KQED's Forum
Forum tells remarkable and true stories about who we are and where we live. In the first hour, Alexis Madrigal convenes the diverse voices of the Bay Area, before turning to Mina Kim for the second hour to chronicle and center Californians’ experience. In an increasingly divided world, Mina and Alexis host conversations that inform, challenge and unify listeners with big ideas and different viewpoints. Want to call/submit your comments during our live Forum program Mon-Fri, 9am-11am? We'd love to hear from you! Please dial 866.SF.FORUM or (866) 733-6786 or email forum@kqed.org, tweet, or post on Facebook.
Episodes
May 24, 2024 • 55 mins
In Miranda July’s new novel, “All Fours,” a 45-year-old artist embarks on a solo roadtrip to New York from her Los Angeles home. She makes it as far as Monrovia, a small town a half-hour from L.A., and waits out the rest of her trip in a motel room while pursuing an infatuation with a Hertz rental car employee. The novel, which shares similarities with July’s own life, explores themes of marital ennui, the fear of sexual irrelevanc...
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May 24, 2024 • 55 mins
What it means to be American and who gets to claim that identity are questions that animate Rachel Khong’s newest novel “Real Americans.” The book follows three generations of a Chinese American family, and grapples with not just race, but class and genetic identity. Khong is a former editor of the food magazine “Lucky Peach” and the founder of The Ruby, a work and event space in the Mission for women and nonbinary writers. We talk...
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May 23, 2024 • 55 mins
Craig Foster may be best known for “My Octopus Teacher,” the Oscar-winning documentary about his tender relationship with a wild female octopus who inhabited the kelp forests off the coast of South Africa. He’s now written a new book called “Amphibious Soul,” which invites us along on his underwater excursions and shows us how, through techniques like tracking, we can connect with creatures and our wild selves. Is there a wild anim...
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May 23, 2024 • 55 mins
The gig economy, as it has been known, was built around a controversial idea — that an Uber driver, for instance, did not work for Uber. These apps, instead, were merely making a market for workers, which a user could access to hire someone. Many labor leaders rejected this idea, and it has led to fights in the legislature, courts and over Proposition 22 in 2020, when voters handed the gig economy a huge win. The constitutionality ...
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May 22, 2024 • 55 mins
“It’s difficult to think of a public health crisis more inevitable than the impending end of Roe v. Wade,” writes journalist Shefali Luthra, “and yet, on June 24, 2022, the country was profoundly unprepared.” Luthra argues that we’re now in the midst of that public health crisis, as millions of Americans seeking abortions face overwhelming obstacles to care, and as abortion providers reach a “breaking point to attempt to meet deman...
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May 22, 2024 • 55 mins
If you’re looking for a great meal after midnight, you’re unlikely to find a wealth of options in downtown San Francisco. But expand your search to the Bay Area’s suburban communities, and you’ll find a late-night dining scene that’s brimming with hot pot restaurants, noodle shops, taco carts, and 24-hour casino buffets. Nocturnal noms are the subject of a new collaborative series from KQED’s food editor Luke Tsai and illustrator T...
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May 21, 2024 • 55 mins
Longtime New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has reported from war zones and humanitarian crises and has examined our own nation’s struggles with poverty, addiction and homelessness. And yet, in his new memoir, “Chasing Hope,” Kristof calls himself an optimist. Journalism, he says, is an act of hope in itself. We talk to Kristof about what he’s learned about the power of storytelling to make people care about issues near and ...
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May 21, 2024 • 55 mins
Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for swifter reforms to California’s beleaguered home insurance market as homeowners across the state continue to lose coverage or face rate hikes. A growing number of insurance companies have stopped writing new policies in the state, citing increased climate-related risks and higher costs. Meanwhile, the state’s fire coverage of last resort, the FAIR plan, is overwhelmed and facing its own financia...
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May 20, 2024 • 55 mins
Humanitarian aid groups are reporting “unprecedented” levels of starvation for over 2 million people in Gaza, after nearly eight months of Israeli military bombardment and blockades. Another 5 million people are estimated to face “acute” food shortage in Haiti between March and June, and according to the United Nations, the threat of famine looms for 18 million people in east Africa as Sudan enters its second year of civil war. The...
