Tuesday, December 30, 2003
2003 was a year of tragedy and disaster for poor and working people globally. The American government's imperial projects have impacted the future power relations of global capitalist accumulation and policing in ways which are not yet even entirely apparent. With the Patriot Act II and VISIT, the racialized construction of nationality and nationhood enters frightening new territory. The violent repression visited on those who fought the ftaa in miami (and brooklyn), and those who marched against war in Manhattan and Baghdad bespeaks this new phase of imperial power. It was a grim year indeed.
And yet, in New Haven, it was also a year when working people united in the streets and won concrete victories from corporate giants bent on exploiting, displacing, and/or excluding. Paul Bass writes that this was the "Year Street Heat Paid Off." For Bass, "a city with street heat is a city with heart and soul." The last year's explosion of strikes at Yale, the Project Orange movement that has formed to ensure the passage of Domestic Partnership legislation in this city, the unprecedented successes in the continuing battle to hold Yale's hospital and medical school accountable for placing tens of thousands in debt bondage, the continuing pressure on (Yale) New Haven Savings Bank's avaricious trustees, the defeat of the plan to bulldoze dozens of independent businesses to build a fancy school and make yale look generous, and the latino community's stunning victories in its fight for justice from the city's largest employer and private landowner suggest the other world possible we strive to create together.
It would be a liberal colonialist gesture either to underestimate the power of the forces of capital and the state against which we're mobilizing or to ignore the presence of other forms and strategies of resistance outside of the labor movement and outside of the Global North. But this doesn't make what took place in New Haven this year - and what is by no means over yet - any less important. The unfinished business we are pursuing in New Haven does not end there.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
And yet, in New Haven, it was also a year when working people united in the streets and won concrete victories from corporate giants bent on exploiting, displacing, and/or excluding. Paul Bass writes that this was the "Year Street Heat Paid Off." For Bass, "a city with street heat is a city with heart and soul." The last year's explosion of strikes at Yale, the Project Orange movement that has formed to ensure the passage of Domestic Partnership legislation in this city, the unprecedented successes in the continuing battle to hold Yale's hospital and medical school accountable for placing tens of thousands in debt bondage, the continuing pressure on (Yale) New Haven Savings Bank's avaricious trustees, the defeat of the plan to bulldoze dozens of independent businesses to build a fancy school and make yale look generous, and the latino community's stunning victories in its fight for justice from the city's largest employer and private landowner suggest the other world possible we strive to create together.
It would be a liberal colonialist gesture either to underestimate the power of the forces of capital and the state against which we're mobilizing or to ignore the presence of other forms and strategies of resistance outside of the labor movement and outside of the Global North. But this doesn't make what took place in New Haven this year - and what is by no means over yet - any less important. The unfinished business we are pursuing in New Haven does not end there.
The Advocate has been blogging on the continuing saga of John Rowland's corruption scandal and its repercussions. I'm curious as to what the implications are of a federal inquiry into rowland given the current connotations of "the federal." Bass and Bass's look at Nancy Johnson is particularly illuminating.
Here's hoping the bastard winds up in jail for a very long time.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Here's hoping the bastard winds up in jail for a very long time.
Monday, December 29, 2003
courtesy of Jacob
You're Thucydides! The "historian's
historian," you wrote about The Great War
between Athens and Sparta (the Peloponnesian
War), and you also made fun of Herodotus, your
predecessor. Born in Athens in the mid-Fifth
Century BCE, you served your country during the
war ... but had the ill-luck to be pitted
against the wily Brasidas of Sparta and lost,
and were eventually exiled from Athens ...
which left you rather sore. You strove for
accuracy but loved to invent torturous
speeches, and your history is deceptive.
You're candid, but not impartial. You survived
the infamous Athenian plague during the early
years of the war, but died before you could
complete your history. Many have emulated you,
including Tacitus.
What famous ancient historian are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
You're Thucydides! The "historian's
historian," you wrote about The Great War
between Athens and Sparta (the Peloponnesian
War), and you also made fun of Herodotus, your
predecessor. Born in Athens in the mid-Fifth
Century BCE, you served your country during the
war ... but had the ill-luck to be pitted
against the wily Brasidas of Sparta and lost,
and were eventually exiled from Athens ...
which left you rather sore. You strove for
accuracy but loved to invent torturous
speeches, and your history is deceptive.
You're candid, but not impartial. You survived
the infamous Athenian plague during the early
years of the war, but died before you could
complete your history. Many have emulated you,
including Tacitus.
What famous ancient historian are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Sunday, December 28, 2003
A week from tomorrow - Monday, January 5th, is the secoind hearing on the demutualization of New Haven Savings Bank. If you are in the New Haven area or can make it, this hearing is going to be extremeley important. It's at 5:00 PM (once again, a time few working people will be able to make) but at least this time it's actually in New Haven, not Hamden. You can find hordes of bank middle management (maybe this time, they'll do an ONHSA style picket) at Conde school 511 Chapel Street near Wooster Square. Be there and make Peyton Patterson and Joe Zaccagnino think twice about selling New Haven's future.
EDIT: Accidentally wrote "Yale New Haven Savings Bank." Whatever could have given me that idea?
