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NYU Students Take Over Kimmel Center in Protest

In the wake of NYU's loss of $24 million due to fiscally irresponsible investments with Bernie Madoff, some not so clear connections between NYU and the war in Gaza,  as well as the revelation that NYU administrators' salaries quite literally multiplied in recent years, NYU students have followed the New School in demanding autonomous space among some other things. VIVA!

From their website:

At approximately 10pm tonight (Feb. 18), students of Take Back NYU! took over the Kimmel Marketplace. They have blockaded the doors and declared an occupation! They presented their demands to the NYU administration. They read as follows: DEMANDSWe, the students of NYU, declare an occupation of this space. This occupation is the culmination of a two-year campaign by the Take Back NYU! coalition, and of campaigns from years past, in whose footsteps we follow. In order to create a more accountable, democratic and socially responsible university, we demand the following:1.    Full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.2.    Full compensation for all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation. 3.    Public release of NYU's annual operating budget, including a full list of university expenditures, salaries for all employees compensated on a semester or annual basis, funds allocated for staff wages, contracts to non-university organizations for university construction and services, financial aid data for each college, and money allocated to each college, department, and administrative unit of the university. Furthermore, this should include a full disclosure of the amount and sources of the university's funding. 4.    Disclosure of NYU's endowment holdings, investment strategy, projected endowment growth, and persons, corporations and firms involved in the investment of the university's endowment funds. Additionally, we demand an endowment oversight body of students, faculty and staff who exercise shareholder proxy voting power for the university's investments. 5.    That the NYU Administration agrees to resume negotiations with GSOC/UAW Local 2110 – the union for NYU graduate assistants, teaching assistants, and research assistants. That NYU publically affirm its commitment to respect all its workers, including student employees, by recognizing their right to form unions and to bargain collectively. That NYU publically affirm that it will recognize workers' unions through majority card verification. 6.    That NYU signs a contract guaranteeing fair labor practices for all NYU employees at home and abroad. This contract will extend to subcontracted workers, including bus drivers, food service employees and anyone involved in the construction, operation and maintenance at any of NYU's non-U.S. sites. 7.    The establishment of a student elected Socially Responsible Finance Committee. This Committee will have full power to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions. The committee will be composed of two subcommittees: one to assess the operating budget and one to assess the endowment holdings. Each committee will be composed of ten students democratically elected from the graduate and under-graduate student bodies. All committee decisions will be made a strict majority vote, and will be upheld by the university. All members of the Socially Responsible Finance Committee will sit on the board of trustees, and will have equal voting rights. All Socially Responsible Finance Committee and Trustee meetings shall be open to the public, and their minutes made accessible electronically through NYU's website. Elections will be held the second Tuesday of every March beginning March 10th 2009, and meetings will be held biweekly beginning the week of March 30th 2009. 8.    That the first two orders of business of the Socially Responsible Finance committee will be:a) An in depth investigation of all investments in war and genocide profiteers, as well as companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories. b) A reassessment of the recently lifted of the ban on Coca Cola products.9.    That annual scholarships be provided for thirteen Palestinian students, starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. These scholarships will include funding for books, housing, meals and travel expenses. 10.    That the university donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.11.    Tuition stabilization for all students, beginning with the class of 2012. All students will pay their initial tuition rate throughout the course of their education at New York University.  Tuition rates for each successive year will not exceed the rate of inflation, nor shall they exceed one percent. The university shall meet 100% of government-calculated student financial need. 12.    That student groups have priority when reserving space in the buildings owned or leased by New York University, including, and especially, the Kimmel Center.13.    That the general public have access to Bobst Library. Along with this, students have issued aSOLIDARITY STATEMENTWe, the students of Take Back NYU! declare our solidarity with the student [sleepovers] in Greece,Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as those of the University of
Rochester, the New School for Social Research, and with future[sleepovers] to come in the name of democracy and student power. We standin solidarity with the University of Gaza, and with the people ofPalestine.

