Round 2 of elections will be held Thursday.

A black man's only use is to dispense candy to white women, and when he fails to do so, he must be kicked until he works again.

This Skittles commercial blatantly promotes reliance on racist stereotypes and behaviors.

It reminds me of BlackJerry, except without the astute political commentary.

Really, Skittles?!

I love getting these kinds of e-mails from the Innocence Project.

They tell me about their clients, prisoners serving time, who they have helped exonerate through the use of DNA evidence.

Oh, our criminal justice system….

Read the full text of the Innocence Project's e-mail below:

What a wonderful way to start the New Year. Today in Dallas, Texas, Rickey Dale Wyatt was cleared after spending 31 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. A Dallas County judge released Wyatt and recommended that his 1981 rape conviction be overturned based on DNA and other evidence.

Tragically, attorneys who prosecuted Wyatt 31 years ago contributed to this miscarriage of justice by concealing evidence of his innocence. The case was built on faulty eyewitness testimony, yet the victim originally described a perpetrator much taller and heavier than Wyatt. The prosecution dismissed these inconsistencies, arguing that the defendant’s appearance could have changed in the interval between the crime and his arrest.  But there were documents in the prosecutor’s file proving that his appearance had not changed.  Had this been shared with the defense as required by law, Wyatt may never have been found guilty.

The efforts of the Dallas District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit to seek the truth in this case are exemplary. The Unit helped secure DNA testing of biological evidence, which supported Wyatt’s innocence although it was somewhat degraded. This evidence, as well as the discovery of prosecutorial misconduct at trial, compelled authorities to further investigate the case and ultimately to call for Wyatt’s release.

Ten Dallas exonerees also attended today’s hearing to show support for Wyatt and to celebrate his freedom. Mr. Wyatt plans to live with his nephew Robert Smith, who testified at his trial and who now ministers to people returning from prison. Wyatt and his family will greet supporters and speak to the media at a press conference outside the Dallas County Courthouse. The Innocence Project is assisting with Wyatt’s adjustment to the outside world after three decades of wrongful imprisonment. We anticipate his full exoneration later this year.

Mr. Wyatt’s defense team includes the Innocence Project, Gary Udashen, of Sorrels, Udashen & Anton and the Innocence Project of Texas.

Thank you for your commitment to justice,

 

Maddy deLone
Executive Director
The Innocence Project

That our country has a secret prison where we 'detain' people for indefinite amounts of time without trials.

It's called Guanatanamo Bay, and it's been open for 10 years.

According to the New York Times, in January of 2009, Obama issued an executive order instructing the CIA to close down Guanatanamo within the year, calling the secret prison camp "a damaging symbol to the world."

Three years later, the New York Times reports that 171 prisoners remain there now. You can read a docket listing the prisoners' full names. Many of them have been held since 2002, when the prison opened.

Help put an end to this unfair treatment by signing Amnesty's petition to Obama, participating in Amnesty's National Day of Action Against Guantanamo on January 11th in D.C., or simply becoming better education on the situation, for instance by reading Poems from Guantanamo Bay, poems written directly by the prisoners and edited by Marc Falkoff.

The full text of Amnesty's e-mail is included below:

January 11, 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of "war on terror" detainees at Guantanamo. We're not going to let this day pass quietly.

Sign Amnesty's global petition urging President Obama to finally follow through on his promise to close Guantanamo. Help us meet our goal of 100,000 signatures worldwide — signatures we plan to deliver straight to the White House door. 

We haven't forgotten President Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo, one of his first acts as president. Nearly three years later, the President has failed to keep his end of the bargain.

Even worse, President Obama has yet again relented to extremists in Congress. On New Year's Eve, he signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, along with its appalling detention provisions.


We lost that fight, but there's reason for hope. The battle over the NDAA united activists across the ideological divide, who put differences aside and came together to oppose the NDAA. 

January 11th isn't just any anniversary. This year, it's acritical moment to rise up against a shameful decade of human rights abuses perpetrated in our name. We can't let the recent outrage against the NDAA simply ebb away — help us channel this passion into a movement rededicated to closing Guantanamo! 


