Kqeds Forum

Singing can lift our spirits, and according to medical experts, because of the way COVID is spread, singing can also kill you. Its a dire, and unexpected, dichotomy and one that singers have grappled with during the pandemic. Rachael Myrow talks to KQED's Chloe Veltman and some Bay Area singers who are finding safe ways to bring live singing to audiences, big and small.

More than 30 California legislators sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom this week, urging him to allow museums to reopen indoors in the state. Nationwide more than 70% of museums are open in some capacity, according to the American Alliance of Museums, but, except for a short period starting in October, museums in California have remained closed throughout the pandemic. We'el talk with a panel of Bay Area museum directors about how they are surviving and adapting in the covid era.

Atmospheric warming, catastrophic sea level rise and mass extinction are just some of the monumental harms humans have inflicted on the planet. Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Elizabeth Kolbert points out that while it might be prudent to scale back our polluting activities, we've become so numerous, and the damage so extensive, that we may need to do more. In her new book, “Under a White Sky,” Kolbert looks at some of the interventions -- such as geoengineering and gene editing -- that scientists say can reverse the environmental harms we've caused. We'll talk to Kolbert about what she learned during her reporting and whether the answer to the problem of our control of nature is, in fact, more control. 

Many see Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna as a rising star in the Democratic party. He co-chaired Bernie Sanders’ national campaign, and is a big advocate for progressive causes like raising the minimum wage and Medicare for All. Congressman Khanna joins KQED's Scott Schafer to discuss the recent turmoil in Washington, including the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, and what’s ahead for 2021.

Amidst mounting pressure from parents, health experts and politicians in the Bay Area to reopen schools for in-person learning, the Berkeley Unified School District this week announced a plan to vaccinate all teachers and start getting most students back into class in mid April. On Wednesday, San Francisco's superintendent of schools said the district is gearing up to reopen but didn't offer specifics. We'll get the latest on the status of school openings across the region.

In the 1950s and 60s, when some towns faced integrating their “whites only” public pools, they drained the pools instead so nobody could use them. Economic and social policy expert Heather McGhee says this zero-sum thinking has impacted the U.S. economy and the public for the worse--and racism is at the root of it. For her new book, "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Us and How We Can Prosper Together," McGhee journeyed across the country, including to California, documenting the stories of Americans who struggle with meeting their basic needs as a consequence of the “drained-pool politics” that keeps the country divided and vastly unequal. We'll talk to McGhee about what she uncovered in writing the book and her proposed plans for charting a more equitable path forward.

California agencies serving the homeless do not keep track of where billions of dollars are going, fail to follow federal guidelines and are so fragmented that they lose opportunities to people into stable housing. That’s according to a report by the state auditor’s office earlier this month on how state and regional housing agencies are handling the homelessness crisis. We’ll hear about the report and how the state could do a lot better in serving its 150,000 unhoused residents.

Katherine Seligman's debut novel, "At the Edge of the Haight" tells the story of Maddy, a young homeless woman living in San Francisco who is caught up in a murder mystery. As a journalist and a long-time resident of Haight-Ashbury, Seligman has witnessed the dehumanizing effects of homelessness up close. Her book, which is the winner of the PEN/Bellwether prize, has been praised as a work that "makes alive and visible the lives of people we often walk past, sometimes as quickly as we can." Seligman joins us to talk about her new novel, her transition from reporter to fiction writer, and what it takes to tell the stories of people who often feel invisible.

Latinos in California have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic with a disproportionately high number of infections and deaths -- a situation that state officials have been well aware of since last year. As the state rolls out the COVID-19 vaccine, Latino advocates, leaders and healthcare providers say officials have not made Latinos -- the state’s largest demographic group -- enough of a priority. One of the biggest problems with doling out the vaccine is simply limited supplies, but critics also point to how and where vaccines are distributed. We look at the challenges Latinos and other vulnerable Californians face in accessing vaccines.

In a recent column, Mission Local reporter Joe Eskenazi uses a job listing to explore what's not working at San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection. The managerial job was only posted for a week at first, and required only a high school diploma or "equivalent work experience" -- code for an internal hire. He describes nepotism and corruption running rampant, with city workers marking up plans by hand, because the department operates as if computers didn't exist.

