The Commonwealth April/May 2022 by The Commonwealth Club of California

Inside: THE BANK OF AMERICA WALTER E. HOADLEY ANNUAL ECONOMIC FORECAST

Commonwealth The

THE MAGAZINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

AL SHARPTON Revealing Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement Plus: AMY KLOBUCHAR MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER AVI LOEB

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APRIL/MAY 2022

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The

Commonwealth

CONTENTS

April/May 2022 Volume 116, Number 2

FEATUR ES 22

Michael Shellenberger

Melissa Caen interviews Shellenberger about his book that argues left-wing policies are harming cities, in particular the mentally ill and addicted homeless. 32

2022 Economic Forecast

Michael Boskin previews the economy in 2022; plus a panel on inflation and other issues. 43

Amy Klobuchar

The U.S. senator from Minnesota discusses the history of antitrust law and the need to revive it. 48

Avi Loeb

The Harvard astronomer explains his quest to discover interstellar life. 54

“I interviewed a harm reduction-oriented source. I called her up and I said, “How many [homeless] people do you think are suffering mental illness and addiction?” She was like, “It’s 100 percent; there’s nobody here that’s not here for some other reason.“

Al Sharpton

cover story: The civil rights activist and preacher tells Sheryl Davis why he does what he does, and who else should get credit.

—MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER

ON THE COVER: The Rev. Al Sharpton. (Photo by Michael Frost.) ON THIS PAGE: Above: Michael Shellenberger at the Club. (Photo by Sarah Gonzalez/Peopletography.) Right: Senator Amy Klobuchar. (Photo by and copyright Christopher Gregory-Rivera 2021.)

“My way of doing

DEPARTMENTS 4

Editor’s Desk

The Evolution of Cameras, by John Zipperer 5

The Commons

talk of the club: California Book Awards finalists announced, education funding, remembering Charlotte Shultz, honoring Brenda Wright, and more. 8 Program Listings See programs coming up in April and May 2022. 21 Programs Info

[antitrust] is arguably kind of the most market-based approach. “

—AMY KLOBUCHAR The Commonwealth Club of California, established 1903

About our programs and attending Club events.

EDITOR’S DESK

JOHN ZIPPERER

Vice President of Media & Editorial

The

Commonwealth April/May 2022 Volume 116, Number 2

BUSINESS OFFICES

The Commonwealth, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105 feedback@commonwealthclub.org

PHOTOS BY JOHN ZIPPERER

VICE PRESIDENT, MEDIA & EDITORIAL John Zipperer

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Sarah Gonzalez, Ed Ritger.

The Evolution of Cameras

he next time you are in one of The Commonwealth Club’s San Francisco auditoriums, you might notice something different. Gone are the video cameras on tripods located around the rooms. But if you look up at the walls, you’ll see their successors. New, state-of-the-art cameras now occupy permanent positions in both the Taube Family Auditorium and the Toni Rembe Rock Auditorium at our headquarters, as you can see in the photos above. Made possible by a generous grant from the Hedco Foundation, these high-definition video cameras are remotely controlled from a high-tech panel of computers in our AV room. They will allow us to make the next big advance in the evolution of our video services. I can say I personally have witnessed a huge progression that has already taken place in video at the Club during my 17 years here. At first, the only time we had a video recording was when an outside organization The cameras such as KGO TV or C-SPAN made their own recordings. will improve We started experimenting with a single camera, which was then replaced by a high-definition camera, then a second our in-person camera was added. We hired a dedicated video production experience and person. For a short time, we partnered with a startup company that used remotely operated cameras to record cultural our online view- performances and talks such as ours; its single, wall-mounted ing experience camera at the back of the main auditorium was a precursor to our newest cameras. at the same Now we will be able to record more of our programs and with more camera angles than ever before. We can stream from two simultaneous events. And we won’t have to sacrifice seating space in our auditoriums to accommodate tripods. When we hold a program at an off-site venue such as a large theater, you will still see tripod cameras, and they might be spotted from time to time if we need an extra camera for a program. Members of the press occasionally will bring cameras. But otherwise, our new wall-mounted video cameras will record the program from multiple angles, stream it to our live online audiences, and capture it for future viewers. It will improve our in-person experience and our online viewing experience at the same time. That’s a great development.

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

ADVERTISING INFORMATION John Zipperer, Vice President of Media & Editorial, (415) 597-6715, jzipperer@ commonwealthclub.org 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 © 2022 The Commonwealth Club of California. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Commonwealth, The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105; (415) 597-6700; 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, or via our free podcasts on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or Spotify; watch videos at youtube.com/ commonwealthclub. Published digitally via Issuu.com.

FOLLOW US ONLINE facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub twitter.com/cwclub youtube.com/commonwealthclub commonwealthclub.org instagram.com/cwclub

1933–2021

Charlotte Mailliard Shultz Remembered

t the end of March, a large crowd of notables gathered at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral to remember the life of Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, who passed away in December. In addition to serving as the chief of protocol for the state of California and the chief of protocol for San Francisco, Shultz was a member of The Commonwealth Club’s Board of Governors for three decades. From offering advice to bringing the Club internationally known speakers to helping guide the Club through the planning process for its new building, she was a tremendous source of support for the organization. And thanks to support from the Koret Foundation, in our next five annual galas, one of our distinguished citizen awards will be given in memory of Charlotte Shultz. Appropriately, her memory will help highlight another person who is improving our common lives. CIVIC IMPACT

Brenda Wright Honored as a “Giver and a Doer”

n March, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors member Brenda Wright received recognition for her lifetime of philanthropic work. Wright, former senior vice president of corporate philanthropy and community relations at Wells Fargo, was one of four women recognized by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women at the 2022 Women’s History Month Celebration. Wright was honored as a “Giver and a Doer,” one of the women leaders in philanthropy doing “incredible work to support the city.” The other three honorees were Maryam Muduroglu, Diane Buchanan Wilsey, and Susie Tompkins Buell. At a March 29 ceremony held on the balcony of the San Francisco mayor’s office,

Right: Charlotte Shultz was a longtime Board member and supporter of the Club, seen here with her husband George Shultz at the grand opening dinner on the Club’s new rooftop terrace in September 2017. Above: Board member Brenda Wright, seen here introducing a Club program in June 2021, was honored by Mayor Breed.

Breed said, “We would not be able to create as large of an impact in our communities without the support of our philanthropic partners, and the four women we recognize today have been tremendous leaders in those efforts. These women exemplify what it means to give of one’s self, open doors of opportunity for others, and build on the progress that our past women leaders have pushed for over the course of our city’s history. . . . We celebrate that progress while committing to supporting women, girls and families in San Francisco and ensuring they have the opportunity to thrive.” Speaking at the event, Wright quoted Marian Wright Edelman: “Service is your rent for living on Earth; you have to pay your rent.” SUPPORTING THE CLUB

Funding the Club’s Education Intiative

e’re proud to announce that our civics education initiative, Creating Citizens, was recently awarded a $1.2 million

SHULTZ PHOTO BY JAMES MEINERTH; WRIGHT PHOTO BY SARAH GONZALEZ/SMG FOTO

TALK OF THE CLUB

T H E COM M O N S : N E WS O F T H E C L U B , S P E A K E R S , M E M B E R S A N D S U P P O RT E R S

grant from the Koret Foundation. One of only three grants to be awarded nationwide as part of the foundation’s Civic Learning Initiative, this award recognizes The Commonwealth Club as a leader in addressing the urgent need to strengthen American democracy by providing civic learning opportunities for students and educators. Creating Citizens was founded in 2020 by Vice President of Education Dr. Lauren Silver, with the goal of bringing The Commonwealth Club’s well-established model of nonpartisan civil dialogue to a new generation of citizens. Since that time, we have presented numerous programs featuring civic leaders, educators, journalists and students themselves discussing the issues faced by a democratic nation that has neglected civics education for decades. The new grant will allow us to reach even more students and educators in new ways. We will develop curriculum guides so teachers can use Club programs and materials to support civil dialogue in their classrooms. School field trips will bring students to our building for live programs and interactive events. And a new Youth Advisory Committee will help us shape student programming and engage young people online, onsite and in their own

commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH

THE COMMONS TALK OF THE CLUB

Leadership of The Commonwealth Club CLUB OFFICERS

communities. At a time when partisanship and divisive rhetoric are threatening the health of our democracy, civics education is more vital than ever. We look forward to the next phase of Creating Citizens and are grateful to the Koret Foundation for its support. LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT

California Book Awards Finalists Named

elebrating its 91st birthday, The Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards jury has selected this year’s finalists for its 2022 awards. One of the oldest and most distinguished literary award programs in the nation has chosen 25 outstanding books in six categories, out of hundreds of titles submitted. From these finalists the book award jury will choose Gold and Silver Medal award winners to be announced in May. “The California Book Awards has been honoring California books and authors for more than nine decades,” commented Award Jury Chair Peter Fish. “Especially in a year when so much of the news has been ominous, the California Book Awards shines a welcome light on the passion and creativity and brilliance that is California literature.” The finalists, he notes, “demonstrate the extraordinary diversity of California literature.” Fiction nominees include an epic narrative of early 20th century aviation and 21st century Hollywood. Among the First Fiction nominees is an exuberant, poignant exploration of Cambodian American life. Nonfiction contenders include a harrowing account of a cataclysmic California wildfire, and a groundbreaking biography of a major American artist. Among the Young Adult finalists is a powerful narrative of Islamophobia in post 9/11 America and a magical realist tale of sexual trauma and healing. The finalists: Fiction: The Archer, by Shruti Swamy, Algonquin Books, an imprint of Workman Publishing, Hachette Book Group; The Committed, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Grove

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

Atlantic; Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead, Alfred A. Knopf. First fiction: Afterparties, by Anthony Veasna So, Ecco; City of a Thousand Gates, by Rebecca Sacks, Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; Skinship, by Yoon Choi, Alfred A. Knopf. Nonfiction: Her Honor, by LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, Celadon Books; Life as We Made It, by Beth Shapiro, Basic Books; Light on Fire, by Gabrielle Selz, University of California Press; Midnight in Washington, by Adam Schiff, Random HouseParadise, Lizzie Johnson, Crown. Poetry: Blood on the Fog, by Tongo Eisen-Martin, City Lights; Permanent Volta, by Rosie Stockton, Nightboat Books; Refractive Africa, by Will Alexander, New Directions; Yellow Rain, by Mai Der Vang, Graywolf Press. Young adult: Black Birds in the Sky, by Brandy Colbert, Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; Home Is Not a Country, by Safia Elhillo, Make Me a World; Instructions for Dancing, by Nicola Yoon, Random House Children’s Books, Delacorte Press; Mirror Season, by Anna-Marie McLemore, Feiwel & Friends. Juvenile: The Genius Under the Table, by Eugene Yelchin, Candlewick Press; Kaleidoscope, by Brian Selznick, Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.; Legacy, by Nikki Grimes, Bloomsbury; The Legend of Antie Po, by Shing Yin Khor, Kokila; Wishes, by Muon Thi Van, Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. MAY

AAPI Heritage Month

n the month of May, look for The Commonwealth Club to play a role as a new publicity partner with the APA Heritage Foundation. Together, we’ll be highlighting the many programs in the city to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. We’ll have APA-focused programs at the Club, and also keep you in touch with other events in the region. Learn more at apasf.org.

Board Chair Martha C. Ryan Vice Chair John L. Boland Secretary Dr. Jaleh Daie

Treasurer John R. Farmer President & CEO Dr. Gloria C. Duffy

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Robert E. Adams Willie Adams Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez Scott Anderson Dan Ashley Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman David Chun Charles M. Collins Mary B. Cranston Susie Cranston Claudine Cheng Dr. Kerry P. Curtis Dorian Daley Evelyn Dilsaver James Driscoll Joseph I. Epstein Jeffrey A. Farber Dr. Carol A. Fleming Leslie Saul Garvin Gerald Harris Peter Hill Mary Huss Michael Isip Nora James

Dr. Robert Lee Kilpatrick Lata Krishnan Alexis Krivkovich Dr. Mary Marcy Lenny Mendonca Michelle Meow Anna W.M. Mok DJ Patil Ken Petrilla Bruce Raabe Skip Rhodes Bill Ring George M. Scalise George D. Smith Jr. David Spencer James Strother Hon. Tad Taube Marcel TenBerge Charles Travers Don Wen Dr. Colleen B. Wilcox Brenda Wright Mark Zitter

PAST BOARD CHAIRS & PRESIDENTS

* Past Chair ** Past President

Dr. Mary G. F. Bitterman* J. Dennis Bonney** Maryles Casto* Hon. Ming Chin** Mary B. Cranston* Evelyn Dilsaver* Joseph I. Epstein** John Farmer* Rose Guilbault*

Claude B. Hutchison Jr.** Anna W.M. Mok* Richard Otter** Joseph Perrelli** Toni Rembe** Victor J. Revenko** Skip Rhodes** Renée Rubin** Richard Rubin* Connie Shapiro** Nelson Weller** Judith Wilbur** Dennis Wu**

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 Nancy Thompson

Leave Your Legacy Leave Your Legacy Make a lasting impact through a planned gift.

Make a lasting impact through a planned gift

Gifts Through Wills • Charitable Trusts • Gift Annuities • IRA / Retirement Plan Designation

Gifts Through Wills • Charitable Trusts • Gift Annuities • IRA/Retirement Plan Designation

To learn more about how to leave a legacy gift to The Commonwealth Club please contact Kimberly Maas at kmaas@commonwealthclub.org or (415) 597-6726. commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH

April & May 2022 MONDAY, APRIL 4 Arthur C. Brooks: Finding Success, Happiness and Purpose Later in Life The question of how to be happy in mid-life consumes many adults as they age. For Arthur C. Brooks, the former president of the American Enterprise Institute and the author of 11 books, the search for true life success after age 50 became an opportunity for a personal life transformation that he believes others can be inspired by and follow. Now Brooks describes embarking on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. The result for him? A practical roadmap for the rest of his life. Brooks’s journey starts with the somewhat mistaken assumption that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. Brooks soon finds the truth is that the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs. Brooks’s unique outlook draws on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women. In it, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness. Arthur Brooks, Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School; Author, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Pur-

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

E.J. Dionne, 4.5

Erika Moritsugu, 4.8

pose in the Second Half of Life In Conversation with Tully Friedman, Co-Founder, FFL Partners and Hellman & Friedman A GROWNUPS MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Denise Michaud Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing (all times PDT)

Miles Rapoport, it is time for the United States to take a major leap forward and recognize voting as both a fundamental civil right and a solemn civic duty required of every eligible U.S. citizen. Americans are required to pay taxes, serve on juries, get their kids vaccinated, get driver’s licenses, and sometimes go to war for their country. So why not ask—or require—every American to vote? In 100% Democracy, E.J. Dionne Jr. and Miles Rapoport argue that universal participation in our elections should be a cornerstone of our system. It would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens. And they say it would create a system true to the Declaration of Independence’s aspirations by calling for a government based on the consent of all of the governed.

TUESDAY, APRIL 5 E.J. Dionne Jr. and Miles Rapoport: The Case for Universal Voting Voting has been a hot topic of discussion in election years, as have been the barriers many Americans face when trying to participate in elections. According to E.J. Dionne Jr. and

E.J. Dionne, Jr., Columnist, The Washington Post; Co-Author, 100% Democracy: The Case

DIONNE, JR. PHOTO BY PAUL MORIGI; MORITSUGU PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS

YOUR GUIDE TO IN-PERSON & ONLINE EVENTS AT THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB

for Universal Voting Miles Rapoport, Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School; Co-Author, 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting In Conversation with Melissa Caen, Political Analyst; Attorney Location: Online. Time: 12:30–1:30 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Dionne, Jr. photo by Paul Morigi; Rapoport photo by Sarah Grucza.

Reading Californians Book Discussion: A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth Join us when 2021 Commonwealth Book Award-winner author Daniel Mason will join us via Zoom to discuss his gold medal-winning book of short stories, A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth. These nine stories were written over a period of 15 years and range in time from 19th century England to now, and cover a variety of topics and in an array of settings. Daniel Mason is a psychiatrist which puts an interesting touch to his fiction and his well-developed characters. Please join us either in-person at The Commonwealth Club or via Zoom.

Daniel Mason, Author, A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth; Participating via Zoom Kalena Gregory—Moderator A READING CALIFORNIANS BOOK DISCUSSION MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Kalena Gregory Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Max Thelen Board Room, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 4:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 5–6:15 p.m. program (all times PDT)

Frans de Waal: Different—Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist How different are men and women? Do they differ naturally or artificially? Do we find the same differences in our fellow primates? Do apes learn sex roles, too, or is “gender” uniquely human? In Different, primatologist Frans de Waal draws on studies of both human and animal behavior to argue that a distinction between (cultural) gender and (biological) sex is useful to draw attention to the eternal interplay between nature and nurture. But even though gender goes beyond sex, biology is always part of the equation. Some human gender

Safety Protocols for in-person attendance • We follow best practices laid out by the CDC and state and local guidelines. • All guests, staff, and volunteers must be fully vaccinated. Guests must show proof of full vaccination with photo I.D. • Masks are encouraged while indoors (if you do not have one and would like one, inquire at our front desk for a complimentary mask). • In-person capacity is limited. Our LEED Gold-certified building is designed to cool with outside air, using digitally controlled moveable windows and large ceiling fans. We are deploying additional HEPA filters inside to scrub the air. This is all in addition to increased cleaning of surfaces throughout the building.

differences are universal and resemble those found in the apes. Different provides a thought-provoking review of the long-running debate about the origins of sex and gender. De Waal peppers his discussion with details from his own life—a Dutch childhood in a family of six boys and decades of academic turf wars over outdated scientific theories. He also discusses sexual orientation, gender identity, and the limitations of a strict binary. Nature produces more variability than most human societies are prepared to recognize, he says, and primate groups often include (and tolerate) exceptional individuals. Frans de Waal, Biologist; Primatologist; Author, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist Dr. Shannon Bennett, Chief of Science and Harry W. and Diana V. Hind Dean of Science and Research Collections, California Academy of Sciences—Moderator Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 4:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 5–6:15 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: In association with The Leakey Foundation and California Academy of Sciences.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 Mark Follman: Stopping Mass Shootings in America The rising incidence of mass shootings confronts the nation with an unrelenting public safety emergency. The assumed responsibility for these devastating attacks falls on failures to address the mental health crisis or enact policy to restrict access to weapons. In addition, critics say media sensationalism exacerbates the

social and cultural upheaval surrounding the aftermath. However, redirection of our focus from misguided blame to the emerging field of behavioral threat assessment might provide the remedy to an enduring epidemic. In his new book Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America, San Francisco-based award-winning journalist and editor Mark Follman details the discovery of a breakthrough in threat prevention. He identifies the “warning behaviors” that signal a mass shooter and provides an insider account of the search for a revolutionary method for thwarting deadly attacks. Through interviews with threat assessment practitioners, defendants in insanity cases, and victims of attacks, Follman creates an insightful and comprehensive narrative of the story toward progress.

Mark Follman, National Affairs Editor, Mother Jones; Author, Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America Location: Online. Time: 6–7 p.m. program (all times PDT)

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 Erika Moritsugu and Krystal Ka’ai: Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Asian American Community Here is an unparalleled opportunity to hear directly from the White House. Please join Erika Moritsugu, deputy assistant to the president and AANHPI senior liaison in the White House, and Krystal Ka’ai, executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, as they share information about resources available to Americans as we recover from the COVID pandemic. Topics to be discussed will include: federal resources to address anti-Asian hate crimes

commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH

UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022

Krystal Ka’ai, Executive Director, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Erkia Moritsugu, Deputy Assistant to the President and AANHPI Senior Liaison in the White House Julian Chang—Moderator Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 11:30 a.m. doors open & check-in, noon–1 p.m program (all times PDT)

Future of Trans Health Care Join us for the first in a series looking at the latest in transgender health care. A dynamic panel of doctors and experts in the field of trans and nonbinary medical and health care will explain the latest developments in the field. This first program in the series will address the future of trans health care, current advancements in care and accessibility, and best practices in serving trans and nonbinary community members today and in the future. This launch event will also include a reception following the program. Future programs will cover a wide range of issues facing trans health care, including the ongoing attacks on trans children and families, policy advancements, mental health and wellness, and more. This launch event will also include a special rooftop reception following the program, featuring DJ NICO and local drag superstars Mary Vice, King MeatFlap and Kypper Snacks—plus fabulous local drinks and appetizers.

