Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Secretary of State Shirley Weber had been a lifelong educator. For 40 years she had been a professor at San Diego State University, having been named a professor emerita of Africana studies and served as the president of the National Council for Black Studies. And then, in the fall of 2011, Weber decided to run for office.Secretary Weber served first in the California State Assembly for nearly a decade, before Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the position of secretary of state of California. So, why did a career educator decide to run for office?Secretary Weber, in conversation with Creating Citizens’ Griffith Swidler, talks to an audience of Sacramento high school students about her path into politics. Weber details her upbringing, the people who influenced her, and how young people can lead us toward a less polarized America.This program is part of  Commonwealth Club World Affairs’ civics education initiative, Creating Citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the essential role of educators in sustaining our society and economy. As families navigated the challenges of work and caregiving, teachers emerged as critical support systems, ensuring students continued learning amid unprecedented disruptions. From maintaining safe classrooms to addressing academic and emotional needs, educators have been at the forefront of our collective recovery.Join us for an engaging panel discussion at Commonwealth Club World Affairs, featuring education and policy experts who will examine the urgent need for universal access to quality education and its broader economic and democratic implications. The conversation will explore key lessons from the pandemic and outline a path toward a more equitable and resilient education system.About the Panelists Jenny Lam: Former San Francisco Board of Education commissioner and director of policy, communications, and strategic partnerships at the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood. Lam has led citywide education initiatives, including expanding childcare, mental health services in schools, and Free City College, ensuring equitable access to education resources. Tracey Mitchell: Educator, author, and former executive director of education for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Mitchell has developed culturally relevant curricula and after-school programs, emphasizing student success and equity in education policy. Dr. Vanessa Marrero: Executive director of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco and a leader in education equity and policy. Marrero has extensive experience in K–12 education, community engagement, and strategic enrollment, ensuring families have access to quality public schools. Christina Jenq, Ph.D.: Labor economist specializing in education’s economic impact. Jenq’s research focuses on gender inequality, political economy, and workforce development, offering critical insights into how education shapes economic mobility. The discussion will be moderated by Virginia Cheung, former school board candidate and former director at Wu Yee Children’s Services, who brings deep expertise in early childhood education and policy.This thought-provoking session will provide valuable perspectives on transforming education to strengthen our economy and democracy. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from leading voices shaping the future of education policy.Organizer: Virginia Cheung A Social Impact Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In researching her new book World Eaters, Catherine Bracy interviewed founders, fund managers, contract and temp workers in the gig economy, and limited partners across the landscape. She says she learned that the current VC model is not a good fit for the majority of start-ups—and yet, there are too few options for early stage funding outside of VC dollars. While there are some alternative paths for sustainable, responsible growth, without the help of regulators, there is not much motivation to drive investors from the roulette table that is venture capital.Join us as Bracy takes our stage and offers her urgent and illuminating perspective into how the most pernicious aspects of the venture capital ethos reaches all areas of our lives, into everything from health care to food to entertainment to the labor market, and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.Certain to be controversial, Bracy’s tale is an eye-opening account of the ways that the values of contemporary venture capital hurt founders, consumers, and the market.Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since its creation under President Richard Nixon in 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has worked to reduce pollution and toxic exposures to ensure that Americans have clean air, clean water and clean soil. The EPA has also sought to reduce emissions to address climate change. Now that the Trump administration is in power, the EPA is being threatened with a 65% reduction in their budget. In addition to EPA cuts, the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is making cuts left and right in an effort to trim $1 trillion from the federal budget. The combination of DOGE and Trump’s executive orders — plus the threatened cuts to the EPA and the federal spending freezes — have put thousands of jobs, and clean energy and climate related projects, in