KQED's Forum

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of SB 8, the controversial Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and deputizes private citizens to enforce it. We’ll analyze what the justices’ responses may signal about the fate of the law, and we’ll look ahead to other cases on the Court’s docket bearing on the regulation of guns, greenhouse gas emissions and immigration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, is an ancient tradition that started with indigenous people in the Americas, morphed when Catholics arrived, and has seen a resurgence in recent decades in California. This year, the Los Angeles Times set up a virtual Día de Los Muertos altar this year to create a community space to honor loved ones who have passed. The virtual altar reflects the pandemic, which pushed many traditions online, and an example of how the Latin American tradition of honoring the dead has evolved over time. We discuss the practice of honoring the dead as well as cultural and personal connections to Dia de los Muertos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across California, cities are reckoning with their historical legacies of racism towards the Chinese community. In May, Antioch became the first city to issue a formal apology for its anti-Chinese policies and the mob-led destruction of its Chinatown in 1876. This month, San Jose followed with a similar apology for enforcing anti-Chinese policies and fomenting racial hatred that resulted in the obliteration by fire of its Chinatown, once one of the largest in California, in 1887. For many Californians, the scope of violence towards Chinese immigrants is history they have never learned. For descendants of these settlers, the stories are not just history, but a sorrowful legacy that continues to impact their lives. We talk about why these apologies are happening now, and whether saying sorry is enough to right past wrongs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, begins Sunday, collecting world leaders and activists to discuss and negotiate ambitious climate change policies with the aim of staying below 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise. California, which has already been experiencing the effects of climate change in the forms of sea level rise, record-breaking wildfires and extensive droughts, will be represented by a 22-member delegation of state lawmakers and a number of activists. We’ll talk about the goals of California’s delegation and what’s at stake for the state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer famously said “you are not free, whether you are Black or white, until I am free.” Hamer and her bold, radical honesty are the subject of a new biography by historian Keisha Blain, who sheds light on Hamer’s life and the ideas and political strategies that were central to the Civil Rights movement. In “Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America,” Blain documents key moments in Hamer’s activism, including her pivotal role in co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As voting rights remain a battleground in the U.S., Blain joins us to talk about Hamer’s legacy and the lessons we can learn from her activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended a dosage for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 and up and California state officials say they’re preparing to offer them by the end of next week. The vaccines would be authorized under emergency use with full FDA approval expected sometime in 2022. While some parents say they are eager to vaccinate their elementary-school-age children, many remain hesitant. Meanwhile school districts in California including in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento have already set up vaccine mandates for students starting as early as January. Public health and education officials now face the challenge of getting as many of the state’s eligible 3.5 million children vaccinated as possible. We dig into the latest news and answer your questions about pediatric vaccines and school mandates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In time for Halloween frights, horror podcast hosts share their picks for the best films of the genre. From zombie apocalypses to tales of the demon-possessed, we'll hear what makes for a satisfying cinematic descent into terror. And we'll explore why some of us avoid the scary stuff, and why others can't get enough of the dark side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

McSweeney’s, the idiosyncratic San Francisco publishing company, releases a literary journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, with no fixed format. The quarterly has been published in a variety of artistic, unusual forms from an oblong edition to a bundle of mail delivered to the wrong address. Its new “Audio Issue” may be the most elaborate yet. It’s a box of booklets, a scroll, a keychain, a fictional toy company catalog and other objects that, in a collaboration with Radiotopia producers, all have audio components. The issue experiments with ways audio and text work together in storytelling, and it seeks to expand our understanding of what it means to make art accessible to those with impaired hearing, or sight, by expanding content across the senses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time since the start of the pandemic, San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora reopened its doors to the public last week. Featured in the museum's newly