Portside

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, crushed by China's military forces, no longer attract much editorial space, but the protests for freedom and the massacre that followed linger in history and in the conscience of the California poet Patrick Daly.

In North Dakota the largest gathering of Native people in opposition to the construction of a massive pipeline project is now going on near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The project threatens the only water supply for the impoverished reservation and adversely affects the quality of life for Indian and non-Indian people in the area. Private security with vicious dogs have been used against protesters. Join the Sept. 13 national day of action against the pipeline

A big chunk of money coming out of Pennsylvania is financing the dog siccers and the pepper sprayers -- including tax dollars. It turns out that one of the major investors in Energy Transfer Partners is...the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Records show that as of this June, the commonwealth -- through its pension funds -- owned some 5 million shares of ETP -- valued at some $192 million. That's more than any other governmental or quasi-governmental agency.

This was a big missed opportunity for the network-and for voters. It showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will say just about anything to win in November. Hours before, Trump made an address in Philadelphia where he kowtowed to the Republican foreign-policy establishment, pledging to lavish tax dollars on the military. In a rambling answer to a question about Iraq, Trump noted the biggest mistake made in Iraq was that the U.S. did not 'take the oil.'

The major powers are planning for war and claim that's the best way to defend against war. Will this mutual hawkishness lead to armed conflict?

400 workers at Just Born Quality confections in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania have gone out on strike. The company's most famous product is Peeps. Management wants to replace their pension with a 401(K).

Reader Comments (Lots): Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Dakota Access Pipeline - And Then the Dogs Came; America's Own Genocide; Slavery and the National Anthem; Sit with Colin Kaepernick; Woody Guthrie's Assault on 'Old Man Trump'; Donald Trump and White Voters; How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom - Deep in the Swamps; Black Lives Matter; Fred Hellerman; Gene Wilder; Solidarity with Yemen; Announcements; and more...

Contrary to a too-commonly held assumption, book author Anne Trubeck argues that while writing by hand will likely become less practiced, it will not disappear, but evolve, as she insists its variegated world history amply shows. Just one possible precedent: the metamorphosis of letterpress printing into an artisanal form.