Zócalo Public Square

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 that is key to understanding the evolution of the great monotheistic faiths. In an era when the perceived divisions between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam spark violent conflict, understanding the deep parallels between the faiths--and the forces that can move them to a higher moral plane--is crucial to building a peaceful world. Robert Wright, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and the just-published The Evolution of God, visits Zócalo to discuss the birth and growth of the Abrahamic God.

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 across the country. California ranked high among other states for its share of working adults with a bachelor´s degree. But that figure has declined sharply in the decades since. According to new research by the Public Policy Institute of California, by 2025, the state will fall nearly one million college graduates short of serving its economic needs. With dire California budget crunch, vast demographic shifts including the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation and the influx of immigrants, and the ongoing struggle for stronger secondary education, California needs to recall and possibly adapt its long-heralded higher education vision. What prompted California´s fall from higher education excellence, and how can it be reversed? Zócalo and the Public Policy Institute of California host a panel inclu

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. Though the number of homeless in Los Angeles has declined over the last few years, it has not declined as sharply as populations in other cities, like New York, which has fewer homeless but has devoted more funding to the cause. What can Los Angeles learn from cities like New York and Washington D.C., which have both reduced homelessness by emphasizing housing first and providing comprehensive care to address root causes? Zócalo hosts a panel of experts -- including United Way of Greater Los Angeles president Elise Buik, Mike Alvidrez, Executive Director for Skid Row Housing Trust, Becky Kanis, Director of Innovations for Common Ground in New York, and Chet Grey, Homeless Services Director of the Washington D.C. Business Improvement District -- on the question of whether homelessness is solveable, and if so, how Los Angeles can get its homeless population off the streets.

Though both Iraq wars aimed to reign in Saddam Hussein, and both were run by men named Bush, the two conflicts were drastically different in planning and implementation. The first was a necessary war of limited scope that won broad international support and was well-executed. The second was a war of choice. Its ambitions were broad, its strategy poorly conceived and implemented. Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars, draws on his experience as a senior-level strategist during both Iraq wars to explain the lessons these wars have taught us..

Will a new model or medium rise to do what newspapers have aimed to do for decades--pursue accuracy and objectivity, doggedly investigate stories, act as a check on power? Or will the demise of newspapers mean a radical shift in what we know and how we know it? Zócalo hosts a panel--including former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll, Slate founder Michael Kinsley, San Francisco Chronicle executive vice president and editor Phil Bronstein, and National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik--to discuss the decline of print media and the future of journalism.

Tens of thousands of American soldiers have suffered injuries in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, and mental health problems. Zócalo hosts a panel of medical and military experts -- including Jennifer Sinclair, sister of an Army captain who served in Iraq, Army Major Gen. (Retired) Paul E. Mock, David Webb, chief of environmental and military medicine at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center Long Beach, and Los Angeles Times veterans affairs reporter Jia-Rui Chong -- to discuss how to heal the minds and bodies of returning soldiers.

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 easy fame and power. They share city plans designed according to car culture. And they grow toward each other as they expand into the Mojave Desert. But reality has hit both cities: water grows scarce, space is tighter, cars clog roads and pollute the air, and money is disappearing. Zócalo hosts a panel of experts—including William L. Fox, Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, architect and University of Washington assistant professor Nicole Huber; writer, curator and former director of the Las Vegas Art Museum Libby Lumpkin; and educator, author and architect Ralph Stern—to discuss the two parallel cities.

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. Thirty years after his death, Zócalo hosts a panel -- featuring music and culture journalist Oscar Garza, music producer Hal Willner, writer Emory Holmes II, Mingus contemporary and friend William "Buddy" Collette, and the jazz great's son Eric Mingus, also a musician -- to discuss the jazz great.

The troubles of Africa today are severe and wide-ranging. The continent is more dynamic and its problems more intricate than that, blocked by bottlenecks at the international, national and individual levels. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai—founder of the Green Belt Movement, author of The Challenge for Africa and longtime environmental and democracy advocate—visits Zócalo to discuss her life’s work and her vision for Africa.

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 used its power at critical moments over the last 50 years to preserve American and global security, and the U.S. today remains an indispensable leader because it alone can galvanize coalitions to solve major international problems. President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb, also a former New York Times correspondent and author of Power Rules, visits Zócalo to explain how American power works, and how it should be used in a tumultuous world.

