Thinking L.A.

My admiration for the city of Los Angeles has nothing to do with its sports teams or film stars, or anything or anyone that might be considered super-duper. No, strange to say, it’s the humility that most fascinates me.
 
 
For the last nine years, I’ve been photographing small, storefront churches across L.A. These churches represent the modesty and simplicity that can be found block after block …

Did we win in Bell?
There is no greater symbol of local California corruption than Bell, a city of 35,000 people, 2 1/2 square miles, and many gas stations in southeast L.A. County. For years, Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo and his minions exploited every dark corner of California’s convoluted systems of local governance and finance. They paid each other scandalously high salaries (Rizzo’s package of …

Like the legions of other admirers of Jon Stewart, I’m eager to hear who will
succeed him at The Daily Show. In my research on political satire around the world, Stewart has impressed me as one of satire’s most effective and influential performers.
The Daily Show started in 1996 as a parody of conventional newscasts with a focus on pop culture rather than politics. So when Comedy …

At the age of 17, after a wonderful summer of fishing and learning to surf, my son, then in his junior year at a Boston high school, told me one afternoon, “I don’t know what’s happening, I can’t find my old self again.” Shortly thereafter, Franklin had to be hospitalized. The evaluation described an “increase in psychotic symptoms, including paranoid thoughts, command hallucinations telling him …

As a native Angeleno, I’ve always felt that L.A. is rarely seen for all of its history, diversity, and character. Tourists only visit Venice Beach, Hollywood, and Universal City, maybe downtown and call it a day. They miss out on all of the city’s interesting middle parts. It wasn’t until I started exploring the city for a series of paintings called 100 Not So Famous …

3.14159265. Nine digits of pi is all I can remember. My older daughter left me in the dust back when she was in fourth grade and inspired to memorize as many digits as possible for a class contest.
Which isn’t to say that my children thought of pi as a list of random digits. I’m a scientist, and I wanted them to understand what pi …

When traveling by air, rail, or bus across country on business or pleasure, I always recall the summer of 1961, when the Freedom Rides made interstate travel the democratic activity we take for granted.
Racial segregation on trains or in bus stations is unthinkable today. But I remember the days when it was the law or custom in many places, especially in the South. I was …

On a hot August day in 1816, waves of heat shimmered off of the dusty plazas and red tile roofs of the San Gabriel Mission community. The surrounding valley and foothills were brown and dry, and the nearby arroyos hadn’t run with water since March. But the town was a verdant oasis, watered by babbling brooks that ran alongside the vineyards, through the workshops, and …

It shouldn’t matter much to Californians whether Antonio Villaraigosa gets to be a U.S. senator or governor someday. We have no shortage of ambitious politicians, after all. But what should matter to us is whether Antonio Villaraigosa gets to be Antonio Villaraigosa.
Villaraigosa didn’t get that opportunity over the past six weeks as he pondered, and ultimately decided against, a campaign for the U.S. Senate. Instead, …

Where did the Cuban Revolution succeed, and where did it fail? How will Cuba change as the country enters a new era of rapprochement with the United States? What is Cuba today—and what will it look like in 10 years? Will an open Cuba model itself after Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia, or China and Vietnam? Associated Press Latin American and Caribbean editor Marjorie …