The Commonwealth April/May 2016 by The Commonwealth Club of California

Commonwealth The

THE MAGAZINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

APRIL/MAY 2016

ECONOMIC FORECAST

page 40

WILLIAM PERRY page 44

GLORIA DUFFY page 46

THE REAL BRIDGE BUILDERS Harvey Schwartz reveals the people who defied the Great Depression and risked their lives to build the Golden Gate Bridge.

$5.00; free for members | commonwealthclub.org

The Commonwealth Club of California’s 2nd Century Campaign The Commonwealth Club is the oldest of the transportation hubs, accessible to both downtown major cultural organizations in San Francisco, San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, making and it is the only one of them that does not have a travel to and from the Club easier than ever. dedicated home of its own. Finally, after 113 years, As our opening date nears, we have embarked that is about to change. on the final phase of our capital campaign to Construction is well underway at what will be raise the funds for our new home. We are at the the Club’s first-ever permanent headquarters, 70-percent mark of our $28 million goal and have at 110 The Embarcadero. Our new building, set just $8 million left to go. We invite you to play a role to open at the end of this calendar year, will in making San Francisco history by supporting truly be a gem in the crown of San Francisco’s this seminal campaign. waterfront. With unimpeded views of the Bay To learn more please visit commonwealthclub. and the Bay Bridge, the state-of-the art facility org/about/new-home or contact Kimberly Maas, at 110 The Embarcadero will be just south of the Ferry Building and adjacent to the Audiffred vice president of development, at (415) 597-6726 or Building. The location is close to five major public kmaas@commonwealthclub.org .

BY THE NUMBERS

Founded in 1903,

The Commonwealth Club of California is

MEMBERS

from over 44 states and 8 countries

Our weekly podcast is downloaded

1.48 MILLION times annually.

We have produced more than

13,000 PROGRAMS

= 1,000 members

We produce more than 400 events annually on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.

Owning our own building will save the Club approximately

$600,000 per year in rent.

We have produced more than 2,000 hours of podcasts and video.

The Club has never owned its own building.

The Club has reached

70% of our total campaign goal

The Club broke ground for our new building, the first home we will have ever owned, on

JUNE 11, 2014

To learn more, please visit commonwealthclub.org/about/new-home or contact Kimberly Maas, vice president of development, at (415) 597-6726 or kmaas@commonwealthclub.org .

Journey to the end of the earth January 5-17, 2017

Join the Commonwealth Club on a 13-day sea and land adventure in Patagonia with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. Jared Diamond. •

Enjoy lectures and discussions with renowned author Jared Diamond.

•

Cruise four nights aboard the exploration vessel M/V Stella Australis, chosen for her well-appointed accommodations and personalized service.

•

Marvel at Patagonia’s jagged Andean peaks, changing skies, vast pampas and aquamarine lakes. Sail the legendary routes of Charles Darwin through the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego and the Beagle Channel. Experience Cape Horn National Park at the end of the continent.

•

Fly to Calafate to explore Glaciers National Park, declared by UNESCO as part of the Natural Heritage of Humanity. The park boasts 47 major glaciers, the only remains of the last Ice Age, and the third-largest concentration of ice in the world. See the massive glacier Perito Moreno as it rises nearly 200 feet above its channel.

•

Stay at the Remota Lodge in Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. Enjoy horseback riding on the pampas, hiking in a beech forest, bird watching, mountain biking or joining a wildlife photographic safari.

•

Enjoy Santiago, Chile’s capital city, and Punta Arenas, its southern-most city.

•

Join an optional pre-trip extension to Easter Island. From $9,995 per person, based on double occupancy (includes three internal flights, but not international air to Chile) Brochure at commonwealthclub.org/travel Contact (415) 597-6720 or travel@commonwealthclub.org

JaRed DiAmOND

is the author of five best-selling books (translated into 38 languages) about human societies and human evolution. He is the author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and the widely acclaimed Guns, Germs, and Steel, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. Diamond is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (Genius Award); research prizes and grants from the American Physiological Society, National Geographic Society, and Zoological Society of San Diego; and many teaching awards. As a biological explorer, Diamond’s field experience includes 22 expeditions to New Guinea and neighboring islands to study ecology and evolution of birds; the rediscovery of New Guinea’s longlost golden fronted bowerbird; and other field projects in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. He is a founding member of the board of the Society of Conservation Biology and a member of the board of directors of World Wildlife Fund/USA and Conservation International.

Inside T H E CO M M O N W E A LT H A P R I L / M AY 2016

EDITOR’S DESK

A Good Start

THE COMMONS

Rolling Stones and Cuba, the bard lives it up, and our dim sum neighbor.

TALES OF THE BRIDGE BUILDERS Harvey Schwartz Schwartz discusses his new book, Building the Golden Gate Bridge: A Workers’ Oral History.

WHY REAGAN MATTERED

Jacob Weisberg provides a bracing portrait of Reagan and the ideas that animated his political career, helping us understand why his presidency turned out to be so consequential.

THE ECONOMY IN 2016 The Walter E. Hoadley Economic Forecast

John Williams and John Taylor discuss the future of the economy with Edward Wasserman.

Courtesy Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU

INSIGHT

Dr. Gloria C. Duffy President and CEO

EVENTS

SISTERS IN LAW

Program Information 13

Linda Hirshman tells the fascinating story of the intertwined lives of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Language Classes 13

Fred Brusati sits atop a cable during construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Photo courtesy Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU Look out for International Orange (Pantone 173), the color of the Golden Gate Bridge, throughout this issue.

Two Month Calendar 14 Photo by Sonia Abrams

MILLENNIALS: INHERITING A NUCLEAR WORLD William Perry in conversation with Gloria C. Duffy Cover of Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman

On the Cover

Program Listings 16 Late-breaking Programs 31

I’d look down [and] there would be 150 people waiting for a job. Waiting for us to fall off or quit. A L Z AM PA, I R O N W O R K E R

V O LU M E 110, NO. 03

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ADVERTISING INFORMATION Kimberly Maas, Vice President, Development (415) 597-6714 kmaas@commonwealthclub.org The Commonwealth (ISSN 0010-3349) is published bimonthly (6 times a year) by The Commonwealth Club of California, 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

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EDITORIAL TRANSCRIPT POLICY The 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 Apple iTunes, or contact Club offices to buy a compact disc. Printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Copyright © 2016 The Commonwealth Club of California.

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Photos by Sonya Abrams

A Good Start

H E N I WA S new here at the Club, I reviewed issues of The Commonwealth to get a sense of what had gone on before. One thing that caught my eye was a page devoted to the 10th anniversary of Dr. Gloria Duffy as the Club’s leader. Now it is 10 years later, and we just celebrated 20 years with Gloria at the helm of this organization (see photos above). I know she wouldn’t want a lot of words spent praising her; she is a strong advocate of the it-takes-a-village approach to successful organizations. She would want to acknowledge the incredible and ongoing hard work of all of The Commonwealth Club’s volunteers, donors, staff, and everyone else who makes this organization the success it is. She is correct. It takes all of those people. But we are lucky to have had her as our leader, giving support, guidance, nudges when needed, encouragement, ideas, and more. the golden gate bridge is a cliché. We know that. But it lives up to those clichéd superlatives that are used to praise it. It is an icon. It really was a symbol of hope. It was an expression of can-do big-project building. It’s so beautiful that every giant-monster movie or disaster film set in the Bay Area has to destroy the bridge. The builders and designers

of the bridge probably weren’t counting on Godzilla when they put together this icon. But they knew they had something special. So do we. This month, we’re featuring an excerpt from a talk by Club friend Harvey Schwartz, historian and author of Building the Golden Gate Bridge: A Workers’ Oral History (University of Washington Press, 2015). Schwartz gave a talk to the Club’s Humanities forum, in which he shared the words of the actual people who scaled great heights—literally—to construct the bridge. Some did it because they loved the job, others did it because it was the Great Depression and they needed a job, even a dangerous one. Turn to page 9 to see what went into building the bridge you probably have driven or walked or biked over countless times. here’s some serendipity: When we planned this issue, we didn’t realize that two of the articles would complement each other so well. On page 44, former Defense Secretary William Perry talks about enlisting Millennials in the effort to erase the nuclear threat. On page 36, journalist Jacob Weisberg details how gettting rid of mutually assured destruction was a nearly life-long quest for Ronald Reagan. Is that an aspect of Reagan you knew about? Read what Weisberg has to say to see if it changes your ideas about the Gipper. JOHN ZIPPERER V P, M E D I A & E D I TO R I A L

TA L K O F T H E C LU B

The Commons

Fueling a Poet’s Party

Photo: Øderud

Cuban Changes Club travel group helps pave the way

HEY ARE THE BAND your parents warned you about. The Rolling Stones, formed in London in 1962, were even marketed as the “nasty opposites of the Beatles” when they burst onto the scene, and they are still on the scene more than a half-century later. Only now they are ambassadors of the West. When The Commonwealth Club’s group of travelers headed to Cuba earlier this year, they found their Havana hotel filled with dozens of advance staffers for a major visit to the country. The advance team was there to work out the details for the first concert to be performed there by the Rolling Stones. The band issued a statement saying, “We have performed in many special places during our long career, but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba.” The Rolling Stones scheduled their March 25 concert to take place just four days after President Barack Obama landed in Cuba for the first visit to the country by a U.S. president in 88 years. Cuba has proven to be one of the most popular destinations for our travel program, which offers two or three trips a year to the island nation. Visitors have met local politicians and artists, experienced the incredible food and hospitality of Cubans, and seen the country during a time of tremendous change as it and the United States re-establish diplomatic and economic ties. See commonwealthclub.org/travel for the next Cuba trip.

IN THE NEWS

Sara Bard Field’s memorable 50th

BUSINESS STRATEGY

How many poets have “bard” as their middle name? Sara Bard Field, for one, and in the early 1930s The Commonwealth Club recognized her, for her professional role as a bard, with a California Book Award for her epic poem, Barabbas. According to a recent reprint of Peggy Conaway Bergtold’s 1932 column in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, Field celebrated her 50th birthday party in style. She requested that her guests, who included many local artists and philanthropists, dress as Romans to keep with the theme of her California Book Award-winning book.

“We have always been known as a community support company, and having that kind of reputation is not only something we feel good a b o u t , b u t i t ’s g o o d business.” —Adobe Systems Cofounder Chuck Geschke, in the San Francisco Business Times

Yank Sing’s Dim Sum Heaven Another in our occasional series exploring neighbors at the new Club headquarters under construction When The Commonwealth Club moves into its new home at 110 The Embarcadero at the end of this year, one of our new neighbors will be one of our old neighbors. Famed Chinese restaurant Yank Sing is located across Steuart Street from the Club’s new home, in Rincon Center. The restaurant’s other location is at 49 Stevenson, just a block away from the Club’s longtime former location on Market Street. The winner of awards from James Beard, the Michelen Guide, Zagat, and the San Francisco Chronicle, Yank Sing is a legendary destination for seekers of good dim sum—the meal of a thousand dishes. Its pedigree goes back to 1958, when Alice Chan opened up the first location. Today, there’s a third generation of the Chan family running the operation, producing about 100 different menu items each day. Northside San Francisco noted that “one of the best things about Yank Sing is the vast array of both traditional and modern dim sum known as the ‘creative collection.’ Try Grandma Alice’s famous chicken and mushroom dumpling dotted with garlic, water chestnut and cilantro. ... But the signature Shanghai dumpling is the main attraction—it’s the stuff epicurean dreams are made of.” Is your mouth watering yet?

JAMES HORMEL Several years ago James Hormel realized he needed to tell his family something. An heir to the Hormel meat packing fortune, he knew that the news might be a disappointment. But he felt he had to let them know. He was a vegetarian. “It’s true,” he said this week. “I would go to board meetings, and I’d have a salad.” As it turned out, his vegetarian phase passed. But Hormel would become known for another public declaration he made in 1978, when he was 45. He was gay. Since then Hormel, 83, has been a courageous and outspoken role model for gays and lesbians. On March 16, he will be given the Champion of Civil Rights and Social Justice award by San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. —C.W. Nevius, SF Chronicle AP R I L/MAY 2016

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH

CLUB OFFICERS Board Chair: John R. Farmer Vice Chair: Richard A. Rubin Secretary: Frank C. Meerkamp Treasurer: Lee J. Dutra President & CEO: Dr. Gloria C. Duffy BOARD OF GOVERNORS John F. Allen Carlo Almendral Courtland Alves Dan Ashley Massey J. Bambara Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman** Harry E. Blount John L. Boland J. Dennis Bonney* Michael R. Bracco Thomas H. Burkhart Maryles Casto** Hon. Ming Chin* Mary B. Cranston** Susie Cranston Dr. Kerry P. Curtis Dr. Jaleh Daie Dorian Daley Alecia DeCoudreaux Evelyn S. Dilsaver Joseph I. Epstein* Jeffrey A. Farber Dr. Joseph R. Fink* Rev. Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J. Dr. Carol A. Fleming Kirsten Garen Leslie Saul Garvin John Geschke Paul M. Ginsburg Rose Guilbault** Hon. James C. Hormel Mary Huss Claude B. Hutchison Jr.* Julie Kane John Leckrone Dr. Mary Marcy Lenny Mendonca Anna W. M. Mok** Kevin P. O’Brien Richard Otter* Joseph Perrelli* Donald J. Pierce Bruce Raabe Frederick W. Reid Toni Rembe* Victor J. Revenko* Skip Rhodes* Bill Ring Renée Rubin* Robert Saldich** George M. Scalise Lata Krishnan Shah Connie Shapiro* Dr. Ruth A. Shapiro Charlotte Mailliard Shultz George D. Smith, Jr. James Strother Hon. Tad Taube Hon. Ellen O’Kane Tauscher Charles Travers Nelson Weller* Judith Wilbur* Dr. Colleen B. Wilcox Dennis Wu* Jed York * Past President ** Past Chair ADVISORY BOARD Karin Helene Bauer Hon. William Bradley Dennise M. Carter Rolando Esteverena Steven Falk Amy Gershoni Dr. Charles Geschke Jacquelyn Hadley Heather M. Kitchen Amy McCombs Don J. McGrath Hon. William J. Perry Hon. Barbara Pivnicka Hon. Richard Pivnicka Ray Taliaferro Nancy Thompson

TALES OF THE BRIDGE BUILDERS

Courtesy Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU AP R I L/MAY 2016

Harvey Schwartz, Bay Area historian and author of Building the Golden Gate Bridge: A Workers’ Oral History. He spoke at the Club on February 1, 2016. Images courtesy Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU. The audio and full transcripts of the oral histories behind Schwartz’s project are available at the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University. The idea to span the aptly named Golden Gate was first posed by a fellow named Joshua Norton. He posed his idea in 1869. He was actually the self-styled Emperor Norton, the emperor of California and Mexico; he wore a military uniform of his own making. Nobody took him seriously. But 50 years later, the San Francisco city engineer, Michael O’Shaughnessy, began to discuss the idea with an experienced bridge builder named Joseph Strauss. Strauss thought this was a terrific idea, and throughout the 1920s he propagandized the idea throughout northern

It was the rule of thumb that one worker would have to die for every $1 million of investment required to build a bridge. California. ... It’s interesting that Strauss is so very famous and he does still get a lot of the credit, particularly as a propagandist and the chief engineer. But it was other people who came up with the ideas that made the bridge so beautiful. Of course, the practical side of the bridge is that it opened up the north counties to commerce, to tourism, and ultimately, to gracious living, if you could afford it, in Marin county. The speed of the completion of the thing is interesting— just four years—as well as the reasonable cost, relatively speaking. To give you an example, the Golden Gate Bridge cost $35 million. That’s in the 1930s; that would be about $600 million today. By contrast, the new partial part of the Oakland Bridge cost $6.4 billion, took 12 years to build and has been plagued with difficulties. Another thing that I think is really interesting is that in the 1930s, worker’s lives were not held as valuable as they are today. In fact, in many ways, you can say they were held cheaply. At the time, in the 1930s, it was assumed as the rule of thumb that one worker would have to die for every $1 million of investment that was required to build a bridge. So 35 people should have died building the Golden Gate Bridge. The thing is, around 1936 anyway, a new union movement was afoot in the Bay Area and it seems to me, following the great 1934 Maritime Strike that was won, employers were a little bit on the defensive. Strauss him-

