Episodes
Feb. 3, 2021
Labyrinth of the Wind
Labyrinth of the Wind is the critically acclaimed debut novel of Madhav Misra. Set in Teheran, Iran in the late 1970s as the Shah's regime is coming to an end and the fundamentalist Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini i…
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 …
Jan. 27, 2021
Governor George Clooney
With the recall petition against Governor Gavin Newsom having reached 1,200,000 signatures and only 300,000 more valid signatures of California necessary to qualify it for the ballot could California be ready for another cel…
Jan. 22, 2021
A peaceful transfer of power.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021. His predecessor Donald Trump did not attend the ceremony, but he left a letter of support for the incoming President in the Ov…
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 a…
Jan. 15, 2021
The Crosstown Trail: America's most beautiful urban hike.
The 17 mile trail that crosses San Francisco from the Bay in the South East corner of the City to Land's End in its' North West Corner, cuts right through the heart of our 49 square miles of natural beauty. It traverses ur…
Jan. 13, 2021
Militarization of Politics must Stop
The Siege of the US Capitol one week ago illustrated how US politics have become militarized under Donald Trump. Militias and their members were a visible presence at the infamous rally beforehand and at the storming of the …
Jan. 10, 2021
San Francisco and Bangalore: Is India the new China ?
Air India initiated a new nonstop flight from San Francisco to Bangalore - 17 hours nonstop - over the North Pole. The crew was all female, Captain, First Officer, Navigator. The new flight will link San Francisco's Silicon …
Jan. 7, 2021
25th Amendment: Removal of the President from Office
The 25th Amendment permits the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to declare a President unable to discharge the duties and powers of his office and replace him. Should Vice President Pence and the cabinet remove P…
Jan. 7, 2021
The Black Swan and Predictions for 2021
The Covid 19 Pandemic was a Black Swan event unleashed on the world in early 2020. A Black Swan event is an extreme outlier occurrence with a huge impact which is only explainable after the fact. Do any Black Swans lurk in …
Jan. 2, 2021
DNA, Ancestry, Roots, Databases: The Darkside to your Christmas present.
DNA genealogical testing is dominated by Ancestry.com and 23 and Me. MIT's Technology Review estimates that 26 million such test kits have been sold by these two companies. While their growth has been explosive, privacy conc…
Dec. 30, 2020
The Relocation Dilemma: San Francisco or Houston ?
In 2019 87,00 Californians relocated to Texas. And in 2020 we lost several iconic Bay Area tech companies to the Lone Star state such as Oracle, Hewlett Packard and Palantir. Podcast celebrity Joe Rogan moved to Austin and T…
Dec. 27, 2020
Why do US Presidents want to be Irish ?
When Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021 he will become the 23rd President in history to have Irish roots. 50% of our Presidents have an ancestral link to Ireland - that's qui…
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 …
Dec. 16, 2020
Chesa Boudin : Radical Pedigree of the District Attorney
Chesa Boudin, the 40 year old District Attorney of San Francisco was elected November 2019. He has spent his first 11 months in office radically transforming the criminal justice prosecution priorities for our City. But none…
Dec. 13, 2020
Elon Musk gets out of Dodge: Goodbye California, Howdy Texas !
As the 49 year old's net worth surged to $152 billion last week based on the success of his California companies, Tesla and SpaceEx, he announced he was decamping for Texas. Seriously ? Texas ? California has its' fair sh…
Dec. 10, 2020
FaceBook launches a new cryptocurrency, the Diem: What could possibly go wrong ?
FaceBook will launch a new cryptocurrency the Diem and a financial wallet the Novi to complement it. Target date is early 2021. It will be backed by the US dollar so it will not be digital in the way that Bitcoin is digital…
Dec. 6, 2020
Anti Vaxxers fight Covid 19 vaccines.
With two new vaccines and their 94% effective rates against Covid 19 pending FDA approval, light is at the end of the tunnel for the Pandemic. But will Americans accept them enthusiastically ? Or will they protest like rejec…
Dec. 4, 2020
California Home Prices: Up, Up and Away !
Not even a once in a century global pandemic seems to be able to slow down the rise in California's robust residential real estate market. The median price for a home hit $712,000 and shows little sign of slowing down. Low …
Nov. 30, 2020
Newsom's Choice : Kamala's Senate Seat Replacement
Governor Gavin Newsom will get to name a new US Senator to fill the vacancy left when Kamala Harris becomes Vice President. The Governor appears to be in no rush to name a successor. While he wants to make an historic appoin…
Nov. 25, 2020
Alt Tech meets the Free Speech Network: Social Media turns right.
Twitter, Facebook and the other big social media companies moved toward a curated speech, censorship model during the 2020 campaign. As a result an Alt Tech social media ecosystem has grown up emphasizing the importance of…
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 …
Nov. 17, 2020
President Kamala: Debunking a Myth
A popular conspiracy theory in right wing circles is that Vice President elect Kamala Harris will soon take over from an incapacitated President elect Joe Biden. When you repeat such a theory you are giving it oxygen some ar…
Nov. 10, 2020
Covid 19 Vaccine: The Cure at last ?
Pfizer and its' German partner Biontech, announced on Monday November 9, 2020 that their vaccine has a 90% effectiveness rate in preventing Covid 19. This announcement is the first ray of hope that the Covid 19 pandemic whic…