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
EDIT: Accidentally wrote "Yale New Haven Savings Bank." Whatever could have given me that idea?
This report by the Village Voice's James Ridgeway is pretty horrific. This exploration of he links between gentrification and union busting in trendy DUMBO is similarly illuminating.
Don't worry - the mad cow thing was just a Canadian plot to destroy our freedom. No American meat was contaminated by this foreign invader. Let the flesh consumption continue.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Don't worry - the mad cow thing was just a Canadian plot to destroy our freedom. No American meat was contaminated by this foreign invader. Let the flesh consumption continue.
First long entry in a while:
I got really excited by a book i found at Labyrinth (one of the coolest bookstores around.) I was there looking for a book on demoicracy in Mexico for a friend, which, unfortunately, Labyrinth didn't have. What they did have was Eve Weinbaum's brand new book To Move a Mountain: Fighting the Global Economy in Appalachia. Weinbaum went to Yale as an undergrad and then was involved in founding GESO as a doctoral student. She's also worked with UNITE (according to the book jacket.) I've just read the first chapter, and although i'm not certain that i agree with some of the statements Weinbaum makes about the relationship of the global justice movement to state power, i'm probably also reading the wrong things into some of her statements. These are, after all, movements with complex and diverse relationships to the state and political parties.
Anyway, i'm working on this senior essay about a yale strike, and i've found that stuff written by people who've been involved in the struggles that have been waged against Yale's greed and power over the last seven plus decades (see Deborah Elkin's wonderful dissertation for more of the early history of labor and dissent at Yale and in New Haven) has been really helpfull for me in figuring out, to use some organizer jargon, what's at stake in the struggle we continue to wage here.
I'm at my parents' place in Manhattan, bored out of my skull, trying to make sense out of the last eighteen months of my life, and watching this digital cable shit my parents got to compensate for me and my brother being out of the house. The whole vegetable thing isn't workin for me. I still haven't finished all my work from last semester, i'm convinced that at least half the work i did turn in sucked due to stress, overcommitment, and fatigue, but i am excited to start seriously writing this essay, and excited to send the corporate criminals who run Yale packing, shut down the school and instantiate new forms and structures of teaching and learning.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
I got really excited by a book i found at Labyrinth (one of the coolest bookstores around.) I was there looking for a book on demoicracy in Mexico for a friend, which, unfortunately, Labyrinth didn't have. What they did have was Eve Weinbaum's brand new book To Move a Mountain: Fighting the Global Economy in Appalachia. Weinbaum went to Yale as an undergrad and then was involved in founding GESO as a doctoral student. She's also worked with UNITE (according to the book jacket.) I've just read the first chapter, and although i'm not certain that i agree with some of the statements Weinbaum makes about the relationship of the global justice movement to state power, i'm probably also reading the wrong things into some of her statements. These are, after all, movements with complex and diverse relationships to the state and political parties.
Anyway, i'm working on this senior essay about a yale strike, and i've found that stuff written by people who've been involved in the struggles that have been waged against Yale's greed and power over the last seven plus decades (see Deborah Elkin's wonderful dissertation for more of the early history of labor and dissent at Yale and in New Haven) has been really helpfull for me in figuring out, to use some organizer jargon, what's at stake in the struggle we continue to wage here.
I'm at my parents' place in Manhattan, bored out of my skull, trying to make sense out of the last eighteen months of my life, and watching this digital cable shit my parents got to compensate for me and my brother being out of the house. The whole vegetable thing isn't workin for me. I still haven't finished all my work from last semester, i'm convinced that at least half the work i did turn in sucked due to stress, overcommitment, and fatigue, but i am excited to start seriously writing this essay, and excited to send the corporate criminals who run Yale packing, shut down the school and instantiate new forms and structures of teaching and learning.
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Cool op-ed in this week's Forward (never thought i'd link them, didja?) about the supermarket strike.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Alyssa is way too smart:
New Haven Pie
Not such a long time ago
I can still remember
When the unions, they first made me smile
And I learned that if he had the change
Slick Rick would screw them in a flash
And that left me conflicted for a while
But if March snowstorms made me shiver
Levin's letters made me quiver
Flat lies on the doorstep
They made me take one more step
I know that there were times I cried
And days I really had to try
But Meg's words touched me deep inside
The day Yale's honor died
So...
Bye, bye to this Rick Levin guy
He's a craven in new Haven, and nobody will cry
And the Federation will raise their glasses up high
Singing "For the Social Contract we'll strive!
To make New Haven come alive!"
The Daily wrote the book on strikes
Chased down UOCers on their bikes
To find out what they thought we'd know
Now do you believe in recognition?
Will you raise a sign, sign our petition?
And will you teach Woodbridge not to act so slow?
And we all know I love leftist guys
Whether organizers or in PR guise
'Cause they do their jobs so well
I love helping them give Levin hell
I was a lonely freshman liberal
Prime UOC organizing material
And Zach helped show me what was real
The day Yale's honor died
I started singing...
