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How Do We Care For Our Aging Parents?| Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Keeping our elderly parents healthy, particularly when they have a chronic illness or disability, can be a demanding full-time job. Though 70 percent of all elderly are cared for by family and friends, assisted living and ... READ MORE |
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Zócalo in Guadalajara
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Zócalo in Guadalajara
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Is the Census Controversial?| Monday, November 23, 2009The Census Bureau is fundamental to American democracy — its ten-year counts determine representation in Congress and in the Electoral College, and influence federal and state funding for health, education, transportation, ... READ MORE |
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Why is the Healthcare Debate So Nasty?James Morone | Friday, November 20, 2009Every president since Harry Truman has struggled with universal healthcare; the last major victory toward it came over 40 years ago, when Lyndon Johnson created Medicare and Medicaid. Since then, presidents’ efforts either ... READ MORE |
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Zócalo in Chicago
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How Will Climate Change Transform L.A.?| Thursday, October 29, 2009
The landscape that defines Los Angeles also threatens it. For decades, the mountains and hills that encircle the city have trapped pollution in its basins and valleys, leaving low-hanging brown clouds. Teeming with cars, ... READ MORE |
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"The Clinton Tapes"Taylor Branch | Thursday, October 22, 2009
Between 1993 and 2001, President Bill Clinton joined his friend of over 30 years Taylor Branch for a series of confidential interviews. Keeping much of his staff in the dark, Clinton recorded 78 sessions, each ... READ MORE |
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Is This the End of the Doctor's Office?| Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Medical care and convenience don’t usually go together. But the retail clinic aims to change that by doing away with long waits at the doctors’ office and complicated insurance requirements and forms, all ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with James Ellroy| Monday, October 19, 2009
James Ellroy, the author of the bestselling L.A. Quartet novels — The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, and White Jazz — has just concluded another high-selling ... READ MORE |
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Zócalo in New Orleans "La Nueva Orleans?" Race and Immigration in Post-Katrina America| Friday, October 16, 2009
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans experienced a seismic racial shift: one-quarter of its African American population left, whites regained the majority on the city council, and thousands of Latino immigrants came in, ... READ MORE |
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Jonathan Gold's Union Station Cocktail Party| Saturday, October 10, 2009Cocktails are becoming the new wine, meant to be paired with the city's best cuisine. Bartenders blend unexpected ingredients and work with chefs to create ideal food pairings. Jonathan Gold chatted with ... READ MORE |
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"The Curse of Oil"Peter Maass | Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Every unhappy oil-producing nation is unhappy in its own way. But each is touched by what’s known as the resource curse — the power of oil to harm rather than help the countries that possess it. Oil extraction ... READ MORE |
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"Can Less Punishment Reduce Crime?"Mark Kleiman | Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Since the 1960s, the U.S. prison population has increased fivefold. Prisons today hold one inmate for every one hundred adults — a record rate in American history, and one unmatched by any other country. But despite ... READ MORE |
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"Is Traffic Curable?"Tom Vanderbilt | Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Traffic can seem like a law of the universe: an ever-present, incontrovertible, inexplicable force. Back-ups simply happen, the other lanes always move faster, and nearby drivers are consistently inept. But traffic has a ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Justice Carlos R. Moreno| Wednesday, July 29, 2009
As an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, Carlos R. Moreno sits on one of the country’s most innovative and followed state courts. Appointed in 2001, Moreno, the court’s only Democrat and ... READ MORE |
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Should Medical Tourism Go Global?| Wednesday, July 22, 2009
As healthcare costs rise and job losses leave many uninsured, Americans turn abroad for medical care. Each year, at least 85,000 Americans travel for treatment from dental work to bypass surgery, paying as little as ... READ MORE |
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Zócalo in Berlin
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What Does Armageddon Look Like?| Thursday, July 09, 2009
Late last year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called California’s looming budget crisis a fiscal armageddon waiting to strike. Now, as the state faces a $24 billion budget shortfall and major cuts are inevitable, ... READ MORE |
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Was Pete Wilson Right?| Monday, June 29, 2009
