Category: Uncategorized

Ever wonder where your power comes from?

Today, I and the other Eco-Reps tabled in the Shapiro Atrium to educate the Brandeis community about our energy consumption.

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “the grid” tossed around in talk about energy use or energy independence.  The grid is our electrical infrastructure, composed of sources of generation, transmission, and consumption.  A non-profit coalition called ISO New England (located in my home of Western Mass!) manages New England’s electricity grid.  Because the grid is entirely inter-connected, the electricity you use at Brandeis comes from a variety of sources from all over the region.  The pie chart below describes how your electricity is generated.

(source: New England Wind Fund)

As you can see, the biggest sources (natural gas, nuclear, coal, and oil) are not the greenest.  In fact, in Massachusetts over 80% of power is generated from fossil fuels and nuclear material.

The top 10 electricity generators in New England are as follows:

1. Seabrook Station – Seabrook, NH (Nuclear)
2. Millstone Point Station – Watertown, CT (Nuclear)
3. Fore River Station – North Weymouth, MA (Natural Gas/Diesel)
4. Mystic Station – Everett, MA (Natural Gas/Oil)
5. Pilgrim Station – Plymouth, MA (Nuclear)
6. Granite Ridge Energy – Londonderry, NH (Natural Gas)
7. Brayton Point Station – Somerset, MA (Coal) [one of the Conservation Law Foundation’s “Filthy Five” and the largest source of air pollution in New England.  In 2000, the plant emitted: 44,586 tons of Sulfur Dioxide (acid rain), 13,636 tons of Nitrogen Oxide (smog), 7,925,715 tons of Carbon Dioxide (global warming), 240 lbs mercury (enough to poison 120 million pounds of fish).]
8. Vermont Yankee Station – Vernon, VT (Nuclear)
9. Wyman Station – Yarmouth, ME (Oil)
10. Mirant Canal Generating Plant – Sandwich, MA (Oil)

OK, so the mix isn’t so good.  Is there something you can do about it?  The answer is yes.

I have to give some credit to Brandeis.  Our university purchases 15% of its power from wind by using renewable energy certificates (RECs).  Since the grid is all inter-connected, you can buy renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro) from a source such as Maine Interfaith Power and Light.  The amount you buy creates greater demand from that renewable source, generates the green electricity, and replaces dirtier electricity that otherwise would have to have been generated to provide you with power.  I bought 1 “Wind Watt” before the semester began for just $20 and my roommate and I still haven’t used all of it in our Charles River Apartment.  For this semester, my apartment has been powered 100% by wind.

If you have any more questions about power generation or related topics, leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer them.

You know that Join the Impact event this Saturday? TechPresident asks, Once a Local Legal Battle, Is Prop 8 On Its Way to ‘Net-Fueled Cultural Moment? It’s fascinating to read how this event that Jourdan, a student here, is organizing fits into a larger story of online activism and organizing.

In the days after the vote, Seattle activist Amy Balliett put up a website calling for others to Join the Impact against Prop 8. She told 365gay.com that she was amazed to soon find it pulling in some 50,000 hits per hour, crashing its server. The Join the Impact mission is to make communion with Prop 8 supporters, “to encourage our community to engage our opposition in a conversation about full equality and to do this with respect, dignity, and an attitude of outreach and education.” Its success is reminiscent of Columbia’s anti-FARC movement launched on Facebook that spawned protests all over the world.

Turns out that Hannaford‘s is the 5th healthiest line of supermarkets in the country. Cool!

5. Hannaford

165-plus stores in the Northeast

This chain is relatively small, but Whole Foods should look out — Hannaford is the largest certified-organic supermarket in the region, and in the past two years it has boosted its produce selection to provide more than 50 local and organic products from 200 farms close by. “It’s an impressive amount of local produce, which is not that easy in temperate New England,” Geagan notes.

But Hannaford’s commitment to healthy foods doesn’t stop there. Its Guiding Stars nutrition-label program makes it a snap to pick out the healthiest fresh and packaged fare: You’ll find one, two, or three stars — with three stars indicating the highest nutritional value — on nearly every item in the store. That means you don’t have to pore over the labels to decide which loaf of bread to buy.

So I became aware that, though it’s on our blogroll, you might not be aware of of Professor Wayne Marshall’s blog.

