Portside

After some suave marketers used clips from Oz's TV show to sell bogus products, he faced a grilling from a panel of U.S. senators about his weight loss product claims. Oz then invited his Twitter audience, "What is your biggest question for me? Reply with #OzsInbox." Unfortunately for Oz, this strategy backfired. Horrendously. Immediately after Oz asked the question, Twitter gave Dr. Oz a hilarious slap across the face.

Talking about "police reform" obscures the task. Today's policies are, at the very least, the product of democratic will.

We are skilled at assuming things cannot change and that we, the people, do not have the power to change them. Yet our country and our world have always been changing, are in the midst of great and terrible changes, and are occasionally changed through the power of the popular will and idealistic movements. The changing climate now demands that we summon up the energy to leave behind the Age of Fossil Fuel (and maybe some portion of the Age of Capitalism as well).

On October 17th, 2000 workers, members of the CWA and IBEW at Fairpoint Communications in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were forced on strike. The company is demanding $700 million dollars in concessions. They are still on strike.

Cratchit handed Scrooge a leaflet, which the old man perused nervously. It listed the workers’ demands: a living wage, health benefits, safe working conditions, retirement pensions. “What?” bellowed Scrooge. “Have you all gone mad?”

The tale of the 1914 Christmas Truce survived through the letters and photos of soldiers who, along 600 miles of trenches, suspended war and shared Christmas - with their enemy. The war to end all wars did the opposite, sowing seeds of future ones. Industrial warfare - bombing cities; using chemical poisons; and a punitive peace treaty, with the winners dividing up the empires of the losers - all but guaranteed that future conflicts would be settled by military force.

The New York Times editorial - in the paper of record - demanded that those responsible for the vicious torture policies be brought to trial. Any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; the former CIA director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered.

1948, the tenth birthday of Café Society, where great jazz and cabaret in a corner of Greenwich Village clashed with the worst know-nothings of the McCarthy era. But we're over that now, so come to this musical memoir to enjoy the delicious sounds of the 30s and 40s. And recall how evil the thought police of that era were...the vicious House Un-American Activities Committee (the ironically well-named HUAC) goes after the entertainers. Some get scared.(Closes Jan. 4)

Ayn Rand helped the FBI investigate whether `It's a Wonderful Life' was commie propaganda. When the movie first came out, it fell under suspicion from the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as Communist propaganda, part of the Red Scare that soon would lead to the blacklist and witch hunt that destroyed the careers of many talented screen and television writers, directors and actors.

Reader Comments-Colbert Nation; Is It Band Enough Yet; Southern Jim Crow Murder; Cuba; How America's Relationship With Cuba Will Change; We express our condolences - Millions March NYC and Center for Constitutional Rights; Angela Davis on police violence; Youth Shall Lead in struggle against police violence; Political Athletes; "Negro-Jewish Unity" and IWO; torture; FBI; Panama invasion; New resources: On Torture; Staughton Lynd book; Stevie Wonder; theater review