LSA senior Jackie Bray will be speaking at Shaman Drum about a book she contributed to titled “How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office”:

**********How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office*************

Hope I see lots of you there. “

And here is perhaps the most “controversial” excerpt from the book - this from a segment written by my friend Monique Luse:

“With the Supreme Court in our future, I had no time to ponder the evils of elected government. So, when I got called into secretive meetings between folks from the University Democrats and the Blue Party who wanted to start a new party, I went. These folks knew how to get power, but they had nothing greater than themselves to use it for.

Pretty simple, right? It was like an alarm clock drawing a teenage boy out of his wet dream. These career politicians woke up and put their masturbatory politics on hold. The Students First Party (S1) was born. … “

Jackie ends the chapter she co-wrote like this:

“Such up your pride; ship your baggage and hope the airline loses it. You have to be real with people and talk to them. Find folks that you need to work with and figure out how you can. We will only win if we win it together.”

> See my earlier post about it

Here are some more photos from the Columbia strike.

A few people ran the naked mile yesterday.

What’s going on tomorrow at the President’s house?

Student Voices in Action is having a protest on the lawn of President Mary Sue Coleman’s house at 815 South University from 12 noon until 1 pm. There will be pizza.

The New York Times writes about wealthy students at college, dateline Ann Arbor:

“It’s very much an issue of fundamental fairness,” Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard and a former treasury secretary, said in an interview. “An important purpose of institutions like Harvard is to give everybody a shot at the American dream.”

Over all, at the 42 most selective state universities — including the flagship campuses in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and New York — 40 percent of this year’s freshmen come from families making more than $100,000, up from about 32 percent in 1999, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. Nationwide, fewer than 20 percent of families make that much money. … “

> NY Times: “As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, New Efforts to Level the Field”

Then again, it might just be a good idea to postpone the election. (Also: “Will the 2004 Election be Called off?”)

Columbia Graduate Students on Strike

“Graduate teaching assistants at Columbia University said yesterday that they would go on strike Monday morning and remain out until Columbia recognized their right to unionize, which could shut down hundreds of classes through the end of the school year.

Graduate students represent a significant portion of the teaching force at Columbia. Not only do they run small discussion sessions of large lecture courses, but they also teach more than half of the core courses that all Columbia students must take, like “Contemporary Civilization,” “Literature and Humanities” and writing. … “

> NY Times: “Pushing for Union, Columbia Grad Students Are Set to Strike”

And this:

” … The graduate students voted on unionizing two years ago, but the votes were never counted because Columbia appealed the students’ right to unionize to the National Labor Relations Board. The board said last week that it was studying the case, along with similar appeals, including one by the State University of New York.

“When I came in, things weren’t bad,” said Stephen Twilley, a second-year graduate student in Italian. “But I realized that the stipend had been raised because of efforts to organize, so I have a debt to past organizers. This is our last best hope to move the university.” … “

> From NY Times: “Graduate Students Walk Out at Columbia”
> See also Columbia Spectator coverage: “Strike Begins; 400 Picket on Day One”

> Website of Graduate Students Employees United

Blog coverage:
“114th and Broadway”