Zócalo Public Square

Can the Ports Clean the Air Without Choking the Economy?

An Evening with Larry Wilmore

Hail to the Chief?

Can the L.A. Times be Saved?

Can Progressives Save Iraq?

Who Really Runs L.A.?

Alix Ohlin, “Why Mysteries Matter: Detectives, Literature, and Life”

Eric Alterman, “Is Democracy in America Even Possible?”

Stanley Crouch, “Blues for Black America”

“Tuning in the Broadband Channel: How the Internet Is Remaking the TV Business”

Jim Newton, “Earl Warren and the Californiaization of America”

“L.A. vs. New York: Who’s Got the Scoop on Hollywood?”

Margaret Wertheim, “Space Versus Spirit: Why the Battle Between Science and Religion Is Driving Us Crazy” Science and religion are often viewed as two competing and utterly opposed worldviews–one based on faith, the other on reason. Yet both are systems that attempt to make sense of the world and of humanity’s place within a wider cosmological scheme. Religions usually posit that the material realm is just one part of a larger whole that also includes an immaterial spiritual domain, while modern science speaks only of a physical realm. But at the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century no one imagined that science was articulating the whole of reality. Los Angeles-based science writer Margaret Wertheim will trace the history of how any notion of a spiritual realm was written out of Western science. She will examine the social, psychological, and cultural effects of this transformation and urge us to acknowledge the intellectual gifts we derive from both sides of this maddening divide.

Historian and LA Times columnist Max Boot visits Zócalo to discuss how innovations in weaponry and tactics have not only transformed how wars are fought and won but also have guided the course of human events, from the formation of the first modern states 500 years ago, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the coming of al-Qaeda. The award-winning author of The Savage Wars of Peace, and the recently published War Made New, Boot will put forth a new intellectual framework for understanding contemporary geopolitics as well as examine what America must do to survive and prevail in the Information Age.

Moderated by Andrés Martinez, Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor. Niall Ferguson courts controversy. One of the most brilliant economic and military historians of his generation, the British Harvard professor and L.A. Times columnist has written books comparing the “per kill” cost of World War I armies, and praising the British empire. Ferguson’s The Pity of War was a sensation in Britain for its assertion that the country would have been better off staying out of World War I. A prolific contributor to such publications as Time and The New Yorker and author of several books–including the recently published The War of the World–Ferguson visits Zócalo to discuss everything from Günter Grass’s past to the amateurish American empire.

Last May, Michael Tomasky published an essay in The American Prospect, the respected liberal opinion magazine he edits, that set Washington on its ear. "Party in Search of a Notion" was Tomasky’s call for the Democrats to rise above the politics of interest-group particularism and become the party of the common good. The influential essay got front-page treatment in The New York Times and is one of the most widely quoted magazine essays of the past decade. Tomasky will discuss his ideas, his critics, and the new historical opportunity for progressive politics.

An Evening with Jorge Castañeda by Zócalo Public Square

The razor thin margin of its recent presidential election has left Mexico deeply divided and the future of its democracy in question. Mexican political scientist and columnist Denise Dresser visits Zócalo to discuss candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s challenge to the election’s outcome and the credibility gap that a Felipe Calderón presidency would inevitably face. Known for her bold, insightful, and unbiased commentary on Mexican politics, Dresser will share the backstory of this long and winding presidential campaign as well as deliver the definitive analysis on its historic outcome.

The subject of social class may the last taboo. No one likes to talk about it, but we spend a lot of time thinking—and worrying—about where we fit into the culture of conspicuous consumption. But is “class” really a matter of money? What do tastes and values say about our relationship to our own social class? Does anyone really believe America is a “classless society”? Does Los Angeles still subscribe to the theory of “you are your car” or has the cult of real estate become our primary mode of aspiration and personal expression? Join three of LA’s wittiest and most insightful social observers–L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum, filmmaker Nicole Holofcener (“Friends With Money,” “Lovely & Amazing”) and author/performer Sandra Tsing Loh (“Mother on Fire,” “A Year in Van Nuys,”)– for a frank and provocative discussion about social class in Los Angeles and beyond.

Moderated by Andrés Martinez, Los Angele Times Editorial Page Editor. Immigration may be a national issue, but its economic implications are felt locally. Is it true that immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S.-born Angelenos? Or do those who come across the border take the work that Americans just won’t do? Join Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, civil rights attorney Connie Rice, Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles, and Times op-ed columnist Erin Aubry Kaplan as they discuss the economics of immigration and how they affect local politics and race relations.