Independent Commentary Episodes
Dec. 22, 2021
Single in America: Talking with Harry Bruinius, New York Bureau Chief, The Christian Science Monitor
40 % of American adults between the ages of 25 and 54 are single according to the Pew Research Center. That represents a 30% increase since 1990. What implications does this new trend portend for American society ? --- Send i...
Dec. 9, 2021
Radio Meets Podcasting: the Future. Talking with James Cridland, Editor of Podnews
Radio and Podcasting seem to be natural allies. In this episode Radio Futurologist James Cridland discusses the future of these two audio mediums, the Power of Voice and the Power of Listening. --- Send in a voice message: ht...
Dec. 2, 2021
The Curse of Student Loans
America's student loan iceberg totals $1.7 Trillion, with one in six Americans -46million- carrying some student debt. The median loan amount is $17,000. But 6% have debt in excess of $100,000 as high cost graduate programs, ...
Nov. 3, 2021
San Francisco's Major Image Problem. In conversation with Sam Singer, of Singer Associates, Public Relations. Specialist in Crisis Management.
San Francisco's city government has been described as dysfunctional by the influential news magazine, The Economist. And other global newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily...
Oct. 1, 2021
U.S. white male life expectancy drops 2.2 years in 2020 and 2021.; 3 plus years for blacks and latinos. Why ?
Covid 19 fueled a 2.2 year decrease in US white male life expectancy and over 3 years for black and latino men. That was the largest drop in 75 years. While other Western European countries saw a drop also, the US decline was...
Sept. 24, 2021
Men Give Up on College: We Don't Need No Education.
Male College enrolment in 2020 was 40.5% male and 59.5% female. Since the mid-1980s women have earned more bachelors degrees than men. The good news is that women have excelled in higher education. But men have become disillu...
July 27, 2021
The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) : Talking with Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Institute Fellow of SETI.
Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, SETI seeks to explore, understand and explain the prevalence of life in the Universe. Its' Allen Telescope Array located 300 miles North of San Francisco, is the ears of SE...
July 13, 2021
Life Science Breakthroughs: Talking with Dr. Regis Kelly, UC San Francisco
Reg Kelly discusses the QB3 Life Science incubator, a new mega incubator at UC Berkeley to open in October 2021 and groundbreaking research taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area in the field of BioTechnology. And most im...
June 26, 2021
Gavin Newsom's Public Health Crisis: A conversation with California Healthline's Angela Hart
While California has 68% of its population vaccinated, Governor Newsom can hardly run victory laps around the State Capitol. Multiple health crises loom including underfunded public health, single payer insurance, Medicaid fo...
June 14, 2021
The Group of 7 Summit: What did it achieve ? A conversation with Trevin Stratton, Chief Economist and SVP of Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
The Group of 7, the US, Canada, France, Japan, UK, Germany and Italy met in Cornwall, England for three days to co-ordinate economic policies post pandemic, agree a new infrastructure investment plan and discuss the rise of C...
June 1, 2021
Pandemic Baby Bust continues the downward trend of US population decline. In conversation with Professor Phillip Levine of Wellesley College
US births in 2020 were actually down by 400,000 by year end 2020 due to the pandemic lockdowns. Professor Levine and his team have identified a correlation between unemployment and the US birth rate: for each 1% increase in t...
April 16, 2021
Leaving California: Allison Pullins and Neal Richardson discuss their decision to relocate to North Carolina.
A young family weighs a difficult decision to leave San Francisco and move to North Carolina. Mixed emotions confront Allison and Neal as they decide to leave their adopted home in San Francisco for North Carolina. A wistful ...
March 26, 2021
Asian American Violence and Hate: An interview with US Civil Rights Commissioner Michael Yaki
Since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic one year ago, Asian Americans have faced racist violence at a much higher rate than in previous years. In New York City for instance, hate crimes against Asian Americans have jumped 19...
March 25, 2021
Hate Studies Institute, Gonzaga University. In conversation with Kristine Hoover, Director
Spokane, Washington is the site of the Gonzaga University campus and the Institute of Hate Studies. Located not far from the Idaho panhandle where White Supremacist groups and ideology have flourished, the Institute is on the...
Feb. 18, 2021
Black History Month: In conversation with Jonathan Speed
February is Black History Month when we celebrate and acknowledge the many accomplishments of African Americans throughout the history of the United States. In today's episode, successful Venture Capitalist Jonathan Speed, an...
Feb. 1, 2021
San Francisco Noir: America's Bad Dream
San Francisco has been picked on by the East Coast press for decades. Of late, they have criticized us for our homelessness mess, high cost of housing, City Hall Corruption - I agree with them on that score - and the recent t...
Jan. 20, 2021
Was 2020 or 1968 the worst year ever ? The Past is Prologue.
As awful as 2020 has been been, 1968 was even more momentous with political assassinations, the Viet Nam War, the Prague Spring and Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as well as major civil unrest throughout America. Amidst al...
Dec. 19, 2020
Newsom Recall: Danger Signals Flash Red.
Governor Gavin Newsom, California's 40th Governor could be facing a recall election in the Spring of 2021 in the midst of the Pandemic. Recall signature gatherers have 850,000 of the 1,500,000 qualified signatures they need t...
Nov. 21, 2020
JFK Conspiracies: Fact, Fiction or Fantasy ?
November 22, 2020 marks 57 years since the assassination of the 35th President, John F. Kennedy. Yet key documents remain hidden from the public including 300 pages of files on George Joannides, a CIA operative who managed t...
Oct. 28, 2020
Violence Post Election: Burn Baby Burn
2020 has been marked by extreme political polarization in the United States, and civilian unrest in most American cities. 56% of Americans polled expect political violence to follow the November 3rd presidential election rega...
Oct. 5, 2020
California's Wildfire Apocalypse: a Moonshot Solution
The quickening pace of the destruction of California's forests by wildfire is staggering. In the last 3 months four million acres of our 33 million acres of forest have burned. That's 12%. From 2000 to 2019 4 million acres bu...
Sept. 20, 2020
San Francisco's Deathly Compassion.
San Francisco's homeless population numbers approximately 24,000. It breaks down into three discrete segments, namely one third mentally ill, one third economic casualties and one third drug users and addicts. Today's podcast...
Sept. 15, 2020
Hate Studies : Why we need to learn about Hate.
Gonzaga University's Institute of Hate Studies, located in Spokane, Washington is a center focused on understanding the roots of Hate in the public square and working to eradicate it. The ADL's Pyramid of Hate is a graphic vi...
Sept. 7, 2020
The Pacific North West: a center of Hate ?
The recent murder of right wing Patriot Prayer member Jay Danielson by Antifa activist Michael Reinoehl on the streets of Portland, was a dangerous escalation in the street protests of this Summer. Reinoehl was subsequently k...