The Commonwealth August/September 2017

Commonwealth The

THE MAGAZINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

SPECIAL ISSUE: FEATURING OUR NEW HOME AT

110 THE EMBARCADERO PLUS: GARRY KASPAROV • CAITLYN JENNER • NANCY PELOSI BILL MOYERS • TOM NICHOLS • BOOK AWARDS

& MORE!

$5.00; free for members | commonwealthclub.org

THIS FALL, THE 114-YEAR-OLD COMMONWEALTH CLUB BECOMES THE NEWEST PART OF SAN FRANCISCO’S STORIED WATERFRONT

OPEN THE GATEFOLD TO LEARN MORE >>

A NEW HOME FOR BRIGHT IDEAS

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he Commonwealth Club’s newly built headquarters at 110 The Embarcadero is scheduled to open in September 2017, after six years of fundraising, planning, design and construction. It will be a “home for ideas,” bringing daily debate and discussion of important issues into the center of our community, on San Francisco’s beautiful waterfront.

Since its founding in 1903, The Commonwealth Club has rented space in various buildings in downtown San Francisco. Early plans to acquire a headquarters building were derailed by the earthquake and fire of 1906 that destroyed much of the city. The dream of having our own home never died, and in the 1980s then-President Shirley Temple Black revived plans for a building. But it wasn’t until its eleventh decade that the Club

finally was able to make its dream—more than a century old—come true.

After an extensive search, in 2012 the Club purchased a 1910 building at 110 The Embarcadero on San Francisco’s waterfront from the Accornero family, which had owned it for more than 70 years. The Club then embarked on constructing a mostly new building, while preserving a historic facade. Our architect is Leddy Maytum Stacy, winner of the 2017 National Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects.

The building has 24,000 square feet of interior space.

(See floor plans next page.) It features two auditoriums, a rooftop deck and garden, an art exhibition area, multiple informational video screens, several informal gathering spaces, and a state-of-the-art Meyer Sound audio system and high-tech

communications platform. It is LEED Gold, with a specially designed window system for cooling the building with fresh air.

The Club is just the latest use for this interesting site at 110 The Embarcadero, which during its 100-plus years of history has been used for winemaking, storing coal, retail shops, banking and offices. (See old building layouts, above.) Its most significant prior use was in the mid-1930s, when it was the home for the International Longshoreman’s Association, which played a key role in a dramatic labor strike in 1934. That strike by dockworkers and the police response would result in the tragic death of two strikers right outside the building. The Club’s new home will feature historical background on these events and the labor reforms that resulted.

ROOFTOP TERRACE

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE 7

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Programs

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In conversation with LaDoris Cordell Changes in life and outlook

Program Listings 59

EDITOR’S DESK

THE COMMONS

Short news of the Club, plus letters

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CAITLYN JENNER

Program Information 56 Two-month Calendar 57

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August/September 2017

In conversation with Holly Kernan

On the Cover

GARRY KASPAROV

Volume 111, No. 5

Has Vladimir Putin check-mated Western democracy?

The front of the Club’s new home on The Embarcadero takes shape.

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Photo by James Meinerth

On this page

NANCY PELOSI

In conversation with Melissa Caen Is expertise dead?

Photo by Ed Ritger

Celebrating three decades in office, the House Democratic leader reflects on the state of the nation

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WEEK TO WEEK

How serious are President Trump’s legal problems?

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In conversation with Scott Shafer

TOM NICHOLS

THE GIVING CODE

20

Philanthropy in Silicon Valley.

Rikers: An American Jail

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Moyers and expert panelists discuss mass incarceration

INSIGHT

Dr. Gloria C. Duff y President and CEO

BILL MOYERS

Nancy Pelosi with Scott Shafer.

We had our first meeting with the president of the United States. And the first thing the president said was, ‘Do you know I won the popular vote?”

So I said, ‘Mr. President, there’s no evidence to support that—and that isn’t true.’

NANCY PELOSI

Journey from Tashkent to Baku Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan & Azerbaijan Tashkent • Samarkand • Bukhara • Merv • Ashgabat • Baku

October 10 - 24, 2017

•

Hear lectures from study leader Dr. Emily O’Dell.

•

Take a privately guided tour of Tashkent’s Museum of Applied Arts, housed in the former mansion of a wealthy czarist diplomat.

•

Visit the private art studio of a sixth-generation Uzbek ceramicist whose family has been making pottery since the 1790s.

•

Enjoy a convivial meal in the home of a local family in Samarkand.

•

Meet the senior advisor for Bukhara’s Ark Museum.

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Explore the ruins of the ancient city of Merv.

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Discover UNESCO-listed Gobustan, an important site of ancient petroglyphs on the Absheron Peninsula below Baku.

•

Enjoy a private tour and champagne reception at Baku’s Nobel Oil Club, the Nobel Brothers’ museum.

Cost: $6,995 per person, double occupancy

Dr. Emily O’Dell is an assistant professor at Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman.

Previously, she held the Whittlesey Chair of History & Archaeology at the American University of Beirut, and taught at Columbia University, Brown University and Harvard University. Emily’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Salon, Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and Huffington Post. Her recent academic publications touch upon Sufism and shamanism in Central Asia, post-Soviet Islamic law in the region, and the archaeological excavation of the Mongol destruction of Merv in Turkmenistan.

Brochure at commonwealthclub.org/travel | 415.597.6720 | travel@commonwealthclub.org CST: 2096889-40

EDITOR’S DESK

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The Commonwealth 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 feedback@commonwealthclub.org

VP, MEDIA & EDITORIAL

John Zipperer

Welcome to the Neighborhood

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his is the final editor’s note that I will write in our offices at 555 Post Street in downtown San Francisco. The next one will be written from my desk at our long-awaited new home on The Embarcadero.

The process of locating, buying, designing and building our new space has been a multiyear adventure. That process can be difficult in any city, but it is quite a bit more complicated in San Francisco. We are very grateful to our real estate consultants, architects, contractors and everyone else who worked so hard to make this dream come to fruition. We are especially pleased with all of the generous supporters who stepped forward over the past few years to provide the funding for the project. These range from multimillion dollar gifts to dollar bills dropped in our donation boxes. And we are very thankful for all of our friends in the community who gave us advice, wrote in or spoke in our favor at city planning meetings, and in every way showed that The Commonwealth Club has a wealth of goodwill in its community.

This special issue of The Commonwealth is a celebration of our new building. Over the next few weeks, we will be getting everything arranged in the new building, unpacking boxes and moving around furniture, testing our state-of-the-art sound system and the fiber connectivity, and making sure that when you walk into the building to see a program or attend a social hour or view an art exhibit or hold your organization’s private meeting, you have a wonderful experience.

So as we wrap up our work at 555 Post

Street, we should take a moment to be grateful for its service as our interim headquarters these past few years. As many of you know, this is the former location of the Press Club, so we’ve had some of our speakers tell us about speaking at the Press Club a couple decades ago or hanging out there as reporters.

The husband of one of our speakers is the son of a local newspaper legend; he remembered shooting pool with Press Club members back in the day. Former Mayor Willie Brown told us about the Press Club’s famous black cat statue—the cat was used to signify if a speaker’s comments were on the record or off.

The building’s history, beautiful wood details and location amid a diverse array of restaurants has made our time here an enjoyable one. It has been more than just an “interim” period for the Club. During this time, we sold out more programs than any comparable time in history. We launched new series, such as the Ben Franklin Circles and the Reading Californians Book Discussion. We added new TV and radio stations to our networks, and we tripled the number of annual downloads of our popular podcast.

It has been a good time, and we’re going to keep that momentum going. We’re already at work on new initiatives that will be launched at our new home.

Come join us at 110 The Embarcadero.

Keep a lookout for news about member open houses and other special events, come take in a program at the new building, or just stop in when you’re in the area. It’s your Club.

DESIGNER

James Meinerth

DIGITAL ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Megan Turner

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Ed Ritger Rikki Ward James Meinerth Alyssa Sewlal Kimberly Maas

ADVERTISING INFORMATION

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

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POSTMASTER

Send address changes to The Commonwealth, The Commonwealth Club of California, 555 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 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/watch-listen, podcasts on Google Play and Apple iTunes, or contact Club offices to buy a compact disc.

Printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink.

Copyright © 2017 The Commonwealth Club of California.

JOHN Z IPPERER V ICE PR E SIDE NT OF ME DIA & E DITORIAL

AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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E AB S TA L KS HOAFR ETDH EI D C LU The panoramic view from the Club’s new Kaiser Permanente Rooftop Terrace.

Neighborhood Chef

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ake a look at the gentleman below. This chef is an all-weather cook, braving wind and rain to oversee his happy diners.

Actually, he’s just a statue, but he is perched on top of the Audiffred Building, home of Boulevard restaurant and a neighbor to the Club’s new home at 110 The Embarcadero.

You can see him from street level the next time you’re wandering up The Embarcadero, or you can get a better view of the chef when you’re enjoying a relaxing reception on the Club’s new Kaiser Permanente

Rooftop Terrace. While you’re taking in the vista that includes the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, the Ferry Building and more, you can look to the rooftop right next to you and raise a glass to the chef.

Amb. James Rosenthal

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fter a long and distinguished career in public service, former Commonwealth Club Executive Director James Rosenthal passed away on June 20 at his home in San Francisco. The 85-year-old retired diplomat spent his adult life in posts domestically and internationally working in the interests of his country, and when he returned to his native San Francisco, he devoted himself to serving local institutions and organizations.

A Marine veteran, Rosenthal joined the U.S. Foreign Service back in 1956, and for three and a half decades he served around the world.

The most dramatic post might have been his role as a political officer at the American embassy in Saigon, where he was wounded during a 1965 attack. When he retired from the Foreign Service in 1990, he came back to his hometown and was named executive director of The Commonwealth Club, where he remained until 1996.

Rosenthal is survived by Britta, his wife of 59 years; his three children; and six grandchildren.

Good Work Recognized

W Raise a toast to the chef next door.

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH

e’re always thrilled to see talented young people at the Club who move on and turn innovative ideas into reality.

Kevin Adler is one such person. Following his graduation from Occidental College, he worked at the Club as a fellow. While here, he helped put together a special summer series of more than 30 programs focused on the topic of water.

We knew he would go on to do great things, but we were particularly pleased to see him receive attention for his role as founder and CEO of Miracle Messages (miraclemessages.org), a nonprofit that connects homeless people with their families via short videos.

Recently, Shinola featured Adler and his work in a full-page ad in The New York Times, which included Miracle Messages’ core beliefs: “Everyone is someone’s somebody,” and, “No one should be defined by what they lack.”

LEADERSHIP OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB CLUB OFFICERS Board Chair Richard A. Rubin Vice Chair Evelyn S. Dilsaver Secretary Dr. Jaleh Daie Treasurer John R. Farmer President & CEO Dr. Gloria C. Duffy

BOARD OF GOVERNORS John F. Allen Carlo Almendral Courtland Alves Dan Ashley Massey J. Bambara Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman** Harry E. Blount John L. Boland Michael R. Bracco

Who’s in Charge?

Maryles Casto** Mary B. Cranston** Susie Cranston Dr. Kerry P. Curtis Dorian Daley Alecia DeCoudreaux Lee Dutra Joseph I. Epstein* Jeffrey A. Farber Rev. Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J. Dr. Carol A. Fleming Kirsten Garen Leslie Saul Garvin John Geschke Paul M. Ginsburg Hon. James C. Hormel Mary Huss Julie Kane John Leckrone Dr. Mary Marcy Frank C. Meerkamp Lenny Mendonca Anna W.M. Mok

Bruce Raabe Skip Rhodes (Past Board President) Bill Ring Martha Ryan George M. Scalise Lata Krishnan Shah Dr. Ruth A. Shapiro Charlotte Mailliard Shultz George D. Smith, Jr. James Strother Hon. Tad Taube Ellen O’Kane Tauscher Charles Travers Don Wen Dr. Colleen B. Wilcox Jed York Mark Zitter ADVISORY BOARD Karin Helene Bauer Hon. William Bradley Dennise M. Carter

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 *

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

LETTERS

I was really grateful that your club was holding this event and was very impressed with the great introduction emphasizing your core values [“Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader,” May 30, 2017]. I was thinking of joining.

Then the interview with Scott Shafer started.

This event was nothing more than a political event for Nancy’s reelection. She took over control of the event and left Scott Shafer waving his question cards. He seemed to want to talk about the health care-issue, but she just waved him off. Very sad for The Commonwealth Club!

Barbara Commins I just heard the last 40 minutes of your show with Ben Shapiro [“Ben Shapiro: Rules for Debating the Left,” April 24, 2017]. I listen to most of your shows and am usually impressed with them. Having a fast-talking, controversial figure like Shapiro on your stage, hosted by a fellow Republican/Libertarian/cheerleader was very disappointing and not very informative.

Shapiro was never challenged on any of his glib and mostly shallow pronouncements and left me unhappy with the entire show.

How did you make such a decision to offer Shapiro an hour of time on your stage and provide him with a chuckling-along host who

served no productive service except to aid Shapiro in his preaching of his dogma?

Bad move, folks. I will keep listening, but you should not do that again.

Dennis OKeefe Silver City, NM

Religious Division

Re: [Jamison] Shipley’s letter asking for a panel on Christians after The Commonwealth Club hosted one on Muslims [Letters, The Commonwealth, June/July 2017]. Muslims are minorities in the U.S. They lack the power to combat the majority’s stereotypes and have been targeted since 9/11by the media. No one has murdered a Christian because she wore a cross in America, but men with hats mistaken for Muslims or women with scarves who are Muslim have been killed here.

The appropriate analogy would be to have a panel on Mennonites, Amish or other minorities mocked in the mainstream media or portrayed unfairly. We are doomed if even The Commonwealth’s editorial board thinks the false equivalency in Shipley’s letter is logical or sane.

Matthew Rafat San José Editor’s note: Publication does not connote endorsement or condemnation of a letter writer’s point of view.

Feedback on Twitter Thanks to @ASlavitt @gailwilenskycom @markzitter for a civilized and thoughtful conversation about health care policy @cwclub @SFBau Best new job team building? The Bay, good food, craft cocktails & attending the @ASlavitt + Gail Wilensky debate #trumpcare at @cwclub @allenmuchmore I’m going to have to catch up on the Comey testimony riiiiight after this @Kasparov63 talk.

Thanks to @cwclub for making this happen! @MrWharton @ Mat t S hu p e P R M r. S a r t o r i a l a n d brilliant interview of @benshapiro at the Commonwealth Club @INFORUMsf @ BullseyeMktng H A P P I N E S S i s @ Yo u Tu b e C E O @SusanWojcicki signing on my lens after conversation with Founder @BlackGirlsCode Kimberly Bryant @6Gems @cwclub @Sravannemani Letters may be edited for length and content.

Email: feedback@commonwealthclub.org or write: Letters to the Editor, The Commonwealth, P.O. Box 194210, San Francisco, CA 94119 .

AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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WEEK

Jus t how serious are President Trump’s legal and political problems? From “Week to Week,” held June 19, 2017, in San Francisco.

CARSON BRUNO

Assistant Dean for Admission and Program Relations, School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University; Author, California Realpolitik Newsletter

BARBARA MARSHMAN

Editorial Pages Editor, Mercury News

DAN SCHNUR

Director, LA Region, American Jewish Committee; Former Chairman, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission

JOHN ZIPPERER

Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Moderator 10

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

JOHN ZIPPERER: We know that President Trump is a focus of Robert Mueller’s investigation. Or is he? Yesterday his lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said the president is not under investigation. But that is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the president’s legal problems.

Barbara, from what we know so far, is the president under investigation?

BARBARA MARSHMAN: I can’t imagine that he is not somehow pulled into this—I guess it would be obstruction of justice.

He knew Michael Flynn was taking money from a foreign power; he didn’t want to fire Michael Flynn. There are just so many bizarre twists and turns. My sense is if Mueller was given [a lot of leeway], I don’t see how he could not investigate the president. I don’t know if anything is there.

ZIPPERER: Dan, what do you think about what’s going on and then the fighting over whether or not he’s even being investigated?

DAN SCHNUR: Mark Fisher and Michael Kranish of The Washington Post wrote an instructive book last year called Trump Revealed and, with no fewer than 32 of their Washington Post colleagues, did really an impressive deep dig into Mr. Trump’s entire life leading up to his campaign for president. There’s any number of things that might strike the reader; the one I will offer up here is not just the fact that he demands and craves public and media

T

attention but the nature of it.

The former basketball player Dennis Rodman once said, “The only bad press is an obituary.” [Laughter.] President Trump—if you read Trump Revealed and Art of the Deal, you’ll see that, joking aside, he believes that. He came to believe, over his years of experience in the cauldron that is the New York City media market, that it is preferable to receive unfavorable attention than no attention at all.

ZIPPERER: Because at least they’re talking about you.

SCHNUR: It’s easier, once they’re paying attention to you, to change the nature of the conversation to something that might work [to] your benefit, than to try to get noticed if they’re ignoring you. It’s a skill that he employed to great effect throughout previous careers.

If you look back at the primary and the general election campaign, he used that approach to great skill. Now, for the first time, he’s running up against, not political, not media obstacles, but legal obstacles, and you can tell that that is a new

O

experience for him. He is still struggling to figure out how to deal with it.

CARSON BRUNO: For someone who has built his entire career, his entire adulthood, over a consistent message—that is building the Trump image—he is a fantastic marketer, fantastic public relations person. Businessman? You can quibble about [that]. But he is fantastic at marketing. He’s built this Trump image throughout his entire career, and it’s been consistent. You know exactly what you’re getting when you see a Trump stamp on any of the products—gaudy, over the top, ostentatious—but you know what you’re going to get.

With the marketing, the public affairs, public relations coming out of the White House, you have no clue what you’re going to get. Sean Spicer says one thing, and then [Sarah] Huckabee Sanders says something completely different only a few minutes later, and then Trump that evening tweets something out completely different. From a consistency standpoint, the message is all over the place, which doesn’t jive with the marketing approach that Trump has taken through his entire career. [This] could speak to either pure chaos in the White House, that no one really knows what’s happening, which is kind of scary, or it could be that they’re trying this kind of smoke-and-mirrors approach, just trying to throw everything out as much as possible, see what sticks, see what CNN starts talking about, see what Fox news starts defending, and kind of go from there.

But your approach is not going to be very successful [in] the end if Mueller is actually investigating him, and if there is actually something there that sticks in the legal perspective. The best tweet can’t save you in the courtroom, unfortunately.

ZIPPERER: We have seen the Senate testimonies of both former FBI director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Barbara, who was more effective in those testimonies?

MARSHMAN: I may be prejudiced here, but I just found Jeff Sessions amazingly clueless on so many things. He just did not seem to have a grasp of what was going on. Comey has a huge ego, and I would not say he’s 100 percent credible. But he said self-damaging things.

WEEK He admitted to leaking the memos, which is kind of a weird thing, but it made me feel like he’s probably telling the truth about most of it. Because if you’re going to cover things up, why wouldn’t you cover up that kind of screwy thing that you did?

ZIPPERER: There were some analyses after James Comey’s testimony, saying that he left certain breadcrumbs for Mueller to follow in his testimony. What would you think of that?

SCHNUR: I think that’s exactly right. Comey—unlike Sessions, unlike Trump, unlike most of the members of both committees—is a law enforcement official. He understands very clearly how these investigations are done.

He knows what he’s able to communicate and not able to communicate to a special investigator. So even some of the short-term either self-deprecating or potentially damaging things that he said at his own expense were done very, very deliberately to paint a road map for Mueller to follow going forward.

As for Sessions, in my mind—and this is not criticism—he just seemed startled. After 20 years in the United States Senate, he had come, as most senators do, to expect a certain level of collegiality and mutual respect from other senators. They always say, “My dear friend from the state of Massachusetts so-and-so.” That’s the way they talk to each other. You could tell that he had not prepared for a more confrontational, more direct type of questioning. It does not fill me with confidence when the nation’s top law enforcement official admits he is frightened by difficult questions.

But he came across poorly not because of the substance of his answers but because of his lack of preparation, and I think by comparison [he] suffered greatly as opposed to Comey.

ZIPPERER: Was Sessions handicapped a bit by that dynamic of: “I can come out here and say something, and two hours later my boss might tweet, ‘Oh, I explained all of this to Jeff Sessions over dinner’”?

BRUNO: There definitely has to be that element to it. I think working for Trump has to be the hardest job, no matter what role you’re in. We’ve seen Sean Spicer obviously struggling a little bit at it. But I think that element plays into the nature of “I don’t know what I can say, because I don’t know what my boss is going to turn around and say 20 minutes later.”

I also think, if you’ve ever been to a com-

mittee hearing at any level—in Sacramento, in D.C., high-profile or one on the most boring topic ever—it’s all about theatrics.

Yeah, these public hearings are important and necessary, but the real substance isn’t going to happen in those meetings. If it’s done right, all the questions have been prepared and thoroughly vetted; all the statements have been prepared and thoroughly vetted. You essentially know where the direction of the conversation is going. It’s really going to be behind the scenes and seeing what unfolds between leaks and between what Mueller and his staff attorneys end up publishing and putting out.

ZIPPERER: What happens in those private meetings that Comey kept talking about? “I can explain the good stuff for you in that.”

It’s like a pay-per-view meeting you have to hold later. [Laughter.]

BRUNO: There’s going to be a lot more questions being asked for a long, long time before any sort of actual resolutions are going to be made on any of these allegations.

ZIPPERER: What did you think of the performance of Senator Kamala Harris in the hearings?

BRUNO: Harris definitely used it to raise her profile as much as she possibly could. I’m not too surprised by that. She’s known for being a very cautious politician on the whole, but she is a trained prosecutor.

ZIPPERER: That came across, definitely.

[Laughter.]

SCHNUR: I don’t pretend to know, but I can’t imagine that Senator Harris is going to run for president in 2020. But I know that she is smart enough to understand that she benefits in all sorts of ways politically from the speculation relating to the race.

MARSHMAN: I share Carson’s reservations about [Harris]. I was optimistic about her as attorney general, and she really did nothing.

She stopped short of real accomplishments in almost everything she tried, out of an abundance of caution. She’s definitely running for president; I hope not in 2020, but it’s definitely the goal. She certainly drew attention to herself in the questioning.

As a prosecutor, if she had been before a jury with some of those witnesses, she might have annoyed them by her persistence. It was very intense. I can say that because I’m a woman. [Laughter.] I found it perhaps a little excessive, except that maybe it’s because I’m used to her not being that forceful on things.

AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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Photos by Ed Ritger

House Democratic Leader

Nancy Pelosi

Celebrating 30 years in of f ice, Pelosi ref lects on how the current president is not like the others she has worked with. From the May 30, 2017, program in San Francisco, “Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader.“ NANCY PELOSI

U.S. House Democratic Leader (D-CA) In conversation with

SCOTT SHAFER

Senior Editor, California Politics and Government Desk, KQED SCOTT SHAFER: Much of the reason for this conversation today is that this is almost to the day the 30th anniversary of your very first election in 1987. I remember that election very well; I am sure you do, also. Ronald Reagan was president at that time. You served under him for a bit. You served under George H.W. Bush and Clinton, George W. [Bush], Obama and now President Donald Trump.

I just want to ask you: How is this administration, how is this president different?

NANCY PELOSI: What is different would

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH

be a long list. How is he the same? I can’t even think of anything. [Laughter.] But I know one thing about him—that America is a great country, and we’ve been able to withstand many changes in our country.

But I see everything as an opportunity.

It’s just the way it is. Following the election, there was such an outpouring of concern, of recognition—a sense of urgency, and then: “What can I do?” Taking responsibility. So urgency [plus] responsibility equals opportunity—and an opportunity for our country to have a giant civics lesson. A civics lesson about the balance of power, the checks and balances that our founders wrote into the Constitution so wisely to implement the beautiful preamble to the Constitution.

So it is an opportunity to follow the lead of Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Public sentiment is everything.” With it, you can accomplish almost anything; without it, practically nothing. I wish that our president would spend time in the White House and channel some of the former presidents who lived there, and learn from their experience and their wisdom.

SHAFER: One of the things that has surprised me is how little effort there’s been from the White House to reach out to those who didn’t vote for [Trump]. Starting with the inaugural address, which had no olive branches, really—from day one. I don’t know that he’s visited a state that he didn’t win, other than New York, where he lives. What are your thoughts about that? And also the fact

that he is the first president, I think maybe ever, who didn’t have either prior military or government experience. What difference does that make?

PELOSI: It makes a big difference. When you think that yesterday was the 100th birthday of John F. Kennedy—isn’t that a remarkable thing? Think of his [Kennedy’s] leadership. You mentioned military service; he was a war hero, really. I was present at his inauguration. Now, many of you were too young, but you’ve read about it in the history books. That’s history to you; it’s my youth to me. [Laughter.] I was there as a student, okay? To hear him talk about our country— and you all know the statement he made to the citizens of America: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” My God, the crowd went wild. But the very next sentence is one that I wish our current president would heed.

He said to the citizens—the next sentence in the inaugural, “Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” [Applause.]

[It was] not in any way condescending, but all very respectful. That’s something I think that—whether it’s not prior experience in the military or in government—I think that the president would do well to heed. Because condescension, lack of respect—it really isn’t who we are as a country. We are great enough.

This is the greatest country that ever existed in the history of the world, I think. Don’t you? And so that respect that people have for

us, we also have for them—for the freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom—that word— freedom of mankind. I hope that the current president would understand that we’re great because we’re strong; we’re great because we have values about freedom and liberty and justice for all. And we’re great because we have fairness within our own country.