Guantanamo is a costly human rights catastrophe. Military and intelligence experts have repeatedly asserted that Guantanamo and the violations it stands for are immoral, illegal and counterproductive to US national security. 


There is a simple solution to closing Guantanamo — either charge detainees and give them a fair trial in US federal court, or release them. 


Sign our petition to tell President Obama that we are tired of his excuses. Guantanamo must be closed. 

For many, the New Year holiday embodies humanity's hopes for the future. Here's to 2012 — and with your help, this could be Guantanamo's final year.

Sincerely, 
Zeke Johnson
Director, Security with Human Rights Campaign
Amnesty International USA

P.S. It's not too late to join us in Washington, DC on January 11th for a National Day of Action Against Guantanamo. Lend a hand to our human chain! 

Whether you agree with the Princeton Review's school rankings or not, this is a good opportunitity to influence this institution which informs so much of our education system.

So, take the SURVEY and tell the Princeton Review what you think of your school.

And post pro/con arguments for the ranking system to begin with, if you feel so empassioned.

The Chicago Innocent Project, similar to Brandeis' own Schuster Institute Brandeis Innocence Project, investigates criminal cases in which prisoners may have been wrongfully convicted. According to the nationwide Innocence Project's site, there have been 281 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States, including 17 who served time on Death Row. If ever there were a strong argument against the death penalty, there it is.

This holiday season, why not watch some movies which explore the merits and flaws of our criminal justice system? Having only watched #s 10, 9, and 3, I can't vouch for the majority of the movies on this list, but all of them raise good questions and promote awareness of the flaws in our criminal justice system, regardless of their cinematic worth.

For extended synopses and commentary, read Protess' full article.

10. Conviction

9. My Cousin Vinny

8. In the Name of the Father 

7. Murder on a Sunday Morning

6. The Fugitive 

5. The Hurricane (a movie about the life of Ruben Carter, the Vice President of the Chicago Innocence Project)

4. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

3. Shawshank Redemption 

2. The Thin Blue Line

1. The Wrong Man 

We, the staff here at Innermostparts, would like to apologize for our recent hiatus from reporting.

We know that people like you depend upon us for something, whether it be entertainment, news, or child support, and we feel badly when we deprive you of these essentials.

We believe it is a blog's job to update frequently and consistently, and to provide its readership base with thoughtful and relavent material on a regular basis.

With that said, it is difficult to live up to these standards without a big editorial and writing staff. As you can see from recent posts, although we have several one-time contributors, our writing staff has grown very small and disorganized.

This is a call to action.

Whether you often find cool social justice articles on huffingtonpost and want to do more than like them on your facebook, or you find yourself writing theses on women's rights that you have nowhere to send; whether you want to write a post an hour or copyedit others' grammar once a month, if you are interested in joining the ranks of Esther Brandon, Sahar Massachi, Elly Kalfus, Rocky Reichman and others, please let us know! We are happy to talk with you about the possibility of joining Innermostparts, Brandeis' only social activism blog!

E-mail us at C...@Innermostparts.org, subject line: Writing for Innermostparts, and we will be in touch, or track one of us down in person and express your interest.

There's a lot going on in the world and we want you to help us cover it.

We value your feedback.

Thank you!

-Innermostparts

Excerpts from Health Center e-mail:

Walk in shots available Monday through Friday 9:00am – 11:00am and 1:30pm – 3:30pm. Shots are available by appointment if neccessary.  Please call             781-736-3677       to schedule. 

Cost is $20 cash only please, receipts for insurance reimbursement available upon request.

$20 is pretty good for a shot these days, although we'd like to know more about which kinds they'll be serving. In addition, cash bars are somewhat inconvenient, especially on Brandeis' campus, with its scarcity of neighboring banks and ATM's.

Brought to you by: Truthtoitsonionmostparts

We forgot to post the link yesterday, so now it becomes an experiment: only you can test it out: does the link still work even though it is now Tuesday?

1. Link to the first Pulse survey, on dining: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZQSKKF5

• Tuesday, November 8 - HOUSING (facilities, services, your personal space) 
• Wednesday, November 9 - STUDENT LIFE (clubs, transportation, social life, etc.)
•  Thursday, November 10 - STUDENT UNION (How can we help/represent you?!)
•  Friday, November 11 - WHAT ELSE?! (What else matters to you? SOUND OFF ON ANYTHING!)

