Month: April 2008

If I had a million dollars, I’d buy you a house. If we had $100,000 dollars, we could buy us: – Brandeis 10-Member Delegation to Rwanda – New Weight Room in Gosman Athletic Center – One-Day Carnival – Peace and Social Justice Week – Radio Transmitter for WBRS – Renovation of Chums – Sexually Transmitted […]

I recieved an email from newly appointed Chief Justice Rachel Kagan early this morning. Basically, it says that the UJ will hear Brooks’ case before the end of the semester, probably tomorrow. It also names Kaamilla and Noam as defendants in addition to Nelson Rutrick in his capacity as elections commissioner. Both Brooks’ original compaint […]

On Friday, April 11, then-Student Union President Shreeya Sinha wrote a campus-wide email soliciting ideas on how to spend the approximately $100,000 it had accumulated in roll-over funds. Well, the proposals have been submitted, and we’ll all be able to vote on how to spend the money from noon today to noon Thursday. While I […]

Sorry to be a hypocrite and add another post on this tired and beaten subject, but some clarifications on stuff people seem to be confused about… From the Student Union Bylaws: Should a candidate be disqualified during balloting, the election shall be voided and a new election for that position shall be held. Should a […]

So some folks doing a journalism project made themselves a blog. Welcome! It’s called “Unto Its Innermost Parts“? Scandal! You know what they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; looks like our influence is spreading. Seriously though, welcome y’all. U-IP, as I call them, is the web presence of a radio show. They […]

I have always been of the firm belief that the moment an activist movement or presence begins to be taken seriously is the moment at which it begins to be attacked. Therefore, the entire Innermost Parts community owes a big thank you to Andrew Brooks for validating our site and its mission. Seriously, one would […]

I’m sitting in the Senate meeting right now and the new Vice-President Mike Kerns has just announced that Noam Shuster will not be allowed to swear in as Senator-at-Large Andrew Brooks has filed an injunction against Noam Shuster asking that she be not sworn in. The former UJ has accepted the injunction and has left […]

John Ashcroft gave a speech at Knox College the other day. Then came the student question and answer period. It is instructive to see how the students there dealt with him: Chalking Stairs! This looks just like Rabb. Clever. As to the questions, I’ll quote a few –

Tonight is the first night of Passover, and I’m with the Hirschhorn family in Philadelphia. My mother’s brother, Larry, is an alumnus of Brandeis University; he now works as a high-priced business consultant here in Philly. I’m spending a few nights here before moving onto New York with Liza. My cousin Dan Hirschhorn, Larry’s son, […]

Interesting debate shaping up on DailyKos right now. When faced with the dilemma of a Democratic Party imperfect from a progressive perspective, the reaction of most progressives seems to be to work within the Party to bring about needed change rather than to reach out to a third party. In recent years, improved organization among […]

Hey all. Innermost Parts will be on a break until school starts again (the monday after this one). Expect lighter posting, etc. Oh, and happy Pesach / Break.

So, as you know, I was at the Ed Markey address last Sunday. Someone recently asked me what I thought of it. Here’s what I had to say: So first of all I want to say that I respect Congressman Markey a lot. He’s great on Net Neutrality, general Telecommunications policy, and the environment. I […]

Here are the numbers for the statistics-lovers out there.  Congratulations to all the winners.  I’ll leave the interpretation and commenting up to you.  Enjoy! Dear Candidates, The winners of the Associate Justice of the Union Judiciary race are as follows: Judah Marans, Danielle Shmuelly, Julia Sferlazzo, and Rachel Graham Kagan. The winners of the Senator-at-Large […]

Tonight was a great victory for progressive activism at Brandeis University. Andrew Brooks didn’t lose because he’s a bad person. Andrew Brooks didn’t lose because he’s not popular. Andrew Brooks didn’t lose because “lies” were written about him on Innermost Parts. Andrew Brooks lost because the Brandeis community wants change. You don’t have to be […]

This just in – Student Events will now return to the previous arrangement of getting its funding through the Student Union F-Board. Looks like those Student Union protests had an effect after all. I wonder what behind-the-scenes work went into this… This is excellent news – a reminder that we have power, if we organize […]

We did it! Please welcome your newest Senators at Large – Noam Shouster and Justin Sulsky! Also please welcome the senators for the class of 2011 -Lev Hirchscrom and Alex Melman. We did it – an upset victory at Large and solid progressives in Senate of 2011.

(Remember, voting starts (and ends) today. Vote for Noam, Alex Melman, and Lev Hirschorn. They are all pretty awesome people.) I’ll try to keep this as the top post all day: new content below Noam Shuster is a 22 year old Israeli woman. Why is she, then, a freshman at Brandeis University? Because she’s spent […]

This post is part of a series that addresses the physical aspects of our campus, specifically the history and the current state of Brandeis University architecture and planning. I think I can safely say that almost all Brandeisians agree on at least one thing: the Castle is really cool. Many of us have explored its […]

In the end, my initial opposition to Brooks/Sulsky came down to this: It seems that they believe that their mission in the Senate is to improve the material quality of life of students, to bring lox to Einsteins, to organize Midnight Buffets, etc. I believe a Student Union senator has a much greater mission than […]