Dr. Christi Butler, M.D., Assistant Professor and Urologic Surgeon, University of California, San Francisco Dr. Ellie Zara Ley, M.D., Plastic Surgeon, The Gender Confirmation Center Dr. Alexis Petra, M.D., Founder and CEO. TransClinique Dr. Heidi Wittenberg, M.D., Surgeon; Director of MoZaic Care, Inc. Michelle Meow, Producer and Host, “The

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

Michelle Meow Show,” KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Co-Host John Zipperer, Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host Location: Online Time: 4:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 5–6 p.m. program, 6–7 p.m. rooftop reception (all times PDT) Notes: The Commonwealth Club thanks Gilead Sciences, Inc. for its generous support of The Michelle Meow Show. We are proud to partner with TransClinique on this special event series.

MONDAY, APRIL 11 How I Built This with Guy Raz Few have dominated the podcast arena like Guy Raz. Raz co-created National Public Radio’s “How I Built This,” “Wow in the World” and “TED Radio Hour.” From program intern to podcast virtuoso, Raz has worked in many capacities at the broadcast media organization with highly successful results—his podcasts garner more than 19 million downloads per month. It’s no surprise why, as his programs welcome thought-provoking guests in a format that combines narrative storytelling with insightful advice. Raz shares highlights and lessons from the more than 100 entrepreneurs he’s interviewed as host for “How I Built This.” From planning a timeline for corporate development to making a good idea profitable, Raz has insights galore to share at INFORUM from more than four years’

worth of episodes. We’re pleased that Guy Raz will be joined onstage by Tony Xu. Xu is the CEO and co-founder of DoorDash, a technology company passionate about transforming local businesses and dedicated to enabling new ways of working, earning and living. Born in China, Xu came to America with his parents and grew up working in his mom’s restaurant. Xu was a guest on “How I Built This” in November 2018, and prior to co-founding DoorDash in 2013, he worked in the product department at Square, led special projects for the CEO and CFO at eBay, and began his career at McKinsey & Co.

AN INFORUM PROGRAM. Guy Raz, Host, “How I Built This” and “Wow in the World,” NPR; Host, “Wisdom From the Top” Podcast; Author, How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs In Conversation with Tony Xu, Co-Founder and CEO, DoorDash Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:15 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing (all times PDT)

TUESDAY, APRIL 12 Mary Roach: Packing for Mars for Kids Mary Roach is back again and witty as ever in the young readers adaption of her best-selling book Packing for Mars. From the awe-inspiring and curiously gross details, Roach unpacks the facts about space. A beloved authority on all things science, Mary Roach provides a humorous, accessi-

PHOTOS COURTESY THE SPEAKERS.

and the AA and NHPI community’s feeling of not being safe; and resources from federal, state and local partners. Moritsugu and Ka’ai will offer practical information about what help is available, how to access the resources, and who can help you and your family, your business or your organization.

Future of Trans Health Care, 4.8

PERRY PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER; COATES PHOTO BY AMANDA GHOBADI.

ble, exciting and perfect resource for students and curious minds alike. Mary Roach, Author, Packing for Mars for Kids In Conversation with Kara Platoni, Senior Editor, Wired Location: Online Time: 6–7 p.m. PDT program Notes: Photo by Jen Siska.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13 Treva Lindsey: Violence, Black Women and the Struggle for Justice Treva Lindsey is a rising and vibrant voice on gender and racial issues, particularly the portrayal of Black women in the media, news and popular culture. A professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Ohio State, Lindsey has written prominent and much-discussed pieces after the recent police-involved deaths of Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland and Ma’Khia Bryant. In her new book America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women and the Struggle for Justice, Lindsey takes a deep look into what she considers the violent oppression experienced by Black women and girls in the United States, and that how they are treated is a distinct form of devaluing Black life. Her book touches upon her own sexual assault by a police officer at 17 to underscore and personalize her belief that Black women and girls are subjected to historic abuses and are traditionally told they must suffer silently. Lindsey’s book—named after the Nina Simone protest song—is a demand for justice for Black women and girls who are often overlooked in discussions about racial justice. For Lindsey, the discussion on gender and race is one that is essential for true racial justice. Join us for a powerful conversation.

A MICHELLE MEOW SHOW PROGRAM Treva Lindsey, Assoc. Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, Ohio State University; Founder, Transformative Black Feminism(s) Initiative; Author, America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice In Conversation with Anna Gifty OpokuAgyeman, Co Founder, The Sadie Collective; Author, The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System Location: Online

Mary Roach, 4.12

Treva Lindsey, 4.13

Time: 3–4 p.m. PDT program Notes: Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman photo by Kwame Abrah.

In Conversation with Andrew Dudley, President and CEO, Earth; Co-Host and Producer, “Earth Live”; Chair, People & Nature Member-Led Forum A PEOPLE & NATURE MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Andrew Dudley Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Eugene Linden photo by Beowulf Sheehan.

THURSDAY, APRIL 14 Fire and Flood: A People’s History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present Join us for an online talk with environmental journalist Eugene Linden. In his new book, Fire and Blood, Linden examines the role of business interests in muddying messages from scientists and derailing attempts to galvanize the public. He tells a story of big monied interests doing what they do to protect short-term profits against longer-term threats. One of the through-lines of the book is the insurance industry’s response to climate change, which for a long time was painfully slow, but recently has pivoted quite dramatically. Florida and California are seeing the housing insurance sector retreat from entire regions because of the unmanageable risks of fire and flood—some believe that the housing markets in parts of those two states are another bad season or two away from collapse. He says that, in a larger sense, big business, which for so long has been a woeful headwind to needed change, is waking up to the need to act very quickly now, as the long term has become the near term with terrifying speed.

Eugene Linden, Journalist; Author, Fire and Flood

Online Member Happy Hour Please join fellow Commonwealth Club members for an online happy hour on Thursday, April 14, from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. PDT. This social event is an opportunity for you to make new connections as well as see familiar faces. Following brief welcoming remarks by The Commonwealth Club’s President Dr. Gloria Duffy, participants will be divided at random into small breakout rooms several times over the course of the session for informal introductions and conversations. Please note there will be no featured speakers or set topics of discussion. This event is online and for Commonwealth Club members only. To respond, please register and we will send you the Zoom access instructions.

Welcome Remarks by Dr. Gloria Duffy, President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club of California Location: Online Time: 4:30–5:45 p.m. program (all times PDT)

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Please Scream Inside Your Head: Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year that Wouldn’t End The witty, insightful, and entertaining Dave Pell will discuss his book Please Scream Inside Your Heart, a real-time ride through the maddening hell that was the 2020 news cycle, when turmoil and media mania stretched America’s sanity, democracy and toilet paper. Pell, who describes himself as the internet’s managing editor, will discuss how our media consumption got out of hand, what makes lies spread faster than truth, and why his Holocaust-surviving parents found 2020 America to be all-too familiar.

Robin Roberts, 4.15

Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal, 2.11

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MONDAY, APRIL 18

Robin Roberts: “Good Morning America” Anchor Over the last 16 years, as an esteemed anchor of “Good Morning America,” Robin Roberts has helped millions of people across the country celebrate each new morning. She has sought to bring a bit of positivity into each day, even in the most trying of times. In doing so, she has enthralled the nation with her grace and humility. Now, Roberts provides a guide to instilling hope and optimism into people’s lives to infuse every day with positivity and encouragement. She shares with readers the guidance and profound insight she’s received, along with her own hard-won wisdom that has helped her find the good in the world and usher in light—even on the darkest days. Roberts shares a journey through her lived eye-opening experiences, drawing on the advice and knowledge she’s picked up along the way to teach readers how to feed the mind, spirit and soul and practice optimism—a skill that requires time and dedication.

Will Hurd: American Reboot In a time in U.S. history marked by polarization and partisan gridlock, Americans are looking for answers. For former Republican congressman and CIA officer Will Hurd, these questions need answering—fast. As the country faces new challenges and it becomes increasingly difficult for Washington to act amid political divides, Hurd proposes a guide to “reboot” the system and mobilize the country to meet the changes ahead. In his new book, Hurd grounds his analysis of the American political system in “pragmatic realism,” offering solutions to a crisis-rocked country based on American values. In it, Hurd walks through the challenges presented by rising income inequality, unprecedented technological changes, dishonest elected officials, the Republican Party’s ailing vision for the future and the shifting balance of global power. There, drawing from personal experience and professional expertise, he draws a path forward amid these uncertainties to a more unified, efficient and equitable America.

Robin Roberts, Anchor, “Good Morning America”; Author, Brighter by the Day: Waking Up to New Hopes and Dreams Kumasi Aaron, Anchor, ABC7 News Bay Area Morning; Twitter@KumasiABC7—Moderator Location: Online Time: noon doors open & check-in, 12:30– 1:30 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Photo by ABC/Danny Weiss.

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

Will Hurd, Former U.S. Representative (TX23); Author, American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done Location: Online Time: 12:30–1:30 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Photo by Kevin G. Saunders.

Dave Pell, Journalist; “Internet’s Managing Editor”; Publisher, “Next Draft” Newsletter; Author, Please Scream Inside Your Heart: Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year that Wouldn’t End In Conversation with DJ Patil, Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors A MIDDLE EAST MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM. Program organizer: Celia Menczel Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, Taube Family Auditorium, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing (all times PDT)

TUESDAY, APRIL 19 Justin Gest, Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Molly Ball: America at a Time of Demographic Change Demographic changes at both the national and local levels continue to have tremendous impacts on America’s political system. As diversity in the United States continues to flourish, the United States is evolving into a true multi-racial society. Yet the country remains deeply divided. What roles are demographic changes and a backlash to those shifts playing in shaping America’s civic life? Leading demographer and political commentator Justin Gest believes he has some answers to these questions as the country ‘s citizens continue to grapple with what happens to the country when there is no longer a majority demographic group. In his new pathbreaking book Majority Minority, Dr. Gest uses the case studies of six societies that have undergone the majority-mi-

ROBERTS PHOTO BY ABC/DANNY WEISS; HURD PHOTO BY KEVIN G. SAUNDERS.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022

nority transition to reveal insights as to the role of government in tempering nationalist sentiment and allowing diversity to flourish. He argues that the state and politicians can be powerful actors to help groups integrate and form a common identity for the benefit of all, while still respecting and celebrating the differences between them. Supplementing his analysis with surveys, studies and careful analysis of trends in the United States, Gest explains that the coming years will be formative in how diversity lives on in America, and how our society can gracefully transition into a majority-minority country. The 2022 elections and, of course, the 2024 presidential election will be shaped by the impact of America’s demographic changes. To help put these issues into context, Gest has invited former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and political journalist Molly Ball to discuss his new book and the critical moment in which the United States finds itself as its future as a cohesive multiracial democracy is regularly called into question.

PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER.

Justin Gest, Associate Professor of Policy and Government, George Mason University’s Schar School; Author, Majority Minority Antonio Villaraigosa, Former Mayor, City of Los Angeles Molly Ball, National Political Correspondent, Time Location: Online Time: 12:30–1:30 p.m. program (all times PDT)

Dave Pell, 4.18

Notes: Gest photo by Ron Aira; Ball photo by Tim Coburn.

Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet Benjamin Franklin was not exactly a gambling man. But he wagered 2,000 pounds, at the end of his illustrious life, on the survival of the United States. Franklin’s bet was that, if the trustees of his legacy funds lent it out over the next 200 years to Boston and Philadelphia tradesmen to jump-start their careers, the U.S. economy would flourish. Each loan was to be repaid with interest over 10 years, and if all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would prove to be a windfall. Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Franklin’s wager on this early version of microfinancing was misused, neglected, and contested—but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin’s stake in the “leather-apron” class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions. Michael Meyer, Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh; Author, Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet In Conversation with George Hammond, Author, Conversations With Socrates A HUMANITIES MEMBER-LED FORUM

PROGRAM Program organizer: George Hammond Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. PDTprogram Notes: Part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Meyer photo courtesy the speaker.

Civil Dialogue in Partisan Times In a day and age where politics can take any form from protesting to posting, it can be hard for students to navigate the many, often divisive political situations they find themselves in. Though politics are certainly an important part of our curriculums, learning how to discuss politics civilly has not been. Now, many organizations are stepping up to fill this gap. In doing so, they are providing students and future generations alike with the tools necessary to navigate a polarized political scene while also paving a path to minimize the partisan division altogether. This student-led program will empower students to face political conversations head on, with both confidence and courtesy. Coming from diverse perspectives, the speakers will model the very conversations they seek to instigate and will guide students in how to build the bridges we so desperately need. Program lead Raquel Kunugi is a graduating senior in political science at the University of California Berkeley and an Education intern at The Commonwealth Club. Hailing from a rural, conservative town and a politically purple family, and now attending a famously liberal school, she has experienced the range of political beliefs and has made friends all along the political spectrum. She hopes this program will empower her fellow students to challenge themselves by challenging the growing norm of polarization

Mia Charity, Chief External Affairs Officer, Close Up Foundation Justine Lee, Executive Director, Living Room Conversations John Wood, Jr., National Ambassador, Braver Angels Alice Siu, Associate Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University—Moderator A CREATING CITIZENS PROGRAM Location: Online Time: 6–7 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Creating Citizens is supported by

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How can you give support and have an impact?

JOIN, RENEW OR GIVE A GIFT MEMBERSHIP TODAY commonwealthclub.org/join 14

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

the Koret Foundation. Photos courtesy of the speakers.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20 Rep. Ro Khanna: Digital Opportunity for All Information technology has fundamentally changed the daily lives of Americans - crunching years of data in seconds and automating seemingly infinitely complex tasks. Yet, as congressman Ro Khanna warns, technological progress has great power to either hurt or heal the country—creating division and furthering inequality if left unchecked, or creating opportunity and healing fractures if carefully directed. It is by keeping an eye on the least fortunate while channeling digital innovation, he argues, that we can create positive change. In his latest book, Dignity in the Digital Age, congressman Khanna explains how democratic access to technology can strengthen every sector of the economy, create more inclusive communities and mend a fractured country. Using “progressive capitalism” to create jobs and opportunities for all Americans, especially the least fortunate, he gives a blueprint of how to direct the future of the tech industry to be a powerful agent for positive change.

Ro Khanna, U.S. Representative (D-CA, District 17); Author, Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 11:45 a.m. doors open & check-in, 12:30–1:30 p.m. program, 1:30 p.m. book signing (all times PDT) Notes: Media sponsors for this featured program are San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal. Khanna by Sam Garvin.

JFK: Incomparable Grace Nearly 60 years after his death, John F. Kennedy still holds an outsize place in the American imagination. Baby Boomers certainly remember his dazzling presence as president, but his brief time in office was marked by more than just style and elegance. His presidency is a story of a fledgling leader forced to meet severe challenges, and to rise above his early missteps to lead his nation into a new and more hopeful era. Kennedy entered office inexperienced but

HORN PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER; KHANNA PHOTO BY SAM GARVIN.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022 Notes: In association with St. Mary’s College of California, School of Economics and Business Administration, Pottinger, and New Day Investing.

alluring, his reputation more given by an enamored public than earned through achievement. Presidential historian Mark Updegrove details the setbacks of JFK’s first months: the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, his disastrous summit with Soviet Premier Khrushchev, and his mismanaged approach to the Civil Rights Movement. But soon the young president proved that behind the glamour was a leader of uncommon fortitude and vision. A humbled Kennedy conceded his mistakes and—important for our times—drew lessons from his failures that he used to right wrongs and move forward, radiating greater possibility as he coolly faced a steady stream of crises before his tragic end. Mark Updegrove, President and CEO, Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation; Presidential Historian, ABC News; Author, Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency In Conversation with Dan Ashley, Co Anchor, ABC 7 News; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors A HUMANITIES MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: George Hammond Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Photo by Jay Godwin.

Locking Arms for a More Sustainable Future: Innovation, Learning, Collaboration and Action “Lock Arms with Us to Bridge the Chasm Between Awareness and Action.” In this global forum, participants will learn from impact leaders and from one another, and collaborate on innovative and creative ways to take action to support the health of our oceans, people’s right of access to clean water and sanitation, and stronger ecosystems that will support life for all living creatures. We can explore what individuals can do in (a) their own lives, (b) through the organizations that they work for, (c) through their investments and (d) through advocacy and philanthropy. Georgie Badiel, Author; Model; Activist; Founder, Georgie Badiel Foundation (Burkina Faso and New York) Philippe Cousteau, Multi-Emmy Nominated TV Host; Author; Social Entrepre-

THURSDAY, APRIL 21 Fishbowls, Fentanyl Test Strips, Patient Navigators: One Hospital’s Team-Based Response to the Overdose Epidemic Last year, drug-related overdoses killed more people than COVID-19 in San Francisco, and Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Fentanyl and COVID-19 have only fueled our overdose crisis. While addressing this might seem overwhelming, we can respond in practical and evidence based ways. Come learn how we can address this crisis with solutions that might surprise you from San Francisco General Hospital’s Addiction Care Team director. How can M&Ms help stem the crisis? What is a patient navigator? How do we change the experience of people who use drugs in the hospital? Dr. Marlene Martin will address these issues.

Matt Horn, 4.21

Ro Khanna, 4.20 neur; Environmental Activist; Founder, EarthEcho International Ernesto Christian Enkerlin Hoeflich, Director of Conservation and Sustainability; Parque Fundidora (Mexico) Elizabeth Carney, Chair, Business and Leadership Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator A BUSINESS & LEADERSHUP MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Elizabeth Carney Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 3–4 p.m. PDTprogram

A PSYCHOLOGY MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Patrick O’Reilly Marlene Martin, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, UCSF; Hospitalist, San Francisco General Hospital; Director of Addiction Initiatives, UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence; Founder and Director, Addiction Care Team (ACT) Patrick O’Reilly, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist; Assistant Clinical Professor, UC San Francisco; Chair, Member-Led Psychology Forum—Moderator Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5 p.m. doors open & check-in, 5:30–6:30 p.m. program (all times PDT)

Star Chef Matt Horn: On West Coast Barbecue and the Future of Hospitality Chef Matt Horn has quickly become one of the most noted chefs in the Bay Area and, increasingly, the country. Since opening his namesake restaurant, Horn Barbecue, in West Oakland in late 2020 the California native has been named a Food

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UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022

Lara Bazelon: Ambitious Like a Mother The “work-life balance” is all the rage in self-help literature—and according to author and law professor Lara Bazelon, it is less of an ideal and more of another impossible demand placed on working mothers. Challenging the age-old wisdom of needing to choose between your children and your job, Bazelon argues that when a mother chooses

Lara Bazelon, 4.25

Sara Mednick, 4.26

cookbook also has recipes and tips for those who want to try his recipes and classic “low and slow” method at home. After the talk, guests will enjoy some of Horn’s famous BBQ in a fun, post-program reception. Food included in ticket price. Please join us for a special evening with one of the Bay Area’s rising chefs.

prioritizing her career, she chooses both. In her latest book, Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids, Bazelon seeks to change the narrative about the work-life balance and show that being ambitious at work and a good mother are not mutually exclusive, but reinforce each other. She says that a mother focusing on her career allows her to not only provide financial independence and personal fulfillment for herself, but demonstrates to her children how to use their talents to help others and raise awareness about social issues.

Matt Horn, Founder & CEO, Horn Hospitality Group; Author, Horn Barbecue: Recipes and Techniques from a Master of the Art of BBQ Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105

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MONDAY, APRIL 25

Lara Bazelon, Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial

Justice Clinical Programs, University of San Francisco; Author, Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids; Twitter @larabazelon Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program (all times PDT)

TUESDAY, APRIL 26 Recent Brain Research on the Rejuvenating Power of Sleep Join us to discuss the most recent brain research confirming the indispensable value of the “downstate” (sleep)—the key to cellular rejuvenation—and how to use the downstate to maximize your physical and mental vitality. Most people are worn down by the daily grind, but the body is designed to alleviate its effects. Brain research continues to accumulate ever more detail about why the downstate is so indispensable to our mental and physical health. Mednick’s Sleep and Cognition Lab studies the role sleep plays in forming our long-term memories, regulating our emotions, keeping our cardiovascular system functioning properly, and helping older adults stay alert and more agile. The downstate is an integral part of all the physiological, cognitive and emotional processes that allow us to stay as strong as possible. So why do we often ignore it during our stressful, nonstop lives, when respecting the downstate would mean a longer, healthier life? Mednick’s answer encompasses all the most up-to-date findings from autonomic, sleep, circadian rhythms, exercise physiology, and nutrition research. She won’t tell you to stop working so hard. The sweet smell of ambition in the morning is not the enemy. Rather, she explains how we can handle any reasonable amount of stress as long as we replenish ourselves on a daily basis—and so indefinitely delay burning out. A HUMANITIES MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: George Hammond Sara Mednick, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Irvine; Director, Sleep and Cognition Lab; Author, The Power of the Downstate: Recharge Your Life Using Your Body’s Own Restorative Systems

BAZELON PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER; MEDNICK PHOTO BY CECE CANTON.

Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program, 7:15-8:30 book signing/ reception with food (all times PDT) Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

and Wine Best New Chef in 2021, won a coveted spot in the Michelin food guide, had his unique “California-style” barbeque featured in major newspapers around the country, and currently is a finalist for a James Beard Foundation award for Best New Restaurant in America, one of only two California restaurants to make this coveted cut. On top of that, Horn just opened his second restaurant (a fried chicken restaurant), with much more planned for his growing food empire. In his new cookbook, Horn Barbecue: Recipes and Techniques from a Master of the Art of BBQ, Matt Horn tells his own inspiring story of how he learned to make BBQ and open a restaurant, and about how his journey echoes and continues the historic lineage of African American barbecue in the United States—an engaging yet often unknown history. His

LESON PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER’ CREWS PHOTO COURTESY THE SPEAKER/PORTFOLIO.

In Conversation with George Hammond, Author, Conversations With Socrates Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Photo by Cece Canton.

Gero Leson: Honor Thy Label— Dr. Bronner’s Unconventional Journey to a Clean, Green and Ethical Supply Chain Dr. Bronner’s is no ordinary soap maker. Founded in 1948, the family-owned company puts people, the environment and sustainable development at the heart of everything it does. Not paying dividends and capping executive salaries funds this approach. Dr. Bronner’s activist and philanthropic works range from supporting the rise of the minimum wage to co-funding the acceptance of psychedelic drugs, such as mushrooms and ecstasy, in drug-supported psychotherapy. Since 2005 Gero Leson has led one of Dr. Bronner’s key campaigns: building organic and fair trade supply chains for its main ingredients: coconut, palm, olive and mint oils. His team has built projects with up to 2,500 organic smallholder farmers, improves productivity of their land through regenerative means, sets up primary processing, helps build local management teams, and supports innovative social programs. This strengthens the economic security of farmers while supplying Dr. Bronner’s with the quality ingredients needed to produce its famous soaps—and now its chocolates. Honor They Label presents the stories and learnings from this journey. Join us for an enlightening conversation on how the products we buy and companies we support can have a positive impact on people, planet and profit.

Gero Leson, Vice President of Special Operations, Dr. Bronner’s Andrew Dudley, President and CEO, Earth; Co-Host and Producer, “Earth Live”; Chair, People & Nature Member-Led Forum— Moderator A PEOPLE & NATURE MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: Andrew Dudley Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Tonni Rembe Rock Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 5–6 p.m. program (all times PDT)

FRIDAY, APRIL 29 Terry Crews: My Journey to True Power Terry Crews has likely graced your screen at some point; his bodybuilder physique and charismatic humor are hard to miss. Seemingly nothing could stop the Flint, Michigan-born, NFL player turned actor as he landed gig after gig and won accolades along the way. But under the facade of perfection, Crews was struggling. For all that he sought to control—relationships, his image of toughness, masculinity, his experiences with racism— nothing could hold it all together, leading into a downward, destructive spiral. Since then, Crews has reckoned with his insecurities and past, garnering a newfound respect for true toughness rather than the exte-

Terry Crews, 4.29

rior austerity he once paraded. His new book, Tough, shares the never-before-told story of his journey through feigned confidence to the new highs of true, conscientious toughness. At INFORUM, Crews will recount the trials endured while battling cultural norms and societal demands, and further the resounding victories of surmounting these mountains— challenging the system that he says demands men be outwardly tough while leaving them inwardly weak. IN INFORUM PROGRAM Terry Crews, Actor; Host; Author, Tough: My Journey To True Power Location: Online

Time: 12–1 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Media sponsors for this featured program are San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal. Khanna by Sam Garvin; Photo courtesy the speaker/Portfolio.

The Annual Innovate for Good Conference After a 2-year hiatus, The Commonwealth Club and the University of San Francisco’s School of Management are pleased to reinstate the Innovate for Good annual conference, an event where the intersection of business and social good takes center stage. Join us this year as we address the climate crisis. In an increasingly digital and global economy, our cities and organizations are at a unique inflection point, where the most pressing issue of our time is how we sustain our planet. As was seen during proceedings in Glasgow at COP 26, public and private entities need to urgently accelerate innovations in energy, clean tech, fintech, and technology in order to address climate change in a way that is both economically viable and socially just. How are businesses finding new ways to innovate for good in this reality? How are companies and governments partnering to innovate and deliver more sustainable solutions that balance human and environmental values? The Innovate for Good conference is an annual symposium that brings together founders, CEOs, investors, academics, and nonprofit and government leaders who are taking action to shape a more sustainable and just world. See website for program lineup. Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 1:30–4 p.m. conference (all times PDT) Notes: This event is presented in partnership with the University of San Francisco, School of Management. The conference is supported by USF’s Harari Initiative, which honors the work of former USF professor Dr. Oren Harari by continuing his mission to bridge theory and practice in the fields of conscious leadership and social innovation.

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UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022

Matthew Continetti: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism The election of Donald J. Trump in 2016 and the years that followed have brought significant changes to the Republican Party and, for many, what it means to be conservative. These shifts have been in process for many years, but the Trump presidency brought these significant changes to the center of America’s political system. In short, from the start of the Reagan Revolution in 1980 to Trump’s on-going role in the Republican Party today, the right is undergoing a massive transformation. Where this process leads will impact the shape of America’s political system for decades to come, and is of interest to all across the political spectrum. For Matthew Continetti, to know where American conservatism is going one must know where it’s been, and this 40 -year shift clouds the history of the conservative movement and its struggles within. In Continetti’s latest book, he describes how the conservative movement began as networks of intellectuals growing a vision for a more perfect government that eventually came under pressure from populist forces. To him, within conservatism there have been two opposing forces, one pulling closer to the center and one toward the fringe, and that these patterns both continue to the present day and explain the shifts of the movement between these two extremes.

Matthew Continetti, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Founding Editor, The Washington Free Beacon,; Author, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism Location: Online5 Time: 12:30–1:30 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Continetti photo by Aaron Clamage Photography, copyright © American Enterprise Institute.

Charles Booker: The Young Democrats and the Fight for America’s Future Going from a childhood in the impoverished Louisville West End to being the youngest black lawmaker in Kentucky, success stories like State Rep. Charles Booker’s

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MONDAY, MAY 2

Matthew Continetti, 5.2

Charles Booker, 5.2

continue to cross political divides to inspire a nation. Facing poverty, systemic injustice and a strongly Republican political establishment, many lessons can be learned from Booker’s determination and strength to rise to the Kentucky legislature. Charles Booker represented part of Louisville in Kentucky’s House of Representatives from 2019 to 2021, winning the Democratic primary against six other candidates. Having grown up facing poverty, hunger and the loss of family members from gun violence, Booker’s journey to public office saw him complete law school despite financial struggles, receiving an unlikely appointment to the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and then win a competitive election for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives and go on to run to represent Kentucky in the United States Senate. In his new book, From the Hood to the Holler: A Story of Separate Worlds, Shared Dreams, and the Fight for America’s Future, Booker unpacks his unlikely journey to give commentary on social and economic systemic injustice and a vision of how to provide racial equity to America’s least fortunate members. He contends that as tensions and divisions grow, these interventions are not only effective, but urgently needed.

Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Speaker photo courtesy of Charles Booker.

Charles Booker, Former Member, Kentucky House of Representatives; Candidate for U.S. Senate, Kentucky; Author, From the Hood to the Holler: A Story of Separate Worlds, Shared Dreams, and the Fight for America’s Future

THURSDAY, MAY 5 Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney: The Infodemic As COVID-19 spread around the world, so did government censorship. The Infodemic lays bare not just the use of old-fashioned censorship, but also how “censorship through noise” enhances the traditional means of state control (such as jailing critics and restricting the flow of information) by using a flood of misinformation to overwhelm the public with lies and half-truths. Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney, who have been defending press freedom and journalists’ rights worldwide for many years as the directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, chart the onslaught of COVID censorship— beginning in China, but spreading through Iran, Russia, India, Egypt, Brazil, and even the White House. Increased surveillance in the name of public health, the collapse of public trust in institutions, and the demise of local news reporting all contributed to make it easier for governments to hijack the flow of information. Using vivid characters and behind-the-scenes accounts, Simon and Mahoney show how, under the cover of a global

pandemic, governments have undermined freedom and taken ever more authoritarian control—a new political order that may be one of the legacies of this disease.

Robert Mahoney, Deputy Executive Director, the Committee to Protect Journalists; Co-Author, The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free Joel Simon, Fellow, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School; Co-Author, The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free In Conversation with George Hammond, Author, Conversations With Socrates A HUMANITIES MEMBER-LED FORUM PROGRAM Program organizer: George Hammond Location: Online Time: 3 p.m. program (all times PDT)

Paul Holes, Retired Cold Case Investigator; Author, Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases In Conversation with Brian Watt, News Anchor, KQED Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing (all times PDT) Notes: This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Holes photo by Steve Babuljak.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11 Inside Design with Tony Fadell Tech gadgets surround us each day, and to entrepreneur and innovator Tony Fadell, each of them has a fascinating story, full of determination and ingenuity, of how they came to be. Having led the teams that developed the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat

HOLES PHOTO BY STEVE BABULJAK; FADELL PHOTO BY WILLIAMSON ADAMS.

Paul Holes: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases Paul Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career as a cold case investigator and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including the hunt for the Golden State Killer, Laci Peterson’s murder, and Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapping. This is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones, the inability

to walk away from a challenge—even at the expense of his own happiness. Holes opens up the most intimate scenes of his life: his moments of self-doubt and the impact that detective work has had on his marriage. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime-solving when there are no flashbulbs and “case closed” headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to cases and people who might otherwise have been forgotten.

Paul Holes, 5.5

Tony Fadell, 5.11

and drawing from 30 years of experience in the field, Fadell believes that anyone can learn how to be a better business leader by examining the hidden stories behind the devices that make up our lives. Tony Fadell is an engineer, inventor and author who was responsible for co-designing three of Time magazine’s “50 most influential gadgets of all time.” Having decades of experience at Silicon Valley giants such as Apple and Google, Fadell has authored more than 300 patents and invested in or advised at several hundred start-up companies. In his latest book, Fadell retells chapters of his journey from a designer to an executive, using them as case studies to illustrate effective leadership and problem solving in a competitive environment. Fadell provides a captivating, fast-paced encyclopedia of business strategy.

Tony Fadell, Co-inventor, the iPod and iPhone; Founder of Nest Labs; Principal at Future Shape LLC; Author, Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Work Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 11:15 a.m. doors open & check-in, 12–1 p.m. program, 1 p.m. book signing (all times PDT)

Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster: Technology, Social Media and the Fight for Racial Justice In recent years, an influx of racially motivated attacks against people of color in local communities has made national headlines: and the cases of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have sparked international conversations. In today’s age, exposure to racial injustice is more accessible than ever with the rise of video recording and the intimacy of technology. The power to spread information globally, all with the touch of a button, is reshaping the civil rights movement and pushing social justice forward. Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster are both award-winning journalists and bestselling authors who reveal the common thread between these harrowing incidents. They recognize that technology has irrevocably changed our conversations about race and, in many instances, tipped the levers of power in favor of the historically disadvantaged.

commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH

UPCOMING PROGRAMS APRIL–MAY 2022 FUKUYAMA PHOTO BY NORA SMITH; GERGEN PHOTO BY THOMAS FITZSIMMONS, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL.

nior Fellow, Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Author, Liberalism and Its Discontents Location: The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105 Time: 5:15 p.m. doors open & check-in, 6–7 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing (all times PDT) Notes: This program is presented in collaboration with the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future and is supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund. All in-person attendees will receive a copy of Liberalism and Its Discontents, compliments of the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund. Photo by Nora Smith. Francis Fukuyama, 5.16

David Gergen, 5.18

Hill and Brewster draw on the increasing role of media in the racial justice movement to discover why it took the horrifying footage of the murder of George Floyd—despite a wealth of video evidence of previous police brutality—to trigger outrage. The book is a riveting exploration of how the power of visual media has shifted the narrative on race over the last few years and reignited the fight toward justice.

ical freedom—was on the march in countries around the world, and that a new political order would be established around the globe. However, as the Russian attack on Ukraine shows, the battle between autocracy and classic liberalism will continue to shape global relations in the present and the future, and as history it will tell the story of this complicated period in world history. In his latest book, Fukuyama explains the troubled history of the American realization of classical liberalism here in the United States, and the challenges from both sides of the political spectrum arising in recent decades. With the right demanding economic freedom above all else, and the left making its core ideal the elevation of identity above the universality of humanity, Fukuyama argues that both approaches miss the mark in grasping classical liberalism, and the consequences can be disastrous both at home and around the world. At this critical time, Fukuyama proposes a bold new defense of classical liberalism, and explains that failing to do so will continue to fragment America’s civil society, and will influence global pushback on democracy itself. Join us as Fukuyama engages in a critical and timely discussion on classical liberalism, why it remains one of the most influential political ideologies of the past millennium, and why battles around it will determine the path of the 21st century for the United States and the world.

Marc Lamont Hill, Host, “BET News” and “Black News Tonight”; Steve Charles Chair in Media, Cities, and Solutions, Temple University; Co-Author, Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice Todd Brewster, Journalist; Historian; Co-Author, Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice Location: Online Time: 3–4 p.m. program (all times PDT) Notes: Marc Lamont Hill photo by Darnell Barnes; Todd Brewster photo by Phil Garlington.

MONDAY, MAY 16 Francis Fukuyama: Liberalism and Its Discontents When noted political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted the “end of history,” it seemed that the Western form of traditional classical liberalism and democracy—rule of law, equal treatment, individualism, and polit-

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Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Se-

WEDNESDAY, MARY 18 David Gergen: How Great Leaders Are Made As trust in the U.S. government continues to plummet and faith in elected officials wears thinner, former White House advisor David Gergen raises the question: What does great leadership look like? To him, leadership starts within, and armed with innumerable examples of path makers past and present, he believes that this inner journey leads to an outward one that can change the world. In his latest book, Gergen explores time-tested leadership principles, with case studies ranging from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to Winston Churchill, Greta Thunberg, Harvey Milk, John McCain and the Black Lives Matter movement. Drawing from half a century in public leadership and decades of mentoring young people, Gergen explores how great leaders have first achieved self-mastery, and then moved on to inspire, lead and change entire generations.

David Gergen, Sr. Political Analyst, CNN; Prof. of Public Service & Founding Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School; Author, Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Madet Location: Online Time: 12:30–1:30 program (all times PDT) Notes: Photo by Thomas Fitzsimmons, Harvard Kennedy School. Media sponsors for this featured program are San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal.

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MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER Does a blind spot on the left keep San Francisco from recognizing what’s driving homelessness in the city? 22

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QUESTIONS ABOUT CRIME AND HOMELESSNESS

have dominated headlines locally and nationally. The publication of Michael Shellenberger’s new book, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, also drew attention to increasing disorder on the streets. At the Club, Shellenberger made one of his first local public appearances to discuss his controversial book and the way homelessness, drug use and mental illness are handled—or mishandled. From the January 24, 2022, program “Michael Shellenberger: How Progressives Threaten Cities.” This program was supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund. MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, Founder and President, Environmental Progress; Author, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities MELISSA CAEN, Political Analyst; Attorney—Moderator

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: It’s a pleasure to be here. This book was for San Francisco. It’s a book for liberals and progressives. It’s really, of course, for everybody in San Francisco, everybody in America. I had many motivations to write this book. First and foremost, I am just devastated emotionally by what’s happening on the streets. I think it’s profoundly unethical. I think it’s profoundly unnecessary. There’s no reason for it. I was delighted to share stories from the Netherlands, which I think is a worldclass example of how you deal with people suffering from late-stage addiction and serious mental illness, how you deal with folks suffering from homelessness. I also wanted to answer many questions that I had, [such as], How do people who care so much—there’s no question about

the amount of caring—allow for so much suffering to exist? That question alone sparked a significant amount of upset, just in asking it. But I am a strong believer in some of the principles of psychotherapy, which suggests that when you don’t deal with difficult, painful issues, they have a way of ruining your life and ruining your society. And so the purpose of San Francicko, I feel, has already been achieved, which is just to spark a conversation. Obviou sly, I’m continu ing to do investigative journalism on this, continuing to have an argument about it. But for me, just the fact that I can be here with all of you tonight, I think shows that we’ve already made a huge amount of progress. MELISSA CAEN: I’ll be honest, Michael, when I saw the name and they asked me to do

this, I was like, Who is this man? I live here. I can say mean things about my city, but other people can’t. But then I did some research and saw that you are also a Bay Area resident and someone with a long history in liberal and progressive causes. I don’t know if it should matter, but it does. It felt like, you know, it was coming from inside the tent. So can you talk a little bit about that perspective and how that has shaped the way you approach the issue and how people have responded? SHELLENBERGER: Sure. I was raised by four liberal parents from Colorado. My family, both sides, come from the Mennonite tradition, which is sort of an anti-government, pacifist, radical Christian tradition. I was a very liberal kid who became very radical at a young age. I went to go help the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1988. I’ve done field work as

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PHOTO BY SARAH GONZALEZ/PEOPLETOGRAPHY.

Moderator Melissa Caen interviews Michael Shellenberger at the Club.

a journalist. I’ve really been doing journalism for 33 years since I was 17. Helped Lula, helped Hugo Chavez. That’s something I have in common with your district attorney. Come out of the radical left; I went to a Quaker school where I [received] a degree in peace and global studies. I moved to San Francisco in 1993 to work with Global Exchange, which is an antiimperialist, anti-intervention organization. We went to Cuba together in 1993, put pressure on Nike for having sweatshops. I fought for criminal justice and particularly to keep juveniles out of jails and prisons. I did work for George Soros’s Open Society Institute in the late 1990s. I really spent the last 20 years focused on the environment and climate change in particular. But this was something that I did do work on in the nineties, so part of my motivation was, you know, what went wrong? I thought we were advocating solutions to addiction and alternatives to the drug war that would work. When overdose deaths in the United States reached 70,000 in the year 2017, that was when I kind of came back to this and was like, something seems like it went wrong. I knew about the opioid epidemic. But I also had remembered that in the year that I had stopped doing this in the year, 2000, 17,000 people had died of drug overdoses. So the increase of deaths—and last year, everyone may know that it was 100,000 deaths from drug overdoses and drug poisoning. So something clearly went horribly wrong, and I wanted to figure out what that was. I still consider myself a liberal. I don’t consider myself a progressive. I did recently changed my party affiliation from Democrat to independent. But if you read San Francicko, I think people will see that it’s basically a liberal book. It basically argues to do what every civilized country in the world has done—since I exclude the United States from that category [laughter]—and that includes Netherlands, Japan, Portugal, they all do basically the same thing, consistent with their cultures, but they’re all taking care of their sick loved ones, their sick family members in ways that we are simply not doing. CAEN: One of the things about your book that some people like, some people have criticized, but you really can’t deny the amount of statistics in it. I felt like it was actually important, because I know I can’t be the only one who has had this conversation with your spouse or with somebody at a party, where you go, Am I just getting older? Or is it getting worse out there? It’s not always obvious, right? You walk

Michael Shellenberger (left) with Ken Broad in the Club’s Green Room.

