Category: Uncategorized

In light of the news that the CIA Helped Shoot Down 15 Civilian Planes, I think it would be wise of us to remember that last year we learned about a CIA-owned plane that crashed in Mexico carrying 4 tons of cocaine.

Sue me if I go to fast, but Lawrence Fucking Lessig is coming at last.

He’s heading to Harvard, to run the ethics center. Of course he’ll teach law, but the center’s the game-changer.

Let me lay on the line, this news is so divine! He’ll be that much closer and will stay for a time.
Opponent beware, Opponents beware, he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming.

News

I would like to step away from my capacity of InfoGirl for a second to bring your attention to an article in today’s New York Times, Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?. Considering the focus on environmentalism in the Brandeis community, I figured this might interest a few people.

And on a subject closer to home, a warning: If you are a vegitarian or a person who keeps kosher but eats dairy out, you might not want to eat at Quizno’s. I have ended up with bacon in my tuna sub on two separate occasions, and they have lost all trust from me. You might want to consider doing the same.

Going abroad? Too much stuff? Need cheap presents? You can swap clothing, shoes, and small household items at Swap, Drop, and Go. Anything not swapped will be donated to local groups on Dec. 19.

Each quad, except the Mods, has a donation location. Any questions?

Ask your Eco-Rep!

There are other food donation programs going on, so please do not put food in the Swap, Drop and Go donation locations. This event is more limited in the items we can accept than in the spring. If moving out, please find a way to reuse your larger items with friends instead of throwing away. You can arrange on your own with local charities to accept large items. At the end of the spring semester we will accept larger items and food for the Move Out Donation Drive!

December 11-19th in your quad.

Please welcome guest poster Melanie. 

The CDCs sent out emails explaining that “residence life, along with other university officials will be spot checking rooms,  and common areas.  These spot checks will begin this coming Thursday and will continue throughout the remainder of the semester.” This was decided as a response to the surprise inspection of Rosenthal which led to over 30, $1000 fines for covered smoke detectors. The ResLife staff has decided that in response, rather than making the students responsible for the entire fine, they will randomly check student dorms and charge them lesser fines.

Basically, in my understanding, what this policy says is that they are allowed to enter our rooms whenever they want to “spot check” whether or not we are covering smoke detectors. I completely agree that if the school gets fined for having smoke detectors covered that the students who covered them should be responsible for at least part of that fine.

However, randomly entering our rooms is a violation of our privacy – and the worst kind. We claim to care about social justice, which I believe requires that we also agree in the protection of civil liberties. I understand that being at a college campus and living in what is technically school property and not our own private property means that constitutionally our right to privacy is infringed. But disregarding these rights is wrong of the university, it is important that we feel our dorms are our own, to feel comfortable there, and so blatantly disregarding our rights they loose that from us, they loose our trust, and they take a step to far in eliminating our rights on campus. If we’re gonna live here – they have to allow us to do so, they can treat us as adults and make us responsible for our own actions (i.e. paying the fine if we get one) but for us to do so they have to give us the rights that come along with that responsibility.

The buzz in Washington? Scandal! Unaccountable expenditures of vast amounts of money! Inspired appointments to executive positions!

The buzz on campus? Ethics! Overseeing* vast amounts of endowment money. Inspired appointments to a Student Union Committee.

I’m speaking, of course, about the Committee on Endowment Ethics and Responsibility. The results are in the the appointees:

Chair: Union Vice-President Adam T. Hughes
Other Members: Alex Melman, Carly Greenberg, Daniel Millenson, Liza Behrendt, Nery Joubert-Rivera, Sahar Massachi, Stefan Nikolic, and Toni Schwarzenbach.

The mission of CEER will be to advice the Board of Trustees on how to best utilize its financial resources to serve the call for Social Justice enshrined in the very bedrock of this University, and to make sure that all action is of maximum effectiveness. So far it seems that, in practical terms, CEER will try to promote ethical proxy voting, investing in promising options, steering clear of other options, and targeted divestment, all with a healthy media/comm. strategy to leverage the impact of any such move.

Word on the street is that the committee features both graduate and undergraduate students. Anyone know the truth in that?

update: Carrie nails it 6 minutes after posting – Toni Schwarzenbach and Nery Joubert-Rivera are grad students.