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

self —I don’t know this for sure, but I’m pretty sure that this is probably what he thought—he said “We’re gonna have to do some safety. The union wind is coming and we better make sure we’re ahead of the parade.” He insisted that harnesses be used, he insisted that hard hats be used. These were innovations, if you can imagine at the time, and here you have people in some cases 700 feet up in the air working over the ocean without this kind of safety. He insisted on that. He also brought the idea forth to have a net. It didn’t cost a lot. It was made of thick rope. He also coincidentally thought the workers would work faster if they had a safety net under them, as well. The 19 people who fell into it and lived were called members of the Half Way to Hell Club. In part, that name was selected because if you fell, for example, from midspan to 220 ft, you were going to hit the water at 75 mph, and you’d probably die. Eleven people died building the bridge; at least it was not 35, and it was looked upon as a pretty good record. By the time Strauss put the net in, the Golden Gate was 100-percent union. A little background maybe would help on the workers themselves. By and large, they were white males, many were sons of immigrants, which I think is very interesting. There were some older guys who were actually immigrants themselves. A great number of these people were immigrants who’d come from Europe during the great migration of 1880 to the beginning of World War I in 1914. Today, we have politicians who condemn immigrants as much as they can. I guess they’re making political hay. But I think it’s interesting that our great bridge was built by-and-large by the children of immigrants. Voice of the Builders Fred de Vito was the son of immigrants; he grew up poor in Marin County. He managed anyway to graduate from UC Berkeley in engineering in 1934. So he’s got his great new degree; the only job during the Great Depression that he could get was as a paint scraper on the Golden Gate Bridge. So he did that on the north tower. Here’s what he remembers from the first day, this was 1934, going up an outside elevator on the ringside tower. “The wind was blowing. The fog was coming in and everything was dripping wet. You could hear the riveting hammers going, just noise. And here I am, a country hick just coming in. I’d never been on a job like that in my life, here I am going up this elevator, up, up, up, getting more scared as we get there. The towers are 746 feet high. We were near 710 feet and then the elevator stopped. “The elevator operator says this is where you get off. Two new painters were with me. We looked out there. To get off, you had to step on a 2-by-12. It was cantilevered out— in other words, it was a piece of wood. The two painters looked, they looked over there and they saw the 2 by 12. They said, ‘Do we have to get out and cross that?’ And the elevator operator said, ‘That’s the only way.’ The painter said ‘No, take me down. I’m quitting.’

Then the elevator operator said to me, ‘How about you? Do you wanna get off?’ I thought a little bit and then I says, ‘It’s the only job I have.’ ... So I braved it and went across.” Here’s a guy named Glen McIntyre. He’s an iron worker. He worked as a gandy dancer [performing track maintenance for the] railroad; before he got a job on the Golden Gate, he was a fry cook and a bunch of other things. He worked on both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate. He reflects on his first day on the Golden Gate Bridge. He was putting up steel on a raising gang. The raising gang would put big pieces of steel up, and then they’d be bolted in and later be riveted. This is what he said, and it includes his reaction to the safety net. “When they sent me out to the Golden Gate Bridge, the first place they put me I didn’t have a net under me. That was before they stretched the safety net; in the raising gang on the Golden Gate, you didn’t have nothing under you but the water. “It was quite strict on your safety there. though. We used to count the guys who would go down the Bay Bridge. It did give you a good feeling on the Golden Gate to have that under you there when it went in.” Here’s another person. John Urban was the son of immigrants. He was a cable spinner. The cables were spun, including the huge cable that’s 386 inches diameter. [It ] was built by a spinning system that went back and forth and back and forth. He worked on the huge main cable that went over the saddle for the Golden Gate Bridge, and they’re made out of thin little pieces. He said, “They handed me the end of this galvanized wire [to] take over the tower top. The wire was just a little bit smaller than the lead of a pencil. That’s the way the cable’s built. That first day I looked at the catwalk ... and up to the top of the tower and I says, ‘Am I going up there or not?’ I gritted my teeth and said, ‘Here goes,’ and I took off and I went up to the tower top.” Urban also talks about being afraid of heights, too. But he overcame that because he had to; he needed the money, it was the Great Depression. McIntyre, who was a riveter, describes getting hot rivets ready for the rivet driver. The rivet driver would drive the rivet in using a rivet gun. Tools were used, you didn’t handle red hot rivets by the hand. “The forge was full of hot rivets. They had them stacked around the rim of the coals, preheated. They was heated to a cherry red. He’d take one off that just like he was serving hamburgers. Then he’d throw the rivet and a man would catch it in a catch can. He’d hand it to you and you’d stick it in the hole. “Sometimes they’d start driving ahead of time before you fumbled the rivet in. Then you’d catch hell. Them old guys, they didn’t want to lose that. They didn’t want to lose a rivet because they had to heat another one to take its place. If a bad rivet cooled down too much, you’d have to take after it and use a [special] gun on it. “That’s a 120 pound pressure gun. They’re the same as a riveting gun, only it’s a big one. The riveting gun had 90

pounds of pressure in there. But the [special gun], you’d drive the rivet back out, sometimes it would come out of there just like it was coming out of a shot gun.” McIntire told another story about getting scale, that’s splinter pieces from the hot rivet, getting into your clothing. Which apparently happened quite a little bit when people where riveting the way this was done in the old days. If some of the [hot metal splinters] got into your bib overalls or boots, he didn’t dare lose that rivet. Sometimes [it] would get in your shirt. You’d be there trying to wiggle away from that heat, but you’d stay there and burn. You never, ever give that rivet up. You’d try to turn the scale loose with one hand, but that didn’t usually work. You’d stay there, and there’s quite a few scars over that. It’ll leave a mark on you.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge was dangerous work, but people were glad to have the work during the Great Depression.

AP R I L/MAY 2016

I guess everybody who figured that this couldn’t be built must have been wrong. It’s all finished now, and it’s gonna stay up. John Norran was an elevator installer’s helper. Sometimes he had to ride outside of a small service elevator while holding on to the cables. So he’s on the outside, on the top. He said, “When the little elevator got overcrowded, I would stand on a small beam about 10 feet above the elevator platform.” He’d stand on that, and hold on to the cable and ride up. “I get used to it, but I felt very much relieved when we hit the road at 4:30, and you’d stomp your feet on the ground.” They generally quit around 4, 4:30. It was basically 8-to-5. Here’s a little bit on wages. McIntyre said, “We was well paid. We got $11 a day for eight hours. That was a good wage in those days. The brick layers was the only ones of the crafts that made more than the iron workers at that time. On the Golden Gate we didn’t get much of any overtime. It was an eight-hour day, and you was glad of it. Laborers were getting only about $5 a day.” Al Zampa, an iron worker, said, “Sometimes during that Depression, I’d look down from the cable from the Golden Gate tower when I was up there, and there would

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

be 150 people waiting for a job. Waiting for us to either fall off or quit.” A guy named Burt Vesnies was a Teamster. He drove equipment to the bridge in the 1930s. He remembered the skepticism of coworkers. And many other people were skeptical of the whole project, too, like the ironworkers. They thought the Teamster guys thought of it as just another job. He said, “There were a lot of skeptics back then that didn’t think the bridge would ever be built. They thought it was a big pipe dream. The few Local 85 Teamster drivers I talked to occasionally about the bridge just considered it another job. They didn’t see anything special about it. Most of the guys didn’t even think it would ever be finished.” Well, looking back, the people I interviewed kind of took a different view. They were proud that they’d worked on it, and they recognized it was something special. Fred Busadi was an electrician, and he thought it was something special. [Busadi] addressed the skepticism in the 1930s. This is what Fred said: “Today, whenever I drive across the bridge, I’m sure happy to have been one of the workers on it. One thing I’ll say is that the bridge was special, because earlier, everybody said that it couldn’t be built. So, after it got built, I said I guess everybody who figured that this couldn’t be built must have been wrong. It’s all finished now, and it’s gonna stay up.”

Programs PROGRAM OVERVIEW

TICKETS

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.

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.

STANDARD PROGRAMS Typically 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 SERIES CLIMATE 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.

FORUM CHAIRS MEMBER-LED FORUMS CHAIR Dr. Carol Fleming carol.fleming@speechtraining.com ARTS Anne W. Smith asmith@ggu.edu Lynn Curtis lynnwcurtis@comcast.net ASIA–PACIFIC AFFAIRS Cynthia Miyashita cmiyashita@hotmail.com

ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Ann Clark cbofcb@sbcglobal.net GROWNUPS John Milford Johnwmilford@gmail.com HEALTH & MEDICINE William B. Grant wbgrant@infionline.net Patty James patty@pattyjames.com HUMANITIES

BAY GOURMET Cathy Curtis ccurtis873@gmail

George C. Hammond george@pythpress.com

BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP Kevin O’Malley kevin@techtalkstudio.com

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Norma Walden norwalden@aol.com

LGBT James Westly McGaughey jwes.mcgaughey@me.com MIDDLE EAST Celia Menczel celiamenczel@sbcglobal.net PERSONAL GROWTH Stephanie Kriebel stephanie@sunspiritwellness.com PSYCHOLOGY Patrick O’Reilly oreillyphd@hotmail.com SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Gerald Harris Gerald@artofquantumplanning.com

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.

Beau Fernald bfernald@gmail.com

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FRENCH, Advanced Conversation Gary Lawrence garylawrence508@gmail.com

RADIO, VIDEO & PODCASTS

Watch Club programs on the California Channel Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. and on KRCB TV 22 on Comcast & DirecTV the last Sunday of each month at 11 a.m. 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

GERMAN, Int./Adv. Conversation Sara Shahin sarah_biomexx@yahoo.com SPANISH, Advanced Conversation (fluent only) Luis Salvago-Toledo, lsalvago2@gmail.com

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APR I L/MAY 2016

T WO MONTHS CALENDAR

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

APRIL

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

Laura Esserman April 5

4 6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social

5 6:00 p.m. Breast Cancer: When Is Doing Less Doing More? How Does Knowing More Lead to Doing Better? 6:30 p.m. After El Niño: Now What?

2:00 p.m. Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your parents. 6:00 p.m. Gamechanging California Elections FM 6:30 p.m. Food Justice in America FE

7:00 p.m. Amy and David Goodman: 20 Years of Democracy Now!

18 6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social

19 6:00 p.m. San Francisco International Airport: A Leader in Environment and Sustainability 6:30 p.m. Juan Williams

6:00 p.m. Running with Rhinos: Stories from a Radical Conservationist 7:00 p.m. Income Inequality and the Future of the American Dream: Differing Perspectives 7:45 p.m. Mushrooms to Cannabis: Using Nature to Heal

6:30 p.m. The Health Hazards of One Degree

12:00 p.m. Arianna Huffington with Sheryl Sandberg: The Power of Sleep 2:00 p.m. Chinatown Walking Tour 6:30 p.m. Beyond Prisons: A Conversation About Criminal Justice Reform 6:30 p.m. Bill McDermott 6:30 p.m. Michael Puett: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life

12:00 p.m. Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya 6:30 p.m. Getting to Green

7:00 p.m. Steve Case: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future

8 12:00 p.m. Anna Quindlen

9/10 Saturday, April 9 7:00 p.m. The Property Brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott

16/17

12:00 p.m. Fred Ross: America’s Social Arsonist 6:00 p.m. The Future of Advertising Technology 6:30 p.m. Michael Waldman: The Fight to Vote

12:00 p.m. The Brazen Age 5:15 p.m. The Top Modifiable Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease 6:30 p.m. Time Magazine’s Jay Newton Small: How Women Are Changing American Politics and Business 6:30 p.m. Mayors Libby Schaaf and Sam Liccardo

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

2/3

Property Brothers April 9

5:00 p.m. Humanities West Book Discussion: How the Irish Saved Civilization FM 5:30 p.m. Middle East Forum Discussion FM 6:30 p.m. Socrates Café FM 6:30 p.m. Spend 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl

SAT/SUN

23/24 Saturday, April 23 11:00 a.m. Earth Day with Climate One: Learning Green and Earning Green 12:00 p.m. Mindful Meditation Beginner’s Workshop

Jay Newton Small April 20

28 2:00 p.m. North Beach Walking Tour 7:00 p.m. Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths: Algorithms and Human Decisions

30/1

9:00 a.m. Faster, Smarter, Cleaner, Greener: Developing the Transportation Workforce of the Future FE

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

MAY MONDAY

2 12:00 p.m. Gray Rhinos FM

TUESDAY

3 6:00 p.m. Dr. Larry Brilliant, Chairman of Skoll Global Threats

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

4 6:30 p.m. United States Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil: Big Data and You 7:00 p.m. Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly: Tipping Point for Planet Earth

FRIDAY

SAT/SUN

7/8

6:00 p.m. A Candid Window into the American Criminal Justice System

M. Gerald Schwartzbach May 5

12:00 p.m. Food Addiction 2.0 FM 2:00 p.m. Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents. 6:00 p.m. Spain in Our Hearts

11 5:15 p.m. Stop Elder Fraud: Seniors and the Law 6:00 p.m. Willie Brown: Annual Commonwealth Club Lecture

12 6:30 p.m. Sea Heroes: Extreme Edition

13 12:00 p.m. Rereading The Federalist in the 21st Century FM

14/15 Saturday, May 14 2:30 p.m. Private Docent Tour of Oscar de la Renta: the Retrospective

Willie Brown May 11

17 6:00 p.m Portofino Souvenir

19 6:00 p.m. The Unexpected Belle La Follette: Progressive Model for 2016

21/22

12:00 p.m. Guantanamo Project FM

Oscar de la Renta May 14

5:00 p.m. Humanities West Book Discussion: Celtic Myths and Legends FM 6:30 p.m. Socrates Café FM

6:00 p.m. Ashanti Branch: Taking Off the Mask in the Ever Forward Club

18 6:30 p.m. Steve Phillips: Hello New American Majority, Goodbye Old Politics

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

12:00 p.m. How Behavioral Science Can Help Us Have a Good Day FM 5:00 p.m. Explore the World from The Commonwealth Club FM 6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social 7:00 p.m. Sean Carroll: The Origins of Life and the Universe Itself

25 6:00 p.m. The Science of Open Spaces 6:30 p.m. James Madara, M.D., CEO, American Medical Association: The Future of Health Care 7:00 p.m. Mark Kurlansky: The History of Paper

28/29

5:15 p.m. How to Write Your Own (or Someone Else’s) Obituary 6:30 p.m. Cultivate Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

Jessica Herrin May 26

Ashanti Branch May 24

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

AP R I L/MAY 2016

APRIL 4 - 9 MONDAY, APRIL 4 4 MONDAY, APRIL

Laura Esserman April 5

Edward Warner April 6

Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social It’s a political year without peer in recent memory. Join us as we explore the biggest, most controversial and surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major 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 individuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member social (open to all attendees). 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

Donald Abrams/ Brian Kennedy April 6

TUESDAY, APRIL TUESDAY, APRIL 5 5 Breast Cancer: When Is Doing Less Doing More? How Does Knowing More Lead to Doing Better? Laura Esserman, M.D., M.B.A, Surgeon; Breast Cancer Oncology Specialist and Director of the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center

Alan Auerbach/ Yaron Brook April 6

Anna Quindlen April 8

Breast cancer is among America’s most feared diseases—and one of its most politicized. Decades of public education have encouraged women to get annual mammograms, and diagnoses typically trigger surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. But not everyone agrees that this conventional approach serves women best. Some surgeons now advise a “wait and see” strategy for women with specific breast cancer diagnoses. Is it possible that we’re harming ourselves with too many tests and treatments? SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Mark Zitter

Property Brothers April 9

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

After El Niño: Now What? Bart Thompson, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford Univ.

