Month: November 2010

Sorry it’s a bit late.

• The Brandeis Haiti Initiative is having a celebration to honor the efforts of an alum. awesome!
• Student Halloween service projects
• A schedule of and comments about Israeli Occupation Awareness Week. I feel like calling the opposing weeks an example of the “turf war” between Israel-minded groups on campus plays into the trend of arguments instead of discussions on campus, and devalues the important conversations that will be stirred up by this week’s events.
• The budget is looking good!
• Elections happened.

For more news, check out The Hoot website!

Hey folks,

On the eve of the first ever Israeli Occupation Awareness Week at Brandeis, Jewish Voice for Peace and Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine are proud to present their self-published magazine supplement to the week.

With contributions from Liza Behrendt, Renana Gal, Lev Hirschhorn, Madeleine Stix, Jon Sussman, and Paraska Tolan, this zine brings grassroots activism back to its origins, the printing press!

There are articles on the separation wall, the refugee crisis, housing demolitions and more!

Click here to download.

Noam Chomsky’s speech, part of Israeli Occupation Awareness Week, has been moved to Sherman Function Hall! That means there should be space for everyone who wants to seize this incredible opportunity to see Chomsky, one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals, talk about Israel’s increasingly discriminatory policies in the occupied territories.

Noam Chomsky at Brandeis
Thursday, November 11, 6:30 – 8
Sherman Function Hall (Upper Sherman)
Hosted by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace

Brandeis ID Required (Contact us with questions)
No large bags or posters allowed inside

For more information on Chomsky, visit his website at http://www.chomsky.info/

A lot of people were disappointed with the results of yesterday’s election. A lot of Democrats at least. I’m not much of a statistics person, but Politico gives a really good, accessible map depicting which states went red and which blue, and you can tell from a glance what the overall result was: red.

I’m sure people who were watching the results come in live on the news last night can say a lot more about specific victories and losses, but I just want to point out one victory which I found out about from Trisk’s Political Outreach listserv, and which you can support no matter which party you belong to: The 2010 election was host to the largest number of openly gay candidates in history, and these candidates were overwhelmingly successful.

The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund is a political group which campaigns for and endorses LGBT candidates. Their mission is “to change the face and voice of America’s politics and achieve equality for LGBT Americans by increasing the number of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.” According to the blog gaypolitics, “At least 106 of the [Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund] group’s record-breaking 164 endorsed candidates were winners as of Wednesday morning.”

That’s pretty awesome. Not to say that simply because a candidate is openly LGBT-identifying makes him or her a good candidate. But that more and more candidates feel they CAN come out, and aren’t worried it will jeopardize their election, and in return that people are not discriminating against them BECAUSE of their sexual orientation, well that’s pretty encouraging.

Israeli Occupation Awareness Week will take place November 8 – 12
Hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace

We are young Jews, Muslims, & Christians; Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, & Europeans; we envision Israel & Palestine as a place of justice, and we hold Israel accountable for its military occupation. Peace can proceed when all Palestinians reclaim their rights to free movement, land, water, a home, a fair trial, cultural preservation, national identity, & democratic representation.

Highlights of the week include Noam Chomsky on “Escalating Policies of Apartheid,” Daoud Nassar on Palestinian farmers fighting settlement construction, Alice Rothchild on “Difficult Conversations: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions within the Jewish Community,” and Diana Buttu on moderating peace talks with the PLO.

Check out the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=125844904140133

Continue reading “Get pumped for Israeli Occupation Awareness Week!”

So much news.

• The Justice takes a closer look at the Pachanga police violence incident. Students deny claims of violence and state that the police officer was aggressive. Both sides give their stories.
• Drug and alcohol misuse will be examined by a new Brandeis committee.
• The Board of Trustees meets to discuss potential improvements to student life and safety.
• Another cage free article. The second Student Union poll is still up and the Union wants to make sure that students are actually supportive before any change is initiated. Super.
• The Union will no longer be providing shuttles to Long Island. They will still be busing to Penn Station and Logan. They’re also considering adding another Bran Van.

For more stories, check out The Justice website!

It’s Election Day.
Everyone tells me that means you should vote.
You should go out there and have a say.
Go Democracy!

Well, I am usually one of those people, but I have a confession to make: I’ve never voted, and I’m not going to this year.
It’s not that I’m too young, since I’m 19, and it’s not that I’m apathetic, but I’ve just never sent out for an absentee ballot in time. Since I’m registered in my home state, not the lovely state of MA, for all intents and purposes, I CAN’T vote, unless I skip school to head home for the day. And although I think it would be fun to vote, to feel important and like I’m doing something worthwhile, I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing for me NOT to cast my ballot either.

I’m pretty fed up with all these e-mails I’ve been getting from national progressive organizations telling me who to vote for, as though the merits of my voting are just to get their politicians elected. So, I say go out and vote if you have an opinion, have a specific candidate you support, have a cause you feel passionate about, or just want to pull those fun levers in the booth. But, if you don’t know anything about the candidates, don’t feel like looking it up, and don’t care about the results, it’s OK to live that lifestyle. You don’t have to vote just for the sake of it. I’m just trying to say, no peer pressure. Only do what you feel right doing. Voting just for the sake of voting can be dangerous too, y’know.
And if you’re like me, and ran out of time, then use the precious time you’re saving by not voting, and think about what living in a democracy really means. At least that’s what I’d like to try to do.

Fun facts about Election Day from wikipedia:
Election Day in the United States occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November.
The earliest possible date is November 2 and the latest possible date is November 8.
The U.S. is (one of?) the only country with an election day on a Tuesday
Election Day is November 2, 2010 this year.
A uniform day for having presidential elections was first passed by Congress in 1845.