Portside

It would be easy to think that the Atlanta cheating scandal by adults on standardized tests is the worst we have seen, given last week’s startling indictment against former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 others under a law used against mobsters.

Peru Billboard Wrings Water from Air; Tips for Facing Racist and Sexist Online Attacks; Catholic Colleges Go After Condom-Distributing Students; Model for Quality Academics Broken; Triangle Fire Building will get a Memorial Wrap; Wal-Mart Doesn't Have Enough Workers to Keep the Shelves Stocked; Conservatives Stick to Name Brands; Cuba Releases a Shoot-Em-Up Video Game Based on 1959 Revolution

How much sicker does the patient have to get before the doctors stop prescribing poison?

Labor experts say unions are focusing on the hospitality field and less traditionally unionized workplaces - car washes, retailers, taxi and limo companies - as membership rolls have decreased. The percentage of private sector workers represented by unions has fallen from a peak of about 35 percent in the mid 1950s to about 7 percent, said Fred Feinstein, a former general counsel with the National Labor Relations Board who now works as a union.

Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose "third strike" is not a serious crime, thousands of people – the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine.

In some ways the Syrian civil war resembles a proxy chess match between supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime— Iran, Iraq, Russia and China—and its opponents— Turkey, the oil monarchies, the U.S., Britain and France. But the current conflict only resembles chess if the game is played with multiple sides, backstabbing allies, and conflicting agendas.

Media darling Rand Paul is doing his best to end progressive taxation in America. Randolph Paul, over a half-century ago, helped make progressive taxation a prime building block for America’s middle class golden age. To stop politicos like Rand, we need to remember insightful advocates like Randolph.

Gas Leakages beneath your feet - these leaks challenge some of the basic assumptions of current US energy policy, which has aggressively endorsed natural gas as a “clean” and climate-friendly alternative to oil and coal.