SHAFER: How concerned are you when you look at all the things happening, starting with the Russian interference in the election and what’s happened since then with Russia?

Countries don’t necessarily go on forever, you know? And some people feel that this is sort of an existential crisis for the country. How concerned are you? You said that the checks and balances are working to a certain extent.

PELOSI: Yeah.

SHAFER: But, on the other hand, Neil Gorsuch is now on the Supreme Court. They haven’t really had to pay a price yet for their lack of collegiality or bipartisanship.

PELOSI: [To audience:] Do you think he wants to talk politics? [Laughter.] Well, let me just say that the checks and balances are so very, very important in our country. Yes, the court—elections have ramifications.

The presidency has an undue impact [on] the third branch of government, the judicial branch. So that is a challenge, and people have to recognize that when they vote or don’t vote.

But the Congress—look, public sentiment is everything. The only way that we will really have an impact on what’s happening there is if people make known their views. Nothing is more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituents.

People in my district: You’re my bosses. Your voice is important to me. Therefore, just as an aside, we’ve got lots of people who are in districts who don’t share our views necessarily, calling into their members of—not us calling into their district—but their own constituents calling in so that the greatness of America is not in question.

I know countries come and go, but America is something so different. There’s never been a country founded on the principle that all people are created equal. I mean, our founding documents left some things to be desired, but they also enabled amending the Constitution to expand freedom. So I don’t think that we can be compared to any other experience that [has] ever happened.

They had the Great Seal of the United

States, these founders. It’s on the dollar bill.

Does anybody carry cash anymore? It’s on the dollar bill. [Laughter.] It has that great pyramid with the eye that used to scare me when I was little. Anyway, the Great Seal of the United States says on it: “novus ordo seclorum,” [which means] “a new order for the ages.” They had so much confidence in what they did, that it would last for the ages. In “seclorum”—“forever.” If you were Catholic, you would know “seclorum.” It means “forever.” And that was predicated on the idea that every generation would take responsibility to make the future better for the next generation.

SHAFER: Let me just bring it back to politics. [Laughter.]

PELOSI: And that is called the American dream. [Laughter.]

SHAFER: I asked you at the beginning, what’s different?

You’ve worked with several speakers. You’ve been just a member of the House; you’ve been speaker; you’ve been minority leader now; you’ve worked with [former Speaker of the House John] Boehner. You’ve worked with a number of people. What’s different?

What’s different now? Because people are so unhappy.

PELOSI: Okay, do you really want to know what’s different? Just between us? [Laughter.]

You won’t tell anybody I said this?

SHAFER: It’s a friendly crowd. [Laughter.]

PELOSI: Okay, here’s the thing—and this is very important … since you persisted.

SHAFER: Good word.

PELOSI: What I have told the president of the United States is that we had been able to work in a bipartisan way with Republicans in Congress, with Republican presidents, and we always were able to make some progress in negotiation, respecting each other’s views, if we stipulated to a set of facts, evidence, data.

And so—just between us—when we had our first meeting with the president of the United States—our first meeting, House and Senate, Democratic and Republican leadership, around the table in the White House—we sat down to have our discussion.

This is important: a new president of the United States. I’ve had this meeting with President Obama. I had it—not when he was new, but when I was new—with President [George H. W.] Bush. The first thing President [Trump] said was, “Do you know I won the popular vote?” [Laughter.]

Now, first of all, it was irrelevant to our conversation, and [second] of all, it wasn’t true. So I said, “Mr. President, there’s no evidence to support that—and that isn’t true.”

Now, normally I would be a little more …

SHAFER: Forceful?

PELOSI: Respectful.

SHAFER: Oh, respectful.

PELOSI: No, no, I would be a little more respectful. Let him say his piece, but I mean we’re not going down that path. “Three to five million people voted illegally, and that’s why it appeared that I did not win the popular vote …”

So I said, “There’s no evidence to support that; it isn’t true.” He says, “and I’m not even counting California.” [Laughter.]

SHAFER: He never does.

PELOSI: I said to him, “Mr. President, we’ve been able to work with each other, Democrats and Republicans. With President Bush, I—as speaker—we accomplished so much with the Senate: the biggest energy bill in the history of our country, PEP [post-exposure prophylaxis] for HIV. I don’t know if that was mentioned earlier, but my first issue when I came to Congress [was] HIV/AIDS. We were able to do long lists, and I can tell you if you further pursue it, because we stipulated to a set of facts or a budget number that you could then negotiate from, whether it’s Republicans and Democrats in Congress or whether it’s [something else]. So if you’re not going to stipulate to a set of facts, it’s going to be very hard for us to negotiate and make progress.

So, hopefully, he will understand that data, evidence, facts matter. If you’re going to respect each other’s point of view on a subject, you have to start with some understanding of what the situation is.

That’s how he’s different. I have not served with a president … and I have great deal of respect for all the presidents that I’ve served with, Democrats and Republicans—of course, I was very junior with President Reagan. I did have some back and forth with President [George W.] Bush on human rights in China, President [George H. W.] Bush, same thing. I had the same problem with President Clinton. [Laughter.]

But nonetheless, just because you disagree on one issue, doesn’t mean that you don’t respect each other in other arenas. And in my office, I have pictures with three presidents: one with John F. Kennedy when I was a teenager and my father was the mayor of AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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Baltimore; two with Barack Obama on the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln; and the other one with George Herbert Walker Bush and Dorothy, with our families—I love them.

This partisanship that is happening there in this kind of extreme way, it was not really— SHAFER: So, you have a kind of nostalgia for George W. [Bush]?

PELOSI: Oh, I’d do anything to have George W. Bush. [Laughter.] My picture is with George Herbert Walker Bush, the father.

But I love President [George W.] Bush, too, because we found our common ground, even though we respected our differences.

It’s different if you’re working with somebody who really doesn’t share your values. For example, my Republican colleagues, in their budget, they want to take the guarantee away from Medicare. Their theme is: Medicare should wither on the vine. Well, that’s a fight.

[The Republicans want to] privatize Social Security, cut $1.4 trillion out of Medicaid.

[They] have a tax bill that they’re talking about that is measured to cost $5.5 trillion over 10 years, taking us deeper into debt.

Now, $5.5 trillion over time would solve any problems that Social Security would have for

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75 years. So let’s respect facts, and then we can talk about what our priorities are and how we negotiate.

SHAFER: I want to come back to health care.

PELOSI: I haven’t seen evidence that he [Trump] respects the evidence.

SHAFER: The thing that’s sucking up all the oxygen right now in Washington is Russia: What they did in the election, what Trump did during the transition, what his son-in-law did during the transition, is under scrutiny.

We have at least three investigations. We’ve got the one headed by Robert Mueller; we’ve got one in the House and one in the Senate.

How would you rank those three investigations in terms of both importance and most likely to get to the bottom of what happened?

PELOSI: Well, again, everything I said about the president—he needs to see the facts and respect the facts—holds true for everything about this investigation.

I’ve been seven years on the ethics committee; it’s only about the law and the facts, so anything else is opinion, hearsay, whatever.

I think we have to get the facts, and an investigation within the Justice Department is

progress; an investigation within the Congress is progress. Mind you, the investigation in the Justice Department reports to the Trump-appointed leadership of the Justice Department.

Within the Congress, I’m very proud of Adam Schiff and, from our area, Jackie Speier and Eric Swalwell, who are serving so well on the Intelligence Committee, but that’s within the Republican Congress. What we need to get, [to have] all of the facts, is—not inside Justice, not inside Congress—an outside independent commission to get the facts so that the American people will accept the result.

SHAFER: So are you saying … I mean, Robert Mueller— PELOSI: And the other two are fine, but they’re only part of it. We need the outside commission.

SHAFER: So when Robert Mueller was appointed former U.S. attorney in San Francisco, Willie Brown took credit for his becoming FBI director. [Laughter.] So when he [Mueller] was appointed … Chuck Schumer was very happy. There was House support.

PELOSI: Oh, no, no. He’s a great person.

SHAFER: But you’re saying that that inves-

tigation can’t get to the bottom of it?

PELOSI: What I’m saying is if you’re going to have confidence in the results, it has to be something independent. And a special counsel, which is what he’s [Mueller’s] called, is at his discretion as to what trail he will follow. I have respect for him, but the fact is also this: [The] FBI investigates wrongdoing, and that’s important. But what we’re saying is there’s something else that happened. The Russians hacked, leaked, probably altered before they leaked, to undermine our democracy—our election—and we can’t let that happen again.

So whatever happens about who was in what meeting with whom—that’s about Mueller.

But in terms of the integrity of our elections, this is bigger than politics, bigger than Democrats and Republicans. This is about our country. And we have to have the certainty that every path was followed and [nothing was] blocked by whatever the Republicans in Congress wanted to do, or [by] the Justice Department.

Now, I support Mueller. I know him. I know him from here; I know him from the FBI. I think he is a person of great integrity. I also have a view of [Jeff] Sessions. I don’t even

think he should be attorney general, but the fact is, that’s where the chain of command is.

SHAFER: So I just want to be clear. You’re saying that no matter what happens—it’s good that Mueller’s doing his thing in the Senate and the House—but until there is an independent investigation free from the administration or the Republicans in Congress, you, as the leader of your party, won’t have confidence in the outcome.

PELOSI: No, I am saying the American people have to have confidence in it. I am saying the American people have to have confidence in the outcome.

No, just for a little history—when 9/11 happened, I introduced the bill to have the commission in the Intelligence Committee. I was on intelligence—I’m the longest-serving person in Intelligence in the Congress ever.

I introduced the bill. My colleagues voted for it in a bipartisan way in the committee.

We took it to the floor a few days later, and the Republicans all abandoned it. This is the 9/11 Commission. They said that it was traitorous for us to even want to find out. It was self-evident what happened, and [they asked] what was my purpose in doing this?

I said, “Well, because we need to have the clarity of it all.”

We didn’t get it, but because of outside sentiment, because the families wanted it so badly, it was reintroduced again at a time when Republicans really couldn’t say no, because the families were saying, “We want to know the facts this way.” We had an internal House/Senate [investigation]. I was one of the co-chairs, being the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, of the congressional investigation—that’s where the missing pages [came in]. That was out of that investigation.

But still, we should have had the 9/11 Commission. It’s a different animal. It makes recommendations. It took us to win Congress to pass the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, because they [the Republicans] wouldn’t even pass their recommendations.

SHAFER: If you could get answers to one question, or two questions—just straight answers, full facts—what would the questions be? What questions do you have?

PELOSI: One question, which would unlock the door to a lot of other things, is: Let’s see the president’s tax returns. We kind of know a lot of what went on. My ongoing question, AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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since he wants to talk this way, is what do the Russians have on Donald Trump personally, politically, financially?

Let’s see your tax returns so we can see if there’s any connection there. They may be exculpatory of the president. But if they are, why isn’t he showing it to them? And if they are, why are the Republicans insisting that we not see his tax returns? Every presidential [candidate] for the past 40 years has shown their tax returns. So what is he hiding? And what are the Republicans, accomplices in his hiding, [concealing] that could connect the dots?

SHAFER: I just got handed a bunch of questions; a lot of them are about politics. There seems to be a theme here with a few of these questions, which has to do with the message of the party. There was a lot of soul-searching for Republicans after the 2012 elections, and they decided they needed a bigger tent, and they threw that away, and now Trump is president. Is there a version of that for the Democratic Party? What was the message, do you think? Because it was a stunner for almost everybody.

PELOSI: Yeah, shocking.

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SHAFER: So what was the takeaway for the party? And how do you learn from that and prepare for 2018 and 2020, ultimately?

PELOSI: Right now we’re preparing for 2018. What’s similar to that is what we did in ’05 and ’06 in order to win the Congress for the Democrats and for the American people.

At this point in ’05, President Bush was at 58 percent. He had beaten Kerry coming into the new year—[and was at] 58 percent.

We knew that we had to make sure the public knew the difference between Democrats and Republicans in terms of policy and what it meant in their lives. We had a very strategic, disciplined, unified approach. We had a plan, and the members subscribed to it. By September, October, President Bush was at 38 percent. That’s when you recruit your candidates; when the president of the other party’s at 38 percent, you do well.

The presidential [race] is the main event of politics. It has everything, right? It has glamour, it has power, it has money, it has celebrity. It’s everything. That’s when people look up and pay attention. So this is a big year for the distinction to be made between Democrats and Republicans.

Unfortunately, with all of the things that were happening, our message about jobs and working families and the rest did not come forth with clarity [in] the presidential [race].

In terms of the Congress, we walk the walk, we fight that fight every day. But we didn’t talk the talk.

I guess there’s some [who] thought that we should have been more aggressive in saying, “This is who they are.” You have to balance between are you a fearmonger, or are you just making a contrast? If just making a contrast isn’t enough, then you have to make sure people know what this means in their lives.

As we go forward, we look not to what happened in this election—because that was a presidential, and that wasn’t our responsibility—but what will happen in the next election. [It] will be similar to what we did in ’05 and ’06. What does it mean?

The big difference between Democrats and Republicans—and this is the fight we have every day: Republicans [follow] trickle-down economics. It’s their philosophy; it’s what they believe. Trickle-down economics. If it creates jobs, that would be good. If it doesn’t, so be it—that’s the free market. That’s what

they [Republicans] tell us every day. That’s what they are proud of. I am not being negative right now—I am saying what they are proud of. On our side, we are talking about middle-income economics. We are talking about increasing the paychecks of working families in our country, which is truly the way to grow the economy, because when people have consumer confidence, then they spend, inject demand into the economy, create jobs, reduce the deficit.

And when you reduce the deficit, you don’t go back now to the Republican side when they say: “We want to have a $5.5 trillion tax break for the wealthiest people, and in order to afford that, we’re going to cut food stamps; we’re going to cut $7 billion out of the National Institutes of Health.”

SHAFER: But in fairness, that’s the Trump administration. That budget was dead on arrival, according to Republicans.

PELOSI: I’m glad you mentioned that, because that budget is exactly what the Republicans had put forth. It was the Ryan budget when he [Speaker of the House Paul Ryan] was chair of the budget committee.

This is who they are.

The tax bill that I talked about is the Republicans’ budget—the $5.5 trillion. It’s their budget. So Trump is their guy, and if you say to me, “When are the Republicans going to say this isn’t right?” No. This is who they are. They have the budget. It’s supposed to be a statement of our national values, and what we care about is what we’re supposed to invest in for the future.

The budget that the president just sent as his budget is very similar to the Republican budgets of past years. [Tom] Price’s budget, who’s now HHS [Health and Human Services secretary]. Ryan’s budget, who’s now speaker of the house. And by the way, the Republican budgets in Congress are sometimes worse than Trump’s budget, because President Trump has not yet said that he would undo Medicare, but the Ryan budget takes away the guarantee of Medicare.

So you asked exactly the right question.

In all fairness to the American people, [the Republicans’] budget, his [Trump’s] budget—very much the same.

SHAFER: There are many things that have people turned off to politics right now. One of them is that there doesn’t seem to be

[bipartisanship]. The Civil Rights Bill, the Voting Rights Act would not have passed without significant support from Republicans, right? Because the southern Democrats didn’t want to. Is there any hope for that on issues like immigration or health care?

PELOSI: Is there any hope? There’s always hope, and every situation is an opportunity, and you have to be optimistic. But right now, for example, the court rolled back the Voting Rights Act and said Congress can fix this, and Congress refuses to fix it.

We have obviously every Democrat on a bill, which in my view is a compromise bill.

A lot of people, the outsiders, think that’s not good enough. It’s the bill that we think the Republicans will do. They won’t give us a vote. They’ll show up in Selma. They’ll come to the unveiling of the statue of Rosa Parks and all that stuff, but they don’t bring up the Voting Rights Act. Immigration bill—in the Senate there was a bipartisan immigration bill. They wouldn’t bring it up in the House because— SHAFER: This is in the last session?

PELOSI: Yeah, the last session. They would not bring it up in the House.

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But where there’s reason to be hopeful?

We hope on infrastructure, because that’s never been partisan—except when President Obama brought it up. Of course, they would block it, obstruct [it], but it’s never been partisan.

SHAFER: Well, they killed Caltrain, too, recently.

PELOSI: Well, now we’ve got it back. And don’t believe what you read in the paper on Sunday—it had nothing to do with Republicans; it had everything to do with the Democrats in the House. [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [has been] working very hard on this. It was about jobs. It’s about clean air, and by the way [there was] a lot of local commitment of funding for it as well.

SHAFER: Take immigration, which is obviously a very divisive issue right now and has been for some time. It seems to me that if Democrats were to give, say on citizenship, and say: “Let’s just have legal status for the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants so they don’t have to worry about being deported. They don’t have to worry about families being separated.” Why not? That to me is a compromise. Are the Democrats willing to

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do something like that?

PELOSI: Well, let’s just describe America: “with liberty and justice for all.” Now, you can work here, but you can’t vote here. That would be not even second-class citizenship, because you’re not even a citizen. That’s really more about who we are as a country. [The] path to legalization is a long path, and that should be a path to citizenship. And by the way, the American people overwhelmingly support a path to citizenship. You have to get back of the line of everybody else who’s in line, shall we say—with full documentation.

SHAFER: But I think Democrats see that as a way to enlist a whole bunch of new Democratic voters.

PELOSI: But now, you’re doing the Republican line. No, it’s about America. How about we criticize countries that import all these workers from the Philippines and other places and have them do their work and [then] say, “But you can’t vote here”?

SHAFER: So what are Democrats willing to compromise on then on that issue?

PELOSI: Well, the Republican bill—that was a compromise bill in the Senate—is not the bill that I would have written. It

was certainly not, but it was a compromise bill. And any bill—look, we have principles that I think everyone shares: We have a responsibility to protect our border. We have a responsibility to protect our workers and the immigrant workers coming into our country.

We want to have legalization so that people have that comfort of somebody not knocking on their door at night, as they do. And we want to have a path to citizenship. It’s a long path to citizenship.

SHAFER: So that’s non-negotiable?

PELOSI: In my view. I’m talking personally, for myself and the House Democrats and many Republicans. Because what you’re doing is not changing what happens to that person, you’re changing what happens to America.

It’s so funny—funny in the sense of strange—that so many of the people who are that so many people who are opposed to immigrants coming are from immigrant families themselves. Look, we are a nation of immigrants, except for those that we’re blessed to have among us who are Native American people. Immigration is the constant reinvigoration of America. When

people come here with their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations to make the future better, they are connecting with that new order for the ages of our founders. It’s called the American Dream. And when they come with that determination, that optimism, that hope, that courage—those are American traits. When they come, they make America more American. And when they come, their rights should be respected. And that’s the law of the land. And that’s the way I feel.

[Applause.]

It’s not a path, an easy path to citizenship.

You get behind everyone else in line.

SHAFER: How much of the divide [that] is happening in the country right now—you used a phrase before about “what’s going to happen to the rest of America.” Certainly Trump, overtly, and with sort of dog-whistle messages during the campaign, suggested— in fact, he said, “This is your last chance to vote to save America.”

How much of all the division we’re hearing, and the fact that his support is so solid despite what’s happening in the country, how much of that do you think is just pure concern about not just having a place at the table

but not owning a table anymore? Somebody outside is going to own the table.

PELOSI: That’s not the point. The point is for the American people to have a victory.

Elections are about two things: They’re about who wins the election [and] takes the seat, or [they are] about how people who are running for office know that they’re going to be held accountable. I care about a woman’s right to choose; I care about preserving the planet; I care about fairness in our economy and the rest, and if the Republicans wanted to negotiate about that, that would be good.

That’s not who these [people] are. I say to my Republican friends, “Take back your party.”

This isn’t about power, as you implied—it might be, or I inferred from your remarks that it might be.

SHAFER: Well, I think it’s fear of being overtaken. The white majority— PELOSI: Well, those people— SHAFER: —just to put it in racial terms.

PELOSI: These people—they have a legitimate concern in terms of, they think they haven’t had their turn. They hear about women and minorities and LGBT and this or that, but [they are asking]: “What about

me?” and “When is it my turn?” And it’s always been their turn. We haven’t made that clear, and that is where we should be held accountable—for making sure people know that the fight that we fight [includes them]. We are all Americans. We are all in the family. I said to [TV producer] Norman Lear, “Your show ‘All in the Family’ was so perfectly named because you had Archie Bunker and ‘Meathead,’ the liberal and the conservative in the family.” We’re all in America’s family.

So nothing that we do should be viewed as at the expense of anyone else. It’s not a zero-sum game, and that’s the message that we have to put forth, because we have big challenges ahead of us. Innovation, in terms of artificial intelligence, issues like—some of the conversation we’re having is one we could have had 10, 20 years ago, absent the new president of the United States.

SHAFER: I notice you don’t say “President Trump.”

PELOSI: It’s hard. [Laughter and applause.]

SHAFER: Is that a thing? I mean, do you avoid that?

PELOSI: I’ve never heard him [Trump] say it, either.

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Photos by James Meinerth

Bill Moyers An American Jail

An expert panel discusses the impacts and inequities of mass incarceration. From “Bill Moyers: Screening and Discussion of Rikers: An American Jail,” held in San Francisco on May 19, 2017.

BILL MOYERS

Executive Editor, Rikers: An American Jail

LADORIS HAZZARD CORDELL

Judge (Ret.), Chair, Santa Clara County Jail Commission

LENORE ANDERSON

Founder and Executive Director, Californians for Safety and Justice

JOHN BOLAND

President, KQED; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Moderator BOLAND: Our discussion today is stimulated by a documentary film soon to air on PBS stations across the country entitled Rikers: An American Jail. You can also see the documentary online at rikersfilm.org. The focus of the film and our discussion is the human toll of mass incarceration in America, particularly in our jails.

Let’s start by asking Judge Cordell the difference between a jail and a prison, and how one ends up in jail.

CORDELL: I really get irritated when I hear commentators interchange prison and jail when they’re talking about a particular case. They’re very distinct. A jail is a facility to confine people that is run by local law enforcement agencies. In California the jails are run by sheriffs. Prisons are run by the state, and they are not local; they’re generally way out where it takes quite a bit of time to get there.

Jails basically have two purposes. One is to confine people who are awaiting trial, and that is because either they have been denied bail by a judge or because they are not able to post bail. They are presumed to be innocent; they are awaiting trial. And the other is that

people are confined who have been convicted and are now serving out their sentences. So basically you have those who are convicted and those who are not convicted all being confined in these local facilities.

BOLAND: In the film of An American Jail about New York’s largest jail, 80 percent of the detainees as they are called have not been tried, they have not been sentenced, they are waiting either trial or negotiated settlement, and some of them usually are out in a few months, but many have been held three to six years.

CORDELL: I might add that because of realignment, there are now people who ordinarily would be serving longer than a year in prison; they’re now serving them in jails.

So the jails are actually becoming places that used to be [where] you’d serve maybe a year and now people are serving years in our jails.

BOLAND: So speaking of the fact that it is a jail, Bill, could you tell us how did you decide to make a film about this particular jail?

MOYERS: Reports of brutality, atrocities, inhumanities at Rikers were beginning to come out in exposes with some very talented and committed journalists in New York, for The New York Times, for The New Yorker, for New York magazine. But all of them were told filtered through the experience of the journalist, because that’s the way print journalism works. I wanted to hear from the detainees themselves. I did some research, discovered no documentary had ever been done about Rikers, or any other New York jail, which allowed the detainees, the inmates, to tell their story, in their words, of their lived experience.

So my team and I tracked down 100 former detainees, interviewed every one of them, chose 12 whose experiences could show us the arc of the experience and made sure we were doing a documentary that was representative of what was happening in many jails across the country.

There was a survey done a few years ago that ranked the 10 worst jails in the country.

Rikers was number 10; the Los Angeles jails, which is a system of eight jails, were number five. So this is a universal problem, and I wanted to give Americans a chance to hear directly from the people most impacted.

I had a motive. Rikers Island is an island between Queens and Manhattan; it’s out of sight, out of mind.

I went to see this play Tom Stoppard wrote called “Night and Day.” In that play the pho-

tographer, who’s the protagonist, says people do terrible things to each other—it’s worse when they do them in the dark.

I wanted to shed some light at what was happening at Rikers. We read about it; we had not experienced it. The great value of television is the wedding of the word and the image. When they waltz together, when they dance together, when they are in sync with each other, you can cross the distance between you and someone else, and an experience you have not [lived]. If that is not your experience, you can suddenly see what the world looks like when you are standing in different shoes.

The ancient Israelites had a great term for it: The science of the heart. Shakespeare summed it up when Lear on the heath says to Gloucester, “How do you see the world?”

Blind Gloucester replies, “I see it feelingly, not sentimentally, feelingly. I feel the experience of others,” and that’s what I wanted to do with this film.

BOLAND: So really the film is to be understood as not a problem that’s just at Rikers, but a problem across the country. They seem to run the gamut from a broken system to unqualified personnel, to inhumane conditions, to particular challenges for women inmates, to inmates with mental illness, to the bail bond system.

As you might expect, those without financial resources are suffering more than anybody else. Let’s start with the system that puts people in jail and then seems to leave them lingering there longer than attended.

Lenore Anderson, can you start us off with some of the systemic problems?

ANDERSON: Sure. First I just want to say thank you so much for making this incredible film. I hope that everyone listening gets a chance to see it. These are the stories that need to be told, and these stories will lead to the transformation we need to see in this country around criminal justice reform.

