The Commonwealth October/November 2015

DAVID GERGEN page 8

SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL page 15

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES page 41

JESSICA JACKLEY page 46

GLORIA DUFFY page 50

Commonwealth The

THE MAGAZINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

A DEBATE ON TREATING MENTAL ILLNESS:

SHOULD WE BRING BACK

ASYLUMS? $5.00; free for members | commonwealthclub.org

GEORGIA, ARMENIA & AZERBAIJAN May 8–18, 2016 Cuisine, Culture & Contemporary Affairs of the South Caucasus • Traverse three distinctive countries located on a mountainous strip of land between the Caspian and Black Seas.

• Meet artists, singers, winemakers and guest speakers and experience six UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

• Discover the bold designs of Azerbaijan’s carpets and listen to its ancient songs, passed from ear to ear over centuries.

• Savor Georgia’s deep red wines and sumptuous cuisine.

Take part in a comparative wine tasting of delightful Georgian wines at Tblisi’s up and coming Vino Underground.

• Enjoy a performance of polyphonic singing, a uniquely Georgian choral tradition.

• Visit Armenia, the world’s first Christian country, and see stone churches from the 1st millennium and admire the sculpted stone khachkar crosses that dot the green hillsides.

• Attend a private concert of a capella singing performed by an Armenian women’s group.

• Experience a truly unique journey to the South Caucasus with The Commonwealth Club.

$6,195, per person, double occupancy

Commonwealth Club Travel CST: 2096889-40

Detailed brochure available at: commonwealthclub.org/travel Contact: (415) 597-6720 • travel@commonwealthclub.org Photos: provided

by MIREvin Corporation Photos: Martin Klimenta; MIchel Behar; Mitchell

INSIDE The Commonwealth VO LU M E 1 0 9 , N O . 0 6 | O C TO B E R / N OV E M B E R 2015

8 Photo by John Zipperer

FEATURES 8 DAVID GERGEN

WITH DAN ASHLEY A RATIONAL LOOK AT IRRATIONAL POLITICS

15

The political analyst and the ABC7 news anchor discuss the Republican primary freefor-all and the Democrats’ heir apparent

Photo by Ed Ritger

41

11 A DEBATE ON

MENTAL ILLNESS SHOULD WE BRING BACK ASYLUMS?

Photo by Ed Ritger

DEPARTMENTS 5 EDITOR’S DESK The Courage of Ben Kuroki

6 THE COMMONS The Club’s volunteers celebrate a successful August series called Music Matters, Bank of America shows its support, 110 The Embarcadero reaches another milestone, and more

Two psychiatry experts, Dr. Dominic Sisti and Dr. Renee Binder, disagree on treatment for the severely mentally ill. What’s the best policy, for the mentally ill and for the rest of society?

15 SENATOR

CLAIRE MCCASKILL

The life-long politician on the importance of women embracing campaign strategy, including stunts from wearing an apron to shotgunning a beer

41 CHRISTIANA FIGUERES THE ROAD TO PARIS

Voluntarily and involuntarily, energy companies and providers are changing with the times

46 JESSICA JACKLEY ENTREPRENEURSHIP THAT

CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

The Kiva founder shares stories of the people her nonprofit was designed to help and the lessons she learned working with them Photo by Rikki Ward

46

50 INSIGHT Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, President and CEO

EVENTS 17 PROGRAM INFORMATION 17 LANGUAGE CLASSES 18 TWO MONTH CALENDAR 20 PROGRAM LISTINGS Events from October 1 to November 30

About Our Cover: The effects of untreated mentally ill people are all around us, on every downtown street we walk. The effects of current policy are also affecting the homeless, mentally ill themselves, with medical and other problems.

In our cover story, two top psychiatrists debate a new plan. Illustration by Chitrapa/wikicommons

“Once you have set your mission and you know what that is, you should say no to these objectively good opportunities: the $10 million opportunities...that are not a fit for you and who you J U– N E/J U LY 2013 THE COMMO N WE AL TH 3 want to be in the world.”

Jessica Jackley

BEING NEIGHBORS IS MORE THAN JUST GEOGRAPHY.

We are proud to support the Commonwealth Club of California.

At Bank of the West we’re committed to being active members of the communities we call home. We’re as dedicated to lending a helping hand around the neighborhood as we are to providing the personal banking, business banking and wealth management services that may be just right for you. Please visit us at a local branch or at bankofthewest.com for more information.

Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.

© 2015 Bank of the West.

EDITOR’S DESK

J O H N Z I P PE R E R V P, M E D I A & E D I TO R I A L

Photo by John Zipperer

The Courage of Ben Kuroki

D

uring a short visit to my former hometown, Chicago, in early September, I picked up the Sun-Times to read during breakfast. An item on the contents page caught my attention: World War II hero Ben Kuroki had died at the grand old age of 98.

If you don’t know the story about Kuroki and The Commonwealth Club, it’s worth learning. Kuroki was the only American of Japanese descent who served in combat missions in the Pacific theater for the U.S. Army Air Forces (as the Air Force was then known). He was decorated with numerous medals (including three Distinguished Flying Crosses) and became a public face of the Army Air Forces.

In its obituary for Kuroki, The New York Times reported that “[h]e was saluted by Time magazine in 1944 under the headline ‘HEROES: Ben Kuroki, American,’ and he was fully accepted by his fellow crewmen.” Well, “fully accepted” doesn’t match up with what Kuroki told The Commonwealth Club in a justly celebrated speech that recounted his experiences in the Army.

In his February 4, 1944, speech to the Club in San Francisco, Kuroki explained, “Two days after Pearl Harbor, my brother Fred and I drove 150 miles to Grand Island, Nebraska, to enlist in the Army Air Forces.” They were rejected. “For the first time in our lives we found out what prejudice was. I began to realize right then that I had a couple of strikes on me to begin with, and that I was going to be fighting two battles instead of one—against the Axis and against intolerance among my fellow Americans.”

FOLLOW US ONLINE

facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub

Kuroki and his brother were eventually accepted into the military, where he had to withstand so much prejudice during basic training he said “I would rather go through my bombing missions again than face that kind of prejudice.”

The Omaha World-Herald recently reported, “While on leave in February 1944, he gave a speech at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that helped ‘mainstream’ the idea that an American citizen, even of Japanese descent, is still an American and should be treated as such.” That was quite a revolutionary thing to do at a time when “[m]ore than 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were sent to internment camps during the war.”

Kuroki would go on to receive much praise from the public, military leaders and the media for his service. But for people who hate someone else simply because of what they look like, that’s never enough. As the Times noted, in the final weeks of World War II, a “serviceman enraged by Sergeant Kuroki’s Japanese background stabbed him in the head in his barracks.” It is sad to think that he had just as much to fear from some of his own countrymen as he did from the Axis enemy.

PBS made a movie about Kuroki’s experience, including his Club speech, in the 2007 documentary Most Honorable Son. You can learn more about it (and find a link to the text of the Club speech) at pbs. org/mosthonorableson/speech.html.

Rest in peace, Sergeant Kuroki.

twitter.com/cwclub

commonwealthclub.org/blog

commonwealthclub.org

BUSINESS OFFICES The Commonwealth, 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 | feedback@commonwealthclub.org VP, MEDIA & EDITORIAL John Zipperer | ART DIRECTOR Tyler R. Swofford | STAFF EDITORS Amelia Cass, Ellen Cohan INTERNS Zoë Byrne, Laura Nguyen, Brent Truttmann, Catherine Lu | PHOTOGRAPHERS Sonya Abrams, Ed Ritger, Rikki Ward ADVERTISING INFORMATION: Tara Crain, Development Manager, Corporate and Foundation Partnerships, (415) 869-5919, tcrain@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. | PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID at San Francisco, CA. Subscription rate $34 per year included in annual membership dues. | POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Commonwealth, The Commonwealth Club of California, 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. | Printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Copyright © 2015 The Commonwealth Club of California. Tel: (415) 597-6700 Fax: (415) 597-6729 E-mail: feedback@ commonwealthclub.org | 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.

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

5

Commons THE

Talk of the Club

The Coda for a Musical Series

Member-Led Forums’ success

M

usic Matters. That was the message of a month-long series of programming this past August, all of it planned and organized by the Club’s volunteer Member-Led Forums (MLFs). It covered everything from baroque music to music therapy for special-needs students, from Country Joe McDonald to Noah Griffin.

To celebrate a successful conclusion to the series, on September 3 the MLF volunteers joined Club staff and representatives of series sponsors Ernst & Young and the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation for a cocktail reception. In addition to food and some remarks about

THE TICKER

In the News

B Photo by Rikki Ward

the achievement, there was—naturally—music, including live piano playing and a special singing performance by the multi-talented Dan Ashley, ABC7 news anchor and member of the Club’s Board of Governors.­

en Carson brought his outsider presidential campaign to San Francisco, the bastion of U.S. liberalism and a piggy bank of political donations from Silicon Valley’s tech elite.”

Bloomberg Politics “ABC7 News’ Dan Ashley was the MC at the Commonwealth Club and asked Carson whether he would be willing to run on the same ticket with Trump. ‘Anything is possible,’ said Carson.“ ABC7 News

A Bank of America Partnership

C

heck out this check. On August 26, Bank of America hosted a grant pick-up party at its San Francisco headquarters to celebrate the financial firm’s philanthropy in the community. The Commonwealth Club of California was among the respected nonprofits gathered for the ceremony.

“We are so thankful for Bank of America’s tremendous and long-standing support for the Club, which

Supporting the Club’s work

dates back to the bank’s founder and one of the Club’s founding members, A.P. Giannini,” said Tara Crain, the Club’s development manager for corporate and foundation partnerships.

Above left, Crain (left) accepts an oversized check from Kelly R. Larkan, local market manager for Bank of America. Above right, the Club joins the other recipients at the grant pick-up party.

On the Dotted Line

A Photo by Ellen Cohan

6

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

s you can see in this photo, spirits were high in late August when the Club passed another milestone in its project to own its home for the first time. Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy (right) congratulated Piper Kujac, the Club’s construction project manager, and CFO Nick Leon after signing the financing paperwork for the new building, now under construction at 110 The Embarcadero.

Financing was provided by Bank of America. Stay tuned for more updates on your new Club home.

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

“The retired neurosurgeon and political neophyte, who has been called the ‘antiTrump,’ spoke at the Mark Hopkins Hotel before hundreds of followers and some curious Democrats, including former Mayor Willie Brown.”

San Francisco Chronicle “Carson said while it sounds ‘really cool’ to say ‘let’s just round them all up and ship them back’ on the topic of the estimated 12 million immigrants living illegally in the Untied States, that would cause food prices to skyrocket and industries like lodging and farming to collapse.”

Breitbart News

Shared Ideas Reinventing Water Climate One, July 21, 2015 Martha Davis, Executive Manager for Policy Development, Inland Empire Utilities Agency

O

bviously we’re hoping that we get more rain in this drought. But what we’re worried about is the intensity of the storms. You can look back at some of the events of this year, and you can see where really intense cloudbursts have taken out some portions of Interstate 10 down in Southern California. It’s the intensity of the precipitation and the volume of the flow that then has the capacity to swamp our existing flood-control systems, and with that comes a lot of water quality problems in addition to the infrastructure damage.

Then from the water supply side, we’ve tried to very carefully build our systems to capture the water up in the mountains, but when we come to our urban areas, we’ve actually made the mistake of trying to shoot the water as fast as we can out to the ocean. So you’re losing the water supply that you would normally capture from the mountains—you get these intense flooding events. Then our

urban areas [are] shedding the water as fast as you can towards the ocean. So it’s a big mess, and a lot of infrastructure is going to have to be modified if these more intense storms are what we’re in for....

I don’t think the question is whether or not we’re going to have rain and a water supply; it’s a choice about how we manage our way through these systems. My agency is thinking about it in terms of not reliability but resiliency, and we’re looking at combinations of strategies with a much greater focus on local water supplies.

One thing that’s interesting about the way we’ve developed water in the West is [that] in the 20th century we were brilliant engineers in designing systems that manage to take water from long distances and bring it into our urban [and] agricultural areas. For many decades, we’ve actually neglected the local water supplies that we have, the groundwater supplies that are under our feet in many areas.

My area is one of the larger groundwater basins in Southern California. We’re going to have discussions about recycled water going to what we call “direct potable reuse”; we’re talking about desalinization.

But none of these supplies, by themselves, is a silver bullet, just in the same way that

Photo by Ellen Cohan

conservation is not a silver bullet. It’s the way in which they fit together. How do we do climate-resilient water planning that really emphasizes being efficient as a baseline?

Then adding in how do we take advantage of the wet years when they come, how do we store water in different places in anticipation of significant droughts, and how do we do a better job of managing all of those things in combination?

There’s no question there’s a fear that we’ll go back to business as usual as if this didn’t make a difference, but I don’t think that’s really going to happen.

The depth of this drought and how dramatically it’s impacted all areas of the state makes it a game changer.

LEADERSHIP OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB CLUB OFFICERS Board Chair John R. Farmer Vice Chair Richard A. Rubin Secretary Frank Meerkamp Treasurer Lee J. Dutra President & CEO Dr. Gloria C. Duffy BOARD OF GOVERNORS William F. Adams † John F. Allen Carlo Almendral Courtland Alves Dan Ashley Massey J. Bambara Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman** John L. Boland Michael R. Bracco

Thomas H. Burkhart Maryles Casto** 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 Hon Katherine A. Feinstein Fr. Paul J .Fitzgerald, S.J. Carol A. Fleming, Ph.D. Leslie Saul Garvin Dr. Charles Geschke Paul M. Ginsburg Edie G. Heilman Hon. James C. Hormel Mary Huss John Leckrone Dr. Mary Marcy

Anna W. M. Mok** Kevin P. O’Brien Donald J. Pierce Frederick W. Reid Skip Rhodes* George M. Scalise Lata Krishnan Shah Dr. Ruth Shapiro Charlotte Mailliard Shultz George D. Smith, Jr. James Strother Hon. Tad Taube Ellen O’Kane Tauscher Charles Travers Dr. Colleen B. Wilcox Russell M. Yarrow Jed York ADVISORY BOARD Karin Helene Bauer Hon. William Bradley Dennise M. Carter Rolando Esteverena

Steven Falk Amy Gershoni Jacquelyn Hadley Heather Kitchen Amy McCombs Don J. McGrath Hon. William J. Perry Hon. Barbara Pivnicka Hon. Richard Pivnicka Ray Taliaferro Nancy Thompson PAST BOARD CHAIRS AND PRESIDENTS Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman ** Hon. Shirley Temple Black*† J. Dennis Bonney* John Busterud* Maryles Casto** Hon. Ming Chin* Mary B. Cranston** Joseph I. Epstein * Dr. Joseph R. Fink *

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

William German * Rose Guilbault** Claude B. Hutchison Jr. * Dr. Julius Krevans* Anna W.M. Mok** Richard Otter* Joseph Perrelli* Toni Rembe* Victor J. Revenko* Skip Rhodes* Renée Rubin * Robert Saldich** Connie Shapiro * Nelson Weller * Judith Wilbur * Dennis Wu* * Past President ** Past Chair † Deceased

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

7

D AV I D G E R G E N

A R AT I O N A IRRATIONA Making sense of the political scene. Excerpted from “A Rational Look at Irrational Politics,” July 23, 2015.

DAVID GERGEN CNN Senior Political Analyst; Professor and Co-Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government In conversation with

DAN ASHLEY

News Anchor, ABC7; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors DAN ASHLEY: Are 16 candidates enough? [Laughter.] Should we cap it at 20, or let it go wherever it goes?

DAVID GERGEN: It is a little bit like going to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, and they bring out the VW, and 18 clowns climb out. You wonder, “When

8

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

will this stop?”

The parties have sort of flipped sides.

For a long, long time, the Republican Party nominee was usually the heir apparent. The Republican Party operated largely like a corporation in terms of its executive talent, moving people up, waiting your turn, and it was the Democrats who had a free-for-all. This time around, it’s just the reverse. The Democrats are looking for the heir apparent; they’ve got their person. I mean, she’s still under challenge, but nonetheless, I think we know who the candidate’s going to be.

It’s the Republicans who are having their free-for-all. In some ways, it’s healthy. You have to ask yourself, where is the Democratic bench? What if something were to happen to Hillary? Joe Biden obviously is a possibility, but there are not a lot of other players out there. So you could say, from a Republican point of view, [having many candidates] is healthy. But obviously it’s hard to keep it serious when Donald Trump starts lobbing hand grenades into the middle of things. People start thinking, this is not a campaign; this is a circus.

They’re going to need some sorting out

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

fairly quickly, before this takes on the gravity of a serious presidential effort.

There’s an interesting argument that whether Trump is being criticized or praised—as long as people are talking about Trump, it’s good for his business.

The more he gets on his bottom line, the more capacity he feels he can spend.

ASHLEY: But there’s a cynicism about that.

GERGEN: [Laughter.] You think?

ASHLEY: Maybe that’s even the wrong word. There’s a sort of damaging effect. Is that good for American politics?

GERGEN: What things have you seen recently that were good about American politics? I mean, we’re going through a pretty awful period right now. We’re going to get out of this; this too shall pass.

We’ve had times like this in the past in American politics.

ASHLEY: Do you really think we’ll get out of this or is this the new norm for American politics?

GERGEN: I don’t know that we’re going to get out of it badly or well, but I think we’re going to come out of it because there’s a new generation coming along

WITH

DAN ASHLEY

A L L O O K AT AL POLITICS which is sick of this stuff—[they think] it’s phony, it’s Mickey Mouse, and they want to get rid of it. I’m starting to see signs.

The younger generation is going to run for office. We’re going to get some serious people, and we’re going to stop this crap.

In the 1880s and 1890s we had a similar time. The country [was] extremely polarized. We had three presidential elections in a row that went 50/50. It was a 50/50 country, just like what we are right now. It was a very mean period in our time. It was the Gilded Age; there were a lot of people getting really rich, a lot of inequality growing up. The industrialization was rapidly moving forward, but our politics were rancid. We had a whole bunch of presidents your grandchildren will never have heard of.

It brought people like Teddy Roosevelt to get into the arena and change it. Roosevelt’s family told him—they were Knickerbockers [New York aristocracy]—the best [way to handle] politics was stay out of it. The only way to look at the politicians was down your nose. The only thing worse than being a politician was being an actor—that’s what his parents told him.

Teddy went to the smoke-filled rooms in New York and got in there, and people like Woodrow Wilson also got involved in the progressive movement. It was a movement that was embraced by both Republicans and Democrats. We saw Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, who were iconic figures to their generation. They helped lead their generation out of the traps and the miasma of the ’80s and ’90s. It can be done again, and I think it will be done again.

Essentially, coming in toward this election cycle, the history favors the Republicans. Typically, when a party has held the White House for two straight presidential terms, the out party wins the next election. Enough disquiet, enough unhappiness over various issues builds up, and the out party gains strength and gets in.

The exception was the two Reagan terms, when George H.W. Bush was elected.

That was really a Reagan III election. The people were really sort of voting [for him] because of Reagan.

It’s also true that American politics moves in cycles. It moves left for a while, and then it moves right for a while. We

moved right—if you go way back to the Nixon period, 1968, the Republicans won five out of six elections. Then the pendulum moved left and Bill Clinton came in, and the Democrats have now won the popular vote in the last five out of six elections. History would say the tide is about to turn, and it will help Republicans. I think there are forces out there that are helping Republicans for this very reason. That’s the argument that favors Republicans.

There is a counterargument that has to do with the rapidly changing demographics of the country, which favor the Democrats, that favor Hillary. It’s the coming of this Millennial generation. It’s so big. In the last couple of elections, it’s voted heavily Democratic. Barack Obama captured the Millennial vote, did really well with them.