limbo. This could have a devastating impact on the national public health and safety standards we now take for granted, and will undermine our ability to address the climate crisis. How far do these cuts go? What is real and what is bluster? What would a country with a severely limited EPA look like? Guests:Gina McCarthy, Former Administrator, EPAUmair Irfan, Reporter, Vox This episode also includes a news feature reported by April Ehrlich of Oregon Public Broadcasting.Next week, Climate One is hosting a series of live conversations as part of SF Climate Week 2025! Tickets for all four of our events, featuring leaders such as Jenny Odell, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, Rep. Jared Huffman, Abby Reyes, Margaret Gordon and two of this year's Goldman Prize winners are on sale now through the official SF Climate Week event calendar.Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today.For show notes and related links, visit our website.Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Songkran is a festival from Southeast Asia marking the new year and celebrating making a fresh start.This special program includes a program discussion hosted by Michelle Meow featuring conversations on cultural heritage, community impact, and empowerment initiatives; cultural performances, including traditional dances, live music, and storytelling sessions; a traditional water blessing ceremony; and delicious authentic Southeast Asian cuisine prepared by local chefs.About the SpeakersKesinee Angkustsiri Yip has been helping companies, organizations, and executives manage their reputations for more than two decades. An award-winning communications strategist recognized by the International Association of Business Communications, she co- founded Creative Catalyst (www.creativecatalystworks.com) to address culture and connection challenges—the things AI does not—by bringing improv into the workplace. While improv can be funny, it’s not just for the theater. Improv techniques can help entrepreneurs and leaders as well as customer-facing, sales, HR, and DEI teams reduce anxiety, cultivate safe spaces, and encourage creativity. Her book, “Yes, and...” for Success: Improv Secrets to Supercharge Professional Creativity and Connection is out on Amazon and available at Bay Area bookstores. Kesinee has performed at BATS Improv and has led workshops and trainings in the United States and abroad. Kesinee is on the Board of the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco (www.sfaws.org) and is active with the LEAD-LISA Startup Incubator (www.gsb-lead-lisa.com). She earned a BA from Stanford University and an MBA in Marketing and Strategic Planning from Rice University.Maly Phommavong is based in Sacramento and has been in the interpreting field since 2015. In 1987, she arrived in the United States at age 13 as a child of refugees with a family of 12. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Criminology from CSU of Fresno in 2000, and worked as a deputy probation officer for Contra Costa County in 2002. She retired early from the Probation Department in 2015, and began working as a registered court interpreter for the California Judicial Court. Maly has been involved in grass-roots advocacy and volunteered in nonprofit organizations for decades. In 2015, She began her online presence through conducting live community discussions covering various issues affecting the community in the Lao language catering to non-English speaking members. Her videos have reached the Laotian audience worldwide.Kenya Prach is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide who escaped to Thailand refugee camps before finding a second chance in the United States. Arriving with no knowledge of English and few opportunities, Kenya faced immense challenges, from being unable to attend high school or community college to being turned away from work. However, a kind gesture from an African American homeless man helped guide him toward education and a new life. A Cambodian-born martial artist, Kenya is known for his expertise in Kbach-Kun-Boran-Khmer (Bokator) and Muay Thai kickboxing. Despite enduring the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, he pursued martial arts in Thailand and later excelled in boxing in the United States. With a deep understanding of hardship and compassion, Kenya has dedicated his life to helping others, particularly in the fight against human trafficking and advocating for human rights. He believes that true wealth lies not in material possessions but in kindness, care and love. Through his work and his book Black Stone Hands, Kenya seeks to give a voice to the voiceless and inspire others to make a difference by uplifting those in need.See more  Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.Our thanks for the generous support of The Bamboo Organization for making this program possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us to celebrate National Poetry Month with Red Hen Press’s poetic publisher, Kate Gale, and Red Hen Press poets Kim Dower, Francisco Aragón and Kim Addonizio, who will each be reading their poems that have electrified the literary world.Francisco Aragón, the director of Letras Latinas, is a gay Latino poet, the author of After Ruben. Kim Dower’s new book What She Wants explores obsession and desire. And Library Journal has written that “if Kim Addonizio were an opera, the audience would never stop throwing flowers at her feet.”Michelle Meow will delve into this “living poets society” to demonstrate the talent that makes independent publisher Red Hen Press and its poets so successful.Organizer: George Hammond A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.See more Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.This program contains EXPLICIT language.