Year: 2008

I just read something and it really struck me:

I just watched the BBC News. It appears that at their party conference in the UK, Labour is once gain calling for the nationalization of industries, openly rejecting Blair-ism are the abandonment of Clause IV. Meanwhile, back here in America, conservatives are blaming the financial meltdown on minorities and diversity. In the midst of it all, an African-American leads the campaign for President and, after previously nationalizing the mortgage sector, Congress now openly talks of nationalizing an additional 5% of the national economy. Republicans, by contrast, just want to hand over more money to corporate executives. Oh yeah–and there are no more investment banks.

We’re in the middle of two wars, we find stories of runaway executive power boring and passe. We’re in the midst of the second internet boom (with the attendant rise in the pseudo-economic “network thinking”). Wars and shit are going on all around us. Israel-Hezbollah. Georgia. The congo, darfur, and who knows what else. These last few years have seen a pretty uniform political shift, where states that had left-leaning governments at the turn of the century (germany, france, uk) elect conservative governments, and right-leaning states (US, Japan, Australia) are shifting leftwards. The internet has led to decentralized political and economic innovation the world over. First outsourcing is the hot new trend/bogeyman, but now the rise in cost of shipping has effectively raised our barriers to trade to pre-NAFTA /WTO levels.

Truly, we live in interesting times.

Due to elections (I’m running!) and massive amounts of work, expect a lighter posting schedule until mid-to-late week. Sorry. -Sahar

I’ve been assured that this’ll be the biggest thing on campus for at least this week.
This event features the Deans of both Heller and IBS, talking about the mortgage mess and so forth.

Jason Gray tells me that it’ll be big. That’s good enough for me.

Make sure you go, dudes.

Date:
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Time:
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Location:
Brandeis Rapaporte Treasure Hall in the Library

Brandeis University Forum on U.S. Economic Policy
The U.S. Financial Crises and What the Next President Might Do About It

This forum is an installment of the Brandeis University “Spotlight on Economic Distress” series.

***Financial Crisis at Home and Abroad – Imagining the next President’s agenda***

The Collapse of the subprime mortgage market has shaken U.S. and global financial markets. Iconic corporations are mired in bankruptcies and bailouts. Economic growth is down sharply, with no sign yet of recovery. In this program, leading Brandeis experts explore the downturn’s impact and consider how to make matters better.

Featured speakers:

Lisa M. Lynch: Dean and Professor of Economics at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Lynch is currently chair of the Board of Directors of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, and she is a former chief economist at the Department of Labor (Under President Clinton).

Bruce R. Magid: Dean of the Brandeis International Business School and holder of the Martin and Ahuva Gross Chair in Financial Markets and Institutions. Magid is a former managing director and senior vice president at Bank of America.

Moderated by: David Warsh, economic journalist and proprietor of EconomicPrincipals.com. Former writer for the Boston Globe for 22 years.

This event is free and open to the public. Reservations not required.

Food and Beverages will be served.

Congratulations Mr. Hughes.

In honor of Nas’ concert tonight:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yydpWtjqa8[/youtube]

Alternative video

Here’s the info:

Tickets bought at the door are $25.00.

In addition, if you have already bought your ticket, please be aware that doors open at 7 pm. The openers will be DJ Raj, Jon Hope, and the Green Lantern.  The following restrictions will be in place for the venue:
No bags allowed
No food/beverages allowed (including the Brandeis water bottle)
No video cameras or other recording devices
Metal Detectors will be in use

I have a piece published in The Hoot this week, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at The Hoot. This is because instead of “By Nathan Robinson,” Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper decided that it would rather print “By Maxwell Price” in the byline. No, I don’t know why they did this.

The story (it’s short, don’t worry) goes like this: On Wednesday, Sept. 17^th at approximately 2:07 p.m. I received an email from one Maxwell Price. The email said this:

Hey Nathan,

My name is Max Price and I am the new editor of the culture/arts section of the Hoot. I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your insightful piece about the Hoffman autobiography and also to let you know that it will be published this week. See the attachment with a few small changes I made.

Also, if you’re interested in helping to carry on Hoffman’s tradition, come to Pom 502 at 11pm tonight for a meeting of P.O.Y.A. (Pissed off Youth of America), an organization I recently founded. For more info you can contact me or just show up tonight. Thanks!

-Max

Well, I didn’t go to his club. Not that I’m not a pissed off youth, which I am, though whether I am “of America” is debatable. But 11pm is past my bedtime, and besides, I try to avoid ever venturing into East Quad. I hear it has house centipedes, and those things are horrifying.