Bye, bye to ONHSA's clever disguise
There are problems in New Haven and I want to know why
And the good old boys can stop telling me their lies
This'll be the day that they die
And for the real story I'll try
Now for decades Yale's been in a snit
Organized working people give them fits
But that's not how it used to be
When kids from Hillhouse went to school here
And Bulldog victories raised townie cheers
(All this came long 'fore you and me)
But while Yale improved itself all around
Manufacturing left this town
Redevelopment failed
And town-gown relations ailed
And while Rae wrote his book called City
Life for his subjects wasn't pretty
And he must not have felt so witty
The day Yale's honor died
We were singing...
Why, why, can't our school even try?
This is lame, I'm quite ashmed, some days it just makes me cry
When pensions and benefits are only pie in the sky
Why do they even bother with lies?
Why do they even bother with lies?
Sit-down protests in the August swelter
The police made arrests to give freshmen shelter
The riot cops were moving fast
While we camped out on the grass
Betty T. tried to sneak on past
And to keep us on the sidelines to the last
And all the plans we'd made since June
Got carried out to chants (off-tune)
We were ready to advance
But we never got the chance
'Cause though they tried to deal and wield
By September Yale just had to yield
Do you recall what we concealed?
The day Yale's honor died
We started singing...
My, my, wasn't that a good try
When labor joins with neighbors then the management cries
And 'cause John Wilhelm helped us organize
Now GESO'll be recognized
And the hospital prioritized
And we got together in one place
To discuss wages, gender, free speech and race
After three days we started again
Marissa and Helena wrote some scripts
Noah and Josh called the press real quick
'Cause the Register isn't always labor's friend
And though Bruce tried to be quite sage
His promises hit the front page
No more equivocating
Their racist policies got done in
And as we celebrated that fight
A victory for what was right
I saw Levin cowering with fright
The day Yale's honor died
He was moaning why, why, am I this town's fall guy?
We're good neighbors, do some favors (at least sometimes we try)
So we're good old boys, why did their goodwill run dry?
Now out of Tweed their airplanes can fly!
(Even if in poverty workers die...)
I met a guy who did some press
All autumn long he made me guess
Although he never turned away
I went down to the office doors
Where I'd found justice, months before
And they said there that we wouldn't take it any more...
And in the streets, the workers chanted
Levin issued statements, then recanted
And with the contracts settled
Bank hearings we bedeviled
And the organizer I admired most,
Meg Robertson, got a new post
She and her partner hit the coast
After Yale's honor died
I started singing...
Bye, bye, now I'm not going to cry
We've got battles, can't get rattled, and we've tactics to try
And thanks to your committment, now I can organize
Fight for justice 'til the day that I die!
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
New Haven Pie
Not such a long time ago
I can still remember
When the unions, they first made me smile
And I learned that if he had the change
Slick Rick would screw them in a flash
And that left me conflicted for a while
But if March snowstorms made me shiver
Levin's letters made me quiver
Flat lies on the doorstep
They made me take one more step
I know that there were times I cried
And days I really had to try
But Meg's words touched me deep inside
The day Yale's honor died
So...
Bye, bye to this Rick Levin guy
He's a craven in new Haven, and nobody will cry
And the Federation will raise their glasses up high
Singing "For the Social Contract we'll strive!
To make New Haven come alive!"
The Daily wrote the book on strikes
Chased down UOCers on their bikes
To find out what they thought we'd know
Now do you believe in recognition?
Will you raise a sign, sign our petition?
And will you teach Woodbridge not to act so slow?
And we all know I love leftist guys
Whether organizers or in PR guise
'Cause they do their jobs so well
I love helping them give Levin hell
I was a lonely freshman liberal
Prime UOC organizing material
And Zach helped show me what was real
The day Yale's honor died
I started singing...
Bye, bye to ONHSA's clever disguise
There are problems in New Haven and I want to know why
And the good old boys can stop telling me their lies
This'll be the day that they die
And for the real story I'll try
Now for decades Yale's been in a snit
Organized working people give them fits
But that's not how it used to be
When kids from Hillhouse went to school here
And Bulldog victories raised townie cheers
(All this came long 'fore you and me)
But while Yale improved itself all around
Manufacturing left this town
Redevelopment failed
And town-gown relations ailed
And while Rae wrote his book called City
Life for his subjects wasn't pretty
And he must not have felt so witty
The day Yale's honor died
We were singing...
Why, why, can't our school even try?
This is lame, I'm quite ashmed, some days it just makes me cry
When pensions and benefits are only pie in the sky
Why do they even bother with lies?
Why do they even bother with lies?
Sit-down protests in the August swelter
The police made arrests to give freshmen shelter
The riot cops were moving fast
While we camped out on the grass
Betty T. tried to sneak on past
And to keep us on the sidelines to the last
And all the plans we'd made since June
Got carried out to chants (off-tune)
We were ready to advance
But we never got the chance
'Cause though they tried to deal and wield
By September Yale just had to yield
Do you recall what we concealed?
The day Yale's honor died
We started singing...
My, my, wasn't that a good try
When labor joins with neighbors then the management cries
And 'cause John Wilhelm helped us organize
Now GESO'll be recognized
And the hospital prioritized
And we got together in one place
To discuss wages, gender, free speech and race
After three days we started again
Marissa and Helena wrote some scripts
Noah and Josh called the press real quick
'Cause the Register isn't always labor's friend
And though Bruce tried to be quite sage
His promises hit the front page
No more equivocating
Their racist policies got done in
And as we celebrated that fight
A victory for what was right
I saw Levin cowering with fright
The day Yale's honor died
He was moaning why, why, am I this town's fall guy?