renovated space are the first solo exhibitions of two of Africa's most critically-acclaimed contemporary artists: Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo and Malawi-born, Johannesburg-based Billie Zangewa. We'll talk with the curators about the shows, which both center and celebrate the Black gaze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top oil and gas executives from Chevron, ExxonMobile, BP America and Shell will testify Thursday before a house committee examining the fossil fuel industry’s role in promoting climate disinformation. The probe, which House Democrats plan to model on the Big Tobacco hearings of the 1990s, will examine whether Big Oil has misled Americans about how fossil fuels have contributed to climate change and whether those companies can be held accountable. We’ll preview the hearing and also hear about efforts to hold responsible parties in the oil spill in Southern CA earlier this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Jose’s food scene has long flown under the radar. It’s overshadowed by the established culinary reputations of its San Francisco and Oakland neighbors and the city suffers from its association with frequently derided tech culture. But KQED food editor Luke Tsai says he’d rather eat in San Jose than almost anywhere else in the Bay Area. Tsai says San Jose’s robust immigrant communities have formed a thriving and diverse dining experience that deserves more time in the spotlight. Tsai joins us to talk more about the San Jose food scene and some of his favorite restaurants in the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sonoma County has seen a 100-year flood, a historic drought and six major wildfires that have left death and destruction in their wake, and subjected residents to months of bad air days and routine power shut-offs -- just in the last four years. What does living with chronic catastrophes like these do to people? How does it affect their minds, bodies and spirits? The four-part podcast, “Chronic Catastrophe,” led by journalism students at Santa Rosa Junior College, takes up that question, interviewing experts and local residents about the real impacts of climate change on people’s lives. We’ll talk with the podcast’s producers about the series and their own personal experiences coping through “chronic catastrophe.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Judging is not for the faint of heart," writes Judge LaDoris Cordell in her new memoir "Her Honor." Over two decades, as the first Black female jurist to sit on a superior court in Northern California, Cordell oversaw thousands of civil and criminal cases, many of which laid bare for her the racial biases and other structural flaws that infect the legal system. We'll talk about her experiences on the bench and her proposals to reform how justice is administered in U.S. courts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a flood of criticism from parents, three members of the San Francisco Board of Education are facing recall in a special election set for Feb. 15. Recall supporters accused the board members of mismanaging school re-openings during the pandemic, misplacing energy on renaming schools and changing the admissions process for Lowell High School, the elite magnet school, and being ill-prepared to steward the district’s finances amid a looming $116 million budget deficit. We’ll discuss what’s next for the school board. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's hard to talk about death. And the COVID-19 pandemic has made those conversations even harder, as families have grappled with the sudden illness of loved ones and hospital protocols have shifted those freighted interactions to Zoom. We’ll talk about how to start conversations about end-of-life care, post-mortem wishes and estate planning. And we want to hear from you: Has the pandemic inspired you to make an end-of-life plan? What advice do you need to have an effective conversation about death with your loved ones? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When he founded the Internet Archive 25 years ago, Brewster Kahle ambitiously set out to create a modern-day library that would “create a permanent memory for the Web that can be leveraged to make a new Global Mind.” Housed in a former church on Funston Street in San Francisco, the archive has amassed 70 million gigabytes of data that includes 65 million books, texts, movies, audio files, and images. Its Wayback Machine has saved more than 653 billion web pages and counting. While Kahle’s ideals have stayed steady, the internet has radically changed. We’ll talk with Kahle and a panel of experts about what the internet is, could be and should be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bay Area was hit with historic levels of rain on Sunday, causing massive flooding in Marin and power outages for close to 150,000 households. We'll get an update on the damage caused and talk about whether this extreme weather may be the new normal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every year about 500,000 Americans who give birth experience anxiety, guilt and insomnia after their baby is born -- and some are even suicidal. The postpartum mental health care they receive varies greatly. Mother and Baby Units are considered the gold standard of inpatient psychiatric care for new mothers in England and several other countries, but none exist in the U.S., despite mental health issues being one of the leading causes of maternal death. We’ll look at the