Pete Wilson’s California wasn’t too different from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. The state’s education system lagged behind the rest of the country, interest groups had a tight grip on Sacramento, ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukh?ɬ°n| Friday, June 26, 2009
Mexico and the United States share a centuries-long history, a dynamic border region and a vibrant economic relationship. The interconnectedness of the U.S. and Mexican economies is undeniable. When the North American ... READ MORE |
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"How Does Mexico Survive?"Daniel Hernandez | Thursday, June 25, 2009
Swine flu, a contracting economy, rising unemployment, a wild and bloody conflict with drug traffickers, the constant threat of natural disasters and ransom kidnappings—Mexico faces several serious challenges. Since ... READ MORE |
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Deyan Sudjic, "Why Do We Lust For Objects?"| Tuesday, June 16, 2009
From sleek silvery laptops to shiny new Mini Coopers, objects enthrall us. iPhones compel us to camp outside the Apple store, designer sunglasses set us back significantly more than a drugstore pair, and somehow, even the ... READ MORE |
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Alain de Botton, "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work"| Thursday, June 11, 2009
Work is universal. Even those fortunate few who do not need to earn a living still find ways to fill their time with community activities and projects. We spend most of our lives at work -- in offices and factories, ... READ MORE |
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Robert Wright, "The Evolution of God"| Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Is God good or bad? In both the Bible and the Koran, God’s mood seems to swing randomly between belligerence and benevolence. But the scriptures, read carefully, reveal a subtle pattern in these moods, a pattern ... READ MORE |
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Zócalo in San Francisco
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How Do We Close California′s Education Gap?| Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Forty years ago, California's higher education system was the envy of the nation. It´s bold strategy welcoming any resident who wanted to learn led to a doubling of enrolled students, and sparked similar efforts ... READ MORE |
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Can L.A. Solve Homelessness?| Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Los Angeles is the homeless capital of the nation, with 73,000 homeless men, women and children living on our streets on any given night. It wasn’t until the housing boom earlier this decade -- which made the ... READ MORE |
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Richard N. Haass, "When Should the U.S. Go to War?"| Monday, May 18, 2009
Though both Iraq wars aimed to reign in Saddam Hussein, and both were run by men named Bush, the two conflicts were drastically different were drastically different in planning and implementation. The first was a ... READ MORE |
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What Comes After Newspapers?| Thursday, May 07, 2009
From town tabloids to major metropolitan dailies, newspapers seem to be in their last throes. The availability of free and instant news online, the high profit margins demanded by media conglomerates, and the steep ... READ MORE |
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When Johnny Comes Marching Home: Caring for Veterans| Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tens of thousands of American soldiers have suffered injuries in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including debilitating head and spine damage, chronic pain, and mental health problems. They return home to a devastatingly ... READ MORE |
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Los Angeles vs. Las Vegas: Which is the Most Unreal City in America?| Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Los Angeles and Las Vegas are cities founded on fantasy—narratives of youthful glamour, the languor of palm and pool dotted landscapes, the ease of private automobile transport, the promise of self-invention and ... READ MORE |
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Remembering Charles Mingus| Tuesday, April 28, 2009
From his first concert piece, written when he was 17, to his expansive, 19-movement, 4,000-measure opus “Epitaph,” Charles Mingus built a remarkable legacy as a jazz bassist, band leader, and composer. His ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Wangari Maathai| Monday, April 20, 2009
The troubles of Africa today are severe and wide-ranging. Yet media coverage is either completely absent or lacking complexity, offering only oversimplified portraits of poverty, dependence, and desperation. The continent ... READ MORE |
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Leslie Gelb, "How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy"| Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Despite proclamations of a flat world, the utility of soft power, or the start of the post-American era, power still matters. It’s still about carrots and sticks, and the U.S. still has it. Washington has wisely ... READ MORE |
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John Fante's 100th Birthday| Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Discovering John Fante is like tasting garlic for the first time. He is a quintessential Los Angeles writer, who penned the beautifully desperate words in Ask the Dust, “Los Angeles, give me some of ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Craig Newmark, in Hollywood| Wednesday, March 25, 2009
craigslist.org may be the only site where you can get anything you need for life cheap, or even for free. The free community classifieds service, launched as an email listserv for San Franciscans in 1995, helps over 50 ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Craig Newmark in San Francisco| Tuesday, March 24, 2009
