RIP Al Young: poet, professor, a scriptwriter, a novelist, a musician and a regular on KQED’s airwaves. On Forum back in 2008: “If you listen to Stevie Wonder’s tribute to Duke Ellington, which is called ‘Sir Duke,’ the bridge can be played almost entirely on the black keys.”

Al Young: An Appreciation of "SirDuke"

California's #recall election is set for SEP 14. Will there be a #debate? If there was, it might sound like the one in 2003 when Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna Huffington, Cruz Bustamante, Peter Camejo, and Tom McClintock vied to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis. Remember him?

Greatest Hits

California's Recall Debate of 2003

In the heart of East Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, Mien gardeners from Southeast Asian mountain country, refugees from the so-called “Secret War”that the U.S. conducted in their country half a century ago, tend gardens in the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park .

The Mien Farmers of East Oakland

“This is an opportunity, it’s a chance that we should welcome for governments to take on a big important problem and prove that democracy and innovation can coexist,” Obama said on April 21, 2022.

KQED

“Do we allow our democracy to wither?”- Barack Obama at Stanford

That time in 2014 I talked to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner about the the West Coast premiere of his play, "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures," at the Berkeley Rep. We talked about play, his career and his political activism.

Tony Kushner on "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and ..."

On the western edge of Stanford University's sprawling, 8,180-acre campus stands a giant satellite dish pointed at the sky. It's known simply as "The Dish," and it stands out among Stanford's rolling hills — green or yellow, depending on the season. "Who built The Dish?" asked former Menlo Park resident Jim Timmins. He also wanted to know, "When was it built? For what purpose? Is it still in service? If it's not in service, when was it taken out of service?"

The Dish About the Dish at Stanford

History has a way of elevating just a handful of heroes. The many people who worked alongside them often disappear in the rear view. For example, if you grew up in California, you learned a little bit in school about the state’s most famous Mexican-American son, Cesar Chavez. But what about the community he came from? Latinos helped build San Jose…and California…  a history largely forgotten or ignored. Today, listen to the story of Blanca Alvarado, one of the Chicana lions of San Jose, California.

La Madrina

Today, there are just a handful of Japanese-owned farms and nurseries in the Santa Clara Valley. But at one time, before World War II, the region around San Jose was dotted with hundreds of Japanese farms growing vegetables for local and regional markets. The story of why they were here, and how they were here, is one of sorrow and suffering, but also success against the odds and the weight of fierce prejudice.

Hard Row to Hoe: Japanese Agriculture in the Silicon Valley

At any given point in time, a city’s soundscape, like that of San Francisco’s, is an ephemeral blend of its people, and the technologies they used to move through their days, and the music that formed the soundtrack to their lives.

Lost Sounds of San Francisci

Of all the machines I found in my father's overstuffed garage, the most marvelous was a 1957 tabletop Telefunken Opus 7, a vintage radio covered in thick dust and buried in the back of a loft.

How a 1957 Vintage Radio Rekindled a Daughter’s Bond With Her Dad

Berkeley’s City Council voted May 7 to keep its current Flock contract but further review a $2 million expansion. How you characterize this split decision depends on where you come down on surveillance technology for local law enforcement.

Privacy Advocate Calls For Mind Shift on Digital Surveillance

From 2013: There are six judges at the federal courthouse in Oakland - all of them women. One judge is a former corporate lawyer. Another was a government lawyer. One was a city attorney. One was a public defender. Another was a professor of law. One started out as a cop. Not a single one thought as a little girl that she would be a judge. Invariably, somebody else suggested the idea.

TCRAM 2013-03-11

Her Honor is In: All Female Bench Presides At Oakland Federal Courthouse

Produced in 2013, but still shockingly relevant. There aren't enough working Californians to support retired Baby Boomers as they age into needing more care. The state’s population is greying as its birth rates decline, and net migration has turned negative. That said, according to the PPIC in 2021, those who move here are more likely to be working age, to be employed, and to earn high wages—and those who leave are more likely to do so because they're struggling economically.

Problems Ahead for Aging California Population

Final Podcast Files

El Camino Not-So-Real: The True Story of the 'Ancient Road'

Some say AI is simply freeing humans of the boring tasks, so we can pursue activities that bring us joy. But what if AI is better at those things, too? Like, writing music? An exploration of what was cutting edge in 2017.

Are Computers Becoming Better at Composing Music than Humans?

It was 1960 when a young couple from La Verne in Los Angeles County moved north to Paradise. There were fewer than 10,000 people in the town then, tucked high in the pines between Chico and the Plumas National Forest. Everything’s gone now, destroyed by the Camp Fire of 2018.

After the Camp Fire, A Family Says Goodbye to Paradise

That time I talked to Fresno State's Philip Levine back in 2011 when he had just become U.S. poet laureate. A humble, gracious man, whose poetry quietly electrified. I feel honored to have shared a conversation with him. 
"Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and
true
they must be said without elegance, meter and
rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the
salt-shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for
themselves."

Interview with the Poet Philip Levine

Host, reporter and podcaster for KQED. Audiofile. Foodie. Adventure Seeker. Californian to the bone.

Rachael Myrow

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