• Essay

    Why Do We Want Ceasefires?

    A 7th-Century Roman-Arab Conflict Shows the Power of Enduring Peace Treaties Over Temporary Truces

    by Edward Watts

    Why do we want a ceasefire? This question is in the news as a result of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict ...

  • Connecting California

    Don't Let the Government Get Your Goat

    Cedar, the Caprine Captive Caught in the Middle of a Fatal Legal Battle, Has an Important Story to Tell

    by Cedar the Goat, as told to Joe Mathews

    I, Cedar, may be as dead as the narrator of the film Sunset Boulevard. But from my warm and dry pen in ...

  • Essay

    Why Won't Governments Regulate AI?

    Enthusiasts Say the Technology Will Herald a 'Fourth Industrial Revolution.' Unchecked, It’s More Likely to Intensify Inequality and Corporate Power

    by Brian Judge

    What happens when a globe-spanning corporation becomes so powerful that even nations have to answer ...

Essay

In South Central, a 'Rebel Garden' of True Bounty

Growing a Community Space in L.A. to Heal and To Reconnect to the Land

by Erica Montelongo

Being a steward of the earth is a responsibility I hold dear to my heart. That’s why, four years ago, I got involved in creating a raised-bed garden in South Central Los Angeles. We call it the Rebel Garden for Indigenous rebellions seizing land back across the world.
  I like to think our garden is one way for our community to reconnect to the land that was forcibly taken from us and serves as a small, living patch where autonomy and healing can blossom.
  Gardening is about more than just taking care of plants. I believe that it is important for us to see ourselves as an extension of nature. Just like the networks of mycelium that nature creates when no one is watching that years later produce a thriving forest that can communicate underground, we need to build a pathway with our community ...

Where I Go

Where I Go: Redondo Beach Brings Me Back to Myself

I’m the Keeper of My Family's Memories. My Hometown Is Where I Uncover the Layers of Our Past

by Jim Hinch

Late one afternoon last year, during a troubled time in my life, I took a long walk on the beach.
  A day of rain was ending. Watery sunlight shone on glossy streets. It was a brief lull in California’s unrelenting winter. To the west, a layer of cirrus clouds announced another storm approaching. A high wind chased the departing rain, churning the sea into a tangle of waves.
  I had been here—the Redondo Beach shoreline at the southern end of Santa Monica Bay—many times before. I spent most of my childhood in a small house about a mile away. Even after moving to Long Beach as a teenager, and eventually leaving California altogether to raise my family in New York City, I never stopped returning to Redondo Beach.
  Why do some people return again and again to the places they grew up? Not everyone does ...

  • Big Brother Is Watching. But We Can Resist

    At Last Night's "What Is the State of Surveillance?" Program, Panelists Spoke About What We Can Do About the Orwellian Present

    by Jackie Mansky

    “Can surveillance be a necessary evil?”
    The question came near the end of yesterday’s public program, “What Is the State of Surveillance?,” held at the ASU California Center in the historic Herald-Examiner building in downtown Los Angeles.
    The Zócalo panel, presented in partnership with ACLU of Southern California and The Progress Network, had already …

I Turn Science Into Art

My Textbook Illustrations Help Educate the Next Generation of Biologists, Doctors, and Physicists

by Nigel Orme

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