Author: Lev

It doesn’t take a math genius to see that students on the all points plan are paying a hell of a lot more than $1400 for 1400 points. It does however take a little bit of numbers crunching to see exactly how much each meal plan is really worth. Therefore I present the product of a few minutes of labor calculating the worth of every meal plan Aramark and ResLife have to offer.

Before I show the numbers, I have to explain my methodology. Firstly, I assumed that there were 17 weeks in a semester and 119 days. I did not include vacations. Secondly, when calculating the value of meals, I assumed that everyone eats at Sherman (the most expensive dining institution at Brandeis); when possible they eat there for dinner ($10.05 a meal) first and then lunch ($7.95 a meal). I did not include Kosher dining in these numbers. All numbers are calculated per semester.

Want to see the worth of your meal plan? Numbers after the jump!

Continue reading “How Much is Your Meal Plan Really Worth?”

Congratulations Mr. Hughes.

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”

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!”

The saga is over. Congratulations to the now official Senator at Large! Now all she needs to do is learn the fast-talking Senator lingo.

I don’t quite get it either.

Despite the best efforts of SODA and DFA, the campus public safety officers are now carrying handguns. Our good friend, and fellow blogger Phil, says “With Brandeis Police having guns, it makes guns a part of our campus life,” Lacombe said. “I like to think of Brandeis as a safe zone where we can keep certain things away from our community, but now guns are a part of it.”

.

This was exactly why I involved myself with SODA. Guns are a tool of violence that have been introduced into the Brandeis community; and the decision was made without sufficient community input. Ultimately SODA lost, but that does not mean that the work is over. After it became clear that we were fighting a losing battle; I proposed that we hold a few trainings on knowing your rights. How many of us actually know what we are allowed to do when stopped by a cop? Now that the campus police are armed, it is absolutely critical that every student knows what their rights are when they are approached by an authority figure holding a weapon.

.

While I know many of us will be busy campaigning for Obama this fall, I think that it is important that we still have a strong focus on the social justice issues closest to home. That’s why I intend to make ‘rights trainings’ one of my goals as a member of the Student Union Senate. We cannot let the administration and campus safety abuse their powers; and it is the responsibility of the Student Union to keep them in check.

.

If anyone else is interested in this project let me know.

Saw this on DailyKos, thought it was important to repost:

As I’ve written before, Democrats will regret embracing the expansion of executive power because a President Obama will find his administration undone by an “abuse of power” scandal. All of those powers which were necessary to prevent the instant destruction of the country will instantly become impeachable offenses. If you can’t imagine how such a pivot can take place then you haven’t been paying attention.

This is why I wish Hoyer had the balls to stand up to the President.

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a nominee.

During Brandeis’ Presidential Campaign, candidate Jason Gray promised to try and ensure that every Brandeis student will vote in the November Election.

I open the forum and take it a step further, how do we ensure that every Brandeis student votes for November? and how do we ensure that almost every Brandeis student will vote for Barack Obama?

According to Ken Mollins (a good friend of Brandeis Students Against the Judge Rotenberg Center) and an anonymous source who works for the state, Massachusetts state police raided the Judge Rotenberg Center and left carrying boxes of evidence.

This is the beginning of the end for the Judge Rotenberg Center. More information to follow as we know more.

This is not a joke… really.

Brandeis Students At Odds Over Israel

Yes, that’s right, our tiny little campus scandal has turned into a major scandal! Soon CNN analysts will be discussing how the UJ will rule, and how the result will affect the world.

I find it pretty silly that the Globe is touching this. It’s such a silly problem here at Brandeis, it’s even less of an issue for the rest of the Boston area.

Either way, Innermostparts.org has now been mentioned in a major media publication. Awesome.

For those unfamiliar with the commenting policy of innermostparts.org, please see this post here

Essentially. You must use a real name and you must use a real email.

Innermostparts is not a place to be a douchebag simply because you can be anonymous. That’s what The Justice Online is for.

The writers of this blog are often douchebags, but at least all of you know who we are.

Yesterday, Sahar, Loki and I sat through seven hours of ridiculous, and live-blogged the whole thing. We were mean, obnoxious, petty, and all-around assholes. But we did it for a reason.

If you were to tell anyone outside of the small group of people very involved in Brandeis Student Union politics (especially people who don’t go to this school) that there was a major, seven-hour long trial over the results of an election, they’d laugh. They’d think it hilarious. The Student Union might be important to the lives of students at the school, but really, its not that important. It’s not critical too much beyond egos. The trial yesterday was an orgy of absurdity. The live-blog was written the way it was because we wanted to reflect how silly the process was, as very few other people in the room seemed to really get it.

The trial is just another example of my problems with the Student Union. Shreeya’s final words of advice to the Senate, as President, were “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” The Union has a lot of influence over the University and it can be used for good and important things, but only if we don’t get bogged down in silly procedures and ego-motivated seriousness.

With that said, the liveblog was pretty ridiculous. I’ll apologize to anyone who took personal offense to anything said, but try to have a sense of humor about it. The trial was pretty funny, but only if you were looking for the comedic value in it and not taking yourself too damn seriously.

There will be an ‘Awesome Raging Celebration’ tonight, hosted by the Activist Resource Center. Essentially an excuse for Activists to kick back a little together before the end of the year.

I don’t want to publish the address of the house online, but here’s a link to the facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=12634667621

Looks like fun.

