Archive | Portside

How an Abstinence Pledge Shamed a Generation

April 23, 2021

A Christian “purity” movement in the 90s promoted a biblical view of abstinence before marriage. But two decades later, followers are grappling with unforeseen aftershocks.

The Great Gap in Vaccinations

April 23, 2021

The global vaccination drive is happening at two speeds: Richer countries have plenty of funding and plentiful vaccine-doses. Poorer countries have neither.

April 23, 2021

It’s Time to Build a Comprehensive Child Care and Early Learning System

Julie Kashen Century Foundation

As the pandemic has underscored, the practice of calling on families to pay unaffordable sums for child care while paying early educators poverty-level wages was never really sustainable, and it’s time for that to change.

April 23, 2021

COVID Vaccines and Kids: Five Questions as Trials Begin

Ewen Callaway Nature

Vaccine trials will involve only a few thousand children, so there may be too few symptomatic infections to measure efficacy. It makes more sense to look at immune markers after vaccination.

April 23, 2021

Notes From the Underground

Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed

For the first time, Richard Wright's 1942 novel about a wrongly accused Black man is seeing the light of day. Wright was testing the outer limits of what the white novel-reading public would have found imaginable.

April 23, 2021

The Re-emergence of Sectoral Bargaining in the US, Britain, Australia and Canada

David Madland On Labor

A growing number of unions, academics and politicians in the US and countries most similar to it think increasing sectoral bargaining is a critical step to improve conditions for workers.

April 23, 2021

Death Rides the Elevator in Brooklyn

Martín Espada Floaters

Martín Espada’s newest collection, Floaters, takes its title from the term used by some Border Patrol police to describe migrants drowned in the Rio Grande.

April 22, 2021

To Expand Democrats' Infrastructure Vision, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Push Green New Deal for Public Housing

Julia Conley Common Dreams

Such a plan, said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, "would allow people to live with dignity and respect, to know that our federal government cares about their well-being and their health."

April 22, 2021

Earth Day, Labor, and Me

Joe Uehlein Labor Network for Sustainability

A salute to Earth Day and labor, a look back and a look forward. Written originally last year for the 40th Earth Day, it's vision holds even more true today -- Good Clean Jobs for a Living Viable and Clean Earth.

April 22, 2021

Rosie Could Be a Riveter Only Because of a Care Economy. Where Is Ours?

Anne-Marie Slaughter The New York Times

The men and women who went to work and war during World War II were backed by a care economy. We need one too. What are the basic facilities necessary to enable our society to function? And then let’s fund the answer.