If you haven’t checked it out yet you totally should. He’s been doing this stuff since 2003, so he’s an expert at it by now.

Wow, so I just got around to reading The Justice today. I haven’t done it in a while.

They have an editorial up about the creation of the Committee for Endowment Ethics and Responsibility.
Never mind that this is a significant win for the Brandeis student body.
They seem to have no idea what the purpose of the Committee actually is.

Let me be brief – The Committee for Endowment Ethics and Responsibility exists to make sure that we’re not abusing our endowment, by, for example, investing in Sudan. Or maybe it’ll push the University to actually use its shares for Proxy Voting.

The Justice Editorial Board seems to think that CEER is going to try and advise the Board of Trustees on which hedge fund will give the best ROI. That’s simply wrong.

Look, Brandeis has a shameful history regarding its endowment . Students got the University to divest from South Africa, only to find out later that the Brandeis just re-invested right after.

We can’t depend on leaks from outraged faculty and staff. We need an independent panel conducting a review of the ethical implications of our endowment. CEER is the first step to that goal.

So my good friend Matt wrote an opinion piece about Facebook in the Justice yesterday.
Matt, you makea variety of good points. But I think you’re missing two important pieces of data.

There is a reason people feel that their privacy is invaded. They weren’t the ones taking those pictures of themselves at parties or defacing towns, or whatever. Someone else did, often without their permission. Secondly those pictures have security settings so that only members of “the Network”, aka Brandeis Students, for example, can see them. When the University infiltrates the network and bypasses those security settings, it’s acting in bad faith, and co-opting a fraternal bonding experience into a spying extravaganza.

There was a “counterpoint” article, however. As far I understand, it argued that the contextual advertising for Facebook don’t give us no respect. Well, that’s novel.

Then again, maybe those ads really are an insult to our intelligence. I wouldn’t know.

Dear Rebecca Blady,

In response to your recent article in The Justice, I’d like to highlight a particular sentence that, for your sake, I hope your editor inserted.

It’s important to question whether our First Amendment rights should trump our morality.

Um, what? Let’s put aside the fact that the first amendment refers to the power of state and local governments to censor speech.

Do you realize that you’re saying that a core American value should be superseded due to the presence of some third-rate glorified message board? I could create a less-fancy version of this website in the space of one hour. Should we ditch our first amendment rights for that site too? How about we get Brandeis to ban all pornography? People say that both porn and violent video games compromise our morality. It’s important to question whether our Fourth Amendment rights should trump our morality. I say we start searching through everyone’s dorm and confiscating their porn and Wiis.

Look, what are you proposing, exactly?

In a society in which [free speech] is considered an absolute, we must consider its limitations. We are obliged to curb free speech for the sake of our classmates’ emotional well-being.

Oh. So you’re going to try to get Brandeis to block the IP address of some shitty website? You know else hurts people’s well being? Facebook. There are pictures of so many underage teenagers drinking beer at parties. As you so eloquently put it, Real jobs and real reputations are at stake. Let’s ban Facebook too. After we search everyone’s dorm for porn and violent video games. I’ll be happy to offer my dorm room as a place to store any contraband we find.

This Message from Jourdan, about Prop 8 -Sahar
Last Tuesday, millions of people saw a long-awaited dream realized, while millions of others saw theirs crushed.

This Saturday, stand up for the right to love! Protest California’s passing of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage, with Join the Impact, a grassroots organization staging protests in over 150 cities nationwide this Saturday! There will be music, performances, and thousands of people coming out to stand up for a person’s right—whether gay or straight—to love and to marry.

Boston’s Join the Impact protest, co-organized with MassEquality will take place Saturday from 1:30-4:00pm at Boston’s City Hall/Government Plaza. This is not just an issue for Californians, but one for all Americans! Come out and show your support!

Find out more information at the national webpage for Join the Impact (www.jointheimpact.com), and check out the Facebook group for the Boston event (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=37701726407) or email Jourdan Cohen (jicohen@brandeis.edu).

So, recently I lost my student ID, like most Brandeis students do at least once during their academic career.  Now normally this isn’t a big deal because someone will give it to the Info Desk at Shapiro, or message you on facebook to give it back.  Maybe at worst you’ll have to shell out the 10 dollars to get a replacement one.