Contact Ari Fertig for more information.

This last semester I’ve been working on a class project for my Sociology class to plan a Hip-Hop concert for Social Justice in Somerville. The class, Community Structures, Youth Subcultures, is a community engaged learning class that asked students to check out subcultures in Boston, Waltham and at Brandeis

My group, the Boston group, worked with an organization in Somerville called Centro Presente, a Massachusetts-based immigrants rights center. The concert we were planning was to be used to raise money for their after-school program, Pintamos Neustros Mundo (We Paint Our World). It was also to be used as a location for Centro Presente to unveil its newest campaign POLI.C.E, which was meant to raise awareness about the link between the local police forces and the I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

The event, scheduled for tomorrow evening, has been canceled by the Somerville police, twice. On Monday, Blake Hyatt, one of the people in charge of planning the event, announced that the Somerville Police deemed the concert a security risk and were thus announcing that it cannot be held at its original venue at Somerville High School.

Tonight, Blake sent out this Facebook message to concert attendees:

Hi All,

As you all know, this past Monday we had to switch venues due to pressure from the Somerville Police department over what they referred to as permitting issues. We moved it to Cambridge, into a different venue and a different district. Today, we received a phone call informing us that the Somerville Police department had pursued the issue, pressuring the Cambridge Police to cancel the event. Despite the fact that we had the support of the Cambridge Police, Somerville eventually pressured enough officials, and the Cambridge Police caved. We’ve spent the day since trying to find a way around it, but there’s no way out.

There is very little information as to why the Somerville Police might have gone so far out of their way to do this, and at this point their motives seem very questionable. We will continue posting updates as the case goes on.

We’re very sorry for this turn of events, and send our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused. Thank all of you for your support.

Best,
Blake Hyatt ’08
Hip-Hop for Justice Co-Coordinator
bhyatt@brandeis.edu

Quite sketchy if you ask me. This was a totally harmless concert planned by a bunch of students at Brandeis and a few cool kids from Somerville. Hardly a security risk. Not only did Somerville Police run the concert out of their town, but they also ran the concert out of existence. Was it really a security concern? Or was it that they don’t want the POLI.C.E. campaign to get noticed? Sketchy business. A semesters worth of work (and money) wasted.

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 the final decision up to the next UJ and Noam cannot be sworn in for at least five days. Brooks is accusing Shuster and her campaign of slandering Brooks on this website and possibly elsewhere. For the record, we would like to state that nothing published on Innermost Parts was written, approved or influenced by anyone but its stated authors.

More information to follow in the coming days.

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, is also an alumnus of this fine institution.

Unlike Larry, who went here in the 1960s, Dan graduated just last year. In his junior year, he was the editor-in-chief of the Newspaper of Record at Brandeis University, The Justice.

At dinner tonight, we discussed, at length, Brandeis politics and future careers. He mentioned in passing that while at The Justice he did a story on race relations at Brandeis that had gotten him fascinated in the issue of discrimination. I decided to snoop through The Justice‘s records to see what I could find.

Here is the the main story he wrote, and the two sidebars (equally fascinating) can be found here and here.

The thesis of the set of articles is that Brandeis’ institutions designed to promote diversity and inclusivity are partly responsible – along with racism – for the segregation and racial tensions at the University.

Dan argues that as minority students feel unwelcome by the majority white community at Brandeis, they turn to people who have similar experiences in institutions like the Intercultural Center, the Posse program and TYP. It creates an environment of self-segregation.

“‘The way our campus is, people that are not of the majority feel like they need to find their own community because they don’t fit in,’ said Christina Khemraj ’09, the Student Union’s senator for racial-minority students.” Continue reading “Self-Segregation and Racial Identity at Brandeis”

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 an avid reader of the Justice and the Hoot to know that the Student Union was a mess this year. Tonight the Student Body placed the blame on the head of our esteemed Senator at Large, Andrew Brooks.

Of course, Andrew Brook is not entirely responsible for the mess in the Student Union. Far from it, he’s just a small part of it. The real blame belongs to every member of the Student Union. When one or two Senators or Executives causes problems, the Union should not let those problems prevent action. This year the Union needed leadership to ensure that partisanship, pettiness and play-politics would not get in the way of taking action for Students. The Union failed.

Elections have taken place, the students have spoken, and they want a change. I firmly believe that Jason Gray and Mike Kerns can and will take the Union in a new direction, and as a newly elected member of the Senate, I hope to take part in this new Union. This isn’t a matter of liberals versus conservatives; it’s a matter of people who want to take real action versus people who want to play with politics and power. Lets not get excited because Alex, Noam (whom I barely know, but I have only heard wonderful things) and I are progressives. That doesn’t really matter; I believe that conservatives can accomplish wonderful things in the Senate. No, lets get excited because Alex, Noam, and I are people who want to take action.

On another note, elections are still not over. In fact, less than half the Senate has been formed. This fall elections will take place to elect quad Senators, Senators for the class of 2012 and the TYP Senator. I doubt that tonight is the last we’ve seen of Andrew Brooks (anyone know his living plans for next year?). We need to ensure that candidates who want to take action and transcend petty politics fill these seats. With that in mind, I am announcing that I fully support Sahar Massachi, founder of Innermost Parts, for Castle Quad Senator.

I look forward to working with everyone in the new Student Union next year.