Zócalo at Autry National Center

Thursday, May 8, 7:30 pm at Autry National Center

New L.A. Times Editor Russ Stanton

Moderated by David Folkenflik, NPR Media Correspondent

As innovation editor of the Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton began the difficult process of transforming the newspaper into a well-integrated web and print product. Now, he's the new editor-in-chief, chosen over other candidates with more newsroom experience but less online expertise. His appointment comes at a crucial time for the Times—amidst staff cuts, following the departure of his three predecessors in quick succession, and during the coverage of a historic election. Stanton visits Zócalo to discuss his vision for the Times, the coverage he expects it to provide for Angelenos, and the financial and journalistic challenges that he and the paper are now confronting as he settles into his new role

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Zócalo in Hollywood

Friday, April 11, 7:30 pm at the Harmony Gold Theatre

“Standard Operating Procedure": A Screening and Conversation with Director Errol Morris

Moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum

One year into the Iraq war, photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib appeared on national television and print outlets around the world. The images of leashed, hooded and humiliated captives shocked the world, turning public opinion quickly against the war and launching the country into a roiling debate about morality and American values. At a time when debating what counts as torture has become a political pastime--when the gut, we-know-it-when-we-see-it reactions to the photographs have been forgotten--Errol Morris, director of the Academy Award-winning "Fog of War", revisits the photographs in his new film, "Standard Operating Procedure" (to be released by Sony Pictures Classics on April 25). Morris visits Zócalo to discuss why the photographs were taken, what happened outside the frame, and how a small group of soldiers shouldered the blame for their superiors' poor decisions--decisions that still shape the war and U.S. policy on torture.

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Zócalo at Central Library

Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 7:30 pm at Central Library

Daniel Weintraub, "Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a Party of One?"

Since his landslide reelection in a state dominated by Democrats, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has arguably become the nation's most successful Republican politician. Combining liberal stands on social and environmental issues with fiscally conservative, pro-business policies, Schwarzenegger has appealed to Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters through what he calls a "post-partisan" agenda. The celebrity governor took office with worldwide name identification and a mountain of good will from the voters of California. But Daniel Weintraub, Sacramento Bee columnist and author of “Party of One: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of the Independent Voter,” visits Zócalo to argue that Schwarzenegger's first four years as governor also represent an opportunity lost. The governor has squandered much of the advantage he once enjoyed with missteps, bad decisions, and poor execution. His final three years in the job will help determine whether Schwarzenegger is on the cutting edge of a broad, new movement of independent voters and independent-minded members of both major parties or simply someone whose unique resume combined with a special moment in California history to produce a never-to-be-duplicated phenomenon in American politics.  

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Zócalo at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre

Monday, April 7, 7:30 pm at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre

An Evening with Luis Valdez

Moderated by Oscar Garza, Editor-in-Chief, Tu Ciudad Magazine

Thirty years ago, the Mark Taper Forum presented the world premiere of “Zoot Suit,” a musical about a dark chapter in 1940s L.A. Written and directed by Luis Valdez of El Teatro Campesino, the groundbreaking production marked the first time a major American theater had explored the Mexican-American experience. The Taper was rewarded with record-breaking crowds, including many Mexican-Americans who were setting foot on the Music Center grounds for the first time. The play went on to a brief run on Broadway, and then was filmed for a theatrical release. Valdez went on to direct the highly successful “La Bamba” (1987), which showed Hollywood that there was an audience for Latino stories. But after an unsuccessful attempt in the early 1990s to direct a biopic about Frida Kahlo, Valdez retreated to Teatro Campesino’s home in San Juan Bautista, where the company continues to produce the socially-relevant theater that made it famous. Valdez visits Zócalo on the 30th anniversary of the premiere of “Zoot Suit.”

Audio and Video available shortly

Zócalo Downtown

Thursday, March 27, 7:30 pm at The Orpheum Theatre

The Future of Broadway

Moderated by Jerry Sullivan, editor and publisher, Los Angeles Garment & Citizen

Broadway has long been the heart of Downtown, from its heyday as a center of high-end retail, professional offices and entertainment to its more recent incarnation as a bargain strip of clothiers, jewelers, music shops and mom & pop restaurants. Now residential developments are claiming space on Broadway, chic bars draw an upscale crowd from all over town, and one of the old movie palaces has been completely renovated as a venue for hot-ticket musical acts and a variety of other events. Downtown boosters see a continued move upscale for Broadway, while others wonder what that will mean for the jobs and services the thoroughfare currently provides for blue-collar Angelenos. L.A. City Councilmember Jose Huizar, Orpheum Theatre/Anjac Fashion Buildings owner Steve Needleman, Bus Riders Union lead organizer Manuel Criollo, and CRA Deputy Chief of Operations Don Spivack visit Zócalo to discuss if there is room for both.