The systematic problems: I think one thing that’s really important to understand about the state of abuse in jails—challenges in jails, overcrowding, human rights violations in jails—is that this is a problem of our generation. This is a problem that has grown. This is not how it has always been in the United States. This is not something we just are now suddenly talking about. This is something that has grown exponentially in the last 20 or 30 years in this country, and really happened AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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under most people’s noses under the guise of what was called the tough-on-crime era.

In that era, what happened in this country was we changed a whole bunch of laws. We changed state laws, we changed federal laws.

What those changes in law did was increase the number of people going into the criminal justice system and lengthen the time the people are in the criminal justice system.

That led to a dramatic expansion in the bureaucracy that runs the criminal justice system and the number of jails and the number of prisons that we have seen, a 700-percent growth in incarceration combined with not just the number of people that’s growing but also the money being spent on incarceration in the United States. It’s about $80 billion per year that this country spends. So when we talk about systematic problems at the jail level, we want to make sure that we’re talking about that in context of how all of this is a current crisis that needs to be taken on. When it comes to who goes into the jail, this is really a function of poverty probably more than any other determinant, and that has also gotten worse and worse over the years.

There are a couple of major categories of people who are in jail. In California, 60 percent of the people who are in jail are pre-trial; they haven’t been convicted of a

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crime. They are waiting for their trial to start. Most of those 60 percent can’t afford to pay bail. Bail amount has been set, but they cannot post it. Another category of people that are in jail are people who have violated their probational parole terms. So they would also be in jail.

But when you look at the systematic problems that we have, a lot of it has been connected to this ratcheting up of punishment, ratcheting up of laws, and ratcheting up of bail amounts and ratcheting up of fines and fees. Fees that people can’t pay, and then they end up being incarcerated for those reasons.

Many people think we got rid of debtors’ prisons a long time ago in this country, but when you look in local jails, what we know is that’s absolutely not true. What we need to do is start with reforming the laws so that they’re fair between the wealthy and those who are impoverished, so we have a system that is not wealth-based. That alone would go a long way to reducing over-incarceration in the county jails.

MOYERS: That has to happen at the local level. Only about 13 percent of the inmates of federal prisons, of all of the 2.3 million people incarcerated right now, are federal prisoners. Most of them are at the county and state [levels]. I wish I had been doing

a documentary about one of your prisons here in California—Merced down in the gateway to the Yosemite national park. You may have read that there have been hunger strikes there as the inmates are protesting the overcrowding. The county jail there was built for 753 people. The last few years it has had up to 1,150 to 1,200. And the prisoners, as they did in many other cities around the country—Virginia, North Carolina, other places—went on a hunger strike.

A man named Richard Castillo, who goes by the nickname of Noodles, has been four years in the Merced jail awaiting trial. He has not had due process yet; he’s there, arrested for drug possession and a related assault.

His nine-year-old son who was nine when he went in is 13 now. He is there because he could not afford the monstrous bail of $650,000. His wife, who is still out raising the daughter who is now four and the son who’s now 13, went on a hunger strike with him. It is a classic story rarely reported by press that is shrinking in its interest of these subjects.

It is a story that can be replicated I can assure you in every state in this union. As you said, Ms. Anderson, the burden of bail falls on the poor. You’re one of 28 states, here in California, that allows counties to require

the arrested to pay for their participation once they enter the criminal justice system.

Children are required to pay in some of your counties for entering the juvenile justice system. And it falls, as you said, on the poor.

CORDELL: I’d also like to let people know that there are bail schedules that are enacted by every county. I’ll just [talk about] California. I’m holding before you—this is the bail schedule. Just for misdemeanors out of Santa Clara County. Everything is like $5,000 to $10,000; they list all of the offenses. For example, petty theft of a value not exceeding $50, bail $500. The bail schedule is accessible to anybody; you just go online.

Who sets bail? Judges. At the request of prosecutors, judges set bail. These schedules are just that—they’re guidelines—and what we have been doing, and I must say I [was] part of that when I was on the bench, which is mindlessly “here’s the schedule, just issue the bail out.”

That has to change, and it’s changing.

Because people are now speaking up and becoming educated and aware of what bail is.

Of course, it’s a big money-making machine for insurance companies and for bail bond companies. It’s a money maker, and that has to change.

MOYERS: I’m sure you know that here in

California the bail, as in other states but primarily here in California—we actually looked into doing some documentaries out here on this subject—the bail bond industry will actually find a way to reach inmates inside and hire them, pay them, bribe them from inside, make sure that these poor people apply for bond, and then sign the note, the 10 percent that goes to the bond dealer, or whatever you call him here. It’s a corruptive industry. There’s more corruption in the prison industry in this country than almost any other, except Congress. [Applause.]

CORDELL: KQED’s Suki Lewis, the reporter, did a fabulous report on bail-capping in Santa Clara County. I encourage you to go online read this report, and indeed it’s a whole business. Where inmates are paid by bail bondsmen to be their agents inside to basically run the whole system.

BOLAND: Switching gears slightly here, the Rikers documentary indicates that jail personnel—and we have a number of questions from our audience here about this—can often be unqualified and poorly trained, but also criminal in their behavior. Judge Cordell recently headed a commission investigating the murder of an inmate by guard in the Santa Clara County Jail.

We’d like to hear each of you weigh in

on the issues with jail personnel, the work culture of the jail and what might be done to make things better. Bill, let’s start with you.

MOYERS: Well, I’ve talked to these men and women who are in the film Rikers. And inmates become brutal with each other. It makes them become violent toward guards.

Guards become violent toward inmates. It’s a factory for crime and a factory for violence.

It breeds violence. You will hear in the film some of the witnesses say that the only way they could survive was to become violent, to respond to the violence that was omnipresent in the environment with violence of their own. There were young men that go in at 14, 16, 18 who come out who never thought of violence. They were just trying to survive on the streets; they joined gangs and they have to for survival. They come out seeking violence, as you will hear one of them say, to solve all of their problems when they return home, return to the streets, and the doors are closed constantly to them. So it’s a breeding ground for the cruelty that produces violence.

What do you find? I know you’ve worked with a lot of those people.

ANDERSON: We don’t have a system that is built on the notion that we’re training people to reduce crime and violence, we’re training people to advance public safety.

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Instead, what most of our corrections systems revolve around is literally control, training for control. When you look at what are the requirements to become a guard—I know the judge can speak to that—what we find is that this is not a set of public systems in which we are encouraging best practices.

We know a lot about how to stop crime and violence, whether it’s through prevention at the community level or mental-health drug treatment. We certainly know a lot about what it would take to turn lives around when people are removed from society.

None of that is really driving our criminal justice system priorities. None of it is really determining the standards by which we train people to become guards or to really even be in the criminal justice system as prosecutors or probation and the like.

What we have to ask ourselves is what is the best pathway to public safety, and what does that look like in terms of the systems that help us achieve it?

We have the absolute opposite of that in most of our criminal justice investments, and I think that there’s an opportunity to turn it around. I used to work with parents of incarcerated youth.

MOYERS: Right.

ANDERSON: And at the time we were seeking to close California’s youth prisons, California used to have over 11,000 young people incarcerated in these warehouse-style prisons in conditions markedly similar to what you describe in your film; we’re talking 12 to 18 year olds.

In the advocacy we would bring groups of parents up to the state capital to advocate for alternatives to incarceration, advocate for ending solitary confinement for youth in the youth state prisons. At one point we decided to sit down with some leadership from the prison guard’s lobby because, of course,

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that’s an important voice in criminal justice policy in the state. One of the parents asked the prison guard head that we were speaking with, “Do you have any children?”

He says, “Yes, four boys.”

“Which one of them would you allow if they got in trouble with the law to go into the youth prison system?”

“Not one. I would do everything I could to fight against any of my children going into the system.”

Until we start understanding that these are our kids, these are our family members, these are our community members going into these jails and prisons, and until we start relating to it as if we would do anything to protect them from human rights violations and harm, then we haven’t done enough to advance criminal justice reform.

CORDELL: Let me give you just a quick snapshot of a jail. So let’s talk Santa Clara County, because I was a judge in the county, and I was also chair of the commission that looked into jail operations after the murder of a mentally ill inmate. So on any given day, in Santa Clara County there are 634—they’re not called jail guards, they’re correctional officers, because it’s the Department of Correction. I will tell you I don’t think there’s anything correct about any of it.

I’m just talking Santa Clara County, which is standard for the state; here’s the requirement to be a correctional deputy: you have to be at least 21 years old. You have to have a high school diploma or GED. MOYERS: That’s all?

CORDELL: That’s it. Now, you have to pass tests, there’s the physical stuff. But I’m just talking again about basic education. So high school diploma, GED, 21. Now, I just randomly picked four correctional deputies in Santa Clara County and looked at their salaries.

So I picked one and his ... 2016 salary and benefits [was] $301,571.

MOYERS: One person?

CORDELL: One person, one year. All right, let me just give you [another guard’s pay]: $290,989. One year, that’s salary and benefits. Again, high school diploma, GED. I took that and I said “Now let me look at a public school teacher.” [Laughter.] No, seriously in California. I took a very wealthy school district, Palo Alto. A school psychologist, bachelors degrees, Masters, Ph.D., right?

School psychologist in Palo Alto makes salary and benefits of $176,000.

If you take a classroom teacher in the East Palo Alto Ravenswood school district, and again a requirement by the way for a classroom teacher [is that] you have to have a bachelor’s degree and you have to pass the credentialing exam. Classroom teacher, East Palo Alto salary and benefits in 2015: $103,000. That’s a bachelors.

We need to know this information. If any of you go to transparentcalifornia.com, it has the salaries of every public employee in the state of California.

MOYERS: In the film, you will hear the detainees at Rikers talk about how so many of the corrections officers come from their own neighborhoods, the low-income neighborhoods, and these are jobs that are promising to them. They don’t make that much money in New York. They will express sympathy.

One of the young men in our film talks about how he was helped by a sympathetic corrections officer. Others will say how [the situation changes things]; you’re deprived of your liberty and you’re put under the care of somebody who’s got a uniform on, and you know what that does to a lot of human beings. We are human beings after all.

But the corrections union judge in New York has held up the reforms at Rikers for

obstinate reasons. When this independent commission, headed by the former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, came out a month ago with its recommendation, after a years study, that Rikers be closed, the corrections union, according to the headline in the paper, laughed at it. It cost $208,000 to keep one person, in one bed, in that cell for one year at Rikers. You can go to Harvard twice for that. We really have it screwed up in this country.

Incarceration is a shame, a failure, and a scandal. It is wrong the way we’re doing it.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a very respected non-partisan group at the New York University School of Law, came out a few months ago [with] a five-years study of the best statisticians and criminologists and sociologists that said 39 percent of the people in our jails and prisons today do not need to be there. If you think that we lock people up not just for punitive purposes, but for the safety of society, then these people— the 39 percent that Brennan Center talked about—are not a threat to society. They’re non-violent crimes, they’re soft crimes, they’re petty crimes, and yet because of the bond and bail and the overwhelmed justice system in New York, they’re held there indefinitely at that great cost.

It’s just an atrocity in the name of humanity.

CORDELL: Just a comment about unions.

I’m pro-union and I would never cross a picket line. But at the same time you can understand why, for example, in California the correctional officers union will do everything they can to keep change from coming, because look how much money they’re making with a high school diploma.

So these are huge obstacles, the unions that want to protect their interest, the bail industry that wants to protect its interest.

When you think about it, correctional officers make more money than judges in California. Amazing right?

BOLAND: Lenore Anderson, women inmates seem to suffer disproportionately in jail. Why is that? What are the special problems that incarcerated women experience?

ANDERSON: The percentage of inmates that are female, it’s a small percentage but it’s growing. One of the fastest-growing segments of the jail and prison populations in the country are women and girls.

There are a lot of experiences that women and girls have that are distinct. One of which is most of the women who are incarcerated have children. Of the women who are incarcerated with children, most of them are the primary caregivers for those children.

When we talk about the millions of children who have incarcerated parents, we know the impact of incarcerating a mom is dramatic, and the trauma that that causes the child is going to go on for the rest of their lives, and possibly their children’s lives.

So it’s really important that we recognize that if we’re taking moms away from kids, especially when there are alternatives to incarceration that would work better to reduce recidivism, but also protect and save lives for the family, that’s actually a choice for public safety.

I will say a couple things that we found in California that are important and promising. When we ran the Yes on Proposition 47 Campaign in 2014, we discovered that a disproportionate number of the people who would benefit from the law were women because it [involves] the low-level crimes.

Proposition 47 is a ballot initiative that California voters passed in 2014 that took six low-level crimes and mostly petty theft and drug possession and changed them from felony to misdemeanor. What that means is you

can no longer go to state prison, and you no longer have the felony consequence hanging over you for the rest of your life, which can be extremely debilitating when it comes to housing, jobs and all of that.

Disproportionately it was poor women who were serving time for felony convictions related to these lowest-level crimes, partly because especially women who are caregivers, it’s oftentimes crimes connected to economic instability when it comes to theft or forgery or things like that. When we incarcerate for these low-level crimes, it’s particularly difficult for poor women to recover from that. The measure won; the prison and jail population in California has gone down by 15,000 people since it passed in 2014. An even bigger impact of Proposition 47 is that there is a million Californians who are eligible to get an old felony conviction removed from their old criminal record as a result of the passage of proposition 47. We allowed for broad retroactivity so we could really clean up that legacy of mass incarceration and go back and get some of those old felony convictions removed. We’ve been doing record-change fairs, and trying to get out the word, and let Californians know that they can get their old record changed under Proposition 47.

It’s just been eye watering, the stories of people coming and saying, “I haven’t been able to get a full-time job for 10, 15 years as a result of having a felony conviction.” “I haven’t been able to get my child out of foster care.” “I haven’t been able to get a loan, or get any public assistance.”

The felony conviction is sort of often overlooked additional incarceration and additional time people serve after release. So when you’re talking about women, especially women in poverty who are caretakers, that’s a double punishment.

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An Evening with Caitlyn Jenner

Photos by Ed Ritger

T he Ol y mpic- champion turned-reality-TV-star talks about gender, politics and family. From “An Evening with Caitlyn Jenner,” May 3, 2017, in San Francisco.

CAITLYN JENNER

Author, The Secrets of My Life

LADORIS HAZZARD CORDELL

Judge (Ret.); Chair, Santa Clara County Jail Commission— Moderator LADORIS HAZZARD CORDELL: I read your book, The Secrets of My Life, [and] I was so taken with how deeply this book went into your world, into your life. So I start off by asking: What did you hope to accomplish by writing it?

JENNER: The main thing I wanted to accomplish is to free my soul; there’s nothing worse than going through life sneaking around. Not, number one, being honest with yourself, but honest with your family, honest with your loved ones, and in my case because I was a public figure, honest as a public figure. It was the last thing I needed to do, from starting off with the original Diane Sawyer [interview] two years ago to then the Vanity Fair [article about me] came out, then the ESPY Awards, and then I kind of stayed out of the media.

I try to stay out of the media actually as much as I can, and come out when I have something that I really need to say. And the next thing was this book, and what I try to accomplish in the book is—it is my story.

This is not what you call a self-help book where I say, “Do this, this, and this to get better.” This is a story of my journey. It was a long struggle about my stuff that’s down in my soul—and in being honest and telling that and coming out the other end a free spirit and a better person.

Hopefully [for] people reading it and dealing with their stuff, it will have that reaction.

CORDELL: So you co-wrote this book with Buzz Bissinger.

JENNER: Crazy Buzz. Love him to death.

CORDELL: I’m looking at one of the

passages in the book; you write, “Although I feel much more empathy on the inside, I still have trouble showing it on the outside.

Although I am observant of others, I still talk about myself too much. Maybe I spend too much time over the way I look.” You’re being brutally honest about yourself.

JENNER: I am. That’s what that book is about, about being honest with yourself, with your soul, about who you are as a person.

And to be able to get to the point in your life where you can not only be honest with yourself—you can’t do this, you can’t transition or do that unless you know in your soul it’s the right thing to do. Then it becomes, “Okay, how do I deal with family members?”

In my case, because I was a public figure and getting destroyed by the tabloids for years and years and years—and they do nothing, but they just destroyed me all the time— obviously, l can’t do this privately. I would love to go to Alaska in the backwoods and transition and live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but eventually, they would find me.

Then it would become a tabloid story again. [Laughter.]

CORDELL: For anyone who still believes that transitioning is a choice, an option that you can exercise or not, your book will surely persuade them otherwise. You write that you took huge risks, as Bruce, in attempting to be who you really are. Risks that, had things gone awry, would have inflicted irreparable harm on your reputation as Bruce Jenner, yet you took them anyway. So if you could tell us about just a couple of close calls?

JENNER: I had close calls, okay, but never got caught.

CORDELL: Can you give us one example?

JENNER: Never got caught, I got pretty good. Only one time, I was walking through the parking lot of LAX. This is back in the early ’80s. I thought I was looking pretty good. And as I was walking through the dark parking lot, somebody shouts, I heard my name in the background. Scared me to death, I ran, got in my car, got the hell out of there. I’m not doing a good enough job.

CORDELL: And how are you dressed at that time? At that moment?

JENNER: As Caitlyn but probably it was kind of at the beginning stages. There’s always a lot to learn. To be honest with you, when I read, especially at the beginning of the book, I read what I went through, every time I read it, I cry. And I’m thinking, all this crap that I went through. Sneaking around, doing this, taking nail polish off, putting nail polish back on. Today my life is so simple.

I just get up in the morning and be myself.

How simple is that? It’s just wonderful; it’s a wonderful feeling.

CORDELL: It’s just getting there.

JENNER: Yeah.

I don’t know if you’ve heard I like going to Starbucks. But one time after years and years, the first time I ever spoke, I was giving a speech outside of Las Vegas. And I had dressed that night before I gave the speech with what I had [on] all morning.

And so I thought, “Well, I’m gonna get up, get dressed.” So I get up and I would go walk around little bit. I had never, never used my voice cuz that’s gonna give you away. And now I don’t care, it’s just my voice, big deal, okay?

And I went into a Starbucks when it was empty, and just asked for my little morning

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coffee. The lady was nice, I got my coffee, walked out, and I went, “Oh, my God. I did it.”

CORDELL: So your mother, Esther, she is what, 90 now?

JENNER: She turns 91 next month.

CORDELL: Next month, so I’m curious about, and it is in your book, what has been her reaction to your becoming Caitlyn? And I would also like you to address this—this is what you wrote in you book, “My mom worries about me becoming lonely again. She thinks it would be nice for me to find a companion.” So, my question is, is she right? Are you looking? And if so, who should consider applying? [Laughter.]

JENNER: Am I looking? I know my mom’s wonderful. I mean, she’s great, and she was the last person for me to tell.

CORDELL: Really?

JENNER: It was just, for me, the hardest one to tell. Honestly. I had already shot [the interview with] Diane Sawyer and still had not told her. I knew it was coming out in two months, and I said, “Oh my God, I’ve got to.” I’ve told my kids, my sister, everybody.

Mom would always ask me, “I was going

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through the grocery line and I saw this stuff, what’s going on?” I was like, “Mom it’s the the tabloids, it’s just the tabloids.” Finally I had to tell her, “There’s more to the story.”

As far as a companion, I have a lot of trans friends, and relationships are probably one of the most difficult things for them, being trans. I have a lot of friends that are 18, 19, 20 years old, they’re at different places in life. They wanna date, they wanna go out, they wanna have a family, they wanna have children. Whichever way they can do it, but they wanna have children just like any normal human being.

I am just kind of fortunate in a lot of ways, because I did this at a much later time in life.

I already had all my children. I don’t regret anything I’ve done, even transitioning at the age of 65. I don’t regret anything. I had a wonderful life.

I raised 10 children, wonderful kids, smart, intelligent children. I have my 11th grandchild. It’s kinda cool, cuz all the grandchildren only know Caitlyn. It’s kinda cool.

[Laughter.]

I like that.

I have this wonderful family, this won-

derful large family. So it’s not like I need a family, I need relationships. Yeah, if there was somebody in my life that really enjoyed a lot of the things l was doing, and being a companion and friend, yeah, why not? l would welcome that, but it’s not high on my priority list. High on my priority list is trying to make a difference, trying to bring this issue forward.

Trying to make it better for the next generation coming up.

CORDELL: So let’s talk about that for a moment, okay? Because that gets us to the area of politics, all right? You’re a conservative.

JENNER: It’s not a book about politics, but I had to say something.

CORDELL: And indeed, any memoir worth its salt tells everything, and you have.

So you’re conservative, and I can understand why Bruce Jenner was a conservative, he was a wealthy white male. He benefited from tax cuts supported by conservatives, he’s handsome, he’s an American icon, and the beneficiary of white privilege. I get that.

Now that you— JENNER: I get all that? [Laughter.]

CORDELL: Well, that’s what you had.

Now that you are Caitlyn, a trans woman, you share a community that includes black, Latinas, Latino trans women, most of whom are low-income, most of whom have health insurance only because of the Affordable Care Act. [Applause.] And many of whom frequently face homophobic-inspired violence.

So the question is, how do you explain to them your continuing support of conservative causes that oftentimes conflict with the needs of that community? Or have I, by this question, persuaded you to reconsider your political affiliations? [Laughter.]

JENNER: Excellent question.

JENNER: We’re born a month apart, right?

CORDELL: That’s correct.

JENNER: Yeah, so we grew up in the same time.

CORDELL: Same year, same year.

JENNER: But obviously, your situation was very different than what my situation was, and I get that. I get I have lived a very privileged life, okay? But also, I have worked my ass off all my life, okay?

It’s not like anybody gave me that.

I worked to win the games. I tried to be smart in business. I raised wonderful kids.

I worked for that.

CORDELL: You were the best in the world.

JENNER: Okay, I was the best in the world.

Those were good days.

CORDELL: Yeah.

JENNER: Okay, but it didn’t tell the whole story. And so I understand that. But how can I use that and that platform to try to make a difference? My loyalties are not with the Republican Party. My loyalties are not with Donald Trump, okay? Just because I believe in the Constitution, limited government, obviously lower taxes for everybody, less regulations, a thriving economy. I’m not a fan of the government. I’m a fan of the people of this country, okay? To get us out of any issue, we gotta get it out of, they just have to be able to give the freedom to able to do that.

My issues or my loyalty lies with my community. To make it better for my community.

I feel like I would rather try to convince the Republican Party to do a better job when it comes to equality for all, and equality for the LGBTQ community, than try to fight the Democrats on lowering taxes and less regulations and bigger government, so that’s where my fight is.

And I will fight the Republicans. I mean, big-time. I have no problem. I don’t know if you saw my little Instagram post the other day. I went after Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions, and it looks like here in the near future we’re gonna have to again.

I did go back to the inauguration. The reason I went there is to meet people. I would say 80, 90 percent of the things I do politically, you have no idea what I’m doing, and I do not do it publicly. I do it privately behind closed doors. I want the Republican party to get to know a trans person.

I literally have sat down at a private home, having dinner with 15 evangelical Christian, conservative, Republican senators and congressmen—as we would call them, the enemy, okay? I sat there with Zackary Drucker, who is my assistant and deals with all trans issues, and one of the great trans women of all time; she’s just wonderful.

We sat down, l guarantee everybody in that room had never met anybody who is trans, don’t know the issues. l told him, “Look, I’m a Christian, I do have conservative thoughts.

I am a Republican, okay, but I’m also trans.”

We sat for three hours, talked about faith,

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talked about the issues of our community, and by the end of it, one of the guys in the back says, “You know hey, when we get the policy could we talk to you, could you come back?” And I said, “Sure.” That’s the reaction that I want.

I work very closely with the American Unity Fund.

CORDELL: And what is that?

JENNER: They are headed up by Margaret Hoover, the president, and a guy named Tyler Deaton, who is the greatest human being ever. I talked to him just before I came over here; smartest guy. Their only mission statement—and they’re very well-funded—is to get the Republican Party to do a better job when it comes to all LGBTQ issues.

They are on top of everything. I mean, they know everything, where all the bodies are buried. I think the best thing that the Republican Party could ever do—I don’t know if it’s going to be able to do it—is to do a better job when it comes to equality. I would like to fight for that.

CORDELL: So what is your reaction then to the latest information: Tomorrow is National Prayer Day, and Trump has said that he is going to sign an executive order on religious freedom. The executive order protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that has a belief that male and female, and their equivalents, refer to an individual’s immutable, biological sex, as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, genetics or birth.

That’s just part of it. It basically allows nonprofits, churches, to discriminate against the members of the LGBTQ community, and do it with impunity. What’s your reaction to that?

JENNER: I’m coming after them, yeah, and I will do it publicly. If he messes with

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us, I will come after him. I will look at it very closely. If he does stuff like that, I honestly will probably call him the most anti-LGBTQ president we’ve had.

I firmly believe that. I talked to him during the campaign and I was hopeful, okay? I was hopeful. He was actually pretty good on gay issues, those types of things.

He even brought it up at the convention, and to a thunderous applause. So I thought that’s positive. But also there was a girl named Jenna Talackova who in 2012 was in the Canadian Miss Universe pageant, a trans women, and he really supported her.

He owned the Miss Universe pageant and he supported her. He said, “Look, if she makes it to the finals, she’s in and we’re gonna welcome her here.” Those are the types of things I thought are very good.

I think he surrounded himself, now that he’s president, with what I would look at as bad people—I’m not taking him off the hook—that are giving him bad advice. But he’s the president, he’s signing it.

Damn it, he’s responsible, okay? We’ve got this Mark Green guy who I will, I mean, I don’t know if you see it— CORDELL: Secretary of the army [nominee]?