Does this year’s wet winter mean we can go back to having green lawns and eating almonds in the shower? History suggests people quickly snap back to their regular ways after a drought. The state has loosened water restrictions this year and it might

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

appear that the drought has eased if not ended. A look at California’s water future and how innovation can help farmers get more crop per drop. 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. networking reception

WEDNESDAY, ARPIL 6 6 WEDNESDAY, APRIL Running with Rhinos: Stories from a Radical Conservationist Edward Warner, Author; Philanthropist; Former Exploration Geologist

Fewer than 5,000 black rhinos remain in the wilds of sub-Saharan Africa. Few if any laymen like Warner have been invited to care for them in the wild, some of the most dangerous volunteer fieldwork around. It gave him the opportunity to pursue and refine his emerging philosophy of radical conservationism, to cultivate partnerships between local communities and private landowners in Africa, and to export the lessons about land and wildlife management back home to the United States. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: International Relations • Program organizer: Norma Walden

Mushrooms to Cannabis: Using Nature to Heal Donald Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology and Oncology, SF General Hospital Brian Kennedy, MD, CEO and President, Buck Institute for Research on Aging

Plants have been used for thousands of years to prevent and cure diseases. Join Dr. Abrams, a leading cancer and integrative medicine specialist, and Dr. Kennedy as they review what we know and don’t know about botanical therapies, medical cannabis, integrative medicine and aging well. NB • MARIN CONVERSATIONS PROGRAM • Location: Outdoor Art Club, One West Blithdale, Mill Valley • Time: 7 p.m. check-in and complimentary light hors d’oeuvres and cash bar, 7:45 p.m. program

nance, University of California, Berkeley Yaron Brook, Ph.D., Executive Director, Ayn Rand Institute; Co-author, Equal Is Unfair: America’s Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality

It is argued by many that the American Dream is vanishing, and that the cause is rising income inequality. Are tax hikes and raising the minimum wage solutions to saving the American Dream? Or do they symbolize what free market advocate Yaron Brook calls “a war on success”? Join Dr. Brook and economist Dr. Alan Auerbach in a spirited discussion of the significance of inequality in America and the best approaches to nurturing individual success. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 8 FRIDAY, APRIL Anna Quindlen Anna Quindlen, Author, Miller’s Valley Kelly Corrigan, Author, Glitter and Glue

Best known for her award-winning New York Times and Newsweek columns, Quindlen offers up a highly anticipated new novel. In a small American town on the verge of dramatic change lives a family whose story you will not forget and a young girl who struggles to escape her parents, siblings, and friends even while she knows how deeply she is shaped and loved by them. Mimi Miller, even at a young age, knows that home is “a place where it’s just as easy to feel lost as it is to feel content.” In Miller’s Valley, Quindlen has written an emotionally powerful novel driven by a young girl who experiences first-hand the tension between nostalgia and progress as she tries to build a future for herself. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • Notes: This event is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation; photo by Maria Krovatin

SATURDAY, APRIL 9 9 SATURDAY, APRIL

Income Inequality and the Future of the American Dream: Differing Perspectives

Jonathan and Drew Scott from HGTV’s The Property Brothers

Alan Auerbach, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Law, and Director of the Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Fi-

Jonathan and Drew Scott, HGTV’s Property Brothers; Authors, Dream Home: The Property Brothers’ Ultimate

SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

APRIL 11 - 13 Guide to Finding and Fixing Your Perfect House

Jonathan and Drew Scott have taken HGTV by storm with their four hit shows, “Property Brothers,” “Property Brothers at Home,” “Buying & Selling,” and “Brother vs. Brother.” The talented duo share the ins and outs of buying, selling, and renovating your home and offer helpful tips to stay on time and on budget. SV • Location: Mayer Theatre, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara • Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

MONDAY, APRIL MONDAY, APRIL 11 11 Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents. This regular discussion group explores new and emerging solutions to the challenges of growing older. Not only will we be uncovering interesting new products at the intersection of aging and technology, we also will be conducting 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 quality of life through our partner in this initiative, Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. The discussions will be 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. check-in, 2 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

Gamechanging Calif. Elections Steve Swatt, Former Political Journalist, United Press International and KCRA TV Sacramento Susie Swatt, Former Key Staffer, California Legislature; Former Special Assistant, California Fair Political Practices Commission Jeff Raimundo, Former Political Reporter, Sacramento Bee and McClatchy Newspapers Rebecca LaVally, Instructor, Sacramento State University; Former Sacramento Bureau Chief, United Press International

Monday Night Philosophy investigates California election history

with the authors of the award-winning Game Changers: Twelve Elections that Transformed California. They will discuss the elections and political trends that had the greatest impact on California history, and how they continue to shape our lives and the current political landscape. Drawing from primary sources and new interviews, each chapter explores one election, from Leland Stanford’s gubernatorial race to Gray Davis’s recall, revealing the forces behind the choices made at the polls and their effects upon the intricate game played in Sacramento. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

Food Justice in America Panelists TBA

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 23 million people in America live in what are known as “food deserts.” These areas, mostly lower-income communities in urban neighborhoods and rural towns, don’t have easy access to fresh fruit, vegetables and other nutritious foods. As a result, their populations suffer from myriad preventable health problems, including higher levels of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. How can we ensure food security— with fresh, local, healthy food—for all Americans? Join our panel of advocates as they discuss what is being done to change the current food system in the United States to improve the availability of healthy food, as well as what is happening in our own communities here in the Bay Area.

Mother Jones; Co-author, Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America; Twitter @democracynow Judge LaDoris Cordell (ret), Chair of the Santa Clara County Jail Commission—Moderator

In 1996 Amy Goodman started a radio show called “Democracy Now!” to focus on the issues that were underreported or ignored by mainstream media. This year the show is celebrating its 20th anniversary and is the only public media in the U.S. that airs simultaneously on satellite and cable television, radio and the Internet. Goodman will share stories about the remarkable leaders and crusaders who have appeared on her show and the lasting impact they have all made in the ongoing fight for peace and justice.

April 13

Arianna Huffington with Sheryl Sandberg: The Power of Sleep Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor in Chief, the Huffington Post Media Group, Author, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

In today’s 24/7 fast-paced world, the hunger for sleep is only getting stronger. Sleep deprivation affects our health, decision making, and relationships both personally and professionally. Arianna Huffington takes on sleep from every angle and offers the latest scientific recommendations and expert tips to achieve a better night’s sleep.

TUESDAY, APRIL TUESDAY, APRIL 12 12

Chinatown Walking Tour Enjoy 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. Visit a Taoist temple, an herbal store, the site of the first public school in the state, and the famous Fortune

commonwealthclub.org/events

Amy & David Goodman April 12

Arianna Huffington

WEDNESDAY, APRIL WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13 13

SV • Location: Santa Clara Convention Center Theatre, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara • Time: 11:15 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing

Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer, “Democracy Now!”; Co-author, Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America David Goodman, Host, “The Vermont Conversation”; Contributing Writer,

April 11

SV • Location: Santa Clara Convention Center Theatre, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara • Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6:00 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • Notes: This program is underwritten by The California Wellness Foundation

Amy and David Goodman: 20 Years of Democracy Now!

Gamechanging California Elections

Chinatown Walking Tour April 13

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

AP R I L/MAY 2016

APRIL 13 - 14 Cookie Factory. SF • Location: Meet in front of Starbucks, 359 Grant Ave., San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Must pre-register; photo by H. Sanchez/Flickr Van Jones/Shaka Senghor April 13

Beyond Prisons: A Conversation About Criminal Justice Reform Van Jones, President & Co-founder, #cut50; CNN Political Commentator; Former White House Special Advisor Shaka Senghor, Director of Strategy and Innovation, #cut50; Writer; Mentor; Motivational Speaker

Currently, more than 2 million Americans are in prison, close to one out of every 100 Americans. As a result, the federal government spends $80 billion each year on the incarceration industry while projects such as improving our national infrastructure and educational systems continue to be drastically underfunded. #Cut50, a national, bipartisan initiative co-founded by Van Jones, is working to safely and smartly reduce the American prison population by 50 percent over the next 10 years. Hear from Van and Shaka Senghor, author of the memoir Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, about why they believe that now is the perfect time to achieve meaningful criminal justice reform and how #cut50 plans to make it happen.

Bill McDermott April 13

Michael Puett April 13

Peter Kim April 14

SF • Location: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Michael Waldman April 14

Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP; Author, Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office Carl Guardino, President and CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group

How do you lead with purpose? McDermott’s unique start as a young entrepreneur helped solidify his journey to lead SAP, the world’s largest business software company. Hear his thoughts on leadership and innovation in today’s competitive global market. For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to common wealthclub.org

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 event is underwritten by Accenture.

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Michael Puett: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life Michael Puett, Professor of Chinese History, Harvard University; Co-author, The Path: What Chinese Philosopher Can Teach Us About the Good Life Frank Wu, Chair, Committee of 100; Former Chancellor, UC Hastings—Moderator

Why is a course on ancient Chinese philosophers one of the most popular at Harvard? Counterintuitive and countercultural, Puett shares why the important teachings developed more than 2000 years ago still apply today. Hear more about the ideas that could help change your life. SV • Location: Cubberley Theatre (near Montrose and Middlefield), 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing • Notes: Photo by Margaret Lampert

THURSDAY, APRIL THURSDAY, APRIL 14 14 Fred Ross: America’s Social Arsonist Gabriel Thompson, Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing, San Jose State University; Author, America’s Social Arsonist

Gabriel Thompson’s is the first biography of Fred Ross, who believed a good labor organizer should fade into the crowd. But the mentor of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta is hard to forget. In America’s Social Arsonist, Thompson provides a full picture of this complicated and driven man. Raised by conservative parents, Fred Ross disappointed them by becoming a very influential community organizer. His activism began alongside Dust Bowl migrants when he managed the same labor camp that was fictionalized in The Grapes of Wrath. During World War II, Ross worked for the release of interned Japanese Americans, and after the war he dedicated his life to building the political power of Latinos across California, which succeeded after Ross knocked on the door of a young Cesar Chavez and encouraged him to become an organizer. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program• MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

The Future of Advertising Technology Peter Kim, Founder and President, MightyHive.com

In recent years, advertising has played an increasingly crucial role in our technology-obsessed world. It has not only created vast new companies like Google and Facebook, but it has also financed the explosive growth of the Internet around the world. For these reasons, advertising technology (“adtech”) has been a very hot and lucrative space in the tech industry. But this explosive growth has also been accompanied by incredible market complexity, advertiser and consumer confusion, and fundamental questions for the future. Pete Kim developed Yahoo!’s current program for dynamic retargeting and led global business development and strategic initiatives for Google’s adtech platforms before founding MightyHive, one of the fastest-growing buyers of advanced advertising in the world. He is not afraid to get a bit controversial in his predictions. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Science & Technology • Program organizer: Gerald Harris

Michael Waldman: The Fight to Vote Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law; Author, The Fight to Vote Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell (Ret.), Chair, Santa Clara County Jail Commission—Moderator

Waldman takes a succinct and comprehensive look at a crucial struggle: the past and present effort to define and defend government based on “the consent of the governed.” From the writing of the Constitution, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought the right, others have fought to stop them. Walkman traces the entire story from the Founders’ debates to today’s restrictions: gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the flood of money unleashed by the nonprofit Citizens United, making voting difficult for the elderly, the poor and the young, by restricting open polling places. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing

SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

APRIL 18 - 23 MONDAY, APRIL 18 18 MONDAY, APRIL Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social Join us as we explore the biggest, most controversial and surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major 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 individuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member social (open to all attendees). 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, APRIL TUESDAY, APRIL 19 19 San Francisco International Airport: A Leader in Environment and Sustainability John Martin, Airport Director, San Francisco International Airport

San Francisco International Airport is a leader in mitigating the environmental impact of airport operations and in adopting sustainability facilities and practices. From reducing greenhouse gas emissions to building LEED-certified terminals to providing habitats for endangered species, the San Francisco International Airport has long set the standards for sustainability for large and small public and private agencies and organizations.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Environment & Natural Resources • Program organizer: Ann Clark

Juan Williams Juan Williams, Political Analyst, Fox News Channel; Author, We the People: The Modern-Day Figures Who Have Reshaped and Affirmed the Founding Fathers’ Vision of America

What would the Founding Fathers think about America today? Among the modern-day pioneers Williams explores are the passionate conservative President Reagan; the determined fighters for equal rights Thurgood Marshall and Martin Lu-

ther King, Jr.; the profound imprint of Rev. Billy Graham’s evangelism on national politics; the focus on global human rights advocated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; the cultural impact of the gay community that led the Stonewall riot and brought gay life into America’s public square; and the re-imagined role of women in contemporary life as shaped by Betty Friedan. Williams reveals how each of these modern-day founders has extended the Founding Fathers’ original vision and changed fundamental aspects of our country. 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: Photo by Frank Graves

WEDNESDAY, APRIL WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20 20 The Brazen Age David Reid, Author, The Brazen Age

The Brazen Age is a sweeping look at the rich culture and turbulent politics of New York City between 1945 and 1950. But David Reid also reaches back to the early 1900s to explore the city’s progressive politics, radical artistic experimentation and burgeoning bohemian culture, to the quickly growing media, movie and radio businesses in the 1920s, and to the influx of talented Europeans in the 1930s, vastly enriching the sciences and the arts. Reid also delves into the city’s influence on the Dewey-Truman election, as he captures a complex and powerful moment in the post-war history of NYC. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

The Top Modifiable Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease Patricia Spilman, Senior Scientist, Drug Discovery Laboratory, UCLA, and in the Bredesen Lab, Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato

In the absence of a truly effective disease-altering treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, methods for decreasing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s become extremely important. Many people were introduced to “familial AD” through reading the book or viewing the film Still Alice written by Lisa Genova.

commonwealthclub.org/events

However, many—but not all—of the risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer’s are not genetic and are potentially modifiable. Patricia Spilman speaks from results of the scientific work in a laboratory setting to inform you of the top risk factors that are potentially modifiable. 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

Time Magazine’s Jay Newton Small: How Women Are Changing American Politics and Business Jay Newton Small, Political Correspondent, Time Magazine; Author, Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works Melissa Caen, Contributor, CBS SF (“Mornings with Melissa”); Host, “The Cheat Sheet”; Attorney—Moderator

The year 2016 will be one of the most historic years in politics: It marks the potential for the first female president of the United States, and the 100th anniversary of the first woman elected to Congress. Additionally, in 2016, single women will be one of the most pivotal voting groups heading into the general election, being courted by Democrats and Republicans. At the centennial of the first woman elected to Congress, their presence and influence in Washington has reached a tipping point that affects not only the inner workings of the federal government, but also directly influences how Americans live and work. Jay Newton-Small will discuss how women make an enormous impact once they reach critical mass (20–30 percent) in the private and public sectors.