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Zócalo at Central Library

Wednesday, March 26, 7:30 pm at Central Library

Tom Daschle, “The Politics of Healthcare”

We know that millions of Americans go without medical care because they can’t afford it and that millions more are mired in debt because they can’t pay their medical bills.  But why can’t Americans find a fix? Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle visits Zócalo to explain why the health care crisis is so persistent and pernicious and gives us an insiders’ view on the political hurdles that lie ahead.  He argues for the creation of a health board not unlike the Federal Reserve that would offer a public framework within which a private health-care system could operate more effectively and efficiently—insulated from political pressure yet accountable to elected officials and the American people. At a time when political tensions are high—and momentum is building for reform—Daschle takes on the nation’s most pressing domestic issue.   

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Zócalo at LACMA

Thursday, March 20, 7:30 pm at the Bing Theater

Michael Giacchino: "How to 'Score' Big in the Movies"

Moderated by Jon Burlingame, Professor of Film-Music History at USC

Grammy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated composer Michael Giacchino—who wrote the score for The Incredibles and Ratatouille—has been mesmerized by movie music since he first saw (and heard) Star Wars as a child. His fascination led him to study film production at the School of Visual Arts in New York and composition at Julliard. Giacchino visits Zócalo to explain how his childhood obsession became reality, what it's really like to be a musician in Hollywood, and how composers help create such memorable scenes.

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Zócalo at The Actors’ Gang

Tuesday, March 11, 7:30 pm at The Actors’ Gang

Silvana Paternostro, "My Colombian War"

Award-winning Colombian-born journalist Silvana Paternostro visits Zócalo to give us an intimate portrait of Colombia's forty-year-old war between a left wing rebel army that kidnaps, a right-wing paramilitary that massacres, a drug-fueled economy that permeates both armed movements and a government that receives the third largest U.S. military aid package. Paternostro grew up in Colombia as a member of the landed elite before moving to the United States in the late seventies. In the years she was away, the country of her privileged childhood has become the world's biggest producer of cocaine, harboring the most violent, the most protracted and the most misunderstood civil conflict in Latin America, one in which the U.S. plays a vital role. Paternostro will share her journey back to the place where her family and her closest friends still live to bring alive this country's critical situation. Her story reveals a Colombia stuck in the threshold of feudalism and modernity, the rule of the rifle over the rule of law.

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Zócalo at The Skirball

Tuesday, February 26, 7:30 pm at The Skirball Cultural Center

Zócalo and the Los Angeles Times Editorial Pages Present

Hollywood's Labor Turmoil: "What Caused it, and What Happens Next?"

Moderated by Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board

A panel of industry insiders and expert observers—David Ginsburg, professor of Entertainment and Media Law at UCLA, Aaron Mendelsohn, from the Writers Guild of America West, Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein, and Charles B. Slocum, assistant executive director for the Writers Guild of America West—will dissect the lengthy strike by the Writers Guild of America, offering their views on the forces that made this contract such a high-stakes battle. Why were the studios and the writers willing to accept such a long and costly work stoppage? Why was the Directors Guild able to reach a deal so quickly? Most important, how might the Internet reshape the entertainment business in a way that affects the studios' relationship with writers and other talent?

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Zócalo in Downtown L.A.

Thursday, February 21, 7:30 pm at The Center at Cathedral Plaza

“The English Sentence and the Irish Mind”

A conversation with Irish novelists Anne Enright and Colm Tóibín

For Irish writers language is an aspect of performance, of self-display; it is carried in cultural baggage and shrouded in white silence. And yet the great tradition Irish writers have inherited for their use includes the full body of English literature which they feel free to adapt, play with, usurp, mimic and make their own. No one in Ireland writes a sentence without all of this lurking in the shadows. Anne Enright, the 2007 Booker Prize Winner, and Colm Tóibín, the 2006 winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, visit Zócalo to tease out and torture these cultural questions.

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Zócalo in Hollywood

Friday, February 15, 7:30 pm at the Harmony Gold Theatre

“Persepolis": A Screening and Conversation with Author/Filmmaker Marjane Satrapi

Moderated by author Reza Aslan

Marjane Satrapi's widely-heralded graphic novel "Persepolis" uses seemingly simplistic black-and-white drawings to capture vast emotional and political landscapes, following the author's young self as she struggles through the Iranian revolution and emigrates abroad. Satrapi's story, with its film-noir-style shadows and starkly expressive black-framed faces, is now an Oscar-nominated, Cannes-Jury-Prize winning animated film featuring the voice of Catherine Deneuve. Marjane Satrapi visits Zócalo to discuss Iran, the graphic novel, and the art of memoir after a screening of “Persepolis” (released by Sony Picture Classics).

