Moderated by Carla Hall, editorial writer, Los Angeles Times
Is it fair to vilify paparazzi for chasing down celebrities and tying up traffic when millions of us clamor to see their work on TMZ or in Us Weekly? Paparazzi may feed our addiction, but we are the addicts. And in an age where every film, TV, and even reality personality seems to have a team of stylists and press people choreographing their every move, what role are the stars themselves playing in this industry?
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James Fallows, Zócalo in Scottsdale: Will China Dominate the Skies?
A Zócalo/ASU Event
Just when you think you have a cloud to yourself, the neighbors show up. Lots of the world is seeing less and less air travel, but in China planes are multiplying—hugely. China plans to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars on expanding its aerospace industry, and the city of Xi’an alone has 250,000 workers in the field. Scores of new airports are under construction.
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The Center for Social Cohesion, a project of Arizona State University in partnership with the New America Foundation, is dedicated to studying the forces that shape our sense of social unity.
Wholly non-partisan, pluralistic and multidisciplinary in outlook, the Center for Social Cohesion seeks to promote understanding of how diverse societies cohere. Globalization, immigration and the fragmentation of media have increased the urgency of questions surrounding national identity, citizenship, political discourse and the fraying social contract. It’s time to devise new strategies and public policies to foster healthy civic engagement locally, encourage robust integration nationally and explore the meaning of citizenship and community globally.
To that end, the Center for Social Cohesion fosters discourse and supports research on the ever-shifting balance between the pluribus and the unum in American society.