Juan Williams April 19

David Reid April 20

Patricia Spilman April 20

Jay Newton Small April 20

Earth Day with C1 April 23

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: Photo by Melissa Golden for Time

SATURDAY, APRIL SATURDAY, APRIL 23 23 Earth Day with Climate One: Learning Green and Earning Green Part I In our first conversation, we will discuss how doctors, teachers and parents are framing climate change as a children’s issue. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued

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

AP R I L/MAY 2016

As a Leadership Circle member, you will get white-glove treatment and a back-stage pass. Meet high profile speakers at private receptions and events. Receive free admission to events for you and a guest.*

Join today with your annual gift of $1,000. For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to common For more information contact: wealthclub.org Kimberly Maas, Vice President of Development 415.597.6726 | kmaas@commonwealthclub.org *some exclusions apply

The Commonwealth Club

putting you face-to-face with todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thought leaders

Charlotte Mailliard Shultz and Hon. George P. Shultz chat with U.S. Secretary of Defense, Dr. Ashton Carter.

JOIN THE LEADERSHIP CIRCLE. GET READY TO RUB SOME ELBOWS.

APRIL 23 - 26 a statement saying children’s health will be disproportionately affected by climate. The California Parent-Teacher Association is raising its voice about carbon risk and the Boy Scouts are teaching kids about sustainability. We’ll explore how educators and students increasingly are making climate a youth issue. Part II In our second conversation, we will discuss the hot prospects for building a climate-conscious career. New jobs and avenues for advancement are being created as companies strive to grow cleaner and governments figure out what a disrupted climate means for water, food, transit and housing systems. The young Americans entering the workforce today will create the cool new products, technologies and cities that will grow our economy and stabilize the climate. What are the best career paths for people who want to take advantage of that huge opportunity? What sectors are most promising? Will doing good entail making less? A conversation about building a thriving career based on reducing carbon while increasing social and economic value. Students on Ice Climate Scholarship We will offer student attendees the opportunity to apply for our scholarship to join the Students on Ice expedition to the Arctic circle with 120 youths from around the world in the summer of 2016. The scholarship is available for San Francisco Bay Area high school students between the ages of 14-18 at time of application, who attend this program. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 10:30 a.m. check-in, 11 a.m. program part 1, noon lunch, 1 p.m. program part 2, 2 p.m. post-event reception

Mindful Meditation Beginner’s Workshop with Lama Tsomo Lama Tsomo, Studied under Gochen Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, World Holder of the Namchak Lineage of Tibet Buddhism; Master’s in Counseling Psychology, Antioch University

In this two-hour workshop, Lama Tsomo will introduce the benefits of meditation and then focus on teaching a beginner-level meditation. She will share ways to sustain a meditation practice over time and will discuss how practicing and studying

with others can be tremendously beneficial. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program , 2 p.m. book signing• MLF: Personal Growth, Asia-Pacific Affairs • Program organizer: Eric Siegel

MONDAY, APRIL MONDAY, APRIL 25 25 Humanities West Book Discussion: How the Irish Saved Civilization Join us to discuss Thomas Cahill’s book How the Irish Saved Civilization. In his entertaining and compelling narrative, Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era and argues that, without the help of Irish monks and Irish culture, that transition could not have taken place. 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 Discussion The Midde East Forum discussion group, which primarily covers the Middle East, Afganistan and North Africa, has been meeting for about eight years. We do not debate; we exchange ideas and opinions. The discussion is considered a perk of membership, but those interested— especially students—are welcome. Early registration is advisable. 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 Café On one Monday evening of every month the Humanities Forum sponsors Socrates Café at The Commonwealth Club. Each meeting is devoted to the discussion of a philosophical topic chosen at that meeting. The group’s facilitator, John Nyquist, invites participants 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.

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Everyone is welcome to attend. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

Spend 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl Lesley Stahl, Correspondent, “60 Minutes”; Author, Being Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting

After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl says the most vivid and transforming experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or any of her stories at “60 Minutes.” It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it—as though it was a news flash! She explores how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing her friends such as Whoopi Goldberg, colleagues like Diane Sawyer, and the proverbial woman next door. On top of these personal accounts, she interviews scientists and doctors about physiological changes in women when they have grandchildren, anthropologists about why there are grandmothers in evolutionary terms, and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on grandparents. In an era when Baby Boomers are becoming grandparents in droves, when young parents need all the help they can get raising their children—and with a grandmother in the running to be our next U.S. president—Stahl’s book is a timely and affecting read that redefines a cherished relationship.

Lama Tsomo April 23

Lesley Stahl April 25

Getting to Green April 26

William Carlsen April 26

SF • Location: Peacock Court, Mark Hopkins Hotel, 999 California Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 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.

TUESDAY, APRIL TUESDAY, APRIL 26 26 Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya William Carlsen, Author, Journalist

In 1839 explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood trekked through the jungles of Gua-

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

AP R I L/MAY 2016

APRIL 26 - 29 temala, Honduras and Mexico, investigating the remains of the Maya civilization. After their journey through disparate and widely scattered ruins, they changed forever the world’s view of the widespread, advanced Maya society. Carlsen, formerly a San Francisco Chronicle reporter and Pulitzer finalist, traveled the explorers’ 2,500-mile route himself to prepare for writing the book.

Russell M. Jaffe April 26

Scott Allan Morrison April 27

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

Getting to Green

Steve Case: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future

Pew polling reveals that the environment is one of the two things about which Republicans and Democrats disagree most. It wasn’t always this way. President Nixon created the EPA and President Reagan tackled the hole in the ozone and acid rain. President George Bush described himself as an environmental president. Republicans and Democrats did agree recently to allow the export of crude oil and extend tax credits for clean energy. Can they agree on more ambitious energy and environmental moves?

North Beach Walking Tour April 28

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. networking reception

Brian Christian/ Tom Griffiths April 28

Healthy for Life: Evidence to Support Predictive Biomarkers for Lifetime Health Russell M. Jaffe, MD, PhD, Founder, PERQUE Integrative Health; Pioneer, Integrative Medicine

Lab testing today is overly focused on statistics. Dr. Jaffe will highlight eight functional tests that are predictive of outcome, focus on goal values rather than normal values and clinically more useful in therapy. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Bill Grant, Susan Downs For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to common wealthclub.org

In Morrison’s new novel, engineer Sergio Mansour uncovers evidence of a massive conspiracy that turns the power of the world’s biggest network against its users. But as Sergio investigates, someone is watching his every move — someone ruthless enough to brand him a criminal.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • MLF: International Relations • Program organizer: Norma Walden

Frederich C. Rich, Author, Getting to Green: Saving Nature: A Bipartisan Solution

Steve Case April 27

Scott Allan Morrison, Former Silicon Valley Journalist; Author, Terms of Use In conversation with Lisen Stromberg, CEO and Founder, AcceleratingWomen

WEDNESDAY, APRIL WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 27 Terms of Use: The Dark Side of Social Media

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Steve Case, Co-founder, AOL; Author, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future

According to Case, we are now entering a new paradigm called the “Third Wave,” in which entrepreneurs will have the power to vastly transform “real world” sectors such as health, education, transportation, energy and food, and to change the way we live and work. SV • Location: Santa Clara Convention Center Theatre, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara • Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

April Update: The El Nino Effect See website for panelists

Join our panel of experts for a report on what has happened with El Nino, the weather and the snow pack, as well as the continuing effects of the Yosemite Rim Fire to ease drought problems and bring water and growth cycles much needed in California. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Environment & Natural Resources, Business & Leadership • Program organizer: Ann Clark • Notes: In association with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and The Tuolumne River Trust

THURSDAY, APRIL THURSDAY, APRIL 28 28 North Beach Walking Tour 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 intersect in an Italian “urban village.” In addition to learning about Beat

generation hangouts, you’ll discover authentic Italian cathedrals and coffee shops. SF • Location: Meet at Victoria Pastry Cafe, 700 Filbert St. • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Must pre-register

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths: Algorithms and Human Decisions Brian Christian, Co-author, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Tom Griffiths, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science, UC Berkeley; Co-Author, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Are you an algorithmic thinker? Acclaimed author Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths provide insights into the human mind and explain how computer algorithms can help solve daily dilemmas. From following a hunch or leaving things to chance, Christian and Griffiths help untangle everyday questions and decisions. SV • Location: Silicon Valley Bank, 3005 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

FRIDAY, 29 29 FRIDAY,APRIL APRIL Faster, Smarter, Cleaner, Greener: Developing the Transportation Workforce of the Future Join us for a free all-day seminar with transportation experts and public officials discussing transportation technologies of the future and the workforce required to run them. Thought leaders in transportation technology and workforce development come together for this full-day workforce development summit on emerging career pathways in transportation and how to prepare the next generation of workers. How can schools work with industry leaders to ensure relevant education and training programs? What specialized skills will be needed to plan and construct a world-class transit system? Which technologies will be critical in developing clean, efficient freight transportation systems that can compete at the regional, state and national levels? Focus will be on innovative technologies, including intelligent transportation systems, high-speed rail, wireless technologies, big data systems, smart

SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

OCTOBER 18 - NOVEMBER 2, 2016

U.S. to TEHRAN Tuesday, October 18 Depart the United States. TEHRAN Wednesday, October 19 Upon arrival, transfer to the Espinas Hotel. TEHRAN Thursday, October 20 After a late-morning orientation, begin exploring Iran. Discover Golestan Palace (Palace of Flowers) and visit the National Archaeological Museum with its fine collection, including a stone capital of a winged lion from Susa. Gather this evening for our welcome dinner. (B,L,D)

TRIP DETAILS INCLUDED: Accommodation as per itinerary; meals as listed in the program; bottled water on the bus; all sightseeing in an air-conditioned coach; internal flights; all entrance fees and special events listed; full educational program and study leader; pre-departure materials and reading list; local Iranian guide; professional tour manager who will accompany the group; gratuities for drivers, porters, restaurant and hotel staff for all group activities. DOES NOT INCLUDE: International airfare into and out of Iran (approximately $1,500); visa fees for Iran ($90 at time of printing); excess luggage charges; medical expenses; trip insurance; items of a purely personal nature; gratuity to local Iranian guide. COST: $7,090 per person, double occupancy; $1,310 single supplement GROUP SIZE: Minimum 15, Maximum 25

TEHRAN Friday, October 21 Head to northern Tehran to visit the Niavaran Palace and Museum, the last home of Mohammad-Reza Shah and his family. The complex boasts two palaces, a pavilion, Persian gardens, a museum and a smaller gallery. Continue on to Khomeini’s home, where one is allowed a glimpse of the dwelling. Enjoy lunch in a lively neighborhood, then stop at the Iranian Film Museum located in the beautiful Ferdowsi Garden. (B,L,D) TEHRAN Saturday, October 22 Visit the superb Carpet Museum which has a small number of excellent Iranian carpets. After lunch visit the Malek Museum and Library, which is home to several Qajarera monuments in downtown Tehran. End the day with a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art to see a part of one of the most valuable collections of modern art outside of Europe and the United States. (B,L,D) KERMAN Sunday, October 23 Meet with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation and learn about its goals to

safeguard Iran’s delicate and sacred natural environment and wildlife, such as the endangered Asiatic Cheetah. Visit the Reza Abbasi Museum, which is home to a superior collection of Persian miniatures. View the Iranian crown jewels. This spectacular collection of jewels, stored in the basement vault of the Bank Milli Iran, contains the world’s largest uncut diamond as well as the Peacock Throne. Fly to Kerman and transfer to the Pars Hotel. (B,L,D) KERMAN Monday, October 24 Visit Rayen, a preserved medieval city molded from the red clay of the surrounding desert. En route back to Kerman, stop in Mahan for a lunch at the delightful Bagh-e Tarikhi Gardens, designed as traditional Persian gardens. Head to the beautiful tomb of Shah Nematollah Vali. His tomb is an excellent example of the importance in traditional Persian architecture on the harmony between nature and building. (B,L,D) YAZD Tuesday, October 25 Visit Kerman’s historical core and walk through an attractive ensemble of three buildings inside the Kerman Bazaar, including a lovely madrassa built around a garden courtyard and a historical bath-house, now a museum. Visit a local tea-house before a delicious Persian lunch and the drive to Yazd. Stop for a rest at the 400-year-old Zeino-Din Caravanserai. Upon arrival transfer to the very traditional Moshir Garden Hotel. (B,L,D) YAZD Wednesday, October 26 In Yazd stop at the home of the former governor of the city to see and learn more about traditional Persian architecture and the badgers, wind towers ingeniously designed to catch a passing breeze. Visit the bazaar and enjoy a stroll through it before visiting the Water Museum. Stop at the Haj Khalifeh Ali Rahbar pastry shop opened in 1916. Visit

the Friday Mosque, the best preserved 14th century mosque in Iran, and enjoy a walking tour through the covered streets of Yazd’s old quarter. Spend the balance of the afternoon concentrating on the Zoroastrian religion and visit one of the two Towers of Silence. (B,L,D) SHIRAZ Thursday, October 27 Head to a small village called Taft where a large number of Zoroastrians still live. Before reaching Shiraz, visit the site of Pasargad, where Cyrus the Great defeated Astyages the Mede in 550 BC and, according to tradition, decided to build the first Achaemenian capital on the site of his victory. Continue on to Shiraz and the Homa Hotel. (B,L,D) SHIRAZ Friday, October 28 Today we enjoy a full-day excursion to Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenian Empire and one of the world’s most beautiful and spectacular archaeological sites. This palace city was built by craftsmen from around Darius’ vast empire. Superb bas reliefs depict the flow of ritual processions. After lunch sitting in the shade of grape vines, visit Naghsh-E Rostam, which contains the carved tombs of four Achaemenian kings. Return to Shiraz. (B,L,D) SHIRAZ Saturday, October 29 Visit the Shiraz bazaar and the 19th century Eram Gardens built in a quadripartite Persian Paradise Garden structure. Explore the citadel or Arg-e Karim Khan, built in 1766 using the best architects and artists and materials of the time. Stop at the Pink Mosque or Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque, which is the oldest and one of the most elegant mosques in southern Iran. Continue on to the tomb of Saadi, one of the major Persian poets of the time and known all over the

world for the quality and depth of his social and moral thoughts in his writings. End the day at the tomb of the celebrated poet Hafez, which is located in a small garden. (B,L,D) ISFAHAN Sunday, October 30 Drive to Isfahan, stopping en route for lunch. Upon arrival in Isfahan, visit Hasht Behesht which is located in the center of the Garden of Nightingales (the Bagh-e Bulbul), and is one of Isfahan’s two surviving Safavid pavilions. Transfer to the delightful Abbasi Hotel, a converted caravanserai. (B,L,D) ISFAHAN Monday, October 31 Isfahan is perhaps the most beautiful of all Iranian cities. Visit the Palace of Forty Columns, a charming pavilion where the walls and ceilings are covered with frescoes and paintings. Walk to the Maydan-e Shah or Imam Square, the central focus of this fascinating city that never failed to inspire and awe European merchants and ambassadors to the Safavid court. Explore the Lotfallah Mosque, the Ali Qapu Palace and the towering portal of the Shah Mosque. After lunch, spend the afternoon exploring the bazaar and learning more about traditional crafts in Iran. (B,L,D) ISFAHAN Tuesday, November 1 Visit the Friday Mosque with its tiled ivans, vaulted ceilings and lofty domes that display more than 800 years of Persian religious architecture. Admire some of the five bridges crossing the Zayendehrud River and wander through the city’s fascinating Armenian quarter. Enjoy a farewell dinner this evening. (B,L,D) ISFAHAN TO U.S. Wednesday, November 2 Depart Isfahan in the early morning and arrive back in the United States.

WHAT TO EXPECT Participants must be in very good health and able to keep up with an active group. In order to participate, one should be able to walk 1-2 miles per day comfortably, climb steep stairs without handrails or assistance and walk and stand for periods of two hours at a time. Fall is a lovely time to travel in Iran when temperatures range from 60-85 degrees Fahrenheit. The infrastructure in Iran is quite good, with modern roads and buses. Hotels are comfortable, with private bathrooms and air-conditioning. Food is freshly prepared and healthy. During the program, participants should be dressed modestly and women will be required to have their head covered while in public areas. Alcohol is not permitted in Iran. More details will be provided upon registering for the trip.

