Julia Sizek

AirTalk Larry Mantle hosts lively and in-depth discussions of city news, politics, science, the arts, entertainment, and more. Airs weekdays 9-11am on 89.3 FM and streaming online at LAist.com and the LAist a...

In case you missed me talking dirt bikes, Steve McQueen, and all of the Mojave this morning on KPCC/LAist's air talk (last 20 min)

The Dirt Bikers Who Went to War on Desert Conservation | Essay Today’s Anti-Environmentalists Are Following the Tracks of the ‘Phantom Duck’ and the Barstow-to-Vegas Race

In the 1980s, an offroad dirt-biking group bucked the rules in the California desert—and got away with it. Today's anti-environmentalists are following in their tracks, writes anthropologist @jsizek.bsky.social. zps.la/4aj4DOT

I wrote about the Phantom Duck and Super Hunky. Come for the names, stay for the history of right-wing anti-environmentalism

fuck Coalie. bring back Johnny Horizon, I say:

Nws is actually more of an issue related to illegal livestock movement and effective international eradication efforts in the past! Nws used to occur in the US before we developed the sterile fly technique which was used to push the disease down to the Darien gap.

An infuriating thing about journalism is that journalists will cite two equally well-known anthropologists and call the dude professor and the lady Ms.

Same for San Francisco! And by the mid-1850s, there were newspapers in SF published in five languages (adding French, German, and Chinese)

Also though known as accidental in its most recent iteration, the Salton Sink has been periodically infilling as the Colorado River Delta has changed over time! So both accidental and natural

My weird obsession with golf courses has finally paid off professionally and I'm very excited about it

It's almost like AI is more demand-side than supply-side, creating consumer demand instead of promising actual labor saving efficiencies.

Logo with outline of Africa and words the dark continent, Busch gardens, Tampa, fla.

In disturbing letterheads I didn't anticipate seeing at work today

Today! Free on Zoom for those of you who appreciate California history

Will traffic on Highway 50 ever end? Sacramento history suggests the answer is ‘no’ Where are these freeway lanes headed? “It feels like spitting in the wind a little bit. In five years, we’re gonna feel like we want another lane.”

I couldn't find much 1960s coverage of families displaced by the W-X freeway. So I looked at households listed on W or X in the 1950 census & called up the kids to see if they were still living there when construction began. I found two amazing people? Reporting is fun www.sacbee.com/news/local/t...

Mythmaking, Myth Breaking: California at 175 Join the California History Section for a live webinar on Mythmaking, Myth Breaking: California at 175 on Thursday, September 18, at 4PM! See how myths have shaped our ideas...

Moderating this fun discussion of California myths at the California state library this week! Join on Zoom to learn more about Calafia, pulp novels, and Ramona

Re-establishing Wildcat Canyon as a through route to exurban Contra Costa County is a mistake. Fix it if you must, and leave it closed.

Cadiz Inc up to new antics, zombie projects never die

Prop 13 continues to be my enemy

Maybe it's the same people who are trying to claim that JD's hometown of Middletown is also Appalachia (said as someone who lived the majority of my childhood in WV plus another 6 years in non-appalachia Ohio)

Sand! Also quite effective depending on locale

I literally had a conversation with colleagues yesterday who told me about their behavior to avoid mountain lion encounters and I reminded them that they're much more likely to die driving to work

I find that reverse outlines (even if video content!) can help students see things a little better

Or dam removal!

And just think, it was such a win for 'jeffersonian democracy' to create a checkerboard

Catellus is a superweird and mostly not researched part of the train world, as someone who wrote a bit about them in the California desert (unfortunately not relevant here)

AI not only requires tons of groundwater or surface water to operate it, but it also heats up that water to kill all the tiny microbes that make groundwater clean!

There is one extremely active nimby who has made it her mission to make sure that this intersection isn't safer for cyclists and pedestrians, sadly

Please follow up with a detailed history of property tax repossession, been waiting for someone to write one for a decade kthanx

Lol I have tried only to have it summarize a court case once and it was the same problem except for it doesn't understand how laws work

watching closely to see if there's a spike in citations for Neither Settler nor Native

Or if you spend too much time listening to satellite radio with old people... dragnet's theme song is forever in my brain