We're good neighbors, do some favors (at least sometimes we try)
So we're good old boys, why did their goodwill run dry?
Now out of Tweed their airplanes can fly!
(Even if in poverty workers die...)
I met a guy who did some press
All autumn long he made me guess
Although he never turned away
I went down to the office doors
Where I'd found justice, months before
And they said there that we wouldn't take it any more...
And in the streets, the workers chanted
Levin issued statements, then recanted
And with the contracts settled
Bank hearings we bedeviled
And the organizer I admired most,
Meg Robertson, got a new post
She and her partner hit the coast
After Yale's honor died
I started singing...
Bye, bye, now I'm not going to cry
We've got battles, can't get rattled, and we've tactics to try
And thanks to your committment, now I can organize
Fight for justice 'til the day that I die!
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Live Nude Women Unite
Fed up with non-enforcement of labor laws, dancers have filed two class action lawsuits against the city's strip clubs charging that managers seized their tips, failed to pay them wages, and charged them hundreds of dollars per shift for the privilege of working.
They say these illegal fees led to a climate that coerced them into prostitution at increasingly low rates.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Fed up with non-enforcement of labor laws, dancers have filed two class action lawsuits against the city's strip clubs charging that managers seized their tips, failed to pay them wages, and charged them hundreds of dollars per shift for the privilege of working.
They say these illegal fees led to a climate that coerced them into prostitution at increasingly low rates.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
RUN-UOC is BACK.
"Sucker Ph.Ds"
To the tune of Sucker MCs, from the album "RUN-DMC"
(For the first RUN-UOC hit, go here and scroll down. (Don't forget to check out the many amazing songs by Alyssa and Josh's inspired Cyndi Lauper cover.)
[RUN: Revolutionary Underground Network]
Two years ago
some friends of mine
asked me to stand up and organize
cause it is time to make a better day
yale's fascism is not ok
so we founded the UOC
and fought for justice in our city
Yale's gentrification is totally wack
Of light and truth there's a serious lack
they bled the workers down to the bone
And their bank will not give anybody a loan
Yale's money is its golden calf, workers starve, Yalecorp laughs
Champagne caviar, and bubble bath
That's the "life" that they lead
And those greedy CEOs are who they please
But they better move back cause we're on attack
Because there's nothin in the world, that could ever hold us back
I cold chill at the strike tent in a pissed off stance
And when I march through the streets I just wanna dance
Take off kid gloves, we attack from above
You capitalist pigs don't know the meaning of love
We rock this city from Morris Cove to The Hill
And terrorize the hospital with [EDITED]
Levin's cruisin for a bruisin',; he best move or step aside
I cannot even count all the many ways they lied
can't wait to see the looks on their faces
When they hear bout the class action suit cases
well it's been three years since i got in this fight
And all you sucker PhDs, you just ain't right
Because you're causin' all this strife, you're cheating us of life
You strut around town where such poverty is rife
showin off what you have, actin' like a fool
And everybody knows what things you do
Yeah you oppress me, and it ain't fun
You don't even care, like Linda MaSON!
We're all up in your face with steel toed boot and lace
We're buildin 'our committee put a movement on your case
You live Uptown in your cap and your gown
But we're cellular like Susan Crown!
You better start running now just as fast as you can
Get out of New Haven, take Mike Morand
You are out of time, your corporate crime
is passe like Gene Vilensky or like Meghan Clyne
Exploit black neighborhoods, and the brown
Try to deceive us but your scheme is found
Around your finger you think we're so tightly wound
You're just a sucker Ph.D you fascist clown
So UOC and if you're ready
The people rockin steady
Drive through Yale's lies like Mario Andretti! (Respect to Q-Tip)
[U.O.C.]
We're U.O.C. and you know that we
Do go to Yale University
And while organizin' we acquired the knowledge
One usually cannot receive in college
they have sinned, stole workers means
But we'll dethrone these capitalist fiends
They take their fill, rob us through guile
but they can't stop us - we're versatile
Behind closed doors you call us retards
But we're more like the parisian communards
This town you exploit is our home
You won't find that in any Doug Rae tome
We are sticking in this fight
So you had better start doing what's right
or come time, you'll throw a fit
when we bury you up to you neck in Shhhhhhh
You will quake when you hear our refrain
you'll jump around just like HOUSE of PAIN
I'm still a human when i'm holdin' a mop
Your union busting ways have got to stop
Cause you have lost any semblance of sense
And things are about to get real intense.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
"Sucker Ph.Ds"
To the tune of Sucker MCs, from the album "RUN-DMC"
(For the first RUN-UOC hit, go here and scroll down. (Don't forget to check out the many amazing songs by Alyssa and Josh's inspired Cyndi Lauper cover.)