RESERVATION FORM

OCTOBER 18-NOVEMBER 2, 2016

Name 1 Name 2 Address City/State/Zip

Home Phone

Cell phone

STUDY LEADER

Email Address Enclosed is a deposit of Enclosed is my check

($500 per person) for

Charge my deposit to my

spaces.

Visa

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CARD #

Expires

Security code

Authorized Cardholder Signature

Date

Final payment must be by check. Please make checks payable to “Distant Horizons.” Do not write “Iran” on your check. Your deposit is fully refundable up until 14 days after receipt of your reservation form. A confirmation letter, full terms and conditions, reading list and a travel insurance application will be mailed to you upon receipt of your deposit.

ROOM ARRANGEMENTS Single Supplement Double Occupancy; I will be sharing a room with: I would prefer a roommate, but will pay the single supplement if one is not available.

TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS I/we wish to be booked on the suggested group flight from SFO I/we wish to be booked on a departing flight from: I/we will make travel arrangements to arrive in Tehran and depart from Isfahan PLEASE RETURN THIS FORM ALONG WITH YOUR DEPOSIT TO: Commonwealth Club Travel 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 You may also fax the form to 415.597.6729

Phone: (415) 597-6720 | Fax: (415) 597-6729 | travel@commonwealthclub.org Please note the State Department has had a Travel Warning for Iran since 1979. You can read this Travel Warning at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_920.html. Our tour operator has operated many trips to Iran. The Commonwealth Club and our tour operator are closely monitoring the situation in Iran and will not operate the trip if the situation within the country becomes hostile or unsafe.

Dr. Emily Jane O’Dell is an assistant professor at Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. Previously, she held the Whittlesey Chair of History & Archaeology at the American University of Beirut, and taught at Columbia University, Brown University, and Harvard University—where she received an award for excellence in teaching. Emily completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Humanities Center. She received her Ph.D., MA, MFA, and MA from Brown University, and an additional Masters in Central Asian Studies from Columbia University. Emily’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Salon, Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and Huffington Post. Her recent academic publications touch upon Iranian cinema, Sufism, disability in Iran, Islamic law, and archaeology. In 2009, she was invited to speak (in Persian) at the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran on Iranian and Tajik cultural and historical connections. For her field research and expertise on Islam, Sufism, cultural heritage, and politics, Emily has been a State Department Critical Languages Fellow for Persian and Tajiki, Fulbright-Hays Fellow, Harvard Traveling Fellow (Iran), Edward A. Hewett Policy Fellow, American Councils Research Fellow, IREX Fellow, and Columbia Pepsico Fellow.

MAY 2 - 9 freight networks, environmentally sustainable technologies, and others. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 8:30 a.m. continental breakfast, 9 a.m.– 4 p.m. conference including lunch (see website for detailed schedule) • Notes: Co-sponsored by Mineta Transportation Institute, San Jose State University and the Center for International Trade and Transportation, METRANS Transportation Center

MONDAY, MAY MONDAY, MAY 2 2 Gray Rhinos Michele Wucker, Author, Gray Rhinos

Why has it been so hard to recognize and act on the growing number of severe storms, floods and other climate-driven weather events? Climate change is a perfect example of a gray rhino: an obvious, high-impact risk that doesn’t get the responses it deserves. Unlike its kin, the ignored elephant in the room and the unpredictable black swan, the gray rhino offers us a chance to respond. This conversation offers strategies that can move citizens, organizations and policymakers from denial to action in future efforts to respond to climate change and its far-reaching consequences. SF • CLIMATE ONE PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. networking reception

TUESDAY, MAY 3 3 TUESDAY, MAY Dr. Larry Brilliant, Chairman of Skoll Global Threats Larry Brilliant, Chairman, Skoll Global Threats; Former Executive Director, Google.org

How safe are we from an ebola, Zika, H7N9, or MERS outbreak? How can we prevent a bioterrorist attack or lab accidents? Public health expert Brilliant will discuss today’s growing pandemic risks. Brilliant was the executive director of Google.org and chaired the Presidential Advisory Committee on Bio-Surveillance. He lived in India for more than 10 years working as a United Nations medical officer, where he played a key role in the suc uytruytu cessful World Health Organization smallpox eradication program in South Asia. He also co-founded The Seva Foundation, an

international NGO whose programs and grantees have given back sight to more than 3.5 million blind people in more than 20 countries. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

WEDNESDAY, MAY WEDNESDAY, MAY 4 4 Man Interrupted: Why Young Men Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It Philip Zimbardo, Author, Man Interrupted: Why Young Men Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

Zimbardo, famous for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, is also the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m.program • MLF: Psychology • Program organizer: Patrick O’Reilly

United States Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil: Big Data and You DJ Patil, U.S. Chief Data Scientist

Big data’s role in our lives is increasing, whether we realize it or not. From influencing our health-care decisions to helping to make our streets safer, big data has changed the way that our government and the private sector are tackling some of today’s most complicated social and economic issues. Patil will discuss the benefits and controversies surrounding human-centered big data and how it affects our everyday lives. SF • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: TBD • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program

Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly: Tipping Point for Planet Earth Anthony Barnosky, Principal Investigator and Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley; Co-author, Tipping Point for Planet Earth: How Close Are We to the Edge? Elizabeth Hadly, Professor, Department of Biology, Stanford University; Co-author, Tipping Point for Planet Earth: How Close Are We to the Edge? Lisa Krieger, Science and Medicine Reporter, San Jose Mercury News—Moderator

Planet Earth is headed for a tipping point. Midway through this century, there will be more than 9 billion

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people on the planet. Already we are using most of the arable land that exists and overfishing the oceans. Water, too, is becoming scarce in many places. And the services that humans depend upon—clean drinking water, steady energy supplies, and protection from disease—are under threat. Barnosky and Hadley believe that the grand challenge of the 21st century is to change the endgame from one that looks like a train wreck to one with a brighter future. They offer their solutions to our most pressing problems. SV • Location: Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road (near Montrose and Middlefield), Palo Alto • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

Gray Rhinos May 2

Larry Brilliant May 3

THURSDAY, MAY THURSDAY, MAY 5 5 A Candid Window into the American Criminal Justice System M. Gerald Schwartzbach, Author, Leaning on the Arc

Nationally renowned criminal defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach, best known for winning the acquittal of actor Robert Blake, has written Leaning on the Arc. Mr. Schwartzbach argues that true justice can only happen when we refuse to objectify a criminal defendant—whether it is Robert Blake, civil rights activist Stephen Bingham, transplant surgeon Hootan Roozrokh, or anyone else. Actor/ writer Peter Coyote has written that Leaning on the Arc is a “fascinating book packed with great tales of injustice subverted by intelligence and passion.” SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

DJ Patil May 4

Anthony Barnosky/ Elizabeth Hadly May 4

M. Gerald Schwartzbach May 5

MONDAY, MAY MONDAY, MAY 9 9 How Behavioral Science Can Help Us Have a Good Day Caroline Webb, CEO, Sevenshift; Author, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

Webb demonstrates how tiny tweaks to our daily routines can transform our experience of what happens around us, the number of hours in the day, our level of in-

Caroline Webb May 5

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AP R I L/MAY 2016

MAY 9 - 12 telligence and even other people’s moods. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program • MLF: Business & Leadership • Program organizer: Kevin O’Malley Robert H. Lustig/ Food Addiction 2.0 May 9

Spain in Our Hearts May 9

Food Addiction 2.0 See website for panelists

This program is an update from our previous Food Addiction program; all panelists will offer updated information. Addiction is about brains, not just about behaviors. We all have the brain-reward circuitry that makes food rewarding; it’s a survival mechanism. In a healthy brain, these rewards have feedback mechanisms for satiety or “enough.” For some, the circuitry becomes dysfunctional such that the message becomes “more.” Leading researchers and clinicians will discuss many aspects of this important topic. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, 12–3 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program Organizer: Patty James

Willie Brown May 11

Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents. This regular discussion group explores new and emerging solutions to the challenges of growing older. Not only will we be uncovering interesting new products at the intersection of aging and technology, we also will be conducting a series of ongoing deepdive 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 quality of life through our partner in this initiative, Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. The discussions will be 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. check-in, 2 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

Spain in Our Hearts For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to common wealthclub.org

Adam Hochschild, Author, Spain in Our Hearts

Monday Night Philosophy follows award-winning author Adam Hoch-

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

schild deep into the three crucial years in the 1930s when the Spanish Civil War dominated headlines in America and around the world. Volunteers rushed to help Spain’s democratically elected government fight off an uprising by right-wing army officers heavily backed by Hitler and Mussolini. Adam Hochschild brings alive a group of men and women who lived through this painful and dramatic period: a few are familiar figures like Hemingway and Orwell; others, until now, have been completely unknown. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: In association with Humanities West

WEDNESDAY, MAY WEDNESDAY, MAY 11 11 Lecture-demonstration: Gamelan Degung Ensemble of West Java Henry Spiller, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Music, University of California Davis UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble ,with guest artist Burhan Sukarma

Development of a music ensemble with tuned bronze percussion instruments, drums, and a bamboo flute, collectively called degung, mirrors the turbulent history of West Java, Indonesia. Hear several selections performed by the eight-person UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble, joined by guest artist Burhan Sukarma. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program • MLF: The Arts • Program organizer: Marianne Ryan

Stop Elder Fraud: Seniors and the Law David G. Knitter, Attorney

Knitter will mark the month of May as Abuse Prevention Month for Seniors and Vulnerable Persons by presenting a program based on their informative “Seniors & the Law” guide. The program also will include how the state bar can help protect consumers who have a problem with their lawyers, a problem that can be of particular concern to the elderly and their adult children. 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

Willie Brown: Annual Commonwealth Club Lecture Willie Brown, Former Mayor, San Francisco; Former Speaker, California State Assembly

Former San Francisco Mayor Brown will give his annual lecture on national and regional political trends. A two-term mayor of San Francisco, legendary speaker of the California State Assembly, and widely regarded as one of the most influential African-American politicians of the late 20th century, Brown has been at the center of California politics, government and civic life for an astonishing four decades. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • Notes: Members-only plus 1 paying guest

Chris Anderson Chris Anderson, TED Curator; Author, TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

What makes a great speech? Learn helpful dos and don’ts from the man who has worked with Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, social activists, and Nobel Prize Winners, and more. SV • Location: TBA • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing

THURSDAY, MAY THURSDAY, MAY 12 12 Waterfont Walking Tour Join Rick Evans for his new walking 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 entrepreneurs, controversial artists and labor organizers who created this recently revitalized neighborhood. This tour will give you a lively overview of the historic significance of this neighborhood. 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: Must pre-register

Creating Quality of Life in a Sustainable Global Economy See website for panelists

Following successful Paris climate talks, nations are crafting policies to

SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

MAY 12 - 17 mitigate global warming. Building sustainable economics that provide a high quality of life for everyone is a challenge that must be accomplished in a few decades. Join our distinguished panel from UC Berkeley in a discussion of how to live meaningfully in a healthy, sustainable and equitable global economy. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Business & Leadership, Environment & Natural Resources • Program Organizer: Ann Clark

Sea Heroes: Extreme Edition Peter Willcox, Author, Greenpeace Captain: My Adventures in Protecting the Future of Our Planet

Peter Willcox was captain of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior on the night in 1985 when it was bombed by French secret agents and sank off New Zealand. One shipmate was killed. Last year, a French agent who attached the mines to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior apologized for his deadly act. Does Peter Willcox accept the apology? 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. networking reception

FRIDAY, MAY FRIDAY, MAY 1313 Rereading The Federalist in the 21st Century Sanford Levinson, Professor of Government and the John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas-Austin; Author, An Argument Open to All: Rereading The Federalist in the 21st Century

In An Argument Open to All, renowned legal scholar Sanford Levinson takes a novel approach to what is perhaps America’s most famous political tract. Rather than concern himself with the authors as historical figures, or how The Federalist helps us understand the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Levinson examines each essay for the political wisdom it can offer us today. In 85 short essays, each keyed to a different essay in The Federalist, he considers such questions as whether present generations can rethink their constitutional arrangements; how much effort we should exert to

preserve America’s traditional culture; and whether The Federalist’s arguments even suggest the desirability of world government. SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 11:30 p.m. networking reception, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

SATURDAY, MAY SATURDAY, MAY 14 14 Private Docent Tour of Oscar de la Renta: the Retrospective This world-premiere retrospective celebrates the life and career of one of the world’s most influential fashion designers. Including more than 130 pieces produced over five decades, the garments are organized into thematic sections: early work; Spanish, Eastern, Russian and garden influences; daywear and eveningwear; and ball gowns and red carpet ensembles. The special exhibition traces the rise of de la Renta’s career in Spain; his formative years in the world’s most iconic fashion houses; and his eventual role as a designer for many of the most influential and celebrated personalities of the 20th and 21st centuries. SF • Location: De Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., San Francisco • Time: 2:45 p.m. (Meet at the De Young Information Desk) • MLFs: International Relations, The Arts • Program organizer: Norma Walden • Notes: Tickets must be purchased by April 25

MONDAY, MAY MONDAY, MAY 16 16 Explore the World from The Commonwealth Club All interested Club members are welcome to attend our bimonthly, one-hour planning meetings of the International Relations Member-Led Forum. We focus on Europe, Latin America, Africa and worldwide topics. Join us to discuss current international issues and plan programs for the rest of 2016. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5 p.m. program • MLF: International Relations • Program organizers: Norma Walden and Linda Calhoun

Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social Join us as we explore the biggest, most controversial and surprising political issues with expert com-

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mentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major 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 individuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member social (open to all attendees). 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

Sean Carroll: The Origins of Life and the Universe Itself Sean Carroll, Theoretical Physicist and Professor, Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology; Author, The Particle at the End of the Universe and The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

Carroll, the award-wining author of The Particle at the End of the Universe, explains the difference between how the world works at the quantum, the cosmic and the human levels—and how each connects to the other. Carroll examines the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness and the universe. He explores how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us.

Sanford Levinson May 13

Oscar de la Renta May 14

Sean Carroll May 16

Jojo Capece May 17

SV • Location: Cubberley Community Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road (near Montrose and Middlefield), Palo Alto • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing • Notes: In association with Wonderfest

TUESDAY, MAY TUESDAY, MAY 17 17 Portofino Souvenir Jojo Capece, Author, Portofino Souvenir

Jojo Capece returns to the Club to speak about Portofino Souvenir, her third novel. Set in magnificent Portofino, Italy, Jojo’s latest focuses on la dolce vita, marriage Italian-style, millions and billions of laundered Euros, confiscated art and intrigue. Embedded in the novel is the true story of Countess Francesca Agusta, one of Europe’s wealthiest women, whose mysterious death illuminates the truth that being one of the 1 percent can be deadly.

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

AP R I L/MAY 2016

MAY 18 - 25 SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: In association with Humanities West Nancy C. Unger May 19

WEDNESDAY, MAY WEDNESDAY, MAY 18 18 Steve Phillips: Hello New American Majority, Goodbye Old Politics Steve Phillips, Civil Rights Attorney; Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Author, Brown Is the New White

Peter Honigsberg May 20

Celtic Myths and Legends May 23

Ashanti Branch May 24

The U.S. population has fundamentally changed, says Steve Phillips, and a new American voting majority has been created by progressive people of color along with progressive white voters. Philips says these two groups make up 51 percent of all eligible voters in America, and that majority is growing larger every day. By failing to properly appreciate this reality, progressives are at risk of missing this moment in history—and losing. Phillips’ new book is a searing indictment of the Democratic Party’s practice of courting white swing voters and a discussion of how America’s changed demographics have revolutionary implications for U.S. politics in 2016 and beyond. 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: Part of the Club’s Good Lit Series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

THURSDAY, MAY THURSDAY, MAY 19 19 The Science of Open Spaces May 25

ends with a summary of the various perspectives participants expressed. Everyone is welcome to attend.

