Portside

The parts of the border that take the form of an actual, physical barrier are an intrusion on the landscape, an eyesore to many — and to millions, a deadly obstacle to overcome. Just as immigrant rights activists see the border as a violent social barrier, environmentalists see the border fence as an assault on the integrity of regional ecologies.

What is behind Francois Hollande’s assertiveness on the world stage? Is the decline of the United States’ effective power on the world scene what is permitting France’s return to aggressiveness ?

Florida Congressman questions Obama's praise for Wal-Mart: "What has Wal-Mart given the president in return?" "Even people who are employed now, many of them are not making enough money to survive," said Grayson. "And the outlet more and more for people that they see is this kind of civil disobedience, because the political system has become completely unresponsive to their genuine concerns and their physical needs."

The book on stellar black holes needs to be rewritten.

BuzzFeed’s heroic initiative will succeed even if it merely eradicates the depressing negativity that has for so long kept literary criticism from becoming a full-fledged economic sector, like agriculture, transport and erectile dysfunction.

After meeting India's "sumangali girls," I'll never look at cute, cheap clothes the same way again.

Some have questioned whether the Tripartite Alliance between the trade union federation, the ANC and the SACP. is still relevant to Cosatu. If the government ignores everything we say, what is the point of being in alliance with the governing party? This view is short-sighted. Yes we have suffered some setbacks, just as we did with Gear. But that battle raged for years before we eventually triumphed. It will be the same now.

Washington has an eagerness to extricate itself militarily from more than a decade of war in the Greater Middle East and “pivot” its strategic focus and resources more toward the Asia/Pacific and its highly complex relationships with China and key U.S. allies there.