Portside

A new book, "Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class," by John McNay, draws lessons from the battle in Ohio that defeated a Republican anti-union bill by public referendum.

Last week Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier died, signaling the passing of the last Duvalier to rule Haiti. But corruption in Haiti is still rampant, and the U.S.-backed regime of President Michel Martelly uses the political toolbox developed by the Duvaliers to control the country. "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier are dead; but Duvalierism lives on.

A ProPublica analysis of killings by police shows outsize risk for young black males.

When President Obama took office, there were five million Americans at home all day who are now, sadly, not at home

In this view, hand stencils and animal paintings in Europe and Asia, separated by some 13,000 kilometers, have a common, far deeper origin in Africa.

The prescription, he argues in "Being Mortal," is to rethink our priorities for the dying—and give 'em something to live for.

The point isn’t whether Obama is or isn’t a radical. It’s that we ourselves need to be.

Whether the split between labor and the Democratic Party in Ohio is temporary or permanent, the ongoing peace talks between the Democrats and labor leaders haven’t quelled labor’s urge to become the dominant political force in the county. Activists are aware that labor support for an independent mayoral candidate in 2015 could burn another bridge back to the Democratic Party.

Reader Comments - Towards a Socialist America; War on the Islamic State; Ferguson New Voter Registration; Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism; Economy - Still Failing; People's Climate March; War and Climate Change; Berkeley Free Speech Movement; Crime Fiction; Work, Leisure, & Consumption; Israel 'Blacklist'; An Israel Equal for All; Importance of Brazil's Elections; Announcements - Race, Policing & Civil Rights-Oct 14; Paint the Town Red-Oct 22-both Brooklyn

Herein lay the difference between my son's black childhood and my own. Not only was I assaulted by the n-word so much earlier in life - at age 7, while visiting relatives in Memphis - but I also had many other experiences that differentiated my life from the lives of my white childhood friends. There was no way that they would "forget" that I was different. The times, in fact, dictated that they should not forget; our situation would be unavoidably "racial."