FRIDAY, MAY FRIDAY, MAY 2020

TUESDAY, MAY TUESDAY, MAY 24 24

Guantanamo Project

Ashanti Branch: Taking Off the Mask in the Ever Forward Club

Peter Honigsberg, Professor of Law, University of San Francisco

Honisberg, whose research and teaching at USF include international criminal law, terrorism and post-9/11 issues, will discuss his long-term project about Guantanamo, which features interviews with former detainees and others associated with the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. networking reception, noon program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

MONDAY, MAY MONDAY, MAY 23 23 Humanities West Book Discussion: Celtic Myths and Legends Join us to discuss Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Berresford Ellis, an enchanting collection of the sagas of gods and goddesses, fabulous beasts, strange creatures, and heroes like Cuchulain, Fingal and King Arthur, including popular myths and legends from all six Celtic cultures: Irish, Scots, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Discussion led by Lynn Harris.

Nancy C. Unger, Author, Belle La Follette

SF • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 4:30 p.m. check-in, 5 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco

The Unexpected Belle La Follette: Progressive Model for 2016

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

• Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation; in association with Humanities West

In her new book Belle La Follette: Progressive Era Reformer, Nancy C. Unger reveals some surprising truths about this radical reformer (18591931) denounced as “disgraceful to the white race.” La Follette fought for votes for women, peace, civil rights … and more. Come discover, through a richly illustrated presentation, the progressive activist hailed by The New York Times as “perhaps the least known, yet the most influential of all the American women who have had to do with public affairs in this country.”

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SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

Ashanti Branch, M.Ed., Project Fellow, Stanford’s d.school; Studied in Civil Engineering, Cal Poly–San Luis Obispo; Fulbright 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

Ashanti Branch works to change how young men of color interact with their education and how their schools interact with them. As a young teacher in the East Bay, Branch recognized, “When my students aren’t learning, it’s not usually because they can’t; it’s because they have deep-seated behaviors that are holding them back.” This led Branch in 2004 to create the Ever Forward Club to provide a safe place for these young men to “take off their masks and be supported for who they really are,” and 93 percent of its club members have gone on to college. Both documentarian Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Stanford’s “design thinking” program have contributed to Branch’s efforts to grow this organization to serve thousands of Bay Area students. Branch and a few of his students will use this concept of “taking off the mask” to show us how, in the Ever Forward Club, they “look behind our masks that we wear on a daily basis and that often get in our way of living truly fulfilling lives.” That will introduce the kind of work they do, and help us understand why they achieve such excellent results. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLFs: Personal Growth • Program organizer: Sandy Hunt

WEDNESDAY, MAY WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 25 The Science of Open Spaces Charles Curtin, Senior Fellow, The Cen-

SF: San Francisco SV: Silicon Valley EB: East Bay NB: North Bay

MAY 25 - 27 / LATE-BREAKING PROGRAMS ter for Natural Resources Environmental Policy, University of Montana, Missoula

Drawing from years of work in East Africa, the western United States and with fishermen from the coast of Maine, ecologist and conservationist Charles Curtin shares his experiences and scientific research to preserve the ecologies of large earth and water environments. His diverse and pragmatic scientific work has resulted in the development of important real-world approaches for the sustainability, renewal, restoration and health of large areas, including the United States’ West Coast ocean coast line and habitats that are critical to the quality of life, economies and environments of California, Oregon and Washington. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Business & Leadership, Environment & Natural Resources • Program Organizer: Ann Clark • Notes: In association with Island Press

James Madara, M.D., CEO, American Medical Association: The Future of Health Care James Madara, M.D., Executive Vice President and CEO, American Medical Association; Former Dean, University of Chicago School of Medicine

The AMA, founded in 1847, is the largest association of physicans in the United States, with the stated goal of enhancing the delivery of care and enabling physicians and health teams to partner effectively with patients to achieve better health for all. Join AMA CEO Dr. James Madara for a candid conversation about bringing down the costs of medicine while still treating patients with the highest standards. Dr. Madara will particularly address what he says is America’s biggest health threat: costly, chronic diseases and their toll on public health and the economy. He says the future of health care is combating these diseases before they become life-altering ailments, and harnessing the power of technological innovation to empower today’s physicians and better train those of tomorrow. Bring your questions. SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in; 6:30 p.m. program

Mark Kurlansky: The History of Paper Mark Kurlansky, Author, Cod, Salt, and Paper: Paging Through History

For the past two millennia, paper has been one of the simplest pieces of human technology. It has formed the foundation of civilizations and promoted revolutions. It has also been essential to the development of education, commerce, arts, religion, and language. But what will we start to lose as we continue to move toward a paperless society? Kurlansky traces the evolution of paper and explains why paper will never go out of style. SV • Location: Schultz Hall, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing • Notes: In partnership with the Oshman Family JCC; photo by Sylvia Plachy

THURSDAY, MAY THURSDAY, MAY 26 26 How to Write Your Own (or Someone Else’s) Obituary Francine Brevetti, Biographer; Author; Workshop Leader; Journalist

Brevetti will take a step-by-step approach to explaining one of the most difficult tasks that most people face—and typically under difficult circumstances. Writing one’s own obituary can save a loved one from that responsibility, provided the relative is able to complete it on their own. Step by step, Brevetti will lead us through the process of where to find resources that might be available to help, proper format and contents, and publishing the obituary. Why take chances? Learn from a professional how to write your own obituary, or that of someone else. 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

Cultivate Your Entrepreneurial Spirit Jessica Herrin, Founder and CEO, Stella & Dot Family Brands; Author, Find Your Extraordinary: Dream Bigger, Live Happier and Achieve Success on Your Own Terms

Serial entrepreneur Jessica Herrin will explain how you can turn your passion into your career and live the life that you’ve always dreamed of by cultivating your entrepreneurial spirit.

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SF • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing

FRIDAY, MAY 2727 FRIDAY, MAY Nob Hill Walking Tour 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 neighborhood. This included prominent tycoons such as Leland Stanford, and other members of the Big Four. Highlights include the history of four landmark hotels: The Fairmont, Mark Hopkins, Stanford Court, and Huntington Hotel. Visit the city’s largest house of worship, Grace Cathedral, and discover architectural tidbits and anecdotes about the railroad barons and silver kings. A true SF experience of elegance, urbanity, scandals and fabulous views.

James Madara May 25

Mark Kurlanksy May 25

Francine Brevetti May 26

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: Must pre-register

LATE-BREAKINGPROGRAMS PROGRAMS LATE-BREAKING

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 The Health Hazards of One Degree

Jessica Herrin May 26

Rachel Morello, Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Join us for a conversation about how burning fossil fuels could impact your personal well-being and what you can do to protect yourself.. 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. Climate One Connect networking reception

Nob Hill Walking Tour May 27

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20 Mayors Libby Schaaf and Sam Liccardo Sam Liccardo, Mayor, San Jose Libby Schaaf, Mayor, Oakland

What are cities and counties doing to prepare for floods, droughts and other severe weather happening with increasing intensity and frequency? SF • CLIMATE ONE PROGRAM • Location: Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception

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

AP R I L/MAY 2016

SISTERS IN LAW: RUTH BADER GINSBURG & SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR

The first two women to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court were the opposites in many ways—political background, physical appearance, religion, and more. But they both brought sharp legal minds to the bench—along with the determination that they would be the first of many.

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The first two women to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor (left) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (right).

Linda Hirshman, Lawyer; Cultural Historian; Author, Sisters in Law. Excerpted from her December 4, 2015, Club speech. This program is part of the Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. On the morning of June 26, 1996, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman appointed to the high court since its founding, slipped through the red velvet curtain behind the bench and took her seat at the end. Five places along the majestic curved bench sat Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman justice of the Supreme Court of the United States—or the FWOTSC, as she slyly called herself when she found out that the Supreme Court called itself the SCOTUS. Each woman justice sported an ornamental white collar on their somber black robes. But otherwise, there was nothing particularly to link them to each other anymore than to link either one of them to any of the other justices sitting on the court. On that day, however, the public got a rare glimpse at the ties that bound the two most powerful women in the land. Speaking from the depths of her high-backed chair that towered over her tiny frame, Justice Ginsburg delivered the decision of the court in United States v Virginia. From that morning in June of 1996, Virginia’s state-run Virginia Military Institute, which had trained young men since before the Civil War, would have to take females into its ranks. The Constitution of the United States, which

required the equal protection of the law for all people, including women, demanded it. Few people listening knew that Ginsberg got to speak for the court that morning because her sister in law, O’Connor, had decided that she should. After the justices met in conference and voted to order VMI to admit women, it is customary in the court for the chief justice, if he is in the majority, or the senior justice in the majority, to assign the opinion. And he assigned it to Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court. But she would not take it. She knew who had labored as a Supreme Court lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union from 1970 to 1980, to get the court to call women equal, and now the formal job was done. This should be Ruth’s, she said. On decision day, justices do not read their entire opinions, which often go for scores of pages. They read a summary of their decision, and they get to decide what part of the decision they include and read aloud. It’s a work of political theater, the reading aloud of the opinions in these very important cases. That morning, Ginsburg chose to include in her summary reading a reference to justice O’Connor’s 1982 opinion in Hogan v Mississippi, a decision where O’Connor provided the critical fifth vote and wrote the opinion right after she came on the Court. O’Connor’s opinion for the closely divided court in AP R I L/MAY 2016

Hogan, Ginsburg reminded her listeners that morning, had laid down the rule that states may not close entrance gates based on fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females. Then Ginsburg, the legendarily undemonstrative justice, paused and, lifting her eyes from her text, thought of the legacy that the two of them were building together. She nodded at Justice O’Connor and resumed reading the opinion. Why are we so interested in Ruth Bader Ginsburg? The answer is not because she is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. If that were sufficient, then we would all be deeply immersed in works about Potter Stewart, but we’re not. She matters because she changed the world for women. If you’re thinking about justices who changed the world for women, you cannot omit Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court of the United States. [O’Connor and Ginsburg] came into a hostile world.

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They changed that world. They then lived in the changed world that they had helped to alter, and using their new [positions] in a different society, made more change. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is doing it still. Consider the metanarrative, what we have here. Republican, Democrat. Born and raised on a ranch in Southeast Arizona; born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn. A Goldwater girl, an anti-Joseph McCarthy liberal. And, most important, a blonde and a brunette. Sandra Day O’Connor was born in 1930 on a ranch in Southeast Arizona. The nearest school was three hours away and honest to God, unlike what our parents told us about how they grew up, there really wasn’t any electricity or running water for some time during her childhood. For eight years, she was an only child and I believe that this is very meaningful in terms of understanding her success as the first. She was alone on that ranch with her parents who treated her as a member of the adult society that was their little family, and there was no one else around to explain to her how being a girl she was inferior. The ranch hands weren’t gonna say that. The cattle weren’t gonna say that. Her parents didn’t say that. She was the first. She always performed whatever was expected of her and she never made excuses. She was a Republican from the day she started a public life in Phoenix in 1957. Her Republican ties served her well. She rose through Arizona state government, and ultimately became an appeals court judge in Arizona. Victory has a thousand fathers. People think that Chief Justice [Warren Burger] put Sandra Day O’Connor forward. People think that her old law school friend, William Rehnquist, was a big sponsor for her. People think it might have been Barry Goldwater who was very important. And she and Goldwater were tight the entire time that they were together on this Earth. I found some documentation that seems to indicate that it was actually [Ronald] Reagan himself. She had come to Reagan’s attention when she was in the Arizona legislature. So she goes to the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, back not-at-the-ranch, in Brooklyn in 1933, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is born to a new immigrant Jewish family. Her father very astutely decided he would go into the fur business just as the Great Depression landed, so they were of very modest means. The sad thing about Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s childhood is that her mother ... died of cancer the day before Ginsburg’s high school graduation. She had, despite their modest means, put money away for her brilliant daughter to go to Cornell, and with some scholarship and stuff, she did. I’ll tell you a secret about Cornell in those years: They treat you like an equal, and once that happens to you, you are ruined for life. You will never accept being treated unequally willingly again. She had an inspirational mentor who inspired her to go to law school, and she met and married the sainted Martin Ginsburg. She followed him to Harvard Law School [and] to Columbia. She graduated first in her class at Columbia

Law School. Her professors from Harvard and Columbia went to bat for her and tried to get her a clerkship on the Supreme Court, but none of the Supreme Court justices would take a woman clerk. They could not get her a clerkship on the second circuit in New York, where they lived. None of the second circuit judges would take a woman clerk. She finally wound up clerking for a district court judge, which is the lowest federal court. And then she went to Rutgers to teach. ... [In] 1993 Clinton put Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Extraordinarily disciplined women, everybody agrees with that. The little one, the big one, the blonde one, the brunette one, the Jewish one, the Christian one, the Republican one, the Democratic one, the East Coast, the Left Coast. It doesn’t matter. These character traits were present in both of them. Most important of all, they did not think they were the only ones who deserve to rise. When O’Connor got the news that Ronald Reagan had nominated her to be a Supreme Court justice, she was worried. She was worried, she said, because it was okay to be the first, but she did not want to be the last. It’s so important that women hear that message even now. And they were fabulous, and could easily have said, “God, I’m so brilliant, I’m so beautiful, I’m so charismatic, I’m so clever with people. I deserve to be here, but the other women, not so much.” But they never fell into that trap. Barriers did not stop them. Mockery did not faze them. Audience question-and-answer session AUDIENCE MEMBER: Would you comment on the pressure on Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire before the Obama presidency is up so that hopefully he could appoint someone else before he leaves office? LINDA HIRSHMAN: How likely do you think it is that the United States Senate would confirm anyone that remotely resembled Ruth Bader Ginsburg for that vacancy now? I’m going with zero, okay? The time for her to resign was before the Senate changed hands in 2014, and I actually believe there might’ve been a filibuster even then. So two things are true about Ginsburg. She is completely compos mentis [of sound mind]. I just saw her two years ago at the New York Historical Society and she was reciting whole passages of the Constitution by heart, from memory, for the audience. I just saw her last year going into great depth at the pros and cons of The Marriage of Figaro versus Don Giovanni as the greatest opera, and reciting the plot of Il Trovatore, which I defy most people on this Earth to actually do. So she’s fine. She loves her work. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Talking about opera, do you have any sense of the friendship we understand exists between Justice Ginsburg and Justice Scalia? HIRSHMAN: I think I know something about the friendship between Ginsburg and Scalia. I interviewed some of their colleagues [who] sat with them on the

D.C. circuit, before it was a famous friendship, and they were friends then. One of their colleagues told me that when the judges went on trips—the judges go on junkets all the time—that Scalia played the role in their outings that Marty Ginsburg played in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s private life, in that he was sociable and charming and funny, and she’s a little inner-directed. So Scalia did the social labor for Ginsburg in the public world the way Marty legendarily did it in the private world. They correct each other’s drafts. They have a common interest in language and grammar and syntax and proper writing. They’re both deep and complicated people. She is capable of great friendship and great love. I saw a lot of her correspondence, and people reveal themselves in their letters in ways you don’t see most other ways. It was wonderful to have all of those letters. Underneath that shy exterior is a very affectionate person. One year she

How likely do you think it is that the U.S. Senate would confirm anyone that remotely resembled Ruth Bader Ginsburg now? Zero. took all of her clerks that have married one another to a dinner on Valentine’s Day at a very fancy Asian restaurant in D.C.; when they got to the end, their fortune cookies each held a love poem inside. Right, so she’s a person, and I think she’s friends with Scalia. He makes her laugh, they share a love of opera, they share a love of fine writing. They share a love of family; they’re each very good family people. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Would you comment on Justice O’Connor’s thinking about her role in Bush v Gore? HIRSHMAN: In fairness I have to say something about that in the book, because by virtue of casting one of the five votes in Bush v Gore and cutting off the challenge, the outcome of which we will never know, and then retiring from the court in 2005 and handing her seat to George W. Bush to fill—by those two acts she has an effect on women’s equality. What happened is when she left and was replaced by Samuel Alito, it made Anthony Kennedy the crucial swing vote. It really hurt women, what she did. There’s a video of her discussing her breast cancer treatment, in which she’s very courageously talking about it so other women will take courage from her example. “I didn’t know the doctors weren’t gonna just tell you what to do, and now they’re asking me what I should do,” she said in that Sandra Day O’Connor way. “So I just did what I do at the court. I gathered the facts, I made up my mind, and I never looked back.” AP R I L/MAY 2016

WHY REAGAN MATTERED

Liberal critics claim that Ronald Reagan wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be understood by the Republican Party of today. But liberals also might not understand him, because a lot of what made him was unknown to most people.