The second part of that big demographic change, of course, is Latinos. A Republican needs 40 percent of the Latino vote to win the election. This last time around, they got 27 percent of the Latino vote. You cannot win with 27 [percent].

And then there are women. They vote

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

9

in large numbers. And women—on choice, equal pay, respect, all those other kinds of issues—all of those factors favor Hillary.

Those people may not necessarily turn out the way they did for Obama, unless the Republicans piss ‘em off.

And they’re doing that. [Laughter.]

That is the danger Republicans face.

You put a stick in the eye if you go after gay marriage—if you’re an opponent of gay marriage and you really want to ram that home, you’re going to lose the Millennial vote. Millennials are heavily [supportive of same-sex marriage.] They’ve decided this issue. They’re 60, 70 percent in favor of gay marriage. So you can really easily antagonize the Millennials. You go after immigration, and “all the rapists and criminals that Mexico’s sending across our border,” per Donald Trump? You can write off the Latino vote if you really want to keep beating up on them.

ASHLEY: But David, he needs 40 percent of the Latino vote. It’s political suicide, then, to do that. He must know these numbers.

GERGEN: Donald Trump?

ASHLEY: Donald Trump.

GERGEN: He doesn’t expect to get elected, I don’t think. [Laughter.] I think he’s out there to raise hell. If he forces the country more in his direction, breaks up the establishment, that, from his point of view, is a victory. And he gets his name out there.

Then you get the third group, women, and you’ve got to be careful here. This attack on Planned Parenthood—you know, maybe those two films that have come out were doctored. We need to know more about those films. We do need to understand what the heck’s going on with this fetal tissue [situation at] Planned Parenthood. But to attack Planned Parenthood, across the board is to take on one of the most important institutions for women in the country. There are too many people on the Republican side that think Planned Parenthood is just an abortion mill for black girls who got knocked up, or Latino girls, or whatever. The truth is, Planned Parenthood provides services for a huge number of white women, young white women who are middle class, who went to college; they leave home, they need somebody to go to, they need some place they can have some privacy, and they get

10

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Photo by John Zipperer

a lot of help from Planned Parenthood.

They’re very deeply committed, as it should be. It’s been a good organization.

If Republicans let these two films get them way over and they de-fund Planned Parenthood, as they’re trying to do now in Congress, they’re going to pay the price of women. Other people are going to rally and say, “Wait a minute, do you really know what this organization really does?

What the real numbers are on this?” The real numbers suggest an organization that has done a lot, probably for our sons and daughters, without us even knowing.

ASHLEY: Having observed so many administrations and been involved in so many administrations and seen so many cycles over the years, comment on where you feel we are socially and politically as a country. We’ve talked a little bit about your feelings about the two ways to do business. One [is] just about making money and the other is about having more social relevance. Talk a little bit about where you’ve seen the culture change over the years, and whether the direction is positive or negative.

GERGEN: I had an interesting conversation in Washington not long ago with a major, major player on the national security side, in this administration. [I was] asking about technology and where it’s taking us. How does California play a role in that—what about Silicon Valley?

This person said that a great essential fear or anxiety was that American business in general, and technology in particular, is

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

in danger of becoming more and more separated from having a social purpose.

That there is a temptation in Silicon Valley to think the government is clueless about technology, doesn’t know what it’s doing—look at the rollout on health care—we ought to just be going out and making whatever products we can, making money, and forget about Washington.

President Obama to his credit has been bringing in people, trying to hire more engineers, more people out of technology to come into Washington in the last few months since the rollout. But still, there is this sense that we’re just going to go our own way; we’re going to sell into the markets around the world; we’ll build whatever we can build and to hell with any thinking about how this affects society That’s not the way American business has traditionally operated, and I hope this is not characteristic of the future. Let me give you an example: Silicon Valley is rapidly producing robots. There’s a growing and legitimate concern about what impact the robots can have on jobs. How many jobs are going to disappear? To some extent, what we need is a social ethic that says, why don’t we build robots that try to complement the work of people, really make people more effective, rather than replacing people? Are there ways we could do that that actually strengthen society? You don’t want the government to mandate those things, but you do need an ethic in your culture about [how] we all came on different ships, but now we’re on the same boat together.

A DEBATE ON TREATING MENTAL ILLNESS:

SHOULD WE BRING BACK

ASYLUMS? What’s the best way to treat the severely mentally ill—in the community or via institutions? Excerpted from “A Debate on Treating Mental Illness: Should We Bring Back Asylums?,” July 22, 2015.

DOMINIC SISTI, PH.D. Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics/Health Policy and Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania; Principal Author, “Improving Long-term Psychiatric Care: Bring Back the Asylum,” Journal of the American Medical Association

RENEE BINDER, M.D.

Psychiatrist, University of California, San Francisco; President, American Psychiatric Association

DR. GLORIA DUFFY

President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator Photo by Andrew Pilling/flickr

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

11

GLORIA DUFFY: Today we are going to consider an issue that is crucial to all Americans: how we can improve our care to the chronically mentally ill.

In the 1840s, a social reformer named Dorothea Dix surveyed the care for the mentally ill in New England and found them to be living in terrible conditions: on the streets and in poor houses and jails. She crusaded to establish mental institutions, or asylums, to take better care of these indigent and incarcerated mentally ill. A network of asylums was built around the United States to play this role for a century and a quarter.

Today approximately 10 million Americans suffer from serious mental illness. Over the past 60 years, social, political and economic forces have resulted in the closing of the publically funded psychiatric institutions or asylums that initially grew out of the 1840s reformist movement, in favor of community treatment, in which outpatient options and the ability to live independently seemed promising and in many cases less expensive than inpatient care.

Early this year, a controversial paper by a group of bioethicists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They argued that: it’s time to bring back the mental asylum because comprehensive, accessible and fully integrated community-based mental health care continues to be an unmet promise.

Most disturbing, the report contends, U.S. jails and prisons have become the nation’s largest mental health-care facilities. Their report cites recent studies [showing] that half of all inmates have a mental illness or substance abuse disorder. Prisoners with mental illness are two or three times more likely than prisoners without mental illness to be re-incarcerated, and 15 percent of state prison inmates are diagnosed to have a psychotic disorder. The report goes on to argue that new models of fully integrated, patientcentered, long-term psychiatric care now exist in the United States, and that facilities with such approaches are needed to provide 21st-century care to patients with chronic, serious mental illness.

Should severely mentally ill people be better integrated into the community and care provided within the community? Or should a new type of asylum, with the literal connotation of the word asylum as a place of

12

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

sanctuary, be created?

Our guests today have very different perspectives on this issue. Dr. Dominic Sisti is the principal author of the January article in the Journal of the American Medical Association calling for reexamination of the potential role of the asylum. Dr. Renee Binder is president of the American Psychiatric Association.

She’s a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and an advocate for better community treatment.

We’ve asked each of our guests to start presenting their perspectives on the institutional or asylum approach to treatment versus the community treatment model.

DOMINIC SISTI: In the paper, we try to make an argument that turns out to be somewhat controversial. Why did we write it?

My department chair, colleague and mentor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and I have been talking about this issue since he came to Penn in early

“W e’re not sort of utopian h e re. Th e re a re g o i n g to be times when individuals will need to be treated maybe against their will. ” –Dominic Sisti 2012. It turns out that Zeke happens to be a provocateur of sorts and thought it was time to write a piece on the really morally embarrassing state of mental health care in America, and as an architect of the Affordable Care Act, he turned his sights on mental health care as the next frontier of affordable health reform.

As an ethicist at Penn, I am specializing in the ethics of psychiatry and the allied behavioral health-care field. I have been very disturbed by the way in which mental health care has been delivered in prisons mostly.

These things have been in the news nonstop really in the last six or eight months, but back in 2012 we started meeting and started thinking, “We really need to say something about this.” As bioethicists it’s weird, because you would think there would be a whole area of research and robust literature on the ethics of mental health care in America, and there really isn’t.

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

This was an area that was a blind spot in the professional area of bioethics, and we decided that we need to at least start the conversation. We did that. In the paper we try to make a case that inpatient psychiatric settings are actually part of a continuum of care. It really ought not be considered sort of a dichotomous choice. It’s not community versus institutional care; it’s community or institutional care. A lot of the controversy sprang from a misunderstanding of the paper, because the subtitle kind of freaked people out, but also the idea that we’re trying to somehow say that community health care has failed utterly, and that we should put people away in perpetuity. That is not what we argue, and that actually was some of the initial response we got from a lot of advocates.

So we had to sort of correct the record on that. We say very much explicitly in the article that structured psychiatric settings are in fact part of a continuum of mental health care that has been neglected.

Rightly so, we closed a lot of these [old abusive asylums] down. What we are trying to argue is that we need to rethink long-term psychiatric care in a way that embraces the recovery, where individuals with serious mental illness can actually [take] part in their care planning in a very active way if possible.

Again we’re not sort of utopian here. There are going to be times when individuals will need to be treated maybe against ... their will, but if they are incompetent or incapacitated, that is a debatable type of semantic. There’s a role here for structured-care settings.

We go on to say that there are examples that exist. One example that we mention is the Worcester State Hospital, now the Worcester Recovery Center. There are other really interesting models out there, including therapeutic farmsteads. A place called CooperRiis outside of Asheville, North Carolina, that does some really amazing work.

And other types of places where people can actually go, live, get the treatment they need and be stabilized. It might be six months. It might be a year. It might be two years. But these places exist.

One of the problems is that a lot of these places are very expensive, so we need some state-based or sort of public institutions for individuals who need this type of platform to begin or continue their recovery.

DUFFY: Doctor Binder?

BINDER: So the name of the article that

Doctor Sisti and his colleagues wrote is “Improving Psychiatric Long-Term Care: Bring Back the Asylum?” The examples that are given in the article do involve long-term care. As you said, it could be six months; it could be a year, you know, but I am going to argue that that is not a good thing to do.

I agree that we certainly have a problem in the United States. We can walk out onto the streets of San Francisco or New York, and we see homeless people on the streets. A significant portion of them have problems with substance abuse or with mental illness.

We also have a large number of people with mental illness in our jails and in our prisons.

This is a shame for the United States. The jails have become de facto the largest psychiatric hospitals of the United States.

People with mental illness do not do well when they are in jails or prisons. They tend to be victimized, and they tend to stay longer in the prisons than people who don’t have mental illness. But the cause of this situation is because we have cut back the funds for mental health care when state hospitals were closed. The solution is not to reopen long-term facilities.

I’m a clinician. I’m also a researcher, and I ran the adult inpatient services at Langley Porter Hospital for over 20 years. I started when I was very young in the 1970s. A lot of the state hospitals had closed, and they started to discharge patients from the state hospitals, really in the ’60s. So on the unit, we had people who had been in the state hospitals and had what we used to call an institutionalization complex, or had all of the negative impacts of institutionalization.

I certainly believe that hospitalization is necessary at certain times for treatment and for stabilization. But it is important to discharge patients as soon as they are stable. I am opposed to institutionalization.

What happens at institutions? Erving Goffman is a sociologist who wrote a book called Asylums in 1961 based on the state hospitals in the 1950s, and I know Dr. Sisti and his colleagues are not talking about bringing back the state hospitals as they were in the 1950s, but some of what Dr. Goffman describes is just a part of being in hospitals for a long period of time. What happens when you are in the hospital? People are infantilized, they’re told, “It’s now time to eat lunch. It’s now time to eat dinner. You need to go to the dining room. It’s now time to go

A History of Mental Health Treatment At the start of the 18th century, most mentally ill people in the United States relied on the care of their families and received treatment in their homes.

Early supporters of the first psychiatric hospitals were motivated by the presence of patients who could be too disruptive or violent. The Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds, founded in 1773, became the first institution entirely devoted to treating mentally ill patients. It was not until later that the idea of an asylum as an institution was founded on the concept of “moral treatment,” or treatment based in kindness and an appeal to rationality.

Schoolteacher Dorothea Dix, shocked by the conditions of mentally ill inmates in a Boston jail, began to investigate and lobby for better treatment. By the 1880s, 110 psychiatric facilities had been founded.

In the early 1900s, techniques such as sterilization, lobotomies and electroshock therapy were developed and implemented in those institutions. It was not until 1954 that the to group. This is your recreational time. It’s now time to go to sleep.” So people become very dependent as opposed to being independent and having autonomy. There’s a lot of paternalism in hospitals, “We know what’s best for you. You need to participate and take this medication at this period of time.”

Hospitals are not good [for] people. I mean we’ve learned that even in terms of treating physical illnesses. Years ago, when a woman had a baby, she would stay in the hospital for two weeks or so after the baby.

Nowadays they get you out of the hospital as quickly as they can. Part of it is the understanding that it’s important to get home.

If a visiting nurse visits you, they want to see

drug chlorpromazine (also known as Thorazine) was developed as the first effective antipsychotic drug. The arrival of this drug hailed the beginning of deinstitutionalization, or the process of moving patients out of state mental institutions.

Patients were moved from psychiatric hospitals to nursing homes and boarding homes. When Ronald Reagan became governor of California in 1967, The Lanternman-Petris-Short Act virtually abolished involuntary hospitalization.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Mental Health Systems Act in an effort restructure the system of community mental health institutions and improve services.

Months later, new President Reagan severely cut the federal funds allocated to those same community mental health institutions, and also ended the federal government’s involvement with providing services to the mentally ill, instead relying on block grants for states.

—Catherine Lu how you can bathe your baby in your own sink and in your home and not necessarily in the hospital. And there are complications to being in the hospital. It used to be when you had a heart attack, you would be on bed rest at hospitals for a long period of time. Now we talk about getting home, getting back to your usual routine.

In one of the commentaries that came out of this article, there is this psychiatric patient who describes what he feels about institutionalization, and I just thought I would read it because he said it better than I could say it. His name is James Price, and he spent five or six years at the Philadelphia State Hospital. He says, “I had to stay in a

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

13

day room and wasn’t able to get out. ... I got in trouble there a lot. They would put me in seclusion and restraints and give me needles.”

He says that after he was released, he was able to live independently. He could see his friends and family. He could volunteer. He could even hold a job.

What is the solution to the situation that we see on our streets and in our jails and prisons? It’s not asylums, but it’s increased community programs, including programs for prevention and programs for early intervention.

We certainly need an increase in funding. Nothing works without the increase in funding. And we need models besides putting people in long-term care. One of the models we actually use in San Francisco and in other jurisdictions but certainly could be expanded, is the issue of collaborative courts. There are drug courts, and there are behavioral health courts. These are examples of diversion programs: when someone does commit some sort of violent act and especially a more minor infraction, they are given the option of entering mental treatment or substance abuse programs rather than going to jail or prison.

Most of all, people who suffer from mental illness need hope, and they need reintegration. In other countries there is a lot of evidence that it is best to integrate people who suffer from mental illness back into their communities. Asylums or removal from their communities leads to hopelessness and dehumanization. What we need to give to people who have these terrible illnesses is respect, autonomy and hope.

DUFFY: I’d like each of you to address how the improved institutional solution or the community care solution would address those behaviors or issues that are most problematic for the severely mentally disabled. Inability to earn a living, not taking medication, living on the streets, antisocial behavior, not obtaining preventative medical care, etc.

“W hat is the solution? It’s not asylums, but it’s increased community programs, i n c l u d i n g fo r p re ve n t i o n a n d e a r l y i n t e r ve n t i o n . ” –Renee Binder SISTI: I think that we are possibly talking about different populations, because there are for the most part community services that work for a vast majority of seriously mentally ill individuals. But there will be a sub-population that does need a more structured environment, within which it can be ensured they are compliant with their medication. So the institutionalization option, to me, is one place that can happen. The other piece to that proposal is that it will be a medical sort of climate milieu. That beats a prison milieu. Insofar as the individuals that have acted out and

behaved the ways you have described who find themselves behind bars, those are individuals who maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago would have found themselves in state hospitals.

What I’m arguing is not so much a return to these Goffman-esque, coercive sort of cuckoo’s nest places, but a medical facility that treats a medical problem in a way that is structured and coherent, that allows individuals who cannot stay compliant in the community to be more compliant and receive the support they need. If that’s coercion, if that’s parentalistic, OK. BINDER: So I agree. Removing people from the community and putting them in a facility, any kind of facility would solve some problems. Let’s just make some people disappear. Let’s just move them away. We don’t have to look at them anymore. We don’t have to deal with them.

We don’t have to hear them yelling. Yes, and then we can say it’s good for them because they are getting treatment, and it’s good for us. We don’t have to deal with it anymore.

But, I would argue, where is the humanity and where is the respect? I’ve spoken to so many people who suffer from severe psychiatric [problems], and my heart goes out to them. My heart goes out to their families. We need to work with people who have mental illness to try and make their lives better.

So what kind of things can we do? First of all, housing. Studies have shown that Continued on page 39 Photo by Amit Kohli/flickr

14

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

Senator

The inf luential politician discusses historical progress and current roadblocks within Congress. Excerpted from “Senator Claire McCaskill,” August 19, 2015.

CLAIRE MCCASKILL United States Senator (D-MO); Author, Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir In conversation with

DICK COSTOLO

Former CEO, Twitter DICK COSTOLO: [In] the very beginning of [your] book you talk about your mom quite a bit. She won the third ward seat in the Columbia city council. You were in high school when she had this moment. You were in the audience and you said the night she was sworn in was so embarrassing. You go on to talk about some of the things she did, some of the antics, and it seemed to inform some of your boldness. Could you just talk about what some of those things were?

CLAIRE MCCASKILL: At the time, it was incredibly embarrassing. We were sitting in the audience, and this was Columbia, Missouri, which was [home to the Missouri] School of Journalism. So there were about seven journalists for every city council member at this event, and lots of photographers, because everybody was in school learning how to be a photographer. Mom went up Photo by Ed Ritger

Claire McCaskill

with a brown paper bag to the front. This had been historically a good old boys’ city council—the businessmen in town, the chamber of commerce—so the fact that mom had gotten elected was a little earth-shattering in Columbia. She opened the brown paper bag, she slowly took out a picture of her children and put it at her seat. Then, she took out a vase of flowers, and then she took out an apron and tied on the apron, and then proceeded to sit down and take her place at city council. Now, I was very embarrassed and mortified—all of us were that were part of her family. Not my dad—he was kind of used to it—but we were really embarrassed.

Looking back, it was an incredible role modeling moment for me because what she was really doing was saying in a powerful, visual way, “I’m not afraid. I’m different.

I’m going to be bold.” She did it in a way that was compelling. So, while, at the time, I just said, “Mom, please, stop,” to almost everything she did in public, later in life I realized that it was in fact [she who] gave me the ability to be aggressive when maybe others would have shied away from controversy.

COSTOLO: You go on to talk about her making you proud and nervous, in that same manner.

MCCASKILL: Yeah, it was a mix. What would she do? At one point in a council meeting, she got off the dais and went into the audience to heckle. I mean, my mom was something else.

COSTOLO: There was a great discussion in the book about sexism, not just from men but also from other women.

Are we beyond that now? I know it’s

only 20, 25, 30 years later, but if we’re not beyond that, how much of a problem is it still for both men and women?

MCCASKILL: It’s still a problem. I talk about [it in] this book. When I was a freshman legislator, I asked the speaker of the house, “How can I get my bill out of committee?” He asked me if I’d brought my kneepads.

