Portside

Woody vs Trump; Le Guin vs Bundy; For sale: The New Republic; Neolib noblesse oblige; Bechdel test; When Donald met Sarah

Despite its flimsy historical underpinnings, The Revenant is actually a dream-film throughout. There are sequences—like the improbable dive over a cliff into the waiting arms of a huge tree, or the abandoned cathedral equipped with a Baroque crucifix and a silently swinging bell—where you aren’t quite sure, and you don’t much mind, if what you’re watching is meant to be “really” happening to Hugh Glass or just transpiring in his (or perhaps Iñárritu’s) head.

In July, Emeryville, California, passed the highest city-wide minimum wage in the country. Here's how workers' lives changed - and didn't. As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive innovation.

The Portside moderators send our heartfelt thanks to our readers, for coming through in response to our annual appeal! We don't do a lot of fundraising -- just this annual appeal. We are grateful, and gratified, that the response allows us to keep to this bare minimum. Again, many thanks from the left side of the ship - the portside. Full speed ahead in the new year.

In the ever-evolving restaurant industry, trend forecasts range from menu tweaks to technological and social upheavals.

Maybe they can get away with it, but it certainly seems worthwhile putting up a fight to stop them.

So-called "supercoils" change the behavior of DNA, opening a new role for topology in the study of life.

In the American Black community, during the years leading up to the Harlem Renaissance, there was a sense of building artistic expression. Outlets and avenues for its poets, musicians, novelists, artists, and actors were few. But in 1918, as the first great World War concluded and thousands of African-American soldiers returned home victorious, this mountain of artistic expression was now ready to explode.

The Trumps retained Roy Cohn, who two decades earlier had been a top aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his infamous effort to root out communists in government. Cohn portrayed the Trumps as the victims and counter-sued the government, demanding it pay them $100 million for falsely accusing them of discrimination . . . Goldweber, the Justice lawyer who originally argued the case, said it was a clear government victory. That’s not how Donald Trump considered it.

International Left Intellectuals Respond to Venezuelan Government's Legislative Election Setback: We have to ask ourselves, “Do my statements empower and amplify the articulated priorities of the movements and governments I am in solidarity with, or do they strengthen the US government narrative and create even greater space for it to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other countries?”