Michael Krasny took on the Facebook IPO today on Forum (a morning talk show on NPR's Bay Area affiliate), and not surprisingly, the call-in audience had A LOT to say about how Facebook has affected — and ruined — their lives. more ›

Oh boy, do we have a bushel of questions for America's Test Kitchen host Christopher Kimball. Like: who do you like better, Bridget Lancaster or Julia Collin-Davison? (We cannot decide!) What's the deal with the whole Vermont thing? Do you hate Good Eats since you both more or less do similar things? Why are you wasting our time with the equipment corner? And, why do you fumble on the taste-test challenge? You seem actually peeved when you pick the wrong one. Which you do. Often. And that tickles us. more ›

After heading out to play in the Civic Center during the Gay Pride festivities and Gay Inc.-related parties and whatnot, be sure to check out Life Before the Lifeboat on KQED. Airing this Sunday at 7:30 p.m. It will be well worth your time as you comedown from your Corona-induced high. more ›

The lovely Michele Mandell brings word that noted KQED restaurant-review show Check, Please! Bay Area is looking for a few good reviewers. Might you be one of them? The rules, in addition to being camera-ready, are as follows: You must be at least 21 years old, you must be willing to travel to and participate in a taping at KQED studios in San Francisco, you must be free on a weekday for a few hours, and you must be able to travel to any restaurant location within a 50-mile radius of San Francisco at your own expense. more ›

"The California Report" on KQED today takes on the subject of redevelopment and Jerry Brown's plan to eradicate hundreds of redevelopment agencies in the state. We've already wondered if the cuts are going to stand, or if this is not just politicking on Brown's part in order to reign in a program that has gotten a bit out of hand, or strayed from its purpose. The argument is that redevelopment has become a too enormous and ill-defined funnel for tax dollars, many of which are just going to to development (of stadiums, say) and not toward eradication of blight. more ›

Today on KQED's Forum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours, Specimen Days, At Home at the End of the World) talked with Michael Krasny about his new novel, By Nightfall, which tells the story of a married, middle-aged SoHo art dealer contemplating a gay affair with his brother-in-law, in what Booklist calls "an exquisite, slyly witty, warmly philosophical, and urbanely eviscerating tale of the mysteries of beauty and desire, art and delusion, age and love." Listen to the full interview below. more ›

Forum's Scott Shafer has a lengthy discussion today about the 2010 Census with regional director of the Census Bureau Ralph Lee and AP reporter Julianna Barbassa, answering such fascinating questions as "What kind of thought went into this year's form?" and "How much information can you really glean from those ten questions?" Also, they talk about the grassroots work being done in immigrant communities to encourage people to fill out the census. more ›

There's a staff editorial in this week's SFBG discussing the decline of the Chronicle and a new KQED/Warren Hellman-led non-profit venture to create a new online news source for San Francisco. The Guardian takes a few moments to get in some digs at the Chron -- in particular at such conservative columnists as C.W. Nevius who we'd probably agree seems to "disdain everything about San Francisco and urban life in general" -- and they assert, "It's little wonder then that a significant percentage of San Franciscans (in particular, younger people) see no reason whatsoever to pick up the San Francisco Chronicle." more ›

The East Bay is home to over 40,000 Afghan-Americans, and the big news back home in Afghanistan over the past two days has been the country's second national election since the end of Taliban rule in 2001. A lower turnout was reported than in the last election, largely due to threats of Taliban attacks on polling station and general apathy about the political situation in the country. more ›

You've probably heard that some California counties are fuming over the new state budget, which borrows $4 billion from county budgets and will mean major cuts in local services from health care to public works. Rich Gordon of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors says this budget will, once put in practice, "fall apart." more ›

One of San Francisco's favorite writers in residence, Dave Eggers, was on KQED's "Forum" this morning discussing his new book Zeitoun. It's a non-fiction work, just out from McSweeney's press as of last week, about a Syrian-American man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun who stuck around with his American wife and children in his adopted hometown of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina only to be abruptly made to disappear by the U.S. government. more ›

KQED today brings us this report about a move in the California Assembly to ban Bisphenol-A, a.k.a. BPA, a widely used chemical in plastic packaging. It's been known to be potentially hazardous since the 1930s, and lots of scientists think it's probably the reason why everyone gets cancer these days, but a large enough study in humans has yet to be done. The proposed ban would only affect plastics in baby bottles and baby foods, and Connecticut and Minnesota have already passed similar bans. Di Fi is proposing a nationwide ban in the Senate that would affect all food products. In the radio piece below, Sarah Varney speaks with a California Pacific Medical Center researcher who's been injecting the stuff into human cells and who consequently probably only shops at the farmer's market. more ›

KQED offers up this report, embedded below, about the National Conference on Volunteering and Service currently happening at the Moscone Center. The conference almost got canceled, due to the slashing of non-profit budgets across the country, but because of the "compassion boom" described by the spokeswoman here, Nicola Goren, and the push for volunteerism by the Obama White House. So far there's been a good turn out, with over 5,000 attendees the first day. So, if you happen to be funemployed, consider donating some of your otherwise misspent time to a good cause, huh? more ›

Everyone loves chocolate -- especially "bitches," as a female friend loves to remind us whenever we reach for a Snickers. From Willy Wonka to Kylie Minogue, people love shoveling it into their greedy, sugar starved mouths. more ›

Five Stanford doctoral students are flying to Paris this weekend as finalists in a competition sponsored by Airbus for the best fuel-saving idea for commercial airlines. Their idea is for the passenger jets to fly in formation the way military airplanes and birds do -- something that engineers have known for decades allows for a reduce in drag. They figure that the planes don't even have to leave from the same airports or go to the same destination to take advantage of the idea. Three planes crossing the Atlantic to Europe would just need to time their rendezvous points off the east coast, join formation for the transatlantic trip, and break the formation after they cross the pond. Good luck choreographing that ballet! more ›