February 2012 Archives
LA as Subject:
What did the L.A. Basin look like before there was an L.A.? A team of scientists, geographers, and other researchers recently released a report that reconstructs the historical landscape of the Ballona Creek watershed.
Commentary:
The popular assumption is that deserts are hot places, but they are defined by dryness, not temperature. For example, Antarctica is a desert.
Where We Are:
The "sense of wonder" that propelled discovery has become a feeling of frustration as the Space Age unwinds.
Commentary:
After largely unsuccessful trips to the courthouse, a GOP-based group called Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR) submitted enough signatures to get their state senate map killing measure on the November 2012 ballot.
Where We Are:
Journalism students at Loyola Marymount University are finding and telling them.
Notes of a Native Daughter:
Imagine it is late August, and 120 degrees, and you have to climb the hundred feet of ladder to cut each heavy bunch of dates with a knife fashioned out of steel and lower the bunch on a hook to a man waiting at the bottom. Now imagine that you have to climb the ladder a hundred times.
Commentary:
Losing my cousin this week has been like losing a part of me -- and of L.A. history
Arts & Culture:
This week's media art scene includes one of the most radical films in the history of cinema, experiments with magic and moving images, and a 24-hour tribute to an LA icon.
Commentary:
I came into the Catholic church, not because I had an epiphany, but because my best friend Cathy from high school insisted that I get baptized so that I could be in heaven with her.
LA as Subject:
A statue of Junípero Serra has represented California in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall since 1931, but over the past few decades scholars have come to view the Franciscan priest's mission-building project as a disaster for the state's native inhabitants.
SoCal Focus is a blog about the people, places, and issues in and around Southern California.