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Zócalo at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre

Wednesday, February 13, 7:30 pm at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre

Zócalo and the City of L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs Present

Dana Gioia, “Why the Arts Matter”

Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, visits Zócalo to discuss the impoverishment of American popular culture and "the need to reopen the conversation between our best minds and the broader public." He argues that the real purpose of arts education isn't to produce more artists but to "create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society." Something happens, he says, when an individual actively engages in the arts—be it reading a novel at home, attending a concert at a local church, or seeing a dance company perform at a college campus—that awakens both a heightened sense of identity and civic awareness. He warns that America's cultural decline has "huge and alarming economic consequences."

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Zócalo at Central Library

Tuesday, February 12, 7:30 pm at Central Library

Walter Russell Mead, "Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World"

Walter Russell Mead, one of the nation's most distinguished foreign policy experts, visits Zócalo to discuss the themes of his latest book, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, in which he gives an illuminating account of the birth, the rise, and the continuing rise, of a global political and economic system that rested first on the power of Britain and rests today on that of the United States—and now faces a new set of formidable challenges. Mead argues that the key to the world-shaping predominance of the two countries has been the individualistic ideology of the prevailing Anglo-American religion. He explains how this helped create a culture uniquely adapted to capitalism and how, as a result, the two nations were able to create the liberal, democratic system that still exerts the greatest economic and social influence around the world.

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Zócalo at Central Library

Monday, January 28, 7:30 pm at Central Library

Jill Leovy, “L.A.’s Homicide Problem”

Homicide in Los Angeles is at a historic low point but even so, black and Latino men die at staggeringly high rates relative to the rest of the population—a phenomenon that is all but unknown in the rest of the developed world. Why? Poverty doesn’t fully explain it. Nor do broken families, drugs, or even gangs. The reason lies instead in history, segregation, and the structure of institutions. Jill Leovy, a Los Angeles Times homicide reporter and the author of “The Homicide Report,” an online catalogue of more than 800 cases in 2007, visits Zócalo to explore why we have the homicide problem, why it matters, and what might be done about it. 

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Zócalo at NPR West

Thursday, January 24, 7:30 pm at NPR West

Zócalo and NPR West Present

The Next American Century: Can the U.S. Thrive in a New Era of Big Powers?

Moderated by Kal Raustiala, Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations

America’s way of life will undoubtedly be affected by the rise of other global powers in this century—like China and India—but we are at a rare moment in history in which none of the world’s big powers is our adversary. Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen, co-authors of The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive As Other Powers Rise, visit Zócalo to discuss how the U.S. can thrive in an age of multiple powers. They argue the U.S. must welcome emerging nations into a vigorous international order to share the burden of solving pressing global problems of peace, climate, health, and growth.  

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Zócalo at MOCA Grand Avenue

Thursday, January 10, 7:30 pm at MOCA Grand Avenue

“Do Cities Have Expiration Dates?”

A Conversation with Architects Qingyun Ma and Thom Mayne

Given the fact that inhabitable spaces on the earth’s surface are limited, there is a growing discussion about how cities should be built and/or transformed to accommodate the needs of future generations. Architects Qingyun Ma and Thom Mayne visit Zócalo to explore whether cities should be preserved as built or have “expiration dates” like everything organic. They will examine the lifecycle of built environments – how cities can preserve their urban vitality and integrate sustainability, digital technology and economical systems, as well as accommodate new trends in the way people live, work, play and communicate. 
 
Qingyun Ma is dean of the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture and founder of the Shanghai-headquartered firm MADA s.p.a.m., the most visible Chinese-based practice on the global scene. Thom Mayne, the winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize, is the founder of Morphosis, an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and rigorous research based in Santa Monica.   

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Zócalo at The California Endowment

Wednesday, January 9, 7 pm at The California Endowment

Shannon Brownlee: Is Too Much Medicine Making Us Sick?

In most markets, paying more buys better quality. When you pay $400 for a night in the Four Seasons, you expect to get a better room and better service than you would at Motel 6. But in health care, the normal rules of economics don't seem to apply. The American health care system ranks in the bottom third of developed nations. American medicine kills 100,000 patients a year through medical error and our health statistics are on a par with the Czech Republic and Chile, countries that you'd think would be beating us at soccer, not health care. Yet we spend twice as much per capita on average as any other developed country. The cost of U.S. health care has outstripped growth in the general economy for more than 30 years, and shows no signs of slowing down. Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, argues that our health care is so expensive because we waste as much as a third of every health care dollar, about $700 billion a year, on care that patients don't need – and would probably avoid if they knew how useless and dangerous it is.

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