flaunt It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland based writer Carvell Wallace has written searchingly and compassionately about Mr. Rogers, Michael B Jordan, abortion rights, race, parenting, bicycling, basketball and so much more. Running through all of his work is the question of how to be a good person in a deeply flawed world. “I’ve long thought that the only thing that really matters is how we treat each other,” he said. “It’s why I focus my writing on our shared humanity, and the struggles we go through to find love and liberation.” Carvell Wallace has just won the American Mosaic Journalism prize and its 100,000 dollar award. He joins us in studio to talk about his work.Guests:Carvell Wallace, writer; 2023 recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize - he's working on a memoir about childhood trauma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Atlantic staff writer Jennifer Senior is 53 in real life, but she says that in her head she’s "suspended at 36." That was the age she was secure professionally but still full of potential, paired up with her husband “but not yet lost in the marshes of a long marriage." In "The Age in Your Head," which appears in the April issue of the magazine, Senior explores the discrepancy many of us feel between our real age and our "subjective age" and why experiences like a pandemic or trauma can freeze us in time.Guests:Jennifer Senior, staff writer, The Atlantic - author of the article "The Age in Your Head." Her forthcoming book is "On Grief." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

UC Berkeley plans to keep fighting to build a dorm for more than 1,000 students on People’s Park, a university-owned site that is known as a haven for unhoused people and social justice movements. A state appellate court stopped the project and called for the university to revise its environmental impact report, looking more closely at noise impacts from students. The legal saga over the dorm illustrates a predicament many of the state’s colleges and universities face: a dire need to house a growing number of students amid community opposition to new housing. We’ll talk about why it’s so hard to build student housing in California.Guests:Su Jin Jez, CEO, California Competes - a nonpartisan policy and research organization focused on the intersection of higher education, equity, and the economy.Bill Fulton, urban planner, William Fulton Group; author, "Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate"Ryan Loyola, student, UC Santa CruzKatie Lauer, Berkeley news reporter, The Mercury News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans love to talk about our generational differences. Gen Xers complain about Millennials, Millennials can’t relate to Gen Z and on and on. But those defining distinctions are mostly contrived, their boundaries mushy. Except for one generation: Baby Boomers. The postwar population explosion dramatically changed the country and the boomers have dominated culture, politics and the economy since coming of age. But things are changing. Last year those who were born in the peak of the boom turned 65. “We are living through a historic disruption of the American empire,” writes Philip Bump, in his new book, “The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America”. We’ll talk to Bump, a Washington Post columnist focused on the numbers behind politics, about the new demographic changes and what a future without America’s most powerful, influential generation might look like.Guests:Philip Bump, national columnist, Washington Post; author, "The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices