Portside

We need a moral movement to create change.

Mr. Wong died on Friday at 106. A Hollywood studio artist, painter, printmaker, calligrapher, greeting-card illustrator and, in later years, maker of fantastical kites, he was one of the most celebrated Chinese-American artists of the 20th century. But because of the marginalization to which Asian-Americans were long subject, he passed much of his career unknown to the general public.

Newly armed with the right to collective bargaining, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and research assistants at private universities are organizing to join the ranks of the unionized.

A good starting point would be to stop making the Nazis and Japanese imperialists the most compelling characters in the series.

Late last month, the Missouri House started considering [a bill] that deviates in staggering ways. Instead of being quiet about its intent, it redefines science, provides a clearer definition of intelligent design than any of the idea's advocates ever have, and it mandates equal treatment of the two. In the process, it mangles things so badly that teachers would be prohibited from discussing Mendel's Laws.

How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it. So now we have an arrestable class and an unarrestable class. We always suspected it, now it's admitted. So what do we do?

In Ontario, 465 union workers used to make locomotive engines. Then Indiana passed ALEC's anti-union legislation, and Caterpillar moved the works to Muncie. And that's bad for everybody.

What all of this might mean in political terms is not yet quite clear. However, one thing is certain. If community organizers allow this incipient coalition -- potentially the largest progressive force in US history -- to slip away, we are missing the opportunity that only comes once in a generation to change the trajectory of American politics.