As I said before, I think this is a great initiative, and the Dining Survey really addressed key issues, such as the Justice League's Dollar-Point Parity campaign, SEA's Real Food campaign, and the availability of Gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options, to name a few.

Now the question remains to be answered what kind of impact the survey feedback will actually HAVE, and how it will manifest.

• If you run out of ideas for what to put in the comments box, refer to Innemostparts suggestions and critiques, and see if you agree or disagree. For instance, for improvements on housing (the topic of today's survey), was covered last semester by yours truly, http://innermostparts.org/2011/03/17/the-lottery-2/

Having played around on the site, I can now say that it is in fact helpful. 

Basically, Hiatt wants to offer students more opportunities to network, because the more successful Brandeis students and alumni are, the more Brandeis benefits. 

The way this program facilitates success is by allowing students to anonymously "review" internships they have had, including a description of their duties, how it matched up with their expectations, and more. Then, other students can search through this database of internships Brandeis students have held, and find applicable ones.

At first I was annoyed because of the limited search options on the homepage.

However, then I dsicovered that underneath lay a tab for "Advcanced Search options," which includes a wide range of criteria (interests, majors and minors, location, compensation etc.). Just so you're aware.

Looking through users' reviews is informative and entertaining. Since they're anonymous, but users write their major/minor and year of graduation, it's fun trying to guess who's are whose.

Many of the internships sound awesome, and it's nice to know that they've employed Brandeisians before, since that will presumably give you a leg up when applying.

One complaint, however, is that most of the links to the organizations' websites don't work, but instead redirect you to a new page, reading:

Not Found

The requested URL /InternshipReview/[insert correct link here] was not found on this server.

The correct link is included at the end of the incorrect link, so it's still possible to find the organizartion's site you're looking for, it just makes it that much more difficult. 

So, good job, Hiatt. Thanks for giving me MORE ways to procrastinate. But also to find jobs. Thanks.

AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps whose primary focus is "the Jewish community's fight against the causes and effects of poverty in the United States," is coming under fire for sponsoring a trip to Israel. 

"We do this by engaging participants in service and community building that inspire them to become lifelong agents for social change whose work for justice is rooted in and nourished by Jewish values."

AVODAH, which has a close relationship with Brandeis, and currently has 6 Brandeis alumni participating in work across the nation, had stayed out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until now, keeping its focus on problems in the U.S.

However, the organization's recent decision to sponsor a service-learning trip to Israel, run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, is provoking a response from many involved who view the trip as a pro-Israel, anti-Palestine statement.

People against the trip have created an open letter and petition to AVODAH asking it to alter the trip's focus to include Palestinian points of view, reject grants which would necessitate a similarly one-sided trip again, and open a public discussion on what AVODAH's stance on the issue should be.

One excerpt from the letter:

"It is grossly irresponsible for AVODAH to whitewash Israeli policies while still claiming to stand for social justice."

Although I do not have a great understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli politics at the moment, and know this is contentious ground, I agree with many of the points expressed in the letter, especially that of a call for a community discussion concerning AVODAH's stance on the topic, and mandating that trips be as objective and inclusive as possible to all interested participants.

To form your own opinion, read the full text of the letter below and sign the petition if you so choose.

An Open Letter to AVODAH from Alumni, Participants and other Community Members

Sign the letter now!

 

We, AVODAH participants, alumni, donors, and community members oppose AVODAH's recent decision to sponsor a trip to Israel through its alumni program, Pursue. In yielding to partisan pressure from wealthy funders Charles and Lynn Schusterman, AVODAH has strayed from its stated mission of focusing on domestic poverty, while also neglecting its core commitments to Jewish pluralism and social justice. 

As a domestic-focused service corps, AVODAH has thus far refrained from addressing the potentially contentious issue of the conflict in Israel-Palestine. Yet AVODAH has chosen sides by accepting a grant that requires sponsorship of an Israel trip, bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the forefront of our community's discourse. As a social justice organization, AVODAH is committed to addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality. This service-learning trip, run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, lacks any engagement with the military occupation of Palestine, one of the primary causes of poverty in Israeli-controlled territory. The trip does not include visits to the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, or East Jerusalem, where ongoing human rights violations have economically and politically disenfranchised over four million Palestinian people. It is grossly irresponsible for AVODAH to whitewash Israeli policies while still claiming to stand for social justice. 

