WATCH LIVE TONIGHT AT 7PM PDT

  • What Do We Want From the Next L.A. Mayor?

    Join us at ASU California Center or watch online.

    Mayoral candidates in Los Angeles love to offer plans and make promises. But in L.A., City Hall is more likely to follow than to lead. Change here has always come from Angelenos themselves, and the ways we interact with each other and cope with the accidents, disasters, and ongoing challenges. Before June’s first-round mayoral election, Zócalo tunes out the politicians and asks the people: what do we want for Los Angeles, and how might we get it?

    Join USC political scientist Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Green Qween co-founder and CEO Taylor Bazley, and CSUN government and community relations assistant vice president Rafael de la Rosa. Moderated by Janaya Williams, KCRW’s Host of All Things Considered.

New at Zócalo

Essay

Is the U.S. Winning Russia's War in Ukraine?

Putin Is Losing, Ukraine Is Suffering, And It’s America’s Geopolitical Battle to Lose

by Manlio Graziano

The Russian war in Ukraine is a calamity—for the people suffering through it, for Ukraine, for Russia, for Europe (which has lost its strategic compass), for China (which needs stability to develop faster than its competitors), and for most of the world (due to the energy and food crises it is triggering).
  But it is by no means a calamity for the United States.
  Please forgive the complexity of the argument that follows. But geopolitics, which I study, addresses complexity. And this war has taken geopolitics backwards.
  When a war breaks out, we rediscover how, as human beings, “we have not yet crept on all fours from the barbaric period of our history,” as Leon Trotsky wrote at the outbreak of the Balkan wars 110 years ago. We also fall back, in a Pavlovian ...

Essay

Miscarriage Wasn’t Always a Tragedy or a Crime

How Race, Medicine, and the Law Shape Reactions to Pregnancy Loss

by Shannon Withycombe

In the fall of 2012, I woke up early in the morning with cramps. I went to the bathroom and saw blood on my underwear. I was nine weeks pregnant, and it looked like I was having a miscarriage. I was surprised and sad, but also resigned. I had been researching and writing about the history of 19th century miscarriage for seven years, and I knew how often it is a routine part of a person’s reproductive journey.
  I called my doctor’s office and was directed to the emergency room, where I sat for six hours, received two vaginal ultrasounds and three pelvic exams, and was repeatedly told I could not have any food, “just in case we need to do something.” I left with a $500 hospital bill, a headache, a noncommittal diagnosis of “threatened abortion,” and a new feeling of confusion and insecurity ...

How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?

Poetry

Connecting California Joe Mathews

Culture Class Jackie Mansky

Where I Go

In the Green Room

Inquiries

By continuing to use our website, you agree to our privacy and cookie policy.

✕

Get More Zócalo

No paywall. No ads. No partisan hacks. Ideas journalism with a head and a heart.

You may opt out or contact us anytime.

×