I think, though, that I may have made Max Price hate me. I did not mean to do this. From his email, he sounds like a very nice man. It’s bubbly and warm. Maybe he and I can still be friends someday. I hope so. If he gives me a hug and a high-five next time I see him, we’ll pretend nothing happened. And he and I can start a revolution together, or maybe go out for a sandwich.

Anyway, my point is this. Go and read the article. It can be found here.

Continue reading “I am Slightly Annoyed with The Hoot (But You Should Read It Anyway!)”

Rivka made a great point in the comments that I think everyone should read, so I hadher rpeost i tto the front page: –Sahar

As for whether or not the last Union was “progressive”… it feels really, really weird to apply that term to the Union/Brandeis Senators, but for lack of a better one, I understand it to mean the following:

A progressive Union is one that seeks to use what limited power they have to actively improve student life at Brandeis, with an emphasis on the institution’s historic commitment to social justice and an awareness that the school is part of the outside world.

Last year Phil and I sat and watched incredulously as several Senators spoke against and voted against a simple measure to inform the administration that the students of Brandeis would like to be more actively involved in important decisions (such as, but not limited to, the arming of the public safety officers) and feel that setting up an ad-hoc summer committee with two appointed students is not adequate involvement. 850 students signed their names to this resolution– almost exactly as many as voted in the last election. But the Senate voted it down. One Senator gave pedantic and condescending musings about the dangers of “too much democracy,” comparing the students telling the administration “gee, it would be nice if we had just a little more input” to the election of generals in Athenian democracy and the early Continental Army. (WTF?!?!) Another Senator told Phil and me that our collecting 850 student signatures voicing frustration over the administration’s procedures was “disgraceful” and that we should “just focus on our homework.” One Senator actually told us that he could not support the resolution because “what about all the students that DONT want their voices heard by the administration? What about THEM??” Finally, a Senator informed us that passing a polite, toothless resolution that expressed a student desire for more comprehensive student input in certain decisions was simply beyond the power of the Union.

…As I already mentioned, I know the use of the term “progressive” to describe the Union/Brandeis Senators is loaded and awkward. But I think that the incident described above shows that whatever the Union was… it was absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing.

I look forward this year to a Union full of Senators that dont use their positions as personal ego-boosters but who understand that they DO have some power– and they use that power to improve Student life at Brandeis and to preserve Brandeis’ reputation for a commitment to social justice both on campus and in the world.

Have you ever wanted your club to get more help putting on bigger and better events? Have you always wanted to find different groups to partner with, but didn’t know where to start?

The CCB will provide a forum for club leaders to more easily co-sponsor and program joint-events. By promoting cooperation between clubs on an equal basis — especially clubs that don’t traditionally work together — we can all create programming that is more creative and larger in scale.

For the CCB to succeed, we need your help in finalizing its organization.

If you’re interested in learning more, have suggestions, or just want to participate, please come to the first meeting on Thursday, September 25th at 5PM in the Student Union Office on the third floor of the Shapiro Campus Center.

At this meeting, we will work together to create a structure and organization for the CCB to succeed.

If you have any questions, please contact Alex Braver at alexb@ or Ryan McElhaney at ryanm@

Sounds like a good idea for a thing to do…

For those of you who are club leaders, you are probably well aware that this semester the Finance Board decided that they would not be paying for Coffeehouse fees at Chums. For those unaware, now you know.

To host a coffeehouse at Chums, an independent student run business, clubs and outside groups are required to pay Chums $50 to use the space. In this last semester, FBoard was willing to pay this price so that clubs could hold these events that promote their club and their activities. This semester FBoard is demanding that clubs find an alternative source of funding. One option is to collect money at the door; though Chums prohibits clubs from charging money for entry, clubs are allowed to ask for ‘suggested donations.’ In my previous experience with this method, the money collected via donations is far less than the money needed to pay the $50 fee.

Continue reading “The Coffeehouse Problem”

In stream-of-consciousness form.

Wow, what an increase in turnout. About 600 people voted in the primary round; 913 voted in the final round. That’s about a 52% increase in turnout to about 30% (assuming we have 3200 undergrad students).

Is 30% turnout something to celebrate? Well, the last “all-campus” election (Senator at Large) had a turnout of 895 students, which is pretty comparable to the 913 that voted this time.

How Adam did it – an army of volunteers who had polling stations in Usdan and Sherman at all times, as well as those who canvassed almost every dorm on campus. He also had us rooting for him too. Hopefully that meant something.

