Book Picks for April-May 2021
Let’s read All We Can Save and The Nature of Desert Nature for April and May 2021!
Green, Harris, and Orlando publish new paper to improve healthcare for elders
by Olivia Olson
Falling is the number one cause of injury and seventh leading cause of death in adults ages 65 and older. Over a quarter of that population falls annually, with approximately a third of those falls resulting in medical treatment or lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, however, today’s elderly are the most indebted in history and frequently lack the resources to invest in the non-urgent measures?“devices to call for help, grab bars, ramps, shower seats, and other modifications for wheelchair accessibility”?that would allow them to safely age in place and minimize the severity of falls.
Book Picks for March 2021
Announcing our March book picks: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianismby Anne Applebaum.
Invisible Burdens
by Katie Bonnett Women are taking on more stress than is necessary in the household. This comes from a difference in the responsibilities of hetero-sexual household members. When the work balance between couples gets to be too disproportionate, it creates stress on the person who does more work. Often, the Read more…
Communities Should Champion Green Energy
by Katie Bonnett During the months of April and May, at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, LA “ha[d] some of the cleanest [air] of any major city [in the United States].” Normally air pollution can lead to health issues such as “stress to the heart and lungs. . Read more…
Book Picks for February 2021
Announcing our Februay book picks: One of Us: conjoined twins and the future of normal by Alice Domurat Dreger and Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh
Democracy is a Process
by Aubrey L. Hicks, Executive Director, Bedrosian Center Democracy isn’t a state of being, it is a process. To be democratic, to live in democracy, is to participate boldly with our neighbors in governance. What we saw this week is evidence of anti-democratic movements across the country. Dr. Erroll Southers, Read more…
Book Picks for January 2021
We are pleased to announce that our January picks are A PROMISED LAND by Barack Obama & PARABLE OF THE SOWER by Octavia Butler.
December 2020 Read
Author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling takes us to Grafton, NH and a libertarian experiment called the Free Town Project. What happens when government doesn’t exist? When Americans want to live in a freedom without constraint, when regulations are ignored, when laws are ignored … does the community thrive? Perhaps the title gives Read more…
COVID-19 Induced Recession Will Increase Food Insecurity, Resulting in Longer Term Health Effects
COVID-19 Induced Recession Will Increase Food Insecurity, Resulting in Longer Term Health Effects by Rhys Richmond and Katie Bonnett Food – sourcing, eating, cooking – are cornerstones of human existence. Eating is both involuntary and voluntary in that we eat to live but also live to eat. The COVID-19 induced Read more…
November 2020 Read
For the last five months, our most popular episode is our discussion of White Fragility. So … we wanted to bring the conversation further. As, the publisher writes on the blurb for Claudia Rankine’s Just Us, “Claudia Rankine’s Citizen changed the conversation–Just Us urges all of us into it.” Rankine’s Read more…
COVID-19, Children, and Mental Health
by Katie Bonnett Children will likely face PTSD as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. One study found that “[c]riteria for PTSD was met in 30% of isolated or quarantined children.” Since the pandemic forces children to isolation for months, possibly even a year, the mental health effects will likely Read more…
October 2020 Book Pick
Read our October “Bedrosian Bookclub” pick with us!
Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is a classic of rural American horror. The novel has been compared to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lotter,” and inspired Stephen King’s Needful Things. Travel back to the 70s with us to a farming community in New Hampshire. We couldn’t put it down.
Food Insecurity and COVID-19
Expansion and Permanent Funding of the Highly Effective SNAP Program Will Help Low-Income Families and Provide Immediate Economic Stimulus by Katie Bonnett and Rhys Richmond What is SNAP and How Does it Work Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides direct, targeted financial support to improve access to nutritional food for Read more…
September 2020 Bookclub Pick!
Six months in the COVID-19 pandemic, we thought it would be good to see how past pandemics have shaped our lives … and continue to do so. Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World looks at Read more…
August 2020 Bookclub Pick
One of the first things you learn in Deirdre Mask’s The Address Book is that “most households in the world don’t have street addresses.”
Spotlight on Crisis Leadership: Governor Gavin Newsom
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, here at the Bedrosian Center we want to highlight the exceptional leadership we have witnessed on the local, state, national, and international level during this public health crisis.
July 2020 Bookclub Pick
The July 2020 Bookclub pick is N.K. Jemisons The City We Became.
What Public Health, Law, and International Relations Leaders Have to Say About Withdrawing from the WHO
by Anthony W. Orlando Today, President Trump officially began the process to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. In my capacity as a public health scholar, I have joined 750 experts and leaders throughout the country in signing the following letter to the leadership of the Senate Read more…
Race and Law Enforcement: Research to Inform Reform Movements
The nation has witnessed two weeks of civil unrest; and policing as a political institution has been under public scrutiny for decades. With protests in all 50 states during this latest public outcry, a call for reform resounds. As we work toward a resolution many are asking – what do Read more…
Can Everyone Put Themselves on Mute?
I left Los Angeles for Spring Break and I never came back. As eerie as that sounds, I remember packing up my car for the Bay Area with the sinking feeling that I might not be returning.
May 2020, We’ll read: No Turning Back
Today, in the United States, we are facing incomprehensible numbers of dying neighbors as well as economic depression. What can we learn from these young people about living with hope even amidst great tragedy?
Call for submissions 2020
To support our mission to give opportunities for Native American and non-Native students to learn, collaborate, study, and amplify the stories of indigenous peoples, USC Bedrosian Center & Red Nation Celebration Institute are accepting submissions of full length plays written by American Indian/Indigenous authors.
Bedrosian Center live events are postponed
We understand that some of our audience finds the sheer number of cancellations and closings overkill, or overwhelming, or even frightening. The good news is that, 80% of the cases of COVID-19 are mild. Yes, 80%. Really good news. The reason public health experts recommend cancelling events is to slow Read more…
Federalism, Public Policy, and Politics
he USC Price School of Public Policy and the Bedrosian Center on Governance are honored and excited to welcome Jamila Michener as our special guest for this month’s Price Governance Salon. She will be discussing her new book, Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics. This book looks at Medicaid: America’s public health insurance program as a key example of how federalism plays out in policymaking and how drastically different it is implemented at the state level.