Portside

Northwestern players will vote April 25 whether to form a union after the regional director of Chicago's National Labor Relations Board office ruled last month that players are employees of the school and have the right to unionize. Coach Fitzgerald is prohibited from making promises to players about benefits they would receive if they vote against unionizing. He also cannot make any threats or interrogate players on how they will vote.

We have failed to make the honest case for quantum computing—the case based on basic science—because we’ve underestimated the public. We’ve falsely believed that people would never support us if we told them the truth: that while the potential applications are wonderful cherries on the sundae, they’re not and have never been the main reason to build a quantum computer. The main reason is that we want to make absolutely manifest what quantum mechanics says about reality

We must be careful of how we measure our progress. If we use the wrong metrics, we will strive for the wrong things. Economic growth as measured by GDP is not enough—there is a growing global consensus that GDP does not provide a good measure of overall economic performance. What matters is whether growth is sustainable, and whether most citizens see their living standards rising year after year.

Output growth at the nation’s factories has [...] been weak since 2000. And though automation undoubtedly has displaced some workers in manufacturing, research suggests that persistent trade deficits and America’s decline as a location for production have accounted for much of the sector’s job loss. Boosting exports or reducing imports enough to bring trade into balance would generate 4.2 million jobs directly and another 2.1 million jobs indirectly.

The immediate threat poor blacks face today in Jackson comes from outside developers and speculators with the resources to move in and take over their neighborhoods.

The dramatic and widening gap in household wealth along racial lines in the United States reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans. Personal ambition and behavioral choices are but a small part of the equation.

The Civitas Institute is publicizing the names, residence, political registration, employers, and other details of those arrested at the ongoing NAACP-organized protests at the legislature. The project calls to mind how Southern Dixiecrats and opponents of civil rights once published the names of NAACP supporters in newspapers to encourage retaliation against them.

The Pentagon Papers that Ellsberg exposed were not military secrets. They were historical secrets - a history of U.S. intervention and deceit that Ellsberg believed, if widely known, would undermine the U.S. pretexts in defense of the war's prosecution. Like today's whistle-blowers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg knew the consequences for his act of defiance. He was indicted on 11 counts of theft and violation of the Espionage Act.