Shows / KQED's Forum
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…
Episodes
KQED's ForumWhere's My Spot? Henry Grabar on 'How Parking Explains the World'
Parking is one of the biggest paradoxes of American life. There are between one and two billion parking spaces in the United States, several for each car, and…
KQED's ForumToward a Moral Political Economy
Is it possible to have a capitalist democracy that ensures that all people flourish? One that represents common values, yet respects differences? Professors at…
KQED's ForumHow Sen. Feinstein’s two-month absence is impacting the US Senate
It’s been more than two months that California Senator Dianne Feinstein has been away from Capitol Hill, as she recovers from a case of shingles that left her…
KQED's ForumArtificial Intelligence is Booming, How Should it Be Regulated?
As the use of artificial intelligence explodes, government officials are trying to figure out how best to regulate the technology. Already, generative AI…
KQED's ForumYour Acquaintances Are the Key to a Connected and Happier Life
The barista who makes your morning coffee, the person at the dog park or the fellow commuter who you exchange a smile with on the bus every day: You may not…
KQED's ForumOakland’s Teachers Are On Strike, Again
Oakland teachers went on strike Thursday morning for the third time in just over a year. The teachers, who earn some of the lowest salaries in the region, are…
KQED's ForumHollywood’s Writers Strike for Better Pay and Benefits
More than 10,000 television and screenwriters are on strike after months-long contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television…
KQED's ForumActor, Singer Billy Porter on Playing Himself
Actor and singer Billy Porter has a shelf of awards, including a Tony, Grammy, and Emmy, earned for playing a variety of roles including “Pray Tell,” the…
KQED's ForumBiologist Jonathan Losos on ‘How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa’
Does your cat’s cry for food sound different from its meow for attention? How come Mr. Whiskers is “making biscuits” on your belly? Evolution may provide clues…
KQED's ForumAll You Can Eat: Funky Foods We Aren’t Supposed to Love, But Do
Durian is a pungent, rank smelling fruit common in Singapore that is hard to harvest and cut open. And yet, it’s inspired scores of devotees, including food…
KQED's ForumDetention of WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich Highlights Peril of Reporting in Hostile Nations
“Journalism is not a crime,” declared President Biden on Saturday at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. In his remarks, Biden demanded the immediate…
KQED's ForumWhat First Republic Bank's Failure Means for the Bay Area
Facing takeover by the federal government, First Republic Bank, the Bay Area’s largest regional bank, was sold off to JP Morgan Chase this weekend. Over the…
KQED's ForumNicole Chung on How Grief Can Be ‘A Living Remedy’
Writer Nicole Chung’s first memoir, “All You Can Ever Know,” chronicled her search for her birth family. Her second, “A Living Remedy,” documents her final…
KQED's ForumCalifornia Braces for ‘The Big Melt’
A winter of unusually heavy rain and snow elevated California’s mountain snowpack to levels not seen in years. But now that temperatures are rising, the state…
KQED's ForumCalifornia Grapples with Primary Care Provider Shortage
About a third of Californians live in areas where there is a shortage of primary care providers, according to the California Healthcare Foundation. The…
KQED's ForumKQED Youth Takeover: Four Stewards at Work Healing Their Land and Communities
The percentage of Black-owned farms in the U.S. has dropped from a peak of 14% in the 1920s to just 2% today. In California, less than 1% of land is owned by…
KQED's ForumNPR’s Mary Louise Kelly on Her Memoir ‘It. Goes. So. Fast.’
The work she loved often kept NPR co-host Mary Louise Kelly from going to her kids’ soccer games or other events. Whether it was because she was anchoring “All…
KQED's ForumKQED Youth Takeover: From the Screen to the Writing Room, South Asian Influence in TV and Film is on the Rise
South Asian American representation in television and movies is on the rise. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe debuting its first South Asian superhero in…
KQED's ForumNew Movie ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ Raises Questions about Climate Activism
The new movie ‘How to Blow up a Pipeline’ is a heist thriller about a group of young, mainly Gen Z, climate activists who decide to detonate a Texas pipeline…
KQED's ForumKQED Youth Takeover: Iran’s Protest Movement Through the Eyes of the Bay Area Diaspora
Seven months ago 22 year old Mahsa Amini died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for an “improper hijab.” Her death prompted uproar and…
KQED's ForumCan You Love the Art of a Person You Loathe?