Well well now. So I ended up endorsing the current Student Union President, Vice President, and Three Senators, one of whom is the head of the Social Justice commitee, and one of whom co-founded Innermost Parts. Hell, the new VP is practically the second-in-command here on the blog as well. So – we’ve got good people in the right places. There’s no reason not to expect great things from them. Time to shift from a tone of “the nebulous student union should do this” to “dude I have a great idea let’s run with it!”

So yeah. Time to start laying out even more positive agenda items, etc. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t call out the Student Union if they act badly, however.

The runoff came down to two candidates, both running on activist platforms. I think this reflects a real desire from the students at Brandeis to bring back the “social justice spirit”, to rise over the balkanization of clubs and have a more unified campus. In other words, we students really take this whole “Brandeis Values” thing seriously. We all try to realize that through the lens of different clubs – DFA, SEA, SPA, etc. I think there’s a hunger for a more over-arching sense of campus solidarity.

I’m really impressed by Adam and his rapid ascent. Word up.

OK then. Now what mandate does the new VP have, based on the issues he ran on?
Continue reading “Post-Election Thoughts”

It’s a great day for the Progressive Party (if you can call it that).  Adam Hughes will be in charge of setting the tone and moderating the debate in the Senate, which is great.  We’ll also have him to participate and report on executive board happenings.  Personally, there are two operational reforms I think the Senate needs.  First, in debate there should not be any “neutral” speakers allowed.  In my time testifying before the Senate, I witnessed a number of senators take unfair advantage of the rule that speakers for, neutral, and against all receive equal speaking time in turn.  Senators against a proposal in principle spoke as “neutral” and used negative language to destroy the proposal in question.   Secondly, there should not be closed-doors executive board meetings.   Of all the Student Union meetings held, the ones with only the executive board are often the most important, and the student body needs to be informed of their discussion.

By my count, the Progressive Party holds five of the nine Senate seats currently occupied.  We have Noam as Senator-at-Large, Paul as Senator for the Class of 2010, Alex and Lev for the Class of 2011, and Kamerin for Racial Minority Students.  Add Adam to that and I’d say we’re doing pretty well!  Also, I can’t go without mentioning Jason Gray.  He’s with the progressive agenda, but unlike some of our other candidates who unfortunately caused greater divides in their campaigns, Jason is a real consensus President.

A good Progressive is always looking ahead.  Even though we can celebrate Adam’s victory tonight, we must remember that the regularly-scheduled fall elections are still to come, and that those seats will determine control of the Senate.

Adam wins!

update:
Rank    Candidate              Votes    %
1          Adam T. Hughes   524       57.39
2          Andrew Brooks      360       39.43
3          ABSTAIN                29         3.18

As the title says, there’s less than one hour left to vote in the Student Union Vice President Special Election.

I have to admit, I was skeptical at first of Adam’s run for VP.  I suppose I didn’t really know him that well.  All I knew was that he was Sahar’s friend and he was a big blog junkie.  Lately I’ve come to know Adam in a much different light.  When speaking with him in person, I notice his strong eagerness to serve the student body and continue where the great Mike Kerns left off.   He really cares about making Brandeis a more progressive place.  He’s got the right positions on the top issues: campus sustainability, gun control, and equal housing.   The Vice President of the Union (quite literally) sets the debate by governing parliamentary procedure during Senate meetings.   From what I’ve learned about Adam, he knows in which direction he wants to take this University.   Adam Hughes is the progressive choice.  Adam Hughes is my choice for Student Union Vice President.

You may recall that last year there was considerable talk about a bicycle program for Brandeis students. We would all pay a small fee, and would then get access to bikes, so that we could ride all over town and annoy the Waltham traffic. So what happened? As far as I can tell, there isn’t any bike program. If there was, I’d be riding one right now, instead of sitting on my fat lazy ass in front of the computer.

Maybe this thing was never proposed. Maybe I’m imagining it. But I’m fairly sure it was promised, and yet seems to have somehow sunk to the bottom of the sea. I think it might have been the baby of Michael Kerns, actually, which may be why it never came to fruition. Seems like nothing ever gets done around here without Kerns.

Whatever the explanation, there is no reason why this great program shouldn’t go forward. Hell, this thing has been talked about for years. An editorial in The Hoot back in 2005 proposed turning us all into bike-riding communists:
Continue reading “Bicycles, perhaps?”