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Jacob Weisberg, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, The Slate Group; Former Editor, Slate Magazine; Author, Ronald Reagan. From his January 20, 2016, Club speech. This program is part of the Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Reagan grew up in western Illinois, downstate Illinois, in a series of towns. He lived in 10 different homes by the time he was 10 years old. The reason he lived in so many different homes was that his father was an alcoholic and kept losing his job and they kept going to a new place to try to start fresh. They finally ended up in Dixon, which was the town where Reagan spent most of his teenage years. It was a really troubled household he grew up in. Moving that much, he couldn’t keep any friends; he had to make new friends every year. At some point, the father left and had a mistress in another town. The family was very poor. Reagan had a tough childhood. When you hear him talk about it or when he wrote about it, which he did in this really interesting autobiography he wrote in 1964 called Where’s the Rest of Me?, Reagan described it as idyllic, as a Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn childhood. He talks about walking through the woods in Dixon, where he was a lifeguard. He would sit out in the sun, and he famously saved 77 people from drowning, which is true. He was happy as can be. He lived in his imagination, he loved theater, acting, making up stories. He describes also just being happy, being out in nature, by himself he said, on the Rock River, which ran through Dixon. In the winter it would freeze solid and you would put on your ice skates and go skate against the wind, so when you came back you could hold your coat up and it’d be like a sail and you would just fly back on the river. He really describes it in these very evocative terms. As idyllic. Then you hear what his brother has to say about it. His brother said, “We had bone soup every night. We begged liver from the butcher and said it was for our cat, because we couldn’t afford anything to eat. One year dad drank away the money that was supposed to be for Christmas presents and we didn’t get any presents. He’d walk right through the screen door.” You hear these two descriptions of different things. I think [Ronald Reagan] developed this ability to live inside his head and to tune out the reality that was hard to take when he was growing up. It wasn’t just a mechanism but actually physiological in a lot of ways. Reagan had terrible eyesight; he didn’t even know his eyesight was bad until he was 13 and he put on his mother’s glasses. He said, “My God, it’s all clear now.” Reagan didn’t have close friends. He wasn’t close to any of his children. He was probably close, personally close to two people in his life: his mother, and we know almost nothing about their relationship, because neither of them wrote anything about it; and Nancy, who was the love of his life, and who I think understood him better—and he

felt more understood by—than anybody else. But even Nancy said, “Even I come up against this wall, you can only get so far with Ronnie. He doesn’t really let people in.” What we do understand is what he thought about politics, about all sorts of issues. One of the real surprises to me working on this book was that Reagan was a writer, and he was actually a really good writer. He had a very natural narrative frame of mind. His training came as a radio announcer, doing sports

He developed this ability to live inside his head and to tune out the reality that was hard to take when he was growing up. commentaries. The way he wrote was really the way one writes a radio script. He wrote for the voice. George Shultz once wrote this very interesting thing [about] when he was secretary of state [and] giving Reagan a speech he was proud of to read, and asking him what he thought. Reagan said, “Well, it’s good. It’s good, George, but it’s not how I would do it.” “What do you mean? How would you do it differently?” [Reagan] said, “Well, you write for the eye. You write to be read. But I write to be heard.” Reagan wrote probably every day of his life. He wrote letters. He kept diaries. He wrote his autobiography. In some ways the most interesting things he wrote were these radio commentaries he did in the 1970s. He would do five a week. He wrote them out longhand; he had no help— he didn’t have anybody writing for him until his 1980 presidential campaign—and they are really good. They’re persuasive, they’re human. They’re compelling. Reagan had a great voice for radio. He had this warm, soothing voice. These commentaries completely give the lie to the idea that Reagan was a dullard. They’re intelligent. He’s not an intellectual, but he was original in his thinking. He had a lot of ideas that he develops in these commentaries that were not the standard-issue Republican or conservative politics from that period. They didn’t match Barry Goldwater, who was a big influence. They didn’t match William F. Buckley, who was an influence. Probably the most important thing about them was that he had this idea that the Soviet Union was vulnerable, and this actually went back to the early 60s. I spent a little time out at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. I’d been there a few days going through some papers I was interested in. The librarian came over to me and said, “Are you interested in seeing what’s in Reagan’s desk?” I said “Sure. What desk?” She said they packed up the contents; “It’s not part of the official collection of the library, but we have the boxed contents of the desk.” These were the things that he took with him from his home office

Opposite page: Ronald and Nancy Reagan waving from a limousine at the Inaugural Parade. Washington D.C., 1981.

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in Pacific Palisades to Sacramento, Sacramento back to Pacific Palisades, to Washington and then home with him when he left the White House in 1989. And there´s a desk diary, and they´re these little mementos and odds and ends. There are a couple of pieces of writing. One piece of writing, which is really not known, is a thing he wrote in 1962 called “Are Liberals Really Liberal?” It was a long essay. Basically, the argument he makes is that the Soviet Union is doomed; and it’s not doomed because it’s going to lose in a military conflict, it’s doomed because he thinks communism is a violation of human nature, thinks nobody would want to live like that. The clock is ticking on how long any people would tolerate living like that. It’s one of these things you occasionally read by Reagan where it is both naive and incredibly insightful, and it’s a sort of application of common sense to a subject on which there was maybe not that much common sense being applied by a lot of people on the right or arguably on the left.

He comes back again and again to this idea that communism is intolerable, but because it’s intolerable it’s vulnerable. That idea was actually a little embarrassing on the right, because there was nobody else who thought that, nobody else in mainstream politics who was arguing in 1962 that the Soviet Union was just going to fall apart at some point because people wouldn’t stand for it any more. But you find this thread coming up again and again. He quoted this piece that was in the type script in his desk in a radio commentary he did in 1977. He kind of mined some of that material from the unpublished essay, and he comes back again and again to this idea that basically communism is intolerable, but because it’s intolerable it’s vulnerable. We start to see connected with this a really deep antipathy to nuclear weapons. Part of his interesting early past was he was a pacifist. When he was in college in the 1930s, he was very affected by a lot of the literature of the First World War. There’s a British anti-war play called Journey’s End, which he was taken to see by his girlfriend’s parents when he was a sophomore in college, that really moved him. He wrote this short story that’s basically a rip-off of Journey’s End, about the waste of these young men’s lives. It comes up again and again at various moments. Reagan, after he was drafted, worked at Camp Roach in Hollywood, and it was essentially where they made all sorts of training and propaganda films for the Army. In 1945, they got the first films from Auschwitz, the liberation of the death camps. He saw these films that later gave rise to this total mess that he claimed

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he had been involved in liberating Auschwitz, which was a misunderstanding based on his conversation with some Hebrew speakers. But he was profoundly affected by this. His son, Ron Jr., said he made him watch these tapes. It played into this pacifist side. When he was running for president the first time, he went to visit the facility in Colorado, which is the deep-bunker headquarters of NORAD, the nuclear defense system. He said, “What if the Soviets were to launch a first strike? How do we stop it?” They said, “It’s nothing you can do. We launch a counter strike.” Reagan was so horrified by that idea; he never really understood that there was no option other than to respond or not respond. You start to see, in the first term, alongside defense buildup and this militaristic language and this period when there’s no direct negotiation with the Soviets for the longest period during the Cold War, him trying to reach out to Soviet leaders in this very personal way. [He talked about how] we have got to do something to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict and get rid of nuclear weapons. He starts to say that first in a personal letter he wrote in the hospital when he was recovering from the assassination attempt in 1981, a letter he hand-wrote to Brezhnev that Al Haig, who was secretary of state at the time, was vehemently opposed to him sending. Reagan did end up sending a version of his handwritten letter with a more belligerent cover letter, written by the State Department. Reagan went on TV and read parts of this letter, and every time there was a new Soviet premier, which there are a whole lot of in his first term, he would write these letters, multiple handwritten letters. That was part of what I wanted to see in the Reagan library, where he says “You and I have the power to destroy the world, and it’s terrible, and we have to do something to reduce this risk. And one thing we have to do is we have to have direct line of communication, so we don´t have some sort of misunderstanding or accident. But I also want you to understand that we don´t have any offensive designs toward you.” He would then get back this Soviet boilerplate about western imperialism and hegemony. By the time Gorbachev came to power in ’95, he had in some ways given up and he had to be persuaded, partly by Margaret Thatcher, that Gorbachev actually was worth talking to and would respond. I think the conventional conservative interpretation, if you want this sort of triumphalist view of the end of the Cold War, if you will, is that Reagan drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy. The defense build-up made them realize they couldn’t compete. They essentially capitulated because of his militaristic first-term strategy of challenging the Soviets in every theater. In Central America and Asia, nothing they did went unchecked by the American military. We showed that we could build up a much stronger nuclear presence. I don’t think that’s what happened at all. That was certainly an element of Reagan’s strategy in the first term, but it failed. I think at the end of the first term, he saw that after

four years, he hadn’t been able to make any sort of direct contact with a Soviet leader. There’d been no negotiations. Tensions in the Cold War were as high as they’d ever been; 1983 was probably the low point. He had come to be seen as this aggressive militaristic figure. He decided to really, pretty radically change strategies … in the second term. He announces this as soon as he’s reelected in a couple of interviews. He became a proponent of really radical disarmament. Disarmament that was so radical that it scared everyone in his own government, because he said we have to get rid of all nuclear weapons. And lots of people dismissed that as a joke, a fantasy, not real. It was very real from Reagan’s point of view. He had a kind of mission to get rid of nuclear weapons. At that point, in his second term, he was essentially surrounded by people who were violently opposed to the thing that he kept saying he wanted. They dismissed him,

they ignored him, they didn’t take him seriously. He had one ally, who was George Shultz. George Shultz was the person who said to the bureaucracy, to the American government, look, this is the president’s policy and we have to take it seriously, and we have to be prepared for the idea that what Reagan proposed at Reykjavik in 1986—and that negotiation fell apart, but what Reagan was talking about in terms of really radical disarmament—might happen. The story of Reagan in the second term is in some ways not the culmination of what he did in the first term, but of kind of reversal and repudiation of that. It was Reagan the peacemaker, and Reagan the president who supported Gorbachev, who really I think made it possible for Gorbachev to continue with what Gorbachev intended to be a process of reform and repairing communism, but what became very much along the lines of what Reagan talked about in 1962, the collapse of communism once it started to unwind.

President Reagan speaking at a rally for Senator Durenberger in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1982.

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THE ECONOMY IN 2016

Will low oil prices help or hurt the economy? Is employment growth fast enough to help people pushed out of the workforce? A look at the year ahead by our economist forecasters.

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John Williams, Ph.D., president and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve; John Taylor, Ph.D., Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Hoover Institution; in conversation with Edward Wasserman, Ph.D., Dean, U.C. Berkeley Journalism School; Former Executive Business Editor, Miami Herald. Excerpted from the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Walter E. Hoadley Annual Economic Forecast on January 29, 2016. Photos by Sonya Abrams. EDWARD WASSERMAN: We’re here to engage in the time-honored practice of guessing at the future. [Laughter.] Now, in earlier times we would read the entrails of birds or throw the I Ching or enter a sweat lodge and wait for visions, but now we have much more sophisticated tools at our disposal and much more learned guides. The question before us, however, is the same kind of unknowable one: What lies ahead? What can we say about the present moment? Well, it’s puzzling. We see a lot of paradoxical indicators. Overall, there’s a measure of satisfaction that we’re not in 2008 anymore, which competes with dread. The Dow is still one-third higher than it was when Obama took office, and yet the markets worldwide still feel shaky. The dollar is strong. We think, a strong dollar—that’s a good thing. Mighty America. That means we can shop at a discount abroad. But of course, you ask yourself, “Is that good?” Well no, it may be bad. Rates are low, is that good? Maybe, but it may be bad. Oil costs less now than it did when I was covering the Wyoming oil patch in 1980. Is that good? Maybe not so good. Job growth is strong—2.56 million new jobs last year, but wages are poor. So is this good, is the employment picture good? It may be bad. Our main international rivals look vulnerable. We used to think if our rivals are doing poorly, that’s good for us. Well, not so good for us. First it was Europe—we were worrying about the Euro—and now it’s China. Weak rivals, is that a good thing? Not so much, maybe that’s bad. So let me open then with the big hairy question. What worries you most? When you get up at 3 a.m. in a sweat, what is it that you’re focused on that you can share with us? JOHN WILLIAMS: Well, you just gave me a whole bunch more things I should be worried about. [Laughter.] Honestly I don’t wake up at 3 a.m. in a sweat. I think the economy is doing well. Like you said, we added over 2.6 million jobs last year. The data are still looking pretty good coming into this year. So I’m in a pretty good mood about this, but what does worry me are things from abroad, like you said. What’s happening in Europe in terms of their economic struggles that continue; what’s happening in Asia, and understanding that better. What’s happening with the pivot of China from a basically export-driven manufacturing-based economy, to a more inwardly looking economy with consumer and service sectors being a bigger driver of those economies. Those are the things that we’re

watching carefully, trying to understand. But overall I actually am pretty optimistic about where we are in the U.S. economy, and I think that we can weather some of these storms that are out there, that are happening abroad. WASSERMAN: Would you say, Dr. Taylor, that this optimism is widely shared? JOHN TAYLOR: I don’t think so. [Laughter.] I have to disagree on something. [Laughter.] But seriously, what worries me is really more of sort of a longer-term issue. Not so much the markets in the last few days, although we’re all looking at that, but where the country is going on a longer pace. I’ve been very quite disappointed in the recovery from the Great Recession. Of course, the Great Recession itself is a disappointment of performance. But we just have had slow growth during that period. This last year we just finished, looks like it’s going to be under 2 percent. The numbers just coming in

John Taylor: I’ve been very disappointed in the recovery from the Great Recession. We have had slow growth during that period. are 1.7, 1.8 percent. So it’s kind of a same-old, same-old worry. And we keep doing this. While there’s some good things to look at—I mean, the Bay Area is doing quite well, the unemployment rate’s actually lower than the national average, less than 4 percent—but if you just go 100 miles to the east, in Fresno County it’s 10 percent. If you go a little further north to Colusa County, it’s 15 percent. If you go down to Imperial County, it’s 20 percent. This is just in our state, right here in California. And that reflects quite a difference of performance in the economy. I think it all has to do with policy issues, broadly speaking. But if you look at the unemployment rate nationally, 5 percent sounds very good. The number of jobs created, again millions and millions, sounds great. But if you look at the ratio of the number of jobs to the working age population, that’s quite a good measure to see how the economy’s going. It’s really no different than it was at the bottom of the recession. It really hasn’t grown. We’re creating jobs, but not even fast enough to employ the growing population. And of course we think that’s because people have dropped out of the labor force. The labor force participation rates have plummeted in the last few years. Great debate about why it’s happening. Some people say it’s just people getting older and retiring. It just doesn’t seem to be that at all. A lot of it is younger people, a lot of it middle-aged people. So it’s those concerns that I have, Ed. And it’s again, it’s really

Opposite page: Hoover Institution economist Dr. John Taylor says employment is growing, but job growth isn’t fast enough to keep up with the growing population.