But recently, I lost mine and then someone took the liberty of using all my WHOcash to do their laundry in Rosenthal.  Is there any way we could make whocash more secure, so that things like this don’t happen?  I know people are supposed to make sure the face matches the card when you buy things (I won’t get into how rarely this is actually enforced)… but when it comes to laundry it’s not like the WHOcash readers have retinal scans or anything to make sure the right person is using them.

I feel like this can’t be just an isolated incident, and that other people must have had similar experiences, I’m just wondering if anyone either a) knows a way to report this or b) has ideas about how to prevent this from happening to others in the future.  PIN numbers for laundry machines?  Anything?

I welcome your thoughts.

A friend from high school– a Republican– wrote this as a facebook note and said to feel free to pass it on:

In Response to the Response of McCain’s Supporters

This will be brief.

The world is not going to end.

President-Elect Obama is not going to personally kick down your door and take all of your money.

President-Elect Obama is not a Socialist

President-Elect Obama is not a terrorist

It is called the WHITE House because it only happens to be painted white. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.

You do not need to flee the country and move to an island resort.

“Hussein” is an extremely common name of Arabic and Turkish origin that has several meanings, including “good” and “beautiful”. Several people throughout History have shown us that a person’s name has little bearing on their actions.

Democracy is based on choice. Like it or not, America chose, now you have a responsibility as citizens to follow McCain’s example and put your country before your own interests. His concession speech showed immense courage, dignity, and patriotism. Too many people are thinking of what immediately benefits their small groups instead of what is good for the country. You may not have voted for him and you don’t have to agree with all of his STATED POLICIES (His name and race are completely irrelevant), but since he has been democratically elected according to the doctrine of the American Constitution, you owe it to your country and yourself to give him a chance. If he fails, then you’ll be able to vote against him in the next election just like people did with Bush, it’s not a dictatorship. However, he is far more likely to succeed if he has the full support of the nation.

Want the country to fail? Keep trying to sabotage the President and we’ll see how soon that happens. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Lincoln said that, and he was quoting the Bible. Make your own connections.

That’s all I have to say.

….incredible, right?

Help the Union fix it! The Campus Operations Working Group meets with Facilities every other week to talk about things around campus that aren’t working a need fixing. Cracks in the sidewalk? Flooding in your room? Door won’t open? Tell us ASAP!

Send an email to cow-g@lists.brandeis.edu, or post a reply to this thread and we’ll take a look.

Tuesday, the day of the election, a bunch of us are going to skip class and take a bus to Raymond, New Hampshire, to get out the vote.

Interested, here’s the info:

I hope that you’re all planning to take a day off of class for the most important election of our lives (so far)!

Here is the schedule: show up to catch the bus in front of Spingold at 7:15 AM (Early, I know, but you can sleep on the bus!)
We’ll be spending the day getting out the vote in Raymond, NH, and heading back to the campus for the DFA election-watch party right before polls close at eight.

The Obama campaign will provide lots of food, excitement, and Obama-mania!

More questions? Email liza behrent

This is interesting.

If you’re voting in MA you might want to do it. You can borrow video cameras from Getz for free.

Eric Massa is running for congress in NY-29, my home district.

NY-29 is the most conservative in the state, and he’s running on a platform of single-payer healthcare, among other things.

Eric takes no money from corporations. Eric has “the fire in the belly”.

Eric Massa is the candidate that inspired me to become a Democrat.

Can’t you please chip in 5 dollars? He needs it right now. I’m trying to get at least 20 college students to chip in $5 each.

Donate here.
Continue reading “Five for Eric”

So the University is facing budget shortfalls and a shrinking endowment. I’m pondering:

– Is it still right and proper to demand solar panels for Brandeis?

– On one hand, we’re already seeing queues of years to get windmill parts – if Brandeis doesn’t act now, will it be shut out of the market to buy solar panels? Will the prices only go up in the future?

– Does it make financial sense to buy solar panels now, so as to cut down costs

If you’re interested in doing the legwork to come up with these answers, email me or elizabeth setren.

Did you see the Obamamercial?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA[/youtube]
Notice the shout out to Unions? I like how Obama advances a tolerance agenda (see? Black/Hispanic/Mixed-Race people work hard and aren’t scary!) while simultaneously running for President.

