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When the Factory Leaves Town

Jane La Tour The Indypendent
A deft telling of a Wisconsin town and its people who lost their largest employer, a General Motors auto plant, typifying the collapse of much American manufacturing over the past quarter-century. Janesville is also--ironically or not-- the home of Paul Ryan, the U.S. House GOP speaker.

Other People’s Children, Part 2: Stories in the Aftermath, or “The Hate U Give”

Jonathan Alexander Los Angeles Review of Books
The March 18 killing of 22-year old Stephon Clark by Sacramento Police once again calls our attention to the racist aspect of the problem of civilians murdered by law enforcement. Angie Thomas's award-winning Young Adult novel is among the most recent literary responses to this crisis.

What Would Martin Luther King Do?

Ron Young Truthdig
Had he lived, there is little doubt that King would have opposed the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not only based on his principled commitment to nonviolence and against war, but because, like the Vietnam War, these wars have robbed our nation of essential human and economic resources, ...