“What ought we to do about great art made by bad men?” That’s the question that undergirds Claire Dederer’s new book “Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma,” which…
KQED's ForumKQED Youth Takeover: Cybersecurity Tips and Tricks for a Safer Digital Life
Cybersecurity underpins our digital lives, and is relevant for all ages – including teens. According to the CDC, teens spend between 7.5 to 9 hours a day on…
KQED's ForumSupreme Court Preserves Access to Key Abortion Drug, For Now
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and…
KQED's ForumOakland A’s Fans Process Team’s Impending Departure
For decades, a dedicated, but shrinking, contingent of Oakland A’s fans piled into the Coliseum season after season, banging on drums and sporting their green…
KQED's ForumHow the Modern American Wedding Was Supersized
Weddings have gone from celebrating the “Big Day” to the “Big Year,” says journalist Annie Atherton. There’s the proposal party, the engagement party, the…
KQED's ForumThe Transformational Power of the Cassette Tape
When the Sony Walkman arrived in 1979 it not only changed the way we experience audio, it also changed the way we experience the world. Suddenly listening was…
KQED's ForumClancy Martin Explains ‘How Not To Kill Yourself’
“I’ve lived nearly all my life with two incompatible ideas in my head,” writes philosophy professor Clancy Martin. “I wish I were dead and I’m glad my suicides…
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Internet Archive Wants To Share Books Online, But Are They Breaking the Law?
For 26 years, the Open Library of the San Francisco-based Internet Archive has been preserving millions of books and lending them out freely online. Last…
KQED's ForumMedia Firms Exit Twitter as Platform Continues to Stumble
“Twitter isn’t dead. But it’s getting there,” writes Vox tech reporter Shirin Ghaffary in her new piece describing the chaotic six months since tech…
KQED's ForumPublic Opinion of the Supreme Court is at an All-Time Low. Justice Thomas’ Ethics Scandal Isn’t Helping.
The ethics scandal surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas continues to deepen. According to Pro Publica, in the last 20 years, Thomas and his wife have enjoyed…
KQED's ForumPollination Ecologist Stephen Buchmann on the Internal Lives of Bees
Did you know that bees have thoughts, memories and personalities? They can count to four, play soccer and feel pain, according to Stephen Buchmann, a…
KQED's ForumClimate Fix: How California Can Help Salmon Survive Severe Weather...And Other Existential Threats
Salmon need cold water to hatch and grow strong enough to embark on migrations that stretch hundreds of miles from their places of birth. In California, dams…
KQED's Forum‘My Kids Call Me Congressmom:’ Rep. Katie Porter Shares Personal and Political in New Memoir
When Katie Porter ran for Congress in 2018 she was “acutely aware” of her shortcomings – that she was a Democrat in Republican Orange County, that she’d never…
KQED's ForumCalifornia’s Electrified Future Requires More Transmission Lines Which Take Years to Build
California’s energy future is going to require electricity – a lot more of it. With the push to electrify transportation like cars and trucks and a climate…
KQED's ForumLet’s Go Warriors, Lakers, Kings and Clippers: California’s 4 NBA Teams Enter Playoffs
This weekend, the NBA Playoffs begin — and this year, for the first time, all four of California’s teams will be playing. The frenzy starts in Northern…
KQED's ForumHow Women Pioneers of Bay Area Hip Hop Made Their Own Rules
Until recently, a persistent narrative about women in hip-hop was that only one can succeed at any given time. But, that wasn’t how the Bay Area rolled…
KQED's ForumAs Dominion Lawsuit Goes to Trial, Misinformation About Voting Machines Persists
Jury selection begins on Thursday in Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, more than two years after Dominion filed its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit arguing…
KQED's ForumHow A Movement To Support Gay Children Began with One Mom
Jeanne Manford was an elementary school teacher and hardly an activist. But she had a gay son, Morty, who she loved fiercely. In 1972, the two of them walked…
KQED's Forum5 Years After Mendocino Crash, Journalist Roxanna Asgarian Retells the Stories of the Children Murdered
In 2018, six children — Ciera, Abigail, Jeremiah, Devonte, Hannah and Markis — were murdered by their adoptive parents, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, who also…
KQED's ForumAll You Can Eat: Slurping Your Way To Better Ramen
Ramen shops have popped up all over the Bay Area dishing out bowls of the classic Japanese comfort food. But members of the Japanese diaspora have long been…
KQED's ForumClint Smith Celebrates Complexities of Parenthood in ‘Above Ground’
“I experience your wounds as if they were my own,” reads the last line of Clint Smith’s poem “Nociception.” Directed to a child, it explains that just as a sea…
KQED's ForumU.S. Life Expectancy Falls Behind That of Other Developed Nations. Why?
