Kqeds Forum

President Biden is weighing proposals to cancel some student loan debt, which in the aggregate totals more than $1.7 trillion – a record high figure that outpaces the nation’s collective credit card debt. We’ll talk about who’s most likely to shoulder student loans and hear from those who’ve been grappling with them. And we’ll hear from you: How have student loans affected your life? Would you be doing something different if you didn't have education debt?

For better or worse, Twitter is a crucial part of our public sphere now. That’s one reason that Elon Musk may end up buying the social media platform. The move is prompting experts and scholars to reconsider the future of digital communities. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit have been criticized for overt censorship and for algorithms and guidelines that encourage the spread of misinformation. People in both camps have been asking: who should own and run these platforms and what should an online public sphere look like? We’ll talk about the future of digital communities in the social media landscape and we’ll want to hear from you. What do you want in an online commons?

John Mooallem became a magazine writer after realizing that “instead of thumping my head against the biggest questions of my own life” he could train his insights and inquiry on the world. “I’d been puzzling over myself, torturously trying to unlock the truth of who I was. The truth is, I am the puzzling,” he writes in the prologue to his collection of essays, “Serious Face.” In his wide ranging collection, Mooallem brings his "puzzling" to, among other things, our relationship to nature and disaster, our concepts of evolution, a pigeon pyramid scheme and his own face. Jon Mooallem joins Forum to talk about his new book and the question that he says binds the essays together: Why are we not better than we are?

When they came to power in August, the Taliban assured the international community that the status of Afghan women would be secure. The opposite has been true: women are being erased from public life. They are restricted from working outside the home. If they travel more than 45 miles from their house, they must be accompanied by a male relative. Girls no longer have access to secondary education. More recently, the Taliban has decreed that women should be covered from head to toe when in public. We’ll look at the latest in Afghanistan, the status of its women and girls, and answer your questions.

After the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, some abortion advocates recommended that people delete apps that track menstrual cycles for fear that this information could be used against them in a post-Roe America. Given the draft opinion’s conclusions questioning the right to privacy, digital privacy experts warned that private search queries and health data could be weaponized — against everyone. With all the personal information our phones contain, we’ll talk about the implications of a post-Roe America for personal data, community surveillance and the constitutional right to privacy itself. And we want to hear from you: What are your questions about data and privacy post-Roe? What actions are you taking to protect your personal data?

“Learn to live with the cringe,” advised Taylor Swift at NYU’s recent commencement ceremony for the Class of 2022. Across the nation, graduates are being peppered with all kinds of advice from commencement speakers who range from politicians, scientists, CEOs, celebrities, and their own classmates. So what makes a good graduation speech? Is it pearls of wisdom like “Oh the places you’ll go” or “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” or the practical advice: “Wear sunscreen”? Or is it the humor or gravitas of the speaker? Next on Forum, we’ll talk about graduation speeches and hear from you: What is a piece of advice you’ve heard in a commencement speech that has stayed with you?

It’s been known as the “happiest place on earth,” and if you’re a Californian, chances are you have been to Disneyland at least once. Indeed, when he opened the park in 1955, Walt Disney declared that “Disneyland is your land.” In 2019, over 18 million people visited Disneyland, and since its opening, the company estimates that 750 million visitors have come to the park, taking a spin on the Mad Hatter’s tea cups, zooming through Space Mountain, or sampling its refreshments and snacks, which include roasted turkey legs, churros and a simple box of popcorn. Nearly 70 years after it was founded, Disneyland has managed to stay both relevant and a bucket list destination. But how has a private park owned by a corporate behemoth managed to lodge itself into the California imagination? We’ll talk to two Disneyland experts to learn more, and we’ll hear from you about what feelings or memories Disneyland evokes.

Summer travel is on the rebound after a steep decline in 2020. But, as more people indulge the urge to travel this year, prices for gas, hotels and plane tickets have soared. That, along with ongoing concerns about the pandemic are forcing some travelers to rethink how and where they travel. Many people are hunting for new experiences like discovering a lesser-known state park or small town on the coast. We’ll talk about how summer travel has changed and what’s on your itinerary this year.

California’s seven-day COVID positive test rate is at five percent, the California Department of Public Health reported on Tuesday — the highest rate since February. The news comes as COVID cases have more than tripled in the U.S. since April 1, owing in large part to the highly transmissible BA.2 omicron subvariant. With many pandemic mandates lifted but masking still “strongly recommended” in much of the state, we’ll hear how you’re thinking about COVID risk and discuss the latest on prevention and treatment with UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter.

In a career spanning over two decades, five albums, numerous musical features in film and television and now a lifestyle brand, R&B singer-songwriter Goapele continues to make a mark in music with her soulful sound and introspective lyrics. Her iconic song “Closer,” which was first released independently in 2001, remains influential in R&B music today, inspiring artists like fellow Bay Area musician H.E.R. Raised in a social justice-driven household in Oakland, Goapele has been a voice for prison reform, HIV/AIDS awareness and other causes throughout her career. This week Goapele, who now resides in Los Angeles, returns to Oakland for a four-night stint at Yoshi’s from May 19 to 22. We’ll talk to Goapele about her upcoming shows, her childhood in the Bay, her music and more.