I was certainly harassed as a young intern back in the 1970s, so it was depressing to me when this book was actually being printed—and I tell all these stories in the book—that there was a scandal that broke out in Missouri with a couple high-powered Missouri legislators getting caught sexually propositioning interns. One of the things that I do in this book, that I hope the readers appreciate, is [talk about] a lot of stuff that you’re not supposed to talk about if you do what I do for a living. One of the things that I admit a lot is, I’m not sure I do things right. I didn’t confront this in a public way when I had this happen to me.

I worked around it. I figured out how to strategically work around it. It fueled me.

It made me mad, that I was being minimalized, but I used that as just energy to show these jerks that I was better at this than they were. So imagine how depressing it is that as this book is going to print, the same stuff is going on 40 years later.

The difference is, these young women confronted it publically. Both those jerks lost their careers over it. One of the young women called me and was very kind and said, “Listen, you’ve been such a role model,”

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

15

and all that. And I said, “You’re the one with courage. I never confronted it publically.

You did. What you’ve done is probably a much bigger deterrent to that kind of behavior going forward than anything I have done.”

I will say, it’s somewhat better. Even though that happened in Missouri just in the last six months, I will tell you, there is not a marginalization of women in the United States Senate. Part of it is, we’re a lot older. But part of it is that if we get to the United States Senate, our colleagues know that we’re all pretty tough cookies. A woman who gets to the United States Senate, you just probably don’t want to mess around with her too much, because she’s figured out some stuff.

The 20 of us—we love to do this because it drives them crazy—the 20 of us will gather on the floor of the Senate. When we do that, it scares the men to death because they’re like, “Oh my lord, they’re all together.

They’re formidable! What are we gonna do?”

So I will say that I’ve never felt marginalized or disrespected as a woman in the United States Senate, while I have certainly felt that way in other jobs I’ve had.

COSTOLO: Just to segue directly from that and skip forward a little bit, can you talk about EMILY’s List a bit, your involvement with that and how that’s helped?

MCCASKILL: I particularly talk about, in the book, how frustrating it has been for me.

Listen, I think Citizens United is the most corrosive thing that has happened in our democracy and its history. But having said that, one of the reasons I am in the United States Senate is I learned to ask people for money. I was raised that it was impolite to talk about money. So imagine my surprise when I found myself in a career where I was calling perfect strangers and asking them for checks with commas. It is a bizarre deal, raising money for politics.

EMILY’s List has done something amazing in this country, because it has motivated women to give money. Of course, many of you do not know what EMILY’s List stands for; you think there was an Emily somewhere. But it stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast. The idea is that if you can get contributions, either earlier in your campaign cycle or earlier in your career, then that is an investment that is smart for women to make in other women. It

16

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

has been a tremendous help to me. In fact, they’re having their annual lunch here in San Francisco on Friday, and I’m honored to be the keynote speaker there and to thank them all for all the help they’ve given across the years. Women are really not very good at making political contributions. Wealthy women are terrible at it.

COSTOLO: Why is that?

MCCASKILL: Somebody here’s probably smarter than I am and will say I’m wrong, and they may be absolutely correct, but my theory is that women have a tendency to see money as security. I think men have a tendency to see money as power. So, if it’s security, you’re thinking, well how does writing a hundreddollar check to a city council candidate get me anything? On the other hand, if you’re a man in business, and you want to be able to call somebody on the city council to get information, writing a hundred bucks, you

“Nobody is out there pulling the thread and doing a story of substance...It’s easier just to...talk about something that gets people’s interest quickly.”

–Claire McCaskill don’t think about it.

I do this little shtick with women. There’s a blouse that you saw somewhere. It was on sale, and you thought “I’ve got to have it,” but you didn’t take time to try it on. You got home and it gapped right here [on your front]. I don’t know what they do about designing blouses—you can be a stick, and they still gap. So it gaps or it’s the wrong color, it didn’t fit right, and it sat in your closet for years, and finally you put it in a garage sale, or you gave it away. Write a check for the amount of that blouse—maybe it’s $19.99, maybe it’s $199—write a check for the amount of that blouse to any candidate you believe in. I say, “If you write it to me, be sure to put ‘blouse’ on the memo line.”

To this day I get checks with “blouse” on the memo line, which is great fun for me.

COSTOLO: As a senator, you’ve certainly made a name for yourself going after waste,

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

and you talk about that a bit in the book.

The Arlington National Cemetery scandal— I read that passage and thought, if you saw that in a movie, you wouldn’t believe it. One of the paragraphs said that every document you would look at had you saying, you’ve got to be kidding me. What are the things that are going on in Washington now that we don’t hear about, that if we knew about we would think to ourselves, you’ve got to be kidding me?

MCCASKILL: I’ve got a good one. Are you ready for this? They had a hack at the Office of Personnel Management, in which all of the federal employees’ records were accessed.

They were in a panic mode, and the government is bad at contracting, particularly in panic mode, which means in a moment in which they think they have to do something quickly, it gives them an excuse to not follow all the rules of contracting. So they did a no-bid contract. There’s a contractor who I caught that was providing security for our embassy in Kabul. I don’t know if you remember the news story with all the drunken guards that were out in the back around the bonfire, all painted up, and there was all this sexually suggestive stuff. They were supposed to be guarding the embassy and they were all drunk. And it looked like a fraternity party.

That company changed its name and right now is under investigation for $135 million in improper payments they received. They got the no-bid contract to fix the hack at OPM. You can’t make it up. I called them, and I said, “Are you kidding me? This is the company you give a multi-year contract to?

That has this history? Of underperforming, nonperforming, bad performing, and is under investigation right now?” But that’s just one.

What’s frustrating to me about the new pressure that journalism is under, in terms of having a business model that works, is that we’ve all gotten so used to quick consumption. We move around quickly. I have a member of my family who only gets news through a Twitter feed. It’s the only place that she reads all the news. So nobody is out there pulling the thread and doing a story of substance that would get Americans riled up.

It’s easier just to talk about Donald Trump, or to talk about the emails, or to talk about Kim Kardashian, or to talk about Caitlyn [Jenner], or to talk about something that gets Continued on page 43

Programs 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. Tickets are available at will call. 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. If a program is sold out and your tickets are not claimed at our box office by the program start time, they will be released to our stand-by list. 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

Lynn Curtis lynnwcurtis@comcast.net ASIA–PACIFIC AFFAIRS Cynthia Miyashita cmiyashita@hotmail.com BAY GOURMET Cathy Curtis ccurtis873@gmail SF BOOK DISCUSSION Richard Ingalls reingalls123@yahoo.com BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP Kevin O’Malley kevin@techtalkstudio.com

GROWNUPS John Milford Johnwmilford@gmail.com HEALTH & MEDICINE William B. Grant wbgrant@infionline.net Patty James patty@pattyjames.com HUMANITIES George C. Hammond george@pythpress.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 Beau Fernald bfernald@gmail.com

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Norma Walden norwalden@aol.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.

LGBT James Westly McGaughey jwes.mcgaughey@me.com

FOREIGN LANGUAGE GROUPS Free for members Contact group leaders below for information FRENCH, Intermediate Class Pierrette Spetz, Graziella Danieli pierrettespetz@gmail.com, danieli@sfsu.edu

GERMAN, Int./Adv. Conversation Sara Shahin sarah_biomexx@yahoo.com

FRENCH, Advanced Conversation Gary Lawrence garylawrence508@gmail.com

SPANISH, Advanced Conversation (fluent only) Luis Salvago-Toledo, lsalvago2@gmail.com

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 Subscribe to our free podcast service to automatically download new programs: commonwealthclub.org/podcast.

HARD OF HEARING? To request an assistive listening device, please e-mail Valerie Castro at: vcastro@commonwealthclub.org seven working days before the event.

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

17

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Anne W. Smith asmith@ggu.edu

ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Ann Clark cbofcb@sbcglobal.net

RADIO, VIDEO AND PODCASTS

OCTOBER

Two Month Calendar MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SAT/SUN

1

2

3/4

1:00 p.m. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and William Clay Ford

12:00 p.m. Women in Tech: Can Silicon Valley Women Have It All? FM

2:00 p.m. Richard Dawkins: My Life in Science

9

10/11

5:15 p.m. Mature Job Seeker? Seven Keys to Your Success!

6:30 p.m. Voices of the Wild 7:45 p.m. Where’s the Beef? Our Changing Ideas About Meat

5 5:00 p.m. Book Discussion: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride FM

6:00 p.m. 21st Century Solutions to Critical Western U.S. Water Woes FM

6 12:00 p.m. Can We Stop Alzheimer’s?

6:00 p.m. Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature

6:30 p.m. Resilient Cities

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

6:30 p.m. Tim Draper: A “Shark Tank” for Good Government FM

6:30 p.m. Celebrating the SJ Sharks 25th Anniversary Season

12 12:00 p.m. David Brock FM 6:00 p.m. Living in the Material World: The Future of the Humanities FM

13 6:30 p.m. Drilling in the Amazon and Arctic

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

19

6:30 p.m. Adam Johnson: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author FM 6:30 p.m. Longevity Explorers Discussion Group FM

20 11:30 a.m. Liberation of the Philippines 1945: A 70th Anniversary Commemoration 5:15 p.m. Surviving to Thriving

7:30 p.m. Roberta Kaplan

7:00 p.m. Seth Siegel: Let There Be Water

26

27 6:00 p.m. The Most Famous Grizzly Bear: How Will She and Other Grizzlies Survive U.S. Trophy Shootings?

6:30 p.m. Socrates Café FM

12:00 p.m. Scott Shane: National Security Reporter for The New York Times FM

6:30 p.m. The Way of Wanderlust with Travel Writer Don George

6:30 p.m. Anne Marie Slaughter

14 6:00 p.m. Taking Ownership of Your Clinical Laboratory Test Results

21 11:30 a.m. Arne Duncan: A Conversation with the Secretary of Education

15 1:45 p.m. Russian Hill Walking Tour

16

17/18

6:30 p.m. Wendy Davis and the War on Women

6:30 p.m. Charging Ahead: PG&E CEO Tony Earley 7:00 p.m. Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer: When to Cooperate, When to Compete

22 5:30 p.m.Arts Forum Planning Meeting FE

12:00 p.m. The U.S. Imperative for Wellness

6:00 p.m. Civil Saints and Civic Pride in the Renaissance City-State

1:45 p.m. Chinatown Walking Tour

6:30 p.m. The Food Lab: Cooking with Science

6:00 p.m. The Redwoods League and 21st-century Land Conservation

6:30 p.m. China and the U.S.: Can Conflict Be Avoided?

28 12:00 p.m. Diana Nyad: Never Give Up 6:00 p.m. Understanding Digital Video and the Future of Social Media 6:30 p.m. Joe Klein: Time Columnist

6:30 p.m. Flame Out FM 7:00 p.m. Andrew Fraknoi: The Revenge of a Dwarf Planet

18

8 1:45 p.m. SF Architecture Walking Tour

23

24/25

12:00 p.m. Lebanon FM

6:30 p.m. David Talbot: The Rise of America’s Secret Government

5:00 p.m. Humanities West Book Discussion: Dante’s Divine Comedy (Book 3) FM 5:30 p.m. Middle East Discussion Group FE

6:00 p.m. The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

6:30 p.m. Ben Bernanke: Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve

6:30 p.m. Inside Political Campaigns: Money, Ethics and the Future

6:00 p.m. Chinese Medicine and Managing Diabetes FM

7 12:00 p.m. Ruth Reichl

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

29 6:30 p.m. Who Runs the World? Women with Power and Purpose

30 12:00 p.m. Baseball Legend Dusty Baker: Reflections on Rock Music, Baseball and Life

31

NOVEMBER

Legend

MONDAY

2

5:30 p.m. Book Discussion: The Money Changers, by Upton Sinclair FM

San Francisco

FM

Free program for members

East Bay/North Bay

FE

Free program for everyone

Silicon Valley

MO

Members–only program

TUESDAY

3

12:00 p.m. Simon Winchester: The Pacific 7:00 p.m. Ted Koppel

6:00 p.m. The 49ers Champion Levi’s® Stadium: The First LEED Gold New Stadium and Venue FM

4

THURSDAY

5

12:00 p.m. Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social

FRIDAY

6

SAT/SUN

7/8

12:00 p.m. Marion Nestle: Soda Politics FM

12:00 p.m. Travels in France with Terrance 5:15 p.m. Your Health, Your Wealth: Seven Steps to Planning Ahead for Long-Term Care

6:30 p.m. Power Drive FM

9

WEDNESDAY

10

12:00 p.m. Challenges in Covering Int’l News FM

6:00 p.m. Patient Safety: Get the Diagnosis Right

6:00 p.m. America’s Future Role in Global Security FM

6:30 p.m. Atmosphere of Hope

11 7:00 p.m. Robert Reich: Saving Capitalism

12 1:45 p.m. North Beach Walking Tour

13

14/15

12:00 p.m. The Orbital Perspective FM

6:00 p.m. A Holiday Toast to the 2015 Wine Harvest: Sustainable Practices and Pairings

6:30 p.m. Activist/ Philanthropist Jacob Lief FM 7:00 p.m. 12 MindBlowing Success Secrets for Small Businesses

16 5:00 p.m. Socrates Café FM

17

6:30 p.m. Longevity Explorers Discussion Group FM

7:00 p.m. The Nation Magazine’s 150th Anniversary

6:30 Garry Kasparov

23

24

6:30 p.m. Andrea Ponsi: SF Through the Eyes of an Italian Architect FM

6:00 p.m. Eight Elements to Transform Your Personal Brand, Career and Life

18 12:00 p.m. Stephen F. Cohen: The Ukrainian Crisis – It’s Not All Putin’s Fault 6:00 p.m. Happening: The Story of a Clean Energy Revolution that Is Patriotic, Democratic and Well Underway

25

19

20

21/22

27

28/29

1:45 p.m. Waterfront Walking Tour 7:00 p.m. An Evening with Chef Tyler Florence

26

www.commonwealthclub.org/events www.commonwealthclub.org/events

5:15 p.m. Why Higher Education Should Embrace Wikipedia FM

6:00 p.m. What Are Our Brains For? Cognitive Enhancement, Artificial Intelligence and Human Nature

30 5:15 p.m. Explore the World from The Commonwealth Club FE 5:30 p.m. Middle East Discussion Group FE 6:30 p.m. Week to Week Political Roundtable and Member Social

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

19

October 1 – 3

T H U 01 | San Francisco

T H U 01 | San Francisco

T H U 01 | San Francisco

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and William Clay Ford: Growing The U.S. Economy

Mature Job Seeker?

Seven Keys to Your Success!

Voices of the Wild

Rick Snyder, Governor, Michigan William Clay Ford, Jr., Executive Chairman, Ford Motor Company Greg Dalton, VP, Climate One – Moderator

Based on their experiences in Michigan, Snyder and Ford have a positive economic tale to tell, with implications for the country. In Snyder’s first term, the state passed four balanced budgets, eliminated a $1.5 billion deficit and reformed tax and regulatory codes. Ford has been its chairman since January 1999. Join us for a unique conversation about business, energy, and innovation.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 12:15 p.m. check-in, 1 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-mem., $12 members, $7 stu.; Premium: $35 non-members, $25 members

Mary Eileen Williams, M.A., NCCC, Job Search Expert; Author; Blogger; Speaker; Radio Host

Williams aims to provide mature applicants with critical information on navigating today’s competitive job market, including how to brand yourself for success, make yourself marketable, differentiate yourself from the competition and create a powerful presence both in-person and online. She’ll also discuss networking and the “halo effect,” and the ups and downs of compensation.

MLF: GROWNUPS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 4:45 p.m. reception, 5:15 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: John Milford Notes: In assoc. with The Transition Network

Bernie Krause, Soundscape Artist; Author Jason Mark, Editor, Earth Island Journal; Author

Is any place on Earth still wild? What does it feel like to be in the extended absence of any human-made sounds? Bernie Krause and Jason Mark have traveled the world seeking and recording wild landscapes and soundscapes. While even the most remote places are impacted by humancaused climate disruption, they both have stories of finding incredible beauty and wonder in the natural world. Join us for a conversation about inspiring sights and sounds of nature and how they can guide us toward a healed climate.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

THU 01 | North Bay

F R I 02 | San Francisco

S AT 0 3 | S i l i c o n V a l l e y

Where’s the Beef?

Our Changing Ideas About Meat

Women in Tech: Can They Have It All?

Richard Dawkins

Jaleh Daie, Ph.D., Managing Partner, Aurora Equity

See website for panelists

Is eating meat bad or good? Are cows ruining the planet? Are restaurants leading or following when it comes to our thinking about meat? Can one be a vegetarian and still love bacon? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in the conversation among some of the Bay Area’s top culinary experts.

Location: Outdoor Art Club, 1 West Blithedale Ave., Mill Valley Time: 7 p.m. check-in with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and cash bar, 7:45 program Cost: $55 non-members, $35 members; Premium: $70 non-members, $50 members Notes: Sponsored by Relevant Wealth Advisors and an Anonymous Donor

20

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Technology has always been a maledominated industry even in the midst of the women’s liberation movements. With the ever-expanding Silicon Valley, the gender gap in the job market becomes ever more prevalent as the industry becomes increasingly one-sided. Dr. Jaleh Daie, a leading female VC in Silicon Valley, discusses her own career as she established herself in a male-majority industry. Join us for a conversation about what we can do to attract more young women to technology and what women can bring to the technological table.

MLF: BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check in, noon program Cost:$20 non-mem., MEMBERS FREE, stu. free Program Organizer: Kevin O’Malley

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

Evolutionary Biologist; Author, The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, Brief Candle in the Dark

Dawkins has been central to kick-starting new conversations and debates surrounding creationism and intelligent design.

His gene-centric view of evolution helped popularize a radical new understanding of Darwinism. In the sequel to his memoir, Dawkins offers a candid look at the remarkable events and ideas that encouraged him to shift his attention to the intersection of culture, religion and science.

Location: Morris Dailey Auditorium, SJSU, One Washington Square, San Jose Time: 1:15 p.m. check-in, 2 p.m. program, 3 p.m. book signing Price: $30 non-members, $20 members, $10 students; Premium: $55 non-members, $45 members (priority seating and copy of book) Notes: Photo by Lalla Ward

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

M O N 05 | San Francisco

M O N 05 | San Francisco

21st Century Solutions to Critical Western United States Water Woes

Resilient Cities

Tim Draper: A “Shark Tank” for Good Government

See website for panelists

California is experiencing the worst drought in recorded history. Projections show climate change is creating hotter and drier conditions in the western states. Our distinguished panel of water experts will discuss strategies, reforms and innovations that will help us survive and thrive during the drought and the years to come for cities, farms, rivers, mountains and coastal ocean area MLF: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark Notes: In association with California Coastkeeper Alliance

Patrick Otellini, Chief Resilience Officer, SF Laura Tam, Sustainable Development Policy Director, SPUR

San Francisco has stood against earthquakes, large storms and heavy winds in 2014 and the Rim Fire that cost the city $36 million. What can we do to prepare ourselves for the furious tantrums of Mother Nature? Join us as our panelists investigate what we have learned from past calamities and what other cities from around the world are doing to protect their citizens.

October 5 – 6

M O N 05 | San Francisco

Venture Capitalist; Founding partner, Draper Associates, DFJ; Founder, Draper University of Heroes

Successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper—who floated the idea of splitting California into six states—has a new project: The Fix California Challenge, a self-described “Shark Tank” incubator for state government reform ideas. Come hear Draper’s thoughts on this unusual approach to the political process and on the selection he believes has the best chance.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID)

M O N 05 | San Francisco

T U E 06 | San Francisco

T U E 06 | San Francisco

Book Discussion: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride

Can We Stop Alzheimer’s Disease?