Nathan is a new writer for us. Please welcome him to the blog. -Sahar

      Last year, each morning I went up to the Information Booth in the Shapiro Campus Center and obtained a crisp copy of the day’s New York Times. These were free, as part of some sort of program-thingy that Brandeis runs to give newspapers to the masses. They also gave out The Boston Globe and The Financial Times. Nobody wanted those, though, because the Globe is a watery version of the NY Times, and the Financial Times is printed on paper the color of salmon, and salmon is no color for a newspaper. Fish and news should be kept in separate spheres.

      Anyway, this year, the papers are gone. Disappeared! No longer is there a fresh stack of papers lurking in the info-booth. We used to have a sort of secret little club for those who knew how to properly sidle up to the booth, give a knowing look, and flash their ID. That has vanished without notice. The little info-people in the red shirts have all offered me contradictory and unsatisfactory explanations for this mystery.

       “Where have the papers gone?” I ask them. Many do not know. Others offer lies and conjecture.

      “They will be here when the time is right,” one tells me. “They have gone,” another says. Others tell me the Times will return within the week, though some say it could take a matter of months. None have a reason for the phenomenon.

      Meanwhile, I am news-less. My morning coffee-and-paper routine has been halfway destroyed. I am forced to get my news from those damned wretched untrustworthy “blog” things, or from empty-headed cable-news people. I have to substitute Wolf Blitzer for Bob Herbert (and despite having the coolest name on the entire planet, Wolf Blitzer is supremely useless as a source of information).

      So my question for Brandeis is this: WTF? Where did the papers go? Why can’t I grab a Times in the morning? How are we supposed to keep ourselves informed on The Issues Of The Day? By reading The Hoot? Surely not! Perhaps Innermost Parts can equip us with our basic knowledge, but surely the New York Times is a good way to supplement the wisdom of Sahar and the gang.

If you read Innermost Parts, you already know that voting between Adam Hughes and Andrew Brooks for Student Union veep runs from now until 11:59 tonight. Vote now, if you haven’t already.

Checked that box? Submitted your vote? Great. Now spread the word. Though I unabashedly support Adam Hughes as much as the next writer here at Innermost Parts, I don’t care whether you support him or Andrew Brooks: guilt your friends. Notify your hall mates. Yell things at strangers. Go dorm storming if you can spare half an hour.

If you’re not good at guilting or yelling, then just bring it up in casual conversation. A lot of people on campus feel they had little time to choose between candidates they know close to nothing about. A lot of people today might forget about the final runoff. Gently remind those people that they have the opportunity to influence decision-making on campus in a matter of minutes. Tell them what you think of Brooks and Hughes, and point them in the right direction.

608 people voting is a lot, but we can get more. 195 people voting for Adam Hughes isn’t enough, but we should get more. Spread the word this very instant.

This is a bit off our normal beat, but worth marveling at.

With the DOW off over 500 points yesterday, Lehman in bankruptcy, the Fed rescuing A.I.G. tonight, the viability of WaMu and others institutions in doubt, Fannie and Freddie placed in conservatorship, a major money market fund halting redemptions, it might seem like the credit crisis is spiraling out of control.

And there are definitely more problems to come.

So it seems that we just nationalized ourselves some banks by accident. Socialism!

First impression – so the US Government now owns a big chunk of the financial industry, eh? This can only increase the power Chris Dodd. All glory to the Dodd!

Seriously, though. Can anyone more informed than me help explain? This would be a good time for, say, a Brandeis Econ Professor to drop by and teach us what the hell is going on.

This is exciting. Remember when Etta King sent out an email telling everyone about her efforts to create a physical location for the Activist Resource Center?

Remember this?

I have proposed to Jason Gray (Student Union President) the establishment of a physical space tentatively called the Activist Resource Center to serve and support the activist community.

If you are interested in discussing this possibility, if you want to have a say in what a place such as the one proposed would look like or do, OR if you think this is an unecessary effort and would like to discuss why, you are invited to a meeting with Jason and I and anyone else who shows up to begin this process. I have been in countless conversations over the last few years about how to better support the activist community, and I think this is a very possible solution towards building better connections between our groups

It’s going down today.
7pm. Shapiro. Union Office.

(You’d have known this already, by the way, by seeing this event on the “Upcoming Events” widget located on the sidebar to the right of this post)

This is it. The final push. Don’t forget to vote. For Adam..

It’s a runoff. Hughes vs Brooks.

update- The numbers:

1 Andrew Brooks 266 43.75
2 Adam T. Hughes 195 32.07
3 Gustavo Pardo 85 13.98
4 Christina Khemraj 37 6.09
5 ABSTAIN 14 2.30
6 Anthony Rios 2 0.33
6 Alex Trott 2 0.33
8 Nate Porteshawver 1 0.16
8 Frank The Tank 1 0.16
8 Jordan Suchow 1 0.16
8 Roy Rotstein 1 0.16
8 Jordan Rothman 1 0.16
8 William Sipzner 1 0.16
8 Alex Braver 1 0.16
15 Alexander Reed Braver 0 0.00
15 Suahd Iddrissu 0 0.00
15 Chaely T. Marrow 0 0.00

According to my back-of-envelope calculations, Adam needs about 4/5 of the Gustavo/Khemraj vote to win, assuming that all who abstained in the first round continue to do so and everyone else votes the same way as they did before (either for Hughes or Brooks or not voting at all).
Winning 80% of those votes is a pretty tall order.

Mike Kerns, outgoing VP of the Brandeis University Student Union, just made a powerful endorsement of Adam Hughes for the same position. Read it for yourself:

VOTE ADAM!...

I wholeheartedly endorse Adam Hughes to succeed me as Vice President. He is a candidate who can truly represent the ‘deis student body and help to guide our Student Union in progressive, truly constructive directions. I have come to know Adam as a selfless individual who has within him all that a true leader requires. While we often find the work of the Student Union to be distant from us, there are a great many impactful issues that need be addressed, and we need Adam to stand for student rights, we need Adam to stand up to the administration when students are barred from campus unduly with their academic careers on the line…we need Adam. There is no question in my mind that he is up to the job, and I respectfully urge you to VOTE NOW (http://union.brandeis.edu/elections/FA08-3/vp#) for Adam. He is simply the candidate I trust to carry on as guardian of our values, our interests, and our community’s priorities as Brandeis’ next Student Union Vice President!

If you’re looking for the candidate whose platform represents who he truly is and what he truly stands for, Adam Hughes is your only choice. He is the activist who actually does more than pay lip service to our community’s concerns at election time. He portrays himself as the individual he actually is as opposed to the candidate painting himself over and pandering at election time. Adam is the candidate who has actually worked hard on the issues touted now by his primary opponent at election time.

I know because I pioneered many of these issues through the Union last year, including gender-neutral housing, tolerance for individual identity, an environmentally friendly campus-wide initiative, a resolution calling for endowment transparency, etc. And I have experienced our candidates in action. Adam is the one for us.

Respectfully, there is a reason Andrew Brooks was voted out of his senate seat last spring, and there is a reason he was so unsuccessful in his previous bid for VP.

That’s how it’s done y’all.

One and a half hours left before the polls close.

All night I’ve been trying to go to http://union.brandeis.edu/elections and vote for Adam Hughes.

All night the server has been crashed. It’s 2:30 at the time of this writing and things don’t seem to have gotten better. Last year we also had problems on election night. Let’s hope that the results will be announced sooner this semester, at least.

As for the mysterious Justin Sulsky email – he pulled the same sort of thing last election. I don’t know where Justin gets access to all students’ emails so quickly. I doubt he painstakingly copied them out from the brandeis people directory. Shady.

Anyways, there are problems with the election website, we here at IP have endorsed a scrappy candidate who happens to be running in the same race as Andrew Brooks, while Justin Sulsky has access to everyone’s email address. It’s April 2008 all over again!

Very rarely am I ever as upset as I presently am. Just a few minutes ago, I received an introductory e-mail from Senator-At-Large Justin Sulsky. This e-mail was written to all the first-years on campus. After giving a two sentence introduction providing the reader with minimal information, he segways into reminding all first years to vote in the Vice Presidential election. Directly following the link to vote, Sulsky moves into a full endorsement – with bolded text! – of Andrew Brooks.

Anyone with common sense can see that this endorsement was intended to abuse the naivete of first years who are less than familiar with Brooks’ schemes for Senate seats. My favorite line of all:

I support Andrew because he will bring a badly needed fresh perspective to the Student Union.

Apart from being utterly false, the above quote has poor sentence structure. Go below the fold for the entire contents of the e-mail.

Continue reading “Another Senate Seat Scheme”

Half an hour before the primary election, and possibly swayed by my ringing endorsement, Mike Kerns has announced his endorsement of Adam Hughes for Student Union Vice President.

More info as this situation develops…

There’s been a lively debate in the comments over the upcoming Vice-Presidential Special Election, but through the lens of analyzing one candidate, Andrew Brooks. This is the case for Adam Hughes, the insurgent candidate for the post (and a fellow here at IP).

What is the character of Brandeis? Is it found in our entreprenurial and innovative spirit? The way that we find people different than us kickass? (We reserve our tolerance for people like Jordan Rothman.) Is it our crusading spirit to heal the world?

