The Sky Is Falling, Again

The Sequester and the Booms and Busts of Aerospace

Have the budget cuts in Washington, known as the sequester, brought on another great decline of California aerospace, the business that built L.A.? The history of Southern California’s aerospace industry is usually described in broad strokes—as an unbroken 20th century rise, followed by a post-Cold War decline. But the real history of aerospace is much more complicated and volatile—and, if past is prologue, the future may surprise us.

Since its very start, aerospace has been an industry of booms and busts. The first boom came in the 1920s, when the feats …

When MLK Thrilled L.A.—and Me

A Rally in the Sports Arena Changed Me From Picketer to Freedom Rider

In the mid-1950s, when I was a teenager, I moved with my family from Buffalo, New York to Los Angeles. I’d spent my early years on the Lower East Side …

She Can Take the Heat

ASU’s Jennifer Linde Takes Questions in the Green Room

Jennifer Linde is a senior lecturer in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University and the artistic director of The Empty Space, a performance venue featuring …

Meenakshi Chakraverti

Some Wise Thoughts on Airplanes and Breakfast

Meenakshi Chakraverti is director of San-Diego-based Public Conversations West (PCWest), a branch of the Public Conversations Project (PCP). She has studied conflict and facilitated conversations across the United States and …

Big Money. Small Money. More Money.

From the Rich to the Not So Rich, More Money Is Being Given in More Ways to Presidential Campaigns. Should We Worry?

No matter the issue, the debate in this year’s presidential election is all about money: about the national debt, about how much we spend on entitlements, on the high finance …

Berkeley’s Henry Brady

There Goes My Chance For a Newt Gingrich Staff Gig

Henry Brady is dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked in Washington, D.C. at the Office of Management and Budget, …