Life expectancy rates in the United States have been falling for some time even though the country has one of the highest standards of living on the planet…
KQED's ForumHow to Move Your Body Now and for Decades to Come
Mobility is “the harmonious convergence of all the elements that allow you to move freely and effortlessly through space and life,” write San Francisco…
KQED's ForumLet’s Go Chasing Waterfalls (and Wildflowers and Mushrooms)
California has been pummeled by storms in recent months, but the benefit of that never-ending rain cloud is all the makings for a beautiful Bay Area spring…
KQED's ForumNew York Times Podcast ‘The Run-Up’ Takes Listeners Inside Political Parties
The 2024 presidential election is more than 18 months away. Yet it started months ago: not with Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s running again, but behind…
KQED's ForumHow Rock Climbing is Closing the Sports Gender Gap
For as long as rock climbing has existed, women have been pushing the limits on the wall. And they’ve done so without being properly recognized. But in the…
KQED's ForumHow the AR-15 Became ‘America’s Gun’
About 16 million Americans – or about 1 in 20 U.S. adults – own at least one AR-15, making it the best-selling rifle in the United States. It’s also among the…
KQED's ForumLow Unemployment Has Been Good for the Working Poor. Are There Lessons To Be Learned For Leaner Times?
With rising inflation, downtowns that are yet to fully reopen and regional bank failures, it may seem that there is not a lot of good economic news to report…
KQED's ForumCentral Valley’s Lake Tulare is Set to Return. Farmers are Worried.
Once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, spanning what is now Kings, Tulare and Kern Counties before it was drained a century ago, Tulare Lake…
KQED's ForumMartinez Residents Seek Answers on Toxic Refinery Release
Residents of Martinez woke up the morning after Thanksgiving last year to find a white powder coating their neighborhoods. About a week later, county health…
KQED's ForumHumboldt County Yurok Tribe Grapples with California’s Epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
“In Indian Country, everybody seems to know somebody who’s gone missing or been murdered,” begins LA Times reporter Hannah Wiley’s reporting on the crisis of…
KQED's ForumPoets on Why We Need Poetry Now
When he was named San Francisco Poet Laureate in 2021, Tongo Eisen Martin said, “I want to push even further into places where poetry has not yet permeated.”…
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How Lower-Income Consumers Are Subsidizing Your Credit Card Points
As America gradually becomes a cashless society, credit card rewards programs have become increasingly popular, offering to give consumers back a portion of…
KQED's ForumWhat It Will Take to Transform California’s Most Notorious Prison into a Scandinavian Style Rehabilitation Center
San Quentin is the oldest and most notorious prison in California. It’s home to the largest death row in the nation, housing infamous criminals including…
KQED's ForumCalifornia Reacts to the Indictment of Former President Donald Trump
A Manhattan grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump on charges believed to be related to illegal payments his team made to porn star Stormy…
KQED's ForumLaurel Braitman’s ‘Epic Journey Through Loss to Love’
When Laurel Braitman’s father died, after more than a decade at battle with a rare bone cancer, she was a teenager, just finishing up high school. It wasn’t…
KQED's ForumCan Congress Ban TikTok?
U.S. lawmakers are debating a series of proposals that would ban the deeply popular video app TikTok or otherwise curtail its reach, a week after a House panel…
KQED's ForumClimate Fix: California Looks to Remove Massive Amounts of Carbon from Atmosphere to Meet Climate Goals
California has laid out ambitious goals of becoming carbon neutral by 2045. That means not just limiting emissions, but also removing about 100 million tons of…
KQED's ForumIn Transit: Self-Driving Taxis and Trucks Take the Wheel
In San Francisco, self-driving taxis with no human operator are accelerating around city streets day and night. Google-owned Waymo expanded to L.A. last month…
KQED's ForumRamadan, A Time To Fast, But Also A Time to Celebrate Food
During Ramadan, observant Muslims who are able to fast from sunrise to sunset, eating and drinking nothing. It is not a surprise then that food takes on a…