Portside

As part of the deep and broad reaction to the killings in Charleston, historian Chad Williams and his colleagues have put together a deeply informative and useful bibliography of essential readings on African American life and history, and on the struggle against racism. We have provided a link to the project, below, followed by a short article on it, published in The Guardian, by Marta Bausells. More links and information are available at the Guardian site.

In an upset victory, San Francisco educators have elected a new union president who promises to empower members, take on standardized testing, and back struggles for affordable housing.

The films that opened and closed the Human Rights Watch Film Festival - Marc Silver’s 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets, and Stanley Nelson’s The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution - tell interlocking stories. Although more than four decades separate the events they trace, there is a connection between what happened in the 1960s, when cities exploded in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Kiing and discord today.

And how our rush to lock up immigrants has overwhelmed the federal prison system.

We live digital lives—from the videos shared on social networks, to location-aware apps on mobile phones, to log-in data for connecting to our email, to our stored documents, to our search history. The personal, the profound, and even the absurd are all transcribed into data packets, whizzing through the fiber-optic arteries of the network. Our daily lives have upgraded to the 21st century, but law and the practice of the private sector don't offer adequate protections.

It is time for change, time for the very best efforts of all who nurture hopes for a saner world.

“Delay hurts,” says Kate Bronfenbrenner of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations, “because they can fire one more worker, or engage in five more captive-audience meetings or three more supervisor one-on-ones per person.” Because of these aggressive tactics, there are far fewer NLRB elections today than in the past.

Air Force officers at America's nuke sites work 24-hour-shifts in antique underground capsules launching fake attacks straight out of 'Strangelove' — and they're ready to blow

The Chicago Teachers Union has gained a reputation for organizing alongside community groups over broader social justice issues of race and class. Now, from Saint Paul to Los Angeles, more teachers unions are following their lead and embracing a similar progressive model. That model includes building developing relationships with community groups and other unions and taking broader issues that impact their students’ lives to the bargaining table.

Airplane noise affects our taste perception, and tomatoes are the winners!