Zócalo Public Square (Audio)

Why Have Kids?

There are 15 major arts and music festivals in the Coachella Valley each year, from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival to the Desert Lexus Jazz Festival -- and that’s just from January to June. What do these festivals bring to the local community, and why have they all sprung up in this area? These were the questions tackled at a "Living the Arts" event co-presented by the James Irvine Foundation in front of a full house at the Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage. Desert Sun arts and entertainment reporter Bruce Fessier got answers from Modernism Week's Lisa Vossler Smith, Palm Springs Art Museum's Irene N. Rodriguez, Indio Mayor Lupe Ramos Watson, and music writer and photographer Steve Appleford.

Today, American institutions of higher education are under fire from all fronts, including for the high cost of attending, for the role they play in perpetuating inequality, and for their perceived inability to prepare students for a changing world. Is the contemporary research university in danger of going extinct? And if so, is it even worth saving? Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow, co-author of Designing the New American University, and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, talk with Chronicle of Higher Education Editor Liz McMillen about who universities should serve and what problems they should be solving.

Is America a nation of risk-takers or worry warts? At the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, a wide-ranging "What It Means to Be American' discussion covered entrepreneurship and jazz music, parenting and travel -- and whether risk-taking is an essentially American trait. Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character, talked with Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill, documentary filmmaker and Adventure Divas and Globe Trekker host Holly Morris, and Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle, author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success, about the risks they've taken in their work and lives, and their thoughts on the place of failure and risk-taking in American culture today.

Ever wondered what makes L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti laugh? June Cleaver speaking jive, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar as a pilot, and a bowl of Jell-O on a turbulent plane. When asked to host Zócalo and KCRW’s "My Favorite Movie" series at the Million Dollar Theatre, Garcetti chose the 1980 classic comedy Airplane! After a screening of Airplane! KCRW Press Play host Madeleine Brand interviewed Garcetti, as well as the movie’s writing-directing-producing trio, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker.

Just as the UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies released its 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report, Black List founder and CEO Franklin Leonard, Black-ish executive producer Brian Dobbins, Bunche Center director Darnell Hunt, and Creative Artists Agency agent Christy Haubegger talked with Hollywood Reporter executive editor Matthew Belloni about why the people Americans see onscreen don't look more like the rest of us. At an event co-presented by UCLA and UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the panelists agreed that diversity sells, but studio executives are still playing catch-up with the nation's demographics and tastes.

What inspires artists as they grow older? Do they approach their work in new ways? Do they see the world differently? Painter Charles Garabedian, muralist Judithe Hernández, and musicologist Karen Painter tackled these questions at an "Open Art" event co-presented by the Getty. It was inspired by the Getty exhibition "J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free," which features works from the final years of Turner’s life, and was moderated by Los Angeles Times arts reporter Mike Boehm.

Who or what creates and builds a city’s arts scene? How can a flourishing arts community advance to the next level? At a "Living the Arts" event co-presented by the James Irvine Foundation at the Riverside Art Museum, Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival director Bill Fold, UC Riverside historian Catherine Gudis, Downtown Riverside Arts Walk co-founder Cosme Cordova, and Ken Vincent, KVCR news director and the evening’s moderator, tackled these questions.

After decades of building prisons and increasing the number of people behind bars, the pendulum of California’s criminal justice system has swung away from incarceration. Among the policies and laws that are changing the way offenders are sentenced is Proposition 47, which was passed in November 2014, and redefines six nonviolent felonies as misdemeanors. About 1 million Californians are being affected by this legislation -- getting felonies cleared from their records, being resentenced, and in some cases getting out of prison earlier than expected. At an event co-presented by the California Endowment, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen V. Manley, Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership Executive Director Peggy Edwards, and Project Rebound Director Jason Bell told a full-house crowd at the Endowment’s downtown L.A. headquarters how Proposition 47 is changing the state’s approach to criminal justice and, more broadly, the challenges faced by prisoners upon reentry to society.

For centuries, the best college education has been the one that costs the most and is accessible to the fewest people. But what if anyone, anywhere, could take classes with the best professors, without paying a dime? According to Kevin Carey, author of The End of College and education policy program director at the New America Foundation, this is the future of higher education. At an event co-presented by Arizona State University, Carey discussed whether new technology will make some of America's oldest institutions obsolete.