Only one man in the running represents all these facets of our beloved school. Only one man can truly represent all these underlying ideals of this community. That man is Adam Hughes.

Continue reading “The Case for Adam Hughes”

Please welcome Emily, another new writer of ours

EDIT: Please read the recent Justice article on this event, which I found very enlightening, particularly the sophomore that was interviewed who was profoundly personally affected by the September 11th attacks. There is a particular reason for my- and other attendees at this discussion- ignorance to his experience, and I wish he was available to speak earlier in the discussion. I find that this new piece of information, along with my own shift of opinion, gives the forum ground to speak of a tragedy as a tragedy, and not a means for analysis and social productivity. However, I am greatly disappointed that there wasn’t, to my knowledge, any other forum on those latter issues that Thursday, and my argument still stands… just not for this particular forum. Thanks again to McElhaney, Grey, and Father Cuenin; new thanks to Michelle Liberman of the Justice.

Student Union President Jason Grey and Director of Community Development Ryan McElhaney held a sparsely attended open commemorative forum for 9/11 Thursday in order to “commemorate, reflect, and remember the lives lost” seven years ago in New York City. Grey and McElhaney invited Father Walter Cuenin, Catholic chaplain at Brandeis, to moderate the discussion. We attendees sat in a small circle of chairs in the Shapiro art gallery, and many of those chairs were empty. Out of the seventeen people who were there at some point or another, four of us were press.

The lonely space and prolonged silences caused the forum to spend a good deal of time on its own importance. That people should be there. That 9/11 was significant. We talked about the way the attacks changed our perception of the world and the United States’ place in it. We talked about the emotional impact the sudden loss of life can have. We talked about how the attacks brought people together and wondered why the public had decided to stop remembering this year.

My thoughts after the cut. Continue reading “Largely Unattended 9/11 Forum Stifled Productive Discussion”

As a new writer to Innermost Parts and a new student to the Brandeis campus, I see the value in reading through previous posts published on this blog. Granted, I only grasp a quick glimpse into the many dilemmas of the previous year, there is still so much perspective and insight from my fellow writers that I greatly value.

Take a look at the April 18th, 2008 post by Lev. My favorite quote of all:

We need to ensure that candidates who want to take action and transcend petty politics fill these seats.

In my case, I demand a candidate to take action, not just “want to take action.” I demand an activist, not someone who wishes to bring back “an activist spirit.” I demand passion, not politics. I am forced to question the validity of a man’s words when this man disregarded activism in one election and then made it one of his main platform components in another.

I am clearly a Brooks skepticist. But then again, who am I to question the motives of this man?

I am a voter, and that’s my responsibility.

The Brennan Center for Justice (great org run out of NYU) just came out with a “guide to explain the rights of student voters”. Their website is here. Their press release:

ith thousands of young and new voters expected to participate in the 2008 election, today the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law launched an online legal guide to student voting. Students across the country will face unique challenges when they register to vote and cast ballots this November, and the interactive
Legal Guide to Student Voting provides an easy-to-use state-by-state analysis of voting laws tailored specifically to college students.

The Brennan Center Guide also dispels common myths about the registration process that can impede student voters—particularly students attending college away from home—as recently described in the New York Times.

With a thorough synthesis of the voting regulations in 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Guide features a clickable map of the United States with concise guidelines about the often complicated registration, residency, voter ID, and absentee laws that vary in each state. By scrolling over a given state, the Guide allows students to
quickly determine how to cast a ballot whether they are voting in their home state or out of state.

There are so many resources for youth voting this year, it’s ridiculously easy to vote / register to vote. And kudos to Brennan. This goes beyond “how to register to vote” and instead attacks people’s legal questions and the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) surrounding Student Voting head-on.

This post is about the power of electoral activism. As the readers of this blog are well aware, Innermostparts.org campaigned pretty heavily against Andrew Brooks last spring in his campaign for Senator at Large (as well as Vice President). We charged he was right-wing, opposed to social justice, we even called him a ‘dinosaur’ and a few other mean and nasty things. Ultimately, whether due to us or to Brooks’ lack of popularity amongst the student body, we won. Noam Shuster, the write-in candidate, succeeded in receiving more votes than both Brooks and Sulsky. It was a clear mandate by the Student Body that we wanted a Student Union that advocated for Social Justice, both here at Brandeis and around the world.