differences in postpartum mental health care in the U.S. and the U.K, and learn about California’s first inpatient perinatal psychiatry unit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hundreds of thousands of workers in industries ranging from health care to coal mining are on strike, in a massive wave of labor actions being dubbed “Striketober”. But even off the picket lines there may be quieter indicators of worker rebellion. Employees are quitting at record rates and employers are struggling to find workers, even after hiking up wages. To former Labor Secretary and UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich, these are signs that American workers may finally have the bargaining power to push back against low wages, long hours and bad working conditions. “You might say workers have declared a national general strike until they get better pay and improved working conditions” he wrote in an opinion piece for The Guardian. We’ll talk to Robert Reich about this moment and the future of labor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation that makes California the first state in the nation to require health care facilities to offer screening for hepatitis B and C, which if left untreated can lead to fatal liver disease and cancer. Almost 90% of people with chronic hepatitis B in California are members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Black Americans have the second highest rate of chronic infection. We'll talk about how the law will work and take your questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last month, Marie Wilcox of Woodlake, Calif., the last known fluent speaker of the indigenous language, Wukchumni, passed away. Before she died, she dedicated herself to preserving the language by putting together a Wukchumni dictionary and recording herself speaking. Similar efforts are underway across California, a state where some 100 indigenous languages were spoken before the arrival of Europeans. Many of those languages have disappeared entirely and some have only a few fluent speakers left. We talk about what it takes to save a language and the work of the California Language Archive at the University of California, Berkeley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a hot October weekend. Typical Bay Area fall weather, and the end of fire season. A small fire that had broken out in the hills above the Caldecott Tunnel looked nearly extinguished. But then the wind kicked up, and suddenly what had been a campfire-size blaze, became an inferno. That firestorm would go on to kill 25 people and destroy 3,400 homes. Thirty years ago, it seemed like an anomaly. Today, fires so large that they create their own weather systems have become an annual event. We’ll talk about lessons learned from the Tunnel Fire with people who lived through it and with those trying to prevent another conflagration from happening again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California’s historic Reparations Task Force heard testimony last week on anti-Black racism in housing, education, banking and the environment as part of a series of meetings considering the impact of slavery in the state. Vice chair of the task force, Dr. Amos Brown, emphasized the importance of the hearings, declaring: “We need to make sure that these testimonies are shouted from the house top and throughout the length and breadth of this state of California.” Commissioned by Assembly Bill 3121 last fall to “study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans,” this task force is the first of its kind in the U.S. We’ll talk to task force chair Kamilah Moore about the recent hearings and key questions the group is exploring in their study, including who would qualify for reparations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Puffy jackets, colorful patterns and statement accessories aren’t just trendy wardrobe staples among young people. Senior citizens are showing off what enjoying old age can look like through their unique styles. Photography projects such as Advanced Style and Chinatown Pretty capture the joy, wisdom and stories of neighborhood elders who boldly express themselves through their outfits. We’ll talk with the creators of those projects and discuss what we can all learn from the senior fashionistas strutting the sidewalks in our own communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When labor economist David Card began studying the minimum wage in the 1990’s, conventional wisdom, and economic theory, held that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to job loss. But in a move that revolutionized the way economics could be done, Card and his colleague, Alan Krueger, compared the real world data from a state that raised the minimum wage to one that didn’t, and found that the increase didn’t kill jobs. This “natural experiment” allowed Card to study the effects of policy changes or chance events in a way similar to clinical trials in medicine. Another natural experiment found that an influx of immigrants did not lower the wages of low-skilled native born workers. Forum talks with Berkeley professor David Card about his work, the “credibility revolution” in economics that it spawned and winning, with Stanford professor Guido Imbens and Joshua Angrist from MIT, the Nobel Prize in economics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thirty years ago, a small, mostly-extinguished grassfire was stoked by a hot, dry wind that ignited a firestorm in the Oakland and Berkeley hills killing 