Portside

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.

How Big Pharma’s focus on blockbuster cancer drugs and the use of patents to maintain monopoly control of drug prices squeezes out research and research models and methods leading to potential treatments that are more affordable.

When school starts next year, nearly 70 percent of the public schools in North Lawndale will be in private hands. Most of those schools were failing or under-enrolled when CPS turned the buildings over to charter operators, or fired staff and put the AUSL in charge. Test scores and other data show the privately run schools aren't doing much better academically and in some cases are performing worse than the schools they took over or the district-run schools that remain.

As the truism goes, the personal is political. For many activists and organizers, the political began with their moms. For a special Mother’s Day tribute, Colorlines asked eight racial justice activists and organizers about life wisdom and political lessons their moms imparted to them. Whether it was the example they set for their children in the way they moved through the world, or concrete political values they handed down, these moms have been a guiding force for thei