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People Are Still Arguing About Robert Mapplethorpe, and It’s Not About Porn

By | June 9, 2016

Nearly three decades after the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe escalated the culture wars and made him an embattled hero in the art world, his work continues to provoke and inspire, said panelists at a Zócalo Public Square/Getty “Open Art” event.
An overflow crowd gathered at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers to hear about the history of Mapplethorpe’s controversial works as well as his place …

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Why Women Are More Likely to Lead the Government Than the Boardroom

By | June 7, 2016

Are Women Changing the Way Institutions Are Run? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
Just an hour before the start of Time magazine Washington Correspondent Jay Newton-Small’s lecture “Are Women Changing the Way Institutions Are Run?” the news broke that Hillary Clinton had secured the Democratic presidential nomination, the first woman ever—in either party—to make it that far.
The timing was fortuitous, the standing-room-only crowd at …

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Humans Are Genes Plus Environment Plus Genetic Interactions Plus Chance

By | May 26, 2016

Will Genetic Engineering Endanger Humanity? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
Near the end of a wide-ranging conversation about the complexity of the human genome and the history and future of genetics, Arizona State University President Michael Crow noted the almost inconceivably large number—“10 to the 14th” power—of microorganisms in our bodies. And then he turned to cancer researcher Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, and posed what …

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Your Smartphone Is Making You Less Empathetic

By | May 13, 2016

Why We Must Relearn the Art of Conversation from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
Zócalo Publisher Gregory Rodriguez said he was terrified as he opened a discussion onstage at MOCA Grand Avenue with MIT’s Sherry Turkle.
It wasn’t, however, because he was moderating in front of a full house, or because Turkle is an esteemed sociologist and psychologist who was there to accept the sixth annual …

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Your College Degree Might Be Worthless in a 21st Century Economy

By | May 5, 2016

Have Universities Failed Millennials? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
For decades, a college degree “was a signal that people were ready for the workforce,” a sign to parents that their children “were going to be golden in the job market,” said Jeffrey J. Selingo, author of There Is Life After College and former editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “That is no longer …

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How Black Became the Most Contradictory and Controversial Color

By | May 3, 2016

What Does Blackness Mean? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
Black may be a color, but it’s not just a color.
Panelists at a lively Zócalo/Getty “Open Art” event at the Getty Museum explored the hue’s often contradictory and controversial associations, exploding the idea that black is merely the absence of color. Among the many connotations the panelists discussed were the signals black sends out …

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How American Health Care Can Survive the Surge of Retiring Baby Boomers

By | May 1, 2016

Will the Aging of America Bankrupt the Health Care System? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
Are the baby boomers going to bust the health care system?
That’s the big question Wall Street Journal reporter Anna Wilde Mathews posed in her opening remarks to a Zócalo/Health Futures Council at Arizona State University event last night, held at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix. With America’s elderly …

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How the 1990s Got L.A. to Start Taking Itself Seriously

By | April 29, 2016

Were the ‘90s L.A.’s Golden Age? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
The L.A. Riots. The Northridge Earthquake. The AIDS crisis. Proposition 187. Fires. Mudslides. White flight. Recession and joblessness. The departure of the aerospace industry. The departures of the Rams and the Raiders. The OJ Simpson trial. The murder of Biggie Smalls. Gang warfare.
“The ’90s,” as Zócalo Public Square publisher Gregory Rodriguez put …

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Can We Teach Kids to Embrace the Internet Without Encouraging Addiction?

By | April 27, 2016

Is the Internet Turning Kids Into Zombies? from Zocalo Public Square on Vimeo.
You can’t protect children from smartphones—but you can teach them how to use them in healthy ways, in part by modeling good behavior yourself, said panelists at a Zócalo/UCLA event at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, “Is the Internet Turning Our Kids Into Zombies?”
The panelists—UCLA Children’s Digital Media Center researcher Yalda …

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Humans Need to Unplug Themselves, Not Their Phones

By | March 29, 2016

As we hurtle with delight into a future where a wristwatch can tell us how many steps we’ve taken each day and a few taps on a screen can bring up a video chat with relatives several time zones away, we need to be more mindful of the costs of technology.
That was the message at a Zócalo/UCLA event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in …

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