Who was George Floyd, and what was it like to live in his America? Those are the questions that Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Tolu Olorunippa set out to answer in their new biography “His Name is George Floyd." Based on public and private records and hundreds of interviews with those close to him, the book examines Floyd's life in its complexity and the institutions stacked against him, from his birth to his murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin two years ago this month. We talk to Samuels and Olorunippa about Floyd's journey and how his story encapsulates "the compounding and relentless traumas" of the Black experience in America.

A recent DNA analysis has found that the federally unrecognized Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has been in the Bay Area for at least 2,000 years. The evidence bolsters the tribe’s decades-long case to reinstate their federal recognition which they lost, along with dozens of other California Indian tribes, in the 1920s. Tribal leaders say recognition is a necessary first step for the Muwekma Ohlone to establish a reservation. But tribal law experts say the process for gaining federal recognition is complicated and political. We’ll talk about why some tribes are– or are not – recognized, what federal recognition means for them, and the current efforts from tribes such as the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe to gain recognition.

Next month, Berkeley’s Cafe Ohlone will reopen in a new space in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. The restaurant, which serves traditional dishes of the Bay Area’s original inhabitants, closed during the pandemic. Cafe Ohlone’s owners say they hope to repair the fraught relationship the Ohlone people have with the Hearst Museum, which contains a large collection of Ohlone artifacts. We’ll talk about the next iteration of Cafe Ohlone and their goal of affirming Ohlone culture.

Dating, for everyone, is full of tricky social conventions. How long should you wait to call someone after getting their number? Who should cover the dinner bill? And navigating some of these situations can be extra difficult for autistic people. Netflix’s new season of “Love on the Spectrum,” an American version of the Australian docuseries, produced by Northern Pictures, premieres on Wednesday and explores the unique hurdles – and joys – that autistic people face when entering the dating pool. We’ll talk about love, heartbreak, and how autism plays into the beautiful messiness of it all with some of the people who made the show possible.

Jane Stanford and her robber baron husband Leland founded what would become Stanford University in 1885. 20 years later Jane Stanford was murdered, poisoned by strychnine. Historian Richard White dives into the corruption and coverups shrouding the unsolved murder in his new book, “Who Killed Jane Stanford?” His book is both a true crime mystery and a history of the corruption, inequality, yellow journalism, pseudo-science and racism of California’s Gilded Age. Forum talks with White about reviving a cold case more than a century old and the present day resonance of examining “the rich people who created monuments to themselves, and whose lives are reminders that the problem with philanthropy is very often philanthropists.”

Barely a day after a gunman killed 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, another gunman at a church service for a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California, killed one person and injured several others. “This should not be our new normal,” said Orange County representative Katie Porter. And yet, these incidents and their impacts feel all too familiar: Communities of color feeling unspeakable grief and terror. We’ll discuss the hate-filled ideology and so-called “replacement theory” being mentioned in the wake of the Buffalo massacre.

For about a quarter century, KQED Forum listeners have been getting dressed, brushing their teeth and driving to work to the sounds of “Peter Pan” by musician Mike Marshall. On Monday, they will have a new soundtrack. Each hour of the show is getting its own new theme song, composed by NPR’s Ramtin Arablouei. To mark the occasion, we’ll talk about what makes a great theme song, including the best TV themes through the decades. And we’ll open the phone lines to ask our listeners: What TV theme song do you never skip?

Jigsaws, crosswords, Sudokus, cryptics and even scavenger hunts: A.J. Jacobs is convinced that puzzles of all kinds have made him a better person. In his new book, “The Puzzler,” Jacobs takes readers along as he enters all manner of puzzle competitions, talks to puzzle makers and solvers and looks at the history of some of the most popular puzzles around. His book also has embedded within it a specially crafted puzzle with a $10,000 prize for the first person to solve it. We’ll talk to Jacobs about why he thinks puzzles shift our worldviews, build community and make us better thinkers.

Bay Area singer-songwriter Sean Hayes has been singing the blues for the last 30 years, but his music seems especially necessary these days. “Pain, suffering, worry meet pain again,” he sings on his newly released album “Be Like Water.” Hayes describes himself as a songwriter who “makes music to dance to or cry to, or maybe both at the same time.” He joins us in the studio to play live from his new album.

"Any kind of comfort or satisfaction is poisonous to any kind of growth,” choreographer Alonzo King told Forum ten years ago on the 30th anniversary of his company LINES Ballet. “You want to expand your heart and expand your mind. And that wants to continue going until you leave the planet,” he said. Now, with his 40th anniversary ballet “Deep River” opening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, King joins Forum to talk about his expansive career and the process of making art in uncomfortable times.