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John Williams: I see the risk of a recession probably being what we’d have any year, a 10- to 15-percent probability. important for us to fix it for our country. Then if you look globally, I think it’s important for the United States to continue the kind of leadership that it’s had in the past. WASSERMAN: So “policy issues”—is he talking about you? [Laughter.] WILLIAMS: I’ll let John answer that question. But I think John is right; there are a lot of issues that the U.S. economy faces. I think that highlighting the issues about rural California verses the Bay Area is a great example of that. There are longer-run issues that we do need to address—education investments, R&D, these kinds of things are huge. At the Federal Reserve, we’re focused on monetary policy and thinking about our two goals, which are maximum employment and price stability. My tools are monetary policy tools, I can’t really address some of these longer-run issues. I have to admit, I’m fo-

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cused pretty much right now on the job that I have at hand. But I agree that I think our nation needs to be thinking really seriously about how do we address some of these longer run issues, beyond whether it’s income inequality, whether it’s longer-run issues in terms of productivity growth, the things that are really going to determine the standards of living that our children and grandchildren enjoy. But again, I was answering your question kind of in my day job, which is trying to help steer this economy to full employment and— TAYLOR: But if you put your economist hat on rather than your hat as an official of the Fed, surely you would prefer a policy environment where there were more interventions available to government, than simply the Federal Open Market Committee. I mean we all trained in economics at a time when there was something called fiscal policy. WILLIAMS: Well, there is something, it’s still called fiscal policy. This is something maybe John and I are not going to agree about as much, but we’ll see that I do think that monetary policy has been forced to carry too much of the load in terms of economic stabilization in the last several years. I think at times fiscal policy has worked to help, and sometimes it has worked opposing that. But I do think we need to think seriously about fiscal policy in terms of a stronger, more systematic, transparent approach to fiscal policy, that basically is helping, if anything, to stabilize the

economy during the ups and downs. What we’ve actually seen is fiscal policy tighten during the early parts of the recovery, and now we’re seeing fiscal policy actually loosen up, right at the same time the economy’s doing better. So I do think fiscal policy is an important [part] of it, and I hope that we can find a framework to think about how we can have fiscal policy be more systematic, more predictable, and maybe working more toward working in concert with monetary policy as opposed to in opposition to it. WASSERMAN: Let me just ask you flat out: Are we going to be sliding into another recession? WILLIAMS: This year or ever? [Laughter.] WASSERMAN: Near-term. TAYLOR: I see a slowing down. Some people call that a recession. The word “recession” for economists means something very specific; it’s roughly two quarters of lowering decline in GDP, but it’s pretty bad when you go from 2.5 or 3 to 1.5 [percent growth]. It seems like we’re slowing down. It’s good we haven’t had another recession, and I think with respect to other variables, it depends on the policy. Economists sometimes say the forecast is always conditional on something. To me that’s conditional very much on the policy at this point. There could be a retrenchment even more than we’ve had, or it could be kind of a revival, that’s the big ques-

tion. It’s also a question globally. If you look at different countries those are doing well and those are doing not so well, a lot of it has to do with the policy. It’s the same story all over, and so that’s what I would focus on let’s get the policy right and I’ll have a better forecast. WILLIAMS: On the concrete question about recession, because there’s a lot of talk about that, first of all I think research has shown that recessions don’t die of old age. There’s really no evidence that the economy has to have a recession every 8 to 10 years, which is typical; about every 8 or 10 years we’ve had a recession. But there’s nothing mechanical about that. I think there are shocks that have happened to the economy. There are things that can change the economic dynamics that cause a contraction. Right now, I don’t see any of those obvious signs out there. There’s always risks. There’s risks from different parts of the global economy. But, domestic demand in the U.S. economy is still very good. We’re seeing a lot of good job growth, we’re seeing good consumer spending, we’re seeing housing come back. I do think that we’re in a situation of 2 to 2.25 percent growth. Again, I see the risk of a recession probably being what we’d have any year, a 10- to 15-percent probability in any year you could have a recession, but it’s not that there’s any real clear signs.

Facing page: San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams discusses the role of fiscal policy in the economy. This page (left to right): Edward Wasserman, John Williams, and John Taylor.

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MILLENNIALS: INHERITING A NUCLEAR WORLD

The former defense secretary and his daughter have teamed up on the William J. Perry Project, which aims to educate Millennials and get them involved in reducing the nuclear threat.

William Perry, Ph.D., U.S. Secretary of Defense 1994-97, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute and Hoover Institution, and author of My Journey at the Nuclear Brink; Robin Perry, director of the William J. Perry Project; in conversation with Gloria Duffy, Ph.D., president and CEO of The Commonwealth Club. From the January 14, 2016, program, “Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry: A Personal Journey to Reduce the Nuclear Threat.” Photo by Ricky Ward. ROBIN PERRY: The overall goal that we’ve come up with is to reach a younger generation with the message of nuclear danger. We’re focusing on them because there’s very little awareness about nuclear danger in this generation. They did not grow up in the Cold War and hear about the danger on a daily basis. They are the ones who will bear the cost and the risk of nuclear policy that is being decided today. To have a real voice and any influence, they really must be informed and be engaged in a public conversation about the purpose of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. So how to engage them? We convened a group of students from three universities and asked them to consider this question: Why isn’t the issue of nuclear danger on the radar of their peers? What they discovered in their research is that there is plenty of information out there about these issues, but it’s just not reaching them. They told us, Millennials access and consume informa-

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tion differently. They’re mobile-centric on smaller devices and screens. Their preference is for video and short-form storytelling to get their information. On-the-go viewing anywhere, anytime, standing online somewhere, in the most informal of ways. They like to share what they learn through their social networks. They like to take action. And they often create their own content. So we began designing an online education program with short-form courses that would incorporate many of these tools and ideas. We invited a small group of young professionals to create their own content about these issues. We requested a variety of media projects to illustrate the different types of content. The results are posted now on the homepage of the Perry Project website, which is wjperryproject.org. Check it out when you have a minute. GLORIA DUFFY: We have a few Millennials in the audience, and we have a couple questions: “As a Millennial, what is the best way in your opinion not only to bring this subject to our attention, but to actually inspire action when many feel our future is already dismal with global warming, terrorism and many other serious issues today?” WILLIAM PERRY: There are many issues which occupy the attention of all of us. Only two of them are what I would call existential, meaning our very existence is threatened by them. One is the nuclear bomb issue, and the other is global climate change.

The difference between those two is not in the ultimate outcome, but in the fact that the nuclear issue is here and now. We could have a [nuclear] catastrophe this year or next year, whereas the global warming is going to take several decades to really materialize. But both of them are existential and I believe should have equal priority in our thinking about what we should be doing. One other difference is because the global climate change has so long to develop, we have more time to do something about it. Some scientists fear they’ve already passed the point of no return. I don’t think that is true. But in any event, even if we can’t completely stop it, we can at least diminish it. And we should be doing that. ROBIN PERRY: This is a democracy; people need to get involved in these issues and bring a sense of optimism that you can make a change. It’s very incremental, and a lot of people in the nuclear field work their way up for many years before they are making a difference, but there are public debates beginning right now about the modernization of the nuclear force. Learn about it, understand it and talk to the people who represent you in Congress about what your feelings are about it. That’s one small way to engage in this issue, as a Millennial—as any age—and where you can make a difference. WILLIAM PERRY: One issue we’re faced with today— and it’s a big issue related to this problem, and yet most of us understand nothing about it—is we are on the verge

One issue we’re faced with today is that we are on the verge of beginning a new nuclear arms race like we did in the Cold War. of beginning a new nuclear arms race like we did in the Cold War. Russia has already proceded with the development of whole new generations of ICBMs, SLBMs, the whole panoply of nuclear carriers and nuclear weapons. I expect that that part of their plan is, after you break the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, start testing new nuclear weapons. It will be easy for them to rationalize this because the United States, to its great shame, has never ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. So that’s underway. I have no doubt that there’ll be huge pressure in the United States to follow suit. We have, on the books actually, the plan for so-called re-capitalizing our nuclear forces, which over a 30-year period is estimated to cost about a trillion dollars. You can think of many, many alternative ways you would like to spend that money. We are on the verge of that, and there’s no public discussion of it at all. AP R I L/MAY 2016

InSight See You in Fremont!

Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, President and CEO

OR THE PAST FEW YEARS, just about every time I’ve heard about someone having joint surgery and have asked them where they had it done, the answer has been not at Stanford, not at UCSF, but “in Fremont.” When I think of Fremont, I think of BART’s southern terminus, of a few tech companies, of Little Kabul, and of a history of assembly line manufacturing, including the plant where the first Apple Mac was produced and the GM-Toyota NUMMI plant now reconfigured as Tesla Motors. Not having regarded Fremont as a hotbed of medical activity, I inquired a bit further and was told that my friends were having hip and knee replacements at Washington Hospital in Fremont, done by a Dr. John Dearborn or his associate Dr. Sah. Dr. Dearborn, who I will proudly say is a graduate of Acalanes High School in Lafayette, also my alma mater (we probably took the same biology and physiology classes, with slightly different results for the two of us), developed a new minimally invasive procedure for joint replacements. His process has people up and walking quickly, with high success rates and little pain. So patients have flocked to him by the thousands. The first of my friends who told me about his hip replacement with Dr. Dearborn was from Carmel, and patients come from all over the Western United States. The medical hub in Fremont is now much more robust than just Washington Hospital itself, as I now know up-close and personally. I awakened one day in December to find my right knee, without warning, swollen to twice its normal size. A torn ligament from a fall 22 years ago and the ensuing life of many active sports, had finally caught up with me. After exams identified a torn meniscus and worn cartilage, I met in late January with Dr. King, an orthopedic surgeon at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and was scheduled for arthroscopic surgery the next day. In Fremont. A dozen out-patient surgical facilities have sprung up around Washington Hospital, several for joint repair. The proximity to the hospital and its staff means that any patient who has trouble during out-patient surgery can quickly be moved over to the hospital. And the same process for efficiency and success Dr. Dearborn has adopted is being used to improve the process for outpatient surgeries. Dr. King operated on me in late January at one of these ambulatory surgery venues, the Fremont Surgery Center. The operation I experienced at the Surgery Center was quite amazing. Following the process developed for maximum efficiency and lower expense by Dr. Dearborn, hospital beds were lined up in two rows down a long room, each separated by a curtain from one another. At least 20 patients were prepped as though on an assembly line, though it was at the same time excellent and personal care. The nursing staff came by, the anesthesiologist stopped in, Dr. King came by and we co-signed the knee that was to be operated on, my family came in to wish me well,

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and the IV was started. Forty-five minutes after they wheeled me into surgery, I was done and the next patient was on their way in. Dr. Dearborn and Dr. Sah each do a number of joint replacements per day, two days per week, one after the other. The ambulatory surgery center follows the same routine, where Dr. King and his colleagues operate on one patient after another, from morning until night, Photo courtesy of Gloria Duffy on surgery days. One joke-cracking friend of mine refers to it as “in-and-out burger.” While the outpatient walks out of the surgery center shortly after surgery, part of the process is to have an in-office visit with the surgeon the morning after surgery. This wise precaution ensures that no problematic after-effects go undetected or unaddressed. After TESLA and the Fremont School District, which are tied for being the city’s largest employer, Washington Hospital is now the second-largest employer in Fremont, with more than 1,800 staff. The

Fremont is once again the assembly line capital of the Bay Area, but this time for joint surgeries. nearby out-patient surgery clinics, testing labs and the other associated medical facilities surely add hundreds more. Unemployment in Fremont, at 9 percent in 2010, is now at 3.5 percent. The city of Fremont has facilitated development overall. Judging from the current edition of the city’s economic development newsletter, “Bringing the Fremont Vision to Life,” which has no discussion of medical facility development, the centralization of joint remediation in Fremont has happened almost organically, with the success and needs for associated services of one facility leading to the establishment of others. In essence, Fremont is once again the assembly line capital of the Bay Area, but this time for joint surgeries. And I have the refurbished knee to prove it!

SEPTEMBER 22 - OCTOBER 8, 2016 Depart on an odyssey through Central Europe that visits five distinctly different nations—Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic— with fascinating histories and monumental events of the last century. • Explore Warsaw’s Old Town—a • Dine in a family restaurant in Bratislava and explore the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site—and Castle area. visit the haunting concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. • Visit Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral, Golden Lane, and Hradcany Castle. • Near Krakow, visit the UNESCO Wander through Wenceslas Square, designated Wieliczka Salt Mines, the site of the demonstrations that led which operated from the 13th century to the Velvet Revolution. to 2007, and home to a wild display of salt carvings. • Travel with Commonwealth Club Host Eva Voisin, honorary consul • Discover Budapest’s Parliament, general to Hungary. Dohany Synagogue (Europe’s largest) and time on the scenic Danube Bend. • Learn from expert guides and guest speakers. • Experience Austria’s Vienna Woods, the health spa town of Baden, a classical music performance, and the • Take an optional 4-day/3-night posttour extension to Berlin. majestic Schönbrunn Palace. $5,397, per person, based on double occupancy, and including air from SFO Photos: (top to bottom) The Ridg / Flickr, freefotouk / Flickr, Ryekatcher / Flickr, y entonces/ Flickr, Delius / istockphoto

Brochure at commonwealthclub.org/travel Contact (415) 597-6720 or travel@commonwealthclub.org

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PROGRAMS YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS Wednesday, April 13

Wednesday, April 13

Arianna Huffington/ Sheryl Sandberg Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor in Chief, the Huffington Post Media Group; Author, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Beyond Prisons Van Jones, President and CoFounder of #cut50; CNN Political Commentator; Former White House Special Advisor Shaka Senghor, #cut50 Director of Strategy and Innovation; Writer; Mentor and Motivational Speaker

In today’s 24/7 fast-paced world, the hunger for sleep is only getting stronger. Sleep deprivation affects our health, decision making, and relationships both personally and professionally. Huffington takes on sleep from every angle and offers the latest scientific recommendations and expert tips to achieve a better night’s sleep.

Currently, more than two million Americans are in prison. The federal government spends $80 billion each year on the incarceration industry while projects like improving our national infrastructure and educational systems continue to be drastically underfunded. #Cut50, a national, bipartisan initiative, is working to safely and smartly reduce the American prison population by 50 percent over the next 10 years.

for event details, see page 17

for event details, see page 18

Tuesday, April 19

Monday, April 25

Juan Williams

Lesley Stahl

Juan Williams, Political Analyst, Fox News Channel; Author, We the People: The Modern-Day Figures Who Have Reshaped and Affirmed the Founding Fathers’ Vision of America

Lesley Stahl, Correspondent, “60 Minutes”; Author, Being Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting

Over 200 years ago the Founding Founders broke away from the British Empire to build a nation based on the principles of freedom, equal rights and opportunity for all. But life in the United States today is vastly different from anything the original Founders could have imagined in the late 1700s. Williams reveals how modern-day founders have extended the Founding Fathers’ original vision and changed fundamental aspects of our country. Photo by Frank Graves.

After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl says the most vivid and transforming experience of her life was becoming a grandmother. In her new book, she explores how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing scientists and doctors about physiological changes in women when they have grandchildren, anthropologists about why there are grandmothers in evolutionary terms, and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on grandparents.

for event details, see page 19

for event details, see page 21