Continue reading “Blago can’t touch this”

We’re all under a lot of stress lately. For example, my paper on Hayek was eaten by the interwebs, which means I have to rewrite a complex essay on very little sleep. Therefore, I decided to let off a bit of steam by replying to Tim’s post. (Sorry for procrastinating, Professor Gaskins, Professor Pollack, and Professor Hickey! I’ll get right back to doing all those essays and things due yesterday.) It got a bit too long for a comment, so here it is:

So, when it comes to course evaluations, I really don’t mind. Course evaluations are a meaningful social service. That said, if people are forced to fill them out, the chances of bad data significantly increases and the value of the whole enterprise goes to the crapper. And yet, relying on a purely voluntary system results in a 25% response rate, also not pretty. Therefore, we seem to have arrived at a situation where I get many emails (which costs me nothing) as well as the possibility of prizes (which possibly nets me an ipod). All in the purpose of more helpful student evaluations.

Tim, I’m thankful that the Provost’s Office is taking charge of this initiative. Course evaluations materially improve my life, and the fact is that MaryPat Lohse is:
a. Not an exhausted student cramming for a final
b. Offering me delicious yet vague hints of free ipod. 
c. Doing me favor. 

We’re all under stress, and thus likelier to get upset at “The Administration”, and goodness knows there’s been a lot to be upset about, especially lately. (much more on that later!) Honestly, I almost think they plan to unveil the controversial stuff for breaks and finals. Yet, I think in this case we should be happy that “the adults” are taking care of this for us.

Remember – 1/2000 chance of free ipod > 100% chance of no ipod.

Finally, an article that I can fully support.

Go read Naomi Spector’s latest addition to The Justice here.

And for the barrage of comments that my title will undoubtedly get – it’s sarcasm. I promise.

In case you didn’t know, there’s a nutrition info listserv run by the resident nutritionist at Brandeis. It’s just a bit of info every once in a while. I recommend it. Email logara@brandeis to get on it.

Results:

Congrats to North Quad, Reinfield, Gordon, Rosenthal, The Village, Ziv
130, and Charles River Apartments: 178 E-1, 178 E-10, 110 G-2, 110 F-2,
164 D-8, and 150 E-4 for winning your respective challenges. Look out
for information from your Eco-Rep about your prize/party coming up
soon!

Don’t forget to keep windows shut and unplug appliances before you go
away on winter break. More info about energy savings and challenge
results at www.brandeis.edu/energy
Contact: Janna Cohen-Rosenthal

Why isn’t Do It In the Dark year-round?

It’s my impression that the information on energy consumption per quad is not publicly available except during the 2-week window of the competition. If at least the energy consumption stats (or the percent change per month) were publicly available, I bet we’d see some changes on campus.

On a related note, I’ve been working in the Castle Commons for the past few nights. It is COLD! I bet if we insulated the windows here we’d save money (insulating windows is cheap and easy!) and also I’d be warmer. Win / Win!

Quick procrastination from writing my HIstory of the Progressive Era paper:

IPTV. The election for deciding which 7 channels we get is almost over. The current top 7:

1 71 Comedy Central
2 90 Israeli Network
3 7 WHDH-7 (NBC)
4 42 CNN
5 13 WFXT-25 (Fox)
6 39 Discovery Channel
7 4 WBZ-4 (CBS)

Call me an old fogey if you wish, but I always thought that college was the sort of place where you watch CSPAN2 late at night to titter at British Parliamentary Question Hour. College is the sort of place where you stay up brewing coffee and arguing about Ethical Hedonism, and analyzing the(lack of a) Utilitarian movement in the United States.

Where the hell is PBS on this list?

My picks:
1 PBS
2 Telemundo
3 MSNBC
4 CSPAN1
5 CSPAN2
6 Israel Channel
7 International Channel

What did you pick? (Vote here)

It’s here. Oh G-d, it’s here. Finals. Papers. Sleep-deprivation.

I would like to share a link that my sister gave me: Write or Die. She says it’s the ultimate anti-procrastination tool; hopefully it’ll help some people get a bit more sleep this week.

Merit Based scholarships to be cut, but not need-based.

4 professors laid off.

11 of 15 11 searches for new faculty canceled. update – This is a bit confusing. I think I got it right this time.

No academic cuts yet.

Athletics is the largest portion of the budget right now.

USEMs now optional

Language classes have max students per class pushed to 25 from 18.

“both Political Theory offerings for the 08-09 year [will be] taught by Timothy McCarty, a Politics Department graduate student.”

got any other news or tips? email us.

Continue reading “Budget Cut News Roundup”

Fair Trade fair and Bone Marrow Registry drive end in a couple of hours. Please at least do the Bone Marrow thing. It’s important.

Also- Thirsty Thursday starts now!

Find more information about these events on the activist calendar (on the left side of the screen).

