Portside

The "new" strawberry has twice as much sugar content compared to the average American variety; it's bigger, and has an airier texture and unexposed seeds. Although it thrives in the mountains of Japan, a New Jersey farm is now growing it here.

The New York Times has put together three useful articles with graphics over the past week, highlighting worker rights and worker safety. Two pieces focus on COVID-19 and worker safety. The third is about the dangers of construction work.

The goal of The Plot Against America isn’t to overwhelm audience members with suffering, or to shock us into action; instead, its aim is to remind us of our shared humanity and how essential it is for us to be vigilant against hatred of all kinds.

Organizers started a union drive for flight attendants at Delta last November. Uncertainty about the pandemic is stoking a desire among workers for labor protections.

The legislation passed by the House doesn’t actually guarantee paid sick leave to most American workers.

“Donated clothes” from California, the woman who sewed meets the wearer, “a Bosnian woman/Hiding in London”—the global coincidence that inspires “Tracking the enemy.”

The European country hit hardest by coronavirus, Italy has announced a near-total shutdown of shops and public venues, but many nonessential workplaces are still running. Refusing to let bosses risk their safety, workers are now going on strike.

Hilary Mantel concludes her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, preceded by Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies , brilliantly and exhaustively charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of Henry V!!!

Workers denounce draconian immigration policies that repel people who are fleeing for their lives, but they also argue that central Americans should have the right to not emigrate; to live from birth to death in their homeland.

Despite some weaknesses, this books offers a useful addition to the widespread and ongoing conversations about what democratic socialism means today.