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Movie: Spike Lee's Chi-Raq

Chi-Raq is an angry midlife masterpiece that, like previous Spike Lee films, sucks the viewer into a cinematographic vortex that is as challenging as the mad realities is confronts. For a full review, click here

Review: 'Chi-Raq' - Spike Lee's Urgent, Angry Midlife Masterpiece

Jordan Hoffman The Guardian
Chi-Raq begins with a devastating overture, Pray 4 My City, with the lyrics printed directly on the screen, impossible to ignore. 'I don’t live in Chicago, I live in Chi-Raq,' it concludes, using the controversial nickname given to the city where gun deaths outnumber those in America’s foreign wars. Narrator Dolmedes, Samuel L Jackson, explains that communities under siege aren’t a new phenomenon, and explains how previous authors wrote about such tales.

A Superfund for Workers

Jeremy Brecher Dollars & Sense
How to Promote a Just Transition and Break Out of the Jobs vs. Environment Trap

Processed or Ultra-processed: is there a difference?

Andy Bellatti Eating Rules
To combat the voices of health advocates who expressed concerns on the health effects of the Standard American Diet, which is high in processed foods, the food industry cast doubt and reframed the conversation on processed foods.

Annual Message from the Moderators of Portside to Our Readers

Portside
The fact is, the political climate has changed in the last year. There is a pendulum swing to the left. Social movements are resurgent, from Black Lives Matter to Climate Justice to Fight for 15. The Bernie Sanders campaign has even brought a socialist critique of capitalism to the national discussion. The service Portside provides is in greater demand than ever. We turn for you to help because as we grow, so do our financial needs.

Employer Political Coercion: A Growing Threat

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez The American Prospect
Managers and supervisors can now legally require their workers to participate in politics as a condition of employment. For instance, in most states, managers have the legal right to mandate worker attendance at a political rally for a favored candidate—and fire or punish workers who decline to participate.

Russians May Have a Strong Case in Turkish Shootdown

Charles J. Dunlap Jr. The Hill
While President Obama is certainly correct in saying that "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace," exactly how it may do so is more complicated than the president implies. In fact, the Russians may have strong legal arguments that any such right under international law was wrongly asserted in this instance.

How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains

Ferris Jabr Quanta Magazine
Fossils established the Brain Boom as fact. But they tell us next to nothing about how and why the human brain grew so large so quickly. In the last eight years, however, scientists have started to answer the “how” of human brain expansion — that is, the question of how the supersizing happened on a cellular level and how human physiology reconfigured itself to accommodate a dramatically enlarged and energy-guzzling brain.

Justin Trudeau and Canada’s Mining Industry

Yves Engler CounterPunch
Despite a long list of abuses by Canadian mining companies in Africa (and elsewhere) it’s incredibly difficult to hold them accountable domestically. The previous Stephen Harper government opposed legislation modeled on the U.S. Alien Torts Claims Act that would have allowed lawsuits against Canadian companies responsible for major human rights violations or ecological destruction abroad. Is Justin Trudeau prepared to defy Canada’s powerful mining industry?

Before Bernie Sanders: A 19th Century Populist’s Run for the Presidency

John Collins In These Times
Though the People's Party lost, Weaver managed to win 5 states (Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and North Dakota) and 22 electoral votes—the most electoral votes won by a third party since the Civil War. The impressive third-party turnout illustrated the bipartisan frustration of the period and the extent to which Populist rhetoric resonated with voters at the time.