3 minute read
Editor’s Desk
Commonwealth The
April/May 2021 Volume 115, Number 2
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VICE PRESIDENT, MEDIA & EDITORIAL
John Zipperer
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The Commonwealth (ISSN 0010-3349) is published bimonthly (6 times a year) by The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105. Periodicals postage paid at San Francisco, CA. Subscription rate $34 per year included in annual membership dues. Copyright © 2021 The Commonwealth Club of California.
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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, or via our free podcasts on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or Spotify; watch videos at youtube.com/ commonwealthclub.
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EDITOR’S DESK
Photo by James Meinerth
Reopening the Door
Newspaper columnist Doug Larson one wrote, “Spring is when you feel like whistling, even with a shoe full of slush.” Spring usually brings an upswell of hope and renewal.
Spring 2020 was not generally filled with hope. There was a steady week-by-week buildup of bad news about a global health emergency, a rapidly deteriorating economy, social injustices, and a toxic political discourse.
Spring 2021 is shaping up quite differently. Hopes for a better day are rising because of a vaccination campaign that is finally letting people envision getting back to the office, theaters, their favorite stores, and the homes of their friends and relatives. As Gustav Mahler said, “Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.”
We recently surveyed members and guests about what they would like to see in the resumption of in-person programming at the Club. We wanted to hear what precautions and protocols would be necessary to make people comfortable about leaving their homes and gathering with others in our waterfront headquarters once again. We thank all of you who responded; we will use those responses to craft a reopening that is safe for everyone, and if you’re not yet ready to be here in-person, we’ll still have plenty of live-stream videos, archived videos, podcasts, and this magazine to keep you right in the middle of all the action.
Some of what we do as we reopen will differ from what came before. Things always change, and major disruptions often accelerate changes. In March, Jessica Huseman, editorial director of VoteBeat, tweeted “my roomba took out my wifi.” Political commenter (and former Club speaker) Charlie Sykes told her that sentence wouldn’t even have made sense 20 years ago. WiFi? Roomba? What are they?
We already live in a world of automatic vacuum cleaners, wireless internet service, conversations with Siri/Alexa/Google, watches that tell us to exercise, and live video conversations with friends and family next door or around the globe.
As much as we are looking forward to returning to doing what we have done for 118 years—holding in-person programs—we will retain the best of what we learned over the past year and will continue to adopt new methods and technologies to explore important (and entertaining) topics and speakers.
It’s been a rough year for many people, and it is our sincere hope that the speakers we featured helped people understand the times and make good decisions and—perhaps most of all—have hope.
One last quote for you, which I found in an online search for spring-related quotes. The late evangelist Robert Schuller said, “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”
