Zócalo Public Square

Are the baby boomers going to bust American health care? With the country's elderly population on a path to nearly double by 2050—up to 83.7 million—and health costs only rising, will everyone be able to get the care they need? At a Zócalo/Health Futures Council at Arizona State University event moderated by Wall Street Journal reporter Anna Wilde Mathews, four panelists tackled this daunting topic: ASU economist Marjorie Baldwin, CEO of Arizona Integrated Physicians Keith Dines, executive director of Long-Term Quality Alliance Lawrence Atkins, and CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care John Rother.

At a Zocalo/UCLA event at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, moderated by science journalist Eryn Brown, UCLA Children’s Digital Media Center researcher Yalda Uhls, High Tech Los Angeles principal Marsha Rybin, and RAND educational policy researcher Lindsay Daugherty explained how you can teach children to use Smartphones and other digital technology in health ways. They said children, even young children, should be able to use technology, but they should be protected from technological overuse that can lead to addiction and anti-social behavior.

Around the world, health care is seen as a responsibility of nations. But in the 21st century, is a national system or a national government the best way to guarantee and provide coverage? At a Zócalo/Arizona State University event in Phoenix moderated by ASU President Michael Crow, Dr. Denis A. Cortese, emeritus president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic, and Sir Malcolm Grant, chairman of NHS England, discuss the best models for creating a healthier world.

The digital age has brought us wonders—connecting instantly with friends and family on the other side of the world, the ability to order just about anything from anywhere, even new apps that limit your intake of calories and booze. But the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets has also been blamed for a variety of different health problems, from obesity to sleep disorders. At a Zócalo/UCLA event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A., UCLA Chancellor and biobehavioral scientist specializing in circadian rhythms Gene Block, health economist and Milken Institute Fellow Anusuya Chatterjee, and UCLA Children’s Digital Media Center director Patricia Greenfield discussed whether digital technology can do more harm than good to our health. The event was moderated by Chad Terhune of California Healthline and Kaiser Health News.

On June 23, 2016, British citizens will be asked, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” On the surface, this would seem to be a simple yes-or-no question. But what are voters supposed to take into consideration when casting their votes? What does the European Union mean to them? And what exactly does “remaining” or “leaving” even mean, in the context of the U.K.’s ties to the continent? Those were the themes explored at a Zócalo/Democracy International event at the Royal Institution in London. The discussion was moderated by The New York Times International News Editor Sewell Chan and featured four panelists: University of Edinburgh political scientist Laura Cram, longtime German and European Parliament member Gerald Häfner, Open Europe Co-Director Stephen Booth, and London School of Economics legal scholar Damian Chalmers.

When Americans took a great leap of faith into popular sovereignty in 1776, they defined themselves in opposition to the culture and politics of Great Britain. Yet nearly 250 years later, Britain holds a grip on the American imagination. Will a more diverse America, with fewer people who trace their ancestry to the British Isles, continue to see itself as connected to Britain? At a Smithsonian/Zócalo "What It Means to Be American" event at the British Museum in London, Companies Editor at the Financial Times Brooke Masters, who moderated the discussion, and four panelists—American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, That’s Not English author Erin Moore, The Economist editor and columnist Adrian Wooldridge, and London School of Economics Director Craig Calhoun—had no doubt that America owed a great deal to Britain. But the question of the night was how much it remained influenced by its former overlord.

San Diego's arts scene is vibrant, but also lacks many factors that would allow it to attract global attention: media coverage, communication between people and arts institutions, and sufficient financial support from local governments, art patrons, and collectors. At a Zócalo Public Square event moderated by Kinsee Morlan of the Voice of San Diego, four panelists both celebrated and criticized the arts in San Diego, and discussed what steps need to be taken to improve the city's approach. Featuring: Artist Jenessa Goodman, museum and urban planner Priya Sircar, City of San Diego Senior Public Art Manager Christine Jones, and curator and educational director at A Ship in the Woods Lianne Thompson Mueller.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's open embrace of refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan has added urgency to longstanding soul-searching about what it means to be German, particularly for newly arrived immigrants, and even their children. At a Zócalo Public Square / Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft / NPR Berlin event moderated by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel, five speakers—actress and comedian Idil Baydar, Bundestag MP Özcan Mutlu of the Green Party, Riem Spielhaus of the Erlanger Center for Islam and Law in Europe, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Audrey Singer, and Bundestag MP Cemile Giousouf of the Christian Democratic Union—discuss the ways Germany can better integrate immigrants, with a particular focus on Muslims.

When should medicine fend off death, and when should it help patients prepare for the end? In the Zócalo/UCLA event “Does Medicine Know How to Approach Death?,” John Fairhall, the editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News, moderated a panel discussion about the ethical challenges that accompany advances in medical treatment that allow us extending life longer than ever before. UCLA Ethics Center co-founder Katherine Brown-Saltzman, Dr. Susan Stone of St. Joseph Health & Annadel Medical Group, UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital Palliative Care Chaplain Rev. Lori Koutouratsas, and Bill Monning, CA Senator and co-author of the End of Life Option Act tackled the hard question of who decides when and how we should die.

In 1912, former President Teddy Roosevelt came out of retirement to seek the Republican nomination, and demanded that party bosses refrain from picking a candidate and instead hold the very first presidential primary elections. “Let the people rule,” he thundered. Geoffrey Cowan, president of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, USC professor, and author of the new book Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary, visited Zócalo to examine the past, present, and future of the peculiar way Americans pick our presidents.

Money alone can’t win an election—but that doesn’t mean it’s not a huge problem in American politics. That was the main message of Zócalo’s first event of 2016, a talk by Richard L. Hasen, the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections. At Los Angeles’s Grand Central Market, Hasen broke down the nuances and complexities that are often missed in discussions of campaign finance, and what he believes are the key steps to limiting money’s current outsized influence on the political process.

