Tidbits - October 6, 2016 - Reader Comments: UE Calls for Trump Defeat; Fact Checking Pence; Israel Seizes Women's Boat to Gaza; Women of Salt of the Earth; New York's Muslim Communities; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: UE Calls for Trump Defeat; Fact Checking Pence; Israel Seizes Women's Boat to Gaza and 13 dangerous women - What you can do; Who to Vote For-Lessons from the Past for Leftists; Prison Strike Continues-Now Joined by Alabama Prison Guards; Reader query - why did you use certain sources in your labor post?; Cubs and Socialism; Public Option; The Women of Salt of the Earth; Announcements: Labor and Islam; NYPD Surveillance of New York's Muslim Communities

The Chicago Cubs and Socialism

Harry Targ Diary of a Heartland Radical
ubs in the World Series. Yes it could be! Who would have thought a Brooklyn-born socialist senator from Vermont, would win 13 million votes, capturing 23 primaries and caucuses; that a scrappy senior would inspire the youth of the country, and a whole country? Who would have thunk it? Can the Cubs also inspire their fans, and keep hope alive? Can the Cubs capture the spirit of the country as we prepare for the November elections? Yes we can has new meaning this year!

How Politics Played a Major Role in the Signing of Jackie Robinson

Chris Lamb The Conversation
Branch Rickey certainly deserves credit for confronting his fellow owners and their racist attitudes by signing Jackie Robinson and, in doing so, advancing the cause of civil rights. However, there is more to this story than Rickey and Robinson. In fact, the desegregation of baseball came after a decade-long campaign by black and left wing journalists and activists.

Challenging Major League Baseball's New Managerial Color Line

Dave Zirin The Nation
With zero African-American managers and only one Latino manager, baseball needs an affirmative-action policy with actual teeth. And now we are all the way back to where we started. It's time for change: a change many thought had already been achieved. Rob Manfred: You're up.

books

Dusty and Jimi

Charles Bethea The New Yorker
Pro baseball player and coach Dusty Baker was a teenage rock and roller. His new memoir details those years, centered on the legendary Monterey Pop Festival, where Jimi Hendrix played his way to stardom. Charles Bethea profiles Baker in advance of his memoir of those year of hanging out with a host of legendary musicians and learning how rock and roll is like baseball.

poetry

Barnstormers

Malik Abduh Four Way Review Issue 4 Fall 2013
With baseball's opening day this week, Malik Abduh's "Barnstormers" evokes the days when race prejudice barred great athletes from the major leagues.

How Humans Evolved to Play Hardball

Sid Perkins Nature
Baseball players reveal how humans evolved to throw so well. A catapult-like mechanism allows energy to be stored in shoulder and torso, a video study of pitchers reveals.

Why Chimps Don't Play Baseball

Although some primates occasionally throw objects, and with a fair degree of accuracy, only humans can routinely hurl projectiles with both speed and accuracy. Adult male chimpanzees can throw objects at speeds of around 30 kilometres per hour, but even a 12-year-old human can pitch a baseball three times faster than that

Tidbits - June 13, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments - Dirty Wars and Jeremy Scahill,; Alice Walker's open letter to Alicia Keys; Syrian proxy war; False economic recovery; NSA spying; It's the Corporations; We Steal Secrets; Baseball and drugs; Spain and the International Brigades - today; Berlin demonstrations against Obama visit; Announcement - Milton Rogovin DVD now available on sale
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