25 people and destroying more than 3,400 homes. As the Bay Area remembers the Tunnel Fire, we talk to Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf about the lessons the city and firefighters learned from the tragedy and her own memories of that fire which destroyed her family home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump on Monday sued the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection to prevent it from accessing a broad swath of records from his administration. The filing came just before the Committee convenes on Tuesday to pursue criminal contempt charges against Trump ally Steve Bannon for his refusal to cooperate with investigators. We'll talk to Los Angeles Congressman Adam Schiff, who sits on the Select Committee, about his efforts to hold January 6 rioters and their enablers to account, and about his new book "Midnight in Washington," which details the antidemocratic forces still at work in the U.S. political system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, "The Loneliest Americans," Jay Caspian Kang sets out to challenge the assumed solidarity of Asian Americans of different classes and waves of immigration. What unites all the peoples from all the different places in the globe’s largest continent? Maybe not enough to create a cohesive political unit, Kang argues. We’ll talk with Kang, a staff writer for the New York Times Opinion page and New York Times Magazine, about his book, radical politics, and Berkeley through the eyes of a recent East Coast transplant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Colin Powell, 84, died on Monday due to complications from COVID-19. Powell was one of the largest figures in American public, political and military life of the past four decades. As a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state and national security adviser he helped craft modern U.S. foreign policy, including his controversial role in the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003. Born in Harlem, N.Y., to Jamaican parents, Powell was a pioneer in a number of his public service roles, including his time as the first Black Secretary of State and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When he endorsed Barack Obama for President in 2008, it was one of then-Senator Obama's most significant endorsements, particularly because of Powell's military credentials. We remember Powell's impact on American life, and how his role affected Californians of all political stripes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Please... be quiet!" That's the desperate plea that becomes a constant refrain for 13-year-old Benny Oh, the protagonist of Ruth Ozeki's new novel, "The Book of Form and Emptiness." After his beloved father dies, Benny starts literally to hear "things" - from the old lettuce that sighs from the refrigerator to the stapler that yaks away unbidden. Benny comes to find solace in a library and discovers "the Book" that will narrate his story. We talk to Ozeki about the novel and the Zen philosophy that informs it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As fire survivors await compensation from PG&E for wildfires sparked by their equipment, hedge funds grossed at least $2 billion by getting rid of PG&E stock bought under the bankruptcy deal last year. That’s according to a new KQED/California Newsroom analysis. The hedge fund stock dump lowered PG&E's share price, and that’s affecting fire survivors’ compensation and resulting in higher prices for the utility’s ratepayers, who already pay 80% more for power than the U.S average. We get the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The future of high-speed rail in California remains in jeopardy as funds dry up. Now, the Los Angeles Times reports that the High-Speed Rail Authority will have to approve at least another billion dollars in cost overruns to pay its contractors. Also in question: Will it even be high speed? We get the latest on the state’s expensive, delayed, and mismanaged bullet train project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authors Joanna Ho and Lisa Moore Ramée want young readers of all backgrounds to see themselves in stories. In her debut children’s book “Eyes that Kiss in the Corners,” Ho tells the story of a child’s love of her Asian eyes. In her new picture book, “Playing at the Border: A Story of Yo-Yo Ma,” Ho highlights world-famous cellist, immigration and the way music can build bridges between different communities. Ramée's young adult novels “A Good Kind of Trouble” and “Something to Say” both center young Black girl protagonists who embark on journeys to find their voices and what it means to stand for something, in your own life or in the community. Ho and Ramée recently joined us for a FORUM LIVE event to talk about the shared themes in their stories of identity, self acceptance and finding one’s voice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is an encore presentation of Forum: The story of reggaeton music is layered and complex, and, according to reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, “the real story of reggaeton is about la resistencia. Resistance.” Queen is also the narrator of the new podcast “Loud” by Spotify and Futuro Studios, which gives reggaeton the documentary treatment and explores its nuances. “Loud” journeys through reggaeton’s origins in Jamaican dancehall to Panamanian reggae in español to “las calles” of Puerto Rico to New York and beyond. Once criminalized in Puerto Rico in the ‘90s and