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May 20, 2024 • 55 mins
During the Trump Administration, scenes of children separated from parents and placed in chain link cells that looked like cages caused a national outcry. But the policy of immigration detention in the U.S. is far from new. With historical roots in slavery and the treatment of indigenous people, it has been used on Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, migrants from civil wars in Central America and immigrants from around the world since the ...
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May 17, 2024 • 55 mins
A generation of American folk singers – including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie – owe their inspiration to a little-known New Deal project known as the U.S. Music Unit. Over the course of two years, federal workers recorded amateur musicians at government-owned homesteads as a way to “raise morale, build community, and create hope,” according to music scholar Sheryl Kaskowitz. The Music Unit made hundreds of recordings for...
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May 17, 2024 • 55 mins
Whether you’re looking for an outdoor excursion, a quiet art gallery to wander through or a rousing show for an evening’s entertainment, KQED’s Arts & Culture team has got you covered. From festival dates to soccer schedules, the 2024 Summer Guide has recommendations in the Bay Area covering every interest and price point. We’ll get a temperature check on how the region’s arts and culture ecosystem is faring and hear from reporters...
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May 16, 2024 • 55 mins
Gov. Gavin Newsom last week proposed a series of deep cuts to close the state’s $45 billion budget deficit. The proposals, which include no new taxes, include a nearly 8% cut to state operations and the elimination of 10,000 unfilled jobs and will affect some education, public health and affordable housing programs. The governor’s office says that the proposal “maintains service levels for key housing, food, health care, and other ...
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May 16, 2024 • 55 mins
Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid “is the most openly authoritarian campaign I’ve seen [from] any candidate anywhere in the world since World War II”. That’s according to Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, co-author of the book “How Democracies Die”. Trump’s stated plans include seeking revenge on political opponents, purging the federal workforce, ordering mass deportations, and deploying the military domestically. As...
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May 15, 2024 • 55 mins
You may know actor and stand-up comedian Tiffany Haddish best for her riotous performance in the 2017 film “Girls Trip.” Or for her Emmy Award-winning turn as host of Saturday Night Live…or for her voicework in “The Lego Movie 2” and other animated films. But her successes came hard-won against a backdrop of childhood trauma and mental health challenges. “I know what it feels like to hurt and what it feels like to see other people ...
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May 15, 2024 • 55 mins
In his magazine profiles and podcasts, Oakland writer Carvell Wallace has a gift for examining people and the times we live in with clarity and wisdom. With his new memoir “Another Word for Love,” Wallace extends his compassionate gaze to his own story, tracing a childhood peppered with homelessness and abuse, through to his quest for healing, pleasure and the divine. “It is is not enough to be hurt and to know that you have been h...
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May 14, 2024 • 55 mins
Amtrak reports that overall demand for passenger rail is soaring as yearly ridership totals approach pre-pandemic levels. But in California, the story is different. Popular west coast lines are losing riders and remain challenged by underinvestment and rules that give track priority to freight trains. In addition, increasingly powerful storms and rising seas threaten Amtrak’s infrastructure: Southern California’s Pacific Surfliner ...
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May 14, 2024 • 55 mins
Fashion is self-expression. It’s art. It’s also responsible for between 8 and 9 percent of planet-warming emissions. But it doesn’t have to be. We’ll talk about the fashion industry’s troubled relationship to labor, climate, and human rights issues – and spotlight companies creating sustainable alternatives. Plus, our panel of mending, thrifting and styling experts will share practical tips so that you can be chic… and climate-cons...
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In his new memoir “Small Acts of Courage,” MSNBC host Ali Velshi recounts his family’s migration across continents –– beginning in India under British rule, intersecting with Gandhi’s “satyagraha” movement in South Africa, and eventually settling in Canada during a refugee crisis for the global Indian diaspora. Ali himself immigrated to the United States two days after September 11, 2001 and writes: “Cynicism about politics is actu...
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May 13, 2024 • 55 mins
Yet another stretch of Highway 1 near Big Sur remains closed after a chunk of the roadway fell into the ocean in March. The latest closure raises questions about the future of the iconic highway amid threats from extreme weather and coastal erosion. “Everything is working against Highway 1,” Gary Griggs, an oceanography professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz told the Washington Post. We’ll look at what it could tak...
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