Strange Tools: Art & Human Nature

James McBride’s National Book Awardwinning novel tells the story of John Brown and his raid on Harpers Ferry from the perspective of a young, freed slave who is mistaken for a girl and spends much of the novel riding the circuit with John Brown. Offensive, hilarious, violent and sad, James McBride fills the Kansas Territory with characters straight out of a Mel Brooks movie and then throws in a dash of Quentin Tarantino for good measure. Told from this perspective, it is simultaneously comic and brutal.

Steve Blake, Sc.D., Nutritional Biochemist; Author, A Nutritional Approach to Alzheimer’s Disease; Faculty, Hawaii Pacific Neuroscience

Alva Noë, Professor of Philosophy, UC Berkeley; Author, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature

MLF: SF BOOK DISCUSSION Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5 p.m. check-in, 5:30 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, students free Program Organizer: Richard Ingalls

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

What if there was a way to delay the development of Alzheimer’s disease by up to seven years? With both wise food choices and scientifically based supplementation, Steve Blake thinks it just might be possible. Find out the importance of vitamin D, antioxidants and polyphenols from food when it comes to lowering your risk of dementia, while Blake explains how you can implement these helpful techniques for yourself.

MLF: HEALTH & MEDICINE Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Bill Grant

Silicon Valley

What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Alva Noë offers new answers to these questions making provocative use of examples in philosophy, art history and cognitive science. Listen to Noë explain why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been, and will continue to be, unsuccessful.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond Notes: Photo by Serena Campanini/AGF/ Writer Pictures

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

21

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Location: Exploratorium, Pier 15, The Embarcadero, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

Notes: Generously underwritten by The San Francisco Foundation and The Seed Fund

October 6 – 7

T U E 06 | San Francisco

T U E 0 6 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

W E D 0 7 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

Week to Week Political Roundtable & Member Social

Celebrating the San Jose Sharks 25th Anniversary Season

Ruth Reichl

Panelists TBA

Join us as a special edition of Week to Week, as we explore the biggest, most controversial and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists.

Catch informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, an inside look at what Californians think, 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).

Twenty-five years ago, the Bay Area was taken by storm with the arrival of the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks.

During that span, the team has been one of the most innovative and successful professional sports franchises on and off the ice. Here is your opportunity to relive the history of the San Jose Sharks and hear about what lies ahead with original team captain and General Manager Doug Wilson and long-time TV play-by-play commentator Randy Hahn.

Former Editor-in-Chief, Gourmet; Author, My Kitchen Year

Reichl was stunned when Gourmet magazine, for which she was then editor-in-chief, was abruptly closed in 2009. Filled with uncertainty about her professional future, she turned to the one place that had always comforted her: the kitchen. Reichl reflects on that difficult period and describes how cooking helped her heal and find joy in everyday pleasures.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $15 non-members, $5 members

Location: Schultz Cultural Hall, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $15 members, $5 students (with valid ID) Notes: In partnership with the San Jose Sharks

Location: Schultz Cultural Hall, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $15 members, $8 stu.; Premium: $55 non-members, $45 members Notes: A Food Lit event underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. In assoc. with The Oshman Family JCC. Photo by Fiona Aboud.

W E D 07 | San Francisco

WED 07 | East Bay

W E D 07 | San Francisco

The Master Algorithm: Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine

The Way of Wanderlust with Travel Writer Don George

Anne Marie Slaughter

Pedro Domingos, Professor, U Washington; Co-founder, International Machine Learning Society

Travel Writer; Author

Machine learning is the automation of discovery that enables intelligent robots and computers to program themselves.

Domingos gives us a peek inside the learning machines that power giants like Google all the way down to the smartphone in your pocket. Domingos assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner—the Master Algorithm— and discusses what it means.

MLF: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Beau Fernald

22

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

President and CEO of New America; Author, Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

For the past four decades, Don George has explored the farthest corners of the world. He founded the Wanderlust section of Salon.com and was recently the global travel editor for Lonely Planet Publications. George’s work has appeared in numerous publications around the globe, and he is a frequent guest on NPR and CNN, among many other TV and radio outlets. Don’t miss the chance to hear this award-winning travel expert reflect upon his global expeditions and reignite your wanderlust.

Location: 3491 Mt Diablo Blvd., Lafayette Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $25 non-members, $15 members, $10 students (with valid ID)

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

With the publication of her 2012 Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” Anne Marie Slaughter initiated a flood of discussions surrounding the wage gap, the role of family in the workplace and the challenge of balancing career success with a fulfilling home life. Writing openly about her decision to leave her job as the director of policy planning under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she broke the record for unique page reads on The Atlantic’s website.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. general reception and book signing See website for cost Notes: Photo by Greg Martin

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

F R I 09 | San Francisco

M O N 12 | San Francisco

San Francisco Architecture Walking Tour

Scott Shane

David Brock

National Security Reporter, The New York Times; Author, Objective Troy

Founder, Media Matters; Author, Killing the Messenger: The Right-Wing Plot to Derail Hillary and Hijack Your Government

Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11 but ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens.

Awlaki, who devised a plot that almost derailed Obama’s presidency, and then taunted him from his desert hideouts, will go down in history as the first U.S. citizen deliberately hunted and assassinated by his own government without trial. Hear Scott Shane discuss the years of reporting that went into this masterful chronicle of our times.

With the acumen of a seasoned Democratic activist, Brock takes readers inside his Democratic war rooms and their constant struggle with Republican candidates for control of the story lines and messages that could decide the 2016 election. He’ll provide a no-holds-barred playbook for what he says the new rightwing elite will do in this election cycle and what engaged and informed citizens who oppose them can do.

Explore San Francisco’s Financial District with historian Rick Evans and learn the history and stories behind some of our city’s remarkable structures, streets and public squares. Hear about the famous architects who influenced the building of San Francisco after the 1906 Earthquake.

Discover hard-to-find rooftop gardens, Art Deco lobbies, unique open spaces, and historic landmarks. This is a tour for locals, with hidden gems you can only find on foot!

Location: Meet in the lobby of the Galleria Park Hotel, 191 Sutter Street, San Francisco Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2 p.m. tour Cost: $45 non-members, $35 members Notes: Involves walking up and down stairs.

Operates rain or shine. Limited to 20 participants. Tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID)

M O N 12 | San Francisco

T U E 13 | San Francisco

Living in the Material World: The Future of the Humanities

Inside Political Campaigns: Money, Ethics and the Future

Drilling in the Amazon and Arctic

Ann Ravel, Chair, Federal Election Commission Ace Smith, Veteran Campaign Manager, for Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, etc.

Ben Ginsberg, Veteran Campaign Strategist for Mitt Romney, Geroge W. Bush, etc.

Kirk Hanson, Exec. Dir., Markkula Ctr. for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara U—Moderator

Lou Allstadt, Fmr. Exec.

Vice President, Mobil Oil Co. Andy Behar, Exec. Dir., As You Sow Rene G. Ortiz, Fmr. OPEC Secretary Gen. Leila Salazar-Lopez, Exec. Dir., Amazon Watch

The runaway success of material culture in the last two centuries has often overshadowed the pursuit of subtler, more humane forms of happiness and understanding. Recently even the great universities, the last strongholds of liberal education, have been struggling to define the value of critical thinking next to career building. How will these subtler pursuits survive the cultural onslaught of materialism? Join us for another panel discussion of how to live humanely in the 21st century.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

When it comes to political campaigns, it’s all about the money from various special interests. Meet the government official who oversees federal election financing and two long-time strategists from both sides of the aisle for an inside look at how political campaigns actually work and a discussion about whether it’s possible to be both ethical and victorious.

With oil companies calling for a price on carbon emissions, is the energy industry finally changing its tune on pollution? Oil and coal have fueled economies and lifted people out of poverty. They also have fouled the air, land and water. How fast will the world transition away from fossils to cleaner fuels? How can individual investors use their retirement accounts to vote for an oil change?

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-mem., MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

Silicon Valley

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

23

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

M O N 12 | San Francisco

See website for panelists

October 8 – 13

T H U 08 | San Francisco

October 14 – 19

W E D 14 | San Francisco

W E D 14 | San Francisco

T H U 15 | San Francisco

Taking Ownership of Your Clinical Laboratory Test Results

Ben Bernanke

Russian Hill Walking Tour

Alan Wu, Ph.D., Professor, Laboratory Medicine, UCSF; Author, Toxicology! Because What You Don’t Know Can Kill You and The Hidden Assassin

Roughly 70 percent of all medical decisions are based on clinical lab test results, yet we don’t know what medical tests are ordered or how results are interpreted.

Dr. Alan Wu has conducted blood tests for patients for 30 years and has written four paperbacks based on real cases, and he believes that an informed individual makes the best patient.

MLF: HEALTH & MEDICINE Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Bill Grant

Former Chairman, Federal Reserve; Author, The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath In conversation with Michael Moritz, Managing Partner, Sequoia Capital

From his arrival in Washington in 2002 to the crisis, and through the Great Recession that followed, Bernanke presents an unequaled perspective on the American economy. He pulls back the curtain on the tireless and ultimately successful efforts to prevent a mass economic collapse.

He reveals how the creativity and decisiveness of a few key leaders prevented an economic collapse of unimaginable scale.

Location: Ralston Ballroom, Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program See website for cost Notes: Part of Srs. on Ethics and Accountability, udrwrtn. by the Charles Travers Family Fdtn

Join a more active Commonwealth Club Neighborhood Adventure!

Russian Hill is a magical area with secret gardens and amazing views. Join Rick Evans for a two-hour hike up hills and staircases and learn about the history of this neighborhood. See where great artists and architects lived and worked, and walk down residential streets where some of the most historically significant houses in the Bay Area are located.

Location: Meet in front of Swensen’s Ice Cream Store, 1999 Hyde Street at Union.

Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4 p.m. tour Cost: $45 non-members, $35 members Notes: Steep hills and staircases, recommended for good walkers. Parking difficult.

Limited to 20. Tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in. Tour operates rain or shine.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

T H U 15 | San Francisco

T H U 1 5 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

M O N 19 | San Francisco

Charging Ahead: PG&E CEO Tony Earley

When to Cooperate, When to Compete

Chinese Medicine and Managing Diabetes

California creates more wealth per puff of carbon pollution than anywhere else, and its largest electric utility, PG&E, is one of the cleanest power providers in the country.

Now the state has laid out new goals for an even greener economy. The transition will mean big changes for power utilities and traditional automakers. What role will these century-old pillars of commerce play in the new energy ecosystem? In the run-up to the United Nations climate conference in Paris, join us for a conversation about powering the California of tomorrow.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

24

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Adam Galinsky, Professor of Business, Columbia University School of Business Maurice Schweitzer, Professor, UPenn Wharton School of Business

Galinsky and Schweitzer highlight how to get the most out of any relationship through cooperation and competition.

Drawing on original research from their labs and across the social sciences, they examine how to strike a balance to maximize happiness and improve relationships.

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 Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $8 stu.

Notes: In association with the Wharton School of Business Alumni Association. Photo credit Brian Limus.

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

John Nieters, Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine; Licensed Acupuncturist, Xin Hua Hospital

Dr. John Nieters will share his experience in treating diabetes, drawing on both ancient and modern solutions for controlling diabetes or reducing the risk for diabetes. Learn about his method of integrating tools from five branches of traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine’s technological advances.

Discover early warning signs and how to turn around a pre-diabetic condition through case studies.

MLF: ASIA PACIFIC AFFAIRS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizers: Lillian Nakagawa/Cynthia Miyashita

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

Mysteries of the Ancient World Easter Island & the Nazca Lines May 23 to June 2, 2016

Machu Picchu Optional Extension • June 2–6, 2016 Commonwealth Club Travel

Explore two of the most enigmatic places of the ancient world, Easter Island and the Nazca Lines. Travelers wishing to extend their sojourn in South America have the option to discover the mysterious citadel of Machu Picchu.

Itinerary Monday, May 23 U.S.A./ Santiago

Depart on an overnight flight from the U.S. to Santiago, the capital of Chile. (meals aloft)

Tuesday, May 24 Arrive Santiago

Arrive in the morning in Santiago and transfer to your hotel. Enjoy a welcome lunch followed by a visit to the city’s historical center, including La Moneda, the neo-classical building housing the executive branch of Chile’s government, the San Francisco Church with its fabulous colonial paintings, and the remarkable collection of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, that chronicles 4,500 years of pre-Columbian civilization. Enjoy a welcome dinner. Plaza del Bosque Park and Suites (L,D)

Wednesday, May 25 Santiago/Easter Island

This morning fly to Easter Island. Located 2,600 miles west of Santiago in the South Pacific, this mysterious island has a visual impact few places in the world can equal. Hundreds of moais, tight-lipped basalt statues unique in the whole of Oceania, are scattered throughout the island. An afternoon exploration visits Ahu Vinapu, a temple whose moais are curiously similar to works created by the Incas; Rano Raraki Volcano; and Orongo ceremonial village. Hotel Altiplánico (B,D)

Thursday, May 26 Easter Island

Triangular in shape with a volcano in each corner, this island provides excellent opportunities to learn about its culture and traditions and theories on how the giant statues were built and what they represent. After a barbecue lunch at Anakena beach visit the town of Hanga Roa; and Rano Raraku quarry and important sites. Hotel Altiplánico (B, box lunch, D)

Friday, May 27 Easter Island

After a morning lecture and free time, we have an afternoon excursion to Aku Akivi to see the seven spectacular moais that date back to 1460 BC. Continue to Puna Pau Hill, a red stone quarry that was most likely the source of moais topknots and ornamental headpieces. Hotel Altiplánico (B, L, D)

Saturday, May 28 Easter Island/Santiago

Enjoy your morning on Easter Island before transferring to the airport for a flight to Santiago. Hotel Holiday Inn Santiago Airport (B, meals aloft)

Sunday, May 29 Santiago/Lima/Paracas

Fly this morning to Lima, then travel south to Paracas following the Pan American highway.

Stop for lunch in Chincha Alta at a beautiful 17th century hacienda. Arrive at the hotel late in the afternoon for a free evening. La Hacienda Bahía Paracas (B,L)

Monday, May 30 Nazca Lines/Pisco & Ica

Transfer to Pisco airport for a 1½-hour round trip flight over Ocucaje, Ica, and Palpa to see the mysterious Nazca Lines—huge birds and animals, geometrical lines resembling a landing field, and other markings. These ancient geoglyphs are so large that their forms can be fully discerned only from high in the air. Afterwards, transfer to Ica, Peru’s main grapegrowing region. Visit a wine cellar, Huacachina Lagoon, an oasis in the dunes, and tour the Ica Regional Museum with its collection of mummies, pottery, and textiles from Paracas and Nazca cultures. Then, take an unforgettable and exciting adventure in the desert riding in tubular dune buggies, up and down dunes from 20 to 80 meters high. La Hacienda Bahía Paracas (B,L,D)

Online: commonwealthclub.org/travel

Phone: 415.597.6720

Tuesday, May 31 Paracas/Lima

Board a boat for an outing to the famed Ballestas Islands, known as “small Galápagos” for their profusion of wildlife. The islands are inhabited by thousands of “guano birds”, penguins, and sea lions. On the way to the islands, view the gigantic Paracas Candlabra, a prehistoric geoglyph nearly 600 feet tall on the face of the peninsula ridge overlooking the bay. In the afternoon return to Lima for an evening on your own. Casa Andina Private Collection Miraflores (B,L)

Wednesday, June 1 Lima

Explore some of Lima’s main colonial sites, including the Cathedral, Plaza de Armas, government and archbishop palaces, and the monasteries of Santo Domingo and San Francisco. Explore the residential district of Miraflores with its parks and ocean views and then onto the bohemian district of Barranco. In the afternoon enjoy a curator-led tour of the private Larco Museum, which contains a fascinating collection of pre-Inca and Inca pottery, one of the finest in the country, including unique gold and silver work and erotic ceramics from pre-Inca civilizations. The remainder of the day is free.

Your hotel room is available until the time to transfer to the airport for an overnight flight to the U.S. arriving home the next day.

Alternatively, overnight in Lima and depart for the U.S. the next day on an early morning flight. (This hotel night is included in your trip fee). Casa Andina Private Collection Miraflores (B,L)

Thursday, June 2 Lima/U.S.A.

Transfer to the airport for flight to the U.S. and connect with flights homeward. (B, meals aloft)

Email: travel@commonwealthclub.org

MACHU PICCHU POST-TRIP EXTENSION June 2-6, 2016 Enjoy a four-night extension to explore the enigmatic ruins of the Incas. Stay one night in the Sacred Valley in Yucay. See Pisac’s colorful market and learn about all the various weaving styles. Visit the village and fortress of Ollantaytambo. Continue to Machu Picchu to experience the mysterious land of the Incas. After our guided exploration, overnight at Machu Picchu and enjoy a free morning there to explore on your own. Return to colorful Cuzco for two nights. A detailed itinerary is available, and will be mailed with your confirmation. Please note: most return flights will arrive in the U.S. on June 7.

Study Leader PROFESSOR TERRY HUNT Dr. Hunt joined the University of Oregon as dean of the Clark Honors College and professor of anthropology in 2013. He taught for 24 years at University of Hawai`i, where he served as the director of the University of Hawai`i Honors Program. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawai’i, Hilo; a Master’s degree from the University of Auckland (New Zealand), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington.

the island addresses questions concerning the trajectory of cultural and ecological changes, including the role of the colossal statues and monuments in ancient society.

Dr. Hunt has published numerous scholarly articles on Pacific archaeology, prehistory, and linguistics. His

Dr. Hunt is an archaeologist whose research and teaching focus on historical environmental change and life on the islands of the Pacific Ocean. He has conducted archaeological research in the Pacific Islands for more than 30 years, with extensive work in the Hawaiian Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Over the past 12 years, Dr. Hunt has directed archaeological field research on Easter Island, where he and his students work on many aspects of the island’s prehistoric past. His continuing research on

Online: commonwealthclub.org/travel MACHU PICCHU POST-TRIP EXTENSION

Phone: 415.597.6720

work has been published in Science, Nature, American Scientist, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Archaeological Science, Pacific Science, Journal of the Polynesian Society, Rapa Nui Journal, and Current Anthropology, among others. In 2008 Dr. Hunt was awarded the prestigious University of Hawai`i Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Research in recognition of his innovative work on Rapa Nui. In 2005, Dr. Hunt won the University of Hawai’i Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Hunt’s recent book (The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island, Free Press, New York, 2011) co-authored with Carl Lipo, revisits the dramatic story of Rapa Nui’s prehistory.

The book won the Society for American Archaeology’s book of the year award, 2011, in the public audience category.

Dr. Hunt’s research was the focus of a National Geographic Magazine cover story (July 2012) and a full-length NovaNational Geographic TV documentary that aired on PBS in November 2012.

Email: travel@commonwealthclub.org

Commonwealth Club Travel

Mysteries of the Ancient World

Phone: 415.597.6720 Fax: 415.597.6729

RESERVATION FORM May 23–June 2, 2016

Enclosed is my check or credit card authorization for ________ $600 deposit per person, plus $200 for the Machu Picchu post-trip extension, to hold ________ place(s) on the Mysteries of the Ancient World tour, May 23-June 2, 2016. Final Payment is due February 23, 2016 by check.

