Kqeds Forum

Have you watched a throwback TV show or movie recently that — upon viewing now — made you cringe because of scenes or jokes that are so obviously, well, cringeworthy? The expansive library of old TV shows and films made available for nostalgia viewing on streaming services prompted some rude awakenings about content we thought we loved. We’ll reflect on the ways our awareness as viewers may have shifted and consider the TV shows and films that don’t quite stack up to today’s social norms. We’ll also discuss the movies and shows that have stood the test of time and why. Is there an old TV show or film that lost its charm for you upon re-watching?

In this special holiday edition of Forum, we've gone back into our archives to two interviews that Michael Krasny, our recently retired host, did in 2011. They showcase his depth and love of literature as he speaks with the winners of that year's National Book Critics Circle Award, Jennifer Egan and Isabel Wilkerson. Egan's novel "A Visit From the Goon Squad," traipses through San Francisco and beyond. Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story Of America's Great Migration" reframed the origins of modern America.

John Paul Brammer, the self-described “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw,” writes the popular column, ¡Hola Papi!, which he started in 2017 when dating app Grindr launched LGBTQ site INTO and needed steady content. He soon realized he had tapped into a trove of unmet demand for gay dating advice. Brammer, who grew up in rural Oklahoma, has written for various publications including The Guardian, Teen Vogue, The Trevor Project, Condé Nast, and Netflix and now publishes ¡Hola Papi! on Substack. He joins us to talk about his new memoir, “¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons,” which explores coming of age, coming out and finding love through essays based on his column.

Prosecutors charged the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg on Thursday with running a 15-year scheme to defraud the government of income tax payments. The charges arose from an ongoing multi-year investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York Attorney General into off-the-books payments made to Weisselberg and other Trump Organization employees. We’ll talk about the latest developments and what’s at stake for the former president and his businesses.

When film director, poet and playwright Kathleen Collins passed away in 1988, her work had yet to fully receive its due. Following the efforts of her daughter Nina Lorez Collins, her 1982 film “Losing Ground,” one of the first feature films directed by a Black American woman, received a theatrical release in 2015 — and is presently streaming for free on Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s website through July 6. Her books “Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?” and “Notes From a Black Woman’s Diary” were published in the past five years, and her collection of four one-act plays, entitled “Begin the Beguine,” is being performed by Oakland Theater Project via livestream and drive-in through July 3. We’ll talk with Oakland Theater Project co-directors Michael Socrates Moran and Dawn L. Troupe, who also stars in each of the four plays, about “Begin the Beguine” and Collins’ artistic legacy.

Bolinas, writes English Professor Lytle Shaw, is “the only instance I could think of where a town was essentially governed by poets.” Shaw’s thoughts are part of a new anniversary edition of “On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing” originally published in 1971, featuring the work of a remarkable group of poets living in or near Bolinas in the late 60s and 70s, including Diane Di Prima, Phillip Whalen, Robert Creeley, JoAnne Kyger, Anne Waldman and other icons of the period. We’ll talk about the Bolinas scene, the new edition of the anthology and capturing Bolinas counterculture through its poetry.

California bars insurance companies from cancelling residential property insurance policies for homes in places that burned in the 2020 wildfires. But after years of catastrophic fires, insurance companies are refusing to renew policies for a growing number of the 3 million Californians who have homes in high wildfire risk zones. Finding replacement coverage can cost many times more than an original policy. Now, the insurance industry is talking about raising rates based on a home’s exposure to climate change induced catastrophe.  We’ll hear about a growing crisis in the state’s insurance market, and what the industry, consumer advocates, and legislators are trying to do about it.  

In three weeks, the Oakland City Council will vote whether to approve the A’s proposal to build a new baseball stadium at Howard Terminal. The A’s say their waterfront proposal, which includes housing, a performance space and hotels, will revitalize West Oakland, an area of the city that has historically suffered from gentrification and displacement by infrastructure like BART and freeways. Opponents say it will cost jobs at the port and argue that the stadium should be built at the Coliseum where ample transportation infrastructure exists. Ratcheting up the tension is the A’s ultimatum that if they can’t build on the waterfront, they will move away entirely, leaving Oakland without a major league sports team following the loss of the Raiders and the Warriors. We’ll hear about the plan and what it means for Oakland and Bay Area sports fans.

Poet, teacher and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith joins us to talk about his new book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. Smith takes readers on a tour of eight sites to examine the history of slavery in America and how that history lives on through stories -- who tells them, how and where. Along his journey, he discovers buried facts, false narratives and often willful ignorance of a dark time in our nation’s history that still has implications. We’ll talk about how Americans’ understanding of slavery -- or lack of it -- plays out today.

Public transit ridership is slowly rising after the pandemic forced transit agencies to cut services. But few other agencies across the nation decreased service as much as Muni and BART, and San Francisco ridership was at 39 percent of pre-pandemic levels in May, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle analysis. San Francisco is also experiencing tension between the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed over a proposal to eliminate Muni fares for this summer. We’ll check in with SFMTA, BART, AC Transit and VTA about their announced service increases, capacity requirements and plans to entice riders back. And we want to hear from you: What should these agencies prioritize as they re-expand services?

