Zócalo Public Square (Audio)

At a Zócalo/Getty event, writer Susan Orlean, Segerstrom Center for the Arts president Terrence W. Dwyer, and Getty CEO James Cuno weren’t entirely in accord about why and how art changes people’s lives—and on whether all art is created equal in that respect.

The way discipline is enforced in American schools is changing quickly, as zero-tolerance policies have given way to "restorative justice" programs that encourage student responsibility and empathy. At a Zócalo/California Endowment event, LAUSD high school teacher Carlos Castillo, Maisie Chin, co-founder of South L.A.’s CADRE parents’ organization, and Walt Buster, the founding director of the Central Valley Educational Leadership Institute, discussed the future of school discipline in L.A., California, and around the country as well as what methods work best.

So few Angelenos voted this year that Eric Garcetti was elected mayor with just 222,300 votes—the same number it took to get elected mayor in the 1930s, when L.A. was half its present size. UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., Tracy Zeluff of GroundWorks Campaigns, and Loyola Ma rymount University political scientist Fernando Guerra talked about why Angelenos are so reluctant to go to the polls, whether it matters, and what might change things.

What defines glamour, and why do we need it? Bloomberg View columnist Virginia Postrel, author of The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, offered her thoughts on what makes up this elusive quality—as well as her thoughts on what glamour is not—at a Zócalo/Getty Center event.

KCRW Good Food host Evan Kleiman talks with a panel of people who look at food from different angles--UCLA epidemiologist Alex Ortega, food blogger Javier "The Glutster" Cabral, and former Bon Appetit editor Barbara Fairchild--about what L.A. is eating right now. Los Angeles is a city of two food worlds, richer and poorer. We're home to many farmers markets and world renowned restaurants. But a million people here go to bed hungry, and obesity is a large problem.

Delta farmer Russell van Loben Sels, PPIC senior fellow Ellen Hanak, deputy operating officer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District Joan Maher, and executive officer of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Campbell Ingram talk with San Francisco Chronicle deputy editorial page editor Lois Kazakoff about a major source of California's water supply, the California Delta, at a panel co-presented by Occidental College. Will the Bay Delta Conservation Plan work? What are the biggest problems facing the Delta today? And, what do Californians need to know about this part of our state?

For years, Rupert Murdoch has been “the most influential and important media figure in the English-speaking world,” according to National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik, author of Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires. Folkenflik spoke with L.A. Observed publisher Kevin Roderick about how Murdoch has changed journalism not just at his own holdings but around the world at a program co-presented by ASU's Cronkite School of Journalism.

A new law in Arizona requires the state to fail—and hold back—third graders who haven’t learned to read. An estimated 1,500 students will be held back this year. Why are so many 9-year-olds struggling with literacy, how can schools and teachers best help them? Arizona Republic education reporter Cathryn Creno talks with ASU literacy education scholar Frank Serafini, City of Phoenix youth and education program manager Tim Valencia, and Phoenix elementary school instructional coach Daniela Robles about the state of Arizona elementary education and whether this policy can work at a panel co-presented by the ASU Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, have spoken by phone. It appears that Rouhani, a moderate, wants to negotiate and change the two countries’ relationship. Does Iran actually want a rapprochement, and will this be possible? How do Iranians feel about the United States? How do Americans--our leaders and the public alike--feel about Iran? Occidental College political scientist Hussein Banai, Asia Society vice president of global policy programs Suzanne DiMaggio, and Occidental College historian Thaddeus Russell talked with former NBC correspondent George Lewis about the future of U.S.-Iran relations at a panel co-presented by Occidental College.

Wildly famous. Frequently scandalous. Speakers of truth to power. Action heroes. Acclaimed by the people. Romantic, rebellious, charismatic, inspirational. These were just a few of the ways saints were described at a Zócalo/Getty panel that asked a group of scholars of art, history, and religion, “Why Do We Need Saints?” Documentary filmmaker Jody Hassett Sanchez speaks with Cabrini College folklorist Leonard Primiano, UC Riverside medieval art historian Conrad Rudolph, and University of Notre Dame theologian Candida Moss about how the cult of saints came to be, and what saints offer those who love and pray to them.