JENNER: Secretary of the army. Whose the most confused guy; he’s [saying] people who are trans have a disease. I don’t have a disease, okay? That as far as the bathroom issue, it’s the Bible telling him to fight it, and I’m going “Are you kidding me?” “That’s evil”—they’re calling it evil. Nobody is evil here, okay?

So there are in the Republican Party some really bad people. We gotta weed them out.

And I will publicly go out.

CORDELL: We’ll hear from you?

JENNER: I will be very verbal, okay? Because of the position that I’m in, that will

get out very quickly. Originally, he wanted me to play golf him when I went back to the inauguration. He comes up, “Come on Caitlyn, you gotta come down, you gotta play golf this and that.”

And I thought, You know what? That’s a good time that I could go down there and spend three or four hours with them on a golf course, discuss the issues, get to know him a little bit better, I’m there to help for equality for our community, okay? I thought that would be a good thing.

Then I realized—he’s got a big ego. I don’t think he wants to get beat by a 67-year-old trans woman.

CORDELL: And you would beat him?

[Laughter.]

JENNER: So I thought—and then when the first Title IX decision came down.

And that absolutely just infuriated me, and the other thing is I could not go play golf. I would be destroyed more in my community and I just couldn’t do it. So I’ve been verbally up against him. I did some Instagram post the other day from the White House outside the gate and yeah, kinda coming after him. He knows I’m around.

CORDELL: You write in your book, “I remember crying when I received my new birth certificate from the State of New York, stating that I am female and giving my name as Caitlyn Marie Jenner.” Why the tears?

JENNER: Bruce was a good person. He did a lot of really good things. I’m very proud of him. He lived outside me, all my life. On the games, was morally a good person. Worked his little butt off, raised wonderful children, was successful in the American dream, did a lot of really good things. Was it me? No. The last person or the last thing I had to get through to be able to actually go through this was my faith. I talked alone with my

children, and the last person I called was my pastor. Pastor Brad, love Pastor Brad.

Because every time I would sit in church, I would listen to him talk and my head wasn’t even into the sermon, my head was into myself and I’m going, “Why, why God did you do this?

Why is my identity and my gender in my head and in my soul every day 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year?” You can’t take two aspirin and get plenty of sleep and wake up the next morning, you’re gonna be fine.

It’s just, How do you deal with it? l would ask God, “Why did you do this?

There is a reason. Am I doing a good job?

How am I dealing with this?” And when I brought my pastor out, we sat down, he had no idea besides he had seen all the tabloid crap over the last year.

I told him my story and I told him about my faith, and I kind of that night—I’m lying there in bed, and kind of a revelation.

I thought, you know what? It’s kind of the last hurdle I had to get over; maybe this is the reason God put me on this Earth, at this time, and at this place in time. To, one, live my life authentically—can’t do it unless you know in your soul it is the right thing to do. Live my life authentically, but in doing that can you make a difference? Can you bring this issue forward? I couldn’t do it in the ’80s, why? Because it’s just wasn’t time; time and society. Time about this issue, people understand. Only before me was Renee Richards, the tennis player in 1977 came out. Now things had changed, we had other people that have gone before me, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock and Geena Rocero. The trans issue was moving forward.

It was a different time.

So maybe I can add my name to that conversation and help the next generation.

It’s not about me. I’m fine. It’s about the

next generation.

CORDELL: Is there anything you regret about your decision to transition?

JENNER: No. First of all, I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. I’ve never been in a better place in my life than I am right now, never been happier or more content. I’m in the best place I’ve ever been. Okay, so there’s no regrets. But in the media, there was this one guy, I don’t even know who the hell he was, [who was saying] that I was going to detransition. Okay, yeah, right; looking like this, I’m gonna detransition, are you kidding me? [Laughter.]

So then he goes on that he knows the Kardashians, that I’m coming back, and l don’t like being Caitlyn, and I have all these regrets. I’m going, “Are you kidding me?”

That’s not the case, but it’s out in the media.

At my church, there’s this young little trans boy who the mother is struggling with, the father is struggling with it. I was at church one day after Caitlyn had come out, and the mother comes over and starts talking to me about her son.

The mother was talking so much, and he was staying in the background. After church was over, you gotta save one soul at a time, okay? This is my little mission now. So I took him out into the parking lot, and I said, “Your mom never even gave you a chance to talk.

How are you doing?“ He said, “I really wasn’t doing very well,“ and actually showed me on a wrist where he had tried to slit his wrist.

I went “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, don’t go there. Here’s my number, my cell number.“ I said, “Before you even talk your parents, you call my ass up when you start thinking about something like that. I will get my butt over there, and you’re not doing that, okay? It’s not just even an option, okay?“ And we started communicating, texting back and forth.

Well, then I’m at church one day because the father is not on board. [His child] takes me out back to the parking lot and said, “Are you detransitioning? Are you going back?” and all that sort of stuff. “Because there’s all these articles, and my father is using it against me: ‘You see Caitlyn, she’s going back to old Bruce,’ and all this kind of stuff.”

I said, “Tell your father, first of all, no, I’m not going back. This is a bunch of BS.“ So things like that, when they say if I have regrets, or if I’m going back to the old Bruce, okay, they do have their effect on people.

And this poor kid was really having a tough time with his parents because then they used it against him.

CORDELL: How’s he doing now?

JENNER: Actually, pretty good. Everything’s kinda calmed down. In high school, you know how that’s really tough. It’s a tough time to get through. But I see him in church all the time, and try to give him pep talks.

CORDELL: And he has your phone number?

JENNER: Yeah. Got my number [so he can] call me anytime.

Chandi, she works at LA Children’s Hospital with this program called BLUSH, for basically gender-nonconforming kids, and the first day [of “Call Me Cait”] when we’re having dinner and I was getting to meet all the girls for the first time, and we were talking about the suicide rates and this and that, Chandi went up to me, because she’s had some kids even at BLUSH that she had lost through suicide, and Chandi goes, “First of all, you can’t beat yourself up on this stuff.

You cannot save every soul, but you can save a soul one at a time.“ That has stuck with me from the beginning, like with this really young guy. You can save them one at a time, and everybody needs to go out there and save one soul at a time.

AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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Garry Kasparov Man and Machine

The chess champion and human rights advocate discusses Russia and artificial intelligence. From “Garry Kasparov: The Future of Artificial Intelligence,� held in San Francisco on June 8, 2017.

GARRY KASPAROV

Chairman, Human Rights Foundation; Former World Chess Champion; Author, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins In conversation with

HOLLY KERNAN

Vice President of News, KQED

Photos by Rikki Ward

HOLLY KERNAN: Before we get into the subject of your book and all these interesting conversations around AI [artificial intelligence] and how it’s absolutely revolutionizing our world, I’m going to start with Russia. So given the extraordinary political moment that we’re in, can you just give us some insight into what it was like to be a dissident in Putin-led Russia? And [can you explain] how that crackdown on civil liberties and democratic protest and participation intensified? Was it gradual? Talk to us about how that happened.

GARRY KASPAROV: It’s quite funny that eight months ago I was here in San Francisco; I’d just traveled across the country promoting my previous book, Winter is Coming.

KERNAN: Which we’ll talk about also.

KASPAROV: Yes, [the book was about] why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped. Everybody wanted to ask me about IBM and Deep Blue. [Laughter.] So now I have a new book, I think that it’s inescapable. But somehow probably these two subjects are connected, because a lot of Russian stories are connected to cybersecurity. It’s not AI, but it’s about interference using new technology.

Now, regarding the situation in Russia, it’s also quite an extraordinary moment. I just arrived here today at San Francisco airport.

While I’m waiting for our car, I looked at the news from Moscow, from Alexei Navalny calling for big rallies on June the 12th. It seems that in four days’ time, we’ll have another massive rally in Russia. I think he said

there are something like 211 cities now—the people in these 211 Russian cities already expressed their desire to join these rallies against corruption, but of course it’s against Vladimir Putin. The reason I mention that is because it somehow answers the question I’m being asked all the time: Vladimir Putin is so popular—how do you know? Here, in [the United States], you can measure the popularity of a politician by looking at opinion polls. Maybe it could fluctuate plus [or] minus three, four percentage points, but you cannot [confuse] 80 percent and 20 percent.

Now in Putin’s Russia, first of all, you have to recognize people are being asked anonymously, “What do you think about Vladimir Putin?” They feel uncomfortable.

KERNAN: Uncomfortable.

KASPAROV: Very uncomfortable, yeah, because many of them were either born in the Soviet Union or definitely have vivid memories about the Soviet Union. Asking their opinion about the KGB dictator, either by phone or on the street, it puts them in some kind of jeopardy. When they say, 80 percent of Russian people who are being asked about Putin support him, my question is, “I want to look at the remaining 20 percent.” [Laughter.]

This means that there are still 20 percent of people who are so unhappy that they are not afraid to say what they think about Putin.

Though I wouldn’t pay any real attention to these polls, because the true popularity of Putin could be measured by the fact that so many people are willing to join these rallies.

And even though there is so much marching here in San Francisco or New York, when you’re being protected by the police—[Russian protesters] most likely will be confronted by riot police, and people realize that there will be a risk. But they’re still willing to show their dissatisfaction, their disagreement and their willingness to seek change.

Now, when Putin’s regime and Putin’s cronies tried to organize big rallies like supporting the annexation of Crimea, they bring people from the state-paid jobs; very often they just give money and it’s recorded.

Because they [the regime] couldn’t [gather] enough enthusiasm, so they had to pay for it. So it tells you that even if 80, 90 percent of people are not willing to take action, the actual level of support for Putin, enthusiastic support, is quite thin.

KERNAN: So what led you to your decision to leave the country?

KASPAROV: I got an invitation, you may call it so, to visit the Russian analog of FBI. KERNAN: “Invitation.” [Laughter.]

KASPAROV: It was an invitation to be a witness on one of the many cases that they started at the time. After big protests in 2011, 2012, there was a crackdown, and many of my colleagues, they were already arrested or being investigated. When I received it, actually I was traveling abroad. My mother received it. I called Boris Nemtsov—the late Boris Nemtsov, my friend and colleague and ally—and asked his opinion. Boris was adamant. He said, “Garry, stay away, because

AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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if you enter the building, and if you leave the building, you will not be a witness anymore but a suspect.” So I wish he would have followed his own advice. It was apparent at the time that the regime would not play by its own rules, and Putin wanted to eliminate any opposition. Looking at the list of people who marched with me 10 years ago—or just 5 or 6 years ago on Moscow streets—they either are in jail, in exile or worse.

KERNAN: So you wrote the book Winter is Coming, talking about Putin as a real danger to the world, and you were critical of the Obama administration for not taking that threat serious[ly] enough. But you also say, Well, we should thank Trump for showing [us] how fragile our democratic institutions are.

KASPAROV: No, I think we should be looking at what’s happening now. It’s good that we have Trump, who is not capable [of ] destroy[ing] but [instead] show[ing] the weakness of the system—that the system could be exposed. Also, it’s a wake-up call. A lot of people thought that, in this country, [they could take] democracy for granted.

All the rights that we have been enjoying for more than two centuries, they are [taken] for granted. I remember that two years ago, I was on Bill Maher, and I tried to raise this issue about Putin and the threats, and he was so dismissive. He ended the conversation by saying “Look, wake me up when he takes over Poland.”

Wow, I was almost jumped in my chair responding that I heard similar comments about 80 years ago, and we all know what the outcome was. After the November elections, Bill has changed his views and became a crusader, bashing Putin and the Russian interference, and I couldn’t help tweeting that it seemed that Putin skipped over Poland and went straight to Wisconsin.

[Laughter.]

But also when I say [we should] praise Trump, it is because you can see the back-

lash against nationalism in Europe. I believe it’s because of Trump’s unexpected victory [that] we saw the collapse of nationalists in Holland. The [populist nationalist] Party for Freedom that many believed was poised to win the elections was totally crushed. And by the way, it was crushed in the elections because 81 percent of Dutch people voted.

The moment you have a majority voting, overall majority, you can see that the share of vote is not as impressive as it looked.

Then, of course, France. France was, by the way, a big setback for Putin. He was betting on France, and they believed that they would win because they had [Marine] Le Pen; they had [former Prime Minister François] Fillon, also very close to Putin, and [Jean-Luc] Mélenchon from the far left. All of them talked about lifting sanctions and basically bringing Russia out of the cold and starting a new era of cooperation. And Putin lost; Macron has won. Again, I think this was the Trump effect, and again I thought it was a good moment to make another joke saying that Putin bet on three cards out of four, and he lost his bet. It seems he was running out of trump cards. [Laughter.]

KERNAN: Okay, one more Russia question: Masha Gessen, who is a journalist who also had to leave Russia for her safety like you did, last week wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, and she said, “We imagine the villains of history as cunning strategists, brilliant masterminds of horror. This happens because we learn about them from history books, which weave narratives that retrospectively imbue events with logic, making them seem predetermined. Historians and their readers bring an unavoidable perception bias to the story. If a historical event caused shocking destruction, then the person behind this event must have been a correspondingly giant monster. Terrifying as it is to contemplate the catastrophes of the 20th century, it would be even more frightening to imagine that humanity has stumbled unthinkingly into its darkest moments.”

She goes on to say, “As someone who’s spent years studying Mr. Putin—and as one of a handful of journalists who have had an unscripted conversation with him—I can vouch for the fact that he is a poorly educated,

under-informed, incurious man whose ambition is vastly out of proportion to his understanding of the world. To the extent that he has any interest in the business of governing, it is his role—on the world stage or on Russian television—that concerns him.

Whether he’s attending a summit, piloting a plane, or hang-gliding with Siberian cranes, it is the spectacle of power that interests him.”

When I read that, it made me wonder how you compare the persona of President Trump with Vladimir Putin.

KASPAROV: I think we’re lucky that it was Trump who actually exposed the weakness of the system—a man with no plan, with no strategy—and now we can deal with that because he’s flawed, and there’s so many weaknesses in this administration. It’s not even being formed properly. I think it will help America get stronger. It’s like a virus. A virus attacks a body with a weakened immune system. So if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.

KERNAN: I don’t know how comforting that is. [Laughter.]

KASPAROV: No, this is not a deadly virus.

Let’s look at Putin. Masha Gessen is a good friend, but I’m not sure I agree entirely with what she said because in my former life, in my professional career, I knew the worst mistake one can make is to underestimate your opponent. To underestimate Putin, that’s a big mistake. She’s right in describing him as poorly educated. Everything she said was right. But he had instincts. The fact that the man stays in power for 18 years tells you that he’s quite a savage dictator. He knows how to manipulate people. He won these battles in Russia among his cronies.

But most important, he instinctively learned that it’s a brand new world, and you can use technology invented in the free world. You can use the free speech, the free environment of the democracy, to promote your own agenda. And he knows it’s not about substance. He can lie all the time. He understands that he’s [taking advantage of the system]. He’s not going to be called by a special council to testify under oath. He can do whatever. And later he can confess, “Yes, I lied,” as he did with Crimea. For, remember, [at] first he said, “How dare you? I’m a man of peace.” [The] next statement [he made] three months later: “Maybe there were some Russians, vacationing patriots.” [Laughter.]

Then, a few months later, [he asked] how

could we let these brave people fight alone?

Some form of tacit approval. And then eventually a year later, full recognition. Bragging: “Of course it was us,” and pinning medals on the Russian troops that were part of invasion.

Now in his mind he did everything right, because he was a KGB guy, and remember even before becoming president, when he was acting prime minister and meeting his former colleagues at the bank in KGB headquarters in Moscow, he said, “Once KGB, always KGB.” And lying is a part of the job. He is amazed that he keeps lying, and people are still buying it, still asking him, “Did you do that?” He says, “No, I didn’t.”

By the way, by saying “I didn’t,” he just is looking back at Russian people, saying “Of course I did it. Yes.” [Laughter.] This is his [method]; they [the Russian people] just understand it.

KERNAN: They understand it.

KASPAROV: So let’s sell this nonsense to them. It’s all about his appearance. As long as he’s being treated as the most powerful man on the planet—by the way, two consecutive years Forbes magazine [called him the most powerful person in the world]—that’s what

counts. He knows ... that no one ever in history attacked a strong dictator; as long as the dictator looks strong, there will be no uprising.

KERNAN: Let me get to the point about lies. You tweeted [that] the point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda, it’s to exhaust your critical thinking and to annihilate the truth. I think that my concern is, how can our sort of democratic society withstand this level of mendacity and chaos? What advice do you have to Americans?

KASPAROV: Again, you should realize that the threat does exist. I think that it’s better late than never. And also, Putin found out that he can weaponize this fake news industry. By the way, I could definitely see a few people here that speak Russian in this audience. More than a few.

They should be aware that this business of creating a fake news industry started in Russia many years ago—by confronting Russian opposition, by creating this fake presence on the Internet to lead people who were looking for alternative news. We were not happy with Channel 1 and Channel 2

propaganda machines. So it worked. Because if you show up on the Internet and if you’re browsing there, and you find a website that looks decent and has some news but also sells you not 100-percent lies, as Channel 1 [does], but it has its own window where it has to make sure while you buy the credentials of the website, you also almost don’t notice that some of the elements of the story are just fake news. Then, Putin went beyond Russia to the neighboring countries, the Russian-speaking world, and it worked again. And of course he decided that he could use this globally, having troll factories and also many lobbyists. [He found] he was quite successful because, again, he’s a KGB dictator. [He is] finding the weak spots in the free world. Because you can lie in 100 different ways. Now, with all these social media channels, you can manipulate public opinion by amplifying fake stories.

KERNAN: Like AI. KASPAROV: Exactly. Somebody else will pick it up, and it’s more difficult to tell the truth, because there’s only one way.

KERNAN: And it’s nuanced.

KASPAROV: It’s the news. Exactly. For instance, when a Russian missile hit the plane AU G U ST/SE P T E M B E R 2017

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MH17 [Malaysia Airlines Flight 17], it was not just a blank denial. They came up with 10 different versions. Yeah, it was Ukrainian missiles; no, it was a Ukrainian jet fighter; no, it was a plane full of dead bodies sent from Holland.

By the way, one day it was amazing. [On] Russian television, two different channels both confronted the report of Dutch investigators, and they had two different versions of “truth.” One [had] diagrams showing that it was a Ukrainian missile. Another one talked about a Ukrainian jet fighter. Almost at the same time.

Again, it doesn’t matter, because you can throw this nonsense or these old sort of alternative versions into the public, and somebody will buy it. Putin’s dangerous, and somehow I would argue that he’s even more dangerous than the Soviet propaganda, because he does not have to sell you anything.

The Soviet propaganda was limited because they had a story to sell. They had to convince you that the Soviet Union is a country for peace, and they could support only certain political groups—left, far left, anarchist, communists. Putin—nope, doesn’t matter.

36

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

He can go with far left, far right. Anything that disturbs the status quo. Anything that spreads chaos is good for him. And he can sell whatever. So he knows how to weaponize everything. Refugees from Syria, fantastic— so let’s push more of them to Europe because they will disturb the political balance. And they will attack or they will create problems for mainstream parties [such as Germany’s] Angela Merkel—or in France, in other countries. So [he is] spreading chaos with resources and with the openness of the West.

I’m prepared for this kind of onslaught.

KERNAN: So what’s your advice to ordinary Americans?

KASPAROV: First of all, you understand that the threat does exist, and it’s not a minor threat. I understand there’s ISIS and other things. But you should also look at Putin as the main source of the problem because [of ] the resources and his ability to attack you simultaneously on many fronts.

KERNAN: Do you think Putin is more dangerous to American society than ISIS? KASPAROV: Are you kidding me? [Laughter.] Are you asking now? A couple weeks ago, when [former FBI Director James] Comey

was in the Senate [committee hearing], he said bluntly [that] Russia is the most dangerous nation on Earth, considering the United States’ interests, because of its intentions and resources. ISIS comes and goes. We could spend a little time talking about conspiracy theories and how many potential KGB infiltrators there are. You [can] look at the Saddam office that worked with Russia. You have many field commanders from North Caucasus that mysteriously came to Syria.

Then it’s about very strange relations between [Syrian leader Bashir] al-Assad and ISIS, because they’re not fighting each other. Some of them will fall—and by the way, Russian planes never bombed ISIS. When you look at Putin’s operation in Syria, he always bombed American-backed, Western-backed rebels.

Because he knows that Assad and ISIS, they’re all helping to create chaos.

So you have to fight back. There are many ways you can hurt Putin, because as long as he looks strong, he won’t be challenged.

But you have to make him look like a loser.

And there are many things you can do: start [hurting] them where it hurts; [follow] the money. You say you have sanctions; yes, Cont’d on page 39

2018

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Scottish Isles and Norwegian Fjords: Bergen to Glasgow aboard m.s. Le Boréal May 17–25, 2018 Cruise from Bergen, Norway, to Glasgow, Scotland on a seven-night journey to Scotland’s Orkney and Shetland Islands and Norway’s majestic fjords. Experience two of the world’s most scenic rail journeys— the Flåm Railway through Norway’s fjordlands and The Jacobite steam train through the Scottish Highlands. Enjoy a presentation by Nick Card, the Ness of Brodgar archaeological site director and head archaeologist in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney. Norway/Copenhagen pre-cruise and Edinburgh/Glasgow post-cruise options.

Cost: from $4,995, per person, double occupancy

Canadian Rockies Explorer with Glacier National Park June 9–19, 2018 Experience North America’s great unspoiled wildernesses. Journey from majestic Glacier National Park to the mountain town of Whitefish, Montana, and to the world-famous Banff National Park. Visit Lake Louise and Athabasca Glacier, one of the largest icefields in the Rocky Mountains. See Jasper National Park’s Maligne Canyon and cruise cerulean Maligne Lake. Take in spectacular views on an expedition to Glacier Skywalk. Ride the Banff Gondola to Sulphur Mountain’s 8,000-foot peak. Stay in unique mountain lodges.

Cost: $4,495, per person, double occupancy

Mongolia with a Country Nadaam Festival August 3–13, 2018 Mongolia is known for vast, rugged expanses and nomadic culture. Learn about Genghis Khan and visit the National Museum in Ulaanbaatar. Enjoy the other-worldly sound of Mongolian throat-singing.

Stay at the award-winning Three Camel Lodge in a traditional nomadic-style ger in the Gobi Desert.

Witness a local country Naadam celebration, a tribute to strength, dexterity and marksmanship. Optional 5-night extension to Siberia’s Irkutsk & Lake Baikal region.

Cost: $7,495, per person, double occupancy

Arctic Express: Greenland’s Northern Lights aboard Ocean Nova September 1–10, 2018 Explore East Greenland and witness the delights of the world’s largest fjord system of Scoresby Sound.

Visit fascinating Inuit settlements and (weather permitting) experience some of the world’s most vivid displays of the Northern Lights. Draw inspiration from hiking along the tundra, kayaking amid icebergs, and exploring Greenland’s National Park. Search for iconic arctic creatures in their natural habitat – whales, polar bears, muskoxen and more. Pre and post options in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Cost: from $8,495 per person, double occupancy ($6,395 quad room, $6,895 triple room)

Food and Wine of Portugal and Galicia September 7–16, 2018 Experience the best wines of northern Portugal and Galicia with wine expert Jeremy Shaw. Sip port in Porto while overlooking the Douro River. Learn about vinho verde and alvarino in Melgaco. Visit Pazo de Señorans, the makers of excellent albariños. Savor tapas in the pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostela. Discover Braga and Pinhao. Visit the famous library at Coimbra University and enjoy a tasting at Bussaco Palace. Savor regional dishes each day. Conclude in vibrant Lisbon.

Cost: $5,495, per person, double occupancy

Perspectives of Iran: Minarets & Mosaics September 20–October 4, 2018 Explore Tehran’s palaces and the vault of the Bank Milli Iran to view the spectacular Crown Jewels.

Visit a contemporary art gallery to learn about artistic expression. Experience Shiraz, city of poetry and gardens. Marvel at the magnificent ruins of Persepolis. Discover Yazd, the country’s center of Zoroastrianism, and the most traditional Persian architecture. Visit Isfahan, where brilliant blue-tiled buildings and majestic bridges are often recognized as the perfection of Islamic architecture.

Cost: $7,490, per person, double occupancy

Insider’s Japan: From Tokyo to Kyoto September 24–October 6, 2018 Experience Tokyo’s Shinto Meiji Shrine, the historic Imperial Palace, and modern Ginza district. Visit Mt. Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, and spend the night at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Explore Takayama’s ancient streets and houses and Kanazawa’s famed Kenrokuen Gardens. In Kyoto, Japan’s cultural capital, attend a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and embark on a cycling tour through the grounds of the Imperial Palace and Gion district. Optional Hiroshima post-trip extension available.

Cost: $6,191 per person, double occupancy, including air from SFO

Romance on the Mekong aboard R.V. Mekong Navigator October 2–17, 2018 Explore Saigon, formally known as Ho Chi Minh City, with visits to the Reunification Palace, Notre Dame Cathedral, the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. In Siem Reap, discover the wonders of ancient Angkor. Spend seven nights cruising the Mekong River aboard the luxurious, all-suite Mekong Navigator. Visit riverside towns as well as Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh. Experience the city’s Royal Palace, and learn about Cambodia’s troubled past at the Choueng Ek Memorial.

Cost: from $6,395, per person, double occupancy, including air from SFO

Exploring Ethiopia: Land of the Blue Nile October 9–20, 2018 Experience the magnificent mountains, majestic lakes, and astonishing variety of human settlements of Ethiopia. Discover the capital of Addis Ababa and Tissiat Falls on the upper reaches of the Blue Nile. Visit Lake Tana’s Kidane Meheret monastery, which depicts scenes from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Explore Gondar’s castles and the Simien Mountains. Discover Axum, where ancient obelisks stand as reminders of the city’s glory. Marvel at the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Optional 7-day/6-night extension to Southern Ethiopia.

