Portside

An intimate, occasionally sad and frequently humorous insight into the life of one of the world's best known authors.

The violent clampdown by security forces has all but ended the possibility of a rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood. A cross section of Middle East analysts discuss the implications of the latest wave of violence in Egypt (in Al Jazeera)

Bradley Manning didn't hurt us any more than a dentist hurts a patient when removing an abscessed tooth. The brief discomfort that resulted from the WikiLeaks disclosures was necessary to begin the process of healing and reform. It is a process that we do not yet know will be successful, but which began with Manning's decision to leak vital documents to WikiLeaks. And for that, we owe Manning thanks; no apologies necessary.

Book Review and Interview: Jennifer Silva's "Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty." In 100 in-depth, in-person interviews, she found a new working-class adult “bewildered in the labor market, betrayed by institutions, distrustful of love, disconnected from others, and committed to emotional growth.”

There is a growing human rights movement across the country, led by prisoners and their families, that names this practice for what it is: torture.

Largest Mobilization of Fast Food Workers in U.S. History May Get Much Bigger.

For 10 years a massive income gap has been widening across Silicon Valley. Last November, however, the residents of San Jose voted in favor of a small but significant change: Raising the city’s minimum wage from $8 to $10 per hour. In Forefront this week, journalist Nona Willis Aronowitz explores the people and policies shaping the economic future of a San Jose that many cities in the Bay Area could look to as a model for economic justice.

Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry believes fast food workers will massively increase their campaign within a few weeks.

In February, as the gay-propaganda law made its way through the Duma, a popular Moscow magazine called Afisha ran a rainbow flag on its cover. Inside were the stories and portraits of 30 gay men and women of Moscow. They were lawyers, entrepreneurs, nurses, and I.T. specialists; there was even a welder named “Sergei Ivanov,” the Russian equivalent of John Smith.

The circumstances of contingent faculty and indebted students are simultaneously emblematic of national trends toward precarious employment and long term financial anxiety amid enormous national wealth, and more deeply implicated because of the power of education to act as an egalitarian social force.