Portside

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying the deal establishing the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). It's hoped the new bank will stamp the growing influence of the BRICS. The NDB is expected to become one of the world's key institutions. The money will be used to finance development projects in the emerging economies.

Sonoma County’s premium wine industry in San Francisco North Bay has become a magnet that attracts developers from around the country, across oceans, and nearby. They move heavy industrial operations into rural areas and expand them into event centers and commercial bottling operations. Under the pretense that they are merely agriculture, rather than alcohol-producing factories, large wineries wineries over-use precious, limited resources—such as water, air, and land.

There’s a comforting myth in the United States that suggests African-Americans steadily moved from absolute slavery to complete freedom following the Civil War. This, however, obscures how hard many Americans of every race had fought against racism since the Revolution. It was a struggle that went deeper than slavery and right to the core of who was an American.

Besides a reason to enjoy baked goods while feeling mathematically in-the-know, just what is π anyway?

"I think the phony claims and renewed political chicanery are a reflection of the fact that a century-and-a-half after the Civil War, and 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, a deeper struggle for democracy, equality and inclusion continues." -- Lorraine C. Minnite

Fanon was not a Marxist but he strongly believed that capitalism with imperialism and its divisions enslave people. His precocious diagnosis of the incapability of the nationalist elites in fulfilling their historical mission demonstrates the continuing relevance of Fanon’s thought today.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, the first retrospective of the American artist’s paintings in two decades, originated at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University on January 30, 2014, the start a national tour. It has now stopped at its rightful home: Chicago.

In criticizing capitalism for mass consumption instead of exploitation, The Americans uses Soviet characters to valorize austerity.

Teachers at the largest charter school organization in Los Angeles have launched a drive to unionize, a move that could alter the path of school reform in the city. Nearly 70 teachers and counselors at Alliance charter schools say they intend to partner with UTLA. More than 100,000 students, or 15% of LAUSD enrollment, attend charters, the most of any system in the U.S.

On Monday, the White House took the absurd step of declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Obama is channeling Ronald Reagan, adopting practices similar to those used against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. But, the world has moved forward, even if Washington has not. Venezuela today has very strong backing from its neighbors against what almost every government in the region sees as an illegal attempt to destabilize the country.