“I AM JUST DEVASTATED EMOTIONALLY BY WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE STREETS. . . . I THINK IT’S PROFOUNDLY UNNECESSARY.” —MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER down the street and things bother you today that didn’t bother you yesterday. And it’s like, I don’t know, is it me? Am I just like, “Get off my lawn” now? [Laughter.] Like, I don’t know if it’s there, but one of the important things about statistics that you bring in is that it shows it’s not just us. We’re not just getting older. It is actually getting worse in a lot of ways. So can you talk about your decision to really bolster your opinions with a lot of research? SHELLENBERGER: Absolutely. So San Francicko, similar to my last book, Apocalypse Never, are books that I consider to be complete books, in the sense that if you want to know how to think about the environment, you should be able to get answers to all the big questions; if you want to understand how to think about crime, drugs and homelessness, you should be able to get answers to all of those questions in San Fransicko, and I think you do. The basics of it, you’re absolutely right. Homelessness increased in California. The number of people that are categorized as homeless increased by 30 percent over the

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last decade, even as it declined 18 percent in the rest of the United States. Certainly the number of people that we classify as homeless in San Francisco has increased. I also point out that the word homeless is really a propaganda word. It was actually a word that was designed to combine groups of people that should never have been combined, including a mother with two kids who has no underlying drug or alcohol problem or mental illness, who is just escaping an abusive husband; we’re combining that person with somebody who is suffering from heroin or opioid addiction and has quit working, been kicked out of their house, often because of their addiction and is living on the streets, and then we’re combining that person with somebody with schizophrenia or a severe mental illness. I wanted to unpack those things. So that’s why there’s chapters about drugs, housing, mental illness. A lot of academics when they write books, or even journalists, I think they have a view that they want to write a book that’s super original. I think if there’s anything original about the book, I just think that it’s

look beyond that for who the homeless people are by and large. SHELLENBERGER: For sure. I wrote a piece in 2019 for Forbes arguing that the governor ought to impose a state of emergency to be able to just build a lot of housing for the homeless, and that a lot of people emailed me and they said, “You know, dude, this is not just about housing; it’s about drugs and mental illness.” I was like, Oh, right, of course I know that. But even I had been sort of caught in this cognitive framing where the word homelessness makes you think it’s fundamentally about housing. So then I went and did a second report, and I just interviewed folks that work on Skid Row, which is the area where there’s a lot of unsheltered street addicts, people suffering mental illness, in Los Angeles. And the first person I interviewed, I was like, “How many people on the streets would you say are suffering mental illness or addiction?” He said “100 percent.” And I was like, “100 percent. That seems really extreme.” And he [said], “If you can’t afford the rent, you don’t come here and live in a tent on the street.” So I thought, “Well, maybe that guy is

conservative.” [laughter] So then I went and interviewed a much more progressive harm reduction-oriented source named Susan Partovi, who I actually end up doing field work with in Skid Row. I called her up and I said, “How many people do you think are suffering mental illness and addiction?” She was like, “It’s 100 percent; there’s nobody here that’s not here for some other reason.” Look, if you go up to people that are camping on a sidewalk in the Tenderloin and you’re like, “Why are you here?” First of all, it’s shocking the large number of people that will acknowledge that it’s because of some addiction. The other issue is that people with mental illness often don’t think that they have mental illness. That’s one of the characteristics of people in psychotic states, or whether it’s from schizophrenia or meth or other mental illness. There’s a lot of people that won’t represent that accurately. And then I think there’s just not an interest in it, because it’s illegal, so they don’t want to be admitting to be doing illegal drugs as the reason for camping. I think the other issue is just that often people on the street are asking for money, and

PHOTOS BY SARAH GONZALEZ/PEOPLETOGRAPHY.

a complete synthesis, an overview of these [issues]. In some ways, I’m trying to trick people into buying a think tank report by kind of bringing in a lot of human stories to it. Same thing with Apocalypse Never. It’s sort of an environmental textbook, but hopefully with sugarcoated, so it goes down a little bit easier. It’s not super wonky and dry. CAEN: Well, you certainly do bring in individual stories, and I’m so excited that Tom and Vicki are here. Anyone who’s read the book knows that [addresses Tom and Vicki] you’re both just remarkable. Your stories woven throughout the book really are what gives it color and brings these concepts to life. So everyone, introduce yourselves after this program—because they’re really great. So you do weave in their stories as well. Now, one of the things you do talk about is how homelessness, at least to a large degree, is a substance abuse and mental illness problem. One of the studies that you cite is about a self-reported statistic where people self-report very low numbers of substance abuse or mental illness causing their own homelessness. But you say that’s maybe not an entirely reliable statistic, that we should

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PHOTOS BY SARAH GONZALEZ/PEOPLETOGRAPHY.

“ONE OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT STATISTICS THAT YOU BRING IN IS THAT IT SHOWS IT’S NOT JUST US. WE’RE NOT JUST GETTING OLDER. IT IS ACTUALLY GETTING WORSE IN A LOT OF WAYS.” —MELISSA CAEN

they want something from the person that’s interacting with them. So they don’t want to give that reason, because they know there’s stigma against it. I have not been able to find a single person on the street who was not mentally ill or not suffering from addiction. Maybe that person exists. There’s certainly people that live temporarily in their cars, but for the most part, people that can’t afford the rent, they do what millions of other people do, which is they move out of state, they move in with friends and family, they find other means. So I think it’s a real disservice to the people who are living on the street because of their addiction or mental illness to suggest that they’re there because they simply couldn’t afford the rent. It may be that they couldn’t afford the rent, but that overlooks the fact that they couldn’t afford the rent because they had stopped working because of their addiction, or been kicked out of their house and “disaffiliated” from friends and family. because their addiction had basically taken over their lives. CAEN: One of the other things that you point out, and it’s something that I think people in the activist circles for a while have been able to say off the record, which is we focused maybe a little too much on housing first and maybe we need to also engage in some shelter building and really just sort of triage, for lack of a better word, as opposed to looking to build everybody an apartment, because that’s going to take a long time and got a lot of other difficulties attached to it.

Talk about that and what the response has been. SHELLENBERGER: This book was all entirely reported during COVID, so the interviews were almost entirely over Zoom. And Zoom is such an interesting way to do interviews. First of all, it has a lot of intimacy because you’re just face to face with somebody; it’s recording at the same time; and the best thing everybody that does interviews is that once you’re at like 90 minutes into an interview, people forget that they’re interviewing and they’ve lost all inhibition and they’ll just tell you anything. They’ll tell you the truth, and you have spent a lot of time to get there. In this book, you’ll see the main radical left advocates for housing, the defenders of homelessness, will say on the record that this is being driven by addiction and mental illness. I have the national homelessness advocates who are saying that if you just do what San Francisco has been doing, you should expect to attract more people suffering from addiction and mental illness and to live on the streets. I found [a] very progressive long-standing homelessness provider in Berkeley who says, yeah, the original wave of homelessness in the ’80s was because of the crack epidemic, which was something that I had not pieced together before doing this book. So this is a book that, much more than Apocalypse Never, which had a lot of personal stories in it, this is a book where I really wanted to foreground the people in this space.

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And I know you’re going to ask about it, so I’m just going to go ahead and preempt the question. The New York Times claims that I didn’t interview any homeless people, which is just the most outstanding lie. I mean, it’s an incredible, audacious lie. I’ve interviewed hundreds of homeless people for the purposes of this book. What I did do is showed respect for the ethnographers who literally lived with people on the streets for years. I’m a Ph.D. anthropology dropout—I quit grad school— but I respect anthropologists. I respect the people that live with people on the street. And so San Fransicko relies heavily on the ethnographies that were done—and some of the best ethnographies of homeless people in general, but certainly homeless addicts—are done in the San Francisco Bay Area. There’s like three major ethnographies. So I did end up quoting a lot of other people’s work. But for me, that was just a way of showing respect for the people that had lived in encampments for years at a time. I had not done that, I certainly interviewed a lot of homeless folks, but I wanted to pay respect and really foreground the folks—including the folks that I really disagree with in terms of their policy agendas—who had done that work of really getting into the lives of the people that live on the street. CAEN: So did you interview homeless people over Zoom? How did you do that? SHELLENBERGER: No, of course not. No. I went to the Tenderloin, Skid Row, the Blade. We also happened to have a lot

“I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND A SINGLE PERSON ON THE STREET WHO WAS NOT MENTALLY ILL OR NOT SUFFERING FROM ADDICTION.” —MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER

of homeless folks living in Berkeley near my office, which is People’s Park. We say homeless encampments. But the one of the first things I discovered in my research was that the Europeans called them open drug scenes, and there’s a paper called “Open Drug Scenes: Cases from Five European Cities,” and it looks at Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Vienna and Zurich. People to this day, because of “The Wire,” the TV show, they look at what’s going on, for example, in San Francisco, and they go, “Oh, that’s like Hamsterdam, which was what they called an open drug scene that was sort of sanctioned by the city of Baltimore in this television show “The Wire,” where they sort of use it as a containment zone. But Amsterdam did do that—that’s true— but then they shut it down. And it’s something that people that watch “The Wire” I don’t think quite understood or people still don’t understand. They think that Amsterdam may still have these open drug scenes. But what you discover is that those five European cities all had open drug scenes; they all shut them down. They all did it the exact same way—a combination of police and social workers. So anyway, so yes, People’s Park proved to be a very easy place to go and interview large amounts of folks on the street at once. CAEN: So why isn’t it BerkeleySicko? [Laughter.] Why are you coming across the bridge at us? I’m just kidding. Talking about the ’80s is actually one of the things you do talk about in the book, and it’s something that I hear all the time, people

blaming—and I’m not defending Ronald Reagan—but a lot of people blame Ronald Reagan for the crisis. SHELLENBERGER: Yeah. CAEN: And so you do talk about, like you say, that [reads from San Fransicko]: “In reality, it was a Democrat who got the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals rolling: President John F. Kennedy.” And so if you could talk a little bit about your research into that and the response to that, because it’s something that you just always hear is, “Reagan shut everything down and now the streets are filled.” SHELLENBERGER: It’s the first thing that you get when you interview progressives about what’s going on. And of course, you kind of go, as like a liberal, “Oh yeah, Reagan, the source of all evil. Naturally, it was Reagan.” But then you’re kind of like, “Well, wait a second. Wasn’t he the president like over 30 years ago. And hasn’t California been in the hands of Democratic supermajority for over for over a decade? And don’t we have a $30 billion budget surplus? So how could this possibly be because of budget cuts?” So of course, it’s not true, and it’s not a defense of Reagan, by the way, who I think deserves some amount of responsibility, both when he was governor in the late ’60s and early ’70s and then also when he was president in the ’80s. So there’s two things that people blame Reagan for. They blame him for emptying the mental hospitals, and they blame him for

cutting the federal housing budget. The story of the closure of America’s psychiatric hospitals is pretty well known,. I think the first thing to say about it is that people with schizophrenia and mental illness are the most difficult folks in our society to deal with. My aunt had schizophrenia. It’s just—these are very difficult people. Before we put folks with mental illness in hospitals in the 19th century, they were many times being chained up in their basements, chained up in barns, killed. Bad things happened to folks before they went to hospitals. The hospitals were this big, progressive achievement in the 19th century. You get through the Great Depression, you get through World War II. The funding was cut, there were staffing shortages coming out of World War II. Life magazine published these famous photos of the terrible conditions in the hospitals. Many of the Quaker activists and the other activists who were trying to fix the hospitals wanted to see more funding to improve them, but there was two things going on. There was some sense in which it would be better to treat mentally ill people in residential care, which is still the case and still something I support. And there was also some idea that you didn’t need to require treatment from folks. So those two things combined. It was JFK who signed the legislation that basically resulted in accelerated deinstitutionalization. Reagan certainly had a hand in it, but he wasn’t driving it by any means. It was really

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PHOTO BY SARAH GONZALEZ/PEOPLETOGRAPHY.

“TWO JOURNALISTS . . . MADE A VIDEO OF DRUG DEALING GOING ON IN THIS CITY-RUN SUPERVISED DRUG USE SITE. I FIND THAT DISTURBING. IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR A 16-YEAR-OLD TO BUY FENTANYL IN A CITY-RUN SITE RIGHT NOW THAN IT IS TO GET INTO A BAR OR LIQUOR STORE AND BUY ALCOHOL.” —MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER

coming from progressives to shut down the hospitals and then to prohibit the mandatory nature of it, which remains today. So ACLU continues to be the main group that is preventing the mandatory treatment of folks with mental illness. The other issue is just the budget cuts. We went and pulled the original—hard work by my staff, they deserve huge credit—went and pulled the original budget funding for housing and Reagan, it did slightly go down, but it basically was flat when Reagan was president, so he doesn’t deserve the blame. You could blame him for not increasing it, but it’s not the case that Reagan then cut the budget for housing. CAEN: There’s a question [from the audience] that kind of goes to this. How has this book been received by people in a position to do something about the homeless problem in San Francisco? Have you talked to elected officials or other public officials who might be able to maybe move toward more shelters and away from housing first or do some of the other things that you advocate? SHELLENBERGER: Yes, so well, of course, everybody knows about the book. I interviewed several folks on the Board of Supervisors. I know that several members of the board of directors have read the book. I had one member of the Board of Supervisors attack the book, naturally without having read it. And we had a little bit of an exchange on Twitter about it. [Laughter.] You know, I’m in a very funny place right now, because I defended Mayor London Breed two weeks ago. I supported and I think helped to create the conditions for

her announcing a crackdown on open drug dealing and open drug use in mid-December. I was very happy about it. I was on Twitter just two weeks ago telling folks that are much more cynical about the situation that they should be supportive of the things that she been doing. But then late last week, I got a phone call from a friend who said that the the linkage center, which was supposed to be linking people suffering addiction to rehab, was also offering a supervised drug [use] site on the same place. And so Leighton Woodhouse, another journalist here and I went in—didn’t misrepresent ourselves at all, we just said we would like a tour. Indeed, we saw that there was supervised fentanyl smoking and other drug use going on in that facility. I found I was very annoyed by that, both because it’s true that there is some amount of supervised drug consumption in Amsterdam, much more limited and in a larger context of getting addicts into the kind of recovery and treatment they need. Two journalists went back on Saturday, I believe. They viewed and made video of drug dealing going on in this city-run supervised drug use site. I just published that yesterday. I find that disturbing. It would be easier for a 16 year old to go and buy fentanyl in a city run site right now than it is to go and get into a bar or a liquor store and buy alcohol. That doesn’t make any sense to me. That’s not what’s going on in Amsterdam. I was disappointed by that. I think that if the city really thought that was a good idea, then they would have been transparent that they were doing [that]. They still—I haven’t read the Chronicle, I don’t know if the Chronicle’s even covered it yet—I have not seen the city even acknowledging that that’s what’s going on.

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I am annoyed right now with the mayor, and they have not responded to my repeated requests for information. So we’re in a very dynamic situation right now. CAEN: Was the drug dealing out in the open. Aside from the fact that it was in the center, was it condoned in any specific way beyond just sort of [taking place there]? SHELLENBERGER: We have 30 minutes of video that was shot by a very brave journalist named Jenny Shao, who got a cobyline with me on the piece that we published yesterday, shot extraordinary video, including of the drug dealer who sold the fentanyl and also of the people who then went and smoked it. City contractors, including Paul Harkin of Glide Memorial and Gary McCoy of HealthRight 360—I think it’s important to actually explain who these people are. They were the senior contractors. They were on site. There were feet away from the drug deal when it occurred. I don’t have proof that they saw the drug deal occur, but we have video of the person who our reporters saw sell the drugs, examining the bill as they’re checking it to see if it was counterfeit, with both McCoy and Harkin looking in his direction. So for me, that would constitute a fair amount of supervised. So we are now fully beyond supervised drug use and we’re into supervised drug dealing. And my concern is that as this gets normalized, at some point somebody’s going to be like, “Well, why don’t we just provide free fentanyl to people who say that they need it?” I mean, that seems like where this is going, and it seems to me that we need to have a conversation about whether we think that’s really the right way to do this, because that’s never been done before.

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

2022 ECONOMIC FORECAST MICHAEL BOSKIN: It’s always a delight to be here at The Commonwealth Club, even virtually, and to speak at an event named after my old friend Walter Hoadley, who was a terrific economist and a terrific president of The Commonwealth Club. What I’m going to do today is try to convey very quickly some thoughts on the short- and longterm economic outlook on growth, inflation, jobs, what the effects of COVID might be—and omicron and the new sub-variant of omicron, maybe. I also want to talk for a few minutes about America’s longrun testing in polls. Not just recently and not just during the pandemic or during the global financial crisis, but for a couple of decades, Americans have turned from the usual optimism about the future to pessimism, and they’re aren’t the only ones. But Americans now, a much larger majority say that they think that their children and grandchildren will be worse off than they have been. Tremendous change from a typical American optimism. It’s not just in America; that’s going on in many parts of the world. It’s particularly true among middle aged and older workers and citizens. But it’s also true among the young. America’s young are pessimistic, but not quite as pessimistic as their parents’ generation, on the one hand,

PLANNING FOR EVERYTHING FROM INVEN-

PHOTO BY BOB GHOST/UNSPLASH.

tory management to labor force participation continues to be in flux. Our annual forecast focuses on what this unpredictability will mean for American businesses, consumers and investors. From the February 4, 2022, online program “The Bank of America Walter E. Hoadley Annual Economic Forecast.” This program was underwritten by the Bank of America. MICHAEL BOSKIN, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Chair, President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors

SARAH BOHN, Vice President and John and Louise Bryson Chair in Policy Research and Senior Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California Dr. NOEL HACEGABA, Deputy Executive Director, Port of Long Beach, California HANNAH KAIN, President & CEO, ALOM Technologies MARY HUSS, President and Publisher, San Francisco Business Times; Member, Board of Governors, Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH

but they are more pessimistic than those in many other countries, especially developing countries, which tend not to be as pessimistic. We ended 2021 and began 2022 on what appeared to be a fairly strong note, a very strong jobs report this morning—stronger than people expected, given omicron caused a lot of people to be at home in the week that the survey occurred in January. We also had a very strong fourth quarter GDP report. The economy grew at a very strong pace, but about two thirds of it was businesses accumulating inventories. In December, consumer spending actually fell. So I think it’s fair to say while there’s some optimism that the economic recovery will continue pretty decently in the short run, there are some warning signs and then there are some risks. And of course, inflation started to accelerate. It’s also important to realize that more or less the same thing is going on everywhere. The International Monetary Fund has been lowering its forecast, particularly for the U.S. and China, but for many other countries, all of whom are expected to grow more slowly. Brazil barely at all in this year. However, Japan and Germany are exceptions, because they had such weak 2021s, touching on negative territory briefly. So that’s a broader world outlook. It’s important because that affects our trade and financial flows. If we look at what the Federal Reserve is anticipating, [start with] the actual growth from 2016 accelerated in 2017, 2018, [and] pretty decent in ’19. And then of course, the collapse in 2020 with COVID—the government-ordered lockdowns and a lot of other restrictions that had people at home. In 2021 we grew quite strongly. However, there was a late-year inventory buildup and consumer spending declined, raising issues about what does that mean for the future? Is this temporary or not? The Fed’s forecast for this year is for 4 percent growth, . . . and then they expect growth to fall to 2 percent in ’23 and [2024]. They actually think that our long-run growth prospects are below 2 percent, as does the Congressional Budget Office. That’s down from an historic 3 percent for most of the World War II period, partly due to slower growth in the labor force, heavily due to demography, and very modest expectations of productivity. If that continued for some time, growing at sub-2 percent after we were used to 3 percent, despite the labor force adjustment, that would be a big telling thing on a very pessimistic future relative to our post-World War II history. The employment situation has rebounded, I remember at the beginning of all this, I’d be on TV or the radio and people were asking

me, do I expect a U-shape or a V-shape? And I quipped, I thought we’d have kind of a tilted square-root-sign recovery. That didn’t catch on, I think because not many people remember what square root signs look like. In any event, that’s more or less what happened. We had a very strong early recovery in 2020, and then it leveled off in 2021, but continue to grow, and [we’re] still adding a lot of jobs. We’re currently about 3 million short of the peak in February of 2020, but probably about half of that is due to more-elderly workers not staying in the labor force. People are unlikely to return as wages rise and more openings occur there. Most of those won’t come back, but maybe about half of them are gettable, and we have a chance of having them return to the labor market, which would be good for the firms looking for workers and be good for the overall growth of the economy that we could sustain sizable growth for this year. Starting in the spring of 2021, we have the unusual situation of having a growing, yawning gap between the job openings listed by American firms and the number of unemployed people. And of course, all those unemployed people aren’t in the same places with the same skills as all of those jobs. But many of them are. And so we have ample opportunity—and firms, especially small businesses, are scrambling to stay open, to work full shifts. We see, for example, restaurants have reopened and can’t staff, so they’re only open on weekends or four days a week, things of that sort. That’s partly a supply chain problem, partly a supply of work and workers problem as people are staying home, a bit cautious caution still because of omicron; some schools not fully reopen and the like. It’s important to know that a massive fiscal stimulus, trillions and trillions of dollars in the spring of 2020 through December of 2020, was mostly saved. There was a great humanitarian need and, of course, in the beginning there was incredible uncertainty about what would happen. We

“THE FED’S FORECAST FOR THIS YEAR IS FOR 4 PERCENT GROWTH, AND THEN THEY EXPECT GROWTH TO FALL TO 2 PERCENT IN ’23 AND ‘24.”

