Portside

To a degree unseen since the Gilded Age over a century ago, money will pour into the 2016 elections from a handful of donors giving once unimaginable sums. Many want something from government. And many of these donors will operate undisturbed -- their identities secret from the public, if not from the grateful politicians. It's called "dark money."

It’s time that our politicians acknowledge that it’s way too easy to get guns – legal and illegal – in this country. No one should be able to get an AK-47 through a few phone calls – including me.

For the first time, a complete DNA sequence from Africa dating back thousands of years has been recovered. The DNA of this Ethiopian man sheds new light on the movement out of Africa, and also movement of Eurasians back into Africa.

The Persian poet Majid Naficy fled Iran in 1983 to live in exile in various places, currently in Los Angeles. His poetry here addresses the sense of loss, the urge to create roots.

Today we are fighting back for the respect of the Geneva Conventions. As a medical humanitarian organization, we are fighting back for the sake of our patients. We need you, as members of the public, to stand with us to insist that even wars have rules. This was not just an attack on our hospital-it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated. These Conventions govern the rules of war and were established to protect civilians in conflicts...

Scores of Palestinians were injured in clashes across the West Bank and more than 200 were arrested in Jerusalem, after Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday he is running an all-out war against Palestinian terrorism. Palestinians protested Tuesday in a day of rage, Reports from Palestine, statement by Palestinian Red Crescent Society and Jewish Voice for Peace. Protest vigil in Tel Aviv against the occupation and escalation Oct. 9.

We need a political revolution of millions of people in this country who are prepared to stand up and say, enough is enough, Sanders argued. I want to help lead that effort. If you're interested in advancing the revolutionary potential of the Bernie Sanders campaign - please sign up with People for Bernie. Political revolution, here we come.

Scott McLemee predicts another round of slamming/defending Nazi-tool philosopher Martin Heidegger with the forthcoming English publication of his The Black Notebooks...l'affaire Heidegger has been recycled on at least three or four occasions. It's as if the shock of the scandal was so great that it induced amnesia each time. Trashing Heidegger distracts us from our own appalling national stupidities and our galling national avarice -- our own little darkenings.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2014, he was a leading figure in Nordic noir, and a social activist, best known for crime novels made into the TV hit, Wallender. Last year he wrote: it is possible to live with cancer. It is possible to fight against it. Nothing is ever too late. Everything is still possible. My stance is to do ultimately with what cancer has not taken away from me. It has not robbed me of my joy at being alive, or my curiosity about what tomorrow has in store.

Reader Comments: Ethel Rosenberg Celebrated in New York City; Elizabeth Warren and #BlackLivesMatter; The Obama Presidency - Afghanistan; Arne Duncan and 'Educational Reform' - Not; Racist Violence-Kansas; Syriza and its 'Left' Critics;