"Young Invincibles" not quite Supermen

NY Times put out an article on uninsured young adults whose physical health the State is neglecting, all the while exploiting them for their irregular work. In turn, these young people, 775,000 according to the Times, are forced to "borrow leftover prescription drugs from friends, attempt to self-diagnose ailments online, stretch their diabetes and asthma medicines for as long as possible and set their own broken bones. When emergencies strike, they rarely can afford the bills that follow."
Thank you for sharing, NY Times, but I have to point out that this isn't news to us. Us being young people. We know many of our friends are unemployed, can't find work and, as a result, either have to pay hundreds of dollars a month for a health service that gives them so much less than their money's worth, or just go without it entirely. The Times tries their best to personalize the politics. They tell the story of Alanna Boyd who spent 46 hours in an emergency room due to diverticulitis and was billed $17,398. But I ALREADY know young people who have gone to the emergency room uninsured and were billed thousands of dollars.
I do need to emphasize what a grand waste of money this is. The thought that people should pay thousands of dollars for a few hours of services is beyond exploitation.
Patterson wants to extend the age at which young people can be covered under their parent's plan to 29 years old, but that's only IF their parents are covered. What happens to young people who don't have rich parents?
Yeah, Patterson doesn't really care.

Thanks Ilene.

Week In News...

Yes, its a day late. Get over it.

If Bush et Cronies a la Right were so intent upon upholding the structure of the family, why did he forcibly split tens of thousands of them apart?

Queen's University in Ontario has shut down their language gestapo, enabling free(er) speech.

Domestic workers fight for their rights NOT to be at the whim of their employer.

Glamour, a major media outlet directed toward women, is finally taking responsibility for reporting issues that are of actual relevance to women in particular and society in general: abortion.

The NYC AIDS Housing Network rallied in front of City Hall before and during Speaker Christine Quinn's State of the City address to put attention of Bloomberg's attempts to slash funding to "AIDS supportive housing and funding."

Speaking of, you can read Christine Quinn's snoring address here.  It says nothing substantive about primary education and nothing AT ALL about higher education, which is on par with Quinn's as well as Bloomberg's and Patterson's attacks on the City University of New York.

The NYC Public Schools Athletic League is partnering with the US Army in order to teach students "life skills" from the army. Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union says it best: "The Army has a long track record of targeting New York's poor black and Latino populations with coercive and aggressive military recruitment techniques and now we are seeing potentially another avenue for military recruitment in our schools -- and with the Department of Education's encouragement,"

In this economic crisis its good to know that there is still a handful of sorta-affordable local colleges to turn to.

Week In Blogs...

Bush's abstinence-only education used and continues to use taxpayer's money to fund rape culture.

TakePart explains how Facebook owns your pictures = facebook owns your life.

Feministe explains why you need to fund Scarleteens.

ACLU sues Nassau County to enforce right of gay-straight alliance to meet. Why oh why are young people's rights to assemble constantly and so blatantly revoked? And now, public schools aren't private property, so don't use that pretend excuse as a reason. 

Pandagon on Valentine's Day advertisements and their inconstant, blatantly contradictory, yet always sexist images utilized to sell stupid stuff no one needs.

Adam Fletcher describes the FreeChild Project Agenda.

Roid Models

I solemnly swear that I have been trying my hardest not to comment on the last two scandals in the world of jingo-ified sportmanship: A-Rod (dubbed A-hole by the NY Post, keeping it classy as usual) and his A-Roids, and Michael Phelps tokking it up. What deterred me from commenting was that I first saw the Phelps story on News of the World, and being struck by the paradox of major news outlets such as News of the World, whose name deceives the West by implying that the shit news they turn out actually has social relevance, reporting that, well, some guy was tokking up with his friends. Blasphemy! The reporters were probably smoking their bongs while writing these articles. But, I've conceded that the actions of these athletes do have social relevance, and not because they're going "to influence little Jimmy to smoke pot," mostly because he will smoke pot regardless - so long as this misunderstanding and sensationalization of marijuana persists.
My point of contention with this tyrannical criticism being thrown at Rodriguez and Phelps is that it is committed with the pretense that these men are "supposed to be role models." But sorry there, I missed the point where treading through a large artificial water container and knocking a horsehide-stiched sphere with a piece of tree constituted emulation. Rodriguez and Phelps are not supposed to be role models, and if they are then we don't need to reassess them or their actions, we have to reassess a society that celebrates their talents. I mean, what are their talents anyway? Well, Phelps won like a bazillion gold medals at the Olympic games, which means that he's the best at reasserting American supremacy over all those other little nations we step on within a battlefield where no one actually dies. Yay patriotism!
I know nothing about A-Rod other than that he took steroids in order to maximize his ability on the field, which is really just a sneaky way of maximing America's love for him. Oh and that he is romantically/sexually involves with Madonna and that a lot of people have been up all night over the matter. I think its less pathetic that A-Rod took roids than it is that we actually care about a group of men throwing a ball around.
However, I think its MOST pathetic that we breed men, generally working class and minority, to battle each other so that we can live out our jingoistic desires for simulated war. If anything, sports players are not meant to be role models, but roid models - the idea of them, as warriors, perpetuates a black market of products that are really just used to keep America "sports lovers" assured that each game will be a "good one."

