Portside

“This is a war against normal life.” So said CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward, describing the situation at this moment in Syria, as well as in other parts of the Middle East.

On Tuesday, May 9, Haymarket Books hosted a conversation between Michelle Alexander and Naomi Klein, moderated by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, in front of a sold-out crowd of 3,000 at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre.

Here at The Next System Project, we’ve been exploring the connections between space, violence, and gender inequities, looking both at the spaces of the built environment and the way social practices structure those spaces. Part of that exploration is talking to organizers like Jessica Raven, Executive Director of Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS)—read our quick conversation below!

As I watch current events in Venezuela, I am haunted by memories of Chile. I lived in Chile from July 1972 until February 1973, while socialist Salvador Allende was president. I left Chile months before the fascist coup, although I had planned to return. That door closed.

There are at least 200 compounds contributing to the flavor of chiles and they all have a different effect. Capsaicin is the most common, first to be discovered, and hottest of the capsaicinoid family, but every chile contains a somewhat different mix of capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin, homodihydrocapsaicin, nornordihydrocapsaicin, and quite a few others.

This year, sit back with your favorite beverage or herb, prop up your feet and open your head to consider Independence Day in a whole new way.

While student activism can’t be a lone focal point of a broader social justice movement, defending higher education and organizing on campus is still of tantamount importance for the Left.

“Brown men aren’t scared of brown women, they are scared of being boring and predictable if they end up with one,” Shriya Samarth, a media junkie and friend, told me over the phone. “Whereas brown women can genuinely fear the expectations of being a daughter-in-law, brown wife, etc.”

Vermont farmworkers are escalating their Milk With Dignity campaign, building from years of organizing in an industry fraught with abuses. The Milk with Dignity campaign was birthed after years of movement dialogue and research, including the release of a survey showing that 40 percent of Vermont farmworkers earn less than minimum wage

Nuclear Negligence examines safety weaknesses at U.S. nuclear weapon sites operated by corporate contractors. The Center’s probe, based on contractor and government reports and officials involved in bomb-related work, revealed unpublicized accidents at nuclear weapons facilities, including some that caused avoidable radiation exposures. It also discovered that the penalties imposed by the government for these errors were typically small relative to contractor profit.