Portside

Reader Comments - Flashmob for Mandela; The Progressive 'Left"; War and Christmas Truce of 1914; Socialist Origins of the Pledge; Radicals in City Hall; Fidel Castro on Mandela's Death and Who Supported Apartheid; Korea; MSNBC; Announcements - "No Separate Justice" Launch in New York City Jan. 7; Esperanza Spalding Protest Song & Video Calling For Guantanamo Bay

Dave Van Ronk's ex-wife, Terri Thal, reviews the film, Inside Llewyn Davis. Llewyn Davis differs from David. - there are so few similarities. The Coens say the movie isn't about Dave, and they are correct. Most of the acting is very good. Oscar Isaac is excellent -- he's real, and he brings pathos and anger to Llewyn Davis. His performances of David's songs are good. The music? It's done well, but the movie never shows how it comes about.

Pope Francis, in his messages and appointments, seems to be steering the Roman Catholic Church into more moderate terrain, away from some of the conservative ideological interpretations of the recent period. Jim Williams reviews The Radical Jesus. "Who was Jesus anyway? What did his life and teaching mean? There are so many views - from the Religious Right to Rev. Cornell West. My view is that Jesus is whoever you want him to be. You can find the quotes to fit."

Edward Snowden's Christmas message - together we can end mass surveillance, otherwise "'a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.' Listen to message broadcast on England's Channel 4; and Washington Post story, based on 14 hours of interviews conducted in Moscow. "All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," Snowden said.

Pioneering Porn Publisher Al Goldstein Passes Away; Spy Agencies Bring Real Espionage to Virtual Worlds; Duck Dynasty Embraces Jim Crow; Pope Francis Embraces Just Catholic Economics; Islamophobia Pretends to be Feminism

Liberals are on the ascendance on faith-based issues, and as a long-time advocate of these views, I think it's great.

Every year Dispatches From The edge gives awards to news stories and newsmakers that fall under the category of “Are you serious?” Here are the awards for 2013.

Reuters' report suggests that RSA wasn't merely following the trends when it picked the algorithm and that contrary to its previous claims, the company has inserted presumed backdoors at the behest of the spy agency.

New Dixie has replaced the aristocracy's black slaves of Old Dixie, by the local (white) aristocracy's institutionalized bigotry against poor people, now of all ethnic groups. What used to be their purely racist bigotry has, it seems, devolved into a crushing, pervasive, classist, bigotry in the South.

You have to make a choice, as a listener, if music matters to you as more than mere entertainment. And you and I have spent our entire lives with that conviction. This is not just entertainment, this is our lifeblood. This matters.