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While opening day fever is still in the air, join us at noon to hear the inside story of pitching in the big leagues from Jeremy Affeldt, who pitched seven of his 14 major league seasons for the San Francisco Giants (2009–2015).How do major league pitchers prepare for their jobs? How do all the pieces (physical, mental, strategic, managerial, team chemistry, coaching and more) fit together? Affeldt will be in conversation with Leland Faust and will explore the realities and dispel the myths of the sport.Organizer: George Hammond Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen has a story to tell of her family’s daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter—a story told with laughter and fierce love. Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people”—desperate families seeking freedom—fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, the Nguyen family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to go to America.But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story; figuring out how to be American is the other. Join us as Nguyen recounts the story from her memoir Boat Baby of growing up in America with unconventional Vietnamese parents who didn’t always know how to bridge the cultural gaps. It’s a childhood filled with misadventures and misunderstandings, from almost stabbing the neighborhood racist with a butter knife to getting caught stealing Cosmo in the hope of learning "Do You Really Think You Know Everything About Sex?"In the face of prejudice, Nguyen parents taught her to be gritty and resilient, skills Vicky used as she combatted stereotyping throughout her career, fending off the question “Aren’t you Connie Chung?” to become a leading Asian American journalist on television. Funny, nostalgic, and poignant, her story is a testament to the messy glue that bonds a family, and is an optimistic story full of heart that illuminates the promise of what America can be.Nguyen grew up in Eugene, Reno, San Jose, and Santa Rosa. She attended the University of San Francisco and spent over a decade at NBC Bay Area. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite spending billions of dollars to combat homelessness, California has the largest and fastest-growing homeless population in the United States. To explain this result, some have blamed wasteful collusion between government and nonprofits to enrich themselves without ever intending to end homelessness. However, Carrie Sager says this over-simplistic conspiracy not only ignores the very real problems in the government and nonprofit sectors, but actively sabotages efforts to resolve them.Carrie Sager is the chief operating officer of Homeward Bound of Marin, the primary provider of emergency shelter and one of the largest providers of permanent supportive housing in Marin County. In her previous role as senior homelessness program coordinator for Marin County Health and Human Services, she worked with local nonprofits and city and county governments to create a coordinated system of care to house the most vulnerable people experiencing homelessness in Marin. She is one of the chief architects of Marin's homeless system of care. Prior to working in Marin, Carrie worked for HomeBase, a nonprofit law firm that works with cities and counties to implement responses to homelessness, where she worked primarily in Solano and Sacramento Counties. She has a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.Organizer: Patrick O'Reilly A Psychology Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 3 billion people rely on seafood as a primary source of animal protein. But waters are warming, and fish are moving. Are those fish, and the communities that have relied on them for centuries, in trouble?We go around the world, from the rocky shores of New England to the picturesque island of Niue, to investigate how three popular fish are doing. Along the way, we meet people who are protecting and regrowing these fish populations in different ways and learn about their challenges and successes. This episode features reporting by Barbara Moran at WBUR, which was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center's StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. Columbia University’s Duy Linh Tu contributed to the reporting.  Guests: Tessa M. Hill, Oceanographer and Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, UC DavisMona Ainu’u, Minister for the Ministry of Natural Resources, NiueJenn Caselle, Research Biologist, Marine Science Institute, UC Santa BarbaraClimate One is hosting a series of live conversations as part of SF Climate Week 2025! Tickets for all four of our events, featuring leaders such as Jenny Odell, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, Rep. Jared Huffman, Abby Reyes, Margaret Gordon and two of this year's Goldman Prize winners are on sale now through the official SF Climate Week event calendar.Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today.Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices