Portside

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned January 27 to protest President Francois Hollande’s new anti-terrorism law that strips those with dual nationality of their French citizenship if convicted of terrorism. Taubira, who was born in French Guiana, says this divides French citizens into two categories with different rights. Taubira, the target of numerous racist and misogynist attacks, played a critical role in the passage of France’s same-sex marriage law.

Woody Guthrie lived in Fred Trump’s Beach Haven apartment complex for two years, and he was characteristically vocal and eloquent about the racist policies that governed there.

Candidates can get easy applause by lambasting journalists. Nevertheless, as a scholar concerned with the critical functions journalism fulfills in a democracy, the author argues that the highest imperative for journalists is to serve the needs of audiences and the democratic process for critical information. Journalists moderating presidential debates must function as journalists.

One of the seldom-discussed obstacles to the implementation of a two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the demographic change taking place within Israel’s Jewish population. Much has been made of the growth of the Palestinian population within Israel/Palestine, but the birthrate of conservative ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are exercising ever-greater influence in Israeli politics, culture, and the armed forces, also exceeds that of Orthodox and secular Jews.

A recently released secret U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) file can be justifiably termed “Stranger than Strangelove”, the 1964 film that satirically captured the madness of the Cold War. It reveals for the first time the scale of the holocaust that would have been unleashed in a nuclear war. The U.S. planned to attack more than 1,200 “Soviet bloc” cities, killing an estimated 520 million people. Even “friendly forces and people” would be radiated.

As the oceans continue to become more acidic as they absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, corals are under the dual stress of rising temperatures and acidity.

Three quarters of the Asian-American vote went to the Republican presidential candidate just two decades ago. In 2012, three quarters of Asian Americans voted for Barack Obama. This dramatic change in party preference is stunning. No other group has shifted so dramatically in their party identification within such a short time period. Some are calling it the “GOP’s Asian erosion.”

Ironically, throwing more science at science denial ignores the social science research into denial. You can’t adequately address science denial without considering the root cause: the ideology driving the rejection. The way to inoculate people against anti-scientific myths is to explain the fallacy employed by the myth. Once people understand the techniques used to distort the science, they can reconcile the myth with the fact.

Secrecy, extraordinary levels of classification, lies, denial, and deception became the chief legacy of the initial impulse to censor radiation information from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

An early expression of democracy, the US patent system is out of step with today’s citizens.