(update – I’m assured that, in fact, they aren’t.) We’ve been receiving reports all night of a mass email sent by Justin Sulsky on behalf of himself and Andrew Brooks. They’ve used blind-carbon-copy, so we don’t know where they got email addresses of all these people. Now, this is just unsourced speculation at this point, […]

breaking news – Mamoon Darwish is back on the Brandeis campus, and he says that he’s allowed on Brandeis property . He’s in Shapiro Campus Center right now, surrounded by joyful students. Go meet him! More on this story as it develops… update: Mamoon says he is in some sort of disciplinary probation at the […]

One year ago today, 33 people died on the campus of Virginia Tech University – Seung-Hui Cho, a severely disturbed victim of mental illness, and the men and women he killed in their dorms and classrooms. I just came back from a moving vigil organized by my friend Kay, a Virginia native whose friend died in the shootings. […]

Every Tuesday morning I read through The Justice in order to stay current on campus affairs. One of the issues I’ve been following is the Student Bill of Rights, proposed by Jason Gray, Union President-Elect. Jason is a good friend of mine, and he’s revealed that the Student Rights and Responsibilities is long on responsibilities […]

The Elections Commission sent me these preliminary results. I encouraged them to make students more aware that they can obtain these numbers and also to post them on the Union website. Senator for the Class of 2009 As at poll close: Tue 15 Apr 2008 23:59 EDT Number of voters: 186 · Group size: 794 […]

We did it! Think about this for a minute. We squared off against a pair of entrenched Union insiders, both of whom were listed on the ballot, with a freshman candidate and a grassroots group founded just hours before the election. Yet we still were able to pull together more than enough of the vote […]

I have been pondering activist coalitions at Brandeis for a while, so it’s with great anticipation that I pass on the info for this event: Spend some time with Nobel Peace Prize nominee and leading African American, lesbian social justice activists as she is at Brandeis this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Carter will be giving […]

Thanks to a combination of Lev, facebook, and word of mouth, we have the results: Remaining candidates – (winners in bold) 2011: Alex Melman, Lev Hirschhorn, Lexi Kriss, Naomi Cohn 2010: Paul Balik, Rebecca Wilkoff 2009: Sung Lo Yoon, Eric Alterman, Dani Baronofsky. Judiciary: Julia Sferlazzo, Jordan Rothman, Rachel Kagan, Judah Marans, Danielle Shmuelly, Zachary […]

It’s currently 1:15pm. The first round of Student Union Elections officially ended over one hour ago, yet I still haven’t received any results. I have been very disappointed with how the Union has made no effort at transparency in this election cycle. The votes are counted via computer software, so we should be able to […]

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. There will be a candle-light vigil held at Chapel’s Field from 7-8pm. On April 16th, 2007 Virginia Tech was the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. A total of 32 people were shot and killed, in addition to the shooter who later took […]

It is obvious to me that Brandeis seeks to destroy Modernism on its campus. In architecture there is the so-called “50 year rule” which says that after 50 years a building will be harshly criticized as unsightly, a monstrosity, etc. Considering that many of Brandeis’ buildings were constructed in the 1950s during what is called […]

(bumped and edited slightly for tone- Sahar) As Sahar mentioned in the previous post, a grassroots movement has been started to impact the Senator-at-Large election by writing in Noam Shuster in place of backwards reactionaries Andrew Brooks and Justin Sulsky. To this movement I would like to add one of my own: another campaign focused […]

The Globe just did a feature focusing on Sam Vaghar and Seth Werfel, specifically regarding the Millenium Campus Network. Don’t tell Sam Vaghar that today’s generation is apathetic. At 21, the Newton North High School graduate and senior at Brandeis University is the executive director of a growing nonprofit organization dedicated to tackling the planet’s […]

Feya Hillel an organizer of the Silent Protest, 2010 Senate Candidate (and, in the interest of disclosure, a friend of mine) sent out the following message: Hey guys, the 2 ppl running for senator at large this year are the same people that i talked about in the demonstration, denying my Palestinian identity!! that’s why […]

Stop the election! Voting begins (and ends) today in the primary round of the Spring 2008 Round 2 elections. Yet, problems in the voting software have rendered the results of the primary suspect. Observe: As you can see, one should be able to vote for two candidates for Senate. The software only allows one vote. […]

This just in: The Nepalese people overwhelmingly reject the monarchy in their latest elections by voting for … Maoists! The Maoist government will proceed to dismantle the pillars of Nepal’s feudal structure and will take recourse to radical economic and political reforms based on distributive justice and egalitarian principles. That is bound to catch the […]

While we’re on the topic of kudos to Jehuda, I’d like to thank the Administration for, among other things, refusing to take huge bribes to force Ayn Rand down our throats. CEO’s are trying push their free-market ideology, Ayn Rand’s novels of headstrong entrepreneurs’ battles against convention enjoy a devoted following in business circles. While […]

Happy thought: It is possible to be such a spectacular and cringe-worthy Bush-party loyalist that no one will hire you.

Quick notes from the address- 4:22 – There are lakes formingin the sheets of ice on Greenland. The melted water also flows to  the  bottom on the ice sheets, lubricatingthe ice sheets and carrying them ever so swiftly to the sea. 4:25 – Whyisthe world angryat us? “Most of the CO2 is Red White Blue” […]

I’m in Rappaporte Treasure hall right now for the Ed Markey address. President Jehuda Reinhartz  just said, “The sight of a water bottle makes my blood boil.” He just pledged to eliminate all water bottles on campus. Congrats to SEA for making this happen.