NAME AS ON PASSPORT ___________________________________________________________________________________________ DOB _____________________ NAME AS ON PASSPORT ___________________________________________________________________________________________ DOB _____________________ ADDRESS _______________________________________________________________ CITY/STATE/ZIP ___________________________________________________ PHONES: HOME ____________________________________ CELL ____________________________________ BUSINESS ____________________________________ E-MAIL ADDRESS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Please charge my deposit of $600 per person to: MasterCard ________ Visa ________ American Express ________ Card Number _________________________________________________________ Expiration Date _____________________________ Security Code ______________ Name as it appears on card: __________________________________________________________________________________________ ________ I will require single accommodations OR ________ I will share accommodations with: ____________________________________________________________ ________ I/we wish to join the Machu Picchu post-trip optional extension at an additional cost of $2,985. Single supplement $495. ________ I/we want you to book my/our flights from:_____________________________________________________________ in ________ Economy ________ Business I/We have carefully read the Costs and Conditions and Responsibility sections of this brochure and agree to their terms on behalf of myself and the members of my party named above.

Signature(s) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Date _____________________ Signature(s) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Date _____________________ 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

COsTS & Conditions MAIN PROGRAM: $5,995 per person, double occupancy $1,160 single room supplement OPTIONAL POST-TRIP EXTENSION TO MACHU PICCHU: $2,895 per person, double occupancy $495 single room supplement INCLUDED: Accommodations and meals as specified in the itinerary; all land and water transportation; airport transfers for group flights; flight over the Nazca Lines; all tours and excursions as described in the itinerary; bottled water on excursions; entrance fees; baggage handling; gratuities to local guides, porters and drivers; service charges and taxes; pre-departure information; coordination and administration; services of a tour director or host throughout the trip.

NOT INCLUDED: International airfare U.S./ Santiago; Santiago/ Lima; Lima/ U.S. and round trip flights to Easter Island (quoted separately above); meals not specified in the itinerary; personal items such as laundry, email, fax or telephone calls; liquor; room service; passport fees; excess baggage charges; independent and private transfers; medical expenses; gratuity to tour director; travel insurance; optional extensions or deviations from the scheduled tour are not included.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL AIRFARE: Airfare, including flights to Easter Island, is not included and is approximately $1,250 (as of August 15, 2015) when purchased as a through fare. Airfares are subject to change. Airfare on the optional Machu Picchu extension roundtrip flights to Cusco can be purchased as part of the international ticket. To obtain the best price, roundtrip flights to Cusco can be included as part of the international airfare at a nominal cost. Additional information and options regarding air arrangements and recommended flights will be sent to registered participants with their confirmation packet.

OPTIONAL POST-TRIP EXTENSION TO MACHU PICCHU INCLUDES: Accommodations for four nights at deluxe and first class hotels, all excursions, breakfast daily, four lunches, two dinners, train transportation to and from Machu Picchu, airport taxes, airport transfers for group flights, entrance fees including second entrance fee to Machu Picchu and professional tour leadership. Extension’s price and operation is based on a minimum of 10 participants. Intour airfare is not included.

WHAT TO EXPECT: This is a moderately active program that is, at times, busy. Daily programs involve one to two miles of walking, often over uneven terrain, at a leisurely pace. There is some stair climbing, and at many ruins’ stairs do not have handrails. In the Andes (posttrip extension to Machu Picchu), travelers spend several days at elevations from approximately 8,000 to 11,200 feet. The tour has been planned to allow for gradual acclimatization when traveling to the Andean highlands.

RESERVATIONS, DEPOSITS, & FINAL PAYMENT: To reserve a space on this tour, mail a deposit of $600 per person and an additional $200 per person for the optional Machu Picchu extension, payable to “Royal Adventures,” along with the completed reservation form to Commonwealth Club Travel, 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. Deposits may be charged to a credit card.

Reservations are acknowledged in order of receipt. Final payment is due February 23, 2016 and must be paid by check.

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS: Refunds, less a cancellation fee of $350 per person and $100 additional per person for the Machu Picchu extension, are made if we are notified in writing on or before February 23, 2016.

No refunds are made after that date. All cancellations must be made in writing/email. There are no refunds for unused meals, accommodations, or other tour features.

TRAVEL INSURANCE: We strongly recommend the purchase of trip cancellation insurance.

An application for travel insurance will be available upon confirmation.

Neither The Commonwealth Club nor Royal Adventures accepts

liability for any airline cancellation penalty incurred by the purchase of a non-refundable airline ticket or other expenses incurred by tour participants in preparing for the tour.

RESPONSIBILITY: Royal Adventures, its owners and employees act only as agents for the various independent suppliers and contractors providing transportation, hotel accommodations, restaurant and other services connected with this tour. Such travel and services are subject to the terms and conditions under which such accommodations, services and transportation are offered or provided, and the Commonwealth Club and Royal Adventures and their respective, employees, agents, representatives, and assigns, accept no liability therefore. The Commonwealth Club and Royal Adventures assume no liability for any injury, damage, loss, accident, delay or other irregularity which may be caused by the defect of any aircraft or vehicle or the negligence or default of any company or person engaged in carrying out or performing any of the services involved. Additionally, responsibility is not accepted for losses, injury, damages or expenses of any kind due to sickness, weather, strikes, local laws, hostilities, wars, terrorist acts, and acts of nature or other such causes. All services and accommodations are subject to the laws of the country in which they are provided. The Commonwealth Club and Royal Adventures reserve the right to make changes in the published itinerary whenever, in their sole judgment, conditions warrant, or if they deem it necessary for the comfort, convenience or safety of the tour participants. They reserve the right to withdraw this tour without penalty. The right is also reserved to decline to accept or retain any person as a member of the tour, or to substitute another qualified leader or special guest. Baggage and personal effects are the sole responsibility of the owners at all times. The price of the program is given in good faith based on current tariffs and rates, and is subject to change. Any tariff, exchange rate, airfare, or fuel increases will be passed onto participants. Neither the Commonwealth Club nor Royal Adventures accept the liability for any airline cancellation penalty incurred by the purchase of a nonrefundable airline ticket.

The air ticket when issued shall constitute the sole contract between the passenger and the airline concerned. As part of the consideration and right to participate in this tour, each participant will be asked to sign a liability release.

California Seller of Travel: Royal Adventures CST #2009579-40 • Commonwealth Club Travel CST# #2096889-40

M O N 19 | San Francisco

M O N 1 9 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

Adam Johnson: Pulitzer PrizeWinning Author

Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your Parents.

Seth Siegel: Let There Be Water

Associate Professor, Stanford University; Author, The Orphan Master’s Son and Fortune Smiles

This regular discussion group will be exploring 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 will also be conducting a series of ongoing deep dive discussions into topics like brain health, apps for seniors, hearing and wearables for seniors. The discussions will be facilitated

by Dr. Richard Caro, whom many of you have heard speak at prior grownups forum events.

In Adam Johnson’s latest novel, Fortune Smiles, he continues to give voice to characters rarely heard from while offering something we all seek from fiction: a new way of looking at our world. In six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal.

Seth Siegel, Author, Let There Be Water Lisa Krieger, Science and Medicine Reporter, San Jose Mercury News—Moderator

California faces one of its most severe droughts on record, as water scarcity also worsens in the rest of the world. Siegel looks at the policies and cutting-edge water technology that Israel has embraced, examining how a land made of 60 percent desert has become a leading world power in water technology.

Siegel offers possible solutions for conservation development to overcome the problem of water scarcity.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Notes: Part of the Good Lit series. undrwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Photo

by Samson Yee.

MLF: GROWNUPS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in. 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: John Milford

T U E 20 | San Francisco

W E D 21 | San Francisco

W E D 21 | San Francisco

Liberation of the Philippines 1945: A 70th Anniversary Commemoration

Arne Duncan: A Conversation with the Secretary of Education

The U.S. Imperative for Wellness: The Cleveland Clinic Experience

Michael Armacost, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines James Zobel, Chief Archivist, MacArthur Memorial Museum Richard Keith, Major General (Ret.)

In support of President Obama’s goal for the United States to produce the highest percentage of college graduates by the year 2020, Arne Duncan has helped secure increases in the Pell grant program, and the income-based repayment program was introduced during his tenure. With many more key issues at the forefront of California education, join us to see what can be done for the crushing student debt, the school to prison pipeline, the lack of quality teachers and the prospects for beneficial STEM education.

Michael Fredric Roizen, Anesthesiologist; Internist; Author; Chief Wellness Officer, Cleveland Clinic

Location: Marines Mem. Club, 609 Sutter St., SF Time: 11:30 a.m.

Cost: $60 non-members and members Notes: In assoc. with Friends of the Philippines Council. To register, please contact Conchita Applegate, 415-218-0290, cnapple825@ aol.com, or Ambassador Jim Rosenthal, 415-666-3907, jrosent333@aol.com

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11 a.m. check-in, 11:30 a.m. program Cost: $25-non-members, $15 members, $10 students (with valid ID); Premium: $45 non-members, $35 members

Silicon Valley

Location: Schultz Cultural 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 Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $8 stu.; Premium: $50 non-mem., $40 members Notes: In assoc. with The Oshman Family JCC

Chronic medical disease management now accounts for more than 80 percent of the nation’s spending on medical care and is increasing. Chronic disease costs are increasing income inequality and decreasing the standard of living, yet some of these diseases may be largely lifestyle-preventable. Dr. Roizen will talk about the Wellness Institute’s programs.

Join us to talk about the aging processes that Roizen argues we can control.

MLF: HEALTH & MEDICINE Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizers: Adrea Brier/Bill Grant

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

29

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Join a special gala luncheon to commemorate the liberation of the Philippines by American forces and their Filipino allies in 1945. Guest speakers, along with displays, memorabilia and visual documentation, will be presented.

October 19 – 21

M O N 19 | San Francisco

October 21 – 22

W E D 21 | San Francisco

W E D 21 | San Francisco

W E D 21 | San Francisco

Chinatown Walking Tour

The Redwoods League and 21stCentury Land Conservation

David Talbot: The Rise of America’s Secret Government

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 Cookie Factory.

Location: Meet at corner of Grant and Bush, in front of Starbucks at 359 Grant Avenue, near Chinatown Gate Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, walk departs sharply at 2 p.m. and finishes about 4:30 p.m.

Cost: $45 non-members, $35 members Notes: Temple visit requires walking up three flights of stairs. Limited to 12 people. Participants must pre-register. Tour operates rain or shine. Photo by H Sanchez/Flickr.

Sam Hodder, President and CEO, Save the Redwoods League

Come hear Sam Hodder explain how the iconic California redwoods catalyzed the nation’s conservation movement, a century ago, and are now redefining our 21st century relationship with nature. He will discuss how a century of redwood conservation and research has demonstrated how these ancient trees could help us respond to modern day challenges. He says it’s not just about how we can save the redwoods, but how the redwoods are saving us.

David Talbot, Founder, Salon.com; Author, The Devil’s Chessboard Barry Eisler, Former CIA Directorate of Operations; Creator, John Rain series – Moderator

Author and journalist David Talbot presents a portrait of Allen Welsh Dulles, the man he says transformed the CIA into the most powerful and secretive colossus in Washington. Drawing on revelatory new materials, Talbot argues that Dulles manipulated and subverted presidents and the law to further his personal interests.

Talbot will discuss his exposé of American power in the story of the rise of the national security state.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

MLF: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

T H U 22 | San Francisco

T H U 22 | San Francisco

THU 22 | East Bay

Arts Forum Planning Meeting

Civil Saints and Civic Pride in the Renaissance CityState

The Food Lab: Cooking with Science

Our meeting is open to all members who have an interest in the visual and performing arts. We welcome your ideas and your energy. This is a chance for you to take a more active role in planning the Club’s calendar of events.

MLF: THE ARTS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. program Cost: FREE Program Organizer: Lynn Curtis

Mary Harvey Doyno, Assistant Professor, Humanities and Religious Studies, CSU Sacramento

Campanilismo, or civic pride, was a quintessential part of life in Italian city-states during the Renaissance. City-states were crucial to identity: a person was a Sienese, Florentine or Venetian. Doyno explains how Italian Renaissance society championed an ancient, pre-Christian worldview, while also creating complex civil religions steeped in devotion to Christian saints.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond Notes: This program is in association with Humanities West

30

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Managing Culinary Director, Serious Eats; Author, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

In The Food Lab, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt explores the science of cooking, delving into the interactions between heat, energy and molecules that create the dishes we all know and love. Kenji shows how to achieve better food using simple techniques in hundreds of easy-to-make recipes. Join Kenji as he reveals his best tricks and tips in the kitchen.

Location: Lafayette Library, 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $25 non-members, $15 members, $10 stu.

Notes: Food Lit event underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Photo credit Stuart Spivack

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

F R I 23 | San Francisco

M O N 26 | San Francisco

China and the U.S.: Can Conflict Be Avoided?

Lebanon

Humanities West Book Discussion: Dante’s Divine Comedy (Book 3)

Zhang Weiwei, Professor, Fudan University; Director, SASS Institute of China Studies Gary Roughead, Admiral USN (Ret.), Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; Former Commander, U.S. Pacific and Atlantic Fleets

News headlines frequently paint China in a less than positive light, with reports of computer hacking, worsening bilateral trade and military buildup. The world is watching to see if China and the U.S. can avoid a bitter conflict. Join us to hear Chinese and American perspectives on what each needs to do to avoid a disastrous war.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

Notes: In assoc. with The Committee of 100

Eddy Simonian, Masters in International Studies Maher Kalaji, Ph.D. Chemistry — Moderator

Lebanon has been plagued by war, political instability and refugee crises since its inception as a country in 1920. Simonian, an Assyrian Christian who was raised in Lebanon, will discuss the complicated ethnic and religious history of Lebanon and the sectarian conflict, which was the topic of his 2011 master’s thesis.

MLF: MIDDLE EAST Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program Cost: $20 nonmembers, MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: Celia Menczel

Join us to discuss paradise within Dante’s Divine Comedy with discussion leader Lynn Harris. The Clive James translation will be used, which took decades to finish and renders the entire epic as a coherent and compulsively readable lyric poem.

The translation reproduces the same wonderful momentum of the original Italian, propelling the reader along the pilgrim’s path, from hell to heaven, from despair to revelation.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 4:30 p.m. check-in, 5 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members., MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: George Hammond Notes: In association with Humanities West.

M O N 26 | San Francisco

M O N 26 | San Francisco

Middle East Discussion Group

Socrates Café

Flame Out

Make your voice heard in an enriching, provocative and fun discussion with Club members as you weigh in on events shaping the face of the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. Each month, the Middle East Member-Led Forum hosts an informal roundtable discussion on a topic frequently suggested by recent headlines. After a brief introduction, the floor will be open for discussion. All interested members are encouraged to attend. There will also be a brief planning session.

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. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Arlene Blum, Exec. Direc., Green Science Policy Instit.

Mark Leno, California State Senator James Redford, Director, Toxic Hot Seat John Olech, Director of Global Partner Operations, Crate and Barrel Greg Dalton, Founder and Host, Climate One—Moderator

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: George Hammond

Silicon Valley

What chemicals might be migrating into your body when you are vegging on the couch watching TV? Even the most conscientious retailers and consumers can be misled. Join us for a program to explain what might be lurking in your couch or your closet and what to look for as an informed consumer.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. reception Cost: $20 non-mem., MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

31

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

M O N 26 | San Francisco

MLF: MIDDLE EAST Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. program Cost: FREE Program Organizer: Celia Menczel

October 22 – 26

T H U 22 | San Francisco

October 26 – 29

M O N 2 6 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

T U E 27 | San Francisco

W E D 2 8 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

Andrew Fraknoi: The Revenge of the Dwarf Planet

The Most Famous Grizzly Bear

Diana Nyad: Never Give Up

Todd Wilkinson, Journalist; Author Ted Mangelsen, American Wildlife Photographer Bruce Hamilton, Deputy Executive Director, Sierra Club

Diana Nyad, Swimmer; Author, Find a Way

Andrew Fraknoi, Chair of the Astronomy Department, Foothill College

Astronomer Fraknoi takes us behind the scenes of how Pluto got demoted and why its story might still turn out OK. In July, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the double planet Pluto-Charon and gave us close-up views of both worlds for the first time. Though New Horizons data will keep coming to us for a whole year, Fraknoi will give an update on what we now know about these icy worlds at the outskirts of our solar system.

Location: Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $8 stu.

Notes: In association with Wonderfest. Photo credit Tucker Hiatt.

Since 1975, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the grizzly bear as “threatened.” Today, the federal government may soon remove grizzly bears’ protection, allowing people again to trophy hunt grizzly bears. Join in a discussion about what will happen to the iconic animals if trophy hunting is revived.

MLF: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark

After four failed attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida, Nyad finally accomplished a life-long dream in 2013, at the age of 64. Nyad shares some important lessons she learned when facing her fears and striving to live life with no regrets. Hear more about her inspiring story and recordbreaking 110-mile swim.

Location: Schultz Cultural Hall, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $15 members, $8 stu.; Premium: $50 non-members, $40 members Notes: Good Lit event underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Co-presented by The Oshman Family JCC. Photo credit Julie Milligan.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

W E D 28 | San Francisco

W E D 28 | San Francisco

T H U 29 | San Francisco

Understanding Digital Video and the Future of Social Media

Joe Klein: Time Columnist

Who Runs the World? Women with Power and Purpose

Joe Klein, Columnist, Time; Author, Charlie Mike

Jon Leland, Founding Director of Creative Services, USA Network; Author, Internet Marketing: 8 Key Concepts Every Business MUST Know

Leland illuminates how new forms of multimedia are democratizing media consumption and creation. Consumers are more empowered, but so are businesses, organizations and content creators. Leland will explain the long-term implications of digital video and social media ecosystems, including video-based pay-per-click advertising, content sponsorship trends and the latest music offering from Apple.

MLF: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Gerald Harris

32

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Serving one’s country can mean more than fighting a war overseas. After returning from their tours, Navy SEAL veteran Eric Greitens and former Marine Sergeant Jake Wood found many veterans wanted to continue serving their country despite injuries. Author Joe Klein, who wrote about these two heroes’ stories, discusses how Greitens and Wood have saved the lives of those who gave everything for their country.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

Notes: A Good Lit program underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

Melanne Verveer, Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Kim Azzarelli, Chair and Co-founder, Avon Global Center for Women and Justice Andrea Jung, President and CEO, Grameen

Today, women are fast emerging as one of the most powerful and influential demographics the world has ever seen. Join us for a conversation with three women who are dedicated to unlocking opportunities for women worldwide and supporting low-income women through microfinancing and financial education.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing and general reception See website for cost Notes: Photo by Victoria Will

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

M O N 02 | San Francisco

M O N 02 | San Francisco

Baseball Legend Dusty Baker: Reflections on Rock Music, Baseball and Life

Power Drive

The 49ers Champion Levi’s® Stadium: The First LEED Gold New Stadium and Venue

Dusty Baker, Former Manager, San Francisco Giants; Author, Kiss The Sky In conversation with Greg Dalton, Vice President, Climate One

Dusty Baker enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder and 20 years as a manager. But that’s only part of his story. For his 18th birthday, he got tickets to the Monterey Pop Festival of June 1967. He went on to years of friendship with musicians from B.B. King to Elvin Bishop. Come hear the rockin’ personal journey of this sports legend.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11 a.m. check-in, noon program See website for cost Notes: Part of The Good Lit Series underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

Diarmuid O’Connell, Vice President of Business Development, Tesla

Tesla’s provocative cars have insanely fast acceleration while electric cars overall have been slow out of the gate—stubborn high costs, range anxiety, and cheap gas are all factors. Are auto dealers putting speed bumps in the way of EVs? Is their business model challenged by cars with fewer parts and fluids to fix and replace?

Join us for a conversation about the future of cars in California in the era of high technology and high carbon pollution.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID)

Jim Mercurio, Vice President of Stadium Management and General Manager of Levi’s® Stadium Pat Rogan, Director of Engineering Operations, 49ers Stadium Management Company

Its builders hope that achieving the LEED gold certification for the 49ers new home field will serve as a model for sports leadership in environmental design and construction worldwide. Join us to learn about the sustainable management, design, function and construction of the Levi’s Stadium.