early aughts, reggaeton is now one of the most popular genres in the world -- reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020. We’ll take a critical look at reggaeton’s origins and evolution, from its dancehall roots to the massive pop presence it has today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I am freedom,” says Rahsaan Thomas in a recorded phone call from San Quentin State Prison, featured in a new performance by Flyaway Productions and Museum of the African Diaspora. "Meet Us Quickly with Your Mercy" combines first-person recordings with music and aerial choreography— with the goal of conveying the solidarity of Black and Jewish activism for racial justice and prison abolition. It’s rooted in a four-year collaboration that comprised hundreds of letters, prison visits and monitored phone calls between artistic director Jo Kreiter and lead writer Thomas, who co-hosts and co-produces the Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast “Ear Hustle” and who is currently incarcerated in San Quentin. "Meet Us Quickly with Your Mercy” will run through Oct. 17 and charge no admission fee. Kreiter and Thomas join us to discuss the show and its message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every eight years, the state goes through a process to determine how much and what kind of housing should be built in every California city. The allotment, known as the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, is up for renewal this year and has called for cities to plan for more housing than in the past. Historically, most cities don’t build the housing the state recommends, and dozens have already filed lawsuits fighting the numbers. RHNA only tells cities how much housing they should plan for, but doesn’t require them to approve housing projects or ensure that the housing is actually. We’ll talk about this year’s assessment process and why the vast majority of cities fall short of the state’s goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite more and more Americans having stuff delivered during the pandemic, the USPS is in deep financial trouble. In order to save money, the USPS has made a few operational changes. One of the big ones: The U.S. Postal Service began slowing down delivery of some letters and packages starting Oct. 1. But economists say that’s a vicious cycle -- if you make a product worse, fewer people will buy it, and that will only exacerbate the postal service’s problems. This is not new -- the postal service has been in trouble for years, facing massive losses. The Postmaster General told Congress that there’s “no end in sight,” in particular because the agency is on the hook for billions in employee pensions. We talk about the problems plaguing the postal service, how to make the agency viable for the future and what that means for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As part of our First Person series, Forum invites Bay Area residents to share their lived experience leading remarkable and important lives within our community. Matt Marostica lives in Berkeley but is the High Councilor in the Oakland Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as people within the faith prefer to be called instead of the more common term Mormon. Marostica, a former bishop of the Berkeley ward, says his congregation is made up of all sorts of people, from openly-gay members, to undocumented immigrants, to conservatives. Marostica says he loves his church and faith community, and is working to change it from the inside. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coronavirus pandemic led to not only high unemployment from business closures and layoffs, but it has also induced a record number of worker resignations. This past August alone, close to 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In what has been dubbed “The Great Resignation," workers are less likely than ever to settle for jobs they consider unacceptable. We talk with experts about what’s driving people to quit and how businesses are responding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court on Monday to halt Texas's abortion law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. This comes after a federal appeals court on Friday temporarily reinstated Texas’s law, following a brief block by a lower court. Amid the legal uncertainty, local news organizations are reporting a near-total shutdown of abortions in Texas, and the ripple effects have already been seen in California, where clinics are scheduling appointments for women planning to travel from Texas. In the meantime, on Dec. 1 the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the closely-watched Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which could overturn Roe v. Wade. We’ll discuss the latest news regarding abortion law and the current stakes in Texas, Mississippi and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pedestrian deaths increased 46% nationwide in the past decade, while the number of all other traffic deaths rose by just 5%. Black pedestrians were killed at a rate 82% higher than whites, and residents of low-income neighborhoods are far more likely to be struck by a car and killed than people in higher income neighborhoods. We hear from experts about the role vehicle speed, smart phones, and our enduring attachment to SUV’s are playing in the tragic, and unequal, rise in deaths. And, we talk with a mother whose son died in a pedestrian accident about what urgently needs to be done to make streets