A few moments ago I received an invitation to the Facebook group ANDREW BROOKS FOR VICE PRESIDENT, where Brooks outlines his platform and his experience in his current campaign to fill the seat vacated by progressive activist and former DFA member Mike Kearns. He writes, ” Andrew Brooks has spent most of his time at Brandeis working to change our campus for the better. As an activist leader on campus, Andrew has worked to stimulate interest in a variety of activist issues in order to change the world around us.” Of the six bullet points he includes, three of them relate to his social justice work:

*Sponsoring and passing legislation to expand the Union’s nondiscrimination law to include preventing discrimination on the basis of “color, gender identity and expression, national or ethnic origin, and disability”

*Pushing for gender-neutral housing on the Residence Life Advisory Committee

*Signing onto and successfully supporting legislation to make the Student Union more environmentally friendly

His first of three platform points is entitled “ACTIVISM” and it reads: “Andrew wishes to bring an activist spirit back into how the Union does its business. He will work to make sure the Union is involved in issues that not only effect our campus, but the world around us. Andrew supporters the “Brandeis Votes” initiative and has helped collect donations to provide assistance to hurricane victims in the Gulf Coast.”

Continue reading “Andrew Brooks the Activist!”

Message for you:

Drinking liberally tonight.
Chums, 11pm.
We’ll have a chums challenge competition, if enough people come.

Before drinking liberally, you might want to …
a: go to chums open mic night at 9pm
b: do the SEA bonfire (show up at shapiro atrium at eihter 8pm or 9pm)

See you TONIGHT

Did you know we had a Kiva.org group set up for Brandeis University? You can join here.

Kiva.org is an easy online way to give out international, no-interest microloans. Here’s an excerpt from their about page:

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Good news, everyone:

Hello Everyone!

Whereas many people within the activist community at Brandeis have expressed frustration and discomfort with the lack of collaboration, organization and cooperation between activist groups on campus

Whereas activism can only grow to be more effective and inclusive in an environment that fosters the sharing of skills and resources

Whereas many activist efforts could use a place to store, share and meet in a constructive manner

I have proposed to Jason Gray (Student Union President) the establishment of a physical space tentatively called the Activist Resource Center to serve and support the activist community.

If you are interested in discussing this possibility, if you want to have a say in what a place such as the one proposed would look like or do, OR if you think this is an unecessary effort and would like to discuss why, you are invited to a meeting with Jason and I and anyone else who shows up to begin this process. I have been in countless conversations over the last few years about how to better support the activist community, and I think this is a very possible solution towards building better connections between our groups. I am not aware of other efforts to create a similar space, so I apologize if I am stepping on anyone’s toes. Please reply to this email and let me know which meeting time (Wednesday September 17th at 7pm or Thursday September 18th at 7pm) is better for you. Whichever date gets the most replies will be the time of the meeting and I will send out another email.

PLEASE forward this to anyone you think should be involved because I did not send this to every club! Thank you so much.

Peace.

Etta King

Etta can be reached this way.

Did anyone catch Ariel Wittenberg‘s article in the Hoot (the August 2008 issue). It’s called “God Bless You”: A personal story and it’s about what she did over the summer. Damn it’s good. Read it. It’ll make your day. It sure made mine.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

His mom had shown me his picture. In it he was all dressed up in his army fatigues with his helmet and riffle. Derek wanted to be a police officer when he got back from the war.

His face was young. He was my age, but being 19 and working behind a desk for the summer made 19 too young to dress like a GI-Joe and to be shipped off to a foreign desert to risk your life for your country.

I’m a patriot. And for me, that means speaking up against a war you disagree with.

But for this kid, who was a patriot too, it meant paying back a country that lets you speak out whenever you want with his body, maybe his life.

You can tell that Ariel wrote this from the heart, and not as a quick hack job to beat a deadline. This work was honest. A Brandeis Virtue.

Got an email from Jason Gray today; I’m sure you did too. Looks like the Student Union EBoard is trying to do its bit to help out the victims of Gustav.

What their effort boils down to is this: Tabling for donations, backing a student volunteer group, and persuading International Club to donate some funds from Pachanga.

Well, that’s good I guess. Way to use the bully pulpit for some good. I remember in High School, after the Southeast Asian Monsoons, a kid named Adam Sax raised 10,000 from students for charity. So this donation drive definitely has promise. I don’t know why, it just feels…underwhelming.

Maybe the students who join the National Collegiate Volunteers could do some video interviews with some residents and bring back their stories? How about we get the University to invest some of its endowment in no/low-interest micro-loan programs for hurricane survivors. Or maybe we as a student body could raise a ruckus about the failed conservative policies that got us into this mess…again?

