Portside

Double Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey challenges TV channels to give "control" to their audiences or risk losing them at his address at the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

Richie Havens was the opening performer at Woodstock in 1969, and this was his first song. Havens died in April this year, and his ashes were scattered at Woodstock this week in a ceremony attended by over 1,000 people.

The documentary When Comedy Went to School tells the story of the Borscht Belt as an escape for Jewish immigrants and a laboratory of American comedy. Opens on July 31 in select theaters. 

In this clip from the film Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, author and educator Joy DeGruy shares how her sister-in-law uses her white privilege to stand up to systemic racial inequity. For more information on this film, go to www.crackingthecodes.org

Do you think we should Deport the Statue of Liberty? Click here for YES or here for NO. Legals for the Preservation of American Culture (LPAC) says #takelibertyback and #deportthestatue NOW!

Israeli pianist Astrith Baltsan performs Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, explaining the inspiration of the music in the young Gershwin's fascination with Harlem blues.

Rachel Maddow highlights a new generation of defenders against right abuses.

Openly gay Mayor Johnny Cummings helps Vicco, KY, become the smallest U.S. town to pass an LGBT fairness ordinance. 

There is a man in Kansas City who was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He has been exonerated based on DNA evidence, and the woman who helped him get his freedom got fired for doing so.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks New York's stop-and-frisk program is being unfairly stopped and scrutinized even though it's done nothing wrong.