Zócalo Public Square

Glimpses

A Disquieting Look at Life Around the Caspian Sea

Photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews Captures the Geography of the Land and the Practices That Connect People to It

The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water, nestled between Europe and Asia, and surrounded by five countries: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. Through history, the area has been under the sway of the Persians, the Mongols, the Ottomans, and the Russians.
For five years, from 2010-2015, British photographer ...
Connecting California

Yosemite Is Not for Claustrophobes

As It Accommodates Millions of Visitors a Year, California’s Signature National Park Feels Less Like an Escape

Joe Mathews

The Yosemite National Park shuttle bus to Mariposa Grove wasn’t running. And the road up to the grove is no longer open to private cars. Would my three sons, ages 10, 8, and 5—aka the Three Stooges—agree to a 2 1/2 mile uphill hike to see Yosemite’s signature sequoias? ...

Sketchbook

Luminescent Watercolor Wildlife

Using watercolors with a light touch, and letting the paper shine through, Sara Franklin achieves colors that rival actual plants and animals in vibrancy and luminescence. When looking at her illustrations, consider that watercolor painting is purely additive. You can’t add light colors atop darker colors. Effects like white speckles on a green fish or white highlights on a butterfly’s wings, ...
Poetry

Canyon Road

By Elizabeth Jacobson

Driving on black ice—
I braked too hard,
spun into a 360
and then two more.
Like a boom of a sailboat, ...

New at Zócalo

Extraditions Are Not About Justice

The Highly Politicized Process of Transferring Fugitives Across Borders Was Primarily Designed to Prevent Impunity

By David A. Sadoff

Myths naturally swirl around colorful international fugitives like Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, global arms trafficker Viktor Bout, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. But myths are also common with regard to the process by which such wanted individuals are most commonly transferred from one jurisdiction to another to face justice, namely, extradition. Because of these myths, extradition—although well-known—is often misunderstood.
The media sometimes covers extradition as a criminal trial or as a judicial decision about a fugitive’s guilt or innocence, but neither is correct. Extradition is best understood as a formal, cooperative process of transferring the custody of an individual to the jurisdiction of the state seeking their recovery with the purpose of prosecuting that individual (or re-incarcerating them if they had escaped from detention). ...

In the Green Room

Journalist Claudia Kolker

I Never Lose My Fountain Pen

Sketchbook Sara Franklin

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AMERICAN

The Dazzling 1830 Defense of a Strong Federal Government

New England Statesman Daniel Webster Found Religion in Centralized National Power When it Served His Region’s Interests

By Christopher Childers

For generations, school children memorized the ending to Daniel Webster’s “Second Reply to Hayne,” delivered during the famous Webster-Hayne debate of January 1830. This most-famous-of-debates began in a modest fashion, with an argument over westward expansion and morphed into a discussion of tariffs and then nationalism versus states’ rights. Over time, the discussion came to symbolize something much more about American unity, as Webster’s soaring defense of nationalism and American nationhood, crowned with the words “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,” became a civics lesson in the meaning of American union and a model of impassioned oratory (emphasis added).
After April 1861, Webster’s discourse on nationhood took on added meaning ...

Connecting California Joe Mathews

Making the California Legislature 50 Percent Female Should Be Easy

The Gender Quotas Used in European Countries Offer a Straightforward Path to Parity—and More Democracy
Why California’s Pensions Only Deepen Inequality

The Golden State's Promise to Retirees Puts at Risk the Other Promises It Makes to Its Citizens
Build a Bullet Train? California Can't Even Build a One-Mile Rail Tunnel in San Francisco

The Golden State Is Bad at Big Projects, and Even Worse at the Little Ones

Poetry

Wanda Coleman’s Roar

By Nikolai Garcia

I don’t smoke weed, I smoke palm
trees. I rise into clouds like ...
PARKED, TEXAS

By Sophie Klahr

Yes—alone, I could stop for anything.
Fossil bed at a river’s ...
Steep Ravine

By Laton Carter

Between sagebrush and the lichened rocks,
a covey of quail ...

Hawai'i in the Public Square

Inquiries

A Disquieting Look at Life Around the Caspian Sea

Photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews Captures the Geography of the Land and the Practices That Connect People to It

Yosemite Is Not for Claustrophobes

As It Accommodates Millions of Visitors a Year, California’s Signature National Park Feels Less Like an Escape

Luminescent Watercolor Wildlife

Canyon Road

How Does Community Conflict Turn Into Genocide?

Thursday, May 2 — 7:30 PM LOS ANGELES

Will California Pick the Next President?

Wednesday, May 15 — 7:30 PM LOS ANGELES

New at Zócalo

Extraditions Are Not About Justice

The Highly Politicized Process of Transferring Fugitives Across Borders Was Primarily Designed to Prevent Impunity

Journalist Claudia Kolker

I Never Lose My Fountain Pen

The Dazzling 1830 Defense of a Strong Federal Government

New England Statesman Daniel Webster Found Religion in Centralized National Power When it Served His Region’s Interests

What It Means to Be American

The Black Scholar Who Gave Up Her Family to Earn Her Ph.D.

When American Politicos First Weaponized Conspiracy Theories

The Irish-American Social Club Whose Exploits in Their Homeland Sparked a New Understanding of Citizenship

Connecting California Joe Mathews

Making the California Legislature 50 Percent Female Should Be Easy

The Gender Quotas Used in European Countries Offer a Straightforward Path to Parity—and More Democracy

Why California’s Pensions Only Deepen Inequality

The Golden State's Promise to Retirees Puts at Risk the Other Promises It Makes to Its Citizens

Build a Bullet Train? California Can't Even Build a One-Mile Rail Tunnel in San Francisco

The Golden State Is Bad at Big Projects, and Even Worse at the Little Ones

Historian Omer Bartov Wins the Ninth Annual Zócalo Book Prize

Anatomy of a Genocide Is ‘a Haunting Warning of the Fragility of Order and Goodness in Our World’

Poetry

Wanda Coleman’s Roar

PARKED, TEXAS

Steep Ravine

Hawai'i in the Public Square

The Spiritual Visitation That Brought the Remains of Hawai‘i’s First Christian Convert Back Home

Why Single-Party Domination of Hawai‘i Politics Is Harmful to the Aloha State

How Hawai‘i Inspired the Advance of Aviation

We Know Another Recession Is Coming. And We’re Still Not Ready.

Economists Say America’s Next Economic Downturn Won’t Be as Bad as the Great Recession. But It Will Be Worse Than It Has to Be.

Glimpses

Inspired by Luxury Yachts, Station Wagons Were Once the Height of Mid-20th-Century Design

Dawoud Bey’s Unwavering Candor

The Fictional Maps That Fill Us With Wonder

Journalist Amanda Fortini

I Go Hiking Inside Las Vegas Casinos

Inquiries

Get More Zócalo

Thursday, May 2 — 7:30 PM
LOS ANGELES

Wednesday, May 15 — 7:30 PM
LOS ANGELES