December 2020

December 18, 2020

Sidney's Picks: Racial Dialysis and Breathing on a Jet Plane

Photo credit:

Duncan C, Renal Dialysis, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News:

The air you breathe on a jet plane comes directly through the engine, which is perfectly safe… until it isn’t. (LA Times)
Amazon is turning warehouse work from a middle class career to a dead-end job. (Bloomberg)
“No Choice but to Do It”: A new analysis reveals how abusive men land women in prison. (New Republic)
Hillman Prize-winner Rachel Louise Snyder, an expert on the effects of domestic violence, pleads for a death row reprieve for Lisa Montgomery. (NYT)
UM fires a distinguished history professor after he criticizes the carceral state and, most importantly, the university’s racist donors. (MS Free Press)
How systemic racism destroys Black people’s kidneys and then pushes transplants out of reach. (ProPublica)

December 11, 2020

Photo credit:

“The District Vaccinator,” Harper’s, National Library of Medicine.

The Best of the Week’s News:

When will I get my COVID vaccine: An epidemiologist and veteran activist explains. (The Nation)
NYC delivery workers organize for a better life. DoorDash drivers would have to work for two days to buy a single share in the company. (The City)
A man with a political manifesto and an alleged pipe bomb threatened to blow up Teamster headquarters in Spokane, he has also been charged with setting a fire that nearly consumed the office of the Spokane County Democrats. (Fox 28)
The GOP’s poison pill to sabotage COVID relief. (American Prospect)

December 4, 2020

Photo credit:

Unifor president Jerry Dias, by People’s Social Forum, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News:

Google illegally fired and surveilled workers trying organize, the NLRB alleges. (VICE)
As COVID radicalizes workers, ambulance attendants say the pandemic is pushing them to the brink. (TNR, WaPo)
How Maine lawmen run amok. (Bangor Daily News)
Unifor leader Jerry Dias triumphs, convinces GM to stay in Oshawa, Ontario. (Financial Post)