Cost: $5,595, per person, double occupancy

Cruise the Heart of Europe: Budapest to Amsterdam aboard M.S. Amadeus II October 13–28, 2018 Journey through five countries, and navigate the fabled Rhine, Main and Danube rivers. Discover the walled city of Nuremberg and the stunning imperial capitals of Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest.

Explore Amsterdam’s canals, and take walking tours of Cologne and Würzburg. Visit charming river towns, and marvel at the beauty of the Middle Rhine and Wachau Valleys. Optional pre-tour extension in Prague and post-tour in Amsterdam available.

Cost: from $6,495 per person, double occupancy, including air from SFO - no single supplement (limited)

Wonders of Peru: With an Amazon River Cruise aboard Delfin III October 18–29, 2018 Experience the tranquility of Peru’s Amazon region and the ethereal Machu Picchu perched among misty Andean peaks. See Lima’s impressive highlights and savor a home-cooked Peruvian dinner at a landmark private residence. Experience three nights aboard the intimate Delfin III as you search for wildlife and hike into the rain forest. Fly to Cusco, and journey to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Explore the spectacular Incan complex of Machu Picchu.

Cost: from $5,995 per person, double occupancy including air from Miami - no single supplement (limited)

Mystical India November 4–20, 2018 Mystical and spiritual, chaotic and confounding, India overflows with riches. Experience Old Delhi and New Delhi. Continue to Jaipur, the “pink city” and enjoy dinner in a Rajasthan family’s home. At Ranthambore National Park, search for the elusive Bengal tigers on game drives. Marvel at the sublime Taj Mahal in Agra. In Varanasi, cruise along the Ganges and discover nearby Sarnath, one of Buddhism’s holiest sites. Optional 5-day/4-night post-tour extension to Nepal.

Cost: approximately $5,685 per person, double occupancy, including air from SFO

Israel: Ancient Sites to Modern Day Start-Ups November 7–17, 2018 Explore Jerusalem, a city sacred to three major religions.. Visit a unique community of 120 families, equally divided between Jews and Arabs, and experience Yad Vashem, a living memorial to the Holocaust. Journey to Masada and float in the Dead Sea. Travel to Bethlehem and Ramallah in the West Bank. Experience Tiberias, Galilee, Caesarea and visit a Druze village in the Golan Heights. See Haifa’s Bahai Gardens. Learn why Israel is called the “Start Up Nation” during our time in cosmopolitan Tel Aviv.

Cost: $6,195 per person, double occupancy

Cont’d from page 36 sanctions, but let’s get the attention to one of the top oligarch’s friends. As long as his wife can run his business from Geneva, he can sit in St. Petersburg [while] being denied a Visa to Europe. Big deal. The same is [true with French President Emmanuel] Macron, [who] can say many tough things facing Putin, but as long as [the French energy company] Total is [doing] business with [the Russian energy company] Novatek, Putin doesn’t care.

Words are cheap. So Putin’s empire depends on the West’s complacency and willingness to make money, no matter what. And we still [have] yet to see a proper response from the United States and Europe [that ensures], not so much for Putin but for his cronies, that the continued aggression will have a very high price.

KERNAN: Artificial intelligence is already changing so much about society, about work, and yet, to get to the 2016 election again, we were having debates about coal mining jobs and the manufacturing sector, rather than how do we adapt to this future that’s not just coming, it’s here. You’re an optimist, which is wonderful. You really think if we combine machine power with human-powered thinking, that that’s going to be good for the future. Talk about how you frame your thinking around machine learning and AI. KASPAROV: The idea behind the book was to combine a few things. One is it was my personal story. It’s being part of this human-machine competition and what I learned from that. It’s [also] a history of human relations. I thought it would be important to write in plain language, explaining that it’s a natural progress. You have to demystify that, because there’s so much panic based on these distorted visions from Hollywood—The Terminator, The Matrix.

Let’s slow down. Just make sure that we look at the problem objectively, promoting what I believe is the future scenario: humans plus machine cooperation. That was the outcome of my matches with Deep Blue. I just realized if you can’t beat them, join them.

You mention elections and politics; it’s only brought us this kind of hypocrisy, because machines for centuries, if not for millennia, have been taking over all forms of manual labor. When machines were taking over manufacturing jobs—that’s natural.

Now the only difference is machines coming after people who have college degrees, political influence, computer accounts. Suddenly

it’s a big story. But, again, in a historical timeline, it’s just another leap forward. We just have to realize that more menial aspects of cognition will be taken over by machines.

Of course [there’s a] fear: What are we going to do? There’s still so much room for us to apply our creativity.

“Where machine intelligence ends and human creativity begins,” that’s the subtitle of the book, because anything that we do, machines will do better. The emphasis is on [things we already] know how we do— KERNAN: That you can program.

KASPAROV: Something that you can codify and send to the machine. There’s so much that we are doing without knowing how we do that, and it’s not just simply emotional things. It’s just a lot of decisions made based on parallel tracks. It’s multiple layers of decisions, and machines always know the odds.

But they will not be able to make decisions, because they will have to compare incompatible things.

Do you remember [the moment] in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo was bringing his spaceship into the asteroid field, trying to escape from the Imperial fleet?

C-3PO tells him in panic that the chances of surviving the asteroid field are 3,720 to 1.

And the response, “Never tell me the odds!”

It’s a very important moment, because the machine was right. The chances of surviving were slim to none. But the machine couldn’t realize that the chances of not getting there were even less, because you would be caught and then killed, or worse. Many things [are] for machines knowing the odds and making precise calculations of your chance of success. Machines will never give you the right advice, and that means we still have room to incorporate collaboration and make the most efficient decisions.

We just have to make sure that we know what we’re going to do. And it’s not about saving jobs; these jobs cannot be saved. I believe that the problem is not jobs being lost too fast; I think it’s too slow, because it slows down the cycle. Because what happens always, at the end of the cycle you have a new cycle. Before any technology creates jobs, it kills jobs. So if you slow down this part of the cycle, you will prevent it starting a new cycle of economic growth and possibly creating new, sustainable jobs.

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Tom Nichols

THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE What happens when experts are derided and everyone’s opinion is considered of equal value? From the “Tom Nichols: Are Facts Dead?” program on May 24, 2017, in San Francisco.

TOM NICHOLS

Professor of National Security Affairs, the U.S. Naval War College; Author, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters

MELISSA CAEN

Political Analyst, CBS Television San Francisco— Moderator

Photos by James Meinerth

O

ver the years, questioning of experts [has] ... turn[ed] into replacing experts. It [is]n’t people saying, “I doubt you and I want you to explain yourself.” Or “I have questions,” or “I want a second opinion,” or “I want to hear from somebody else.” It [is] people saying, literally, “I know more about this than you do because I went to college.” Or, as we can talk about later, as I sometimes call it, “I went to college,” depending on what they did and where they went, or “I watched enough television,” or “I surf the Internet,” or whatever it was that made them think that.

The moment that kind of tripped the switch for me was about four years ago; regardless of what folks may think, I actually didn’t write this book about the election.

I could have. [Laughter.] But l didn’t.

It was during the Edward Snowden business where I, as a Russia guy, said, “We’re going to find that Russia’s deeply involved in this.” For people who’ve stud[ied] Russia and the old Soviet Union, this is kind of a no-brainer. It’s gonna be pretty obvious. Of course, a lot of folks at the time didn’t want to hear that.

Finally, somebody—I can’t remember who it was, a younger person—said, “Tom, let me explain Russia to you.” I said, “No.” [Laughter.] No, no, no, no, no.

What do I think is happening?

As I say many times in the book, experts are the servants of a democratic society, not the masters. What I did identify, though, was what I think is an epidemic of narcissism that has created a society in which no one can tolerate ever being told they’re wrong or that

they don’t know enough about something.

How did this happen? Well, as someone who tends to lean conservative, I blame all bad things on the 1960s. But I thought maybe I should be a little more granular about that. I think there’s been a confluence with several things, including the kind of institutionalization of a youth culture that is constantly questioning to the point of incoherence sometimes.

But it’s more than that. Some of it’s been aided by technology; some of it’s been aided by the way we do higher education; some of it’s been aided by the way our journalistic institutions have splintered into a million different pieces.

I talk about education, specifically higher education, where the rush to make college a mass experience is creating whole successive generations of people who have gone to college as an experience but who are not actually college-educated in the sense that we would once understand that, with the critical-thinking skills, the breath of exposure to ideas, the overall understanding of their own civilization. We have people who have gone to some kind of post-secondary education where they’ve been treated like clients. ... They provide a client-servicing mentality, where as one of my colleagues many years ago said to me, “I don’t feel like a professor.

I feel like a clerk in an expensive boutique.”

That has enabled all kinds of other problems, including grade inflation.

I am an educator, but another field where I don’t actually work is journalism. I talked to a lot of journalists, and I tried to unpack this problem of, Why isn’t journalism helping to get us out of this problem?

Some of it is a chicken-and-egg problem.

By the way, I was asked, “How can we instill critical thinking skills in younger students?”

I said, “Stop telling them they’re awesome all day. That would be a good start.” [Laughter.]

One of my first professors in graduate school used to start by handing out an essay he had written called “What a Student Owes a Teacher” to grad students. It included things like trust, humility, docility. This big, imposing Jesuit just handed this to us and [said], “This is how we’re going to start,” and of course we’d all kind of bristle.

I passed that class, by the way. I got past this tough Jesuit philosophy professor, and I got an A. I walked up to him at the Christmas party thinking that I was now his peer—smartest kid in the class and all that stuff—and I said, “Merry Christmas.

What do you say? Peace on earth? Good will toward men?”

He looked at me over his glass, and he said, “What I say to you, Mr. Nichols, is, Repent.”

[Laughter.]

Now, journalism—I was actually asked recently, “Was the world a better place when we had three TV networks?” I said, “In some ways, I guess I’m going to say yes.” I grant you that half hour of news at the end of every day was a curated stream of what a bunch of rich, old, white guys working for corporations in New York City wanted you to hear. I still think that their decision that an arms control treaty was more important than which Kardashian is sleeping with whom was a better curation of the news.

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ability. Can we take cable as a fact of life?

The market is now segmenting. If you’re liberal, you watch MSNBC; if you’re a conservative, you watch Fox. If you want to read things that you often agree with in one direction, you read The Huffington Post; you want to read things in another, you read National Review, or Slate, or whatever it is.

People can go through the whole day saying, “I watched the news,” when in fact, all they’ve done is read a lot of stuff that they’ve cherry-picked to agree with them, if they read it at all, assuming they didn’t just breeze past the headlines in a Google search. So journalism has, again, become a kind of marketized client-servicing organization.

The other thing that’s different is, because of the ubiquity of cable news, that people think they have watched the news, when what they mean is, “I have left on some video wallpaper all day that I did not actually watch.”

To say a few words about the Internet, which I’m loath to do here in the heart of Silicon Valley—I actually do love the Internet, but I cannot deny being pessimistic that the Internet is also making us stupider

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and meaner.

It just is. It’s making people dumber, and it’s making them mean[er] than they used to be, because it’s replacing human interaction.

There’s so many ways that we could blame the Internet, but in the end, I blame the users.

I blame the people. When it comes to the news and usage of the Internet for educating oneself, treat it like food, vary your diet, make healthy choices and limit your intake.

This attack on experts—and by experts, I mean, people who know things to a level of specialization that necessarily excludes lay people. If you needed to know something, who would you ask? That’s a good first cut at who’s an expert. This attack on expertise is part of this narcissistic trend in American society, and I’m not the first one to note that.

People feel things are out of their control, arguing with experts in a world where everything seems to be swirling around, and you can’t get a grip on anything. Experts, who seem to know what’s going on, immediately become the scapegoats.

It becomes very empowering to say, “I don’t believe the experts.” That recreates a certain sense of autonomy that I think people feel is

lost when the world starts moving as quickly around them as it does. We’ve always had this problem. But it is now to the point where, instead of people going on their common sense, every expert opinion about anything leads to a resentful argument from someone who feels disempowered just by having that conversation.

One of the arguments against [me] was a commentary in USA Today that said, I kid you not, his actual line was, “Looking around the past 50 years, what have experts done for us?” I guess, since you’re still at war with Nazi Germany and you have polio, nothing.

[Laughter.]

But that is very much the attitude that experts have to deal with.

Question and answer session with Melissa Caen, politics reporter for CBS 5 Television MELISSA CAEN: As a national security expert, what are the implications for real national security issues?

TOM NICHOLS: I was really concerned that people would read the book and say,

“People just argue with this guy. I mean, he’s obviously just abrasive and difficult.” I am, but a surgeon told me when I was writing this book, “I’m so glad you’re writing this, because I’ve gotten to the point where I want to put all this stuff on a tray and just push it across the table and say, ‘You know what, you do it.’” [Laughter.] He said, “I’ve had it!”

CAEN: Dianne Feinstein was here [in the Bay Area] doing her first town hall that she’s done since she’s been in the Senate. At one point, one of the people in the audience was yelling something about Syria. She stopped and said to him, “If you think you know more about Syria than I do, come on up to the stage,” but you couldn’t hear her because the applause was so loud. [Laughter.] “I’ve been on the Foreign Intelligence Committee for however many years, and you think you really know more.”

NICHOLS: Now the foreign affairs question is just so crucial to our national security.

About two weeks ago, The Washington Post had a map of everything from the Caspian Sea pretty much out to the Pacific. It’s all covered with pink dots, from Australia to Azerbaijan up to Siberia. Every pink dot represented the guess of an adult American respondent about where North Korea is. The people who put it in Australia, you just say, “Well, these are people who probably won’t know where their car is most of the time.”

What struck me was how many people got it on the Korean peninsula, had a 50/50 chance of putting it on the north side of a line, and got it wrong. And it’s in the name— it’s in the name. North Korea.

So what implication does that have for national security? It means that people are

voting on very important issues and sending demand messages to their elected representatives based on not knowing stuff. People say, “You elites—particularly the elected representatives—they don’t listen to us enough.”

My argument is they are listening to you too much, that actually the biggest problem with the United States right now is that your elected representatives, who were created in a Burkean system of republican government where they are supposed to add their judgment, are in fact doing what the public’s telling them to do.

Of course people think NATO is obsolete and not very important. They have no idea where NATO is. They have no idea how much the United States pays for NATO. I’ll give you a similar example: foreign aid. Most people in America you ask about foreign aid, they say, “We have to cut foreign aid, slash it. It’s huge.” When you ask them how much America devotes to foreign aid, the median response is anywhere between 10 percent and 25 percent of the U.S. budget.

The real number is less than three quarters of 1 percent; 5 percent to 10 percent of people interviewed about this will tell you that foreign aid constitutes at least half of the budget of the United States.

Now, how can you have an intelligent interaction with the voters, when they think that 10 percent to 25 percent, or even 50 percent, of the United States budget is based on foreign aid? You simply cannot have the public informing policy, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.

It’s like the public asking you to finally ban unicorns.

I think it’s important for experts to just

plant that flag right away. I think, while it’s important not to condescend, it’s important not to patronize either. When somebody says, “I think North Korea is in Australia,” it’s really insulting for somebody who knows better to say, “That’s so interesting.” No, you’re not doing that person any favors. In fact, in some ways you’re being disrespectful, and you’re certainly failing in your job as an expert.

You have a background in the law. Somebody said to me after the 2010 elections, “Now that the Republicans have taken the House, they can remove President Obama.”

I said, “No, they can’t. The Senate would have [to hold the trial].” They said, “Where are you getting this?” [Laughter.] [The] Constitution of the United States.

I did a book a few years back on war in the United Nations—all my books are depressing. The guy in the back raises his hand. He said, “Excuse me, professor. Are you telling me that one country in the United Nations can hold up everybody with one vote?” I said, “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

And he got angry, and he said, “How long has this been going on?” [Laughter.]

I said, “Since 1945.”

He said, “Does our Supreme Court know this?”

I said, “They’ve been briefed.”

Now, I don’t think in a conversation like that you could say, “Well, now why do think that isn’t true?” You just do your job as an expert. Stand up and say, “No, that’s not true; no, you’re wrong, and if you want, I’ll explain it to you. But I’m not going to play pretend that you somehow knew something coming into this, because that just wastes your time. and it wastes mine.”

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Photos by Ed Ritger

Photos by Ed Ritger

Winners of the 86th Annual California Book Awards for Books Published in 2016

FICTION

JUVENILE

CALIFORNIANA

Gold: Michael Chabon, Moonglow, Harper

Gold: Anne Nesbet, Cloud and Wallfish, Candlewick Press

Gold: Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide, Yale University Press

YOUNG ADULT

CONTRIBUTION TO PUBLISHING

Gold: Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star, Delacorte Press

Gold: Harold Mooney and Erika Zavaleta, Ecosystems of California, University of California Press

Silver: Elizabeth McKenzie, The Portable Veblen, Penguin Books FIRST FICTION Gold: Melissa Yancy, Dog Years, University of Pittsburgh Press NONFICTION Gold: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Silver: Jordan Fisher Smith, Engineering Eden, Crown

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POETRY Gold: Aja Couchois Duncan, Restless Continent, Litmus Press Silver: Douglas Kearney, Buck Studies, Fence Books

On June 12, authors, publishers, and readers gathered for the 86th Annual California Book Awards ceremony, honoring the state’s best writers for work published in the previous year. You can see the winners above and listed on the facing page.

Let’s also meet the jury members, for whom the book awards are a year-long endeavor.

Allison Hoover Bartlett is the author of the national bestseller The Man Who Loved Books Too Much.

She is currently at work on a novel.

Rosalind Chang is a retired children’s librarian and branch manager.

Chris Chen is assistant professor of literature at the University of

California at Santa Cruz.

Roy Eisenhardt is a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law and former president of the Oakland Athletics.

Peter Fish is a freelance writer and editor.

Mary Ellen Hannibal is a journalist and author, most recently of Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction.

Carla Kozak is the youth collection development specialist at the San Francisco Public Library.

Kathryn Ma’s novel The Year She Left Us was named a New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Alden Mudge is a Berkeley-based editor and reviewer.

Denise Newman’s fourth poetry

collection, Future People, was published in 2016.

Michelle Richmond is the author of two story collections and four novels, including The Year of Fog. Sarah Rosenthal is editor of A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area.

Steven Boyd Saum is the editor of Santa Clara Magazine (and former editor of The Commonwealth).

Gabrielle Selz is the author of Unstill Life: A Daughter’s Memoir of Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction.

Julia Flynn Siler is author of The House of Mondavi and Lost Kingdom.

Steve Wasserman is publisher and executive director of Heyday Books.

GIVING CODE

Wealth and Needs

Photos by Alyssa Sewlal

Why is there unmet need in one of the richest areas in the world? From “The Giving Code,” held April 26, 2017, in Silicon Valley.

ALEXA CORTES CULWELL & HEATHER MCLEOD GRANT

Co-founders, Open Impact; Co-authors, “The Giving Code: Silicon Valley Nonprofits and Philanthropy”

PETER FORTENBAUGH

CEO, Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula

CAROL LARSON

President and CEO, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

DANIEL LURIE

CEO, Tipping Point

TESS REYNOLDS

CEO, New Door Ventures In conversation with

KERRY DOLAN

Assistant Managing Editor, Forbes—Moderator 48

THE COMMO N WE AL TH

KERRY DOLAN: We’re here this evening to discuss the topics of growing wealth, an increase in philanthropy, and the needs of local nonprofits and the people they serve.

At Forbes, I focus on both wealth and philanthropy, and I’m an editor of our annual lists of the world’s billionaires and Forbes’ 400 richest Americans. I can attest to the fact that there’s been an astounding growth in wealth in this neck of the woods over the past few decades.

In 1988, one year after Forbes first started counting billionaires around the world, the two founders of Hewlett-Packard, Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, were about the only billionaires in Northern California that Forbes could find. Now California is home to 140 billionaires, the majority of whom are here in the Bay Area and count tech as the reason for their fortunes. Many of these members of the “3-comma club” have become active philanthropists in recent years.

Very often what I’ve reported on are multimillion-dollar philanthropic gifts from this set to large institutions—places like Stanford University and UC San Francisco come to mind—and gifts to entities operating outside the United States.

Where does that leave the local nonprofits and the people that they serve, which are growing in number? We’re going to hear a lot more about this subject from two experts on this topic. I would like to introduce Alexa Cortes Culwell and Heather McLeod Grant.

They are co-founders of Open Impact and the

authors of a report called “The Giving Code: Silicon Valley Nonprofits and Philanthropy.”

Alexa and Heather’s report has sparked an important conversation about Silicon Valley’s startling prosperity paradox. Despite skyrocketing wealth, many local nonprofit leaders and organizations are struggling with funding and dealing with the growing displacement of vulnerable populations and declining quality of life.

ALEXA CORTES CULWELL: I want to start with the supply side of the equation.

How much wealth is there really in Silicon Valley? Well, for the first time we quantify that in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties alone, we have 76,000 millionaires and billionaires—that’s people with $1 million and above in investable assets. That’s in addition to the value of one’s home, which is a critical distinction when you live in Silicon Valley.

We also have 21 unicorn companies, which is a big change—meaning companies with preIPO [initial public offering] evaluations of $1 billion-plus, just sitting in these counties.

We all live in this hyperactive economy, and we generally understand it, but beginning to quantify it and sharing these insights helps you begin to see some of the connections with what’s actually going on here. So [there’s] incredible growth in the economy.

And guess what? [There’s] also incredible growth in philanthropy.

It ends up, we’re very generous as a region;

we’re outpacing our peers in California and nationwide. We gave nearly $5 billion as individuals in 2013, and we’re outpacing the rest of the country in terms of the percentage of adjusted gross income that we give. As individuals, Silicon Valley is actually giving a lot.

And our private foundations are growing.

So we’ve almost doubled the number of private foundations in Silicon Valley with $10 million in assets or more since 2000. Coupled with that is a national statistic showing that for the first time in history, more foundations are being founded by living donors who are actively operating them than ever before in history. So that insight is really applicable to Silicon Valley, where you have the people who created the wealth establishing mission and vision for these foundations and then also overseeing their programming.

The big story here is actually a charitable vehicle called the donor-advised fund. A donor advised-fund is often referred to as sort of a charitable savings account. We looked at the top three providers of donor-advised funds in the Valley and got some exclusive data from Fidelity Charitable and Schwab Charitable.

Fidelity Charitable is now the largest revenue nonprofit in the United States, and we asked them for specific data about growth in numbers of donor-advised funds in these two counties, and it’s staggering. We’ve had

946-percent growth in assets in these donor-advised funds. If you combine that with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, we’re estimating about $9 billion in these funds in just these two counties alone by just these three providers. So that’s just kind of the tip of the iceberg.

Where does all this money go? Well, we also wanted to understand that, and the key takeaway is that the vast majority of the funding actually leaves the region. The little that’s left mostly goes to large institutions and not to community-based organizations—those organizations that are based here, working with local populations on local needs.

So maybe that’s the way it should be; maybe that’s sufficient; maybe that’s plenty for the need that we have here, and the disparity we have here. We decided to dig into that question a little bit more, and Heather is going to show you what we found.

HEATHER MCLEOD GRANT: So the good news is, as Alexa shared, Silicon Valley is actually not only wealthy but generous and giving more and more to philanthropy. But as we dug deeper, and we got into this question about what’s happening on the demand side, what’s happening in our community and what are the unintended consequences of all this wealth creation, we actually found a slightly more troubling story. Many of you

who live here probably know this, though Alexa and I, to be honest, were shocked at some of the statistics we uncovered when we started looking for this data: the fact that about one in three residents in these two counties relies on some form of public or private assistance just to get by. This wealth boom has created extraordinary real estate prices, as many of you know, and that means that more and more of our citizens here, working class and even formerly middle class folks, are being displaced and pushed out and having to turn to public assistance to get by.

Demand is actually up at the food bank— higher now than it was in the recession—and like across the rest of America, we see our middle class being hollowed out. So we see the rich getting richer and the rest of the middle class and working class struggling more to get by.

As a result, what’s happening to our nonprofit community in these two counties is the demand is going up. As I mentioned, the food bank is seeing increased demand; 80 percent of the nonprofits we talk to, and for whom we looked at survey data, reported an increase in demand; 54 percent have a waitlist for their services; and many of these nonprofits are actually serving communities of color and communities in need—the people who are not benefitting from all this

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job creation and economic growth.

As a result, [nonprofits are] seeing rising demand, and they’re facing rising costs. It’s kind of a double whammy. They have to compete for commercial real estate and office space with tech startups and venture-backed companies. They have to compete for talent with the likes of Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. So these nonprofits, their costs are also going up. As a result, it’s actually putting them in a financial bind. What we learned when we looked at the health of our nonprofit sector is that many of them are actually running deficits, struggling to get by, and really having a hard time making ends meet, let alone serving the needs of these people in our communities.

As Alexa said, when we actually looked at the approximately 10 percent of philanthropy that stays locally, the majority of that is going to large institutions. It’s going to major universities and hospitals or to private schools.

That’s all well and good. However, very little of that philanthropic capital is making its way to the frontline providers who are providing a social safety net and meeting the needs of families here. In fact, the vast majority of fundraising goes to a small number of well-staffed organizations that have large development teams that can market to these donors, and they can build relationships.