MLFS: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES/BUSINESS AND LEADERSHIP Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark

T U E 0 3 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

W E D 04 | San Francisco

Simon Winchester: The Pacific

Ted Koppel

Week to Week Political Roundtable & Member Social

It is said that we have more knowledge of our solar system than of our oceans, though people navigate, fish and swim along the shores of the Pacific every day.

Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world. He explores our relationship with the largest ocean on the planet and discusses how the unmapped depths will define our future.

Location: Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $8 students (with valid ID); Premium: $50 non-members, $40 members Notes: Photo credit Fanny Schertzer

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

Former Anchor, ABC News; Author, Lights Out

Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months. How will we survive?

According to veteran journalist Koppel, this isn’t just a storyline from a movie but a realistic scenario. A well-designed attack on just one of our nation’s three electric power grids could cripple much of our existing infrastructure. And while our federal government is well prepared for natural disasters, there is no plan for the aftermath of an attack on our power system. Koppel examines this potential threat and advises on the best ways to avoid a cyberattack catastrophe.

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 Cost: $25 non-members, $15 members, $8 stu.; Premium: $50 non-members, $40 members

Silicon Valley

Panelists TBA

Join us for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, an inside look at what Californians think, audience discussion of the week’s events and our live news quiz! And stay after 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).

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. wine-and-snacks social Cost: $15 non-members, $5 members

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

33

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

T U E 0 3 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

Historian; Author, A Crack in the Edge of the World and Pacific

October 30 – November 4

F R I 30 | San Francisco

November 4 – 9

W E D 04 | San Francisco

W E D 04 | San Francisco

F R I 06 | San Francisco

Travels in France with Terrance

Your Health, Your Wealth: Seven Steps to Planning Ahead for Long-Term Care

Marion Nestle: Soda Politics

Terrance Gelenter, Author, Travels in France with Terrance and Paris par Hasard: from Bagels to Brioches

Join Terrance Gelenter to sample the varied richness of France — food, wine and culture. His travels have taken him from the green, rain-soaked pastures of Normandy, providing cheese and butter for both eating and cooking, to the confit de canard and goose fat of the southwest, to Provence where olive oil is king. Gelenter often has a smile on his face when he pinches himself to make sure that his life isn’t a dream.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond

Denise Michaud, CLTC, Independent Insurance Broker

Most people used to rely upon family for their long-term care. In the 1960s, insurance for nursing home and home care was developed, later called LTC insurance, to provide funds for professional caregivers. Over time there have been many changes to LTC insurance, and new types of products have been introduced. Learn how to decide how much LTC insurance to buy versus relying upon your own assets, your family members or MediCal.

Professor, NYU; Author, Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning)

Sodas are remarkable products. These drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers into a multibillion-dollar industry. Billed as “refreshing” and “tasty,” sodas are also such well established contributing factors to poor dental hygiene, obesity and type2 diabetes that critics say the first line of defense against any of these conditions is to simply stop drinking them. Join us as Dr. Nestle addresses the tools she says the public needs to keep up pressure on Big Soda.

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

MLF: GROWNUPS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 4:45 p.m. check-in, 5:15 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: John Milford

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Notes: Photo by Renee Comet

M O N 09 | San Francisco

M O N 09 | San Francisco

M O N 09 | San Francisco

Challenges in Covering International News

America’s Future Role in Global Security

How to Help Society’s Most Vulnerable

Parisa Khosravi, Former Vice President for Global Relations and News Gathering, CNN Robert Rosenthal, Executive Director, Center for Investigative Reporting – Moderator

See website for panelists

Jacob Lief, Founder and CEO, Ubuntu; Author, I Am Because You Are Here In conversation with Daniel Lurie, CEO and Founder, Tipping Point Community

CNN has said that no one has played a greater role in the emergence and dominance of CNN international news gathering than Parisa Khosravi. Khosravi, a journalist and expert in crisis risk management, has covered some of the world’s most dangerous places. She will now discuss her experiences relating to important world leaders and covering historic events such as the Iraqi War, the Arab Spring and Syria.

Monday Night Philosophy revisits America’s foreign policy. The United States was a neutral nation for 150 years after its inception, observing George Washington’s “Great Rule.” Following the Truman Doctrine, some argue that the U.S. has acted as the world’s policeman for the past 70 years. Are we ready for a third phase of American history?

The panelists will debate questions and possibilities regarding the U.S. as an empire or an umpire for the rest of the world, raised in the forthcoming PBS documentary, American Umpire.

MLFS: MIDDLE EAST/INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Celia Menczel

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-mem. MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond

34

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

Jacob Lief cofounded Ubuntu Education Fund to address a single aspect of the educational crisis in South Africa. As Ubuntu grew, he redefined the theory of “going to scale.” Ubuntu targets comprehensive household stability, health and educational services, focusing on the depth rather than the breadth of their impact. Join Lief and Lurie for a conversation that offers a unique approach to helping vulnerable populations throughout the world.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, stu. free

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

T U E 10 | San Francisco

T U E 10 | San Francisco

12 Mind-Blowing Success Secrets for Small Businesses

Patient Safety: Get the Diagnosis Right

Atmosphere of Hope

See website for panelists Rick Gilbert, Founder, PowerSpeaking, Inc; Author, Speaking Up

After starting his business from scratch— literally, a rolodex and telephone in the bedroom—Rick Gilbert and his partner, Mary McGlynn, built PowerSpeaking, Inc., into a Silicon Valley legend with a worldwide footprint. Along the way, he found that the standard motivational slogans like “winners never quit” were not helpful. These success tips were learned by screwing up a lot. Be forewarned, this is not advice you will read in The Harvard Business Review.

It is understood that diagnoses act as shortcuts for quickly conveying a common understanding of what certain symptoms imply about a body’s state of health. But diagnostic errors can be as lethal as therapeutic errors. The fifth annual Lundberg Institute Lecture welcomes three panelists from the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on Diagnostic Error in Health Care. They will discuss current knowledge of the dangers of false diagnoses in terms of its economic and personal costs.

Tim Flannery, Author, Atmosphere of Hope Ben Santer, Climate Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Rebecca Shaw, Senior Lead Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund

People concerned about climate disruption sometimes are convinced that humanity is doomed. But cause for hope is everywhere.

Clean energy is advancing rapidly and people around the world are realizing the benefits of moving away from fossil fuels.

Citizens are also learning to live with severe weather and the fires, floods and droughts that it brings. Join us for a conversation about science, hope, and solutions.

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: George Hammond Notes: In association with The Lundberg Institute

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. networking reception

W E D 1 1 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

T H U 12 | San Francisco

T H U 12 | San Francisco

Robert Reich: Saving Capitalism

North Beach Walking Tour

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley; Author

Join another Commonwealth Club Neighborhood Adventure!

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.

A Holiday Toast to the 2015 Wine Harvest: Sustainable Practices and Pairings

Location: Villa Ragusa, 35 South 2nd Street, Campbell Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing Cost: $25 non-members, $15 members, $8 students; Premium: $50 non-mem., $40 mem.

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

Location: Meet at Victoria Pastry Café located at 700 Filbert Street (at Columbus Ave) across from Washington Square Park Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2-4 p.m. tour Cost: $45 non-members, $35 members Notes: Limited to 20 people. Must preregister. Tours operate rain or shine. Photo by Flickr user Clemson.

Silicon Valley

See website for details

Join our distinguished panelists as they share their year-long journey toward the 2015 vineyard harvest and the impact of their commitments to environmental stewardship, social responsibility and the desire to keep land and businesses sustainable for future generations.

Following the program, continue the conversation with our panel and celebrate the holidays with a tasting of their outstanding wines.

MLF: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. wine tasting Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark Notes: In association with the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

35

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

MLF: BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP 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 Cost: $20 non-members, $5 members, $5 stu.

Program Organizer: Kevin O’Malley

Reich argues that power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in 80 years. He says the veneration of the “free market” has masked the power of moneyed interests to tilt the market to their benefit. To him, the critical choices ahead are about who government is for.

Reich presents a broad indictment of the economic status quo and a call to civic action.

November 9 – 12

M O N 0 9 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

November 13 – 17

F R I 13 | San Francisco

M O N 16 | San Francisco

M O N 16 | San Francisco

The Orbital Perspective

Socrates Café

Why Higher Education Should Embrace Wikipedia

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Garan, a retired NASA astronaut who logged 178 days in space and 71 million miles in orbit, will discuss his experience as an astronaut and his time spent on the International Space Station. Today Garan applies three-dimensional thinking, or “the orbital perspective,” to longterm global problem solving—working, primarily, to create a more sustainable, peaceful planet, and combat world hunger, thirst and poverty.

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. Everyone is welcome to attend.

MLF: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Gerald Harris

MLF: HUMANITIES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: George Hammond

M O N 16 | San Francisco

M O N 16 | San Francisco

T U E 17 | San Francisco

Longevity Explorers Discussion Group: Better Aging. You. Your parents.

Garry Kasparov

What Are Our Brains For? Cognitive Enhancement, Artificial Intelligence and Human Nature

Ron Garan, Former NASA Astronaut; Author, The Orbital Perspective

This regular discussion group will be exploring 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 will also be conducting a series of ongoing deep dive discussions into topics like 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 through our partner in this initiative, Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. The discussions will be facilitated by Dr. Richard Caro.

MLF: GROWNUPS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $5 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, students free (with valid ID) Program Organizer: John Milford

36

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Chairman, Human Rights Foundation; Former World Chess Champion; Author

Amin Azzam, MD, MA; Faculty, UCSF; Faculty, UC Berkeley

In 2013 Amin Azzam created the nation’s first medical school course dedicated entirely to improving the health-related content on Wikipedia. It is estimated that every six out of seven people on the planet have access to the internet through mobile phones. In higher education throughout most of the United States, students can Google answers before their teachers finish asking the questions. So why do most professors still shun Wikipedia as a source of information?

MLF: PSYCHOLOGY Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 4:45 p.m. check-in, 5:15 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID) Program Organizer: Patrick O’Reilly

Kasparov has been a vocal critic of Putin for over a decade, even leading the prodemocracy opposition to him in the controversial 2008 presidential election.

He has concluded that Putin’s Russia defines itself in opposition to the free countries of the world. Kasparov now urges a forceful stand, both diplomatic and economic, against Putin. Kasparov makes a call to action against what he sees as an unmistakable threat.

John Harris, D.Phil., Lord Alliance Professor of Bioethics, University of Manchester

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $25 non-members, $15 members, $7 students (with valid ID); Premium (includes priority seating and a book): $50 non-members, $40 members

MLF: LGBT/SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Wes McGaughey Notes: In association with California Pacific Medical Center’s Program in Medicine & Human Values

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

Astronomer Martin Rees has postulated that there are scientific facts that will never be discovered by beings with brains that have evolved in the way that human brains have developed. More significant still, AI could pose problems that our brains are not adapted to anticipate. Join us as Harris examines the ethical limits to human nature.

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

W E D 18 | San Francisco

W E D 18 | San Francisco

The Nation Magazine’s 150th Anniversary: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Robert Reich, Van Jones, Ai-jen Poo, Gavin Newsom

The Ukrainian Crisis: It’s Not All Putin’s Fault

Happening: The Story of a Clean Energy Revolution that Is Patriotic, Democratic and Well Underway

See website for panelists

To commemorate this historic anniversary, the Club is presenting a conversation about our country’s inequality crisis—an issue on which the magazine has long been sounding the alarm. The wealth controlled by the top tenth of the top 1 percent has more than doubled over the past 30 years in the United States, approaching unprecedented levels. What does this mean for the political process? Our civil society?

The future of our democracy? What can be done?

Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus, Russian Studies and Politics, NYU and Princeton University; Contributing Editor, The Nation In conversation with Dr. Gloria Duffy, President & CEO, The Commonwealth Club

The consensus view in Washington and in the U.S. mainstream media is that the Ukrainian crisis is due solely to Russian aggression under President Vladimir Putin. Stephen F. Cohen’s view, on the other hand, is that U.S. policy since the 1990s is largely responsible, and that unless this is acknowledged at least in part

by Washington, no successful negotiated end to the crisis will be possible.

See website for panelists

The new documentary Happening takes us to towns, cities and people across the U.S. where new technologies are transforming our towns and cities into healthy environments. The panel will discuss the dawn of American’s clean energy economy as it creates jobs and makes communities stronger. They will document a shift from deteriorating industrialized sites into newer, profitable energy resources and technologies.

MLF: ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. program Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, $7 stu.

Program Organizer: Ann Clark Notes: This event is in association with The Redford Center. Photo credit Leaflet.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 11:15 a.m. check-in, noon program Cost: $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 stu.

T H U 19 | San Francisco

T H U 19 | San Francisco

M O N 23 | San Francisco

Waterfront Walk

An Evening with Chef Tyler Florence

Andrea Ponsi: San Francisco Through the Eyes of an Italian Architect

Location: Meet in front of Boulevard Restaurant, 1 Mission Street, San Francisco (corner of Mission & Steuart) Time: Arrive by 1:45 p.m. to check in. The walk departs at 2:00 p.m. sharp and finishes at about 4:30 p.m.

Cost: $45 non-members, $35 members Notes: Tour operates rain or shine. Limited to 20 participants. Tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in.

San Francisco

East Bay/North Bay

Host, “Tyler’s Ultimate;” Bay Area Restaurant Owner; Author

Chef Tyler Florence is obsessed with comfort foods, from rich, creamy risottos to “Fronion Rings” (that’s right—French fry encrusted onion rings). Whether you’re a professional chef, amateur cook or foodie, this is your chance to learn what it takes to nail classic dishes and reimagine comfort food. Our mouths are watering just thinking about it.

Location: The Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. check-in & premium reception, 7 p.m. program See website for cost Notes: Good Lit Series underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

Silicon Valley

Architect; Author, San Francisco: A Map of Perceptions

Florence native Andrea Ponsi shares his unique vision of San Francisco, the city often described as the most European of American cities. An award-winning architect, designer and artist who has lived and worked in San Francisco for 10 years, Ponsi takes us on a personal exploration of San Francisco that is at once visual, literary, poetic and historical, with illustrations informed by the architect’s Renaissance sensibility and passion for urban design.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 stu.; Premium: $45 non-members, $35 members

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

37

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

Location: Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco Time: 6 p.m. box office opens and premium reception, 7 p.m. program See website for cost details

Rick Evans’ new walking tour explores the historic sites of the waterfront neighborhood surrounding 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 gives you a lively overview of the historic significance of this neighborhood and a close look at the ongoing development.

November 17 – 23

T U E 17 | San Francisco

November 24 – 30

T U E 24 | San Francisco

M O N 30 | San Francisco

M O N 30 | San Francisco

Eight Elements to Transform Your Personal Brand, Career and Life

Explore the World from The Commonwealth Club

Middle East Discussion Group

Ellen Looyen, Author, Branded for Life!; Branding Commentator, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal and KGO Radio

You already have a personal brand, whether you know it or not! Personal branding is important for anyone who wants to move ahead in their career, climb the corporate ladder or attract new clients. Called “America’s leader in personal branding” by the NYC Conference Board, Looyen wants to help you redefine your personal brand, enhance your visibility and put you in a whole new league.

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 early 2016.

MLF: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:15 p.m. program Cost: FREE Program Organizers: Norma Walden and Linda Calhoun

MLF: BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing Cost: $20 non-members, $8 members, stu. free Program Organizer: Kevin O’Malley

Make your voice heard in an enriching, provocative and fun discussion with Club members as you weigh in on events shaping the face of the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. Each month, the Middle East Member-Led Forum hosts an informal roundtable discussion on a topic frequently suggested by recent headlines. After a brief introduction, the floor will be open for discussion. All interested members are encouraged to attend. There will also be a brief planning session.

MLF: MIDDLE EAST Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. program Cost: FREE Program Organizer: Celia Menczel

www.commonwealthclub.org/events

M O N 30 | San Francisco

L AT E B R E A K I N G

L AT E B R E A K I N G

Week to Week Political Roundtable & Member Social

OC TOBER 16 | San Francisco

OC TOBER 20 | San Francisco

Panelists TBA

In 2013, Davis was propelled into the global spotlight as she attempted an 11-hour filibuster to block a Texas state senate bill that would dramatically restrict abortion in Texas. Join us for a discussion about the powerful effects women in leadership positions can have.

Grief, though a natural response to loss, can be disorienting, painful and hard to manage. It can also be the doorway to a more powerful and purposeful life, if you know how to enter it.

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in and premium reception, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. general reception

NOVEMBER 02 | San Francisco

Join us for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, an inside look at what Californians think, 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).

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program Cost: $15 non-members, $5 members

Wendy Davis and the War on Women

O C TO B E R 2 0 | S i l i co n Va l l e y

Roberta Kaplan

How did one of the nation’s top legal strategists convince the Supreme Location: Schultz Cultural Hall, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto Time: 7 p.m. check-in, 7:30 p.m. program, 8:30 p.m. book signing

38

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BE R 2015

San Francisco

Surviving to Thriving: Avoid Pitfalls of Grief

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 4:45 p.m. check-in, 5:15 p.m. program

Book Discussion: The Money Changers, by Upton Sinclair

Sinclair’s novel about the 1907 stock panic explores the inner workings of Wall Street at the time. Could such greed and corruption have modern parallels?

Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco Time: 5 p.m. check-in, 5:30 p.m. program

See website for more information on these late breaking programs

East Bay/North Bay

Silicon Valley

Photo by Tom Blackwell/flickr

ASYLUMS continued from page 14 providing housing for people who have severe mental illness can be incredible in terms of getting people off the street, but also in terms of engaging them in treatment. Then let me just describe what happens in behavioral health court, because I’ve done research on behavioral health court when it was established in San Francisco. These are people, many of whom do suffer with schizophrenia often in conjunction with substance abuse.

There’s a decision about whether a person goes to a drug court or a behavioral health court. Often it’s the same population, but a lot of it depends on what’s the more significant diagnosis.

They are given the option. The public defenders work on it, and they meet with their client and say to them, “You’re in jail.

We don’t think you should be in jail, but you are certainly entitled to your rights to go in front of the judge and have a trial.

We know you did it, and you’re going to be staying in jail or possibly going to prison, or there is an option for you. The option is that I might be able to try and convince the district attorney that you are motivated for behavioral health court.”

If the person wants—so this involves getting the cooperation of the person—they go to behavioral health court. There is a judge, and this is very significant because the judge is in black robes. A lot of these people have had contact with judges in the past, and this is a more benign judge and says, “Let’s come up with a treatment program for you. If we are going to keep you out of jail, you are going

to have to go to substance abuse treatment.

You are going to have to stay in the housing that we provide. You’re going to have to take your psychiatric medication, which you haven’t taken. We’re going to do drug screens to make sure that you’re not starting up again on heroin or meth or anything. But if you are willing to do that, you can stay out of jail.”

Then the person comes back to behavioral health court, often on a weekly basis. The judge says, “How have you been doing?” Or the judge will say, “I got back a substance abuse screen, and I think you were using some drugs. We are going to give you one more chance.” But it’s a very different sort of situation. At the graduation for behavioral health court, which is open to the public, people graduate, they stand up. These are people who would in the past have been in state hospitals, would have been in prisons doing really terribly, and for the first time they have hope. I mean, they graduate, everybody claps for them. When they’re graduating, they talk about what they’re doing in terms of volunteering, in terms of trying to stay clean and sober, in terms of trying to stay in treatment. This is what we should be working toward.

Together with housing, together with treatment that is funded—funded well—all the programs that we know work very well for people with these disorders. That is the solution.

