New at Zócalo
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The Takeaway
The App Economy Is the Past—And Not Necessarily the Future
“‘What Is a Good Job Now?’ In Gig Work” Shows How Algorithms Have Transformed Freelancing, and What Comes Next
In a week when a federal labor rule went into effect making it easier for app-based gig workers to be classified as employees (with significant pushback), and a month after …
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Election Letters
On the Campaign Trail With a Russian Antiwar Candidate
Thousands of People Came Out to Support Boris Nadezhdin’s Presidential Run. They Refuse to Lose Hope
In December 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It had long been clear that he had plans to aim for his fifth …
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Essay
Is ‘Uberveillance’ Coming for Us All?
It’s No Longer Sci-Fi. Trackers Embedded in Our Bodies Are Threatening Our Privacy—and Our Humanity
The smartphone has become a modern Swiss Army knife: driver’s license, e-payment device, camera, radio, television, map, blood pressure monitor, workstation, babysitter, pocket AI, and general gateway to the internet. …
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Democracy Local
Stop Trying to ‘Save’ Democracy
Or Waiting on a Politician To Do It for You. Instead, Practice It—At Work, School, and Little League
Please don’t save democracy.
If you’re a politician—stop promising to save it.
Please! Stop even trying.
Because you can’t. Democracy isn’t something you save. The sooner we stop talking about saving democracy, the …
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Essay
The New Mexico Oppenheimer Erases
Films and Tourism Campaigns Depict an Empty State That Is In Fact Full of Life
Los Alamos, New Mexico’s tourism website quickly clues visitors into what the city considers its two principal assets. There’s the national laboratory, represented by an illustrated atom, and there are …
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Essay
Drawing in the Time of Cut Flowers
On Grief, Loss, and Renewal in the Wake of the Pandemic
My first instinct when my grandma died was to purchase and draw flowers for her. A traditional gesture of sympathy, the flowers seemed fitting—but the circumstances were unprecedented.
It was April …
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Connecting California
California Is Full of Sh–t
And So Is Zócalo’s Regular Columnist. Inspired by the Oscar-Nominated American Fiction, I’m Taking Over This Column to Deliver Hard Truths
I walked by Billy Hearst’s old headquarters in L.A.’s stinking downtown, chatting up the bums and streetwalkers. Turned out I was married to one of the gals back in ’02, …
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Essay
When Victorian Newspapers Put Gender-Bending on Trial
1870s Press Covered an Otherwise Trivial Case as Breathlessly—and Dangerously—as Today’s Trans Stories
In 1870, Ernest Fanny Boulton and Frederick Stella Park were arrested in London. Their crime? Presenting as women outside their theatrical act.
Fanny and Stella had appeared in newspapers before, known …
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Prizes
The 2024 Zócalo Book Prize Winner Is Coming Soon
In the Meantime, Check Out Five Fantastic Shortlist Titles
The 2024 election season has barely begun and you already might be torn: tired of headlines about political polarization’s threat to democracy in America and abroad, but also feeling like …