As we started to talk to some of these high net-worth donors, we wanted to understand: How do you think about your giving, and what is it that gets in the way of giving locally? We uncovered something we call the giving code, which is the mindset and approach of some of these newly wealthy tech donors, many of whom are starting

their philanthropy in their 30s and 40s, even whilst they’re running large companies and raising children.

We found a couple of things: One, they’re very focused on impact. That’s not surprising.

They want to change the world through their companies, and they also want to change the world through their philanthropy. They’re disruptive and innovative. They want to impact large systems—health care, education.

They want to work on a national and global scale. They’re global citizens, so they want to have global and innovative impact. They’re very connected. They tend to look to their friends and their peers for advice on what to give to. They like joining giving circles, being part of groups that give, but they also tend to give to those organizations with which they’re familiar—so their alma mater or their children’s school—which means they may not be seeing the needs that are in other parts of our community. And lastly, they’re very diversified. As Alexa mentioned, donor-advised funds are a real growing vehicle of choice for these new donors, which means they can put money in a savings account and let it grow over time, but they don’t have to make decisions right now about which organizations to distribute that money to.

They’re also starting LLCs, as we saw with Chan Zuckerberg, right? They’re starting new vehicles. They’re interested in impact investing. They’re interested in hybrid forms of giving. So not only are they giving globally, nationally and locally, they’re also diversifying across multiple vehicles for giving, which actually makes it a more confusing landscape for our nonprofits to navigate. Even though we think there are many things that are great

about this giving code, we also think it’s not sufficient to meet the local needs in our own backyard.

So lastly, we tried to understand why aren’t these nonprofits and these donors connecting? I mean, I talk to nonprofits around the country and they all say, “We’re going to open up a Silicon Valley office.” And it’s almost as if they think that the money is just falling off the trees out here, and I tell them, “You know, this is actually a really hard market to penetrate.” You have to have the relationships and the social networks. Many of these donors don’t get information about our local community organizations. You can live in an affluent community and not actually see the poverty and the homelessness that’s only a mile or two away, perhaps, from your home or your corporate headquarters.

So there’s knowledge and information gaps.

These nonprofits don’t know how to access these donors, and there’s network gaps. There are people here living parallel lives, but they’re not intersecting and meeting.

And lastly, there’s the mindset and language gap. These donors speak the language of business. They’re focused on metrics. They want to see return on investment. They want to see the biggest bang for their buck in their philanthropy. Whereas, when you talk to community-based organizations, many of them speak the language of social justice and of empathy and of caring for the least well-off in our society—of moral obligations. So these are different languages and different mindsets, and all of that leads to what we think is an empathy gap—where increasingly these two groups are disconnected, and we’re not bringing them together to have conversations

and to find ways to jointly solve some of the problems plaguing our region around housing or transportation and so on.

With that, I want to turn it back over to Kerry to introduce our panel. They’re going to actually add to our research and tell some stories of their own as well as begin to talk about what some of the solutions might look like. So Kerry?

DOLAN: Thank you very much, Alexa and Heather. We have a great panel that’s involved in various aspects of giving and nonprofits in the Valley here.

Let’s start tonight’s discussion with you, Carol. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which you run, funded the research that Alexa and Heather just spoke to us about. Can you tell us briefly why you believe this topic is so important, especially right now?

CAROL LARSON: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is 53 years old, and we’re very involved in the local community. And we were seeing what Heather and Alexa described as the title of their second chapter in this report, and that’s “A Tale of Two Valleys.”

You heard about this basically good news—that philanthropy is growing so extraordinarily in this area. People are generous, people do care. But it’s also really another tale of this very disturbing, growing inequality and the urgency of trying to meet the needs of people living here and of the local nonprofits.

We were seeing this tale of two valleys in our own work, because ever since the foundation was founded in 1964, we’ve had a focus on local giving. As Kerry said, Dave and Bill were among the first billionaires here, but even when they were at the height

of building their company, Dave and Lucile were very involved locally. Dave served on the local school board. Lucile sat on infinite numbers of nonprofit boards. As the foundation grew and became more global in our focus and more national, the family and the board as a whole have insisted that we stay very focused in the local community as well.

It’s where the company grew up. It’s where our employees live. It’s a real, deep[ly] held belief that the health of the nonprofit sector locally is so important.

So seeing this tale of two valleys and the good news of the growing philanthropy, we just wanted to document it, learn about it more, and Heather and Alexa did a great job.

But our overall message is it’s a “yes, and . . . ” It’s not bad—all that money going outside of the region and going to help things internationally and nationally. It’s just we need more of that support for local nonprofits.

DOLAN: Peter, “The Giving Code” points out that many nonprofits have trouble connecting with this new class of donors in Silicon Valley who have specific expectations.

You have made great strides at the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. In fact, some of the changes you made are highlighted in “The Giving Code” report. Can you talk about what changes you made regarding your donors, reaching out to donors?

PETER FORTENBAUGH: Sure. I think I’ll highlight three changes we made. When I first joined the Boys and Girls Clubs about 15 years ago, they had just completed a very successful capital campaign, rebuilt two of the clubhouses and raised a bunch of money. It was great. But for two years, we lost about $900,000, so we were basically a ship kind of

going toward a waterfall. We had to figure out what to do. We could slam the boat in reverse and try to go back, but what we decided to do is actually to floor it and try to scoot around.

What I mean by that is: Rather than try to sell a story of need, we try to sell a story of inspiration.

The first change we had was about inspiration as opposed to need. The previous development director actually went to a senior partner, one of the legends in Silicon Valley at Sequoia, and asked him for $300,000 to fund our deficit. That’s not going to work.

No one wants to fund a deficit. So we had to have a growth mindset. We had to have a vision of what we could be doing at the organization. So that was the first major change we had—play offense. If we crash, we crash, but let’s go on offense and let’s sell a positive vision.

The second thing we did was [to have] a real commitment to transparency. So everything we track, we publish every year in a report to stakeholders that we share with everybody. That, in there, is the material that goes to my team’s reviews. There’s nothing internally that I talk about with anyone in my organization that I wouldn’t talk about with any donor as well, including our board, of course. It’s one conversation. I’m simply not smart enough to figure out who I’m talking to and what I’m talking about. It’s just one state of the union, if you will. And I think that donors have really responded to that. That’s not saying we have the right data. That’s not saying our programs are great, or we have the right metrics. We still have a long way to go.

But we’re asking some of the right questions, and we’re acknowledging our weaknesses.

Left to right: Alexa Cortes Culwell, Heather McLeod Grant, Daniel Lurie, Carol Larson, Peter Fortenbaugh, and Kerry Dolan

And we recognize that while every nonprofit has a positive NPV [net present value] in terms of the money, do they always have the highest ROI [return on investment]?

And we understand that we’re a business. So speaking that language and asking those questions of ourselves is the second major change we’ve made—and just being transparent.

The third change we made is really listening to our customers. We had two main customers: the kids, of course, that we serve, but also the donors are critical customers.

Fortunately, in this case, they were both asking for the same thing. The kids needed more support academically; they need to succeed in school. What used to work for Boys and Girls Clubs in 1980 is no longer sufficient in 2017.

So we’ve had to modify our programming to help them succeed in school. Coincidentally, it turns out that’s exactly what the donors want as well, so changing our program to match what the donors wanted [and what] the kids wanted was the third major change we made.

DOLAN: That’s great.

Tess, like Peter, when you took over at New Door Ventures, which provides job training and jobs to youth in need, you changed the way you communicated with your donors.

Did you find that, like Peter, your donors wanted metrics?

TESS REYNOLDS: I think donors and funders have always wanted metrics. The way we communicate has to start first with mission and meaning—alignment of the meaning we seek to have as a nonprofit, making a social impact on those we serve; and the meaning that the foundation, the funder or the individual family wants to have about

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their philanthropy. So when I came into New Door, I had a board who, fortunately for me, was really inviting of change. [They] wanted me to establish a clear strategy and raise money and build a strong board. So it was a season of change. We had been doing big galas every year, and that was one big communication vehicle in addition to newsletters, and we actually stopped doing galas.

DOLAN: Really?

REYNOLDS: About somewhere between three to five years [ago] we changed our strategy; we focused it on a population; we focused on our target outcomes, and we changed our name. We found that we needed to meet with our key donors, those who were sustaining us year to year, on a more personal level, to really make sure they understood and were brought into our more focused mission.

DOLAN: How did you do that? Does that mean they come in and see you and make appointments to see you, or— REYNOLDS: I was on the road more, a lot more one-on-one meetings. Then you meet with families; you meet the spouses and the children. Some of these actually end up being delightful meetings because you’re both on a journey of learning how to make a difference with people who need it. So it’s one of the best parts of my job.

DOLAN: I would imagine in a meeting like that you can have a kind of conversation that you could never have at a gala event, right?

REYNOLDS: Absolutely.

DOLAN: You’re in someone’s home, having a cup of coffee or something. You can really talk about what you’re doing.

REYNOLDS: Right. And there’s a lot of Q&A. There’s a lot of questions.

And I agree with Peter about the transparency. We’re honest about what we’re still learning. We like to think of ourselves as a data-driven learning organization. So we do hold ourselves accountable to metrics, but we also use data to really track what we’re learning about how to do things better.

What I found is that donors and funders want metrics, but what they really want to know is whether you have good leadership, whether you’re being responsible with their money and giving them a return. If you’re failing, you’re failing smart, and you’re failing fast, and then they’re actually willing to enjoy the adventure of funding you. Then if you come back and say, “Oh well, it didn’t work”—I sometimes feel really apologetic, and they’re celebrating. It’s like: “Yay, now we know what not to do.” So I love that—and Daniel is one of those funders, by the way.

DOLAN: [Laughter.] It’s a nice transition into the question I have for Daniel. So “The Giving Code” report points out that there’s a real lack of intermediaries between donors and nonprofits. However, the Tipping Point Community that you run is a trusted intermediary. Can you talk a little bit about how a Tipping Point Community works?

DANIEL LURIE: Sure. We are 12 years old.

We have a different model. We are focused solely on poverty and focused solely here in the San Francisco Bay area.

When we got started, we looked around, we did a scan of what was going on, and we really believed we didn’t need another community foundation and we didn’t need another family foundation. We have a great tradition of both of those here in this region.

We wanted to create something that was 100-percent impact.

So our model is that every dollar that we raise goes out the door the next year. I do think that that speaks to this region. Last year, we raised $21.9 million. Our grant-making budget is $21.9 million. Our board covers all of our overhead. We are looking for strong leadership.

We are looking for the Tesses of the world and the Peters of the world. We’re looking for clean financials. We’re looking for groups that have a willingness to measure results and to dig in with a grant maker like us, that is engaged. We try to eschew the term intermediary, because we believe that we have 15 program officers that are right there with Tess, working day in and day out to try to

help our groups not only with money but also with all of the best of what’s around us in this region, from the Salesforces to the Googles to the Apples to the great law firms that we have and consulting firms. So we try to bring all of the energy of this region, all the smarts, all the resources to bear on what we now have: 43 organizations that we’re supporting, in four issue areas—housing, education, employment and health.

We don’t believe that you can solve the issue of poverty in this region. We have over 600,000 people living below the federal poverty line, which is $23,000 a year for a family of four. No one’s getting by on that. We just read a report that at $105,000 a year, you’re considered low-income in this community.

So there are, actually, over 1.3 million people too poor to meet their basic needs in this region. You can’t tackle it by going after just education, or just housing. We have to hit it from all angles. So we try to be a platform and a due-diligence entity for donors in this region so that they can give back more effectively.

DOLAN: It comes to mind that you’re like a venture capital group for the the nonprofits. I don’t know how you feel about that description.

LURIE: We like to say that we’re an engaged grant maker. We believe in impact investing.

We believe in investing in nonprofits. We believe that the 43 groups that we’re funding are businesses. They are well-run. We have great staff; we have great leadership. And they should think about how they are returning— not necessarily dollars back to the donors but [rather] returning a better community for all of us and for their clients.

DOLAN: Carol, I know you have observations about the issue of scale and effectiveness. We’re so used to [the idea] in Silicon Valley [that for] companies to be successful [they need to] get as big as possible, as fast as possible.

LARSON: Yeah.

DOLAN: But that’s not necessarily the case with nonprofits that are serving a particular need, in a particular community.

LARSON: Well, and I guess, on this one, too, I’m “yes, and . . . ” I think it’s been wonderful to have a number of philanthropist individuals and foundations that have focused on “how do you scale solutions” not only in the region but [also] in the state. How do you take a systemic

approach to a problem and a public policy approach? We do all of that at Packard too, but I just really think that a healthy, vibrant nonprofit sector, a healthy community, needs also just strong and effective nonprofits that are aware of the impact they’re having.

Another event around this: When I was looking for after-school programs for my children, I looked for good quality after-school programs that could tell me the product they were delivering. I wasn’t necessarily asking if they’d scaled throughout California or were they going to change public policy on it. I think there’s room for both kinds of approaches, but the commonality is effectiveness and efficiency and doing it.

DOLAN: An audience question: What gives people with exceptional wealth the right to determine what is or isn’t “deserving of a donation”? How can we change the paradigm to where the people experiencing need are at the table to define the priorities? Who wants to take that one?

GRANT: Well, I will answer from the perspective of some of the donors we talked to.

It’s a great question.

I do think that this wealth was privately created, but it’s publicly subsidized, right? Because people get a tax break. A lot of donors don’t always understand that, so they think of it as my money and what do I care about, and they start there.

But over time what we’ve seen is these donors are on their own journey, and the more they can actually get engaged with these organizations and meet the people who are benefiting and have that up-close experience, the more it begins to transform them, and they start to build those relationships. And

that’s where the interesting and powerful conversations start to happen. So I think it starts with personal interest, and it moves out from there.

We need to have more spaces where the nonprofits and communities who are in need can have dialogues with these donors. That’s a lot of what we’re calling for in this report.

DOLAN: Peter, you want to say something?

FORTENBAUGH: Yeah, I just want to build on that. My experience working with donors who come in is that they just want to do the right thing. They want to help—so maybe just pushing back a little bit on the tone of the question. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted it slightly, but most of the folks who come to us, they’re sort of the good guys, if you will. They want to help. They’re not coming in as imperialists trying to tell anyone how to do it.

There’s many examples where they use clumsy language, where what they say is interpreted by my staff, I think, in a negative way, and you create that sort of power imbalance that exists between the clients and the donors. But that’s almost always a misperception, in my opinion. These are good people trying to come in and help, so I think it’s incumbent upon us as nonprofit leaders or as intermediaries to help build that bridge.

It’s actually very intimidating a lot of times for someone who’s wealthy in a certain business area to come into an area of need of which he or she knows potentially nothing but just has a warm heart. So one of the things that I take pride in trying to do is help welcome those people in and make them feel part of the solution as opposed to just put them in that box.

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Photos by Kimberly Maas

Morocco’s

Colors

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W

hen a group of Commonwealth Club travelers visited Morocco in May 2017, they took in a thousand sights (and sounds and smells and tastes) in the north African nation. From Rabat to Marrakech to Casablanca, they met the friendly people of Morocco, visited ancient cities and sites, and experienced the culture.

Kimberly Maas, the Club’s vice president of devel­ opment, accompanied the group. We wanted to share with you a selection of her photos.

Previous page, center: Blue-and-white streets of the Kasbah des Oudaias in Rabat. Clockwise, starting at the top: Moroccan flags outside a museum in the capital city of Rabat; Morocco is a door-lovers paradise—this door can be found in Fez; Morocco is a country of diverse religious history, and travelers visited churches, synagogues and a mosque; colorful jalaba caftans can be found in every medina (market); and a camel ride through the dunes of Ouarzazate, the gateway to the Sahara Desert.

This page, top: A group photo of our travelers in the beautifully tiled madrasa (Islamic college) in Fez, also adorned with stucco artwork and calligraphy. At right: The courtyard of a mosque in Rassani, in eastern Morocco.

Below: Madrasa calligraphy.

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PROGRAMS 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 in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Marin County, and the East Bay. Standard programs are typically one hour long and frequently include panel discussions or speeches followed by a question and answer session. Many evening programs include a networking reception with wine.

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CLIMATE ONE Discussion among climate scientists, policymakers, activists and citizens about energy, the economy and the environment.

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MEMBER-LED FORUMS

Inspiring talks with leaders in tech, culture, food, design, business and social issues targeted toward young adults.

Volunteer-driven programs that focus on particular fields. See list of MLFs and their chairs on the website below.

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RADIO, VIDEO, & PODCASTS Watch Club programs on the California Channel every Saturday at 9 p.m., and on KRCB TV 22 on Comcast. Select Commonwealth Club programs air on Marin TV’s Education Channel (Comcast Channel 30, U-Verse Channel 99) and on CreaTV in San Jose (Channel 30). View hundreds of streaming videos of Club programs at fora.tv and youtube.com/commonwealthclub

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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.

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KNBR (680 and 1050 AM) Sundays at 5 a.m.

KALW (91.7 FM) Inforum programs select Tuesdays at 7p.m.

KFOG (104.5 and 97.7 FM) Sundays at 5 a.m.

KLIV (1590 AM) Thursdays at 7 p.m.

TuneIn.com Fridays at 4 p.m.

TICKETS Prepayment is required. Unless otherwise indicated, all events—including “Members Free” events—require tickets. Programs often sell out, so we strongly encourage you to purchase tickets in advance. Due to heavy call volume, we urge you to purchase tickets online at commonwealthclub.org; or call (415) 597-6705. Please note: All ticket sales are final. Please arrive at least 10 minutes prior to any program. Select events include premium seating, which refers to the first several rows of seating. Pricing is subject to change.

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HARD OF HEARING? To request an assistive listening device, please e-mail William Blum seven working days before the event at wblum@commonwealthclub.org.

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6:15 pm Along the Scotch Whisky Trail

5:30 pm Fog In The Channel – FM 6 pm Reading Californians Book Discussion Group – FM 6 pm Week to Week Politics Round Table and Social Hour

5:30 pm Week to Week Politics Roundtable and Social Hour

5:30 pm Middle East Forum Discussion – FM 5:45 pm Floyd Abrams: The Soul of the First Amendment

San Francisco

5:30 pm Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

5:30 pm How the Health Risks of GMOs Have Been Underestimated and Misrepresented 5:45 pm Kevin Faulconer: The New California Republicans

5:30 pm A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen, with Eric Liu

East/North Bay

11:30 am Ben Franklin Circles – FM 5:30 pm Distorted Democracy:Some Structural Roots of the Dysfunction of Contemporary Politics

5:30 pm Trumpcare 5:30 pm Protect the Vote, with Jason Kandor

1:45 pm North Beach Walking Tour 5:30 pm Finding Fibonacci 6:15 pm Richard Dawkins: Science in the Soul

11:30 am San Francisco Mime Troupe Presents: Walls

5:30 pm Dr. Bewnnet Omalu: The Concussion Doctor

5:30 pm Good Health Starts in Your Home

1:45 pm Russian Hill Walking Tour 5:30 pm Back To School: What Is the Purpose of Public Education?

5:30pm Fake Silk: The Hidden Story of a Workplace Tragedy

Silicon Valley

FM Free for members

FE Free for everyone

MO Members-only

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5:15 p.m. Blinding Flash of the Obvious 6:30 p.m. Ben Franklin Circles FM 6:30 p.m. Changemakers: Movement Leaders on Civil Rights in an Uncivil Time FM 7:45 p.m. The Future of America’s Political

12 pm Dr. Robert Thurman: Reflections on Peace and His Holiness The Dalai Lama

11 am Unbelievable: The Trump Campaign and Katy Tur 1:30 pm Longevity Explorers Discussion Group – FM 5:30 pm Tanzania: Country, People, Wildlife and Environment 6 pm Joyce Maynard

5 pm Middle East Forum Discussion – FM 5:30 pm Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and the End of Human Disease 6 pm Journalist Mark Bowden 6 pm Week to Week Politics Roundtable

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10 a.m. Chinatown Walking Tour 6:30 p.m. Sallie Krawcheck: The Power of Women, Work and Wallet 7 p.m. Gopi Kallayil: Brain, Body and Consciousness

5:30 pm Mighty Ideas and The Power of Change through “Onlyness”

11:30 am Obamacare Architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Where Is Health Care Headed?

6:30 pm Obamacare Architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Where is Health Care Headed?

5:30 pm Helping Marginalized Youth Make Healthy Decisions: A Model That Works

5:30 pm In the Fields of the North

5:30 pm Can Technology Drive Conservation?

1:45 pm Waterfront Walking Tour 4:45 pm Winning the Endgame: A Guide to Aging Wisely and Dying Well 5:30 pm Chef Chris Cosentino: Cooking from the Heart, With Guts

11:30 am Thomas Mann: One Nation After Trump 1:45 pm San Francisco Architecture Walking Tour 4:45 pm Surviving the Storm: A Workbopok for Telling Your Cancer Story

5:30 pm The Hacking of the American Mind 11:30 pm Health Care Reform from the GOP Perspective: An Insider’s View

5:30 pm The Qatar Crisis

commonwealthclub.org/events

AUGUST 1–3

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Along the Scotch Whisky Trail 8/1

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 ALONG THE SCOTCH WHISKY TRAIL Ron Leckie, Whisky Expert

Born and educated in Scotland, Ron Leckie brings along his knowledge and expertise to walk us through the finer points of single malt Scotch whisky. He shares the history and business of making whisky and explains what to look, smell and taste for in each dram.

Enjoy samplings of whisky from each of the five major regions of Scotland—Highland, Lowland, Speyside, Island, and Islay—on Leckie’s guided tour along the whisky trail.

SILICON VALLEY • Location: Oshman Family JCC, Schultz Cultural Hall, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto • Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 6:30-8:30 p.m. program and whisky tasting • Notes: Advance reservations are required as space is limited; all attendees must be 21 years or older.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 BEN FRANKLIN CIRCLES The Ben Franklin Circles program brings people together to discuss the most pressing philosophical and ethical issues of our time with the goal of improving ourselves and our world.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

DISTORTED DEMOCRACY: SOME STRUCTURAL ROOTS OF THE DYSFUNCTION OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS

David Peritz, Co-Chair, Politics Department, Sarah Lawrence College

Contemporary democratic politics faces exorbitant stakes on a range of issues: from existential threats such as global climate change, pandemic disease and growing dangers to human health from toxic pollutants; through ma-

commonwealthclub.org/events

Distorted Democracy 8/2

jor social issues like the erosion of wages and standards of living, increasing inequality and stalled social mobility, a scarcity of jobs that deliver security and dignity, and the ever-more frayed social safety-net; to on-going security and humanitarian challenges (North Korea, South Sudan, Russia, Syria, refugee crises, and cyber–warfare, etc.). Yet in a season of toxic elections, democratic politics seems no match for these stakes and instead has grown increasingly fractious and dysfunctional.

Peritz will consider two central themes: the concomitant rise in inequality in American society and a decline of responsiveness in American national government to all but the most affluent; and the threat posed by an increasingly fractured and toxic informational ecosystem to the very idea of public opinion.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Bill Grant

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 TRUMPCARE: IS IT THE RIGHT TREATMENT FOR WHAT AILS THE AMERICAN HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM?

Andrew Bindman, Former Director, U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Jaime King, Executive Editor, The Source on Healthcare Price and Competition, UC Hastings College of the Law Adams Dudley, Director, The Center for Healthcare Value, UC San Francisco Claire Brindis, Director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UC San Francisco—Moderator

All health-care systems must strike a delicate balance between cost, quality and access. While Obamacare focused largely on increasing access to coverage and spreading the cost of illness across the entire population, Trumpcare tips the balance largely in favor of reducing federal

Trumpcare 8/3

spending, at the risk of destabilizing insurance markets and increasing costs for older and sicker individuals. What would it take to create a health-care system that would provide future generations with accessible, affordable care?

Can this be done while also covering the sick and the underserved? Join the conversation with a panel of government, policy and legal experts.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

PROTECT THE VOTE, WITH JASON KANDER

Jason Kander, President, Let America Vote; Contributor, CNN; Former Missouri Secretary of State; Former U.S. Senate Candidate; Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State, Former California State Senator—Moderator

Voting in America has never been easy, and Jason Kander has made it his personal and political mission to change that. Recently, Kander launched Let America Vote, a political organization dedicated to leading the fight for voting rights. Specifically, the organization focuses on combating state and national laws that it believes are intended to disproportionately disenfranchise people based on their race, ethnicity, gender, age or income. The organization ensures that there are political consequences for elected officials who defend prohibitive voting laws.

Kander was elected Missouri secretary of state in 2012 at the age of 31, making him the first millennial in the nation to be elected to statewide office. He will be in conversation with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a rising star in California’s Democratic political scene and who was the youngest person and the first Latino elected president of the Los Angeles AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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AUGUST 3–10

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Fog in the Channel 8/7

City Council. During his tenure as secretary of state, Padilla has expanded access to voter registration for California’s teens aged 16 and 17 and is currently working to improve California’s voter tools and technology.

SAN FRANCISCO • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

MONDAY, AUGUST 7 FOG IN THE CHANNEL: BRITAIN, EUROPE AND THE WIDER WORLD, 6000 B.C.–A.D. 2103

Ian Morris, Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor of History, Stanford University

Last summer, the British public surprised almost everyone by voting to leave the EU. No one knows how that will turn out; however, this program puts the possibilities into perspective by looking at the history as a whole, reviewing the 8,000 years since rising sea levels physically separated the British Isles from the European continent. Most of the challenges facing Britain in the 2010s are neither new nor uniquely British. Looking at these challenges over the long term reveals some surprising patterns that offer hints about the fate of the Western world in the 21st century.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

READING CALIFORNIANS BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP: MOONGLOW,

BY MICHAEL CHABON Moonglow, a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as “my grandfather.” It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rock-

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etry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact—and the creative power—of keeping secrets and telling lies. New York Times book critic A.O. Scott simply states, “This book is beautiful.”