[RUN: Revolutionary Underground Network]
Two years ago
some friends of mine
asked me to stand up and organize
cause it is time to make a better day
yale's fascism is not ok
so we founded the UOC
and fought for justice in our city
Yale's gentrification is totally wack
Of light and truth there's a serious lack
they bled the workers down to the bone
And their bank will not give anybody a loan
Yale's money is its golden calf, workers starve, Yalecorp laughs
Champagne caviar, and bubble bath
That's the "life" that they lead
And those greedy CEOs are who they please
But they better move back cause we're on attack
Because there's nothin in the world, that could ever hold us back
I cold chill at the strike tent in a pissed off stance
And when I march through the streets I just wanna dance
Take off kid gloves, we attack from above
You capitalist pigs don't know the meaning of love
We rock this city from Morris Cove to The Hill
And terrorize the hospital with [EDITED]
Levin's cruisin for a bruisin',; he best move or step aside
I cannot even count all the many ways they lied
can't wait to see the looks on their faces
When they hear bout the class action suit cases
well it's been three years since i got in this fight
And all you sucker PhDs, you just ain't right
Because you're causin' all this strife, you're cheating us of life
You strut around town where such poverty is rife
showin off what you have, actin' like a fool
And everybody knows what things you do
Yeah you oppress me, and it ain't fun
You don't even care, like Linda MaSON!
We're all up in your face with steel toed boot and lace
We're buildin 'our committee put a movement on your case
You live Uptown in your cap and your gown
But we're cellular like Susan Crown!
You better start running now just as fast as you can
Get out of New Haven, take Mike Morand
You are out of time, your corporate crime
is passe like Gene Vilensky or like Meghan Clyne
Exploit black neighborhoods, and the brown
Try to deceive us but your scheme is found
Around your finger you think we're so tightly wound
You're just a sucker Ph.D you fascist clown
So UOC and if you're ready
The people rockin steady
Drive through Yale's lies like Mario Andretti! (Respect to Q-Tip)
[U.O.C.]
We're U.O.C. and you know that we
Do go to Yale University
And while organizin' we acquired the knowledge
One usually cannot receive in college
they have sinned, stole workers means
But we'll dethrone these capitalist fiends
They take their fill, rob us through guile
but they can't stop us - we're versatile
Behind closed doors you call us retards
But we're more like the parisian communards
This town you exploit is our home
You won't find that in any Doug Rae tome
We are sticking in this fight
So you had better start doing what's right
or come time, you'll throw a fit
when we bury you up to you neck in Shhhhhhh
You will quake when you hear our refrain
you'll jump around just like HOUSE of PAIN
I'm still a human when i'm holdin' a mop
Your union busting ways have got to stop
Cause you have lost any semblance of sense
And things are about to get real intense.
Of Cell Phones and Empire
The mobile phone tenders have come under strong criticism, with claims that they were awarded on political rather than technical grounds and favored businessmen with ties to Arab rulers allied with the United States.
One telecoms industry source told Reuters he believed some applicants had "reworked" their corporate structure to hide the involvement of Arab governments.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
The mobile phone tenders have come under strong criticism, with claims that they were awarded on political rather than technical grounds and favored businessmen with ties to Arab rulers allied with the United States.
One telecoms industry source told Reuters he believed some applicants had "reworked" their corporate structure to hide the involvement of Arab governments.
Brent Staples has an interesting editorial observer piece in today's times about the whole Strom Thurmond situation:
How could Mr. Thurmond, who sought the presidency on a segregationist platform in 1948, have lived publicly as a racist while secretly helping to support a black daughter? This was a common practice in the South, where slaveholders and their descendants produced mulatto children. While some white fathers treated their mixed-race children like dirt, others supported and educated them. They refused to acknowledge them to keep the nonexistent barrier between the races firmly intact.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
How could Mr. Thurmond, who sought the presidency on a segregationist platform in 1948, have lived publicly as a racist while secretly helping to support a black daughter? This was a common practice in the South, where slaveholders and their descendants produced mulatto children. While some white fathers treated their mixed-race children like dirt, others supported and educated them. They refused to acknowledge them to keep the nonexistent barrier between the races firmly intact.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
What they won't put on the front page:
(From the Boston Globe)
In Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, US soldiers and Iraqi police rushed to the city's Governance Center after a crowd of about 750 pro-Hussein demonstrators fired guns in the air and attempted to take over the building. After members of the crowd fired on the soldiers and wounded one American, a coalition official said, soldiers returned fire, killing two Iraqis and wounding two others.
Further east, in Fallujah, armed demonstrators overran the mayor's office after Iraqi police withdrew to their barracks rather than trying to control the crowd, US officials said. American soldiers "repeatedly engaged the local leaders to respond to the situation, but the Iraqi police in Fallujah did not react adequately," a coalition official said.
US soldiers killed at least one Iraqi in Fallujah, who officials said had fired a grenade.
Meanwhile in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, US soldiers killed 11 Iraqis while repelling a "complex ambush" late Monday, coalition officials said.
Guerrillas attacked a US patrol at two points while it drove through the city, releasing a flock of pigeons as a signal to strike, the officials said. First, two men opened fire from a motorcycle in front of a school. Moments later, a second group of fighters mounted a coordinated attack, using a bomb, machine guns, and rocket propelled grenades.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
(From the Boston Globe)
In Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, US soldiers and Iraqi police rushed to the city's Governance Center after a crowd of about 750 pro-Hussein demonstrators fired guns in the air and attempted to take over the building. After members of the crowd fired on the soldiers and wounded one American, a coalition official said, soldiers returned fire, killing two Iraqis and wounding two others.
Further east, in Fallujah, armed demonstrators overran the mayor's office after Iraqi police withdrew to their barracks rather than trying to control the crowd, US officials said. American soldiers "repeatedly engaged the local leaders to respond to the situation, but the Iraqi police in Fallujah did not react adequately," a coalition official said.
US soldiers killed at least one Iraqi in Fallujah, who officials said had fired a grenade.
Meanwhile in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, US soldiers killed 11 Iraqis while repelling a "complex ambush" late Monday, coalition officials said.
Guerrillas attacked a US patrol at two points while it drove through the city, releasing a flock of pigeons as a signal to strike, the officials said. First, two men opened fire from a motorcycle in front of a school. Moments later, a second group of fighters mounted a coordinated attack, using a bomb, machine guns, and rocket propelled grenades.
SEIU FILES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST YNHH FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON BEHALF OF THE DEBTORS WHO HAVE BEEN CHAINED INTO VIRTUAL DEBT BONDAGE.
All i can say is holy shit.
Also, someone needs to tell Vin Petrini that 1199 members actually DID strike twice over the course of the last year.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
All i can say is holy shit.
Also, someone needs to tell Vin Petrini that 1199 members actually DID strike twice over the course of the last year.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Post deleted cause here wasn't the best place for it. Basically, i had a weird dream about some folks from high school last night and realized how much time had passed and how much older i feel.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Monday, December 15, 2003
Ok, i lied. Hanukkah isn't till the 19th -- WHICH MEANS I GET TO SPEND IT AT HOME!!! (WOOHOO!) (Also want to point out that even Eidelson didn't know when it started, which exculpates me from all blame, clearly.
Amazing article about the now 9 week long california supermarket strike in the Christian Science Monitor. Read it here.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Amazing article about the now 9 week long california supermarket strike in the Christian Science Monitor. Read it here.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Hanukkah starts tonight, but the real festival of lights was last night, as 103 women - 34 members, hospital workers, graduate students, and fifteen undergraduates participated in a historic candlelit civil disobedience to highlight the gendered segmentations and segregations of Yale's job structure, and what this means for education and work at Yale.
The 15 UOCistas and MEChistas, like Julie Gonzales, Ana Munoz, and Erin Scharff - to name a few -- who participated in the CD, led the entire crowd in chants like "!Que Viven Las Mujeres!" Helena Herring, one irreducible part of an irreducible trio of incredible freshwomen organizers, was quoted by the AP:
"I may eventually decide to go into grad school and it's really hard
to raise a family there," said Helena Herring, an 18-year-old Yale
freshman. "A lot of people here are on welfare. That is insane. That
is not acceptable."
Jenny Carillo, a psychology graduate student, said that her two children are on HUSKY because Yale won't give grad students health care coverage for dependents.
"The graduate school neglects to provide for my family," she said. "The state should use the money that I'm getting for failing schools in Connecticut."
There were so many women participating in the action -- blocking the street in the shape of the woman ankh-symbol, and shouting "Hey hey, Ho Ho, Patriarchy's Got to Go" -- that the police had to keep people on the busses and continue blocking the street while they waited fro more vehicles to arrive. We stood on piles of snow outside the bus windows, screaming and shouting and waving at our sisters in the busses and singing the lyrics to solidarity forever, which my extreme state of excitement actually made me forget. Last night's action was among the most powerful I've seen.
Much respect to all the workers and students who put themselves on the line.
Much respect especially to JCG, CMDeLaA, AF-V, EJ, AM, HH, ML, PR, LMB, EAS, MF, and the other undergraduates who stood up for change last night.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
The 15 UOCistas and MEChistas, like Julie Gonzales, Ana Munoz, and Erin Scharff - to name a few -- who participated in the CD, led the entire crowd in chants like "!Que Viven Las Mujeres!" Helena Herring, one irreducible part of an irreducible trio of incredible freshwomen organizers, was quoted by the AP:
"I may eventually decide to go into grad school and it's really hard
to raise a family there," said Helena Herring, an 18-year-old Yale
freshman. "A lot of people here are on welfare. That is insane. That
is not acceptable."
Jenny Carillo, a psychology graduate student, said that her two children are on HUSKY because Yale won't give grad students health care coverage for dependents.
"The graduate school neglects to provide for my family," she said. "The state should use the money that I'm getting for failing schools in Connecticut."
There were so many women participating in the action -- blocking the street in the shape of the woman ankh-symbol, and shouting "Hey hey, Ho Ho, Patriarchy's Got to Go" -- that the police had to keep people on the busses and continue blocking the street while they waited fro more vehicles to arrive. We stood on piles of snow outside the bus windows, screaming and shouting and waving at our sisters in the busses and singing the lyrics to solidarity forever, which my extreme state of excitement actually made me forget. Last night's action was among the most powerful I've seen.
Much respect to all the workers and students who put themselves on the line.
Much respect especially to JCG, CMDeLaA, AF-V, EJ, AM, HH, ML, PR, LMB, EAS, MF, and the other undergraduates who stood up for change last night.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Well, shit. Looks like they finally found a replacement for Culver, JOHN PEPPER!