We are locked in battle. Carnegie Mellon, Emory, NYU: all three have been crushed by the rapacious forces of Case Western.

Allied with a weak and feeble University of Rochester, we stand strong against the looming shadow of the insidiuos Case Westernites and the mysterious Chicago’ans.

Will you join us in the Go CrossCampus Tournament : UAA edition?

Continue reading “Locked in Battle”

So, Toys for Tots. It’s happening again this year. What exactly does it entail?

Well, I got a nice email from Michael Newmark spelling it out.

Synopsis:
Name: Toys for Tots
What: Buy toys with points in C-Pod and give them to charity.
When: Dec 1 – 18
Where: That table in Usdan.

P.S. – We’ve donated tons of toys through this in the past. Cool.
Continue reading “Toys for Tots”

– This is hell week for me, so don’t expect much writing until tuesday, at the very least.

– Isn’t weird how ever hardcore lefties are endorsing a very “hayek-ian” or “conservative” approach to global warming – carbon tax / cap and trade? Some are starting to focus more on infrastructure and so on but it’s weird how, for example, Chris Dodd’s claim to progressive fame (for a while) was that he was the only candidate to endorse a carbox tax.

– I love the “Coalition for Change“. Sure, their name is a bit grandiose. Then again, now it’s easier to find people to chill with – the people tabling are almost guarenteed to be people I know and like.

– Got an email from Jehuda about the budget gap. The situation doesn’t sound too great. He says that students are being represented:

The Student Advisory Committee, led by Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy and Student Union President Jason Gray, is assessing the effects of proposed changes on student life and the quality of the Brandeis student experience.

Does this “student advisory committee” have much power? Doesn’t sound like it. And I haven’t heard much of anything from this committee either: does anyone know what’s going on? Rumor has it that they’re all sworn to secrecy. I don’t much like the sound of that.

So again, what’s going on? I ask all this in the spirit of inquiry, not pique.

– Last minute ticket offer:

The Arts at Brandeis E-List is offered two free tickets to the opening night performance of

AURÉLIA’S ORATORIO
Written and directed by Victoria Thierrée Chaplin
Starring Aurélia Thierrée

Wednesday, December 3, 7:30pm
American Repertory Theatre

RSVP here.

Hello Brandeis!

It is with great pleasure that I present to you Communiversity! Communiversity is a program that gives the community an opportunity to share in the diversified talents and interests of all its members. This program saw great success in the 70’s and 80’s and began again in Spring 2005.  It is a program in which Brandeis teaches Brandeis- faculty, staff, and students teach and attend classes that are a bit different from your everyday classes. Last year we had over 300 participants taking more than 20 classes!

Communiversity needs your talents and participation!  If you have a special interest or hobby, you may want to consider teaching a course.  In past years, Communiversity has offered courses in topics such as ethnic cooking, doll making, Scrabble 101, modern music, web design, knitting, juggling, Sign Language, Tango, Kashrut, and sketch comedy.

Communiversity ’09 courses will meet once or twice a week for five weeks between Monday, Feburary 23 and Friday, March 28, 2009. If you are interesting in teaching a class please fill out the application linked to http://my.brandeis.edu/survsimp/one?survey_id=4090 by 11:59 pm on Monday, December 8th.
Thank you for your interest. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Woot!

On a side note – notice all the new events on the activist calendar?

I am thankful for the Internet.* The internet which gives me such joy as this:

Puppy Cam courtesy of Ustream

Enjoy the break. We’ll be back on monday.
Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving Break”

Over the past two weeks or so, SPA, SEA, and PF have been working on something pretty cool.

Long story short, it’s a postcard to Obama sort of thing, where you advocate a peace, environmental, and poverty policy.

The real innovation is the tight integrate of three different activist groups. A member from each group will table at all times and there are weekly coordination meetings between the three.

This has the potential to create structures of fruitful collaboration (rather than empty “cosponsorship”) for social justice groups on campus, which is great. Though I am kind of miffed on DFA’s behalf that they weren’t included.

By Scott, a student at Brandeis -Sahar

An email that I received from the AFA today describes a “hate-campaign” launched by “homosexual activists” against the “Mormons” (which is not the same thing as the Mormon Church). The email, accurately states that the Church played pivotal role in the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which took away constitutionally-provided marriage rights for same gender couples.

The reader is provided three examples of this “hate-campaign”, which include a lawsuit against the Church (referred to in the email as “Mormons”) for violating election laws, a forced-resignation by a film festival coordinator that contributed to Prop8, and a call for the revocation of the Church’s tax-exempt status.

