Portside

The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix.

An estimated 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012, according to the latest government report. That’s up from 19,000 in 2010, despite recent claims that the military has been focusing more on prevention efforts.

When the Internet began to take off in the mid-1990’s, it created the opportunity to do something scholars had been dreaming of for millennia — to gather all of the writings of scholars past and present together in a single online public library — a free, globally accessible version of the ancient library in Alexandria. But 20 years on and we are barely any closer to achieving this goal.

An eggplant should be as obvious to a 7 year old as an iPhone. Knowing how to make a loaf of bread should be part of the national curriculum, and an understanding of seasonality and our food supply should be taught from a young age.

WASHINGTON -- With the Senate about to consider President Obama's nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, Democrats and labor groups are growing concerned that Republicans will block the administration's left-leaning nominations, rendering the board inoperable once a current member's term expires in August.

The "deficit problem" is man-made. The deficit is now down 60 percent as a percent of gross domestic product. It is down more than the deficit hawks Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles asked for. This rapid reduction is seriously hurting the economy and jobs, but demands for cuts continue. It is time for Congress and the President to "pivot" to focusing on our real problems: the jobs gap, the wage gap and the trade gap.

Reader's Comments - Assata Shakur, Israel, Korea, Thoreau's Radicalism, Thoreau's Plea for John Brown, Cuba, Benghazi, Spanish town solves unemployment, Viet Nam, more. Announcements - Conference on the Veterans' Peace Movement - New York - May 18; Greek American Radicals - screening - New York - May 25; Radical Teacher on line; Symphony for Palestine; The Future of the Left - Conversation on Socialist Unity - New York - June 5; NY Times full page ad to close Guantanamo