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Hot Stuff: Spicy Foods and the Compelling Chemistry of Chemesthesis

Paul Adams Cook's Science
There are at least 200 compounds contributing to the flavor of chiles and they all have a different effect. Capsaicin is the most common, first to be discovered, and hottest of the capsaicinoid family, but every chile contains a somewhat different mix of capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin, homodihydrocapsaicin, nornordihydrocapsaicin, and quite a few others.

Why Don’t Brown Women Deserve Love Onscreen?

Nadya Agrawal Kajal Magazine
“Brown men aren’t scared of brown women, they are scared of being boring and predictable if they end up with one,” Shriya Samarth, a media junkie and friend, told me over the phone. “Whereas brown women can genuinely fear the expectations of being a daughter-in-law, brown wife, etc.”

If Ben & Jerry’s Is Progressive, Why Won’t It Protect Its Farmworkers?

Michael Arria In These Times
Vermont farmworkers are escalating their Milk With Dignity campaign, building from years of organizing in an industry fraught with abuses. The Milk with Dignity campaign was birthed after years of movement dialogue and research, including the release of a survey showing that 40 percent of Vermont farmworkers earn less than minimum wage

Reclaiming Public Services

Satoko Kishimoto, Olivier Petitjean, Lavinia Steinfort Transnational Institute
How cities and citizens are turning back privatisation

Quick Write 1968

Sandra Anfang Portside
The late 1960s, a moment of awakening and consciousness raising, emerges in Sandra Anfang’s surprising poem about a good teacher and an eager student.

Down From the Mountain: Venezuela's Chavez

Greg Grandin London Review of Books
Hugo Chavez, with Ignacio Ramonet, Chavez: My First Life (translated by Ann Wright) Verso, 544 pp, Hardback, $36.00, August 2016, ISBN 978 1 78478 383 9 A balanced look at the early days and years in power of Venezuelan general cum President Hugo Chavez, who, while widely accused of authoritarian practices against his opposition, was singular among Latin American populist leaders in never aligning with the nation's bourgeoisie or turning on his left allies.

Whole Foods Market, Amazon and Inhospitable Hospitality

Gary Herman Union Solidarity International
With Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods, everything about the company is changing. But there remains one constant: Whole Foods still intends to be “100 percent union-free”. The hostility to worker rights that the two companies share is the future they envision for the entire hospitality industry.

W. E. B. Du Bois's Revolutions

Phillip Luke Sinitiere Public Books
A new book examines Du Bois's radicalism, tracing its career-long development.

We Are a Sanctuary Union

Tim Goulet Socialist Worker
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 810 in New York City, has voted to declare itself a "sanctuary union," becoming the first Teamsters local to do so.