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The author of "Reasons for Departure," Ben Kline, was a participant in last summer's Helix Project.The Helix Projects is an intensive immersion in European Jewish culture. Join us to tell the story of Jewish life filled with joy, coexistence, and creative potential. Helix 2015 is open to all full-time students enrolled during the 2014–2015 academic year. Apply Now for Helix 2015. Deadline for applications is March 2, 2015. http://www.yiddishkayt.org/home/

The longtime New York Times labor reporter on the state of the American labor movement and labor journalism.

USSA announces Campaign Toolkits are ready for USSA’s big campaigns: Fund The Future and State of Emergency. Toolkits are ready-to-go manuals everything from sample petitions and student government resolutions to tips on planning rallies and meet with legislators. Fund The Future is part of USSA’s efforts to win FREE Higher Education by doubling Pell Grants and increasing student eligibility. State of Emergency seeks to end racial profiling and restore voting rights.

Capital and Main is a news website reporting on the current economy and our collective efforts to create a new and better one. Monday through Friday you will find original content covering politics, business, labor, jobs, the environment, culture – in other words, the economy and all the myriad areas of contemporary life that it touches.

Culture Clash's play about money, manipulation and red-baiting ending with destruction of a closely-knit LA Latino neighborhood over fifty years ago rings true today as the present economic power of developers and the drive to profitably exploit vulnerable communities within the central city and drastically change their ethnic, class and cultural composition continues to steadily displace the long-time residents of many neighborhoods.

The U.S. government is allowing tourists to bring home $100 worth of rum and cigars. And the U.S. State Department is working on a forthcoming list of products that Cubans can export to the United States. The list will not include numerous life-saving medicines currently unavailable in the United States, and not apparently because the U.S. government believes rum and cigars are better for its people than life-saving medicines. No, the reason is bizarre yet predictable.

When the Ebola global alarm was sounded by Doctors Without Borders, which, like Cuba, already had health professionals in Africa; Cuba was the country that offered the most assistance once WHO called for nations to step up with funds and, most importantly, human resources. Cuba sent 256 volunteers with significant international emergency experience while Cuba's Dr. Jorge Pérez and others work to prevent Ebola's global spread.

Because their traditional allies from the Democratic Party have obsessively embraced corporate-motivated innovations, teacher unions seem paralyzed, unable to respond with a new strategy. They criticize the overuse of standardized tests, but they keep electing Democrats to office who, once elected, more often than not join the corporate attack on education.

A skeptic looks at the human side of game theory.

If the top one percent were taxed at the same rate as the middle 20 percent, states and localities would raise $68 billion per year. Similarly, if the top 20 percent paid the same as the middle 20 percent, states and localities would generate $128 billion each year.