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—MICHAEL BOSKIN

had lockdowns, we had massive numbers of people losing their jobs, were at home, they couldn’t go out. Only essential workers were supposed to be not on lockdown. We had this massive number of people who needed help in the very short term. We didn’t always get help in time. California’s employment development department was a catastrophe in that regard. But we had lots of people who needed help, so I’ll cut some slack, even though I thought some of these programs were poorly targeted and were likely not to work very well. The massive response was designed to put a floor under things so they didn’t really get totally out of hand long term. The saving rate is generally around 6 or 7 percent. It’s back to that now. But [the large stimulus payments were saved]. That’s a couple of trillion bucks, that excess saving that consumers have. That strengthens their balance sheets and enables them to spend going into the rest of this year and next, drawing down that saving if they choose to do so. So they have the firepower; that’s a good sign for consumers. If we look also at the labor market being strong, those are traditionally good, strong signs for consumption in the economy, which is two thirds of the economy. But unfortunately, starting in the spring, we had a massive increase in inflation. Inflation has been so quiescent in the run-up to this—for years, under the Fed’s 2 percent target for its preferred measure of inflation. What do we have? We had a big increase. It’s now running 7 percent overall with the consumer price index and 5.5 percent if we strip out the volatile food and energy part. Although obviously food and energy people pay at the supermarket, [at] the gas pump every day or every week. So those are the most salient prices, even if other prices haven’t risen as much. It’s hoped that energy and food will come down some [and] will take some of the pressure off. But the problem is that inflation has now spread to many, many more goods through freight costs, labor costs, lots of other things going up. We’ve seen inflation become very broad-based, so it’s unlikely to abate on a widespread basis very quickly. Will it continue? That’s a key question the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world have to ask, and they’re all changing their policy or in the process of it. The total assets the Fed holds—[in] mortgage-backed securities, Treasury bills and bonds and so on—soared during the financial crisis and Great Recession. It then was pretty stable at a little over $4 trillion, and then it’s basically doubled since then.

In fact, in the last year, when the real estate markets went white hot, the Fed was buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities a month, probably over-insuring against the problem. And the question is, What will happen now? They’ve announced the taper. They started it. They’re buying less and less. And then it becomes a question of, Will they just stay there? Will they roll over when stuff comes due, when it matures? Will they sell it off? Selling it off at a modest pace would probably put them in the marketplace at fairly low levels for many years. But that’s probably what’s going to happen, barring another sharp downturn. The same is true of interest rates. The Federal Reserve lowered its key interest rate target, the federal funds rate the banks charge each other on borrowing overnight, [to] close to zero. It did the same during the Great Recession in December of 2008. It was expected to stay there for nine months as the economy recovered; it actually stayed there for seven years, and then started up again and then back down to zero. And the question is, At what pace? How often? How much? Until the last month or so, markets were expecting three rate increases next year. That’s probably up to four and maybe five and several more in 2023, barring a really sluggish economy or tipping into negative territory, a recession. Now, important in all this is inflation forecast—what is likely to happen in the future? For 2022 and 2023—50 private forecasters do this sort of thing for a living at private firms, academe, think tanks, et cetera, agencies and the like. The average would be well over 4 percent, close to 5 percent this year. The [lowest estimate] is about 3.8 or 3.7, and the top is quite a bit higher: 5, 5.5, 5.6 percent projected. Now that’s all a modest range. Let’s hope we’re toward the bottom of that, and let’s hope it’s not above the high end. But if we look at two other sets of information, one is what financial markets are expecting, which we can garner from the relationship of interest rate paid on Treasury inflation-protected securities and traditional bonds, which aren’t adjusted for inflation, and bills and notes and so on. We take a look at that, and that’s about 2.6 percent, pretty much what the Fed is expecting. But if we look at what people are expecting, take the University of Michigan survey of consumer expectations, they’re expecting almost 5 percent inflation this year. So if that’s what they’re expecting and they behave accordingly and they as workers start demanding enough higher wages above productivity, we wind

“THAT’S A COUPLE TRILLION BUCKS THAT CONSUMERS HAVE. THEY HAVE THE FIREPOWER; THAT’S A GOOD SIGN FOR CONSUMERS.” —MICHAEL BOSKIN

up in a situation where we get an interaction of wages and prices, firms and people, as consumers and as workers start to anticipate high inflation; it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s what’s important not to happen if we want to get inflation under control, if we want to keep inflation expectations —in Fed techno jargon—well anchored at close to 2 percent or not much above it. However, what happened was in March of 2021, the new administration proposed a very large so-called coronavirus relief and rescue plan. President Biden called it the American Rescue Plan. Whatever you think of the components in it, it was on top of many trillions of dollars in 2020, at a time when the economy was getting pretty close to its potential output. And so we had a stimulus that was quite a bit larger than the output gap that economists look to. As you start getting close to that output gap shrinking, you’re going to get more and more inflationary pressures. My former student Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic advisor and President Clinton’s treasury secretary, warned that this was too large. And indeed, it looks like that has been the case; [there are some] other causes—the supply chain, and also the comparison to low prices during the COVID period for some commodities. Let’s turn to the longer term. I try to remember the sage advice of America’s greatest philosopher, New York Yankee legend Yogi Berra, when he said predictions are pretty tough, especially about the future. My basic outlook is for the economy doing pretty well, but inflation pressures being stubborn, Some of this is not going to be transitory, and it’s going to require the Fed to raise interest rates and do other things, and it’s going to require some attention on the fiscal side not to add a lot more excess government spending on top of what’s already in train, to try to keep inflation pressures getting out of hand.

It’s hard to think of something to be worse coming out of this than to be going back into a 1970s-style high inflation. And for perspective, for those youngsters in the crowd, President Nixon, a conservative Republican, imposed wage and price controls on the economy when inflation got up to 4 percent. So inflation in these ranges is a serious problem and caused a lot of distortions and disruptions, particularly for the least fortunate among us. So what’s going to happen as we come out of this? What’s the exit? [Will] we have stubborn inflation, secular stagnation, stagflation, the combination of a recession and inflation that happened in 1980 and cost President Carter his job? You may remember misery indexes that were the sum of inflation and unemployment rates. But deeply important over the coming decade or two, worse than what you’re going to experience later in your life and what your children will experience. Will productivity-enhancing technology gains continue to improve the economy, or were they weaken their power to increase productivity? That’s a big debate going on right now in economics. We have pessimists thinking that all the internet stuff, A.I. and machine learning, all that sort of stuff is kind of cool, but it’s nothing like electricity, aviation, all those things that enabled tremendous productivity growth in the first 60 years or so of the last century. On the other side are those who think A.I. and machine learning and all these other things will be so revolutionary that they will greatly expand productivity. They may make some workers redundant, as the technology has in the past, but technology and globalization are hard on labor markets, especially for less and medium skilled workers, blue collar workers, particularly in the industrial Midwest of the United States and the Midlands in England and the like, as millions and millions and millions of workers in previously communist countries, particularly China after Deng Xiaoping opened it up, were able to start helping to produce traded goods which put pressure on wages here. I think that’s probably in the sixth or seventh inning. It’s not in the ninth inning, it’s not in the third inning. But that will probably continue a bit. But if you add that to demography, rising life expectancy of the elderly, declining birth fertility rates, the Baby Boom working its way through now retiring, etc.—is that going to overwhelm our fiscal and economic and global position? We’re going from three workers [for each] retiree to two. Many other countries, Germany, Japan, are going to one-to-one; they have it harder,

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and China will even be older than we will in terms of the fraction over 65 in a generation. So this is confronting everybody. But will that pressure on labor markets abate? I think we’re going to need more workers in the future. And that gets me to the labor force. We’re leaving too many young youngsters behind. Our schools are not delivering. It’s not just the schools. It’s parental background. It’s resources. It’s a lot of other social ills that cause problems. We’re leaving too many of our potential workers and our fellow citizens behind, not getting a decent education and leaving them more or less permanently disenfranchized from sharing in our growing economy in a significant way. We [need to] do a much better job on that. And will we have enough workers? For demography suggests we’re going to be short workers in the future, which means we’re going to have to have an intelligent reform of our immigration system, because we’re going to have to have some substantial legal immigration, perhaps more greatly focused on skills that we need. Then, finally, we have had an energy revolution in North America brought about by fracking and in shale. And while this is controversial, obviously environmental concerns, the production of natural gas actually [substituting for] coal has been the only way we’ve actually made major reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions. And this revolution has been the biggest geopolitical change in our favor since the fall of the Berlin Wall, because it reduced the power of OPEC with us; at one point, we became the largest oil and gas producer and the marginal supplier. And it enabled us to have an opportunity to export a lot of natural gas and decrease Western Europe’s dependency on Russia for natural gas, which is horrible for the world and Western Europe and us. But that is not happening this week for, in my view, legitimate concerns, but overly enthusiastic restrictions have tried to limit this in the United States. I think we need to have a more balanced discussion of that. That’s important for the environment as well as the economy. If we don’t have a strongly growing economy, environmental concerns will be at the bottom of the list as they are in every poll that’s conducted; in poor economic times, the environment falls from being one of the top several to being at the bottom [of issues prioritized by voters]. So we need to balance our economy and our environment to make the progress we need on both fronts

in some sensible way. And then, of course, there are geopolitical tensions, trade balances and the like. It wouldn’t take a war, wouldn’t take a Chinese invasion of Taiwan; all it would take, for example, would be for the Chinese to launch a cybersecurity attack on the Shinshu Park, where Taiwan Semiconductor produces a majority of the world’s advanced chips. That would cause the current supply chain problems on semiconductors to pale in comparison. So fingers crossed, nothing like that happens. Then, of course, are democracy and robust capitalism ultimately compatible? Can we get enough people sharing in the growth and performance of the economy so that we don’t try to have moved to a European-style social welfare state and provide such wide liberal benefits in terms of the size and who they apply to that we wind up slowing the growth of the economy with very high taxes to deal with our high debt and the future impending imbalances in Social Security and Medicare/ Each of these is going to be complex to manage. They sound difficult, and they will be. If you look at any time in our past, we’ve had a similar list. Go back to 1960 or 1980 or 2000, you see a similar list. And we managed to work our way through it, because we kept our economy predominantly a flexible market economy; while the hand of government grew from time to time, it did not surge into European-style levels or those in Scandinavia and the like. We managed to keep that more or less balanced, but we constantly have pressure of government—federal, state, local, here and around the world, by the way—to be more and more things to more and more people. And increasingly, it’s doing that

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ineffectively, inefficiently and incompetently. In California, sadly, case of point, we need governments to do the functions we really need them to do and do them well, adequately funded. I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll be able to do that. It’s something we’ve always managed to do in the past. That’s no guarantee. In the future, there’ll be bumps along the road. But I always take particular solace in Winston Churchill’s deep insight into America when he said, you can count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else. MARY HUSS: Thank you, Dr. Boskin, for your insights. Needless to say, this has been a very challenging time for the American economy, and this pandemic is about to hit its 2-year mark. Many small businesses, particularly restaurants and the hospitality industry, are still not open or even are going out of business. In January, the stock market had one of its worst months in the past several years. Overall, the American economy is growing significantly, but American consumers are experiencing increasing prices across the economy. Employers are cutting jobs in record numbers, and employers are competing for workers, raising wages, contributing to inflation. A key part of this story, of course, is inflation. We’ve asked each of our three panelists to address this question: Will issues with the supply chain and labor continue to plague the U.S. economy and contribute to inflation? How will that impact consumers, and what solutions should industry and government be undertaking to mitigate the factors that contribute to inflation? Let’s start with Dr. Hacegaba.

NOEL HACEGABA: For those of you who may not be familiar with the Port of Long Beach, we are the nation’s second busiest seaport, and together with the Port of Los Angeles, we make up the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex, the largest in North America and the ninth largest in the world. The supply chain is typically invisible. In the past, people went to the store. They bought a product labeled “Made in Japan” and didn’t really give much thought to how it got there. Today, the supply chain is very visible. In fact, it’s a topic of national news. These days. stories focus on the logjam of vessels and imports, and I’m sure many of you have seen images of disruption to the global supply chain. No major container freight gateway has been immune to the negative impacts of the global disruption, least of all the nation’s largest container port complex here in Southern California. So how did we get here? In one word, it was the pandemic. First, imports dropped when the pandemic shut down manufacturing overseas. But then, as manufacturing reopened in Asia and U.S. consumption shifted from services to goods, that triggered an unprecedented volume surge. We went from doom and gloom to fast and furious on the turn of a dime. The traditional peaks and valleys of import volume were replaced by a continuous wave of cargo that began in July of 2020 and continued through 2021. As consumers were confined to their homes, they resorted to e-commerce, which served a 24-7 consumer-oriented instant delivery mindset. This kept demand high and imports coming. But while orders surged, shortages in workers, warehouse space and equipment such as chassis, trucks and trains disrupted the supply chain, causing containers to pile up on port terminals and vessels to queue up off the coast of Southern California in record numbers. Speaking of record numbers, 2021 was a record year for the Port of Long Beach. Even as we confronted the supply chain crisis, we still managed to move more containers than ever before. For calendar year 2021, we moved 9.38 million TEU [twenty-foot equivalent units], nearly 16 percent over 2020, which was also a record year. And the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex—L.A. and Long Beach together—moved 20.1 million TEU in the year 2021. Let me just give you an idea of what that looks like; placed end to end, 20.1 million TEU would wrap around planet Earth three times at the equator, so you can see we moved a lot of cargo, and the total dollar value of that is over $400 billion. At

the Port of Long Beach, we continue our work to clear the backlog of vessels offshore, which signals that we’ll remain moderately busy into the spring. Given our historic volumes in the first half of 2021, we’ll be hard-pressed in early 2022 to see more than slow gains until perhaps the fall. But a key factor in how quickly the supply chain recovers will be the residual effects of COVID-19. The impact this will continue to have on the workforce across every segment of the supply chain will affect the nation’s goods movement system and the broader economy. And these challenges are not likely to help quell inflation. As long as these challenges persist, consumers will feel the effects of inflation. With supply chain disruptions making front page news, the Port of Long Beach has received a great deal of attention just in the past few months. We welcome the support of our federal and state partners, a clear sign of investment in the nation’s most significant container gateway. The historic $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law will ensure that ports like ours receive the investments they need to support the supply chain of the future. We’re seeing investment in the nation’s ports here in Long Beach. Our port was recently awarded a $52.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration. Funding from the program is specifically designed for capital improvement projects at U.S. seaports. This grant will help fund our Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility, which will significantly expand our rail capacity and enable us to move more containers to the Midwest and beyond directly on rail. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that President Biden signed into law just last November includes another $17 billion for ports and waterways. The funding will allow ports like ours to fast track projects that will speed the movement of goods and allow our ports to grow sustainably. The administration clearly recognizes how important ports, specifically the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex, are to the U.S. economy. These projects are needed, but they will take time. And it’s not just infrastructure that needs to be upgraded. This most recent disruption is the latest reminder that the U.S. supply chain isn’t as elastic as we need it to be. It’s time that we take a serious look at transitioning the U.S. supply chain to 24-7 operations. Our trading partners in East Asia are already there. It’s time for us to match those operating hours to establish a true end-to-end 24-7 supply chain. That is

why we took the first step here in Long Beach with the first 24-hour terminal operation at our TTI facility, and we will continue to advocate for 24-7 operations, not just at the ports but across the supply chain. There are 168 hours in a week, and for the most part, our terminals are open less than half those hours. Without expanding our terminals and building new facilities, we could handle more cargo simply by utilizing more of those hours. We also need truckers and warehouses to be open at night and go 24-7. MARY HUSS: Thank you very much, Dr Hacegaba. And now let’s turn to Hannah Kain, president and CEO of ALOM. HANNAH KAIN: Thank you, Mary. So answering the question—yes, supply chain shortages and disruptions are going to be with us for a long time to come, and it is going to impact the economy. So every time you have shortages, of course, it impacts the pricing and that impacts . . . inflation. So right now, we are in a seller’s market, and that drives up inflation. I do think, though, that it’s a very naive look at the world to say that it’s due to the pandemic. The pandemic made things worse, and it certainly started to shift. But it’s a long-term shift that has a number of consequences. If you look long term, our population has grown by about 30 percent and we didn’t invest in infrastructure. We knew we were teetering at the edge of the abyss, both for the infrastructure and with the complexities we’re building into the supply chain. Let me explain what I mean when I say complexities. The complexities we have start with that we decided to outsource a lot of products, components and finished goods to other countries, and they again outsourced to other countries. So we have a supply chain that’s tremendously complex, spread out over the world with a lot of border crossings, a lot of transportation, and each time we cross a border, we have a lot of different transactions and a lot of things that can go wrong. There’s complexity we have not really been able to manage. Technology has tried to follow the complexity, but the complexity has outrun the technology. That again causes us to have a situation where we can’t really control the supply chain sufficiently to manage what we have built in there. The complex it y a lso comes from regulations. The regulations are continuing, and the regulations are different in different locations. So that contributes to [our] need [for] much stronger systems. Then we have got our trade wars, and the trade wars really frankly don’t help anything in the supply

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chain. It’s shifting regulations, it’s shifting problems with getting things in and out of countries. So we are all depending on that global trade. And then of course, we have the situation where it becomes very dynamic. Certainly COVID is part of that where, for instance, just last week, we started demanding that if you’re a truck driver coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, then you need to be vaccinated. If you come in on a plane, there’s not the same requirement. It becomes really an issue that many truck drivers just don’t want to be vaccinated. We have a truck driver shortage. If anybody knows somebody who wants to be a truck driver, you can actually get a $5,000 referral fee; that’s how much of a truck driver shortage we have. Yet we put regulations onto them. So what happened was we had a supply chain system that was already strained. We could see that when we got to holiday season, how difficult it was to get product through. Then we experienced a volume increase that was tremendous, and that came partially from the pandemic and that instead of traveling, we started spending our money on home electronics and lots of other things. We also had a little bit of a shift in which channel we bought from. We are all cutting up corrugated boxes on the weekend these days, right? Because we buy online. But certainly that’s a big issue. So I think once the pandemic gets resolved, there’s going to be some relief on the labor side. But overall, the labor side has shifted, I think, for good. I think that many people are rethinking their relationship to the labor market. So while we have had some absences due to COVID, there’s also a long-term shift where people are rethinking what they want to work with and do they want to work at all?

MARY HUSS: Now let’s turn to Dr. Sarah Bohn—and welcome to you. SARAH BOHN: I’d like to bring some insights from my research and that of other colleagues on the experience of individuals and families during this recovery, especially with the inflation challenge in mind. Like Dr. Boskin, I have been reflecting on the shape of the recovery. I had been thinking it’s something of a W, that’s kind of petering out with the repeated COVID challenges, but improving over time, and crossing that with something like an S, that reflects the diverging realities of of different segments of our economy and our population during the pandemic, which has sometimes inverted. Economic opportunity has diverged. You really see that if you think about how inflation has affected different consumers. Prices have gone up about 8 percent in the Pacific part of the U.S. since pre-pandemic. Consumers, of course, have varied ability to cushion against that depending on their income and what they spend their money on. Lower-income households tend to spend more of their resources on basic necessities, and especially at the second half of last year, prices of those items were increasing rapidly. So what we did was look at kind of those spending patterns along with price changes, and calculated that in order to maintain the same level of consumption compared to prepandemic, low income families would need to be spending about $3,000 more today for that kind of basic set of goods, and that constitutes about a 10 percent increase in their spending. Higher income families spend more even on basics like food. But overall, we estimated they would see more like an 8 percent increase in their bottom line to maintain their level of spending. So lower income families are facing a higher effective price for the basic goods that

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

they typically purchase. They’re needing to run faster to keep up as inflation is growing. The other diverging reality is the jobs and wages situation. Despite the good jobs report today, leisure and hospitality jobs are still 10 percent behind where they were in February 2020, and it’s a little bit worse in California. It’s important, because this is a low-wage sector, the largest low-wage sector. But this is where this inversion occurs. Wages are up the most in the low-wage sector. They’re up 11 percent. That’s not what you would expect in a sector where we’re still behind in terms of recovering jobs. So [it’s] an indication that we’re in a tight labor market that’s affected not just by the realities of the needs of businesses, but also where workers are choosing to work. The second aspect of this recovery so far that I find important to watch is how these shifts are becoming permanent. You know, we have this idea of a V-shaped recovery of bouncing back or transitory challenges that were occurring, but there are a couple of things that we’re watching that suggest that’s not the case. The first I wanted to point out is the strong demand for goods that we’re seeing among consumers in the U.S. Actually underlying that is a relative decline in the demand for services. This is driving up prices for goods and durables in particular. It’s not clear to me that we’ll return to the pre-pandemic rate of spending on services versus goods. In part that’s because of this workforce challenge that we see in service sectors like leisure and hospitality, but also because where people work and live has shifted. We don’t know how much of that will be permanent. At a minimum, that changes where the demand for service spending will be. For example, potentially less so in urban business districts compared to where we were in early 2020. Related to that is the shift to remote work, and the best estimates that I’m aware of suggest 25 percent of full, paid work days after the pandemic will be done remotely compared to 5 percent beforehand. That is a massive shift. And with a relatively tight labor market, I think those shifts and preferences among workers could become more permanent and could put pressure on wages even in sectors, or especially maybe in sectors where the work can’t be done remotely, like in the transportation sector. Watch the complete 81-minute forecast program at youtube.com/watch?v=QVv_ BmEOJR0&t=1654s

SPECIAL PAYMENT TERMS For peace of mind, your payments are 100% refundable until May 30, 2022

EINSTEIN, ART & A VISIT TO CERN Featuring a Special Visit to the Scientific Research Center at CERN August 27–September 3, 2022

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39 CERN

STUDY LEADER

Jim Alexander is a professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Physics at Cornell University. He is part of a global collaboration conducting data analysis and detector commissioning at the CMS experiment at CERN, searching for signatures of new physics phenomena such as the existence of dark matter.