I’ve been called by Obama volunteers 3 times in the last week. They all ask me to volunteer for Obama. Once, I got a call while I was in New Hampshire canvassing. That was fun. Before that I’d only gotten one call from them ever.

What are you doing on election day? Skip all your classes and go to New Hampshire to get out the vote with us. Contact Justin Backal-Balik for details.

What are you doing election night? Party at Chums! 9-12pm.

What are you doing the night before the election? DFA coffeehouse – we’ll be phonebanking there from 9-9:30 – it’ll be your last chance to call for Obama. 9-12 at chums, monday night.

All the election drama is now focused on the Senate.

This is a terrible time to be sick and bedridden..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9V_aOCga0[/youtube]

In the third part of my series on how Brandeis’ beloved Usen Castle has influenced some of the modern buildings on campus, I’d like to share my thoughts on East Quad.  Home to around 400 sophomores, East Quad was constructed in 1964 in the Modernist style.  East consists of three buildings: Hassenfeld Hall, which houses around 250 students, Pomerantz Hall, which houses around 150 students, and the Swig Student Center, once a dining hall but now home to the Brandeis Intercultural Center (ICC).

Hassenfeld and Pomerantz are technically composed of six “houses”: Hassenfeld, Krivoff, Shapiro, Pomerantz, and Rubenstein.  Once arranged in suites, each of these “houses” had its own entrance, staircase, and multiple floors of suites.  If you live in one of the East singles with a wall of windows, your room was once the lounge of a six-person suite.  Interestingly, in the conversion to single and double rooms in corridors, the “house” names other than Hassenfeld and Pomerantz lost their cultural significance and are no longer used.

Continue reading “The Castles of Brandeis: Part III – East Quad”

Like, for example, in the past two days I told two separate people that their relatively unremarkable overcoats were each “the coolest, most distinguished coat I have ever seen.”

Maybe I just think overcoats are cool and I wish I had one. Maybe I tend to vastly overblow the significance of cool things.

On that note, you should go to Raymond, NH, this saturday for the most epic battle of the century this side of Waziristan. 

	vs
Brandeis		Tufts

BARACK the NH Vote! Whichever school canvasses the best will be able to claim superiority over the other for 100 summers. 

This Saturday.
Meet at Spingold at 10:30am.
Spread the Word. 
More info here.

update – 35 people confirmed to go so far. Can we make 40 by tonight?

And now, for a limited time only – you’re invited to a pre-emptive BARACK the vote victory (over tufts) party. Info here.

If anyone’s curious, the registrar has published the preliminary final exam schedule here. Not that they’ll announce it or anything.

If you’ve checked your mail recently, you should have gotten an e mail from Kaamila Mohamed regarding taking a diversity survey.  Here are the contents of the e mail, and I urge you all to take a few minutes out of your schedules to answer a few questions!!

Dear Brandeis Student,

As two students interested in diversity at Brandeis, we have created a survey to gather information on the experiences, perceptions and interests of the Brandeis Community regarding diversity. Along with Dean Adams, we will analyze the results to determine the needs and desires of Brandeis students as they pertain to these issues.

We have tried to keep the survey as inclusive as possible without losing statistical significance. Because your personal experiences and ideas are of interest to us, if one or more of your self-identifications are not listed, please let us know in the question provided towards the end of the survey. Please also note that on the questions that ask you for self-identifications, you may choose not to answer.

The survey should take about ten minutes:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Yb3jf_2fCGqqLxxAGUj2ZN0Q_3d_3d

Thank you for contributing your time and effort to this initiative!

Thanks,

Kaamila Mohamed and Megan Straughan

So, I posted this on facebook a while back, but it is something I think about every time I sit down to study, so I thought that maybe you beautiful Innermost Parts readers might enjoy it as well.

I recently read an article by Nicholas Carr called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, and I found it very interesting.  Especially considering the amount of my friends who have complained of symptoms of ADD (some I’ll admit were joking, but I know several who have actually been taking steps to get diagnosed), I find it very fitting.

One point that stuck with me the most, was when he was talking about his difficulty reading:

Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I remember flying through books with relative ease when I was younger, and even just a few years ago in high school.  Only recently have I stumbled upon this inability to focus and concentrate on the narratives being presented to me. Although I’m not sure I would 100% blame it on the interweb, I do find it interesting that this experience seems to be pretty common among many people I know.

