Portside

The year had a spirited and determined feel. Every time we turned around there was another sit-in or strike, ingenious job action or raucous flash mob.

The year had a spirited and determined feel. Every time we turned around there was another sit-in or strike, ingenious job action or raucous flash mob.

Economic statistics? Evolution? Climate change? If you don’t like the facts, make them up. Or have your benefactors finance “think tanks” filled with hired guns who will tell the public what you and your patrons want them to say. If all else fails, fire experts who tell the truth, and replace them with people who will pronounce falsehoods.

The 50-foot banner on our building’s call for an end to police violence is as urgent this week as it was last week; none of the issues have changed, and the tragic murder of two New York City police officers won't—can't—slow our efforts to end violence, impunity and abuse of power by law enforcement.

The boys and girls teams from Mendocino (CA) High School had worn the shirts, which bear a slogan that has become a rallying cry in nationwide protests against police killings of unarmed black men, before previous games. But the principal and athletic director at Fort Bragg High School, the tournament host, decided that the teams could not play in the tournament unless they agreed not to wear the shirts during it.

Christmas is a commercial, obnoxious holiday. But the so-called golden rule — do unto others — that is ostensibly a core principle of every major religion, well that is a reality we have never approached, but should aim for.

Despite its rich fund of hard-won detail, the Senate report has, at best, produced a neutral outcome, a draw in this political contest over impunity. Unless we inscribe the lessons from this Senate report deeply into the country’s collective memory, then some future crisis might prompt another recourse to torture that will do even more damage to this country’s moral leadership.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued long-awaited new rules to modernize and streamline union certification elections and to eliminate the worst cases of pre-election delay. The board is mandated to protect the rights of employees to form unions and bargain collectively, but numerous academic studies have demonstrated that the current NLRB election process fails to protect workers' free choice.

The heroes of antiquity are perhaps due for another revision of their status.

Secretary Kerry’s attempt to conclude . . . accords was . . . always quixotic and doomed to failure. A powerful Israeli state simply has no reason to abide by its commitments with a stateless, weak people divided into bantustans and encircled by checkpoints. If Palestinian statelessness is at the root of the crisis, then the solution is obvious. The Palestinians must erect, and be recognized as, a state.