Try Not to Poke Your Eyeballs Out Midway Through

In case you were interested in skipping the dirty rhetoric and reading Obama's stimulus bill for yourself, I've posted the appropriations section here.
But beware of this 496 page monster. Maybe we should start petitioning our reps for shorter bills. Just a thought.
When you find the part that matters to our constituency, give out a holler.

All the Single Ladies

Grow a pair of ovaries and ask someone to be your Valentine!

That is, if you should be so moved.

In Anticipation of V-Day...

Take care of yourself on Valentine's Day.

Love,

Jamie

Do You Know Them?

The Sisters of the Revolution performing some damn fine poetry on Apollo, late 60s. We need more of this.

Scapegoating the University System during the Financial Crisis

As most of you may know, publicly funded universities across the US are currently under fire and being threatened left and right, mostly from the right, under the pretext of our economic crisis. For example, Governor Patterson on NY tried to pass a budget that would require the City University of New York (CUNY) to raise its tuition by $600 . To add insult to injury, it was recently learned that less than half of the CUNY tuition paid by students goes to...um...CUNY, the rest is BEING USED TO BACKFILL THE STATE BUDGET.

But at least we still have our Women's Studies courses. The University of Georgia is under fire from conservative representatives and a coalition of religious groups like the Christian Coalition (coalition of a coalition of a coalition) to get rid of Women's Studies and Queer Theory courses. Whatever their motives may be :cough:theBIBLE:cough:, Rep. Byrd and Rep. Calvin having been using the pretext of the economic crisis to get rid of these courses. WTF? They don't cost that much money. I just love how the Republicans have once again become the party of "fiscal responsibility." I mean, throughout these 8 years I was under the impression that they only spend money on really expensive things that blow up. Like Iraq. And things that blow up in people's faces. Like abstinence-only education. But, according to Rep. Hill: "Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

If we were really going to get rid of classes as a consequence of the economic crisis, we should be getting rid of Business since the graduates of those departments were the ones who contributed greatly to this mess. However, because I'm not AN IDIOT, I wouldn't actually advocate something so stupid.

That said, gender studies is an indispensible part of our education systems, if only because it addresses issues that are intricately woven into our economic situation: for example, why it is that 98% of CEOs in this country are white and male, and how has that has ultimately made the financial crisis we are in today.

Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women

Two weeks ago, young adult women in the state of Karnataka were beaten publicly by members of the Sri Rama Sena and Dajrang Dal because they were drinking in a bar and "dressing indecently." :Gasp!:
As I posted earlier, ultraviolet has written an open letter to the Indian goverment urging them to...um...protect democracy and disable this informal gender policing that rules the night.  Also developed out of this mess is as adhoc campaign called the Pink Chaddi Campaign. Chaddi is a slang term in India denoting short little underwear or boxer shorts. The Pink Chaddi Campaign is urgining feminists, egalitarians, freedom-lovers, people with mothers or sisters or aunts of grandmothers, anyone who cares about women really to send pink underwear to the head of Sri Ram Sena. More infor here and here.
But I can't just leave this post at that. I need to ask: What the fuck, patriarchy?
What exactly is it that enables men to view women as objects and women to view men as subjects in this little dreamland we seem to be living in: society? Why is it so difficult for men to give up power and allow women to live fully conscious lives? What is power anyway, and why won't anyone give it up?
Someone answer at least one of these questions.