As the Supreme Court's term nears a close, we analyze some of the significant opinions released so far, which span religious liberty and free speech questions, the rights of union organizers and the Affordable Care Act. We'll also look at what's at stake in two Arizona voting rights cases awaiting a decision, and how the Court's 6-3 conservative majority is influencing its jurisprudence.

More than a quarter of Americans are estranged from a close family member, new research from Cornell University finds. The reasons for breaking off contact are familiar: divides over money, values and parental divorce, along with tension from parenting choices or in-law relationships. We’ll talk about the nuances of the phenomenon, including U.S. cultural individualism, the nuclear family’s decline, and the traditions of chosen family within LGBTQ+ communities. And, of course, we want to hear your stories about navigating deep rifts within your own family.

“It should puzzle us more than it does that one of the greatest foci of human ingenuity and concentrated effort over the past millennia has been the problem of how to get drunk,” writes Edward Slingerland in his new book “Drunk.” Alcohol might not only enable personal creativity and social ease — it may have aided the cohesion and innovation necessary to create civilizations themselves. Slingerland does not dismiss the gravity of addiction and its endangering behaviors, but in appealing to history, neuroscience and art, he makes the case that drinking, socially and in moderation, can advance social goods.

Californian’s famously love their cars, but around the Bay Area a lot of people are more passionate about other ways to roll, like bikes, roller skates or skateboards. KQED’s podcast, Rightnowish, is celebrating our love of wheels and the role they play in community and culture with a series called “Roll With Us”. We’ll talk with host Pendarvis Harshaw about the San Franciscan who’s been dancing on his roller skates for half a century, “chair skating” with the extreme wheelchair sports league, the South Bay’s lowrider car culture and more. And we want to hear from you. Are you part of a community on wheels?

With the approval of two major cannabis growing and distribution projects, Antioch has put itself on the map as a significant player in the marijuana industry. “I don’t mind being known as the cannabis capital of Northern California,” declared Antioch mayor Lamar Thorpe, citing the jobs that it would bring to the eastern Contra Costa County town. Meanwhile, Sonoma County has set aside a proposal to ease restrictions around growing cannabis and entered into a study phase to analyze the environmental impacts of that ordinance. We’ll talk to a panel of experts about the changing geography of cannabis cultivation.

For 13 years, pop star Britney Spears has been subject to a conservatorship that controlled many of her life decisions, and on Wednesday, Spears testified damningly about the damage done to her by that arrangement. According to the star, her conservators have forcibly placed her on lithium, pushed her into unnecessary rehab, and prevented from having children by refusing to let her remove her IUD. “I deserve to have a life. I've worked my whole life. . . I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does,” declared Spears. We’ll talk about the hearing and what happens next. 

In Brandon Taylor’s new collection of short stories, “Filthy Animals,” characters either hide their teeth or give in to their animalistic impulses. They thirst: for success, belonging and emotional connection. Taylor, whose debut novel “Real Life” met widespread critical acclaim, is also known for his newsletter and Twitter account, which both combine anecdotes with broader cultural analyses on topics ranging from contemporary “internet novels” to literary classics to the art of writing itself. We’ll talk with Taylor about his craft, the underrepresentation and tokenization of Black, queer identities in literature and his goal to attain truth through fiction.

When we learned that engineers are frantically working to get rid of the annoyingly loud hum that started projecting from the Golden Gate Bridge last summer, it got us wondering about other iconic sounds of the Bay Area. We’ll talk with KQED’s Bay Curious host Olivia Allen-Price about the stories behind some of the sounds of the area, like the sometimes deafening cawing of crows and the rattle of a cable car chains underfoot. And we’ll want to hear, really hear, from you. Call us with your imitation of the sounds that say “Bay Area” to you. 

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 6 million people in the U.S., and there have been no good existing treatment options. That seemed to change earlier this month when the FDA approved a new drug called Aduhelm that claims to slow the progression of the disease. But while some patients are celebrating the news, many scientists say the drug will deliver marginal, or even no, benefits and that it could have risky side effects. And at a cost of $56,000 annually per patient, some members of the U.S. Senate are calling for an investigation into how the drug will affect the Medicare program. We discuss the controversy around the FDA’s approval of Aduhelm and we’ll get an update on Alzheimer’s research. 

Celebrated writer and podcaster Ashley C. Ford grew up knowing that her father was in prison, but she never knew the reason why. As she writes in her new memoir “Somebody’s Daughter,” she found herself confronting the truth about her father’s crime while coping with her own devastating trauma. The book chronicles Ford’s upbringing in a tight-knit, Black family in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a place she eventually had to leave to find herself and create a career out of writing. We’ll talk to Ford about her memoir and journey as a writer.