Itinerary Saturday, August 27

Depart the U.S. for Zürich Sunday, August 28

Zürich, Switzerland

Arrive at Zürich International Airport and transfer to the Glockenhof hotel. For travelers arriving early, there are optional afternoon excursions by train to the summit of Uetliberg for panoramic views of Zürich and the lake 1500 feet below, and by foot through Old Town’s network of cobbled streets, along the banks of the River Limmat, including a stop at the Fraumünster Church to admire the vibrant artistry of Chagall’s stained glass windows that illuminate the choir in primary colors. Or you may choose to spend the afternoon at leisure to relax and recover from jet lag. This evening, meet fellow travelers at a welcome reception at the hotel. HOTEL GLOCKENHOF (R)

Monday, August 29

Zürich

Following breakfast, gather in a private room at the hotel for a welcome orientation and first lecture, followed by a specially arranged visit to the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), the largest Swiss national multi-disciplinary research center. After lunch at the PSI, visit the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) campus for panoramic views of Zürich and to learn about Albert Einstein at the university where he studied and taught— and whose faculty include 20 more Nobel laureates. The evening is at leisure to delight independently in one of Zürich’s many fine restaurants. HOTEL GLOCKENHOF (BL)

Tuesday, August 30

Zürich T Bern

This morning tour the Kunsthaus art museum to see its comprehensive collection of Swiss art and other European masterpieces by the likes of Manet, Magritte, Matisse, Mondrian, Monet, and Munch—merely confining ourselves to the letter M! From there

we depart Zürich for Bern, where we’ll enjoy traditional Swiss fare at a favorite restaurant, followed by a refreshing walking tour of the best-preserved historic town center in Switzerland— a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visit the Einstein House, where Albert Einstein lived while working as a patent examiner and had his miracle year of 1905 when he published four groundbreaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. And tour the Einstein Museum, which features fascinating insights and artifacts pertaining to both his work and personal life. Check in at our luxury hotel, where we’ll continue our lecture series, followed by dinner together at another restaurant gem. BELLEVUE PALACE (BLD)

Wednesday, August 31

Bern T Geneva

In the morning—following the third installment in our fascinating lecture series—depart for Geneva through the craggy mountain and verdant lowland

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022 Zürich Einstein Museum

Zürich

scenery of the Gruyère district, famous for its cheese. Stroll the charming village of Gruyères along the cobblestone street that slopes down from the impressive hilltop castle, past whitewashed shops decorated with flower boxes, flags and hanging wrought iron signs, and savor a traditional raclette luncheon. Arriving in Geneva, tour the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum to learn how local businessman Henri Dunant, shocked to see wounded soldiers left to fend for themselves, inspired a local charity to begin providing relief—identifying themselves with inverted Swiss flags— and then the Swiss parliament to convene international conferences culminating in the Geneva Conventions. Dunant shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. Check in to our hotel just steps from the historic Quai du Mont-Blanc lakeside promenade, and from this central location enjoy an evening at leisure to explore on your own. MANDARIN ORIENTAL (BL)

Thursday, September 1

Geneva

CMS

centuries at the Musée d’Histoire des Sciences housed in Villa Bartholoni, one of Geneva’s most beautiful neoclassical buildings. After lunch at one of Geneva’s fine restaurants, choose between an afternoon at leisure or optional excursions, including a boat tour and walking tour of Old Town, and a visit to the Bodmer Library and Museum in the company of Cornell's European Studies librarian, Sarah How. Martin Bodmer inherited a large fortune and was a scholar, bibliophile, and collector. During World War II, he worked with the Red Cross to get books into the hands of prisoners of war, and served as the vice president of the Red Cross after the war. His collection in the refined suburb of Cologny includes some of the oldest copies of the New Testament, a Gutenberg Bible, a First Folio of Shakespeare, and a copy of Newton’s Principia owned by Leibniz. The final lecture of our series sets up tomorrow’s visit to CERN, then the remainder of the evening is again free to explore Geneva on your own. MANDARIN ORIENTAL (BL)

Friday, September 2

Geneva

This morning, head to CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and one of the most sophisticated centers of scientific research. Special arrangements have been made for private, guided tours and exclusive behind-the-scenes presentations of CERN. Meet with scientists at one of the detectors for a behind-the-scenes look at the site, above ground facilities, and a private talk regarding the ongoing research. After a vigorous discussion of the Standard Model over lunch at the CERN cafeteria, continue on the to the main center of CERN to explore the Microcosms Exhibit and the Universe of Particles Sphere. In the evening, savor reminiscences of all our adventures in Switzerland over our farewell dinner. MANDARIN ORIENTAL (BLD)

Saturday, September 3

Departures

Check out of the hotel and transfer to Geneva International Airport for return flights to the U.S. (B)

View rare and antiquated scientific instruments together with methods and discoveries from the 17th to the 19th

commonwealthclub.org | THE COMMO N WE AL TH Geneva

Bodmer Library

Raclette Fondue

GENERAL INFORMATION PROGRAM RATES Double Occupancy Per Person .............................................................. $7,995 Single Occupancy Supplement .............................................................. $1,500 PROGRAM RATES INCLUDE All accommodations, meals, and excursions as specified in the itinerary, including six hotel nights • Comprehensive program of briefings, lectures, and presentations • Transfers for all participants on group arrival and departure dates • Gratuities to guides, drivers, porters, and wait staff for all group activities • Entrance fees • Welcome wine reception • Baggage handling • House wine, beer, and soft drinks with all group lunches and dinners • Water on motorcoaches • Complete packet of pre-departure information • Professional tour manager throughout the program PROGRAM RATES DO DOT INCLUDE U.S. domestic and international airfare • Passport/visa expenses • Medical expense, immunizations, and Covid-19 testing if required at the time of travel • Travel and trip cancellation insurance • Private transfers or airport transfers outside of group arrival and departure days • Personal excursions or deviations from the scheduled tour • Airline baggage charges • Meals not specified in the itinerary; dishes and beverages not part of the included meals; liquor or soft drinks except as noted • Laundry or dry cleaning • Telephone, fax, internet, and email charges • Room service • Other items of a personal nature AIR ARRANGEMENTS U.S. domestic and international airfare is not included in the program rates. Valerie Wilson Travel, Inc., can help with airline arrangements for this trip and can be reached at 877-376-1754. You are also welcome to book your air transportation through your local travel agent, an online travel site, or the airline of your choice. GROUP SIZE This program is limited to 30 participants, including travelers from Commonwealth Club of California and Cornell’s Adult University. WHAT TO EXPECT This is a moderately active program. Participants are expected to be in good health and capable of walking unassisted over uneven terrain. All participants should be in good health and capable of keeping up with an active group of travelers. TRAVEL INSURANCE Travel insurance for trip cancellation and interruption, medical problems, baggage loss and delay, etc., is highly recommended. Trip cancellation policies that apply are included in this brochure. Information about travel insurance will be sent to confirmed participants. A NOTE ABOUT RATES Tour rates are based upon current fuel prices, currency values, taxes, tariffs, and a minimum number of participants. While we will do everything possible to maintain the listed prices, they are subject to change. If there are significant changes, details and costs will be advised prior to departure TERMS AND CONDITIONS Complete Terms and Conditions including Statement of Responsibility will be made available to you at time of registration, or in advance upon request. A signed “Terms & Conditions, Release from Liability, Assumption of Risk and Binding Arbitration Clause” is required from each applicant prior to participation on the tour.

RESERVATIONS & PAYMENTS A deposit of $1,000 per person is required to reserve space on this program. Final payment is due May 30, 2022 and needs to be by check or bank transfer. For those who register after May 30, 2022, full payment is due upon registration. CANCELLATIONS & REFUNDS Upon payment of the $1,000 per person deposit, all reservations are subject to the cancellation provisions set forth below and by which the passenger agrees to be bound. Cancellations shall not be in effect until they are received in writing and confirmed by Commonwealth Club of California. Deposits are refundable until final payment deadline (May 30, 2022). Cancellations after May 30, 2022: All payments are 100% nonrefundable, regardless of booking date. Trip cancellation insurance is strongly recommended. NOTE: Neither Commonwealth Club of California nor the tour operator accepts liability for any airline cancellation penalties incurred with the purchase of nonrefundable tickets. HEALTH All participants should be in good health and capable of keeping up with an active group of travelers. By forwarding the deposit for passage, the passenger certifies that he/she does not have any physical or other condition or disability that would create a hazard for him/ herself or other passengers. SARSCOV-2 (COVID 19) vaccinations are a requirement for participation on this program. Up-to-date COVID-specific protocols and requirements for this destination will be sent to confirmed participants and are available upon request. Every reasonable effort will be made to operate the program as planned; however, should unforeseen world events and conditions require the itinerary to be altered, the tour operator reserves the right to do so for the safety and best interest of the group. Any extra expenses incurred in this situation are the responsibility of the participant.

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Bern

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AMY KLOBUCHAR Time for a Revival of Antitrust Law MINNESOTA’S SENIOR U.S.

senator explores today’s monopolies and how a marketplace with few players can fuel consumer prices and stifle innovation. Is there consensus in Washington to take on monopolies and reinvigorate antitrust regulation? Excerpted from the January 26, 2022, program “Senator Amy Klobuchar on Antitrust.” AMY KLOBUCHAR, U.S Senator (DMN); Author, Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age In Conversation with SHEERA FRENKEL, Technology Reporter, The New York Times; Co-Author, An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination SHEERA FRENKEL: I’m pleased to be joined by Senator Amy Klobuchar, senior senator from the state of Minnesota and author of the book Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age. We live in a time of enormous income inequality, and many, including Senator Klobuchar, believe that now is the time to take action against our modern monopolies. She wrote Antitrust to help give Americans a comprehensive view of how monopolies have changed over the years and how the government has adapted in response. I’m going to start by asking you a very leading question, which is why is now an exciting time for your paperback to be coming out? AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, because this is a moment where we’re finally starting to see some momentum. Part of it has to do with the fact this has just been going on for

too long. When we got a bill last Thursday through the [Senate] Judiciary Committee, we were literally able to call it the first competition antitrust tech bill to pass through the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor since the dawn of the internet. A bit overly dramatic, but that is in fact the case. And then you had everything from the Facebook whistleblower to just increasing bipartisan support, the administration taking this on with the competition summit, and the clear problem that with our conservative courts basically making it harder and harder as each year goes by to bring cases and enforce the laws, with no changes in Congress, a huge lobbying effort—it was just revealed last week that the tech companies alone spent $70 million last year—and that doesn’t even include the ad campaigns—lobbying against our legislation and similar legislation. And then you also have just a lot of people that don’t like to get involved in controversy. One of the things I’ve noticed is Congress seems to be able to react when there’s an immediate crisis, right? Hurricane, flood financial crisis. We reacted with TARP. And a pandemic—get the funding out? I’m not kidding. It is stuff that is immediate. And then these longer-term problems, like climate change or immigration reform or tech policy seems to be very, very difficult. [It is] very difficult for people to [agree on a policy], especially with 60 votes. So I’m very proud of our bipartisan support and the way our group, which Samantha Bee called the Oceans 11 of co-sponsors, have been able to stick together and not waver when it came to getting a bill done. FRENKEL: I think one of the things your book does really well is give a comprehensive history of this, of why antitrust is so difficult and what are the historic problems here. I know it’s really difficult to try and summarize what took whole chapters into just a couple of minutes. But give people some of that sense.

I don’t think people realize what a long and fascinating history antitrust has in America. KLOBUCHAR: I can put it in perspective, because some of the senators, even at the hearing, would go, “This is going to be really ugly.” And I’m like, “You think I wasn’t ready for that? Look at history.” You go way back to the start of our country, where some of the founding fathers actually wanted to put stuff in here about monopolies, and monopolies were a motivating force, even though the word didn’t end up in the Constitution. Very big, very big force, that literally people came from England to our country because they were entrepreneurs and they didn’t want to sell all their stuff— by the way, including tea purchases—to monopolies; even the Boston Tea Party wasn’t just about taxation without representation, it was also about the fact that they had to deal with a monopoly tea party in the East India Company. So then at one point they said, “Well, don’t worry, the public will take care of this. We don’t have to put this in the Constitution.” It took 100 years, but as these trusts started developing and things got worse and worse, that is when, first of all, Senator Sherman, brother of General Sherman, and friend of Lincoln, got involved. It’s also around the time you see this driving movement, which led to Teddy Roosevelt after Democrats and Republicans started decrying the trusts. State legislatures got into the act, by the way. History repeating itself right here, because you see that happening right now [with tech companies]. They have limited powers, but they start passing stuff and pretty soon the companies go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” We have this patchwork of laws, privacy laws, whatever. Maybe we need a federal law. Maybe we were wrong. And so over time, [Teddy] Roosevelt comes in. He starts busting the trusts, whether it’s Standard Oil, which is actually completed by

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THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

President Wilson, or whether it is financial trusts or whether it’s rail trusts. He starts bringing actions. That continues during the Progressive Era. But then after that, for many other reasons, it kind of drops off for a while, picks up again with the AT&T suit. And that’s kind of the heyday. Then you get to the present, where really for the last like 40 years, nothing has happened—which happens to coincide with the internet. There just have not been any laws passed to get at the problems of our time. Whereas in the past, the Sherman Act passed [in 1890], the Clayton Act passed [in 1914], things happened about every 20 years or so; that’s just not happening right now. So that’s led to a lot of the consolidation, because as Bill Baer, the former head of antitrust under Obama, once said, “There’s deals coming before us that shouldn’t be even getting out of the boardroom.” Because companies are going to test it. That’s what they do. And if there’s no pushback, as Adam Smith said—and I think everyone thinks of him as the godfather of capitalism, “invisible hand”—but he also said the one thing we must fear is the unbridled power of the standing army of monopolies. FRENKEL: I think that when people think about all this—you just mentioned the big tech firms that have emerged just in the last couple of decades—we’re really talking about companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon and Apple. One thing your book did really well was draw home how this affects the consumer, how this affects people at home who depend on companies like Facebook and Google and Amazon, which have really become part of the infrastructure of America and how we live our lives today. I was wondering if you could get a little bit more into why the lack of any kind of updated antitrust regulation has affected the modern-day American consumer. KLOBUCHAR: Let me go start with nontech stuff. I think one of the best examples for me is pharma. This first came to my attention when I had just gotten to the Senate and I got a call from one of our children’s hospitals. I found out that this baby’s heart drug called indomethacin, which had always been competitively priced and was affordable, had completely shot up, like up to $1,600, $1,800 from where it was. It was costing consumers and families, but also the hospitals if the families couldn’t afford it, for a common drug that had a competitor. Well, it turns out that the company that had the competitor, they both basically had been sold to the same

company. I remember holding up the vial of indomethacin as a new senator, “I’m brand new. What should I do?” to the FTC [Federal Trade Commission]. FTC ends up bringing a case [in the] conservative 8th Circuit—which defied a lot of what experts believe about how this should have gone—and [the court] upholds a Republican appointee’s decision. Basically they say “Sorry, can’t do anything about it.” That was unbelievable to me. You didn’t have a competitor emerge for years and years. You saw the same thing basically with EpiPen more recently. I care about this; my daughter carries one of them. And all the moms, of course, of the world, and dads, knew exactly what I was talking about. Again, there was lack of competition because things that had happened with the alternatives, so they just jacked up the price. So in the end, I first saw this as a consumer issue and then quickly realized it’s antitrust. Outside of the prices going up for things, you have other concerns that are much more insidious. That is everything from probably—a positive example, AT&T breakup, right? Everyone thought, “Well, AT&T is fine. This is all going OK. I got my old phone. I got this”—[holds imaginary early cell phone] when the cell phones were the size of Gordon Gekko’s briefcase in the movie Wall Street. And then suddenly, after the breakup, people realized, Wait a minute, my long distance rates can go down, yes. But oh, there’s [also] all these new innovations in the cell phone market.” So I bring up that innovation point because sometimes you just think, OK, what I got, it’s OK. And you don’t realize innovations that can actually make your life better. Like, maybe if Facebook hadn’t bought Instagram and WhatsApp, they would have eventually responded to the market demands for better privacy, for better protections for kids and the like. And you don’t know that because they bought them, because in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, I’ d rather buy than compete— those were his words in an email. A lot of times [people] talk about price. That’s true. But there are other things that in the long term, big monopolies cut out a lot of innovations and bells and whistles. And especially in the tech area, that would be good for consumers. But the most obvious examples are online travel—two companies owned like 90 percent of it. I think it was John Oliver who said that it’s everything from cat food to caskets, and he ended his piece by saying, “And if this makes you want to die, good luck,

because there’s only three casket makers.” And I told him, “No, I’m sorry, one bought the other. There’s only two.” So we’re seeing it all across the economy, not just in tech. FRENKEL: You’ve obviously been working on this since you were a first-term senator. Our antitrust policies have changed over the course of your career and specifically over the course of writing a book. Because I know when you’re writing a book, you get to just live in these ideas for months and months at a time. Did the process of doing that and putting together this book make you reevaluate how you yourself were thinking about what change we need? KLOBUCHAR: I think my views pretty much stayed the same going back to when I was a young lawyer working. I represented MCI, and this was after the breakup, but they were still trying to get in the market against the monopoly local carriers, and it was just an ongoing saga in front of the public utility commissions across the country. So that was my first introduction to this. I saw it as more [a matter of ] just these companies fighting each other. Then I get to the Senate and I start seeing the pharma stuff I just told you about. Then to me, it’s like all a consumer issue. Then, as I keep looking at why this is going wrong, we’re so used to maybe the court stepping in, like with the AT&T case—this isn’t happening. I had [Brett] Kavanaugh in front of me at the Judiciary Committee, I had [Neil] Gorsuch in front of me, and when I asked them questions, their views [were] almost like, “Hey, look at me,” when they would write these really, really conservative interpretations of the antitrust law. It was almost a calling card with the Federalist Society to say, “Hey, look, I wrote this weird opinion, now can I make it?” I really believe this, because some of them were just unnecessary, like one dissent with all the judges. And when I asked some questions about this, it even made it worse. And that has been borne out, especially with Gorsuch. Kavanaugh had one decision where he actually sided with some of the other judges, but for the most part, they are not going to suddenly look at the antitrust laws [as they should]. You know, what bugs me about this so much is that they’re supposed to be looking at original intent. If you look at their judicial views, if you look at original intent of the Sherman Act, there’s no way they would have thought—they never knew what the internet would be—but that one company should have 90 percent of the search market. All right. So the point of all of this is that