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
Monday, December 08, 2003
Yale Insider takes an incisive look at the proposed resolution to limit whether businesses in certain neighborhoods can stay open 24 hours a day.
POLITICAL CONVERGENCE. The Board of Aldermen has scheduled a public hearing on December 23 about a controversial matter: limiting a business's right to operate 24 hours a day. That in itself should raise eyebrows. Then consider that it's backed by Mae Ola Riddick, the alderwoman whose failed bid for re-election was supported by the Yale establishment (which has been pushing for its stores on Broadway and on Chapel St. to stay open late at night). Riddick's term ends on December 31. Ms. Riddick explains:
Like the folks at Yaleinsider, i think this is reaaaal problematic. I'm less inclined to think that Yale's doing this cause they want folks to have to shop at Gourmet Heaven though. I think that yale's involvement has less to do with that blunt of a profit maniulation scheme and much more to do with the larger issues surrounding the relationship between the city government, the university, and New Haven residents. To be fair, Yaleinsider doesn't openly state that they believe otherwise, so maybe i'm just reading more into the blog than what was actually posted.
In any case,
"There's more to this than meets the eye. "
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
POLITICAL CONVERGENCE. The Board of Aldermen has scheduled a public hearing on December 23 about a controversial matter: limiting a business's right to operate 24 hours a day. That in itself should raise eyebrows. Then consider that it's backed by Mae Ola Riddick, the alderwoman whose failed bid for re-election was supported by the Yale establishment (which has been pushing for its stores on Broadway and on Chapel St. to stay open late at night). Riddick's term ends on December 31. Ms. Riddick explains:
Like the folks at Yaleinsider, i think this is reaaaal problematic. I'm less inclined to think that Yale's doing this cause they want folks to have to shop at Gourmet Heaven though. I think that yale's involvement has less to do with that blunt of a profit maniulation scheme and much more to do with the larger issues surrounding the relationship between the city government, the university, and New Haven residents. To be fair, Yaleinsider doesn't openly state that they believe otherwise, so maybe i'm just reading more into the blog than what was actually posted.
In any case,
"There's more to this than meets the eye. "
Saturday, December 06, 2003
The New York times on Mexican Walmarts:
However, in the United States, a unionized supermarket worker makes, on average, about $19 an hour. At Wal-Mart, where there are no unions, that worker makes about $9 an hour. In Mexico, for a newly hired Wal-Mart cashier, the pay stub reads about $1.50 a hour.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
However, in the United States, a unionized supermarket worker makes, on average, about $19 an hour. At Wal-Mart, where there are no unions, that worker makes about $9 an hour. In Mexico, for a newly hired Wal-Mart cashier, the pay stub reads about $1.50 a hour.
Friday, December 05, 2003
Lots of interesting stuff in today's YDN - like a report on the continuining racialized exclusion of latino workers from Yale's job structure, despite the alliance between Yale's unions and the new haven community to fight for change. One of the major victories that came out of the strike was the joint committee that the university, union, and community agreed to run together. Looks like Yale's been backtracking. Big surprise. Well, we aren't goin anywhere.
NEW GESO REPORT GESO has released its latest, most provocative, and maybe best report yet. The report looks at diversity in academia and the relationship between unionization and diversity. This should be required reading for every undergrad on this campus. You can read it here, and read what the YDN has to say about it here.
Working Moms and Women Confornt Linda Mason -- Again!
It's getting pretty clear that Yale Corporation member Linda Mason can't show her face around here without explaining how she purports to be a guru for working moms and yet remain totally unresponsive to the plight of working mothers at the institution on whose board of trustees she sits. From this article, it sounds like yesterday's action was as powerful as the one last semester, when corporation members like Sutter Hill's own Len Baker and Tricky Dick Levin rushed from the room rather than risk being engaged in conversation by the women of local 34, local 35, GESO, and the women and men of the Undergraduate Organizing Committee, who came to talk about her book, which tells us how to use our maternity leave and flexible scheduling. (Yale employees don't get maternity leave or flexible scheduling, and many of them have had to take second or third jobs, although some of the ganisn secured by the strike victory may help to alleviate this.)
Where's Peyton?
They finally commit to an open hearing, and then they schedule it in Hamden, immediately after people get off work, so no one who works a 9 to 5 could possibly show up, then they pack the place with bank middle management forcibly sent to the site at 4 pm so that the community can't even get inside. And to top things off, the Bank trustees don't even show up. Well, my concerns about the demutualization are totally alleviated now. Yay capitalism! Fortunately for the future of this city, nobody else bought the bullshit.
people weren't particularly happy about the metal detector searches at the door either.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
NEW GESO REPORT GESO has released its latest, most provocative, and maybe best report yet. The report looks at diversity in academia and the relationship between unionization and diversity. This should be required reading for every undergrad on this campus. You can read it here, and read what the YDN has to say about it here.
Working Moms and Women Confornt Linda Mason -- Again!