In most of the country, tipped workers, such as restaurant servers and bartenders, earn a minimum wage of less than $5 an hour -- in 17 states they earn just $2.13. Advocates with One Fair Wage, a campaign to raise the federal minimum wage for tipped workers, say the over-reliance on tips to meet the most basic needs makes workers more vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse. We’ll talk with One Fair Wage’s president and with the director of the documentary, “Waging Change”, which tells the stories of tip workers, the movement to raise their pay and the industry forces that fight higher wages.

Communities in the Bay Area are reeling from a recent spate of violent attacks against elderly Asian Americans that left one 84-year old San Francisco resident dead and several others injured. The attacks are part of growing number of hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders statewide, according Stop AAPI Hate, which recorded more than 1200 self-reported instances of assault and harassment in California between March and December of last year. We’ll talk about how anti-Asian violence is affecting individuals and communities and what can be done to stop it.

Last week Santa Clara and Alameda counties became the first in the state to record the coronavirus variant found in South Africa. The news came as the region begins opening mass vaccination sites to speed immunizations before further mutations make the virus harder to manage. In this hour, we hear about the latest research on new variants and vaccine efficacy against them, and we get an update on coronavirus numbers as the region continues to see a slowing of cases and deaths. 

Anna Malaika Tubbs's new book, "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation," has been described as "a literary declaration that Black women know best how to survive in this broken world while actively mending it for everyone." Tubbs weaves a historical tapestry of the stories of Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin, and argues that by understanding the full extent of their lives throughout the Jim Crow era, we gain a fuller picture of American history and the pivotal role of black women in shaping it. We speak to Tubbs about her latest book and the key, but often marginalized, role of black women in history.

When Michael Krasny took over as Forum host in 1993 he assured listeners that he would preserve the program’s commitment to news and politics but promised to open up “new vistas in the arts …and the life of the mind." Since then, he’s become a beloved Bay Area institution, covering the biggest stories of the past three decades and interviewing everyone from world leaders to Hollywood stars to community activists. For his last show, Michael will share memories and reflections on his distinguished career with NPR's Ron Elving, and he especially wants to hear from you.

Journalist James Fallows says the Biden Administration is facing harder decisions than most new administrations because, he writes, “In addition to looking forward, to all the problems they are now supposed to solve, they must look backward, to reckoning with what Donald Trump and his enablers have done.” On the first day of President Trump’s impeachment trial, we’ll talk with The Atlantic writer about how Biden should triage the multiple crises on his hands. And we’ll get his assessment of the administration’s early policy moves and impeachment. 

“Seize it. Migrate. Move.” This is the crux of journalist and New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow’s newest book, “The Devil you Know: A Black Power Manifesto.” He argues that the Great Migration of Blacks from the rural South to Northern urban centers did not deliver on improved social and economic conditions, and that the fastest way to fight systemic anti-Black racism is for Blacks to migrate to the South, where they can more easily consolidate their political power. Blow has taken his advice to heart and moved from New York to Atlanta. We’ll hear from Blow about his book and learn how a reverse migration could move progressive policies, like reparations and criminal justice reform, forward.

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, the once novel idea of working from home has begun to feel permanent -- at least for some workers. Some experts predict the old 9-to-5 paradigm is over as workers and employers devise more flexible arrangements. While there are many perks, more remote work can mean less social interaction and collapsed boundaries between work and home life. It can also threaten the vitality of urban centers. We talk about how working from home has already begun to reshape communities, family dynamics and how employees relate to their jobs and each other. 

Food journalist and author Mark Bittman explores the history of humankind’s relationship to food in his latest book, "Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal,” and argues that the development of agriculture has shaped today's public health, climate change and social justice crises. Bittman believes that agriculture requires a cultural and political reckoning with how it has "driven exploitation and injustice, slavery and war” to tackle the damage it’s caused. Bittman joins us now to talk about his latest book and how to transform our agricultural systems to reclaim a healthy, just future.

Bay Area based journalist and author Isabel Allende’s books--translated into 42 languages-- have resonated across cultures and countries around the world. Her forthcoming book, “The Soul of a Woman,” is a memoir of her feminism, which she embraced at a very early age as she witnessed her single mother struggle to look after three children. Isabel first appeared on Forum in 1995 and she joins Michael Krasny now, as he heads into retirement, to speak about her newest work.