craigslist.org may be the only site where you can get anything you need for life cheap, or even for free. The free community classifieds service, launched as an email listserv for San Franciscans in 1995, helps over 50 ... READ MORE |
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Lennard Davis, "Is Obsession a Post-Modern Disease?"| Thursday, March 19, 2009
We live in an age of obsession. Not only are we hopelessly devoted to our work, strangely addicted to our favorite television shows, and desperately impassioned about our cars, we admire obsession in others: we demand ... READ MORE |
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Is Higher Education Only for the Rich?| Wednesday, March 18, 2009
With the game of getting into college growing increasingly competitive, a cottage industry of college counselors, applications consultants, and test prep teachers has sprung up to serve students, for a price. ... READ MORE |
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Is Human Psychology Driving the Recession?| Tuesday, March 17, 2009
From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to fearful mistrust of capital markets, powerful psychological forces seem to be endangering the global economy. Are so-called “animal spirits” — the term ... READ MORE |
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Can Food Really Be Authentic?| Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Authenticity is a virtue many of us prize in our restaurants, whether it is pad Thai that tastes just like one we ate in Bangkok or hot pastrami that could have come straight from your grandmother’s storied Maxwell ... READ MORE |
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The Age of Rage: Is the Internet Making Us Mean?| Wednesday, March 04, 2009
If any single mood characterizes the emotional climate of the 21st century, it’s anger. From media rage—indignant cable news pundits, rancorous bloggers and the apoplectic comments they engender—to ... READ MORE |
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How Will Labor Discord Change Hollywood?| Monday, February 23, 2009
Last winter’s Writers Guild strike brought Hollywood to a halt for 100 days, costing Los Angeles an estimated $2.5 billion. There have been no walkouts since then, but plenty of drama as the battles between factions ... READ MORE |
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John Cacioppo, "Loneliness: Why We Need Social Connection"| Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Despite tallies of Facebook friends or Evites in inboxes, loneliness happens. It can strike us while we’re dining at a table of one, taking a long solo journey, or even while we’re with family and friends. The ... READ MORE |
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What Happens When California's Cash Runs Out?| Tuesday, February 10, 2009
It's all but certain that the state government will run out of money this year, perhaps as early as February. Even if the legislature and governor somehow reach an agreement on budget cuts or tax increases, any solution ... READ MORE |
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A Screening and Q&A with Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and Daryl Hannah| Monday, February 09, 2009
After the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers worked to heal one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods by planting a garden, letting families grow their own food and rebuild their ... READ MORE |
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An Evening with Bill Bratton| Monday, February 02, 2009
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has been leading the force for more than twice as long as he served in the same capacity in New York, the city where he firmly cemented his reputation as ... READ MORE |
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Amy Chua, "The Rise and Fall of Hyperpowers"| Thursday, January 29, 2009
Forget superpowers. Hyperpowers are what count, dominating not just their part of the world but the entire breadth of it with their military might and cultural range. The U.S. is the seventh hyperpower in history, by ... READ MORE |
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Do all Novels by Women Get Packaged as Chick Lit?| Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Not all fiction by contemporary female authors concerns itself with stiletto heels, Martini glasses, or wedding gowns. But in the last decade, material written by women--particularly white, middle-class American women--is ... READ MORE |
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Martin Luther King's Legacy in the Age of Obama| Monday, January 19, 2009
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a singular figure in American consciousness: his words and philosophy are better remembered than those of almost all our leaders; he is the only man who hasn't served as president to be honored ... READ MORE |
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Matt Miller, "The Tyranny of Dead Ideas"| Wednesday, January 14, 2009
In the face of global competition and rapid technological change, the American economy will soon face its most severe test in nearly a century—one that will make the recent turmoil in the financial system look like ... READ MORE |
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How Will Non-Profits Survive?| Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Like nearly everyone else, those working in non-profit organizations are concerned with the bleak economic forecast: a diminished public purse, shrunken private foundation portfolios and donor wallets slapping shut. Yet ... READ MORE |