Portside

London’s Theatre Royal in the mid-1800s. Edmund Kean, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his age, collapses on stage while performing the lead in Othello. He is replaced by a young, black actor, Ira Aldridge—a first for the role on London’s West End. As a bill in Parliament promoting the abolition of slavery sends shock waves through the streets, how will London react to his performance?

Magicians have long taken advantage of obscure mathematical principles in creating interesting puzzles and illusions.

Shorter hours shouldn’t have to mean every worker for herself.

The moral of the story is “don’t tell stories about these big topics if you can’t do it well.” And by “well,” I don’t mean create a post-racial utopia. I mean have the ability to give that story its own weight and importance beyond what it does for your two white leads. I mean the very least you can do is not make Jamie and Claire white saviors. At the very least. But that isn’t possible because they are the people this story is about.

Class conflict isn’t something we choose to engage in. It’s just how capitalism works.

Jonathan Rosenblum lives in Seattle, Washington, and is a member of UAW 1981/National Writers Union. He is the author of Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement (Beacon Press, 2017). More about him can be found at jonathanrosenblum.org. The interview was counducted by Yuri Lobunov, editor-in-chief of socialistalternative.ru, where this interview was published in Russian.

The committee’s vote comes a year after advocates pushed lawmakers to declare L.A. a sanctuary city amid concern that Trump would make good on his campaign promise to aggressively deport immigrants in the country illegally and build a border wall.

Not banned: “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler and books by white nationalists, including David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard.

Trump's declaration "adds insult to ongoing injury and is practically guaranteed to fan the flames of violence," argue scholars.

The suicide rate for US farmers is more than double that of military veterans, and according to a recent 17 state study, the suicide rate for people working in agriculture is nearly five times higher that in the general population. And that might be an underestimation. Since 2013, net farm income for US farmers has declined 50% and the 2017 median farm income is projected to be negative $1,325. Former farmer Debbie Weingarten gives an insider’s perspective on farm life.