Of these three examples, two of them are actions predicated upon the Church violating the law. It is hard for me to buy an argument that people (activists or not) using their resources to ensure that an institution remains within the boundaries of legally-established acceptable behavior, are engaged in a hate campaign.

Continue reading “What Exactly is a Hate Campaign?”

From the great folks at Schuster –Sahar

Brandeis’ SCHUSTER INSTITUTE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, the nation’s first and only investigative reporting center based at a university, is pleased to announce the results of our year-long investigation into corruption in international adoption. These troubling findings have profound implications for private lives and public policy.

The story of abandoned orphans in developing countries who need to be whisked away to adoring moms and dads in faraway lands is largely fiction. So writes E.J. Graff, associate director and senior researcher at the Schuster Institute in her new investigative article “The Lie We Love,” published in Foreign Policy’s Nov./Dec. 2008 issue. The article exposes the myth of a world orphan crisis—and reveals that the large amounts of Western money offered for healthy “adoptable” infants and toddlers are inducing baby-trafficking in poor and corrupt countries.

On-line now:“The Lie We Love,” Foreign Policy magazine (Nov./Dec.2008)

Learn more: Supporting Documentation about International Adoption Corruption.  

 

Interactive map: “Where Do Babies Come From?” with links to data pages documenting adoption corruption worldwide.

Where Do Babies Come From?

Over the past two decades, serious irregularities in international adoption—buying, defrauding, coercing, and kidnapping children away from their families—have been documented around the world. Until now, these individual reports and stories have never been pulled together so that prospective parents, adoption industry experts, opinion leaders, and policymakers can look at them in a systematic way.

By clicking on our interactive map, you can find in-depth documentation of adoption abuses in a number of countries, including links to original news reports and academic research.

Over the coming weeks, the Schuster Institute will be adding more of the extensive documentation and in-depth research that led us to publish our findings in “The Lie We Love.” In the weeks and months to come, the Schuster Institute will be publishing related articles elsewhere, and will participate in public forums to discuss our findings. In November and December, this website will be adding other resources as well, including:

• How to tell when a country’s adoption practices may be corrupt
• Suggestions for talking with a child about potentially troubling adoption practices in that child’s birth country
• A list of blogs, news outlets, talk shows, and other outlets where this work is being discussed
• A comments and discussion page

 
Click here for more information about the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.  

To join the Schuster Institute’s listserv, please email us at schusterinstitute@brandeis.edu.  

Are you an undergraduate student with a commitment to social justice and with experience in legal or journalistic research? Are you interested in a PAID part-time position as a Research Assistant?Apply here!

Girl Talk tonight. 7pm, Levin Ballroom. Of course, if you didn’t know that already, it’s too late to buy a ticket.

Tickets ran out for Girl Talk way too quickly.

Anyone know where I can get my hands on one?

This post rescinded until further notice.

I sympathize with Max’s criticisms of and frustration with Pitchfork media. These sentiments are shared by many.

Then again, I think we should remember that Pitchfork thrives in challenging the “indie consensus” regarding the merits of famous bands and albums. The problem is, they’ve come to be regarded as a voice for the “indie consensus”. In other words, many people use Pitchfork as their only source of music, and regard it as a trusted elite/establishment source of taste. When Pitchfork’s whole shtick encompasses a healthy dose of reviews that buck the most everyone else’s taste, a problem arises.

Don’t use Pitchfork for rating albums you’ve not heard yet. I recommend Delusions of Adequacy, and Metacritic instead. Think of Pitchfork as that loud annoying friend that occasionally says something profound, and other times just mouths off to remind everyone that he’s there.

For a very interesting article on Pitchfork as Art Mafia, read Crooked Timber. Or read Crooked Timber in any case. They’re a great blog.

So, mela was kind of great.

Tonight! Castle Commons! 9pm!

Join Students for a Democratic Society and Democracy for America as we work to establish a student voice among the budget cuts. For those who are unaware of the issues going on within the language department, look beneath the fold!

Continue reading “Budget Cut Meeting – TONIGHT!”

I think that we members of the Brandeis community should make a special effort to understand people that are different from ourselves. Therefore I think this event has the potential for greatness:

Hey BBSO Members,

Tonight is the last night of Black Is…  There will be a movie screening of “Black: Definition of a Color” a film by Jerry Saunders in the ICC lounge from 7-9pm.  There are interviews with Brandeis students about what black means to them along with many other intriguing questions.  Come take a study break and watch the film.

There will also be a variety of delicious culture food cooked by your very own e-board.  So, have some food, relax, and enjoy the video!

The home-cooked food kind of seals the deal.