I dunno. This isn’t meant to be a criticism of the Student Union. They’re just people on a busy schedule doing what they think is right. I just think there is a capacity at Brandeis for so much more. Those are just some quick ideas I had. This is a good first step, but imagine the possibilities of all else we could do.

You can read the email under the flip:
Continue reading “Student Union vs Hurricane Gustav”

Maybe it’s because localities put so many barriers in front of students registering to vote?

Late last month, as a voter-registration drive by supporters of Senator Barack Obama was signing up thousands of students at Virginia Tech, the local registrar of elections issued two releases incorrectly suggesting a range of dire possibilities for students who registered to vote at their college.

The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.

[snip]

Last fall, in Statesboro, Ga., in a hotly contested city council race, there were challenges to the registration of about 1,000 Georgia Southern University students who had used dormitory addresses. “We threatened suit, but the issue went away when they figured out that the challenges weren’t going to affect the results of the election,” Mr. Greenbaum said.

In 2003, in Waller County, Tex., the district attorney wrote a column in a local newspaper threatening to prosecute students at Prairie View A&M, a historically black university, for illegal voting. The project sued, and the district attorney backed down

This happens all across the country. In many places, students have to change their voter reg information every time they switch dorms. Oftentimes, towns don’t want students from other states to mess with their local elections, so they pull shit like this to make it hard for students to vote. On one hand, you don’t want large Universities overpowering the small towns they’re adjacent to. On the other hand, you don’t want to disenfranchise anyone. It’s a problem.

Applications to join the Steering Committee of the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance (which basically means giving out grants and so forth for deserving clubs, etc) are due at midnight tonight.

Here’s what I wrote for my application:

Q: How would you describe the issues and challenges related to pluralism and unity at Brandeis?

A: Brandeis, as I’ve said before, has a very fractured social scene. The glut of clubs serves to divide, rather than unite, many students on campus.

For instance, the members of Students for Environmental Action and the members of the Brandeis Democrats may have much in common and benefit from working together, but the clubs meet at around the same time and one can’t be in *all* the activist clubs on campus.

Similarly, the “identity clubs” (mixed-heritage, ahora, etc) have little contact with clubs which are not under the ICC umbrella. This is a problem which should change.

Beyond these structural problems, there are simmering tensions below the surface of calm. Voluntary segregation is still an issue. Anything to do with the Middle East is sure to raise hackles. Affirmative action is like religion and politics – not spoken about in polite company. There are only 7 Black professors on campus, and goodness knows how many Latin@s, etc.

Pluralism, Diversity, Tolerance. These things are stressed during Orientation (and the Mosaic pre-orientation program) and hardly ever spoken of again. As Ben Brandzel put it, this University was created to tear down the walls between members of humankind. We were explicitly created to challenge unjust admittance quotas in other colleges. I don’t believe that we’re institutionally living up to that legacy.

So that’s what I think? What about you?

As you probably know by now if you read your email and received your free water bottle, Jehuda has decided to ask Aramark to “discontinue the use of bottled water at catered events on campus”. In addition there is going to be a committee to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of having bottled water on campus. I think Jehuda’s decision is a good one, and it represents the strength of SEA, who has been lobbying the administration for a ban of bottled water on campus since at least last semester. Although SEA hasn’t yet achieved its full goal, I think this is a good start and probably the best they could hope for as a first step from the administration.

Hopefully the committee will do a good job, unlike the committee to investigate whether or not BranPo officers should have guns. That committee made a terrible recommendation to the administration and they unfortunately, but predictably, took it. Personally, I am very suspicious of the quality of the research that committee did, although I have hope for this committee because the question they are confronting doesn’t seem as complicated. At least to me.
Continue reading “The Legacy of Our Generation”

Over the last year or so, I’ve been getting this amazing email newsletter from the International Center for Ethics, Justice & Public Life (notice how everything at Brandeis is some sort of center or another? Seriously. Even Volen is the “Volen National Center for Complex Systems”).

Anyways, it kicks ass. As does the Ethics Center website.

Point is, the listserv rocks. But it’s a bitch to be added to. Here’s how you do it:

Send your name, email, and mailing address to

Sample email from the listerv under the fold…
Continue reading “A Cool Brandeis Publication”

Announcing the newest, hottest, rawest, most swashbuckling club on campus.

That’s right. Drinking Liberally.

Long Story short?
Every Thursday. 11pm. Chums. Chill with other liberals.
Also, sign up here to get announcements for parties, movie screenings, and other events we might put on.
Continue reading “Drinking Liberally”