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There are several recent children’s books out about Pete Seeger, each targeted for different age groups, with different formats and writing styles. Stand Up and Sing conveys Seeger’s remarkable talent, convictions and courage without being preachy or talking down to children.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, is about the rise of totalitarianism and what ordinary people can do to stand in its way. I bought five copies to give to young activists. Maybe I should have bought more.
The networks lined up to deliver numerous retrospective documentaries on the silver anniversary of the events that began just hours after the Rodney King beating verdict was read. The results are decidedly mixed.
“The safety conditions in the Dirty Dozen show we need more enforcement of our safety laws, not less,” says former OSHA official Jordan Barab. He describes proposed federal OSHA budget cuts under the Trump administration as “penny-wise and pound-foolish” for workers and taxpayers.
Co-published by Salon
For many of us the passage of 25 years hasn’t produced clarity about why and how Los Angeles’ 1992 unrest occurred, and whether the city that we inherited from that awful moment in our history is now a better or worse place in which to live.
Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a social earthquake in which dozens of people were killed and over a thousand buildings burned. Even before it erupted, the combustible material was obvious to many living and working in South Los Angeles.
Co-published by The American Prospect
Does anyone really want a handful of corporations, the likes of McDonald’s and Burger King, teaching children and locking people up in prison?
Co-published by Fast Company
Is California’s strict zero-emissions strategy, which forces car makers to market exhaust-free hydrogen-fueled and battery-powered vehicles, really the most consumer friendly, egalitarian way to go?
Co-published by The American Prospect
Workers at Tesla’s Fremont, California electric car factory have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Elon Musk’s company of illegal surveillance, coercion, intimidation and prevention of worker communications.
Playwright John Strand’s presentation of Antonin Scalia as not the “monster” his critics make him out to be may hold some truth, but it’s surely an incomplete one.
“The current cash bail system is the modern equivalent of a debtor’s prison,” says California State Senator Bob Hertzberg. “It criminalizes poverty, pure and simple.” BY JIM CROGAN
A state report has criticized Alliance College-Ready Public Schools’ compliance level with federal student privacy rules during an anti-union campaign. BY BILL RADEN
Co-published by Slate
Solar-panel installers workers are riding a “solarcoaster” — joining an industry that has provided jobs and opportunity to tens of thousands of workers — while also raising concerns about how fairly workers in a fast-growing, Wall Street-fueled industry are being treated.
Everyone struggles with what appear to be questionable overdraft fees, along with hidden credit card and cellphone fees. But low-income communities are particularly targeted for predatory practices.
A new study shows that tax dollars have been used to create privately held real estate empires — charter school properties that, because they aren’t owned by the public, could, theoretically, one day be converted into luxury condominiums or shopping complexes.
With the failings of large banks in the news, Capital & Main assembled a panel of bankers and advocates last week to discuss an alternative vision for an industry that affects the lives of nearly everyone in the country — at a time when the Republican Congress is stripping away consumer protections at every turn.
Racial incidents have exploded recently because white and mainstream prejudice has been contained under the line of vision for several decades, and now the lid’s off.
Tracy Droz Tragos’ documentary, Abortion: Stories Women Tell could be pared down, but it is often powerful and the struggles of the women it depicts are not easily forgotten.
Co-published by The American Prospect
Although its products epitomize the future, assembly line workers say Tesla’s labor conditions are mired in the past. BY DAVID DAYEN