Portside

When Flint, Michigan Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency last week in light of a dramatic water crisis, it brought national attention to the current troubles facing that town. This report on Weaver's declaration also contains some historical background to this crisis.

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan has been brewing for the past year. Now researchers have found lead in the drinking water. Flint mayor Karen W. Weaver has declared a state of emergency. This week a researcher alleged that government officials knew the water contained lead.

The centennial celebration of Joe Hill's execution is being marked by concerts, symposiums, meetings and forums, and the publication of new books, or new editions. Labor historian Paul Buhle reviews two of these. Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, with a new introduction by David Roediger; and Philip S. Foner's The Letters of Joe Hill, with new material by Alexis Buss and foreword by Tom Morello.

Five months after Sandra Bland was found hanging in a Texas jail cell, her family still searches for resolution. An intimate look at a life interrupted published in Chicago Magazine last week.

Nothing suggests she was a danger to the community, so why was she kept in jail?

The Voyage of the Sable Venus, the highly regarded debut poetry collection by Robin Coste Lewis, won the national book award this year for poetry. The title poem unites art history with the history of slavery and racism. Here, Dan Chiasson introduces this book, which has become a must-read across the literary spectrum.

The effects of the gas on the people of Bhopal have been nothing short of catastrophic. Birth defects continue to occur among families affected by the gas leak and contamination of water at a higher-than-average rate even now -- 30 years after the explosion at the Union Carbide plant.

I wrote this paper originally in 1996—for a magazine called Sojourner: The Women’s Forum. As a clinic defender, I witnessed people yelling violently and acting aggressively towards women going into clinics in Boston and Brookline, Mass. to get abortions. I wanted people to know what it was like at the clinics on Saturday mornings. And I also wanted to honor the two women who were killed at a Massachusetts clinic in 1994 and others murdered over abortion rights.

Seven years ago local officials in Marin County, California organized to form a nonprofit electricity company with the noblest intentions. Buying and selling electricity allowed the group, Marin Clean Energy (MCE), to route around the local utility giant, Pacific Gas & Electric, which for years had resisted its customers’ pleas for cleaner, more reliable power, all the while “greenwashing” its image with marketing campaigns.

U.S. schools provide a great deal of useful information, but also leave out a great deal. Please see whether you can answer the following questions before scrolling down and clicking a link at the bottom for the answers. How many can your kids answer? Can your kids' teachers answer them? Can your parents answer them? Can your uncle who tells you whom to vote for and what to think answer them?