DUFFY: I’d love to ask each of you to address a country that you would see as a model doing better than the U.S. does.

SISTI: I’ll take it actually as a question

about doing better at the institutional model, because I think there are countries doing better [with] both community and the institutional models. The Netherlands presents a nice case study for this. They have therapeutic communities that are not very large, but they’re bigger than your standard four or five people congregate settings that we have. There’re maybe 50, 60 beds, and they’re modeled in a way that individuals can basically live their lives for the period that they’re there, as if they were in a small village actually.

Is that weird or is that strange? It could be. You could say that’s just sort of a faux environment, but it seems to work. It’s a therapeutic community that seems to work, and that to me is a nice model.

When Dr. Binder mentions that institutions are implicitly or intrinsically harmful, I think that you’re correct in saying that about some of the old state hospitals. But there are new models that are not, and if you go online and just look up CooperRiis and look at some of the alumni from that place, they are filled with hope when they leave. They have been there [as] inpatients, six months [or] a year, and their hope is not dashed. It’s actually created.

BINDER: There are therapeutic communities in different parts of the world as described by Dr. Sisti where people live in the village and they get reintegrated. But we don’t even have to go outside. I mean we can look at a place like Topeka, Kansas, which used to be the home of Menningers [psychiatric clinic]. So it used to be, people would

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

39

go to Menninger’s and they would stay for a year. Sometimes they would stay for even longer and get the treatment in the hospital.

Partially spurred by the fact that very few people can afford to stay in an in-patient unit for that long of time, they started to have briefer hospitalizations, and as soon as someone could, they would go into day programs. They would live with people in Topeka and come into the hospital. So part of it was certainly financially driven in terms of the cost of inpatient hospitalization, but as they did it, they realized that this was even better because you didn’t get the negative impact of, again, being told in a very regimented way about what you have to do, which is not what everyday life is about, and it is harmful to people, and you can still get them involved in treatment programs.

DUFFY: We all know the stories of those who have come into the mental health-care system and into law enforcement who have not been in an institution or kept or treated, and have gone on to do terrible things: shoot people, etc. What is the community’s interest, and how do we protect others from being victimized by mentally ill folks who may be violent?

SISTI: That question is predicated on a deep misconception, which is that seriously mentally ill people are horribly violent. They are not by and large, unless you added substance abuse disorder, and then there could be an uptake in violence. Frankly, individuals with mental illness are usually victims. They are not violent people.

BINDER: Very few people who have serious mental illness are actually violent, and most violence is committed by people who do not suffer from mental illness. Now there is an association between violence and mental illness, and certainly when we hear about these horrible crimes, a lot of them do suffer or may suffer from some sort of mental illness, depending on how broadly you define what mental illness is.

But we do need more treatment. We need early identification, and we need resources to treat people. Whether or not they wind up killing themselves, there is an association between depression and suicide and also other kinds of mental illness and suicide, and a small proportion of these people might commit violence.

The most likely victims are family members.

We can decrease this with good treatment, good resources and good supportive care.

40

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

DUFFY: Let’s talk about cost for a moment.

There have been some studies recently of the full cost of homelessness and associated mental illness issues of relying on the community care model and what you call the transinstitutionalization of mentally ill folks into the jails, into the emergency rooms, on the streets and back through the cycle.

The full cost accounting showed the cost of homelessness is much greater than the cost of housing people. What is the relative cost of the systems that you’re talking about?

SISTI: This is where we stopped our paper, actually. We said, “Hm, I don’t know.”

Here’s the issue: we originally set out to develop an economic argument about this, and it turns out it’s a lot cheaper to keep individuals in prison, and we really don’t know what the actual cost is for that cycle of prison, homelessness, acute care setting, prison, homelessness—that revolving-door cycle. I’m not an economist, but we have talked to economists. It’s tough to get the numbers, because they’re different lines of funding. There’s criminal justice, there’s housing, there’s health care, but that’s got to be pretty expensive, intuitively speaking.

That has to be pretty pricey. [Health care] is probably the most expensive of all of them.

Prison is cheap.

Developing modern institutions would be expensive. It would be more expensive than community programs, but again I think we are talking about a different population.

So it’s sort of a non-issue here. The question is, is it within our social and moral set of priorities to fund these places if we think they are necessary and good? The answer seems to be no.

If you accept the premise that there is a population that does need to be in a structured setting for a period of time that’s longer than, say, six months, if you accept that premise, and you [agree] that’s the right place for an individual to get the right health care at the right time in a beneficent way that’s recovery oriented, then I think we agree. I think that the question is now how we raise that as a priority on our budget, because our budgets are our moral documents. If we are saying, “All right, we know this is a need here, but we are not going to fund it,” that says something about how we care about our most vulnerable citizens who, I think, are the voiceless individuals with serious mental illness.

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

Photo by olavXO/flickr

CHRISTIANA F I G U E R E S THE

ROAD

International adaptations to climate change. Excerpted from Climate One’s “The Road to Paris,” June 16, 2015.

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

WILLIAM K. REILLY

Senior Advisor, TPG

GREG DALTON Founder and Host, Climate One —Moderator GREG DALTON: Almost a quarter of a century ago, you took President [George H.W.] Bush to the Rio Summit that created the United Nations climate convention on climate change. Take us to Rio in 1992, and set the foundation.

WILLIAM REILLY: What was really different about ’92 was that we had models. We had the preponderance of scientific opinion predicting climate change, predicting warming and all of the associated issues: drought and excessive rainfall and all the rest. We didn’t, however, have the experience of it.

Now we do. That is a big change. Whether it’s in Alaska or the drought here in California, the melting glaciers—the evidence is all around us that it’s no longer theory. It’s no

TO

PARIS

longer a matter of models. It’s upon us, and it seems to me now, it ought to be much easier to create the consensus that gives us serious policy.

DALTON: That takes us to Paris. We now have the experience that’s been framed as a moral issue. What’s going to happen in Paris?

What’s at stake?

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: What has fundamentally changed is that the problem is no longer in the future; the problem is in the present. Furthermore, the solutions are in the present. We have the technologies; we have the capital; we have a growing number of regulations and legislations in place, and we have a very interesting good mood developing internationally that is basically saying, “Actually, we are going to get to an agreement.” It’s not [for]the “possibility” of a climate deal that we’re going to Paris—we are going to get to an agreement. It’s about how you maximize collaboration, because I think the universal truth has now become very evident: we’re all better off with climate action ASAP than without.

DALTON: Do fossil fuel-producing countries realize that? The Middle East, Russia, petrol states: are they on board with this?

Some very powerful people in those countries potentially have a lot to lose from putting a price on carbon or moving away from fossil fuels.

FIGUERES: They also have a lot to lose if we do not arrest climate change. The Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, are already among the hottest countries in the world. They cannot afford to get even hot-

ter. They’re already among the most waterinsecure countries in the world. They cannot afford this risk. The minister of energy [of Saudi Arabia] is really understanding that it is in their own interest to begin, as they already have, to invest in the only resource that is even more prevalent than oil in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia: the sun.

DALTON: Bill Reilly, your thoughts on the transition of these energy-dependent states.

Are they going to resist this transition or, like Christiana just said, try to get out ahead of it?

REILLY: I would expect that the fossil fueldependent states will try to slow down. I would imagine that they will look to a transition that’s longer than we would consider desirable or than science would suggest, and they may be successful at that. However, if you look at how rapidly we have transitioned from a 50-percent to somewhere in the 30-percent dependency on coal-fired power for electric utilities, it shows it can be done.

And now is a very good time to do it.

DALTON: [Is] enlightened self-interest going to bring Russia and other states to really do as much as possible here?

REILLY: I think you’ve put your finger on something that’s important to them, and that is sustaining their gas production and sales.

They do have very large supplies. They do also have significant oil deposits, and yet the impact of very high temperatures—I think it was two or three summers ago—carried off tens of thousands of people. Obviously, the Russians are smart people. Over time, I think one hopes the Russian economy becomes— this has been a hope for a long time—more

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

41

diversified, more successful, more open, transparent. So far, so bad.

DALTON: Christiana Figueres, the heads of major European oil companies wrote you a letter recently. What did they say?

FIGUERES: They said they want to be part of the solution. They said they want a price on carbon.

DALTON: Did you fall off your chair when you read this?

FIGUERES: No, because it’s a very natural evolution of a conversation that we’ve been having with them. This is one step in that push-pull where, frankly, oil and gas companies have to be a part of the solution. If they want to have business continuity, [then] it’s a very clear choice: Do you want to continue to be a company or do you not? These oil and gas companies have very, very deep pockets, and they have an amazing engineering capacity that is unequaled in any other sector.

DALTON: U.S. companies were notably absent. Chevron, Exxon—why weren’t they there?

FIGUERES: They were invited. They’re not ready for reasons that are probably better known by people who carry a U.S. passport than me. But I don’t take that “no” as a permanent “no.” I take that as a “not yet.”

DALTON: Bill Reilly, eight years or so ago, there was a group of energy companies, including General Motors and others, [that] tried to create a new center in American politics around climate change. European oil companies were part of that; U.S. oil companies were not, with the exception of the one you are on the board of, ConocoPhillips. Are U.S. oil companies falling behind?

REILLY: The surprising thing to many of these CEOs is that we have still not enacted legislation to regulate carbon. The fact is, they have shadow pricing. From an economic self-interest point of view, they’re fully prepared. But not only have they moved on that front, they have obviously pioneered frack-

“ T he

clarit y and clarion

call from the Pope, who is motivated truly from his sense of justice, is very moving. ” –Christiana Figueres ing, which has made possible the president’s program that has reduced by something like 11 percent the emissions, heading toward the goal of 17 [percent] set in Copenhagen, but they have also moved very heavily into gas.

That, presumably, is the transitional fuel that they look forward to continue to sell.

I very much support the concept that they have sophisticated engineering. That’s quite sophisticated stuff, and they’re energy companies, so [I’ve] characterized most of them that way, not necessarily [as] oil companies at the moment. I don’t think that they will be inconvenienced that seriously when we finally get a carbon tax.

DALTON: Let’s talk about Pope Francis. He said recently that man has slapped nature in the face. He came out very strongly in sup-

port of climate on his encyclical. Christiana Figueres, how does this moral voice affect the prospect for a climate deal?

FIGUERES: It’s a very important contribution to the conversation. The moral imperative on climate change has been made for many years. But the clarity and the clarion call from the Pope, who is motivated truly from his sense of justice, is very moving. It sort of shakes the ground that you stand on.

You cannot be untouched by a call like that.

DALTON: Bill Reilly, you had an audience with the Pope a couple of weeks ago. Tell us how this changes the dynamic in the United States REILLY: It changes it very significantly.

The surprise is that his message is on several planes. It’s certainly on the plane of theology and morality. It also gets very close to the realm of policy and action. It calls out people who are not accepting climate change and suggests that indifference or excessive belief in a technical solution, or just opposition to science, is unacceptable on a moral plane.

He has a very heartfelt and affecting statement of concern on the part of the poor and the disproportionate effects that they will suffer. He shows a great deal of compassion for that and, in the statement, connects those concerns with consumption. Not an altogether easy message to accept in the consumer societies that those of us in developed countries live in, but a very important and direct encouragement to reflect personally on the consequences of our choices.

Photo by Ed Ritger

42

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

MCCASKILL continued from page 16 gets people’s interest quickly. The sad thing is that there are so many things that journalists could be doing that would help make our government better, because it’s just as sensational, some of this stuff. If you want to make somebody mad, or if you want to make somebody afraid, which is what drives traffic, a lot of these [more substantive] stories will do that if they would just take the time to dig in and find them. But journalists now are not given that time to do that, and it’s a real problem going forward, in terms of the accountability of our government.

COSTOLO: Also in the book, you talk about the fact that the media in some cases reinforces stereotypes about women in politics and so forth. For example, you refer to the Associated Press focusing on Wendy Davis’s pink tennis shoes during her filibuster in the Texas capital. What is the likelihood that they would have talked about what kind of shoes that a man was wearing? How much does that media narrative, or that sort of bias, intentional or unintentional in the media, play into some of the issues that women have in politics or in professional roles in general?

MCCASKILL: Most of it’s just irritating.

When we have our dinners we just kvetch about it, but some of it is insidious. I’ll tell you the one example that I relate to personally, because of the pain it has caused me, and that is the double standard when it comes to the spouses of candidates. Both John Kerry and John McCain had spouses that had very complicated financial wealth.

They had lots of money and lots of tentacles, lots of trusts, lots of business interests and lots of investments, and I don’t ever recall them being dragged through the mud about various business decisions they might have made, or how they were avoiding taxes, or how they were using the tax code. But if you’re a woman senator and you’re not married to a librarian, buckle up because it’s coming. They’ve gone after my first husband when I was married to him, and they’ve just been relentless with my second husband.

I’m fine because I’m tough and I’m used to it, but this was new to him. He was shocked by what they were doing to him.

Here’s a guy whose first job out of school was at a steel mill. Self-made, he created thousands of jobs and great wealth. I mean, he’s a freaking poster for the Republican

Photo by Ed Ritger

“If your [district] is safe, what are you worried about? You’re worried about a primary...

You’ve got no motivation to co m e to t h e m i d d l e. ” –Claire McCaskill Party. Right? He’s what they love to talk about. But because he’s married to me, he’s a tax-cheating SOB. These ads they did were all about his failure to take care of people in his facilities, or his tax stuff. It was just awful and terribly unfair. So that’s someplace where there’s an incredible double standard. I know Dianne [Feinstein] has had some of those issues in her career also, with Dick [Blum]. I tease Amy Klobuchar that the most strategic thing she ever did was marry a professor.

COSTOLO: We’ve talked about the extreme views in the media now. Gone are the days of the “Huntley-Brinkley Report.”

What has happened to the moderates in Congress itself? There are very few people like yourself who are both very strong on victims’ rights and yet also doing some of these other things we’re talking about.

Where are all the moderates?

MCCASKILL: They’re mostly from states like mine, that are not red or blue, that can

go back and forth. If you look through the Midwest, there’s a bunch of them. Look at all the states where there’s one Democrat and one Republican. Most of the time you’ll find the majority of the moderates from those states. So, what’s the problem?

If we have some of them, why can’t we get more people to the middle? Well, it’s really the House. You need to understand that it wasn’t that long ago that there were probably 100 swing districts in the House. They have now perfected the art of redistricting to keep everybody safe. If you’re safe, what are you worried about? You’re worried about a primary. So if you’re a Democrat in a safe Democratic district, you’re worried about your left flank. If you’re a Republican in a safe Republican district, you’re worried about your right flank. You’ve got no motivation to come to the middle.

COSTOLO: Open primaries—is that an answer to what’s going on?

MCCASKILL: Yeah, I would like to see us do more of what you guys have done here [in California]. You’re a blue enough state that it typically makes it a little awkward when you end up with two Democrats in the final election. It makes it painful for all of you who have friends that are running against each other at the end. If you had more swing districts—it still matters about the [way districts are structured] because if the district is bright red, the top two contenders are going to be red, and if the district is blue, the top two contenders are going to be blue, right? It really is about citizens taking back redistricting and trying

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

43

to help draw districts in a way that is more reflective of the reality of the geography or the socioeconomics of that area.

The other thing that’s happened is that it’s very hard to be a moderate in the Republican Party right now. If we talk about the Todd Akin race, what was astounding was it was the first time I’d ever had a close look at Republican primary polling data.

It was just shocking. The majority of the Republicans that were voting in the primary in Missouri loved the fact that Todd Akin said that Barack Obama was a menace to society. The majority of them didn’t think Obama was born in America. The majority of them certainly didn’t believe in climate change. Look at these candidates and how far to the right they’re driving in order to win a Republican primary. Eventually, they’re going to fall off the earth, and they won’t be able to win anything. I do think they’re perilously close to that now, they’re getting so far to the right.

COSTOLO: Hopping back to some of the themes in the book, if you could give just one piece of advice to a young woman for how she could prepare for a career of service through politics, what would it be?

MCCASKILL: She needs to focus on what she wants to do and drive towards it. If she wants to be in Congress, she needs to start thinking immediately, “Where’s the district I would run? What does it look like? Who do I know there? What campaign can I work on in that area right now?” I started working on campaigns when I was in high school. I worked on campaigns all through college. I

made my selection for law school based on the fact that if I went in Missouri, everybody that I went to law school with would be contributors of mine when I ran for office.

If I went to Georgetown or I went to Emory, I’d never get all those guys to come and help me in Missouri when I ran for office. But at Missouri Law School, they’d all be in the state, right? People said, “Why did you tell those stories about what you did in the Akin campaign?” Because I want women to own being strategic, looking around the corner, and figuring out what’s the next step and how to get there. It doesn’t just happen to you. Nobody’s going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, it’s your turn.” You’ve got to work for it and figure it out and strategize it.

Do you want to be president? Well, if you want to be president, then it’s probably a good idea to get elected governor or senator. You need to think, how old am I? What year would that election be? What should my resume look like? You think it was an accident that I was in the prosecutor’s office instead of the public defender’s office? Being a prosecutor helps a woman have credibility a lot more than being a public defender, at least in my state. Besides that, I loved being a prosecutor. Those are the kinds of things I tell young women. Don’t be afraid to be boldly strategic about how you get there, and own what you want now, not wait and say, “Do you think I could someday?” Of course you can!

COSTOLO: A theme that runs throughout the book is one of courage. When your

ex-husband was busted for smoking pot, you didn’t get in front of the cameras and say, Well, you know, let’s wait and see what happens. You got up and told everyone— MCCASKILL: I’m standing by him, I love him. He’s going to get help.

It’s fascinating to me, because politics is one area where—and I guess this is true in other areas, too, but since I’ve spent most of my life in this work, I can speak to it—when something bad happens, and you’ve made a mistake, there is such a natural tendency to go on the defensive and to rationalize and obfuscate. I made this wonderful discovery because my first husband did something incredibly stupid and hurtful to me, and that was, I just told the truth, how I really felt. My advisor said this that and the other, and I said no, no, no.

I had a radio program that was already booked, an NPR local program that was very popular in Kansas City. I was out of state when this happened and I flew back home the next morning. Obviously, I’d gotten word of what had happened. I went on the radio program, and Walt Bodine, the host, said, “Well, Claire, this is your chance to tell people what you think of what happened.” I said, “It was stupid, it was incredibly hurtful, and I am so damn angry, it’s going to take me six months to get over the urge to kill him.” It’s what I felt! It was just normal human emotion.

All of a sudden I was getting flowers in the office and women were sending me stuffed animals and notes saying, “I had a jerk for a husband once, too.” It was unbelievable.

Photo by Ed Ritger

44

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

Photo by Ed Ritger

The same thing happened later in my career when we discovered that we’d made this incredibly embarrassing error on taxes on a plane that my husband owned. Here my brand was all about fiscal accountability, and it was uncovered that we owed all this money on this airplane for taxes that hadn’t been paid. I just called a press conference and said, “Here’s what happened. I take full responsibility. I’m mortified. It’s all being paid back today, and I’m terribly, terribly sorry.” And while it was used, it just never got traction in Missouri.

Frankly, if you’re going to say anything about Donald Trump, the guy is saying amazing things and people aren’t getting mad. A lot of people are getting mad at him but there is this thirst for people to be authentic, to say exactly what they’re thinking and to show a little bit of themselves. Now, it’s too bad what Trump is actually thinking, but at least he’s not filtering as much.

COSTOLO: Admitting mistakes is an undervalued element of courage. [An audience member writes] As a native Missourian and Mizzou journalism grad, I’d like to talk to you about Todd Akin. Is it true that you bet your daughter you would shotgun a beer?