Discovering John Fante is like tasting garlic for the first time. He is a quintessential Los Angeles writer. H.L. Mencken, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, Robert Towne and Francis Ford Coppola number among the many fans who swear by Fante, who might have turned 100 this year. A panel of fans and scholars -- including Fante biographer Stephen Cooper, KCRW’s Frances Anderton, Esotouric co-founder Richard Schave, and Fante’s children Victoria Fante-Cohen and Jim Fante -- visited Zócalo along with moderator David Kipen to celebrate the work of John Fante.

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 million monthly users find homes, jobs, cars, stuff, spouses, friends and flings. The site's simple design and old age (in Internet company years) hasn't kept it from being at the pulse of online life. Founder Craig Newmark visited Zócalo to talk with moderator and L.A. Times editorial writer Jon Healey about how craigslist grew, and how internet access and participation can change the way our country runs.

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 million monthly users find homes, jobs, cars, stuff, spouses, friends and flings. Founder Craig Newmark visited Zócalo to talk about the web and social change, net government transparency, and political causes like supporting veterans and building a stable environment for peace on the West Bank.

We live in an age of obsession. To be obsessive is to be American; to be obsessive is to be modern. But obsession is not only a phenomenon of modern existence: it is a medical category — a pathology. Its current form, known as OCD, has been cited by the World Health Organization as the fourth most common mental disorder in the world. How did OCD reach epidemic level when a mere 45 years ago it was considered extremely rare? University of Illinois at Chicago professor Lennard Davis, author of Obsession: A History, visits Zócalo to explain obsession’s growth, its treatment, and its complex origin and deep cultural roots.

Students of means have always had an advantage getting into college — they attend the best high schools and study under the best teachers — but have the scales become too imbalanced in favor of the wealthy? As the economic downturn crimps the student loan market and makes college even harder to afford, a panel of higher education experts -- including Los Angeles Community College District Board President Kelly Candaele, Inside Higher Ed Editor Scott Jaschik, UCLA professor Patricia M. McDonough, author of Choosing Colleges: How Social Class and Schools Structure Opportunity, and Bruce Poch, Dean of Admissions at Pomona College -- visited Zócalo to discuss whether higher education has become inaccessible to all but the rich.

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 John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom that led to the Great Depression and the psychological shift that pulled us out of it — behind today’s financial crisis? George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate, and Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller visit Zócalo to discuss overconfidence in capitalism, modern snake-oil salesmen, and how to fix the economy to ease the influence of each.

If any single mood characterizes the emotional climate of the 21st century, it’s anger, particularly media rage—indignant cable news pundits, rancorous bloggers and the apoplectic comments they engender. Our society appears to be choking on the bile of its own discontent. Dick Meyer, author of “Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium,” and Time magazine writer Lev Grossman visit Zócalo to discuss the new anger.

Following up on last year's panel on the Writers Guild of America strike, Zócalo’s panel of Hollywood and high-tech experts -- including AFTRA National Executive Director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, actress Kathryn Joosten, actor Ron Ostrow, UCLA’s David R. Ginsburg, Veoh Founder and Chief Innovation Officer Dmitry Shapiro and TroyGould entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel -- explores how Hollywood will handle negotiations and divide revenue during its transition to the digital age.

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 lonely feel more depressed, more deeply addicted, and are more easily angered. Why does loneliness hit and why does it hurt? Humans have evolved, thanks to the long period of abject dependency of our offspring, as social beings, with brains wired for communication and empathy. Forming and maintaining social connections—from romantic partners to families, communities, cities, and civilizations—is essential to our survival. John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago and co-author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, visited Zócalo to discuss the evolutionary basis of human relationships and why they matter.

It's all but certain that the state government will run out of money this year. Even if the legislature and governor somehow reach an agreement on budget cuts or tax increases, any solution likely will come too late to prevent a cash crunch. This is uncharted territory for California. What happens if the state goes broke? A panel of California’s top fiscal and economic experts — including State Controller John Chiang, New America Foundation Senior Scholar Mark Paul, and Peter Taylor of Barclays Capital— visited Zócalo to discuss with moderator Joe Mathews how this quasi-bankruptcy will impact state finances, public services, and Californians.