Thoughts and feelings, anyone?

Funny sidenote: considering all the above, I think the length of this article kind of keeps it out of the reaches of those who might be the most interested in Mr. Carr’s perspective.

I’d like to apologize to everyone for not writing quite so much lately. That’s because we’re 12 13 days away from the General Election.

This Saturday will feature a rumble of epic proportions

The Brandeis vs Tufts battle for who can canvass the shit out of New Hampshire!

Come to Rabb Steps at 11am Spingold at 10:30am Saturday, get into the (provided transportation) with your closest friends, and stroll across lovely New Hampshire getting votes and volunteers.

Scared? Don’t be. This phase of  the campaign has you talking exclusively to Obama supporters, getting them to pledge to volunteer or vote.

You could be the one who swings the entire state of New Hampshire to the Obama column. You could spend a few hours talking to like-minded people about how awesome post-Jan 15 2009 will be, and then you can CRUSH Tufts.

Whichever school gets the most points wins. Points are allocated as follows:

THE BRANDEIS-TUFTS CHALLENGE:
On Saturday October 25, Team Tufts and Team Brandeis will go head-to-head in Raymond, NH, to see who can talk to the most voters, and BARACK THE VOTE for Obama!!

RULES:
Canvassing is from noon to 6pm
Meet in downtown Raymond, in the park across from the Town Hall to pick up your canvassing packets
1 point per contact (knock)
2 points for every new volunteer you find

PRIZES will be given to the winners!

BONUS POINTS:
biggest team: 2 points
“flair”: 1/2 point per piece

RSVP on the facebook page here.

I was reading an article in The American Prospect today – “Suddenly, Everyone’s Pro-Choice!“. This little paragraph jumped out at me:

There’s one other reason that pro-choice ads are springing up around the country. This year, the electorate will be much younger than in recent cycles, both because more young people tend to vote in presidential elections and Obama has galvanized young voters unlike any politician in recent memory. Surveys show that young voters are more consistently pro-choice than their older counter-parts.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter. Just by being who you are, and standing up and being counted at the polls, shifts this country in a better direction.

How many people out there know that registration for the Spring 2009 semester is beginning on October 27, a week from Monday? Academic services has been being strangely quiet about it, but according to the registrar’s website, it’s true. Classes can be found at http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/schedule/search.php, though note that a) you have to move the drop-down menu to Spring 2009 (it’s still set on 2008) and b) in some cases, the professor listed when you click on the course number is incorrect. All the correct instructors are listed on the actual search page.

Posting this on behalf of students crossing boundaries -Sahar

Hey, are you interested in conflict resolution? Social justice? Coexistence issues? If you answered yes to any (if not all) of these questions, than you might be interested in Students Crossing Boundaries.

We are a group of students working to empower other students in conflict resolution. We do this by offering guidance in finding internships, developing leadership and team building skills, and putting students at the center of some of the world’s most influential conflicts.

This year we have two fellowship programs to Israel and Palestine and two sister cities on the Mexican-American border. The application isn’t too long or hard, so don’t worry, we are just looking for students who are motivated, adventurous, and are willing to go out there and broaden their worldly outlooks.

If this sounds interesting to you, visit our website. Learn more about us and apply!

www.studentscrossingboundaries.com

Please contact us if you have any further questions,

Best,
Adriel Orzoco and Feya HIllel.

Brandeis Amnesty International will be holding a rollicking musical event this Saturday form 2-5 in Levin Ballroom to raise money and awareness for international child soldiers.   Activist Clubs represented include STAND, Positive Foundations, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, The Vegan Club, and Students Against the Judge Rotenberg Center.

Here’s the Schedule!
2:00 – Student speaker
2:10 – Brandeis Sax Quartet (formerly known as “Sax Appeal)
2:40 – Student speaker
2:45 – Ines Schinazi
3:10 – Student Speaker
3:20 – Boat Car
3:50 – Student speaker
4:00 – The Verbs
5:00 – Student speaker, conclusion

Saturday, October 18th, Levin Ballroom, 2-5 PM

If you’re not canvassing in New Hampshire, please do SOMETHING worthwhile with your saturday afternoon!  This will be really fun, and we hope you’ll be there!