You wouldn’t know it by reading stories about San Bernardino’s bankruptcy and poverty (the Los Angeles Times recently called the Southern California city “a symbol of the nation’s urban woes”), but San Bernardino is seeing an arts revival. A new arts center jus opened. A new public art project, “This Is San Bernardino,” examines people’s experiences of the city. The city’s fine arts commission is pushing the city council for more support. So what roles, if any, might the arts play in a civic revival? Does bringing arts to a distressed place really attract people and investment? In a panel discussion moderated by San Bernadino Sun reporter Michel Nolan, former dean of the School of Education at California State University, San Bernardino, Ernie Garcia, former executive director of the San Bernardino Symphony Valerie Peister, and poet and “This Is San Bernardino” co-creator Juan Delgado examine what the arts can and can’t do for a recovering city.

From the light bulb to the iPhone, America has a long history of revolutionary inventions. So what does this ingenuity spring from? What are the conditions that allow for our innovative spirit? At a Smithsonian/Zócalo “What It Means to Be American” event, Zócalo Public Square publisher Gregory Rodriguez moderated a discussion about the nature of creativity and the cultural forces that influence it. The evening featured four panelists, all recipients of this year’s Smithsonian magazine Ingenuity Awards: Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto; Zoe Crosher, co-curator of The Manifest Destiny Billboard Project; Harvard Alzheimer’s researcher Doo Yeon Kim; and Françoise Mouly, art editor at The New Yorker.

We’re familiar with the dangers of gluttony—from obesity to gout—but is there a downside to our current obsession with healthiness and moderation? What role does feasting play in modern society? What social and psychological outlets do food and drink offer us all? At a Zócalo/Getty "Open Art" Event moderated by Zócalo's founder and publisher Gregory Rodriguez, author of Gluttony Francine Prose, UCLA medieval historian Teo Ruiz, and chef, owner of three Los Angeles restaurants, and former contestant on Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef” Eric Greenspan discuss when too much is a good thing.

From annexing Crimea to dropping bombs in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has led his country down a path for the past two years that worries many Americans. Given his aggressive tactics and long history of iron-fist control, why is Putin still in power? And should the West fear Russia—or fear for Russia? At MOCA Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, Wall Street Journal International Security Reporter Julian E. Barnes moderated a Zócalo discussion with “Morning Edition” host David Greene, encouraging Greene—a former Moscow correspondent, and author of Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey Into the Heart of Russia—to shed some light on what makes Russia tick, and how we should approach the nation.

Four million Syrians have fled to other countries, and hundreds of thousands of others from the Middle East and Africa are pouring into Europe. Thousands have perished crossing the Mediterranean, and many nations have failed to live up to their legal obligations on refugees, creating a humanitarian emergency and leaving millions in legal limbo. What must Europe do differently in its response to the crisis? And, with war and climate change likely to produce more waves of refugees around the world in the decades ahead, what lessons must the world learn from today’s refugees challenges? In a conversation moderated by Reuters Global News Editor Alessandra Galloni, four panelists explore whether the world can devise a better approach to refugees: Naomi Steinberg, Director of Refugee Council USA, Astrid Ziebarth, Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Immigration and Integration Program, Susan Fratzke, Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, and Wenzel Michalski, Germany Director of Human Rights Watch.

In California, few environmental issues are as hotly debated as fracking. A Zócalo/UCLA "Thinking L.A." event explored the roots of the fervor surrounding the oil and gas extraction technique in California, and attempted to dispel many misconceptions regarding its effects -- both detrimental and beneficial. Moderated by Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Julie Cart, the panel discussion included UCLA geologist Aradhna Tripati, California Council on Science and Technology researcher and author of a report on fracking in California Jane Long, senior physical scientist at RAND Corporation and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School Aimee E. Curtright, and Faculty Co-Director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Edward Parson.

A melting pot. A bento box. Chop suey. Wontons with chips.Hawaii is such an assortment of races, ethnicities, and cultures that it’s hard to pick just one way to describe its unique mix. So what can it teach the rest of America about how different people can all live together? At the Kaka‘ako Agora in Honolulu, a panel moderated by Leslie Wilcox of PBS Hawaii took on this question at a Zócalo/Smithsonian "What It Means to Be American" event in partnership with the Daniel K. Inouye Institute. The speakers were Marketing executive Guy Kawasaki, Maya Soetoro-Ng of the University of Hawaii College of Education, vice president at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Corbett Kalama, and actor and director Daniel Dae Kim.

"Finish the job." That was the focused message of Phillip Washington, the new CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), at a Zócalo/Metro event. Washington, who came to Los Angeles three and a half months ago after years of heading Denver’s Regional Transportation District, spoke passionately with moderator Conan Nolan, an NBC 4 reporter, about the need for Los Angeles to finish the build-out of its transportation infrastructure -- and for the country as a whole to devote far more attention and money to infrastructure.

As their state continues to crawl through an extended period of drought, Californians are increasingly coming to terms with the fact that the water shortage isn’t ending anytime soon -- and looking for new ways to combat it. At a "Thinking L.A." event co-presented by UCLA, four panelists took a broad look at the state of water technology in California, and discussed both the importance and difficulty of implementing desalination plants, water-recycling facilities, and other tools to help California make better use of its scarce water resources. Orange County Register economy reporter Margot Roosevelt moderated the conversation, which featured Celeste Cantú, general manager of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, Eric Hoek, UCLA professor and CEO of Water Planet, R. Rhodes Trussell, chairman of Trussell Technologies, Inc., and Madelyn Glickfeld, of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.