As the World Cup draws to a close, check out this video of a recent debate between Arun Gupta, one of the founding editors of The Indypendent, and Nation magazine sports columnist Dave Zirin, on the political and social relevance of sports. The debate, which was held at the Brecht Forum [...] read more »

Amid the continuing fallout over the deadly confrontation on the Gaza aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, there is a critical historical lesson: There is only one real victim, and that is Israel. read more »

You've never seen a school lunch like this one, made with hydroponic vegetables and free-range chicken by a brash British superchef. Not that the elementary schoolchildren care. Most sing-song "Pizza!" when given a choice between the gourmet grub and the reheated factory-made frozen pizza. At the end of the lunch period, a mound of chicken sits untouched, and even more is dumped into the trash after a few wary nibbles. read more »

While many of the city’s filmmakers and musicians have fled to Austin, TX for the annual SXSW festival, LeftForum 2010 is getting underway here in NYC this weekend, drawing its typically large and eclectic pool of politically left thinkers, scholars, activists, artists and students. Check out the schedule here; and if you haven’t registered to [...] read more »

Official denials aside, the United States has embarked on a new military occupation of Haiti thinly cloaked as disaster relief. read more »

Since 1950, Port-au-Prince’s population has exploded from 144,000 to about 2.5 million. While the wealthy capital-area suburb of Petionville was largely spared, with few homes destroyed, poor people packed in shoddy housing, bore the brunt of the death and destruction. The underdevelopment of Haiti is the underlying cause. read more »

If one case encapsulates the disaster that is the Obama administration, it may be the dustup over the A.I.G. bonuses last March. Recall that extreme gambling by A.I.G. Financial Products nearly crashed the world in 2008, necessitating a taxpayer bailout of $182.3 billion (and counting). read more »

As Obama commits 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, reporter Anand Gopal makes sense of a war without end. read more »

Don’t believe that politicians and corporations lack the will to address climate change. They have the will to deny the science of climate change, the will to sabotage negotiations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the will to foist half-baked schemes on us to address global calamity. read more »

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