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Cambridge Forum

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Cambridge Forum hosts free, public discussions that inform and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas that shape our changing world. CF broadcasts its live events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and online presentations via GBH Forum Network on YouTube.

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When Smoke Ran Like Water

Wed, Mar 12, 2003

Devra Davis combines her deep personal connection to issues of health and the environment with her formidable scientific expertise, arguing for fundamentally new ways of thinking about health and the environment. Before she became one of the world's leading epidemiologists, Davis was the victim of environmental pollution. As a young girl in Donora, Pennsylvania, she saw 20 of her home town community members die and scores permanently injured in the smog disaster of October 26th, 1948. In her new landmark book, *When Smoke Ran Like Water*, Devra Davis documents how environmental toxins contribute to a broad spectrum of diseases. The book's title alludes to an event 50 years ago in London. Davis writes that "cool air from across the English Channel settled over the Thames River Valley and did not move. London's eight million residents huddled indoors and warmed themselves by their coal stoves. Smoke ran like tap water from a million chimneys." The inversion layer that had formed over the English capital trapped the coal smoke at ground level. The result was smog so thick that people could not find their own homes, automobile traffic ground to a halt, and people died in droves. The smog is now estimated to have killed some 12,000 people.

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Assessing the Success of Schools in Society

Wed, Apr 9, 2003

Paul Reville asks how can we prepare children for life as citizens, workers, and responsible adults in the 21st Century. Educators, parents, policy makers and legislators seem overwhelmed by the number of challenges facing public education today, and by the enormous costs, financial and social, of addressing those challenges. Behind the buzz words, platitudes and anecdotes lies the stark fact that education in the United States is in search of a new mission and in need of a redefined contract with the society that supports it. In the absence of a new social contract between society and schools, test scores have become the generally accepted measure of achievement. Reville focuses on appropriate methods of assessing educational success, asking what role high stakes testing should play in our public schools and what alternatives might assure school accountability.

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Preparing Students for College

Wed, Mar 19, 2003

Jo Ann Gora focuses on the changing role of colleges, the demands being placed on them, and the qualities they look for in assessing applicants. She describes how can schools give students the foundations they need to better meet the challenges of higher education.

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Reinventing Public Education

Wed, Apr 23, 2003

Jay Kaufman explores the changes that need to be made in our thinking about the mission, governance, structure, and funding of a transformed public school system, and raises questions about how to effect such meaningful change.

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Educating Educators

Wed, Mar 26, 2003

Margaret McKenna describes the essential tools that teachers need in order to be effective educators and how can schools give teachers the solid foundation and practical experience that they need to succeed in our nation's classrooms.

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Brown: The Last Discovery of America

Wed, May 14, 2003

Richard Rodriguez accepts the 2003 Frederic G. Melcher Book Award and reads from Brown. Brown completes a trilogy on American public life by Rodriguez that began with the award-winning Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez and Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father. In Brown, he explores issues of race, arguing that America has been brown since its inception, as he himself is. Brown, in his view, is not a color, but a mixture, evidence of the blending of cultures which began the moment the African and European met within the Indian eye. The son of Mexican immigrants, he reflects on what it means to be Hispanic in America and how Latino immigrants have impacted American culture, changing it from a society that has traditionally seen itself as simply black and white. The Frederic G. Melcher Book Award is presented annually by the Unitarian Universalist Association to a work published in the United States during the past calendar year judged to be the most significant contribution to religious liberalism. Previous Melcher Book award recipients include David Halberstam for The Children, Wei Jingsheng for The Courage to Stand Alone, and James Carroll for *Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews*.

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Mental Health and Women

Wed, Oct 29, 2003

Lauren Slater and Jessica Henderson Daniel discuss an expansive book, The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women. From anxiety to eating disorders to postpartum depression, over 50 experts navigate the milestones and issues affecting women's mental health and the medical assistance that is available. The vast majority of books on mental illness focus on men. This book is the first comprehensive volume that seeks to depict women's lives through their illnesses and their life stages, taking into account both race and class. Over 50 medical experts contribute to chapters on anxiety, depressive and bipolar disorders, body image and eating disorders, as well as disorders associated with specific stages in women's lives: marriage, motherhood, postpartum depression and menopause and the effects of aging on mood, memory and hormones.

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Catherine Orenstein: Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked

Wed, Dec 10, 2003

Catherine Orenstein discusses her new book. *Little Red Hiding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairytale,*. In her book, Orenstein follows the evolution of the fairy tale through time to trace our thinking about men and women, sex and morality. Why does the story of the little girl lost in the woods remain such a compelling modern myth?

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Democracy in the Age of Dubya

Mon, Sep 29, 2003

Author and political satirist Al Franken kicks off Cambridge Forum's 37th year of public programs with a talk on "Democracy in the Age of Dubya." Drawing from his book, *Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right* (Dutton, October 2003), Franken employs his trademark wit and insight in a discussion of the state of American democracy under the administration of George W. Bush. He debunks the myth of a liberal bias in the media and takes aim at the conservative organizations and individuals who perpetuate it. Does political satire address topics that traditional media does not? What role do entertainers and satirists play in the political process?

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Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals

Wed, Feb 4, 2004

John Buehrens questions the fundamentalist reading of the Bible, offering those with a liberal or progressive outlook ways to reclaim the Bible from literalists. Citing some of the best contemporary historical, literary, political, and feminist readings of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Buehrens' book serves as a springboard into a discussion of who defines our religious heritage and what constitute 'family values'. **John Buehrens** was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association from 1993 to 2001. He is now minister of the First Parish in Needham, Massachusetts, and special assistant to the secretary general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. He is co-author, with Forrest Church, of A Chosen Faith.

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