MCCASKILL: Yeah, really briefly, and, this is a good thing to close with. Mike Muir is here, who is part of my team and who is an incredibly talented person who does all my mail in my campaigns, and I want to give him a lot of credit for this. We decided that Todd Akin was the best candidate for us to have in the election because he said a lot of things that were crazy, and we knew that we

could show him to be extreme. The others were extreme, too, but he had so many things that he’d said publically that were going to [make it] easier to beat him. So we polled in the Republican primary and figured out what was most popular about what Todd had said.

Then I paid for the ad. It said, “Paid for by Claire McCaskill, I approve this message.”

The ad said, Todd Akin is too conservative

“ D o n’t

be afraid to be

boldly strategic about how you get there, and own what you want now, not wait and say, do you think I could someday? Of course you can!”

–Claire McCaskill for Missouri, and it listed all the things the Republican primary voters loved about him.

Of course, my phone started ringing, “Well if you think he’s too conservative, he’s perfect.”

And we were going, “Yes, he is.”

I think Mike actually named the ad. We called it a cup of tea, because he was a Tea Party guy, and he was just what the far right wanted. It worked. But it was high risk. I spent more money on that ad than Todd Akin had spent his entire campaign. It was an unconventional, bold, high-risk deal. I

was very nervous about it. I was so lucky, because my two daughters—one took a leave from her job and the other was home from school—traveled with me that summer on the campaign. They saw how nervous I was.

They realized I was really buggy about this.

This could be a disaster if this went wrong.

Maddie said, “Mom, if Todd Akin wins the primary, will you shotgun a beer with us?” I had no idea what it was.

For those of you who don’t know [shotgunning,] here is what it is. You take a beer, and you put a hole in the bottom of the can, and you put that over your mouth and you pop the tab, and the beer rushes into your mouth. So, you’ve learned something at The Commonwealth Club that you didn’t think you were going to learn today.

He won the primary that night, and then of course he went on to exceed our expectations, when he said “legitimate rape” a few weeks later. So, that excerpt from the book got put in Huffington Post a few weeks ago, and the Washington journalists were giving me trouble about it and said, “We don’t believe it.” So I actually tweeted the pictures, play by play; them showing me how to do it, me doing this, and then me hugging my daughters right after the fact. So if you want to see live action shots, you can go on my Twitter feed to see me shotgunning the beer to celebrate the fact that Todd Akin was my opponent. It turned out our strategy, while bold and unconventional, was very effective because, I won the race by a larger margin than anybody in statewide office has won in Missouri in a long, long time.

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

45

The origin of a philanthropic revolution. Excerpted from “Entrepreneurship that Can Change the World,” July 8, 2015.

Program sponsored by Bank of the West.

JESSICA JACKLEY Co-founder, Kiva; Author, Clay Water Brick: Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least In conversation with

SALLY OSBERG

President and CEO, Skoll Foundation SALLY OSBERG: Could you talk a little bit about what your vision is for [your book] Clay Water Brick?

JESSICA JACKLEY: I know that not everybody gets to go have the adventures I’ve gotten to have and to meet all the entrepreneurs that I’ve gotten to meet all around the planet.

I have been utterly convinced, thanks to what I’ve encountered in them and what I’ve experienced in my own journey as an entrepreneur, that it’s very possible to change things in the world—it’s very possible to start something and have it impact, in a positive way, the lives of other people.

So I feel a desire, a need, to try to share that and convince other people that it’s possible too. I get excited about the idea of people living and working more entrepreneurially in a way that just means seeing and seizing more opportunity in the world.

OSBERG: As a cofounder of Kiva.org, you really complemented your fellow cofounder, Matt Flannery. But how would you characterize the leadership strengths and the unique qualities you brought to that partnership?

JACKLEY: Matt and I met in college. We got married right after college and started Kiva together. We are no longer married, and when we did separate, I ended up leaving the organization and going on to do other things. But while we were day-to-day partners in that endeavor, it was awesome.

46

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

Growing up, a lot of the stories that I heard about poverty were ones that made me feel very alienated from the poor. It very much divided the world into two categories: haves and have-nots—people who give and people who get. That’s not the way I saw things, but it’s the way I was taught to see things for quite a while. It made me feel scared of those other people out there in the world. It made me feel separate from them.

I ended up feeling guilty, if not shameful about my own relative wealth, and the thing that sort of unlocked that for me was getting out and actually spending time in the field with entrepreneurs that I had so longed to serve and hearing a different side of the story.

That story was very, very freeing to me.

It was very encouraging, very paradigmshifting. It was a different narrative than I’d heard about poverty and potential. So what I hope that I got to contribute to Kiva in the beginning, at least, was that sort of spirit.

The spirit of enthusiastically and optimistically sharing this other side of the story of so many entrepreneurs out there in the world who have a voice, for sure, [which] is not heard very well or very much.

OSBERG: I’d love you to just share a couple of those stories with us, because they’re incredibly compelling, very beautifully drawn.

I’d also like you to describe for us the process of reflecting on what those entrepreneurs had to teach you.

JACKLEY: The title of this book, Clay Water Brick, is inspired from the story of the first person that I highlight—Patrick, this brick-maker from Uganda. I met him 10 years ago, and he told me his story of fleeing from the northern area of the country to this border town on the border of Kenya and Uganda, because a rebel group attacked his village. He and his brother got out, were able to escape, but he lost everything that he had, which wasn’t much in the first place.

So he arrived in this new village homeless, had just the clothes on this back. He was uneducated, young, hungry, didn’t have very many skills to speak of.

He decided one day, though, that he really needed to change things and had a moment of inspiration, where he’d literally, not in a clichéd “roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty” way. He literally dug into the earth, right there beneath his feet and was able to learn as he dug. He learned that

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

Jess

Entrepreneur

ica Jackley

ship that Can Change the World

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL THPhoto47

by Rikki Ward

there were clay deposits, and if you mixed it without regard to what they have or don’t the clay with water you could form bricks. have, what they’ve lost, where they’ve messed So he did that. At first the bricks were really up and made mistakes. They figure out a way rough and misshapen and they crumbled over, around and through, and they keep and cracked easily, but he got better and moving. That’s what the entrepreneurs in better at that, and finally he was able to the book I think really show us. That’s what make bricks that were good enough to sell. inspires me so much.

So he did that, was able to save up a little Ten years ago, my big break was that I got bit—just fractions of a penny each brick, so to have this amazing three-and-a-half month it took a while. Eventually he could buy a internship with Village Enterprise, a Bay brick mold—so imagine, the size of a sheet Area nonprofit that provides microgrants. I of paper with a line in half. He was able to begged my way into this job, because I just make two bricks at once, and so his produc- wanted to spend time hearing this other side tion doubled, and the bricks were of higher of the story, meeting entrepreneurs up close quality, more smoothly and consistently and personal in the field. Brian Lehnen, shaped in size. He sold those bricks for a who was at the helm at the time, really met little bit more, saved up again, went to a me where I was, and said, “Let’s figure out nearby village, was able to learn how to something for you to do. Let’s send you build a self-contained kiln by stacking the over there.” So I went over, interviewed bricks around a fire; baked bricks sold for about 150 entrepreneurs who’d received this a little bit more. $100 grant. I met some of the entrepreneurs Yo u c a n s e e in the book during where this story that particular threegoes. He eventually e embodied the spirit month period when has a business where I was interviewing he’s able to hire his of entrepreneurship that I grantees. brother and a neighWhen I met Inbor and another and l o v e t h e m o s t . H e s a w nocent, I went in has really drastically after a whole few changed the whole oppor tunity where others weeks under my trajectory of his life were walking by it every day. belt, quite confident because he just so that I was an exembodied the spirit pert now, and I sort –Jessica Jackley of entrepreneurship of was anticipating that I love the most. answers. It was out He saw opportunity where others were walk- of a good place, a well-intentioned place. I ing by it every day. wanted to help, and I wanted to get good It’s easy to always think you need some- at this stuff. I had heard, by that time, a thing else to move forward sometimes, and few dozen stories. So as I asked her how feel stuck. Even when we might be very she had indeed used these profits from her materially wealthy and very privileged, very growing business, what she’d first done with well-educated, we still can feel stuck. Any- those profits, actually, I expected her to say one can feel stuck. So I think about Patrick things that I had been hearing a lot lately, and how the best entrepreneurs that I know like, “Oh, I sent my daughter to school,” really embody this spirit. or “I bought mosquito nets,” or “I’m able There’s a definition that I talk about of to now afford three meals a day instead of entrepreneurship. It’s a Harvard Business two.” You know these kind of wonderful School professor’s definition. He says that improvements people had been making. entrepreneurship is the pursuit of op- And she said, very matter-of-factly, “Well, portunity without regard to the resources now I can afford sugar for my tea.” currently controlled. I think it’s quite a It’s not pretty, but I remember thinking, romantic, beautiful, kind of passionate why would you do that? You should do all description of entrepreneurship. these other things first! Sugar for your tea? I The idea that somebody can have a vision mean, that’s nice, but come on! [Laughter.] of the future that’s different from today, and I didn’t say that, but I felt that way. I’ve believe in it so much that they will pursue been humbled again and again and again

“H

”

48

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

over the years. It’s a very good thing, and a theme of my journey. So thankfully I held my tongue, and I asked the right question, I think, which was, “Tell me more about that.” She proceeded to explain that having sugar for her tea allowed her to invite more people into her home with more confidence, and she felt like a better hostess because she could offer them tea—like, the whole experience, not just tea without sugar, but sugar and milk, etc., and have this welcoming home. That allowed her to interact more with people outside of her home and her community, it allowed her to be more confident in her business. Her business then ended up doing better. It was this real game-changer for her. It changed the way she saw herself and the role that she could play in the community. So she was correct to have chosen that.

OSBERG: One of the stories I found particularly interesting was the call you picked up one afternoon from a pair of Silicon Valley investors who wanted to put $10 million in Kiva. Walk us back to what that was like, and how you eventually made the decision you did.

JACKLEY: We’re about two years in. We’ve just been on Oprah, which was weird and wonderful, and the site had crashed. I remember that moment because she had asked us how much had Kiva facilitated thus far, and we were just like bursting at the seams with pride, because we said, $10 million.

Now it’s so much more, but we were so psyched to be able to answer her and say that’s where we were. So I remember that’s how much we had, over the entire existence of the organization, we had facilitated through the site.

Then, one day, we get a call. It was our little office in the Mission. The phone rings, and I was closest—you know at startups, everyone does everything. So it could’ve been my mom, it could have been anybody calling that line. It turns out, it was this gentleman. He called, and was like, “Hey. Love what you’re doing at Kiva. Love the program. I represent [a] big corporation that will remain anonymous, and we have this amazing new corporate social responsibility program, and we’d love to put that money into Kiva. What do you say?”

And I was like, “Thank you so much for calling. Yes, seems like a great idea. Now, would you like to pay our rent forever with Photos by Rikki Ward

that money? Would you like to actually divide that money up into gift certificates for all of your clients and all of your staff and everyone you’ve ever met, and provide them with 25 or 50 or even 100 dollars to come lend on the site to an entrepreneur whose story really resonates with them? Because that’s what we’d really love to do with you, if you’re open to that.”

Anyway, he was not open to any of those things, and at the time, we really didn’t have the capacity to really be too much more creative with him about how to make that happen, or to take it on for ourselves to say, “We’ll do the legwork for you.” But in short, no. He just kind of wanted to dump it into the system, check back in a few months, and kind of pat himself on the back and go back to his CSR stuff. That was not what we were about. There would not have been human beings behind that money having this experience of coming to the site, connecting with other people, reading their stories, being excited when they’d get an email about their $1.25 of repayment every week, or whatever—that wasn’t going to happen. It was going to be this nameless, faceless money dumped in.

Again, [the offer was] as much as we had raised up until that point in our entire existence, and then withdrawn months later without anyone really knowing—besides the borrowers, which is not a terrible thing.

But Kiva’s mission has been to connect people through lending for poverty alleviation.

That’s the thing: to connect people. That’s the “what.” The “how” is sort of through lending, the “why” is “poverty alleviation,” and other things too come out of that.

So we said “No, thank you” to $10 million.

That was really about knowing your mission: knowing who you are and who you’re not, knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to, and feeling very okay and at peace with whatever that answer would be.

Because you have to stay committed to who you want to be in the world.

You can change and grow as well, but once you have set your mission and you know what that is, you should say no to these objectively good opportunities: the $10 million opportunities, objectively good jobs, or schools, or relationships or whatever, that are not a fit for you and who you want to be in the world.

O C TO B E R/N O V E M B E R 2015

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

49

.

InSight

D R . G LO R I A C . D U F F Y P R E S I D E N T & C E O

Iran: What Now? ger its interest should grow in being part of the international ow that the nuclear community. In particular, the closer Iran’s economic ties a g r e e m e n t b e t w e e n become with the United States and other members of the I r a n a n d t h e P 5 + 1 P5+1, the less willing its leadership should be to risk break(the United States, the other ing those ties through cheating on the agreement. members of the UN Security Iran is fundamentally different from other isolated counCouncil and Germany) is vir- tries like North Korea in that it has an educated citizenry, tually sure to come into force, a history of economic achievement and desirable resources what’s ahead? like oil. Thus there is a greater prospect of Iran developing The success of an arms con- the economic ties with other countries that could foster its trol agreement lies not just compliance with the agreement. in the terms that are negotiIn the United States and abroad, discussion and meetings ated—which in the case of are taking place about how economic ties can be increased Photo courtesy of Gloria Duffy the Iran agreement have been with Iran. Germany, especially, is stepping forward to exhotly debated. Success also depends on what happens after plore new economic relations with Iran. Iran has opened the agreement is signed. Does each country comply with a new trade office in Berlin, and Iranian and German oil the agreement, or does each party find every way possible ministers have been meeting over the past few months. to interpret the agreement in its own favor, circumvent its The United States should reach out—both officially terms, and sometimes even cheat? Of course, we very much through our government and directly through businesses— want Iran to comply with the new agreement, so that the to explore greater trade and economic involvement with pact leads to curtailment of Iran’s nuclear program to prevent Iran. that country from developing nuclear weapons.

In addition to mutually beneficial trade, creating a Whether compliance or cheating is the outcome de- richer social fabric between Iran and the other countries pends on the internal politics and should help increase Iran’s incengovernmental behavior of each countives to comply. Some organizations try. It also depends on whether each he negotiations with Iran have already started organizing travel party gets out of the agreement what groups to Iran, including the Club. it seeks. Iran is primarily seeking were difficult, but the hard The Commonwealth Club hosted a economic benefits as a result of the study tour to Iran last year, and it has nuclear agreement, while the United part—helping the agreement another one coming up this October.

States and the other partners seek Travelers returning from these trips to succeed—is just beginning. greater security. report how eager Iranian citizens are Success of an arms control agreeto meet Americans, and how positive ment also depends on whether the countries involved have their communications are with visiting Americans. a relationship that supports compliance with the agreement.

Establishing greater trade ties with Iran and more peopleAnd of course it depends on the other partners being able to-people contact will foster Iran becoming less isolated to verify whether Iran is indeed complying with its com- and more of a “normal” country, with a greater interest in mitments. the status-quo. Other avenues for collaboration could be The negotiations with Iran were difficult, but the hard found in the arts and sciences, and of course Iran is a sopart—helping the agreement to succeed—is just beginning. ciety that could benefit hugely from the application of the Here are some steps that can be taken to increase the like- digital technologies that are so well-developed in the other lihood of success. First, of course, the United States must six parties to the pact. keep its defenses strong and its intelligence capabilities up to So the conclusion of an arms control agreement is really the task of monitoring the Iran agreement. But perhaps less just the beginning of the road toward ensuring its success. obviously, much work lies ahead to create a relationship with Let’s hope that we, the Iranians and the other five counIran that will incline its leadership to comply with, instead tries involved are committed for the long haul, to develop of loosely interpret and perhaps even cheat on, the pact. the relationships that will firmly steer Iran away from the The more Iran is exposed to the outside world, the stron- nuclear weapons path.

N

“T

”

50

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

O C TO BER/NO V EM BER 2015

TANZANIA

Wildlife & Culture Safari

March 1–12, 2016 Immerse yourself in the unspoiled landscapes of Tanzania, a country that has set aside one-third of its land for conservation and has the highest concentration of wildlife anywhere in the world.

• Stay at a unique private nature refuge, a model for community-based tourism.

• Visit homes and talk with local Maasai.

• Search for wildlife — lion, elephant, cheetah, giraffe, and rhino in the Serengeti.

• Discover the massive caldera of Ngorongoro Crater, home to rhinoceros, hippo, flamingo, ostrich, and the black-maned lion.

• Retreat to your eco-friendly tented camps offering superior comfort and gourmet meals, and ideally situated to witness seasonal concentrations of wildlife.

• Experience an optional sunrise balloon ride over the Serengeti.

• Enjoy specially arranged meetings with community members and guest speakers, and experience the warmth of the Tanzanian people.

$6,690 per person, double occupancy

Commonwealth Club Travel CST: 2096889-40

Detailed brochure available at: commonwealthclub.org/travel Contact: (415) 597-6720 • travel@commonwealthclub.org Photos: provided

by MIR Corporation Photos: Feans; Swati Sani/flickr

The Commonwealth Club of California 555 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94102

Purchase event tickets at commonwealthclub.org or call (415) 597-6705

PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

or (800) 847-7730 To subscribe to our free weekly events email newsletter, go to commonwealthclub.org and click on “MY CLUB ACCOUNT” in the menu at the bottom of the page.

PROGRAMS YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS Wednesday, October 14

Tuesday, November 3

Ben Bernanke

Ted Koppel

Former Chairman, Federal Reserve; Author, The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath

Former Anchor, ABC News; Author, Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath

Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve in 2006, capping a meteoric trajectory from a rural South Carolina childhood to professorships at Stanford and Princeton, to public service in Washington.

From his arrival in Washington in 2002 to the intense days and weeks of the crisis, and through the Great Recession that followed, Bernanke presents an unequaled perspective on the American economy. For the first time, he reveals how the creativity and decisiveness of a few key leaders prevented an economic collapse of unimaginable scale.

Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months. Tens of millions of people left in the dark without running water or access to banks or medical facilities.

According to veteran journalist Koppel, this isn’t just a story line from a movie but a realistic scenario. A well-designed attack on just one of our nation’s three electric power grids could cripple much of our existing infrastructure. Koppel examines this potential threat and advises on the best ways to avoid a cyberattack catastrophe.

for event details, see page 24

for event details, see page 33

Tuesday, November 17

Thursday, November 19

The Nation Magazine’s 150th Anniversary From groundbreaking investigative journalism, to cutting-edge cultural commentary, to unmatched political analysis, The Nation has been at the forefront of American politics and culture since its inception by anti-slavery abolitionists in 1856. 2015 marks the 150th birthday of The Nation magazine. To commemorate this historic anniversary, The Commonwealth Club is proud to present a conversation about our country’s inequality crisis – a core Nation issue on which the magazine has long been sounding the alarm. for event details, see page 37

Tyler Florence Host, “Tyler’s Ultimate;” Bay Area Restaurant Owner; Author, Inside the Test Kitchen Chef Tyler Florence is an Emmy-nominated chef, Food Network star, and chef-owner of Wayfare Tavern and El Paseo. Whether you’re a professional chef, aspiring chef, amateur cook or foodie, this is your chance to learn what it takes to nail classic dishes and reimagine comfort food. Join INFORUM in welcoming the renowned chef and television host as he discusses his new book Inside the Test Kitchen and his updated take on 120 classic recipes. for event details, see page 37