Moonglow won the gold medal for fiction in The Commonwealth Club’s 86th Annual California Book Awards. It has received many more awards, including The Washington Post’s and NPR’s best book of the year.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. program • MLF: Reading Californians Book Discussion • Program organizer: Betty Bullock

WEEK TO WEEK POLITICS ROUNDTABLE AND SOCIAL HOUR 8/7/17 It’s never a dull moment in politics these days, and we don’t think discussion of politics has to be dull, either. We discuss big, controversial and sometimes surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil and have a good sense of humor.

Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political news, plus win some chocolate in our live news quiz.

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).

SAN FRANCISCO • WEEK TO WEEK PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8 LOCKING UP OUR OWN: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN BLACK AMERICA

James Forman Jr., Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Former Public Defender; Author, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punish-

Locking up Our Own 8/8

ment in Black America

The outrage over killings of black men and women at the hands of law enforcement has led to a renewed conversation about race in America, where black people are more likely than whites to be arrested for minor crimes, to be dealt harsher sentences and to be more unfairly impacted by their criminal records. Yet the criminal justice system is staffed by thousands of black police officers, judges, corrections officers and prosecutors. Forman examines the tragic roots of the war on crime, showing how tougher laws and harsher responses were proposed by the nation’s first black mayors, police chiefs and city council members. When poverty, crime, drug addiction and violence were on the rise, their stringent law-and-order tactics were seen as necessary to protect and heal these communities. In heartbreaking detail, Forman argues that incremental steps taken in the name of the civil rights movement gradually eroded the rights and opportunities of the very people they were meant to help.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10 NORTH BEACH WALKING TOUR Explore vibrant North Beach with Rick Evans during a two-hour walk through this neighborhood with a colorful past—where food, culture, history and unexpected views all intersect in an Italian “urban village.” In addition to learning about Beat hangouts, you’ll discover authentic Italian cathedrals and coffee shops.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: Meet at Victoria Pastry Cafe, 700 Filbert St. (at Columbus Ave., across from Washington Square Park), San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Take Muni bus 30, 41 or 45; use North Beach Parking Garage on 735 Vallejo St.; tour op-

AUGUST 10–15

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Finding Fibonacci 8/10 erates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

FINDING FIBONACCI

Keith Devlin, Exec. Director, Stanford University’s H-STAR Institute; President, BrainQuake; Senior Researcher, the Center for the Study of Language and Information; the “Math Guy,” NPR; Author, Finding Fibonacci

Finding Fibonacci is Devlin’s compelling quest to tell the story of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, more popularly known as Fibonacci. Though he is most famous for the Fibonacci numbers (which he did not invent), Fibonacci’s greatest contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber Abbaci (The Book of Calculation) introduced the western world to modern arithmetic. Yet Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the 1960s that his achievements were finally recognized. Devlin describes his quest’s highs and lows, false starts and disappointments, tragedies and unexpected turns, hilarious episodes and occasional lucky breaks, bringing together the threads of Fibonacci’s astonishing (and previously vanishing) part in the revival of science, technology and commerce.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

RICHARD DAWKINS: SCIENCE IN THE SOUL

Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist, Author, The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist Mary Ellen Hannibal, Journalist; Stanford Media Fellow; Author, Citizen Scientist: Search-

commonwealthclub.org/events

Richard Dawkins 8/10

ing for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction—Moderator

At a time when science appears to be under attack, Dawkins issues a passionate defense, insisting facts, empirical evidence and reason take center stage. With growing threats of irrationality and hostility, his plea for a return to sanity couldn’t be more timely or urgent. Come hear more from the legendary biologist and provocateur as he challenges faulty logic, bad science and climate change deniers.

SILICON VALLEY • Location: Santa Clara Convention Center Theater, 5001 Great America Pkwy., Santa Clara • Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 7 p.m. program, 8 p.m. book signing • Notes: Photo

by Lalla Ward

MONDAY, AUGUST 14 SFDEBATE SFDebate is an open forum for discussion of the events of our time. You will not only be exposed to opposing points of view, but find a safe place where you will be encouraged to find and speak up for your views. We follow every meeting with continued debate and conversation at a nearby bar/restaurant.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., SF • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7–8:45 p.m. debate

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15 HOW THE HEALTH RISKS OF GMOS HAVE BEEN UNDERESTIMATED AND MISREPRESENTED

Steven M. Druker, Attorney, Author, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: : How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public

Though it’s routinely claimed that producing new foods through genetic engineering is no riskier than traditional breeding—and that questioning the safety is tantamount to denying the reality of climate change—many

Health Risks of GMOs 8/15

experts assert that the facts do not support such claims; and according to the analysis in Steven Druker’s book, the claims rely on multiple misrepresentations. The Royal Society of Canada and several other scientific institutions have stated that bioengineering entails higher health risks, and several studies in peer-reviewed journals have detected harm to animals that consumed GMOs. The hazards are especially striking in light of the lessons from computer science about the unavoidable risks of altering human-engineered information systems that are much simpler and far better comprehended than bioinformation systems. Come discuss this topic with author and attorney Steven Druker.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Bill Grant

KEVIN FAULCONER: THE NEW CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS Kevin Faulconer, Mayor, San Diego

In a climate of seemingly unprecedented polarization, can Republicans in California make a comeback? It may seem daunting, but as the mayor of California’s second most populous city, Kevin Faulconer strives to appeal to all.

Elected 36th mayor of San Diego in 2014 after a highly publicized special election, Faulconer easily won reelection in 2016. He has focused on improving infrastructure, reducing homelessness and creating neighborhood safety initiatives. He has joined Democrats with a strong commitment to environmental protection and supporting a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, which have put him in direct opposition to the Trump administration and other Republicans on the national stage.

Will Kevin Faulconer popularize his brand of Republicanism in California? What is next for the mayor of San Diego in his second AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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AUGUST 15–22

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Kevin Faulconer 8/15

term? Faulconer has maintained his desire to stay in the city, but Republicans in California are eager to put forward strong candidates for the gubernatorial race in 2018. (He has said he will not run.) Bring your questions as one of California’s rising stars joins us at The Commonwealth Club for a conversation on the new face of California Republicanism.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program • Notes: Attendees subject to search

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16 SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE PRESENTS: WALLS Since 1959, the San Francisco Mime Troupe has created and produced socially relevant theater for the broadest possible audience. The troupe will present a scene and song from their new show “Walls.” The play tells the stories of three immigrants trying to navigate Trump’s America. As satirists, the troupe uses the term mime in the ancient sense—to mean “mimic.” The performers talk, sing and make a lot of noise. The program will include a question-and-answer session.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: International Relations • Program organizer: Norma Walden • Notes: Photo by David Allen (left to right: Marilet Martinez, Velina Brown, Lizzie Calogero); an Only in San Francisco summer series event

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17

GOOD HEALTH STARTS IN YOUR HOME

Beth Greer, The Super Natural Mom; Journalist; Author, Super Natural Home

What if you could get healthy by simply changing your home environment? Every day,

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San Francisco Mime Troupe 8/16

we’re exposed to hundreds of untested chemicals: additives in food, endocrine disruptors in soap and shampoo, fumes in household cleaners. Beth Greer says that these chemicals comprise your “body burden” and can exacerbate allergies, asthma, fatigue, cough, headache and more serious health conditions.

Greer had been living what she considered a healthy lifestyle when a medical crisis prompted her to reevaluate everything—from the food she ate to the personal-care products she used and the environment she lived in. She says she eliminated a sizable tumor in her chest without drugs or surgery by making small but powerful lifestyle shifts.

Now one of the foremost experts on sustainable and toxin-free living, she will share bitesized wisdom she learned on her path back to health and give you a greater awareness of what goes in you, on you and surrounds you in order to radically improve your health and vitality.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Patty James

MONDAY, AUGUST 21

SOCRATES CAFÉ Every month the Humanities Forum sponsors Socrates Café at the 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 briefly explains why that topic is 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.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco •

Good Health Starts in Your Home 8/21 Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30–8 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

WEEK TO WEEK POLITICS ROUNDTABLE AND SOCIAL HOUR 8/21/17 Panelists TBA

It’s never a dull moment in politics these days, and we’ll discuss the biggest, most controversial and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, audience discussion of the week’s events, and our live news quiz!

And come early before the program to meet other smart and engaged individuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member social (open to all attendees).

SAN FRANCISCO • WEEK TO WEEK PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-&-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22 A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN, WITH ERIC LIU

Eric Liu, Author, You’re More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen; Founder and CEO, Citizen University; Executive Director, Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program

Do you want to use your power as an individual to change your community and your country? Then civic expert Eric Liu has all the tools you’ll need.

Increased turbulence and grassroots movements are shaping today’s political and civic landscape, and citizen power is their driving force. But what exactly is civic power? Who has it? How can you use yours effectively?

AUGUST 22–28

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Dr. Bennet Omalu 8/23

Join Liu as he shares case studies from across our historical and political spectrums that demonstrate key laws of citizen power. These laws aren’t just theoretical—Liu’s new book offers step-by-step guidance on how to make true, lasting change both as an individual and through grassroots political movements.

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

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23 DR. BENNET OMALU: THE CONCUSSION DOCTOR

Bennet Omalu, M.D., Forensic Pathologist; Neuropathologist; Epidemiologist; Author, Truth Doesn’t Have a Side: My Alarming Discovery about the Danger of Contact Sports

If you have a child who plays sports, if you play sports yourself or watch professional sports, you’ll want to hear from Dr. Bennet Omalu, the first doctor to diagnose chronic brain damage resulting from sports injuries.

As seen in the film Concussion (starring Will Smith), Omalu’s story of triumph in the face of harsh odds is one of inspiration and discovery.

Born in eastern Nigeria, Omalu attended medical school at age 15 and became a physician at age 21. In 2002, Omalu made a breakthrough when he became the first doctor to discover and identify Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease found in people who have suffered repeated blows to the head.

When CTE was linked to the premature deaths of several retired football players in 2000, the world and the National Football League (NFL) took notice. Today, the impact of CTE has become widely accepted, and Omalu’s research, initially dismissed by the NFL for years, has led to new concussion and injury treatment protocols throughout

commonwealthclub.org/events

Back to School: What Is the Purpose of Public Education 8/24

the sports world. Omalu’s work ultimately provides safer and healthier futures for amateur and professional athletes alike.

Come hear the truth about concussions in sports and how to prevent them—all part of the amazing story of a medical pioneer.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: In association with the Health & Medicine Member-led Forum and the San Francisco Department of Public Health

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24 RUSSIAN HILL WALKING TOUR Join a more active Commonwealth Club neighborhood adventure! Russian Hill is a magical area with secret gardens and amazing views. Rick Evans leads a “cardio hike” up hills and staircases and explains 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 are located.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: Meet in front of Swensen’s Ice Cream, 1999 Hyde St. (corner of Hyde and Union), San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. checkin, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Getting there: Take Muni (Bus 45) or a taxi; there is absolutely no parking on Russian Hill; please take a taxi or public transport; the tour ends about six blocks from Swensen’s Ice Cream, at the corner of Vallejo and Jones; it is an easy walk down to North Beach from there • Notes: Steep hills and staircases, recommended for good walkers only; tour operates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

BACK TO SCHOOL: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION?

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Investigative Reporter, The New York Times Magazine Kristina Rizga, Senior Reporter, Mother

Jones; Author, Mission High—Moderator

Across the country, the challenges of growing extremism, xenophobia, violence and “filter bubbles,” alongside a lack of mutual understanding and collective responsibility, plague communities and the country at large. Can public education be a part of the solution, or will it crumble in today’s political climate?

Over the last 30 years, education reform has drastically changed American schools: The slashing of public dollars, the backlash against racial integration, test-and-punish policies, and other shifts have increased inequities and caused other divisions within our public school system. In just the past decade, the per-student funding gap between rich and poor schools has grown 44 percent, and public schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were shortly after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. The Trump administration heralds school choice and vouchers as the best solution to issues facing education, but access to and the quality of these systems are hotly debated.

This leaves the American public with lots of questions: Can the promise of public education stand up to the current state of the country?

Are there ways to uphold public schools as a bastion of democracy, civic engagement and inclusion? How can parents and citizens help revive the promise of public education? How can choice policies improve to serve disabled students, black children and English learners more equitably?

SAN FRANCISCO • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

MONDAY, AUGUST 28 MIDDLE EAST FORUM DISCUSSION The Middle East Forum discussion group— which primarily covers the Middle East, North AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Floyd Abrams 8/28

Africa and Afghanistan—has been meeting monthly for nine years. We are not a debate group. Each month we discuss timely, cultural subjects in a civil atmosphere with respect for others and their opinions.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

FLOYD ABRAMS: THE SOUL OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Floyd Abrams, Attorney; Author, The Soul of the First Amendment

What makes America great? According to Floyd Abrams, it’s our exceptional protection of free speech under the First Amendment.

From college campuses to cable news, the First Amendment has been at the center of many conflicts on both sides of the political spectrum. First Amendment rights, and the controversy surrounding these seemingly dry issues, have even captured the attention of President Trump on Twitter. The United States is unique in its protection of free speech, even for those we vehemently disagree with—at least for now. Though things have certainly been worse, Abrams warns we should not fall into the complacency and irresponsibility that can threaten the most valuable rights we are entitled to.

Abrams examines how unique the United States is in its protection of free speech more often, more intensely and more controversially than anywhere else in the world.

Abrams, an attorney and expert on constitutional law and the First Amendment, has worked on the Pentagon Papers and Citizens United. He is recognized for his outstanding contributions in his advocacy of free speech and has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court frequently.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San

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Fake Silk 8/30 Francisco • Time: 5:45 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 FAKE SILK: THE HIDDEN STORY OF A WORKPLACE TRAGEDY

Paul D. Blanc, M.D., MSPH, Professor of Medicine and Endowed Chair in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, UCSF; Author, How Everyday Products Make People Sick, Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon; Blogger, Household Hazards

In a comprehensive and disturbing history of viscose rayon, or “fake silk,” Paul Blanc sheds light on the environmental and public health hazards of producing this ubiquitous textile. In Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon, Dr. Blanc asks a fundamental question: When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protective steps are taken? This is a dark story of hazardous manufacturing, poisonous materials, environmental abuses, political machinations and economics trumping safety concerns. Blanc explores the century-long history of fake silk, which is used to produce products such as rayon textiles and tires, cellophane, and everyday kitchen sponges.

He uncovers the grim history of a product that he says crippled and even served a death sentence to many industry workers while at the same time environmentally releasing carbon disulfide, the critical toxic component of viscose.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Patty James

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 BEN FRANKLIN CIRCLES The Ben Franklin Circles program brings

Helping Marginalized Youth 9/6

people together to discuss the most pressing philosophical and ethical issues of our time to improve improving ourselves and our world.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program

HELPING MARGINALIZED YOUTH MAKE HEALTHY DECISIONS: A MODEL THAT WORKS

Louise Langheier, Co-Founder and CEO, Peer Health Exchange Evan Mason, Former Health Educator and Co-coordinator, Peer Health Exchange; Member of the National Research Team, Kaiser Permanente Sheryl Cohen, Former Health Educator and Leadership Council Member, Peer Health Exchange; Administrative Assistant, Avery Lane Charisse Fuller, Volunteer, Peer Health Exchange; Clinical Services Site Manager, Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center Inc. Naa-Diane Green, Teacher, Kipp King Collegiate High School; Founder, From Heart to Hand Colyn Flynn, Health and Wellness Teacher, Making Waves Academy

It’s hard being a young person today: 1 in 6 teenagers has seriously considered suicide, 1 in 5 binge drinks, and 1 in 10 experiences violence in a relationship. It’s harder still for young people from marginalized backgrounds to know how to make healthy decisions, especially as many attend schools that either lack or offer limited health education. That has serious implications for students’ academic achievement, dropout rates and life opportunities.

Though this might sound like yet another intractable socioeconomic problem, Peer Health Exchange (PHE) has made measur-

SEPTEMBER 6–8

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Winning the Endgame 9/7

able progress in addressing it. This innovative nonprofit organization strives to ensure that all young people have the knowledge, skills and resources needed to make healthy decisions. PHE provides skills-based health education in urban high schools in the Bay Area and elsewhere using volunteer college students as peer instructors. And it works: PHE aggressively assesses the impact of its programs, reports its results and reinvests in its most successful efforts.

Join Louise Langheier, along with several current and former PHE participants and host teachers, to hear about the value of providing these health resources to young adults through this inspirational and practical approach.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Mark Zitter

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 WATERFRONT WALKING TOUR Join Rick Evans for his new walking tour exploring the historic sites of the waterfront neighborhood that surrounds the location of the future Commonwealth Club headquarters. Hear the dynamic stories of the entrepreneurs, controversial artists and labor organizers who created this recently revitalized neighborhood. This tour will give you a lively overview of the historic significance of this neighborhood and a close look at the ongoing development.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: Meet in front of Boulevard Restaurant, 1 Mission St. (corner of Mission and Steuart), San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2-4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: Tour operates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

commonwealthclub.org/events

Chef Chris Consentino 9/7

WINNING THE ENDGAME: A GUIDE TO AGING WISELY AND DYING WELL

Ray Brown, Real Estate Broker; Author, Winning the Endgame: A Guide to Aging Wisely and Dying Well (Forthcoming)

America is a nation of “death ostriches.” By denying mortality, death ostriches reduce the odds of living as well and as long as possible.

Ray Brown has advice for how you can optimize the rest of your life. Learn how to make wise decisions based on your staying power, how to evaluate the pros and cons of selling the house, and how to manage risk. Death ostriches suffer needlessly and die badly. Exiting gracefully requires long-term planning. Winning the Endgame was designed to help you control when, where and how well you die.

Brown has been a licensed real estate broker since 1976. He co-authored two best-selling For Dummies real estate books, wrote a syndicated real estate column, and hosted a call-in radio show about real estate for 16 years.

gans and other parts, wasn’t always considered undesirable in American cuisine, and Cosentino seeks to make this true once again. Join us for a fun and entertaining evening with Cosentino as he provides insights on this adventurous and delicious cuisine. He is the winner of “Top Chef Masters” and has appeared on “Iron Chef America.” He is the executive chef of Cockscomb in San Francisco and has gained national acclaim for his understanding of offal preparation and cookery.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Food Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 THE QATAR CRISIS

CHEF CHRIS COSENTINO: COOKING FROM THE HEART, WITH GUTS

Banafsheh Keynoush, Ph.D., International Law and Diplomacy; Author, Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes; Foreign Affairs Expert; Educator; Advisor to the White House, the Hague, the United Nations, World Bank; Activist, Human Rights, Womens Rights, and Immigrant Rights Maher Kalaji, Ph.d., Frequent Contributor, Middle East Forum Additional Panelists TBA

The best parts of many things are often hidden, and food is no exception. Chef Chris Cosentino’s goal is to help you discover these forgotten gems in food. In his new cookbook, Cosentino explores the hidden world of underappreciated ingredients and the best ways to prepare them—from tongue to trotter.

Through creative recipes and the best ingredients, Cosentino will educate us on delicious, often missed opportunities. Offal, animal or-

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

SAN FRANCISCO • LOCATION: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

Chris Cosentino, Executive Chef, Cockscomb; Author, Offal Good: Cooking from the Heart, with Guts

The distinguished panel will discuss the escalation of tensions between Qatar, a tiny, oil-rich state, and the Persian Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt, all of which broke diplomatic relations with Qatar because of its support of Islamic State and its close ties to Iran. Adding to the difficult situation is the fact that the United States has a huge airbase and more than 10,000 troops in Qatar.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEPTEMBER 11–18

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Dr. Robert Thurman: Reflections on Peace and His Holiness the Dalai Lama 9/11

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

DR. ROBERT THURMAN: REFLECTIONS ON PEACE AND HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

Dr. Robert Thurman, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Columbia University; President, The Tibet House U.S.; Co-author, Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet

Though he holds no official worldly rank, the Dalai Lama is widely seen as one of the most insightful leaders of the modern era. His emphasis on nonviolent protest, compassion, and reason are the foundation of his teachings.

With these values, Dr. Robert Thurman believes there is a powerful hope for reconciliation, peace and enlightenment. Dr. Thurman has written the detailed life story of the 14th Dalai Lama, from his early childhood and escape into exile, to conflicts with the Chinese Communist Party, and finally his role as a truly global inspirational figure with special insight on Tibetan culture and identity.

Dr. Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and president of the Tibetan House U.S. He popularized the Buddha’s teachings in the West and authored several books on Tibet, Buddhism and his good friend the Dalai Lama XIV. He is the first westerner ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 12 p.m. check-in, 12:30 p.m. program, 1:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 UNBELIEVABLE: THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND KATY TUR

Katy Tur, Author, Unbelievable: My FrontRow Seat to the Craziest Campaign in Amer-

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ican History; Correspondent, NBC News; Anchor, MSNBC Live

“Look back there! ‘Little Katy,’ she’s back there,” said then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as he pointed to reporter Katy Tur amidst a packed rally in December 2015.

Over the course of 16 months, NBC and MSNBC correspondent Tur took the high road as she devoted her life to covering the 2016 presidential campaign and in particular now-President Donald Trump. A former foreign correspondent, Tur began her stint on the Trump campaign under the impression that she’d be back home in London in just six weeks, but her experiences on the campaign trail altered her career and life forever. From being publicly asked by candidate Trump to “be quiet” during a press conference to needing Secret Service protection to escort her to her car safely, Tur received personal and professional critiques from President Trump and beyond on a regular basis.

It didn’t stop there: she was threatened by rowdy crowds both online and in her everyday life, but in response, thousands of her supporters took to Twitter to applaud her efforts. By the end of the campaign, Tur was a new journalism star, and at just 33, her profile continues to rise. Today, she’s a correspondent for NBC News and an MSNBC Live anchor.

Tur shares her eye-opening, first-hand accounts of being an embed reporter on the 2016 presidential campaign, her thoughts on the current media landscape and President Trump, while exposing the intrigue and power at play in the 2016 election.

SAN FRANCISCO • INFORUM PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St, San Francisco • Time: 11 a.m. check-in, 12 p.m. program, 1:15 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

LONGEVITY EXPLORERS DISCUSSION GROUP: BETTER AGING. YOU. YOUR PARENTS. Dr. Richard G. Caro, Facilitator

This regular discussion group explores new and emerging solutions to the challenges of growing older. Not only do we uncover interesting new products at the intersection of aging and technology, we also conduct a series of ongoing deep-dive discussions into topics such as brain health, apps for seniors, hearing and wearables for seniors. The results of our discussions will be shared with a larger community of older adults interested in improving their quality of life through our partner in this initiative, Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. The discussions are facilitated by Dr. Richard Caro, whom many of you have heard speak at prior Grownups forum events.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San

Francisco • Time: 1:30 p.m. check-in, 2–3:30 p.m. program • MLF: Grownups • Program organizer: John Milford

TANZANIA: COUNTRY, PEOPLE, WILDLIFE AND ENVIRONMENT

Don Koss, Photographer; Researcher; Explorer

Journey to Tanzania with Don Koss, a highly respected photographer and researcher. With more than 40 years of adventures, Koss will share his reflections about life, habitat and cultural changes in one of the oldest known human inhabited areas in the world. His incredible collection of photographs tell of a land of geographical extremes and extraordinary wildlife. Koss will provide examples of his outstanding collection of photographs, sharing visual outlines of Tanzania and its people, wildlife and environment. Join us for an incredible odyssey through the eyes of an explorer.

SEPTEMBER 18–21

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Tanzania 9/18 SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Environment & Natural Resources • Program organizer: Ann Clark

JOYCE MAYNARD: THE BEST OF US

Joyce Maynard, Author, The Best of Us: A Memoir

In 2011, when she was in her late 50s, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim Barringer asked real questions and gave real answers; he loved to see Maynard shine, both in and out of the spotlight; and he didn’t mind the mess she made in the kitchen. He was not the husband Maynard imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of.

Then, just after their one-year wedding anniversary, her new husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. During the 19 months that followed, as they battled his illness together, she discovered for the first time what it really meant to be a couple—to be a true partner and to have one.

This is their story. Charting the course through their whirlwind romance, a marriage cut short by tragedy, and Maynard’s return to singleness on new terms, she provides a heart-wrenching, ultimately life-affirming reflection on coming to understand true love through the experience of great loss.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation

SOCRATES CAFÉ One Monday evening of every month the Humanities Forum sponsors Socrates Café at the Club. Each meeting is devoted to the dis-

commonwealthclub.org/events

Mighty Ideas 9/19

cussion 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.

SF • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30–8 p.m. program • MLF: Humanities • Program organizer: George Hammond

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 MIGHTY IDEAS AND THE POWER OF CHANGE THROUGH “ONLYNESS”

Nilofer Merchant, Innovation Expert; Author, The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World

If you’re like most people, you wish you had the ability to make a difference, but don’t have the credentials, a seat at the table or can’t get past the gatekeepers.

Innovation expert Nilofer Merchant reveals that we have now reached an unprecedented moment of opportunity for your ideas to “make a dent” on the world. The power is no longer determined by your status, but by “onlyness” — that spot in the world where only you stand in, a function of your distinct history and experiences, visions and hopes.

