Portside

After provincial bargaining stalled, 400,000 public sector workers across Quebec walked out in October and November on rolling one-day strikes.

The series is a nice reminder that although comic books are derided as a kids’ medium, their supernatural setups can provide us with clarifying thought experiments that allow us to approach our present dilemmas with fresh perspectives.

"The IBT Carhaul Division has instructed all carhaul locals to hold meetings to ask members why they rejected the concessionary first offer. These guys are so out of touch, they need to be told the obvious: Teamsters are tired of concessions and want to protect their jobs and make reasonable gains in this boom year of auto sales." Teamsters for a Democratic Union

At the turn of the 20th Century Czech immigrants flocked to the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen on the city's near west side attracted there by the offer of jobs. Mississippi-based poet Philip C. Kolin depicts their hopes and realities in a newly-published chapbook.

The 2 million member Service International Union (SEIU) endorses Senator Hillary Clinton. "In addition to the SEIU, Clinton has won the backing of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 1.6 million public sector workers, as well as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association."

There can be no justification or excuse for the mass killings of innocent people of Paris. The horror experienced in Paris last week is not isolated, it has been played out with ruthless regularity in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine and many other countries, sometimes at the hands of Western forces. While Western hearts have been choked by the anguish of Parisians, we must also extend our horror and concern for millions of innocents throughout the world.

The security services set out to ensnare Lessing. But they weren't sure where she lived, why she went to Communist party meetings or even whether her nickname was Tigger or Trigger. M15 spied on Doris Lessing for 20 years, declassified documents reveal. Lara Feigel interrogates the secret archives.

Is contemporary altruism the new activism? Or is it what writer Teju Cole once called an iteration of a "White Savior Industrial Complex"? Ashley Karlin takes up these complicated questions in this review of Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World, by scientist-turned-Buddhist philosopher Matthieu Ricard. The answers, she suggests, may have as much to do with questions of power as with the desire to do good.

Prior to the Boston Globe’s investigation, the sexual abuse of minors by priests was one of the Catholic Church’s worst-kept secrets. Spotlight's telling of the Church’s sex abuses reminds viewers how good, honest journalism has the power to transform a community.

The movement for labor to endorse Bernie Sanders is part of an effort to bring political decision-making back to the rank-and-file.