The school district was at the forefront of a public education model that is gaining national popularity—but its decision undercuts what the community appreciates about each school’s custom offerings that put students first.
The Oakland, California, school district touts itself as the nation’s first full-service community schools district, committing to a model of school improvement that, according to the model’s most prominent proponents, provides students with “well-rounded educational opportunities” and the “supports” they need to be successful. Community schools attend to the basic needs of the communities they serve, which often entails, according to news reports, such things as access to health and dental care, nutritious food, arts programs, sports and recreation, or after-school activities. But in February 2022, Oakland, despite its commitment to its districtwide reform plan, announced it is shutting down several of its community schools. Continue reading →
A sizeable share of America’s pundits and politicians have—with good reason—been spending the last several days bemoaning and bewailing billionaire Elon Musk’s latest business gambit: a $44-billion annexation of the social media universe known as Twitter. Continue reading →
Removing the taboo around talking about money, two collectives are helping people work toward securing their financial well-being.
Financial health is the elephant in the room that we avoid talking about in social situations, at work, and even with our loved ones, despite the fact that financial well-being has a profound effect on how we think and feel. A review of 32 studies conducted on the dynamics of financial well-being and mental health between 2001 and 2019 found that a person’s financial situation has a “significant impact” on their mental health, with financial hardship being frequently associated with increased stress, anxiety and depression. Yet, financial well-being remains a taboo subject. Continue reading →
WASHINGTON—A draft U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion eliminating abortion rights angered women and pro-choice advocates and sparked a political war on both sides of what anti-abortionists have made their cultural issue keystone for 49 years. Continue reading →
Posted on streetlamps all over Germany are stickers showing fleeing silhouettes with the caption, “Refugees welcome—bring your families”. Some have been blacked out with felt markers or ripped partially away. The Germans have mixed feelings about refugees, as demonstrated in the earlier waves from the Mideast and the current one from the Ukraine. Continue reading →
Journalism’s best days are long gone. And, unless NATO’s journalists have a collective Damascene moment, they too will deservedly go the way of the dodo. Continue reading →
Victories by them this year could position the extreme right to select the next president, regardless of what the electoral college or the popular vote says.
LAS VEGAS—Several months ago, Jim Marchant, a Nevada businessman and Trumpite conspiracy theorist, spilled the beans about how that wing of the Republican Party plans to control all U.S. elections in the future. Continue reading →
Mark Esper claims in a new book that the former president asked: "Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?"
Former President Donald Trump suggested protesters in Washington, D.C. denouncing police brutality back in the spring of 2020 should be shot, according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Continue reading →
Starbucks Workers United is racking up victorious union votes in one branch after another of the iconic American coffee chain. A young California-based worker-organizer explains why this organizing campaign is different.
At only 19 years old, Joe Thompson is one of the youngest lead organizers with Starbucks Workers United (SWU), the umbrella organization at the forefront of one of the most exciting labor successes of the last few years. Thompson, who started working at the coffee chain at age 16, told me in a recent interview, “Starbucks likes to claim it’s super-progressive, and a lot of workers there are, but we’re the ones actually holding Starbucks accountable to that standard.” Continue reading →
The argument that Assange operated as a journalist and exercised his right to freedom of speech, has very little gravitas with the western mindset.
Whether you love or loathe Julian Assange, the decision by a British court to allow a U.S. extradition process is morally repugnant and wrong on so many levels. Assange will now have approximately four weeks to wait and see whether the British government itself signs off on his extradition or not – at which point he can decide to appeal. Continue reading →
If you want to trigger a conservative, just suggest nationalizing the US gas and oil industry. “Venezuela!” they’ll scream hysterically, perhaps adding a few, “Iran!” squeals. (Somehow, they always forget to yell about Norway…) Continue reading →
We’re in a national state of denial. Continue reading →
Senator Manchin has already sabotaged his own party’s Build Back Better plan to address the climate crisis. Now he wants to delay and divert action on climate by building his own nuclear empire.
Senator Joe Manchin’s International Nuclear Energy Act of 2022 is couched in a good deal of America first-style rhetoric, promising to deliver a new home-grown “whole-of-government strategy for nuclear cooperation and nuclear exports.” Continue reading →
Starting on April 15, the Israeli occupation army and police raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem on a daily basis. Under the pretence of providing protection to provocative ‘visits’ by thousands of illegal Israeli Jewish settlers and right-wing fanatics, the Israeli army has wounded hundreds of Palestinians, including journalists, and arrested hundreds more. Continue reading →
BESSEMER, Ala.—Shoving merchandise around Amazon’s giant warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., isn’t easy, Isaiah Thomas says. It also isn’t safe. Continue reading →
When Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971, the racially-segregated nation was firmly in the grasp of Musk’s fellow white Afrikaaners. Unlike most of the British colonialists, the Dutch Afrikaaners stridently believed in their racial superiority over the non-white population of South Africa. Under the apartheid system, South Africa’s population was classified as being part of four groups: African, White, Indian, and Coloured. Apartheid was marked by a system of racial classification that defied logic to most people, but would have found favor by the Nazi German racial purity enforcers. In South Africa, those of mixed white and black lineage were considered “Coloured.” But that designation also applied to Malays and Indonesians. Filipinos, however, were designated as black. Chinese were deemed as Coloured, while Japanese and South Koreans were bestowed with the title of “honorary whites.” The Old Testament-fearing Afrikaaner Calvinists also considered Jews, Lebanese, and Syrians as the children of Canaan, and they were thus branded as whites. Continue reading →
Fort Detrick’s collusion with fascist Japan and Nazi Germany in the development of biological weapons of mass destruction is not some macabre relic of the distant past.
Russia and China have lobbied the UN Security Council for an independent investigation into dozens of laboratories that were being run by the Pentagon in Ukraine up until Moscow launched its military intervention in February. Continue reading →
Nothing is more personal than the right to control your own body
Roe doesn’t just protect abortion rights. It’s the keystone that keeps politicians out of the most intimate aspects of our lives.
Posted on May 5, 2022 by Olivia Alperstein
The personal, as they say, is political. And there’s nothing more personal than the right to control your own body. Continue reading →