I just attended a wonderful event on campus at Spingold Theater.  Tom Friedman, New York Times colmnist and Pullitzer Prize winner, spoke about his new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America. He explained how America has “lost its groove” since 9/11, how the environmental crisis affects us, and how these two issues are linked.

I could relate to one part of his speech in particular.  He contrasted the “green party,” the phenomenon of the everyone-can-go-green craze we’re experiencing now, with a real green revolution.  Friedman explained that while it’s great that he and all his neighbors have switched to hybrid cars, they’re not making real change.  A green revolution can only come from the leaders–the people who make the rules in government and the people who lead America’s economy.  In a real revolution, he explained, “people get hurt.”  No, not in the physical sense, but hurt such that if you don’t out-green the competition then you will fail.  If our government does not respond to the environmental crises, then our generation will have “zero chance,” as Friedman says, to enjoy the same standards of living as our parents.  While changing our habits is valuable, it’s more important to change the rules so that others must change their habits.

Last spring, Brandeis had a Student Union referendum on the question of what to do with our Student Activities Fund roll-over money, amounting to over $100,000.  A proposal to invest in solar panels on campus lost to refurbishing the weight room.  After the upsetting result, I decided that I would make a difference where Brandeis student body had not.  I found some instructions on how to make a solar charger for my iPod.  If students wouldn’t support renewable energy, I would go it alone.  Unfortunately I’m not a professional, and I have little work tinkering with thin film panels, voltage regulators, and the science of solar power.  My charger worked… sort of.  The truth was that as just one person, it was difficult to make a change in renewable energy.

Only when we mobilize our peers, confront our leaders, and make change as a group force, with the help of all types of laymen and professionals, can we make a change.  We must make changes at higher levels by, as Friedman puts it, “getting in peoples’ faces.”  Brandeis wants to put up a meteorlogical tower in Sachar Woods to find out whether putting a wind turbine on campus is a feasible idea.  Waltham isn’t letting it happen–they don’t want a tower in their back yard.  We as Brandeis students need to “get in the faces” of the Waltham city government and force them to permit our renewable energy study.

I’d take clean, reliable, renewable energy coming from wind turbine in Sachar Woods over a half-working solar iPod charger hanging in my window any day.

McCain vs Obama, the final match.
It all starts in two minutes, and I’ll be liveblogging the whole thing on the website of The Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank.

You can see the liveblogging here – http://rooseveltinstitution.org/election2008

Roosevelt is a pretty cool organization. They were founded after the 2004 election by students who were all like “hey we are some seriously smart people. We can do much more than phonebank. We are much more than live bodies.” So then they founded a network of think tanks on college campuses. I’ll talk about it more later.

Liveblog here.

If you guys haven’t heard about Proposition 8 yet, here is the deal: Currently California is one of three states that has legalized gay marriage. For the last few months gay couples have been able to go to city hall and get married to someone they love, just like any other couple. Proposition 8 would annul those marriages and ban marriage entirely for same-sex couples.

It must be defeated.

Want to do something about it? Great. Come to the phonebank tonight after the Presidential Debate (10:30 PM) in the Shapiro Campus Center (2nd floor, outside of the multi-purpose room). Help us call undecided voters in California to protect marriage equality.

“Columbus Day Observed” is what I read on my calendar this morning, which I promptly scratched out and responded with “not in this house”.

I am very happy that Brandeis does not recognize Columbus Day, especially since I read the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen and my eyes were opened to the myth I was taught in 3rd grade.  The cute little songs can no longer cover the realities of Mr. Columbus’ pillaging and degradation of our nations native peoples.  I could go on and on about the wrongs this man has done, so you can check out these quotes from Leowen’s book for more info. (The Columbus conversation doesn’t start until partway down the page)

Christopher Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: the taking of land, wealth, and labor from indigenous peoples, leading to their near extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass. (Leowen)

Come on, America.  Is this really who we want as a national hero?

Also from my understanding (and according to my calander), some have reclaimed today as Indigenous People’s Day.  I find that to be much more fitting.  Today should be a day of mourning and rememberance, as well as facing the current situation of native people in our country and working towards a more respectful and peaceful future.

So to all, a meaningful Indigenous People’s Day.