safer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I don't want to die anywhere else," writes José Vadi in "Inter State," his new essay collection about California. Vadi explores what he calls our "disjointed mosaic of a state" from his vantage point as a poet, skateboarder, laid-off tech worker and grandson of a Central Valley farmworker. We talk to Vadi about California and the variegated experiences of its inhabitants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“In the United States, it’s very stark that the past is not yet past. Problems that we think of as historical in fact continue to impact our lives on a daily basis,” says Princeton historian and writer Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Last week Taylor received a 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for her scholarship on how past and present political and economic policies sustain chronic racial inequality, and how social movements, like Black Lives Matter, can transform that narrative. We’ll talk to Taylor about her work and her most recent book “Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Home Ownership” which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, organizations, doctors and parents focused on treating autism as a disease and steered millions of dollars in funding to find a “cure” instead of to provide services to autistic people. Political journalist Eric Garcia chronicles that history in his new book “We’re not Broken: Changing The Autism Conversation,” and draws on his own experience as an autistic person to lay out the ongoing challenges and misperceptions they face. Garcia points out that autistic people are often portrayed as white male children or engineers, when in fact autistic people come in every gender and ethnic background. We talk with Garcia about why autism is so misunderstood and how to change the narrative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Has all the pandemic time in your home kitchen perfected your souffli? Or maybe you've realized it's possible to survive on just condiments. For a lot of us our cooking habits vacillated during this time between unrealistically high culinary expectations and dispiritingly low ones. But hopefully you've found at least a few just right, joy bringing, doable dishes that have brought comfort to your day. We want to hear about those meals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Governor Gavin Newsom has until October 10th to sign or veto the bills on his desk. We'll talk with KQED's politics team's Katie Orr and Marisa Lagos about some of the bills he's signed into law, including drug sentencing reform and the nation's first ban on nonconsensual removal of a condom during sex. And we'll look at some of the closely watched bills still waiting on a decision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The pandemic forced many of us to rethink cultural norms — one being the expectation that people, especially women and younger folks, should color or hide their roots. Amid salon closures and cancelled social events, many people chose to grow out their gray hair, and some are sticking with the look. We’ll talk about why for some the choice to go gray can feel fraught, and why for others it brings a sense of empowerment. And we want to hear from you: Did you decide to grow out your gray hair during the pandemic? Or are you on the fence about whether to forgo the dye? What does gray hair mean to you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hispanic Heritage Month ends Oct. 15, and in a recent column for the Los Angeles Times, staff writer Daniel Hernandez explores the meaning behind the plethora of ironic memes that have popped up to celebrate and poke fun at the occasion. Some of the memes offer ironic takes on popular songs, characters such as Mama Coco from the movie “Coco,” and customs such as eating a tortilla slathered with butter or using ovens to store pots and pans. Hernandez joins us to discuss the memes and the deeper themes they reveal about, as he writes, “the state of ambivalence that we have about ourselves, and that non-Latino Americans continue to have about us.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two California scientists, David Julius from UCSF and Ardem Patapoutian from San Diego's Scripps Research, have won the 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine. In their work, which focuses on the biology of our senses, Julius and Patapoutian identified receptors that allow the cells in your body to sense touch and temperature. Their findings hold potential medical applications for better treatment of chronic pain. We talk with the prize-winning researchers about their work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not many people get a backstage pass to history, but Ben Fong-Torres has. As a writer and music editor for Rolling Stone magazine, Fong-Torres stood at the center of an era of rock and roll from which acts like Bob Dylan, The Doors, the Grateful Dead and Elton John emerged, and his writing was so revered by musicians that Fong-Torres was often the only journalist bands would talk to. A new documentary by Suzanne Joe Kai taps into Fong-Torres’ personal archives and includes interviews with him as well as some of his famous subjects to tell the story of how Fong-Torres, the Bay Area-born son of Chinese immigrants, found himself in the middle of the cultural zeitgeist. We’ll talk to Fong-Torres about the film, which will be shown at the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices