Biotechnology is changing lives, products and expectations, creating both possibilities and risks. The changes are enormous, and more are ahead. My guest today is Jim DeKloe (pictured), founder and director of the Industrial biotechnology program, and a professor of biological sciences and biotech, at Solano Community College. We talk about the center in Vacaville, its unusual (for a community college) bachelor’s degree, biotech, the creation of a ”life sciences corridor” between Sacramento and the Bay Area, the need for ethics and laws to keep up, and how a product he knew from his time at Genentech saved his 4-year-old son’s life.
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Traffic on Interstate 80 through Davis is getting worse, and although proposed solutions are in the works, they’re several years in the future—assuming the money to pay for them can be found, and a consensus about what to do emerges. Today we talk with Anne Ternus-Bellamy, local government reporter for the Davis Enterprise, about the Yolo 80 project, other local traffic developments, and the spread of regional traffic into more streets in Davis, guided by apps that help people find paths around the clogs on I-80.
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Helping kids grow up well is a challenge that doesn't end. The question occupies parents, teachers, maybe almost everyone, and we address the subject today, not in a broad policy sense, but through one conversation with one person engaged in the work. Gemma Miner, the academic coordinator for volunteer engagement for the California 4-H, has 33 years of working with youth to help them develop confidence, leadership and life skills, plus degrees in recreation and experience as a pediatric registered nurse. We talk about the 4-H program (the photo shows her with some of her materials), what kids and youths need, how to reach them, what not to do, and how adults can make their experiences interesting to a child.
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Today I welcome back Derrick Bang for our ninth annual talk about movies. This time we cover streaming, the increased supply of films, the appeal of watching a good movie with hundreds of others in a large theater, six movies he’s looking forward to this holiday season, and three he isn’t – including Playmobil: The Movie and a remake of the 1974 slasher film Black Christmas. An entertaining critic who’s as comfortable skewering a turkey as he is appraising a masterpiece or waving away a mediocrity, Derrick writes reviews for the Davis Enterprise and his blog Derrick Bang on Film.
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(This program first aired in October 2018) American life is full of conflict – political, social, economic, all types. Today’s guest is Kara Hunter, executive director of the Yolo Conflict Resolution Center, who knows a lot about the subject. We discuss the center, what it does in Davis, who uses it, the results they get, and also about conflict overall.
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“Sacramento is projected to feel much like Arizona by 2100,” writes Kat Kerlin in the five-part online project UC Davis is presenting this fall, Becoming Arizona. “What can it be doing now to prepare?” On today’s Davisville I talk with her and Helene Margolis, an associate adjunct professor in the UC Davis Department of Internal Medicine, about the series, the public health aspect, what to anticipate, what's being done, and how to get ready.
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October is a natural month for stories, particularly ones of a certain category—ones about the supernatural, bizarre events, terrors of various kinds, not always from monsters. My guest today is Gene O’Neill, a novelist and short-story mixed-genre writer who has twice won the Bram Stoker Award for best horror/dark fiction. Our topics include why people read dark fiction, the different genres, psychological vs. supernatural horror, Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House, new writers he recommends, his book The Burden of Indigo, his upcoming project The White Plague Chronicles, and the new movie Joker.
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If you follow the news, you know that the population is aging and changing as more people live longer--and that baby boomers want more from their senior years than previous generations expected. Our guests today talk about the demographic trend and some of the effects we're already seeing in Davis and Yolo County: Christi Skibbins, executive director of Meals on Wheels in Yolo County, and Sheila Allen, executive director of the Yolo Healthy Aging Alliance.
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One of the offbeat ways to measure a town is to look at the variety, ambition and success of its live theater. Davis has been home to different theater startups this decade. Some endure and some have shut, but the creative impulse to bring more theater to Davis – and the belief that Davis will support the interest – continues. Today we talk with two people from the not-quite-2-year-old Bike City Theatre Company: J.R. Yancher, the producing artistic director, and Sarah Marsh-Krauter, the literary manager and dramaturg. They talk about the company’s Davis roots, what they want to achieve, the performances they’d like to bring to town, and their plans to engage UC Davis students – and to expand local audiences by attracting people who think live theater has nothing to offer them.
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Schism is an old word, meaning two sides with strong opinions breaking apart. The term might now apply to the United Methodist Church, a denomination of 13 million members worldwide that faces dis-unifying over gay rights. Brandon Austin, pastor of the Davis Methodist congregation, talks about the dispute, why it matters to people who might never give a thought to church, how to wrestle with the question of which traditions to keep and which to discard, and the choice of the Davis church to align with the pro-LGBT “reconciling” movement more than 20 years ago.
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