Portside

. . . this anachronistic style of coverage reproduces, in condensed form, many of the worst habits of modern American journalism on the subject of Africa. To be clear, this means that Africa warrants the public’s attention only when there is disaster or human tragedy on an immense scale, when Westerners can be elevated to the role of central characters or when it is a matter of that perennial favorite, wildlife.

As many as 50,000 mostly indigenous workers have stopped harvesting produce for more than a week in protest of labor law violations. What they want is for their basic needs to be met, such as obtaining health care, getting overtime pay and vacation days, and being paid wages higher than the dismal $8 a day that most of them earn.

. . . the publication of Alfred Wegener’s Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of Continents and Oceans) . . . was the beginning of a true scientific revolution that transformed geology right down to its core, although the final stage of the revolution was not completed until the 1950s and 1960s.

Of the numerous problems Rahm Emanuel is facing in his campaign for reelection as Chicago's mayor, two in particular stand out. One, Emanuel is widely perceived as anti-worker and anti-union while being a close ally to the city's financial elites. (He used to work as an investment banker, after all.) Two, he's widely acknowledged as being a jerk. The hospitality workers union UNITE HERE Local 1 has a solution: an ad campaign with workers emphasizing "Rahm Love."

Outlander returns on April 4, 2015 with new episodes to finish out its inaugural season. While it’s difficult to label neatly, there’s much to both enjoy and analyze in the complexity of Outlander, even as that very quality is likely to earn it foes. Its feminine focus and occasionally disconcerting sexual politics may earn it rejection from both sides of the gender discussion—some because it is “too feminist,” others because it’s not feminist enough.

There is renewed interest in the potentially huge profitability of African agriculture - and seed systems are a key target. The Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development are working with Monsanto, Syngenta, Yara and others, to impose seed regulations friendly to multinational corporations that will reduce the role of Africa’s public sector, and marginalize the small farmers whose seeds and labor feed the continent.

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and its allies, suffered a major setback March 10th, when a law to privatize Mexico’s water resources was shelved. President Enrique Peña Nieto had attempted to “fast track” approval of the General Water Law, but the rapid mobilization of grassroots opposition forced the indefinite postponement of a vote on the legislation that would place water distribution under private sector control.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, Congress’ refusal to extend unemployment benefits in 2014, coupled with cuts in benefits at the state level, has reduced the percentage of people receiving unemployment insurance to the lowest level in more than three decades. And, despite higher unemployment rates for Black workers, unemployed Black workers are even less likely to receive unemployment benefits than their white counterparts.

Fifteen non-profits launched a petition on March 23 calling on the Smithsonian's American Museum of Natural History and the Natural History Museum of New York to remove David Koch from their boards of trustees because "he bankrolls groups that deny climate science." Serious questions are being raised about institutions that accept money from donors whose business and political dealings are in direct opposition to the institutions' missions.

Attorney "Marty" Stroud was the prosecutor in the 1984 murder trial of Glenn Ford, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Isadore Rozeman. Ford was released from prison in 2014, after the state admitted new evidence proving Ford was not the killer. Stroud denounces the state’s attempt to deny compensation for Ford’s wrongful conviction, speaks of his role in creating the “horrors” Ford suffered, and denounces the death penalty as an "abomination."