Kqeds Forum

From celebrities like Harry Styles and the members of boy band BTS to social media beauty influencers like Patrick Starrr and Kenneth Senegal, more and more men and nonbinary folk are publicly embracing makeup in their daily lives. And as author and journalist David Yi argues in their new book, the male beauty influencers of today have ancient cultural precedents. “Pretty Boys” traces male beauty figures throughout history, from Ramses the Great to ‘80s glam rockers to drag culture newly entering the mainstream. We’ll hear about how beauty influencers, both past and present, have explored gender through makeup.  

Last week temperatures hit 116 degrees in Portland, 108 in Seattle, and 121 degrees in western Canada. According to news reports, nearly one billion sea animals may have cooked to death in British Columbia. San Francisco, a similarly temperate climate, has had its own moments of extreme heat. It reached 106 degrees during the 2017 heat wave, breaking all previous records. But what would happen if San Francisco’s temperatures reached as high as Portland's did last week? How would roads, bridges and the health system respond to 116 degree temperatures? Could the electrical grid manage to stay on line? Forum talks to a panel of experts about what a future with extreme heat looks like and what we should be doing to prepare.

At a seashell museum on Sanibel, an island off southwest Florida, environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett discovered that 90% of the museum’s visitors didn’t know shells were made from living animals. In her new book “The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans,” Barnett explains the science of how shells are made and their role in the ecosystem of the oceans. And she delves into the long cultural history of seashells which have been used as money, jewelry, tools, instruments, building materials and more. Barnett joins us to discuss the mysteries of seashells and their mollusk makers and what they can teach us about the health of our oceans.

The social media app TikTok has grown exponentially since its release in 2016, with over 689 million active users worldwide. Famous for its short, looping videos that feature a range of content including lip syncs, dance routines, personal storytelling and documentary-style footage, it’s become a popular place to spend hours online, especially among Gen Z. Particularly in the past year, when in-person interaction was limited due to the pandemic, many people found community on TikTok and used it as a way to de-stress or express their creativity. We’ll talk about TikTok’s appeal and hear from popular creators Nick Cho and Taylor Cassidy about the communities they’ve found and built on the app.

Can self-deception be beneficial? That’s one of the questions animating Shankar Vedantam’s new book “Useful Delusions,” which argues that holding false beliefs is not necessarily a sign of pathology or ignorance. We’ll talk to theHidden Brain podcast host about the lies we tell ourselves — and each other — and the role some forms of deception play in sustaining relationships and advancing mental well-being.

Sebastian Junger walked 400 miles from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh, using railroad lines to follow the footsteps of America’s first colonizers. Analyzing what freedom meant to the settlers and indigenous people of this land centuries ago and what it means to its inhabitants today, Junger describes his trek in his new book, “Freedom.” “We failed to come up with a single moral or legal justification for what we were doing other than the dilute principle that we weren't causing harm so we should be able to keep doing it,” he writes. Junger joins us to talk about his journey, “Freedom” and the tension between doing whatever you want and the bonds of community.

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?