Portside

• First Hologram Protest in History Held Against Spain’s Gag Law – Jennifer Baker (Revolution News)
• A Removed Snowden Sculpture Inspires a Hologram in Its Place – Jim Dwyer (New York Times)
• Bank Workers Tell Their Bosses: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People – Alan Pyke (ThinkProgress)
• NJ teacher suspended for having class write get-well cards to Mumia – Sam Wood (Philly.com)
• Bill Would Make Teaching Native History Mandatory In Washington – Richard Walker (Indian Country Today Media Network)

First Hologram Protest in History Held Against Spain’s Gag Law

By Jennifer Baker
April 10, 2015
Revolution News

Under Spain's new Citizen Safety Law or Ley Mordaza (Gag Law) as human rights defenders have renamed it, public protests, freedoms of speech and the press and documenting police abuses will become crimes punishable by heavy fines and/or jail.
“If you are a person you can not express yourself freely, you can only do that here if you become a hologram,” says a woman in the video released by the movement “Hologramas para la Libertad.”
On the movement’s website citizens were invited to participate by writing a text message, leaving a recorded voice message, or converting themselves into a hologram by recording a video via webcam.

A Removed Snowden Sculpture Inspires a Hologram in Its Place

By  Jim Dwyer
April 7, 2015
New York Times

Having presided briefly over Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn on Monday morning atop a column, a 100-pound bust of Edward J. Snowden was shrouded by parks workers, removed and stashed in a city storage facility somewhere.
That first lightning strike by an anonymous group of artists was followed by a second, carried out before dawn on Tuesday, by a group calling itself the Illuminators.
So for about 20 minutes on Tuesday morning, a hologram of the Snowden bust hovered in the park, at the same spot where the object had rested the day before.
 

Bank Workers Tell Their Bosses: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People

By Alan Pyke
April 9, 2015
ThinkProgress

The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce.
A group of tellers, loan officers, and customer service representatives from the country’s largest commercial banks will rally Monday outside office towers in Minneapolis to call attention to their own low pay and to consumer-harming sales policies they say are imposed on them by management. As part of the demonstrations, workers will ask to meet with executives at Wells Fargo to deliver a petition calling for the bank to do away with high-pressure sales quotas for its customer service staff.
 

NJ Teacher Suspended for Having Class Write Get-well Cards to Mumia

By Sam Wood
April 10, 2015
Philly.com

A New Jersey elementary school teacher was suspended today for having her class write get-well letters to convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Marylin Zuniga, a third grade teacher in Orange, tweeted Sunday that she had her students write to the deathrow inmate “to lift up his spirits as he is ill.”
Superintendent Ronald Lee said in a statement that "Ms. Zuniga will be immediately suspended with pay until such time the investigation is completed and based upon the results of the investigation additional action may be taken by the Board of Education."

Bill Would Make Teaching Native History Mandatory In Washington

By Richard Walker
April 12, 2015
Indian Country Today Media Network

 A bill that would require schools in Washington State to include local indigenous nations in their history instruction is on its way to becoming law.
State Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip,  sponsored similar legislation in 2005, encouraging the teaching of Native American history. But as late as December 2014, McCoy said he couldn’t get support for required instruction of Native history. The difference today: More understanding of the importance of including the state’s indigenous cultures in regular school curriculum.