This post is written by the members of SDS and people who attended Radical Film Night (every wednesday at 9 PM in Pearlman 202)!

What has been cut? As we sit in this room, we’ve found ourselves upset with the the large number of programs that have been cut in response to the budget crisis. We understand that programs do need to be cut, but we are upset with the lackof communication and consultation with students.

Here are the programs that we either know have been cut, think have been cut, or have heard that they are talking about cutting:

The Pool

The Stein (maybe, student workers have been told they will be cut)

Language 30 levels (this is being discussed)

USEM classes

Funding for  Programming at Prospect Hill Terrece

Future Leonard Bernstein Quartet scholarships

Community Engaged Learning Programming

Midyear Dorms (they won’t be renovating a dorm for midyears)

This list isn’t neccesarily accurate, much of it is based on rumor and speculation. It is not an all-inclusive list. What programs of yours have been cut? What should be cut?

This is written in the spirit of me trying to figure out my feelings out loud, and soliticiting the advice, guidance, and response of the Brandeis community. The following is written in a genuine “stream of thought” manner, and please read it in the spirit of personal and academic searching, not a rant, screed, or attack. I’d very much appreciate everyone’s viewpoint and response on this one – sahar

Via Matthew Yglesias, who, by the way, is as genuine in person as he is brilliant online, I found a really interesting article dealing with the financial crisis, written by the perspective of a former insider who left the industry in disgust around the mini-crisis of the late 1980’s/early 90’s.

There’s a lot to chew on in there. An admonition to stay far away from the financial services industry. An explanation of the mess that is neither opaque nor patronizing. He places blame on the perverse incentives placed on Wall Street when firms became publicly traded rather than partnerships.

I want to focus on his interactions with college students, however, since that’s more of my area of expertise.

I had no great agenda, apart from telling what I took to be a remarkable tale, but if you got a few drinks in me and then asked what effect I thought my book would have on the world, I might have said something like, “I hope that college students trying to figure out what to do with their lives will read it and decide that it’s silly to phony it up and abandon their passions to become financiers.” I hoped that some bright kid at, say, Ohio State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley, and set out to sea. Continue reading “When I’m all grown up…”

Yes, we are aware of the lack of sidebar on the site. We don’t know why it happened but we’re working on it. Thanks for the concern, all.

update – all taken care of. thanks, mysteriously-name-commenter-by-name-of-“idea”

My email tells me that Its international education week this week.Here’s the info:

International Education Week (Nov. 17 – 21) is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of Education and Department of State designed to celebrate the benefits of global exchange and understanding. Brandeis will help celebrate by hosting events highlighting the following three themes: global citizenship and cosmopolitanism, benefits of the international experience, and “preserving stories, retracing roots.” Continue reading “International Education Week”

Student Union President Jason Gray wants every student club to include a community service component.

For example, the debate team could teach public speaking at a local school. An a capella group could sing at a local shelter. Your club can play chess or knit at a nursing home, shoot hoops at the Boys and Girls Club, cook a holiday meal for those in need, or organize a talent show at the YMCA. The opportunities are endless.

This is huge. Imagine if we pull this off. What a way to actualize our ideals.

Jason talked about the budget crisis at the University – said that the Brandeis community should be able to give input to the budget. I think he was implicitly saying something along the lines of “Hey University? Remember the Guns decision? Remember how you cut us out of that process? Well we demand to be at the table when you make budget decisions that affect us.”

Jason has the credibility with the administration to pull this off, I think.

Jason also put a big focus on Rights and Responsibilities. The impetus for the Student Bill of Rights may have been the struggle between the Student body and the Administration, but Jason ran with the concept after SODA disbanded, and he’s still very cognizant of the fact that Student Rights and Responsibilities is “heavy on the responsibilities, light on the rights…”

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

we hope to revamp club collaboration by creating an online forum for club leaders to easily communicate with each other in the idea-generating, strategizing, and event-planning processes.

Online, you say? A place where an online place where brandeis activists and club leaders could bounce ideas off each other and strategize… Sounds like us, actually. Or what Innermost Parts would like to be.

Here’s a big deal: “Revitalizing old rooms in Castle and Usdan.”
Thank you!

The biggest news was still the call for every club to have a community service component. Awesome.

Student Union president Jason Gray is going to give a speech on the state of the union (and Brandeis) tonigth.

Sources say it’ll shock and amaze, that it blows previous SOTU speeches out of the water.

I’m not quite sure about that, but we’ll see. Hopefully we’ll set up a liveblog here at 7pm.  Hm…

edit: 7pm at Rapaporte, if you want to go yourself.