Portside

Economist Joseph Kile in written testimony has warned that "revenues from the users of roads and from taxpayers are the ultimate source of money for highways, regardless of the financing mechanism chosen." The significance of Kile's statement can be seen in the fact that one partner - the private sector - has almost no financial skin in the game. Meanwhile, the public partner - that is, the taxpayers - carries nearly the full financial burden.

Historian Mark Lause discusses an intriguing slice of baseball history, including the Knights of Labor influenced fight for labor rights and against the color bar in baseball. Great even for those who don't associate spring with baseball!

Looking for another reason to worry about fracking? We're going to bubble-wrap the entire planet with the overabundance of plastic it produces.

Why the verdict? There was the obvious and unrelenting hostility of the judge, the mild-mannered demeanor displayed by Officer Bovell on the witness stand, an inclination on the part of individual jurors to take the word of uniformed authority over that of protesters. That Cecily McMillan was the victim of a brutal sexual assault and wound up being tried as the aggressor - was too disturbing a reality for the jurors to come to grips with.

The movie, Cesar Chavez, documents his life and his role in the 1965 Delano Grape Strike. An aspect of the film is the largely forgotten contributions of Filipino Americans to the farm labor movement. Since the 1920s, when Filipinos first learned to organize into unions in Hawaii, Filipinos were important leaders in organizing farmworkers to fight against unfair working conditions.

In a weak macroeconomy, the employment rate is a better indicator of labour market strength, since it avoids the arbitrary distinction regarding whether someone is sufficiently "active" in their job search to qualify as being officially "in" the labour market. The erosion of Canada's labour market performance over the last couple of years is not surprising in light of the general stagnation of the main drivers of economic growth in our system.

Reason makes possible the calculations, science and technological advances of industrial civilization. But reason does not lift us upward to the heavens. It does not bring us into contact with the sacred. It does not permit us to curb our self-destructive urges. Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson mocked the myth of human progress and the folly of hubris.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis specifically said the union is willing to consider reducing benefits for those who still are working, although she emphatically ruled out changes for members who already have retired. But such compromise wont come until the city and the school board agree to contribute more to pensions each year in order to at least partially make up for a contribution shortfall that occurred during much of the past two decades.

In a move that is simultaneously discouraging, urgent and deeply unusual, the World Health Organization has declared that the resurgence of polio is a “public health emergency of international concern.” The WHO, the CDC, the fraternal organization Rotary International and a raft of partners have been pressing an international and very expensive eradication campaign since 1988. Every time the world has gotten close, though, polio has flared up again.

Very few people can avoid struggling daily with the avalanche of bad food and the culture and propaganda surrounding it. Near-hysteria or simple answers lead to unachievable situations and nonsolutions. More effective would be shifting the food culture, the relevant business models and public policies - a gradual and concerted movement toward making production and consumption simply "better." That is what the good food movement should be about.