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“ADAM SMITH SAID THE ONE THING WE MUST FEAR IS THE UNBRIDLED POWER OF THE STANDING ARMY OF MONOPOLIES.” —AMY KLOBUCHAR

over time, I saw what we were up against. That over time changed what I saw as some of the solutions, because it was no longer just courts. It was also we need to look at the antitrust laws and start updating them for the times that we live in. We need to get more resources to the agencies, big time, because they’re dealing with record mergers and they’ve got these big cases against Google and Facebook. And we also need to look at things that I honestly hadn’t been willing to look at before, like immunity [in which the companies] are protected from any lawsuits. I’ve started to realize as time goes on, even during the last two years, if they’re going to resist every single thing, even bills like mine that say you can’t self-preference your stuff, and why would they have immunity? Because clearly they’re not going to allow for any sensible government regulation, basically we can only rely on the private system to police them if they’re going to do this. So I’m still not there 100 percent on a bill like that. I’m still waiting to see. As I would say to [my dad] when we were on bike trips cross-country, I was waiting to see if he would improve before I would take the lead on the bike, then I could draft behind him. So I’m waiting to see if something changes. But so far it’s been to me nearly flabbergasting knowing what we’re up against and how hard

they’re lobbying to not put any rules of the road in place. FRENKEL: We’re going to get to your bill in a little bit and just the events of the day— KLOBUCHAR: You notice I keep bringing it up, OK? In the book, I lay out all these solutions, including the bill. I have the list of things a new president—that President Biden—can do. Who you put in place, I have a list of things Congress can do, and I have a list of things the public can do. It’s not just some book of history. I knew what we were coming into. And the other piece I realized looking at history and applying it to the modern day is what really made change were these populist movements. And they would not be Democrats by any means. But they were the farmers with the pitchforks and the Granger movement. They were the union activists agitating against monopolies because that pushes down wages. And so I think we’re seeing that today it’s not with the pitchforks, right? But there are a lot of farmers complaining about what’s going on with meatpacking and the like. There are a lot of, in today’s world, less organized groups, but real sentiment against this kind of consolidation and what’s happening with pharma, what’s happening with tech. I think the Facebook whistleblower really turned a key. One of the moms I talked to

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said that she’s trying to learn all of this, and she basically wants to raise her kids and be a good mom. But they keep being exposed to stuff all the time [online] that she doesn’t want them to see. So she keeps trying to put filters on and do all this, and then they figure out their way around it. And then she has to go to her oldest kid to help her figure out what to do. She says it feels like a faucet that’s on full time in her sink and it’s running over and she just has a mop and she keeps trying to clean it up. I think that’s how a lot of parents feel right now. FRENKEL: Just to back up for a minute for people who are listening, we’re talking about Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. She worked at the company for several years. She previously worked at Google. She was an expert on things like how the algorithms— how Facebook’s News Feed—feed you certain types of information, and how that’s been leading to misinformation and hate speech. One of the most interesting things she said that really stuck with people was how the company makes a decision. She claims the company makes a decision constantly to keep certain things in the News Feed that keep your attention, even knowing that those things might lead you to misinformation or hate speech or other unfortunate things, because its bottom line is its profit and it needs to keep you online as much as possible. I know people like Mark Zuckerberg disagree heavily with what Frances Haugen had to say, and he is the first person to say “I welcome regulation” and “We want nothing more than regulation.” I’m curious if you could walk us through, in the eyes of Mark Zuckerberg, what does regulation look like, versus in the eyes of someone like you who’s got a bill that you’re trying to pass right now? KLOBUCHAR: They have made noises— this is Facebook, I’m not going to speak for the other companies because I’ve been on programs following some of their spokespeople, and they have said they’re open to privacy legislation. And that is of course different than antitrust. But I’m a big fan of doing a federal privacy law. I think it would depend on what it looks like, what are the standards and things like that? That’s something Senator [Maria] Cantwell [D-WA] and I and a few others have a bill [to address], and I don’t think it’s the one they want, but I’m not going to speak for them. But they’ve been open to that. They’ve been open to talking about their algorithms in terms of [privacy]. Nick Clegg [head of global affairs and

“IRONICALLY, MY WAY OF DOING THIS IS ARGUABLY THE MOST MARKET-BASED APPROACH.” —AMY KLOBUCHAR

communications at Meta, Facebook’s parent company]—I remember this, because I was on after he was at one point—and he said, “Well, you know, we’re open to having that looked at.” So my issue on the algorithms is that yeah, people are going to make hate comments or misinformation, individuals are going to put that online. OK; but the problem with the algorithms, it then becomes to me the responsibility of the company, because if their algorithms are reinforcing and spreading it, that’s a problem. And I made the analogy that it’s like if you’re in a theater and someone yells “fire,” that’s not protected speech, because it’s not known as protected speech. OK, but let’s say the theater has all their exits that are safe, and so if there’s someone [who] breaks an ankle or something, is it really the theater that’s liable? Probably not. But what if the theater decided to broadcast it in all their multiplexes? So it created this complete stampede in every single theater? To me, that is different. Their business product created a bigger problem than what it was in the first place. So that gets to our immunity issue, and I know that they don’t want to mess around with that. And the other thing that all of the tech companies can seem concerned about is just putting some rules of the road to make sure that they’re not producing their own products that they give preference to. They can produce their own products—Apple Music, you know, Google Maps, whatever they’re doing—but how come when they have, in the case of Google, 90 percent of the search market, would we, as a country, want them to also produce the products that they give preference to over everything

else. That is getting to like the AT&T world from the past, where they had a monopoly vertically over all the machinery and then horizontally over all the phone service? So Google has a monopoly—this 90 percent, I think that qualifies—over the search engine. But then are we also going to let them have a monopoly over everything that’s under it, that’s advertised on there? We can let them produce. We’re not saying they can’t. Maybe a court would at some point say you shouldn’t even be doing this. But all we’re trying to do right now is say, “If you do it, you cannot compete unfairly against other advertisers and other companies.” So to me, those kinds of things which the companies say they’re open to can be very different, as you can tell, from where I think we need to go. The last thing I think we need to do is to just do a bunch of stupid stuff that doesn’t mean anything. “Oh, why don’t we do a study?” What more do we need to study? We know what the numbers are. So one of my obsessions is I’m tired of people doing feelgood legislation to say they did something on the internet when it won’t make a difference. Some of my more aggressive ideas, about doing something about mergers and shifting the burden—right now I’ve got some bills on it with a number of senators, but I don’t have the kind of support I have for the rules of the road. So in the book, I lay out all these possibilities of things, including things about non-compete agreements and the like. And then through the real life, that’s a little different with what you can actually get support on to move. . . . FRENKEL: What kind of antitrust laws do

we need to stop just a handful of companies from cornering the market, as they’ve done to date successfully on the internet, which is where all of us increasingly spend our time? K LOBUCH A R : They f ight a lmost everything. So that also makes it seem very complicated to people. But the lane that mostly we’re in with antitrust is the lane about competition. And there is an argument of why it can help in the other lanes. [The reason] honestly is that if you have true competition—so that you don’t have one company with 90 percent or 70 percent or whatever—then that’s what I meant about the bells and whistles. One of the ways you have competition is for price, but it’s also for what you can get out of the product. Can you actually have a real platform where you’re communicating, where you know who you’re communicating with, or you can’t have fake people? Can you have a real platform that’s protecting kids [from] bad stuff? They can’t be on there, because you know who is registered? That’s successful and has real money behind it? The competition is not just the government saying, “You have to do it this way.” It’s saying, “Let’s let competition flourish by putting some road rules on. Let’s listen to Adam Smith about the unbridled power of monopolies.” And then if history is a guide, we will get more success in terms of the bells and whistles through the private sector. So ironically, after all that’s said, my way of doing this is arguably kind of the most market-based approach. And yet it involves government stepping in, but it’s to promote a competitive markets.

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AVI LOEB

Detection of an extra-solar object set off a heated debate about alien civilizations.

BRIAN HACKNEY: We would like to for somebody who ended up as chair of the of course, I’m connected to nature, meaning thank Wunderfest for partnering with us Harvard astronomy department, you weren’t that I would like to understand the reality on tonight’s program. It is a real pleasure to that interested in astronomy when you were we all share. In particular, I want to look through the window and figure out if we welcome our guest, Dr. Avi Loeb, bestselling young. Is that right? author of Extraterrestrial The First Sign LOEB: Yeah, that’s correct. You can think have smarter kids on our block. We can of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. Over the of me more as a farm boy than as a Harvard argue forever sitting on the sofa, whether course of his career, Dr. Loeb has authored astronomer. That would be a better title, we are the smartest in the world. But in my more than 700 articles and produced because I grew up on a farm, and that led view, Albert Einstein was probably not the smartest scientist that ever lived since the pioneering research on black holes, gamma to two things. ray bursts and the early universe. But his First, I was connected to nature much Big Bang. Most stars formed billions of years provocative stance on the first known more than to people. So I don’t have any before the sun. And there must have been a interstellar object to visit our solar system footprint on social media right now. I don’t scientist smarter than Einstein that lived on has raised more than a few eyebrows. care how many likes they get on Twitter. And another planet far away, probably more than a billion years ago. And that In short, after decades of civilization that benefited from searching for evidence for the wisdom of that scientist extraterrestrial intelligence, could have sent equipment this Har vard astronomer astronomer doesn’t seem to think so. Avi Loeb takes us and the vehicles that survey suggests that the evidence inside the thrilling story of the first interstellar visitor to the entire Milky Way galaxy, has found us. be spotted in our solar system. He challenges us to think that may be around us. And It’s a real pleasure, as one critically about what’s out there, no matter how strange the only way to find out is by who ground the lens for his it seems. From the February 22, 2022 program “Avi Loeb: own telescope when I was in looking through our windows Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.” high school, to say, Dr. Loeb, rather than arguing. AVI LOEB, Chair, Harvard University’s Department of welcome and thank you for So that’s one thing that I Astronomy; Author, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of making time for us today. learned from my childhood— Intelligent Life Beyond Earth AVI LOEB: Thank you so to maintain my curiosity. much for hosting me. B e c au s e t he mo s t v i v id In Conversation with BRIAN HACKNEY, Anchor and HACKNEY: Interestingly, Meteorologist, CBS5/KPIX memory I have is sitting at the

ARE WE ALONE? HARVARD’S TOP

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‘OUMUAMUA PHOTO BY ESO/M ; LOEB PHOTO BY OLIVIA FALCIGNO.

dinner table asking a difficult question. And the adults in the room would dismiss the question simply because they didn’t know the answer. So I thought by going into science, I will be able to figure out answers to my questions. The second thing I got from my childhood was the love of the big questions. That was the love of philosophy. I was very much into philosophy, except I grew up in Israel, and then there is the obligatory service in the military at age 18. I had two choices—either to pursue physics, which meant intellectual pursuit closer to philosophy, or to run in the field with a gun attached to my back. And I prefer the first option. As a result, I ended up with a Ph.D. in physics at age 24, and then I was offered a postdoc fellowship at Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Study, that led to a faculty position at Harvard. And that by the time I got tenured at Harvard, even though I felt it was an arranged marriage, I realized that I’m married to my true love, because in

there was an object heading our way that came from outside the Solar System. And a few months later, it was announced. It was exciting to me, because a decade earlier I wrote the first paper that forecasted how many rocks from other planetary systems like the solar system we should expect to detect with this telescope. And the answer was none. So the fact that we detected it was quite exciting. But of course astronomers said, “Oh, well, it’s probably a comet,” because comets are those icy rocks that exist in the outskirts of the solar system. So they are very loosely bound to the sun. Every now and then one of them comes close to the sun, the ice evaporates, you end up with a cometary tail, a trail of gas and dust following around the object. There was nothing around this object that looked like a comet we have seen before. So the unusual thing is it didn’t look like a comet, didn’t look like an asteroid, just the bare rock. So it was really remarkable that

the size of a football field, that could come very close to Earth or hit it, because we still have a trauma from 66 million years ago when the dinosaurs went extinct. The Chicxulub impactor basically created the catastrophe here on Earth, and we want to avoid that. So unlike the dinosaurs that were very arrogant and were not very smart, they couldn’t design telescopes, we can warn ourself, and that’s what the Pan-STARRS telescope was aiming to do. So it was looking for objects moving roughly at the speed that we expect from objects in the Solar System. Then came ‘Oumuamua, which means “scout” in the Hawaiian language, and it was moving faster but not much faster. It’s possible there are objects moving close to the speed of light astronomers would never find them because they would think, “Oh, something is wrong with the telescope.” They’re not sampling the sky that often. So what I’m saying is we were looking for something familiar. Then we saw something

“WHO KNOWS HOW MANY OTHER OBJECTS ARE OUT THERE? BECAUSE WE COULD SEE ONLY AN OBJECT THE SIZE OF A FOOTBALL FIELD?” —AVI LOEB astrophysics, you can ask big questions. And one of them is, Are we the smartest kid on the block? HACKNEY: Let’s get into that. A lot of folks who are watching and listening tonight and seeing it on the web later won’t really have a basic idea of what’s covered in your book, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence or the evidence for what began on September 6, 2017. Can we begin there? And can you explain what happened beginning on that date? LOEB: In October 2017, the first object from outside the solar system was noticed near Earth by a telescope in Hawaii on Mt. Haleakalā. The telescope is called PanSTARRS. Actually, I visited that observatory a few months earlier. We didn’t know that

the first object we find from outside the Solar System does not look like anything we have seen before. HACKNEY: There’s a reason I mentioned September 6; I think that was when the object intersected the solar plane. I had to step back and think—we had never before seen anything in our Solar System of extrasolar origin, something from outside of our solar system. So this was a first. LOEB: Right. The way we could tell if it came from outside the solar system is that it was moving too fast to be bound to the sun. We were looking at the time [for objects]. The Pan-STARRS telescope was designed to find objects that may hit the Earth. NASA was tasked by the U.S. Congress to find 90 percent of all objects bigger than 140 meters,

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that came from outside the Solar System. So the first assumption would be to say it came from another star that has rocks around it, just like the Sun has. It didn’t look like those rocks that we have seen before in the Solar System, so that was by itself remarkable. Who knows how many other objects are out there? Because we could see only an object the size of a football field. And NASA never launched any spacecraft as big as a football field. There might be a lot of smaller objects passing by. We just don’t know. HACKNEY: So you determined just from its trajectory, from its velocity and from its hyperbolic orbit, that this was from outside the solar system. This is October 2017. It was a tiny, tiny little speck on the Pan-STARRS telescope image. When did you first go,

“Wait a minute, there’s something unusual that’s happening with this object?” LOEB: That was in June 2018, when a team of astronomers reported that this object is pushed away from the Sun by some mysterious force. Now, it didn’t have a cometary tail, therefore it wouldn’t be the rocket effect that you see in comets. So the question was, What is pushing it? If it’s just bare rock that is not evaporating, how come it’s being pushed away from the sun? In addition to that, we knew that the amount of sunlight ref lected from the object changed by a factor of 10 as it was tumbling every eight hours. That meant that the object has an extreme shape, and when trying to fit the variation of light, the best fit was obtained with an object that is flat, pancake shaped. Not like that cartoon image that an artist produced of a cigar-shaped object. It was more like a piece of paper tumbling in the wind. And when you look at the piece of paper sideways, even though it’s flat, you see it like a cigar.

we would predict.OK, that happens with comets. And yet this was not comet-like.” Correct? LOEB: Right. Also, if you wanted to give it the appropriate push using standard cometary evaporation, about a tenth of the mass of this object had to evaporate. So a substantial fraction of it. And we will definitely see it if it was a regular comet. The Spitzer Space Telescope looked very carefully around this object and didn’t find any traces of carbon-based molecules. So the limits were very tight, and it couldn’t be a standard comet. So what did my colleagues do? They said it must be a natural object. After I said it may be artificial, they said, no, it must be natural. And there was actually a group of experts—and I call them experts quote-unquote—because they insisted that it must be natural in a review paper that was published in the Nature Astronomy magazine, a very prestigious journal. A few months later, some other team said,

get heated by hundreds of degrees and would not maintain its integrity. So then there was another suggestion, maybe it’s a nitrogen iceberg that was shipped off the surface of a planet like Pluto. And the problem there is the mass budget. There is just not enough solid nitrogen available in the entire Milky Way galaxy to make a large population of chips such that we will see one of them. So for each of these cases, there was an issue. And I suggested that it’s a very thin object that reflects sunlight and therefore gets pushed. And in September 2020, three years later, there was another object discovered by the same telescope in Hawaii, and it was given the name 2020 S.O., and it shared the same qualities as ‘Oumuamua in the sense that it was pushed away from the sun by reflecting sunlight, no cometary tail. But within a few weeks, the astronomers realized, “Oh, actually, if we traced the trajectory back in time, it came from Earth.” It’s actually a rocket booster from 1966,

“IT DIDN’T HAVE A COMETARY TAIL, THEREFORE IT WOULDN’T BE THE ROCKET EFFECT YOU SEE IN COMETS. SO WHAT IS PUSHING IT?” —AVI LOEB So that’s why the artist had that impression. But the point is this was a very unusual object in terms of its shape. And then it was pushed away, and at that point I said to myself, Well, it’s just too much. I said, What could push it? Then the only thing I could think of is the reflection of sunlight. But in order for that to be effective, the object had to be very thin. HACKNEY: Ordinarily, we would think— and I think that some other scientists believe—that the object was comet-like in that somehow material is boiling off of this as it does off of comets and give it a little bit of a push. But what you’re saying is this object was deviating from plain old Newtonian mechanics. And you’re going, “Ah, this is not following the trajectory

“Oh yeah, it is possibly natural. As long as it’s made of pure hydrogen.” Because hydrogen is transparent, we can’t see it, so it evaporates. And perhaps that’s what it is. A chunk of frozen hydrogen. A hydrogen iceberg. We’ve never seen something like that. We don’t know if nature makes hydrogen icebergs. But I wrote a paper afterwards saying such an iceberg would evaporate very quickly. Hydrogen can evaporate just by absorbing starlight, and it wouldn’t survive the journey. So then another team said maybe it’s a cloud of dust particles that is very lightweight and then 100 times less dense than air, and it just floats out there and reflects sunlight and therefore getting pushed. The only problem there is when it gets close to the Sun, it would

that NASA launched and it had thin walls. We know that we produced it, therefore it’s artificial. So the question that came to my mind is, Who produced ‘Oumuamua? The way I thought about this entire experience of my colleagues arguing it must be natural without knowing what natural means and then coming up with another rock of a type that we have never seen before—it reminded me of a story of cave dweller that finds a cell phone. When the cave dweller looks at the cell phone, he would say, “Well, it’s shiny, doesn’t look like any rock I’ve seen before. So, you know, maybe it’s the rock of a type I’ve never seen before.” But of course, if he presses a button, he would realize that it can record his voice and then it’s not a rock.

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“I’M JUST SAYING SCIENTISTS SHOULD ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE NATURE OF THESE OBJECTS. THAT IS AN OBLIGATION THAT WE OWE TO SOCIETY.” —AVI LOEB If you think about the cave dweller visiting New York City or Manhattan, after that experience coming back to the tribe, that cave dweller will talk about what had been seen but would not be able to reproduce that. Then it would be like magic. I mean, it will become a myth, a story, a legend. And for us to understand what another technological civilization might have produced a billion years ago, it might be very challenging. But the first thing for us to do is figure out whether it’s natural or artificial in origin. HACKNEY: Are we likely to gather any more evidence about ‘Oumuamua, or have we gathered all the evidence there is to gather? LOEB: Well, the problem is, by now, it’s 1 million times fainter than [when] it was close to us. So we can’t really see it, and we cannot chase it, it’s too far away. HACKNEY: Yeah, I’m thinking more about going back and canvasing all of the satellites, everything that we had that might have intersected its field of vision. LOEB: Well, that was done. And that’s the information we have. It’s just not enough. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. In my case, a picture is worth 66,000 words. The number of words in my book,

Extraterrestrial. I wouldn’t need to write that book if we had just the single image of this object of the type that the artist illustrated. That’s actually my objective right now. I’m leading a project called the Galileo Project, and one of its goals is to design a space mission that will rendezvous with the next ‘Oumuamua. It’s sort of like going on a date, and you like the person, but then the person disappears. OK, so then you’re trying to date the next ‘Oumuamua. And that could be expensive, actually, because sending a space mission to come close to the next ‘Oumuamua would cost at least half a billion dollars. So you have to select very well who you are dating, but that’s within the realm of possibilities. And that’s what the Galileo project aims to do. That’s one branch of the Galileo project. There is a second branch which is to study objects closer to Earth, that the government was talking about in a report delivered by the director of national intelligence to Congress in June 2021. And as a result of that, President Biden signed into law in December 2021, a new office in government that will start operations in June this year. So the government is putting money into the

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assembly of data on unusual objects that it cannot figure out the nature of. And I’m just saying scientists should attempt to explain the nature of these objects. This is an obligation that we owe to society, to the government, to figure out, to clear up the fog, to use telescopes to get more data. It’s not a philosophical question. It’s just a question of getting better data. Just like Galileo Galilei argued. [He] told the philosophers at the time four centuries ago, “Look through my telescope and you’ll realize that the Earth moves around the sun.” And they said, “No, we don’t need your telescope,” and they put him in house arrest. Today they would have canceled him on social media. My point is it doesn’t really matter what these philosophers said. If you were to ask them to design a mission that will get to Mars, they will never get there because they thought that Mars moves around the Earth. So reality is whatever it is. Nobody remembers those philosophers today, even though they were much more powerful politically relative to Galileo at the time. Reality is what everything is. If we don’t look through our windows, our neighbors will not go away.