I get email:

The Peace Conflict and Coexistence Studies (PAX) program awards the Karpf and Hahn Peace Awards annually to Brandeis undergraduate or graduate students who wish to work toward coexistence and peaceful ways of addressing and resolving conflicts of many sorts.

Karpf awards are usually between $250-$700, but no single award can exceed $1,000. The Hahn awards vary in amount depending on the projects. Both awards may fund projects either partially or fully.

This year, the deadline for the completed application is October 24th. Please check out this link for more info and an application.

http://www.brandeis.edu/programs/peace/award.html

In general, there are three types of award recipients:

1. For artworks and essays on peace: Works of art related to peace include those that reveal costs of violence, commitment to non-violent struggle, and artistic expressions of any aspect of peace culture. These submissions might take the form of poetry (a substantial poem or group of poems); a play or skit or short story related to peace; slides of visual art; cassettes or CDs of music; or other forms of documentation appropriate to the work. This category covers only already completed works of art. Essays of 20-30 pages are included in this category of submission. Application must include a budget for anticipated expenses.

2. For travel grants and participation in a peace project or conference in this country or elsewhere: in addition to the narrative, submit brochures and other literature, reasons for your travel request, and an indication of how you intend to use what you learn at the conference or from the project. Submit a budget of travel and other costs anticipated.

3. For seed money for peace-related projects not involving travel: for designing and organizing a project such as a community mediation service at Brandeis or in a nearby community, or a peace education project in local public or religious schools, or a dialogue. These are only examples. Let your imagination take over.

For more information, please email me at tshields@brandeis.edu.

I didn’t know we did this. Cool!

I just wanted to share with the communinty a few items of interest that were brought up in tonight’s senate meeting.

Firstly, a few weeks ago Nathan Robinson wrote angrily about the lack of free newspapers on campus. He said:

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.

I have good news for you Nathan! According to the Student Union Treasurer, Max Wallach, the Newspapers will be back tomorrow! If they aren’t, feel free to pepper Max with emails complaining about why they are not there.

Secondly, the results of the water bottle survey are out. 1284 students responded to the survey with the overwhelming majority, 80.3% voting in favor of reducing the sale and distribution of waterbottles on campus. More news to follow when a new waterbottle policy is crafted and released by the University.

Yesterday I and twelve other Brandeis Students traveled to Boston to join thousands of others in a protest against the War in Iraq. It was actually quite exciting; we relaxed on the Boston Commons for awhile talking to strangers at various booths, listening to music and rousing speeches. In the afternoon, during the march, we joined up with students from various colleges in the Boston area as well as a large number of High School students and took to the streets.

Though it isn’t a great article, the Boston Globe, covered the event and quoted Innermostparts.org’s’ very own Liza Behrendt:

Liza Behrendt, a sophomore at Brandeis University, weaved through the crowds of antiwar paraphernalia and protesters dressed in a white Haz-Mat jumpsuit with a bright pink peace sign painted on the front and a Sharpie marker taped to the back. Behrendt said her “walking petition” outfit – she collected signatures on her back – was her effort to meet like-minded people outside her student group.
“Even if [the rally] doesn’t make concrete change, it energizes people,” said Behrendt, 19, who was disappointed only 13 students from her school attended. “How can people not be angry?”

I’m pretty angry; and I’m tired of this war. I hope to see more people at the next major demonstration.

I used to be able to say that I lived in the only two states where Gay Marriage is allowed, Massachusetts and California. As of today this is no longer true; the Supreme Court of Connecticut has ruled that banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it discriminates!

Three states now grant full rights to gay couples to marry, it is only a matter of time before they are joined by forty-seven others. This is an absolutely critical victory as it clearly marks that that allowing gay marriage is no longer something that just a small handful of states are doing, this is now a nationwide movement that is winning.

Next up on the agenda? Defeating Proposition 8 in California. Should gay marriage be overturned in California, it could set the movement back five to ten years.

For the second part in my mini-series on Usen Castles’ influence on Brandeis University architecture, I’d like to feature the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center.  You can find Rosenstiel directly on the loop road, visible from South Street.  With the new Carl J. Shapiro Science Center being built alongside it, Rosenstiel has had a little more attention lately.  So how is Rosenstiel influenced by the Castle?

Continue reading “The Castles of Brandeis: Part II – Rosenstiel Science Center”