Portside

Returning to two of socialist Jack London's classics, The Iron Heel and The People of the Abyss--both available free at Project Gutenberg--the reviewer finds stark similarities between the deprivation of the early 20th century and the modern world of neoliberal capitalism, with its gig economy and the emergence of a precariat, valorizing London's injunction that class supremacy can rest only on class degradation.

This book is an updated telling of the history of the federal government's role in creating our nation's racially segregated neighborhoods and all-white suburbs.

A new proclamation by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture partially rolls back the stronger school nutrition standards in place since 2012, allowing states to grant exemptions for serving whole-grain rich products, and delaying any of the upcoming requirements to lower sodium levels until after 2020.

Watching “I Love Dick” is like attending an exhibition for which the artist has supplied her own curator’s notes. It’s an experience as much as a story: arresting, disorienting and provocative. It’s also very conscious of explaining to you how and why it arrests, disorients and provokes.

"a mirror/ if our eyes are strong enough," so the poet J. David Cummings evokes the death of children: at Hiroshima, on the Mediterranean today.

The author argues that the Terror of the French Revolution was a price worth paying, and that the lessons from overthrowing the old regime should temper today's trend of maligning oppressed people's resort to violence as itself a rationale for ongoing class injustices. The reviewer, no critic of revolutionary struggle, argues that the author overemphasizes the pursuit of vengeance then and now involved at the expense of politics and a weighing of class forces.

In these early days of the Age of Trump, there is an upsurge of interest in Margaret Atwood's 1985 harrowing dystopian novel. Jennifer Helinek reminds us why this book has become a modern classic.

"As a Jew, and even more as a human being, I feel morally comfortable and politically responsible in calling upon Israel to dismantle its apartheid regime." - Richard Falk

Most fascinatingly, the film's coda features footage of the now 23-year-old Elian who still lives in Cuba and reveres the late Castro. Articulate and self-assured, he seems none the worse for his childhood trauma. Talking about the current state of relations between the two countries, he comments that Barack Obama’s history-making trip to the island country was important, but that it also “left much to be desired.”

The latest entrant to the superfood contest is Brazilian açaí, a purplish, antioxidant-rich stone fruit — though most call it a berry — foraged from trees in the Amazon River basin.Surprising parties become heroes and scoundrels as the coveted berry changes hands in different ways. Global consumption has further increased demand, but because of the high value of good vibes, some superfood exporters have an incentive to hew to best practices.