Portside

Did you know that some of the fruits and veggies out on supermarket shelves are grown using wastewater from oil and gas operations? For the past several years, many drought-stricken farms in California’s Central Valley, which produces 40 percent of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, have been increasingly irrigating their crops with wastewater. Chemicals present include 16 the state classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants, says EWG report.

Pseudoscience is perpetuated by self-declared experts with no scientific background or understanding of food science, or even scientists with credentials but who conduct poor, unscientifically sound research and spread unreliable, false or even debunked results. The trend has hit the pet food industry.

The North won the Civil War, but the South won the Reconstruction. The victorious Northern armies preserved the Union and the slaves were emancipated but the Confederates won the historical interpretation of those events by perpetrating the myths that became the accepted story over the next one hundred years.

When we talk about the problem of oil industry accidents, we tend to focus on dramatic events like the deadly 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion off the coast of Louisiana, or the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker crash in Alaska's Prince William Sound. But the industry is far more accident-prone than such relatively rare high-profile disasters suggest.

The Republican rising star struggled for two days to get clarity with regard to his appearance at a "white pride" - Ku Klux Klan event in 2002. Initially, his office tried to keep things vague, suggesting it was "likely" Scalise attended. He was a veteran state legislator then, elected from the same precincts where David Duke once ran strong. When it became clear he was not just present but a presenter, Scalise started spinning scenarios that might explain it all away.

Kenworthy thinks that capitalism working at its best—an Americanized version of the Nordic model—would be worth fighting for. I agree.

When unions serve the interests of the few, they lose their way and their ability to be forward-looking. But one of the better-kept secrets is that invariably, they also quietly become alienated from their own members. Inevitably, if the leadership of the PBA continues to ignore and fail on this challenge, new leadership will be destined to take it up.

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.

Despite the ongoing pandemic of violence against women, the threats online and the harassment on the streets, women’s voices assumed an unprecedented power in 2014, writes Rebecca Solnit.

A simple, broad labor statement of unity — supporting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's efforts, the right in a democracy to protest against police brutality and the good work of the majority of decent police officers, and calls for a new campaign to regulate handguns like the one used to murder two policemen and a citywide dialogue on racism and policing — is in order.