As mist descended on Santa Monica's shore Sunday morning, hundreds gathered at Third Street Promenade for the fourth annual Fight For Air Walk, created by the American Lung Association, to promote exercise, healthy living and cleaner air. The walk's major focus was to bring attention to breathing ailments and lung problems that come as a result of little to no...

Unfulfilled love and dark passion enveloped The Broad Stage last Sunday when the Santa Monica College Symphony Orchestra performed the music of Johannes Brahms. Assistant conductor Fang-Ning Lim opened the concert by leading the orchestra through a performance of Brahms' "Tragic Overture, Opus 81." The orchestra is composed of both experienced and beginning students. Preparing for the concert required fast,...

The capitalist order is cracking, climate change is shattering the very structures of the natural world, and resistance is our only option to survive. That was the message renowned author and journalist Chris Hedges brought to Santa Monica during a talk at the Santa Monica Women’s Bay Club on Sunday. Word spread that Hedges would be in town. The lines...

This is an alarming sign that an extremist wing has completely taken over at least one side of the benches in the U. S. Congress. A minority within a minority party is now setting us on a course toward catastrophe. For now, the shutdown has created a few annoyances, like national park closures, but surely the effects are rippling out...

Santa Monica College's new film instructor Simone Bartesaghi is leading a class that will help produce a major show for The Broad Stage. The production, titled "Venice Beach," will premiere in November 2014. "Venice Beach" will tell a Romeo-and-Juliet-style tale of forbidden love between a rebel surfer and an upper-class valley girl in modern-day Venice. The musical will feature a...

When Santa Monica College student Krystyna Rodriguez dressed as a clown and burst onto stage singing William Shakespeare's classic words, "for the rain it raineth every day," you knew the performance was going to be something special. With a singing clown and ocean breezes, the SMC theatre arts department opened the premiere of its new rendition of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night,"...

Nearly a year after it was approved by voters, Proposition 30, also known as the “Temporary Taxes to Fund Education” bill, is already helping keep California state schools with stable budgets. While states like Illinois and Texas are slashing school budgets, Prop. 30 is already serving as an example of how Californians are willing to give a little extra in...

New York Times bestselling author Victoria Patterson visited Santa Monica College last Tuesday to discuss her craft and new novel, "The Peerless Four." The packed event, which was sponsored by the Associated Students and the English department, treated students and instructors to a 90-minute discussion about sports, writing, winning and losing. The event featured Patterson reading an excerpt from her...

The Library Foundation of Los Angeles brought a centuries-old literary masterpiece to life when Herman Melville's "My Moby Dick" conquered the Broad Stage on Saturday night. The show, which was mainly a dramatic reading enhanced with theater props, instrumental and vocal music, and multimedia, celebrated the words of Melville while imagining scenes and characters that planted the story of Moby...

Following this semester's film series theme of "Peace and Security: Managing Conflict and Violence in a Turbulent World," the screening of the 1951 film "The Day The Earth Stood Still" was hosted by Santa Monica College political science professor Alan Buckley and film professor Josh Kanin on Friday, Sept. 27. The room had an intimate setting, particularly because it was...