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AL SHAR

SHERYL DAVIS: Reverend Sharpton, I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk to you and to be in your presence and have this conversation. So thank you so much for your time today. AL SHARPTON: Thank you, Sheryl, and I’m very happy that you’re hosting it, and I look for ward to a ver y robust a nd informative conversation. DAVIS: I have to tell you, recently a dear friend of mine who is assessor-recorder in San Francisco, Joaquín Torres, told me about . . . some of James Cone’s books and I’ve been reading them. I’m going through your book and I’m having flashbacks of, you know, the gospel as Black Power or Black Power as gospel, or the pedagogy. You know, this idea of the press. So I have so many questions. And at the same time, I recently read some of the the sermons and Strength to Love by Dr. King. And so to know that you are rooted and grounded in that truth is just all throughout this book, I can’t tell you how many times I did have moments of emotion. As we start, I just wanted to ask you [if] the process of writing this was in some way therapeutic or cathartic? SHARPTON: Yeah, it was cathartic in the sense that I say early in the book that in the middle of the George Floyd movement, I was asked to do the eulogy at his funeral in Minneapolis. When it happened his family and attorney Ben Crump had reached out to me and I had gone into Minneapolis with some of the marches and rallies, and then they asked me would I come back and do the funeral. And in the middle of the

Untold Stories from the Social Justice Movement

COVER STORY

eulogy, Sheryl, for whatever reason, it just came out of my mouth, “We need to go to Washington. We need to march. We need to deal with this.” Now you have to remember we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Even at the funeral, people had to be distanced. And I just announced this march. Martin Luther King III was on the front row. He and I worked together very cooperatively, the National Action Network [NAN] and we worked with his group, the Drum Major Institute. And he looked to me like, “What is he talking about, march to Washington? We have no plans. We have no budget. Does NAN have the ability to do it?” But we pulled it of f inside of 60 days, 200,000 people; [we took their]

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temperatures as they came around the Lincoln Memorial. And they came to get me out of the tent where we had the families— we had Ahmaud Arbery’s family there, we had George Floyd’s family, we had Eric Garner’s family, about 15 families there in the tent—and they were going to walk with us to the stage where I was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As I was walking, you see all these hordes of people and there was an old man, look like he’s in his eighties, jumping up and down in the crowd with something in his hand. And for whatever reason, it caught my eye. I looked at the security guys, I said “Look at that old man, what is he trying to tell us?” I said, “Get that old man.” They brought

RPTON MANY ACTIVISTS HAVE

become prominent figures in the historical struggle for equal rights, but not nearly enough of them have gotten this attention. Al Sharpton, civil rights leader, MSNBC host and politician, joined us to tell their stories. From the January 19, 2022 program “Rev. Al Sharpton: Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement.” AL SHARPTON, Host, MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation”; Baptist Minister; Author, Righteous Troublemakers: Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement in America

him over to me, and he showed me it was a button. The button said “March on Washington—Freedom.” He said “There’s a button from 1963, I was here in ’63 for the March on Washington, with Dr. King, and I wanted to be here with you today.” And I love the man, and he went back into the crowd—and it haunted me, Sheryl. I said, “It’s guys like that—I don’t know how they paid to get to Washington, I don’t know where they stayed in a hotel, I don’t know whether they ate—it’s people like that that make movements. And nobody ever talks about them.” And that’s why I decided that

PHOTO BY MICHAEL FROST.

In Conversation with SHERYL DAVIS, Executive Director, San Francisco Human Rights Commission

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“IN MANY WAYS, WE’RE TROUBLE BREAKERS—CALLED TROUBLE MAKERS— ON A RIGHTEOUS CALL.” —AL SHARPTON

I wanted to write about people that I know who did a notable thing, but never got limelight. And that’s why I’m calling them righteous troublemakers. Many of us are troublemakers, but we get media, we get some notoriety. But righteous people are those that go and know no one is going to call their name. They don’t go home to see if they’re on the evening news. They don’t pick up the paper the next day and see if they’re in the San Francisco Chronicle. They’re there for the cause. And I wanted to tell some of their stories. DAVIS: I was moved by that description. I can see you walking into the crowd as you were describing that in the book—the line where you say “We came to stop trouble,” like that idea of righteous troublemakers. When you are trying to stop it, you’re causing trouble for somebody else is good trouble, as John Lewis would say. SHARPTON: Right. And see, I think the the old way of naming people troublemakers is like saying your knee on a man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds is not trouble. But if I come to town and say, “Let’s march,” that’s trouble. Or chasing the guy jogging in Brunswick, Georgia and killing him, that’s no trouble. But if we come in for a trial, there’s trouble. So even the idea of what is a troublemaker [is important]. And in many ways, we’re trouble breakers called trouble makers on a righteous call. DAVIS: It’s really a narrative shift of sorts, right? You are changing how we see that, how we do that and how we respect it in so many ways. In the [book], one of the stories there is about Darnella Frazier [who video recorded the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis]. You unpack it and you just see the humanity of people, but also the vulnerability and how they put themselves out there for the good of the people, and that people are doing that

COVER STORY

every day and it just has gone unnoticed. SHARPTON: You look at Darnella Frazier, for example. The young lady who filmed [the attack]—the original video did not come from the police body camera. It came from Darnella Frazier, who was taking her little niece to the store and she saw this police officer with his knee on George Floyd’s neck. [She] had started filming and started filming it on a cell phone, made others stop and start filming it. She just innately felt this is wrong. What is going on here? She didn’t study political science somewhere. She wasn’t a member of my group National Action Network or the NAACP. She’s just an ordinary girl that said “Wait a minute. This is wrong. Let me record this.” I don’t even think she knew what she was going to do with the recording. I remember when we came up to the repast after the funeral in Minneapolis and I met Darnella and her mother. They had to move out of their house and to a motel because they were under threat. Can you imagine? This young lady filmed a policeman who ended up convicted of murder, and they threaten her like she did something wrong? I wanted to tell her story, because it showed a real courage that this young lady had. And she stood up. I don’t believe there would have been a George Floyd case conviction if it wasn’t for Darnella Frazier. DAVIS: You talk a little bit about the changing of the tides, and I do want to say this part here [that] really struck me,

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

when you say, “God lifted up these sacrificial lambs so we could do His bidding in their names and in their honor,” just how heavy that weight is and how these people stepped into that and to do that. You talk about there have been people that did the videos and filming before without necessarily the same support that Darnella ended up with. SHARPTON: Exactly right. For example, when attorney [Ben] Crump and Philonise Floyd—who was one of George’s brothers— called me right after it happened, they asked me would I go to Minneapolis and try to help organize, because they didn’t want to see the rioting. And it was only a day or so after George had been killed. Immediately, I thought of Eric Garner’s mother; because Eric Garner, who was choked by New York City policemen and killed, they never indicted those guys. They never got to court. And there was a film, there was a video, 12 times with Eric Garner saying, “I can’t breathe” and a policeman kept him in that chokehold. And I’ve thought about Eric’s murder, and I said, “Man, it’s a pandemic.” I called Miss Gwen Carr, who’s the mother of Eric Garner, and I said, “Gwen, did you see this video out of Minneapolis?” She said, “I saw it.” I said, “I’m trying to find a way to get there,” because it’s the pandemic; a lot of flights have been canceled. She said. “My bag’s already packed. Let me know.” And I [contacted a] Black billionaire, and I said, “I know you know about what happened in Minneapolis. Would you do me a favor and let me use your private plane?” He said “It’ll be there 10 in the morning and take you where you want to go.” And she and I flew in his plane going to the first rally. And Tyler Perry gave us a bigger plane to bring the family in from Houston. Because what a lot of people didn’t know

“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I NEED YOUR ACCEPTANCE? THE QUESTION IS WHETHER I WANT TO BE IN YOUR COMPANY.” —AL SHARPTON

is that George was the only family member in Minneapolis. All of the brothers and sisters lived in Houston or North Carolina, so we had to bring them in. So we had the logistics of we’re moving in a pandemic, we’re doing all it is as people are all over the world starting to march, and we’re trying to stay focused on taking care of the family. The one thing people don’t understand is that when a policeman is accused of a crime or violating policy, they have the union to back them up, and the union provides them with resources and lawyers, and they need therapy, whatever they need. The victims don’t have any of that. So what National Action Network tries to do is be that institution for the victim. Help move them around, help them if they need somebody to give them some advice on how to handle interviews and logistics, many of them have to take off work so we try to give them funds so they can pay their bills. You can’t fight an institution like a police union as an individual, you need another institution to do that. Some people think I just come in and jump on TV and that’s that. We do everything for them that the unions do to the police. DAVIS: I really appreciated you making this distinction about your own self-worth and this idea that at some point in time, you arrive to a place where other folks think that their validation now makes you feel like you are more important. I love your response to them, like you haven’t decided whether you want to be accepted by them. I think that that is important in this work, the self-validation and self-worth that you bring to the space. SHARPTON: You’ve got to figure out early in your life what are your values and what’s important to you. I remember Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, who was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. She got up at a rally one night and stunned me. She said

that she never will forget Mark Twain said the two most important moments in your life is the moment you were born and the moment you find out why you were born. I told her “I never thought I’d hear you in the middle of a rally in Ferguson [quoting] Mark Twain.” But it’s an appropriate quote, because people shunned us as activists marching about police brutality, marching about racial violence, marching about affirmative action, marching about LGBTQ rights. Once I ran for president and became host of a TV show and all that, they said, “Well, you know, we can accept certain things” [you marched about]. Well, first of all, I’m still marching. I’m still doing the rallies. I’m still doing the eulogies. I’m not stopping anything I did. And what makes you think I need your acceptance? The question is whether I want to be in your company. I don’t understand how intelligent people could be faced with these kinds of social crises and not be involved and have this elitist attitude like they can judge who is acceptable. Well, keep me on the unacceptable level if that’s the price I have to pay. DAVIS: You talk about that in the same spirit with Colvin and Parks, right? This idea of who’s acceptable, who we’re able to kind of use to advance the work. And even when you talk about Josiah Williams, this idea of we’re all needed in this work. SHARPTON: You know, when I wrote about Claudette Colvin, many people—I would venture to say most people—don’t know that there was this young lady in Montgomery, Alabama, that refused to give up her seat in front of the bus nine months before Rosa Parks did in Montgomery. And the Black community leadership—many preachers—did not want to try and make a symbol out of Claudette because she was dark skinned and she was pregnant and wasn’t married. So in came the class thing, and I don’t

think a lot of times, Sheryl, we want to talk about some of the class stuff that we have in our own community. Rosa Parks was inspired by Claudette; did it nine months later; she was light-skinned, married. She was the model. Fred Gray, who was a lawyer for Rosa Parks, was also the lawyer for Claudette. He was beyond that. And one of the reasons why that story hit home to me: I didn’t come from a family of preachers. Many of the ministers that had been in civil rights are the second, third or fourth generation preachers. My father was not that; and my father left when I was 10, and my mother had to raise me on welfare and food stamps, my sister and I. So I didn’t have the pedigree and the lineage of a lot of the high profile civil rights leaders had before me. I remember when I was 18, a guy joined my youth group. He got killed. His daddy was a big entertainer. Daddy took me like his son. He was James Brown, the godfather of soul. I remember a lot of the ministers I was around [working on] civil rights looked down on James Brown, he was “Gut Bucket.” And they were this refined thing. But James Brown was who we liked. So I think that what I wanted to raise there was all of this “You’ve got to qualify to be a victim” and “qualify to be a leader”— James Brown had made an appointment to go to the White House to lobby for Martin Luther King’s birthday to be a holiday—in 1982. And on the plane, James Brown said to me, “Reverend?” I said, “Yes.” He never called everybody by this surname. He never called them by their first name. He was very much into you got be respect. And I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “I want you to do your hair like mine. I want people to see you. You’re like my son, made a connection to me.” And I did. And I kept my hair like this all my life since then, because this is the

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“I’M A BAPTIST MINISTER. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T WORK WITH PEOPLE THAT ARE MUSLIM OR ATHEIST.” —AL SHARPTON

first man in my life that validated that I was worth something. He wanted me to be like him, one of the biggest entertainers in the world. He gave me what my father didn’t. . . . I say all that to say that it was getting beyond this needing for acceptance and validation for others that also inspired me to write this book about Claudette Colvin, who is as important as Rosa Park. Pauli Murray, who was an attorney that wrote some of the most insightful legal stuff that Thurgood Marshall used, and they would not exalt her because she was gay and a woman. I wanted to write a book about them, because I was them, because I didn’t fit the prototype a “civil rights leader” was supposed to fit, you know, come out of the north, out of the hood, you can go to an Ivy League school. That should not qualify you or not qualify to be a freedom fighter. It is whether you are committed, whether you’re disciplined and whether you will fight for people. I know plenty people that are Ivy League trained, got the right pedigree and the right lineage, and don’t do anything. DAVIS: [In the book,] you referred to Kimberly Crenshaw and the idea of intersectionality. One of the things that I really appreciated, especially in this era that we’re in now, is that you call out these pieces of the intersectionality, like you just said, the classism, colorism, the sexism, all of these different things that do exist that almost create the division within the race. That makes it complicated to advance some of the work as well. SHARPTON: And Sheryl, people play on those divisions to divide us, to politically break us down so they can make us uncomfortable with each other or feeling superior to each other based on these fictitious walls. Then they can, through the gap, do what they have to do. I’m a Baptist minister. But that doesn’t

COVER STORY

mean I can’t work with people that are Muslim, or people that are atheist. Because if we believe in the same values and principles, how we get there is our business. How we intersect, as Crenshaw said, that’s the strength we have. On the right, they are not all monolithic. They don’t have the same faith, the same belief, the same lineage. But whether it is William Buckley or Jerry Falwell, they get together to deal with [things] the same way that they want to block affirmative action or block certain voting rights. And we’ve got to be able to feel the same way. The only way to deal with it is to put it out front. Expose it so people have to deal with it, rather than the unspoken, “Oh, we don’t want to talk about it.” We need to talk about. So we start these divisions and build a movement that’s going to stop these inequalities and these injustices. DAVIS: You’ve been doing this work. It is a heavy lift. You talk about the eulogies and the families and the folks that you meet. How do you take care of yourself? How do you practice self-care? SHARPTON: You know, I started several years ago a whole kind of work on me. I changed my diet. I’m a vegetarian, I work out every day. I lost a lot of weight. And I started meditations in the morning, so I do the Baptist minister’s prayer in the morning, but also meditate because it is a lot on you. You know, at first you’re running from here to there, and then you are kind of not thinking about it. But then all of a sudden it all comes down. In the last year, I’ve done the eulogy for George Floyd, I did the eulogies for several other cases, about 12 people killed by police—including just out West, with this young lady from Chile, 14-year-old that was shot with the police bullet ricocheting, going through the door of a dressing room. And so many times you look at these bodies, I don’t care who you are, it’s going

THE COMMO N WE AL TH | April/May 2022

to bring you down. That’s why I go back to: If I’m not going to do it, who’s going to do it? Who had the resources and who can put a limelight on this to expose it? You find yourself trying to talk yourself into it. But if people think that they get tired of seeing me out there, they are not more tired than me saying they killed somebody else. It’s almost like once you get down, you go back into another situation. I will never forget, Sheryl, we were in the family room at the Minneapolis courthouse, listening to the summation of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the policeman that had his knee on George Floyd’s neck. And someone came into the room and pulled Ben Crump and I aside and said a policewoman just killed a young man named Daunte Wright 10 miles from here. I mean, we weren’t even out of the trial. You would think, they’re in summation on a trial right there in the county of a policeman, and they would be on extra good behavior; they’d killed this boy at a traffic stop. We waited for court to be over that day, and went and met with the parents 10 miles ahead and said we would help them. You know, we helped to give the funeral and all of that. I end up doing that eulogy a day after the conviction of Derek Chauvin. So Derek Chauvin—we didn’t know how the verdict was going to be—found guilty of murder. Everyone’s happy, and we go back to, no joke, tears streaming down our eyes; national and international media. And then I had to get up the next morning and go to Brooklyn Center to preach the funeral of another victim. And that’s your life, and you only do that if you’re committed. And that’s what people I write about in their book—they were committed, because you can’t stop until you change the system that keeps allowing this to happen without penalty and accountability. DAVIS: The idea of that commitment and

“I THINK IF YOU DECIDE WHAT YOUR LIFE IS, YOUR LIVING WILL COME FROM THAT DECISION.” —AL SHARPTON

that, when you talk about the spiritual calling, that even of a Ben Crump or of Eric Garner’s mom, there was something in that. I think about your story [about] Mamie Till Mobley, even the stories you talk about Washington Temple or the breadbasket. I’ve said this before; there is something about the foundation of the faith and culture of Black folks that helps to seed some of that strength. I loved how you talked about [how] you knew you wanted to be a preacher from early on, like that was poured into you. And this idea that you know you weren’t as impressed with Thurgood Marshall as others, that there was something about the spiritual that’s always called you to this work, but also to the space. SHARPTON: When I was very young, even before my father left, I would always look at those in ministry that were in social activism. I loved Adam Clayton Powell and I’m like, 19 years old, already preaching in our Church of God in Christ. I wasn’t attracted to the side of preachers that were doing the pastoring of the big churches. I was attracted to the activist side. [When I was] 10, 11 years old, I was reading about Cecil Williams out there in San Francisco. These are the kinds of preachers when I grew up that [I saw and felt] I wanted to be like that. Jesse Jackson ended up a mentor of mine. When I was 12, my mother brought me to him. He was 25, 26 years old, he was twice my age then. So he was like a father figure that later became a big brother for me, because as you grow older, the gap of 13 years is different than father and son. So I knew what I wanted to be. And I never changed that. I never let nobody talk me out of it. I remember some of the guys that were with me in the ministry would say, “Well, how are you going to make a living

out there doing civil rights ministry?” I said, “I don’t know. But this is what I believe we’re supposed to do.” Ben Crump is an excellent lawyer. I’m sure Ben never thought he would become the face of the civil rights legal profession and how he was going to make a living. I think if you decide what your life is, your living will come from that decision. There’s no way anybody could have told me, you know, the right wing can talk about I’m an opportunist and all of that. How is anybody going to tell me that doing what I would do that I would one day host a cable national show or a syndicated radio show? I mean, how could I? There wasn’t even MSNBC in existence when I started. So they will always assign you motives, because it shows you their value. It doesn’t show you ours. DAVIS: I think reading the book was helpful for me, because you give all these stories of just the pushback that folks receive. And yet it becomes very clear you are not in this for the money, right? There’s no way that you have gone through the things that you have gone through. The stories are so helpful to give the bigger context of what it is that people are experiencing, and that there is no amount of money that can absolve the

things that have happened over time. SHARPTON: Let’s go back to Ahmed Arbery. When Ahmed was killed and the police came, they said that this was selfdefense. The local prosecutor refused to arrest those three guys. That’s when they came to people like Ben Crump and Ben Crump brought me in and we started raising issues, and local activists in Brunswick were really consistent and persistant to the point where the governor brought in another prosecutor and they got the case. So we weren’t chasing the ambulance; we were the ambulance. The ambulance came and left the way it was. And that’s what people don’t understand. If we did not come, who was going to stand up for an Arbery or other [victims]? That is what is really crazy to me. Then when I look around, there was a case in New York in ’89. Yusef Hawkins, a young man killed in a section of Brooklyn, Bensonhurst, where they didn’t want Blacks there. I led marches out there protesting, calling for the killers to be arrested. One Saturday, a man ran out of the crowd, stuck a knife on my chest, a few inches from my heart. How much are you going to pay me to get stabbed and almost killed? My daughter four or five years old. I once spent three months in jail for leading a protest in Puerto Rico, around Navy exercises. How much you going to pay somebody to lose their freedom for three months? So the absurdity of your attack is not to vindicate me; it’s to show people made sacrifices, even though . . . they know they’re going to get attacked. And I know that the Fox Newses of the world are going to call me names. You do it because you have to do it, because that’s who you are.

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The Commonwealth April/May 2022

Articles inside

Al Sharpton