This recent decision – made without any community input – is part of a systematic marginalization of alternative voices within the institutional Jewish community. While AVODAH was previously a space where all political viewpoints on Israel-Palestine were welcome, the organization may now alienate a growing generation of Jews who see Israeli policy as inconsistent with Jewish social justice values. In sponsoring this trip, AVODAH has taken a political stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, violating its own commitment to pluralism. Many in the AVODAH community oppose Israel's occupation of Palestine, and some even support the economic and cultural boycott of the State of Israel. These participants, alumni and prospective applicants feel abandoned by the organization, which has chosen to engage in one-sided, uncritical programming. 

This decision will set a precedent by which AVODAH leadership prioritizes funders over the values of their own community. This is why we demand that AVODAH publicly commit to: 

1. Modify the trip itinerary to incorporate significant critical engagement with Israeli policy in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. This must include visits to occupied Palestine and interactions with Palestinians who live there. 

2. Never sponsor another Israel trip in this way again. 

3. Never accept money from the Schustermans, or any other group, if it necessitates AVODAH or Pursue's engagement in one-sided programming on Israel-Palestine. 

4. Begin a community-wide discussion on how AVODAH and Pursue should handle the question of Israel-Palestine as a Jewish organization committed to social justice. 

We are awaiting your reply.

 

Sign the letter now!

Well, not that many people participated, so we didn't gather that much information. This was due to a combination of lack of advertisement/buildup and it being summer, so I'm not pointing any fingers.

But, I do think surveys are a great way to gauge what needs to be changed, so I'm excited that the Student Union will be conducting a series of surveys starting Monday on food, shelter, quality of existence, government, and anything else. It's called the Union Pulse.

Also, theirs sound more enticing, since they're offering (non-partisan) prizes.

Give them some feedback. Help THEM help YOU.

Help Me Help You

So I know you all get a lot of surveys from a lot of different people…

but how often do you get to see what people really said in those surveys? 

      How often do you get to see your voice and your opinion making a difference?

 

With that in mind, the Student Union introduces the…

Union

 PULSE!

Monday, November 7 – Friday, November 11

 

Each day you will receive an email. And each day all of you will have a chance to sound off on the following topics. The schedule is as follows:

1. Monday, November 7 - DINING 

(hours, kosher/vegan options, meals, convenience)

2. Tuesday, November 8 - HOUSING

(facilities, services, your personal space)

3. Wednesday, November 9 - STUDENT LIFE 

(clubs, transportation, social life, etc.)

4. Thursday, November 10 - STUDENT UNION 

(How can we help/represent you?!)

5. Friday, November 11 - WHAT ELSE?!

(What else matters to you? SOUND OFF ON ANYTHING!)

 

Check your email every morning, and please take a moment to share your thoughts on the daily topic. It is anonymous, but then you'll have another form where you can… WIN PRIZES! 

-Herbie

This is great. Ideally you should be able to ask your professor to lunch whenever you want, and not have it be awkward, but the truth is, at least for me, it would be uncomfortable to randomly ask them out. So now there's an excuse, errr, I mean, reason! 

Isn't it weird how everything I'm writing makes it sound like a teacher-student risque rendezvous?

At first I thought it was just me, but then I re-read the Student Union e-mail:

This is a wonderful opportunity to talk to your professor on a personal, informal level.

Again, I think it's just me. Also, weirdly, if you dine at the Faculty Club (or anywhere), tip is NOT included in the voucher, even if your food costs less than the value of the voucher. Why?

Read details below:

The Student Union will provide $20 vouchers to have lunch with a professor anywhere on campus for two weeks from November 7-17. To participate, please fill out this survey: http://goo.gl/Wkxp1

We're in the Top 8 Round for the Most Vegan Friendly Competition! So Vote here:

http://features.peta2.com/Vegan-Colleges-2011/default.asp?defaultTab=small&c=p211vfc39

Voting ends Monday, so get us into the final four!