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Making Top Colleges Less Aristocratic and More Meritocratic

Peter Dreier and Richard D. Kahlenberg The New York Times
Colleges and universities, which receive enormous tax benefits to serve the public interest, should be held to a minimum level of effort to enroll and graduate low-income and working-class students eligible for Pell grants. Governments could also provide financial rewards targeted to universities that commit to increasing socioeconomic diversity and that shift their funds from non-need merit grants to students in actual need.

The Coming Battle of the Gods?

Uri Avnery Gush Shalom
ISIS is something quite new. It wants to destroy all states, especially the Muslim states carved out by Western imperialists from Islamic land. With horrible savagery, elevated to a religious symbol, it sets out on its way to conquer the Muslim world, and then the globe. It expresses the Muslim longing for restoring ancient glory, their hatred of all those who have humiliated Islam, a thirst for spiritual values.

In The Ray Rice Situation, Everyone Must Go

Keith Olberman charges that public and private officials – whether intentionally or by neglect – abetted the domestic violence perpetrated by Ray Rice and should resign..

James Foley on the Dehumanization of War

James Foley's own words on war, as recorded by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Haskell Wexler while making a film about protests against the 2012 NATO Summit. 
 
 

Abdullah Ibrahim: Cape Town Flowers

South African jazz master Abdullah Ibrahim performs his Cape Town Flowers, an ode to the multicultural influences of his native city
 

Friday Nite Videos -- September 12, 2014

Portside
Abdullah Ibrahim: Cape Town Flowers. James Foley on War. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Finding Krypton. Keith Olbermann on the Ray Rice Situation. Demand A Plan to End Gun Violence.

Protests Break the Silence of Grief over Turkish Mine Disaster

Kıvanç Eliaçık Labor Notes
Miners visited Parliament during talks on a proposed law to expand subcontracting, though some weren’t allowed to enter because they were wearing work uniforms and boots. thThey are demanding that those responsible for the disaster that killed 301 workers be brought to justice; that the mines be nationalized again; that subcontracting be banned; and that occupational health and safety measures be enforced.

Tidbits - September 11, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Remembering September 11 and The Other 9/11; Fast Food Strikes; Retail Workers Find Better Deals With Unions; Justice Dept. to Probe Ferguson Police; Working Families Party; Death Row; Israel Confiscates More Palestinian Land; One-Third of Israelis Consider Emigrating; Wal-Mart-ization of Education; Wages for Housework; Gluten-free; Eugene Debs and Debs Museum; Charlie Haden; New resource - International Human Rights Law: Violations by Israel; more..