She says that this new ability is already within your grasp, but to command it, you need to know how to meaningfully mobilize others around your ideas. Through inspirational stories, Merchant offers strategies to unleash the might of a new idea, no matter how weird or wild it might seem.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San

In the Fields of the North 9/20 Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Business & Leadership • Program organizer: Elizabeth Carney

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH

David Bacon, Labor Activist, Photographer, Journalist

David Bacon has spent his life as a union organizer and activist focused on issues related to labor, immigration and international politics. In his landmark work of photojournalism, In the Fields of the North/En los campos del norte, he combines haunting photographs with the voices of migrant farmworkers, documenting the experiences of some of the hardest-working and most disenfranchised laborers in the country: the farmworkers responsible for making California “America’s breadbasket.” Bacon will tell us how he uncovered the abuse in the labor contractor work system and describe the almost feudal nature of laboring in America’s fields.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: International Relations • Program organizer: Norma Walden

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 THOMAS MANN: ONE NATION AFTER TRUMP

Thomas Mann, Resident Scholar, The Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley; Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute; Co-Author, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported

How did we get here? And what do we do now? In the wake of the 2016 presidential elecAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEPTEMBER 21–25

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Surviving the Storm 9/21

tion, even the most seasoned political pundits and policy wonks were left reeling. Brookings Senior Fellow Thomas E. Mann has co-authored a new book to answer both how President Trump came to be and where everyone else can go from here. Mann provides a roadmap to understand politics’ latest existential crisis, and a call to action to become more politically engaged.

Mann, along with E.J. Dionne and Norman Ornstein, contend that while Donald Trump’s personality and disposition are quite unique, the rise of “Trumpism” began decades ago.

Their book provides a historical understanding of the political movement that has surprised nearly everyone.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, 12 p.m. program, 1 p.m. book signing

SAN FRANCISCO ARCHITECTURE WALKING TOUR 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 that 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!

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: Meet in the Lobby of the Galleria Park Hotel, 191 Sutter St., San Francisco • Time: 1:45 p.m. check-in, 2–4:30 p.m. walk • Notes: The tour involves walking up and down stairs but covers less than one mile of walking in the Financial District; tour operates rain or shine; limited to 20 participants; tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be sold at check-in

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Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and The End of Human Disease 9/25

SURVIVING THE STORM: A WORKBOOK FOR TELLING YOUR CANCER STORY

Cheryl Krauter, MFT, Marriage and Family Psychotherapist

Cancer treatments have become so successful that the number of cancer survivors will reach an estimated 20 million in the United States by 2026. Psychotherapist Cheryl Krauter will offer insights from her book Surviving the Storm: A Workbook for Telling Your Cancer Story, reaffirming that a big step towards recovery involves having survivors speak up about how cancer has touched their lives. Krauter is a marriage and family psychotherapist with almost 40 years of experience. Her own voyage through cancer, combined with her experience as a therapist, brings a unique perspective to her clients. Focusing on others and helping them has been an important part of her recovery.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program • MLF: Psychology • Program organizer: Patrick O’Reilly, Ph.D.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

MIDDLE EAST FORUM DISCUSSION The Middle East Forum discussion group— which primarily covers the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan—has been meeting monthly for nine years. We are not a debate group. Each month we discuss timely, cultural subjects in a civil atmoshere with respect for others and their opinions.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. program • MLF: Middle East • Program organizer: Celia Menczel

CHAN ZUCKERBERG BIOHUB AND THE END OF HUMAN DISEASE

Joseph DeRisi, Co-President, Chan Zucker-

berg Biohub; Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, UC San Francisco Stephen Quake, Co-President, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub; Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, Stanford University

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has an audacious vision: “enable doctors to cure, prevent or manage all diseases during our children’s lifetime.” This vision might sound outlandish at first; however, when one considers how far medicine has come in the past 100 years, this vision doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Co-presidents Joe DeRisi and Steve Quake will share insights into their quest to end disease, from advancing basic science and expanding humankind’s understanding of fundamental truth to building new technologies that can radically accelerate the pace of scientific discovery.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Judy Chan

JOURNALIST MARK BOWDEN: THE VIETNAM WAR’S TURNING POINT

Mark Bowden, Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair; National Correspondent, The Atlantic; Author, Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam Maj. Gen. Raymond Smith (Ret.), Former Company Commander at the Battle of Hue, United States Marine Corps—Moderator

Mark Bowden hasn’t written a book about a military battle since his No. 1 New York Times best seller Black Hawk Down. His most ambitious work yet, Hue 1968 is the story of the centerpiece of the Tet Offensive and a turning point in the Vietnam War.

By January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet Gen.

SEPTEMBER 25–26

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Journalist Mark Bowden: The Vietnam War’s Turning Point 9/25

William Westmoreland, commander of American forces, announced a new phase of the war where, he stated, “the end begins to come into view.” The North Vietnamese had different ideas. In mid-1967, the leadership in Hanoi had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke. Part military action and part popular uprising, the Tet Offensive included attacks across South Vietnam, but the most dramatic and successful would be the capture of Hue, the country’s cultural capital. At 2:30 a.m. on January 31, 10,000 National Liberation Front troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. By morning, all of Hue was in Front hands save for two small military outposts.

The U.S. commanders in Vietnam and politicians in Washington, D.C. refused to believe the size and scope of the Front’s presence.

Played out over 24 days of terrible fighting and ultimately costing 10,000 combatant and civilian lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave.

Come hear a conversation about this pivotal moment and how it changed the American debate.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: Marines’ Memorial Theatre, the Commandant’s Ballroom, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco • Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing • Notes: In partnership with Marines’ Memorial Association; photo by John Olson

WEEK TO WEEK POLITICS ROUNDTABLE AND SOCIAL HOUR 9/25/17 Panelists TBA

It’s never a dull moment in politics these days, and we’ll discuss the biggest, most controversial and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who

commonwealthclub.org/events

are smart, are civil and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, audience discussion of the week’s events, and our live news quiz!

And come early before the program to meet other smart and engaged individuals and discuss the news over snacks and wine at our member social (open to all attendees).

SAN FRANCISCO • WEEK TO WEEK PROGRAM • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. wine-and-snacks social, 6:30 p.m. program

SFDEBATE SFDebate is an open forum for discussion of the events of our time. You will not only be exposed to opposing points of view, but find a safe place where you will be encouraged to find and speak up for your views. We follow every meeting with continued debate and conversation at a nearby bar/restaurant.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., SF • Time: 6:30 p.m. check-in, 7–8:45 p.m. debate

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 OBAMACARE ARCHITECT DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL: WHERE IS HEALTH CARE HEADED? (SF)

Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Former Chief Health Policy Advisor; Obama Administration; Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy; University of Pennsylvania; Author, Prescription for the Future: The Twelve Transformational Practices of Highly Effective Medical Organizations In Conversation with Mark Zitter, Chair, The Zetema Project

America’s health-care system is the most expensive in the world, and it continues to face large transformations. What should these transformation look like? How can the

health-care system be improved to provide patient-focused care? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel seeks to answer these questions by looking at success on all levels, from individual physicians to for-profit companies. In a time of great change in the American health-care system, Dr. Emanuel shines a bright, diagnostic light on the state of American health care and how it should be best structured to serve the American people.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is the former chief health policy advisor to the Obama administration, and the chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. His goal is to transform American health care into a system that provides higher-quality, lower-cost care.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post Street, San Francisco • Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, 12 p.m. program, 1 p.m. book signing • Notes: Please note that Dr. Emanuel will also be speaking in Silicon Valley in the evening of Sept. 26

LIFE 3.0: BEING HUMAN IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Max Tegmark, Cosmologist; Author, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

What has A.I. brought us? Where will it lead us? The story of A.I. is the story of intelligence—of life processes as they evolve from bacteria (1.0) to humans (2.0, where life processes define their own software), to technology (3.0, where life processes design both their hardware and software). We know that A.I. is transforming work, laws, and weapons, as well as the dark side of computing (hacking and viral sabotage), raising important questions SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing • MLF: Science & Technology • Program organizer: Gerald Harris AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEPTEMBER 26–29

For current prices, call 415.597.6705 or go to commonwealthclub.org

Can Technology Drive Conservation? 9/27

DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL: WHERE IS HEALTH CARE HEADED? (SV)

Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Former Chief Health Policy Advisor; Obama Administration; Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy; University of Pennsylvania; Author, Prescription for the Future: The Twelve Transformational Practices of Highly Effective Medical Organizations In Conversation with Barbara Marshman, Editorial Pages Editor, Mercury News

See program description on previous page.

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 • Notes: Please note that Dr. Emanuel will also be speaking in San Francisco at noon on Sept. 26

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 CAN TECHNOLOGY DRIVE CONSERVATION?

Rhett Butler, Founder and CEO, Mongabay Topher White, Founder and CEO, Rainforest Connection Crystal Davis, Director, Global Forest Watch Virgil Zetterlind, Director, Protected Seas; Chief Technology Office, Conserve.IO

There is an accelerating effort among scientists, forest and wildlife managers as well as technologists and interest groups from NASA, Google and the Jane Goodall Institute to harness new technologies. These technologies— which include satellite sensors, drones, camera traps and DNA detectors—can be used to improve and maintain forest and wildlife conservation; fight and expose illegal, unsustainable practices; and prevent the use of dangerous fuels and chemicals.

Our panel will discuss what is new and what is working in this area. They will also discuss what 21st century technology might soon be

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The Hacking of the American Mind 9/28

available to protect and create healthy and safe environments in the Bay Area and throughout the world.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Environment & Natural Resources • Program organizer: Ann Clark

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 THE HACKING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

Robert H. Lustig, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology, University of California, San Francisco; Director, UCSF Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program

What is the difference between pleasure and happiness? These two positive emotions are often confused with each other, yet they couldn’t be more different. Pleasure is short-lived, visceral, usually experienced alone, achievable with substances. Happiness, by contrast, is often the opposite—long-lived, ethereal, often experienced in social groups and cannot be achieved through substances. Pleasure is taking, while happiness is giving. Pleasure relies on dopamine, while happiness relies on serotonin. These too emotions involve two different neurotransmitters, regulatory systems and pathways in the brain.

But why should we care? Dopamine downregulates its own receptor: You get a hit, get a rush—and then the receptors go down. Next time, you need more and more. The more pleasure we seek, the less happy we become.

Lustig argues that in the last 45 years—in order to sell us stuff—Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Las Vegas and Silicon Valley have conflated pleasure with happiness so that we don’t know the difference anymore. Congress and the Supreme Court have codified corporate behavior, leaving us addicted and de-

Health-Care Reform From the GOP 9/28

pressed. In the process, society has become fat, sick, stupid and broke.

The only way to reverse this is by understanding the science of these two ostensibly “positive” emotions—how they interact and how to modulate them. Otherwise, those who abdicate happiness for pleasure will end up with neither.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 5:30 p.m. check-in, 6 p.m. program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Patty James

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 HEALTH-CARE REFORM FROM THE GOP PERSPECTIVE: AN INSIDER’S VIEW

Avik Roy, Former Policy Adviser to Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Marco Rubio; Opinion Editor, Forbes

Whether or not the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed, health-care policy will be a subject of intense debate for years to come. Historically, health care has been an issue championed by progressives.

However, in recent years the political Right has proposed substantial changes to U.S. health care based on conservative principles, many of which have shown promise. These proposals typically have come from a small number of think tanks and consultants whose views are sought by right-leaning lawmakers.

Avik Roy is a leading conservative thinker, writer and advisor to senior Republican politicians. Yet his views surprise many liberals. A fierce proponent of the use of market forces in health care, Roy is equally vocal about the need for health care to better serve disadvantaged Americans.

SAN FRANCISCO • Location: 555 Post St., San Francisco • Time: 11:30 p.m. networking reception, noon program • MLF: Health & Medicine • Program organizer: Mark Zitter

Enjoy three nights in Havana and a six-night cruise aboard the threemasted Le Ponant, featuring only 32 staterooms—all ocean-view.

Explore Havana’s iconic Malecón and beautifully restored Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Experience Cienfuegos, settled in 1819 and built in a neoclassical style; explore the Spanish colonial town of Trinidad; and visit Santiago de Cuba’s San Pedro de la Roca castle—all UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Admire the Viñales Valley, replete with lush green tobacco fields and striking karst formations, and visit the dynamic city of Santa Clara in Cuba’s heartland.

Experience people-to-people opportunities: tour an organic farm, meet musicians and dancers, visit a community art project, and enjoy meals in private homes.

Cost: from $6,995 per person, double occupancy, based on cabin category Note: The Commonwealth Club has been licensed and authorized to provide legal trips to Cuba since 2011.

We will continue to adhere to U.S. Treasury People-to-People guidelines.

Brochure at commonwealthclub.org/travel | 415.597.6720 | travel@commonwealthclub.org CST: 2096889-40

INSIGHT Goodbye, Zbig Guy! Dr. Gloria C. Duffy, President and CEO

Z

bigniew Brzezinski, one of the truly global strategic thinkers of the past half-century, passed away last spring.

As President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor from 1977–1981, he reoriented American foreign policy, profoundly affecting the world order.

The call in the fall of 1975 from Professor Brzezinski’s secretary was a surprise. As a first-year graduate student at Columbia University, I was taking his large lecture class “The Dynamics of Soviet Politics.”

Since I had the highest grade on the mid-term exam, I was being offered the position of his research assistant. This was Brzezinski’s egalitarian way of selecting his student assistant.

I was honored, and of course accepted. Working for “Zbig” plunged me into an illuminating new world. Through Brzezinski’s Research Institute on International Change at Columbia and the Trilateral Commission he organized in 1973, he had gathered a group of experts who were formulating a new direction for American foreign policy. In the fall of 1975 he quietly became the key foreign policy advisor to dark horse Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. As Zbig’s assistant, I was included in the meetings, briefings and travel with this group of policy scholars as they developed the thinking that would later shape President Carter’s approach.

In the mid-1970s, through the Cold War “détente,” the United States and Soviet Union had stabilized their relations to avoid the kind of crises of the 1950s and 1960s that sometimes led to the brink of nuclear war. To avoid conflict, both sides adopted a hands-off policy. We limited our interference in Soviet internal human rights issues, domination of Eastern Europe and meddling abroad. The USSR accepted the strong NATO military presence in Europe and U.S. economic influence. Through bilateral arms control agreements, nuclear weapons were capped at about 50,000 between the Soviet and Western alliances.

A Polish émigré, Zbig was the son of Polish diplomat Tadeusz Brzeziński, who had been posted in Germany prior to World War II and then in the USSR under Stalin. In his early years, Zbig experienced the rise of the Nazis, then saw Stalin kill millions of his countrymen and crush independent Poland and other Eastern European countries, witnessing the dangers of these totalitarian regimes. He married Emilie Benes, grand-niece of Edvard Benes, Czechoslovakia’s last democratic president prior to communist domination. Based on his experiences and analysis of global trends, Brzezinski had arrived at a different approach to foreign policy than the prevailing détente.

In mid-1976, this approach and its influence on Jimmy Carter was not yet recognized. While I was working in Washington that summer, the media and foreign policy establishment were mystified

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about Carter’s approach to foreign policy. Since Carter had served only as governor of Georgia, there was little on record that hinted of his views. As the Democratic convention neared that August, the consensus was that, if elected, Carter would continue the détente approach of presidents Nixon and Ford.

Having spent the prior months with Zbig and his policy group, I Photo courtesy of Gloria Duffy doubted that would be the case.

Brzezinski believed the détente policy supported a status quo allowing the Soviet Union to engage in human rights abuses, dominate Eastern Europe, invade neighboring countries like Afghanistan, and build influence and military power in far-flung countries like Angola. It froze the nuclear arms race, but at a dangerously high level. Zbig and his colleagues had developed different ideas, including strengthening U.S. alliances with like-minded democratic societies in Japan and Western Europe, opposing Soviet foreign military adventures and exploring common interests with mainland China.

At the request of The Washington Post, I wrote a long article about Zbig’s thinking and its influence on candidate Carter, which was published just before the 1976 Democratic convention. I outlined a fundamentally different approach that would likely reorient American foreign policy if Carter were elected. Key ingredients I described were a stronger focus on human rights and an effort to combat Soviet totalitarianism.

The rest, as they say, is history. Carter was elected, and Zbig became the guiding intellect behind his foreign policy. Right after Carter took office in 1977, he presented the Soviets with a proposal for deep cuts in nuclear weapons, while pressing the Soviet Union for improvements in human rights.

Much of what came afterwards—the rise of Gorbachev, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, normalization of U.S. relations with China and reductions of U.S. and Russian arsenals from 50,000 nuclear weapons to about 14,000 today—had roots in Brzezinski’s thinking.

An effective American foreign policy strategist must have a sharp analytical mind, accurately gauge global trends, understand U.S. power and resources, enlist other experts and have the political skills to apply his or her knowledge and personal experiences to shape policy. Zbig was such a man, and the redirection of American foreign policy in the mid-1970s is largely his legacy.

EXPERIENCE THE CLUB ANEW

G

et ready to experience The Commonwealth Club like never before. From auditoriums to social gathering spaces, from nearby amenities to transportation options, our new home is designed for you.

The building has two auditoriums, one of which can be divided, giving us more flexibility for programs and meetings.

All program and meeting space is equipped with a state-of-theart Meyer Sound audio system, and the entire building has cutting-edge technology allowing us to deliver sound and video to any part of the building—or anywhere in the world. Video screens throughout the building will display timely informa-

tion, and our main auditorium features a video backdrop.

The entire front of the building is a wall of glass, providing breathtaking views of the bay, Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, and the ferries. You can take in these views from our lobby, reception and gathering space on the second and third floors, and of course our Kaiser Permanente Rooftop Terrace.

Over the years, we have profiled quite a few of our new neighbors in the pages of The Commonwealth. Some of those profiles were of restaurants, but there are simply too many local dining establishments to have covered them all here. From the famed Yank Sing to the venerable Boulevard, from Per-

ry’s to One Market, from all of the eateries in the Ferry building to Super Duper Burgers and more, your only challenge might be deciding which place to select for your meal.

And you can get to and from the Club’s new home easily. We are across the street from the Ferry Building, providing great access for people in Marin County. We are also located near the Embarcadero BART and Muni station, multiple bus lines run nearby, and Muni rail runs right in front of our building on The Embarcadero, making it easy for people taking Caltrain to get between the Club and the Caltrain station.

Come experience the Club at 110 The Embarcadero!

THANK YOU TO OUR LEADERSHIP DONORS

Troy & Leslie Daniels Tad & Dianne Taube

Anonymous William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation James C. Hormel & Michael P. Nguyen Kaiser Permanente Maurice Kanbar Koret Foundation Toni Rembe & Arthur Rock

S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation Chevron Corporation S.H. Cowell Foundation The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation The James Irvine Foundation Franklin P. & Catherine H. Johnson Bernard & Barbro Osher Eric & Wendy Schmidt

Shirley Temple Black Fund Athena Blackburn The Briger Family John & Tawnie Farmer Nan & Chuck Geschke Nion McEvoy, In Memory of Nan Tucker McEvoy Meyer Sound Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe The David & Lucile Packard Foundation

John & Beth Allen Anonymous Foundation Applied Materials Bank of America Foundation Joseph Epstein & Hon. Judith Epstein, ret.

HEDCO Foundation Lisa & Douglas Goldman Fund Marcia & John Goldman Foundation George & Judy Marcus Reni & Shantanu Narayen Lata Krishnan & Ajay Shah Josephine Shuman, In Memory of John Robert Shuman Vickie Soulier Foundation The Travers Family Visa, Inc. Danielle & Jed York Mark & Jessica Zitter

J. Dennis Bonney Tom & Carol Burkhart Foundation Maryles Casto Mary B. Cranston CSAA Insurance Group DLA Piper Evelyn & John Dilsaver William & Phyllis Draper Lee & Melissa Dutra The Kimball Foundation McGrath Family Anna W. M. Mok Morgan Lewis Bockius National Fish & Wildlife Foundation Recology Skip & Frankie Rhodes Pamela & Richard Rigg Nelson S. Weller Wells Fargo Foundation

Anonymous Stuart Berkowitz, Ph.D. Marilyn & Allan F. Brown John W. Busterud In Memory of John A.and Anne W. Busterud Lorna Meyer Calas & Dennis Calas Jim Canty John Cullison & Diana Kissil Donald Davis Dorian Daley & Michael E. Krautkramer Frances E. Dependahl Dr. Gloria C. Duffy & Hon. Rod Diridon, Sr. Paul & Marcia Ginsburg Greene Radovsky Maloney Share & Hennigh, LLP Interface Phil Lamoreaux & Family Latham & Watkins Dr. Mary Marcy, Dominican University of California Lenny & Christine Mendonca Becky & Jim Morgan Hon. Richard & Hon. Barbara Pivnicka Vic & Maggee Revenko Brian & Jennifer Riley Richard A. Rubin & Marcia Smolens Kay Ryan Paul Sack Guy & Jeanine Saperstein George & Dot Scalise Hon. George P. Shultz & Charlotte Mailliard Shultz James Strother & Denise Mollen Roselyne Swig The Brayton Wilbur Foundation Melissa Williams In Memory of Jeanne Wong

Thomas & Larel Corsiglia Bondi Andrew and Ellen Bradley Kenneth Broad Pat Lanigan & Pam Brown John A. Busterud* Tom & Peggy Christian Dennis A. Collins Cathy Curtis Denholm Family Trust Farella, Braun + Martel, LLP Joseph & Denise Fink Walter & Elise Haas Fund William R. Hearst Jan and William Huggins David S. Lee Fred Levin & Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation Heather M. Kitchen Levi Strauss & Co. Julie Lundgren, In Memory of William F. Adams Timothy Muller & Family Dash Nadaraja Kevin P. O’Brien Joe Perrelli Connie & Bill Ring Hubert Russell, In Memory of Ruth Pannier Russell Hon. Ellen Tauscher Family of L. Jay Tenebaum Bob & Gail Walker Colleen Wilcox Wendy & Mason Willrich Russ & Kit Yarrow *Donors as of June 21, 2017 **Deceased

T

NEW HOME, NEW PLANS, SAME MISSION

he Commonwealth Club of California has changed over the years, becoming larger, extending its reach and influence, presenting many more programs each year, and taking advantage of new media and new technologies. Now, we undergo our biggest change ever—owning our first home—which will allow us to fulfill our mission better than ever.

The Club has always pursued the goal of publicly exploring the biggest topics of the day and looking for solutions from as wide a spectrum of sources as possible. We believe in civil discussion and in the benefits of bringing together people with different ideas in the hope of coming up with the best ideas for the common good—the common wealth.

The Club was created at a time of great change in the state and in the nation, and at a time of great division between people of dif-

ferent classes, ethnic backgrounds, economic means, and more. Sound familiar? That’s because times and styles might change, but the Club’s approach to tackling big issues is just as important today as when it was founded in 1903.

In our new headquarters at 110 The Embarcadero, we have even more ability to serve the community with more programs, reaching larger audiences both in the room and listening and watching remotely, and acting as a gathering place for everyone in the community.

The Club would never have gotten through more than a century of existence without the loyal support of its members and friends in the community, and we certainly could not have built this beautiful new home without that support. Now, together, we can make our next century even better.

To purchase tickets:

The Commonwealth Club of California

visit commonwealthclub.org or call (415) 597-6705 or call (800) 847-7730

P.O. Box 194210 San Francisco, CA 94119

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To subscribe to our email newsletter: visit commonwealthclub.org and use the simple “Be the First to Know” feature on the homepage

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10

Details on page 61

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23

RICHARD DAWKINS

BENNET OMALU

Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist, Author, The Selfish Gene and Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

Bennet Omalu, M.D., Forensic Pathologist; Neuropathologist; Epidemiologist; Author, Truth Doesn’t Have a Side: My Alarming Discovery About the Danger of Contact Sports

Mary Ellen Hannibal, Journalist; Stanford Media Fellow; Author, Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction—Moderator

If you have a child who plays sports, if you play sports yourself or watch professional sports for entertainment, you’ll want to hear from Dr. Bennet Omalu, the first doctor to diagnose chronic brain damage resulting from sports injuries.

As seen in the film Concussion, Omalu’s story of triumph in the face of harsh odds is one of inspiration and discovery. Come hear the truth about concussions in sports and how to prevent them—all part of the amazing story of a medical pioneer.

At a time when science appears to be under attack, Dawkins issues a passionate defense, insisting facts, empirical evidence and reason take center stage. With growing threats of irrationality and hostility, his plea for a return to sanity couldn’t be more timely or urgent. Come hear more from the legendary biologist and provocateur.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

Details on page 63

Details on page 66

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11

Details on website

KATY TUR

ART GARFUNKEL

Katy Tur, Author, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History; Correspondent, NBC News; Anchor, MSNBC Live

Art Garfunkel, Musician; Author, What Is It All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man

A former foreign correspondent, Tur began her stint on the Trump campaign under the impression that she’d be back home in London in just six weeks, but her experiences on the campaign trail altered her career and life forever. From being publicly asked by candidate Trump to “be quiet” during a press conference to needing Secret Service protection to escort her to her car safely, Tur received personal and professional critiques from President Trump and more on a regular basis.

The sounds of Art Garfunkel’s iconic harmonies are part of some of the greatest songs ever recorded. From “Mrs. Robinson” to “The Sound of Silence,” the music of Garfunkel and his then-singing partner, Paul Simon, stands tall at the summit of American pop culture.

Join the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel for his stories of meeting Simon in school, becoming Simon & Garfunkel, and taking the world by storm. Garfunkel will also discuss the decades since those years. Hear about his inspirational and heartbreaking journey in this program with a true American icon.