It's getting pretty clear that Yale Corporation member Linda Mason can't show her face around here without explaining how she purports to be a guru for working moms and yet remain totally unresponsive to the plight of working mothers at the institution on whose board of trustees she sits. From this article, it sounds like yesterday's action was as powerful as the one last semester, when corporation members like Sutter Hill's own Len Baker and Tricky Dick Levin rushed from the room rather than risk being engaged in conversation by the women of local 34, local 35, GESO, and the women and men of the Undergraduate Organizing Committee, who came to talk about her book, which tells us how to use our maternity leave and flexible scheduling. (Yale employees don't get maternity leave or flexible scheduling, and many of them have had to take second or third jobs, although some of the ganisn secured by the strike victory may help to alleviate this.)
Where's Peyton?
They finally commit to an open hearing, and then they schedule it in Hamden, immediately after people get off work, so no one who works a 9 to 5 could possibly show up, then they pack the place with bank middle management forcibly sent to the site at 4 pm so that the community can't even get inside. And to top things off, the Bank trustees don't even show up. Well, my concerns about the demutualization are totally alleviated now. Yay capitalism! Fortunately for the future of this city, nobody else bought the bullshit.
people weren't particularly happy about the metal detector searches at the door either.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Josh Eidelson takes on the New Haven Savings Bank, attacking their racist lending practices and planned orgy of capitalist insider trading. Meanwhile, the bank is unveiling new lending practices aimed at inner city neighborhoods. Neither Scott Marks nor John Destefano is particularly impressed. Quoth Destefano
"This is what they should have been doing all along," he said. "What are we supposed to do, applaud them for doing their job?
"The bottom line remains they are taking hundreds of millions of dollars of assets out of this community that are not going to be available to be reinvested in New Haven."
The IMA
may ask depositors to withdraw their money from the bank if regulators fail to impose a two-year-moratorium.
"The clergy members join Mayor DeStefano in his demands issued on Monday that NHSB insiders do not profit from the deal, that the bank end its discriminatory lending policies against working class and African-American and Latino families, that the bank increase its commitment to the community and change the make-up of the board of directors," read a statement from the group.
Today's the hearing on the bank's demutualization. It's being held in HAMDEN at a time when no working person could possibly get there. Still, the mayor and CCNE are bringing shitloads of people. Give 'em hell!!!
The YDN also picked up the UOC-GESO teaching fora. Professor John Felstiner sez:
"This sort of event happens all too seldom, if ever, especially concerning places where the teaching is assumed or declared to be excellent," he said.
Felstiner said prospective Yalies, current students, parents, and two Yale graduate students participated in an "intense" discussion about the nature of undergraduate classes and the conditions of teaching.
"I think the high school seniors, in those two hours, moved from simply assuming that teaching just 'happens' as a matter of course to recognizing what personal and professional concerns might really be involved in their teachers' work," he said.
Today's opinion/letter page made me happy. Besides Josh takin on the bank, we get Jared Malsin on the Antiwar Movement, Cara Berkowitz on consumerism, feet, and shoes, and Max Neuvians on the roots of the Rhodes Scholarship in colonial genocide.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
"This is what they should have been doing all along," he said. "What are we supposed to do, applaud them for doing their job?
"The bottom line remains they are taking hundreds of millions of dollars of assets out of this community that are not going to be available to be reinvested in New Haven."
The IMA
may ask depositors to withdraw their money from the bank if regulators fail to impose a two-year-moratorium.
"The clergy members join Mayor DeStefano in his demands issued on Monday that NHSB insiders do not profit from the deal, that the bank end its discriminatory lending policies against working class and African-American and Latino families, that the bank increase its commitment to the community and change the make-up of the board of directors," read a statement from the group.
Today's the hearing on the bank's demutualization. It's being held in HAMDEN at a time when no working person could possibly get there. Still, the mayor and CCNE are bringing shitloads of people. Give 'em hell!!!
The YDN also picked up the UOC-GESO teaching fora. Professor John Felstiner sez:
"This sort of event happens all too seldom, if ever, especially concerning places where the teaching is assumed or declared to be excellent," he said.
Felstiner said prospective Yalies, current students, parents, and two Yale graduate students participated in an "intense" discussion about the nature of undergraduate classes and the conditions of teaching.
"I think the high school seniors, in those two hours, moved from simply assuming that teaching just 'happens' as a matter of course to recognizing what personal and professional concerns might really be involved in their teachers' work," he said.
Today's opinion/letter page made me happy. Besides Josh takin on the bank, we get Jared Malsin on the Antiwar Movement, Cara Berkowitz on consumerism, feet, and shoes, and Max Neuvians on the roots of the Rhodes Scholarship in colonial genocide.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Kirchick supports unions being recognized!
But the events of Nov. 18, 2003, proved to be an exception. On that day, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the much anticipated case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, stating that gay people, like straight people, have the right to get married in a union recognized by the state. Throughout history, gays have been excluded from mainstream society in a myriad of fashions (marriage being the most visible), and in the words of the court, "That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law." The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, whose jurisprudence is heavily influenced by the fact that she grew up as a white woman fighting apartheid in South Africa.
Take note of this. It's an important first.
Smash Yale-[ comments.]
But the events of Nov. 18, 2003, proved to be an exception. On that day, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the much anticipated case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, stating that gay people, like straight people, have the right to get married in a union recognized by the state. Throughout history, gays have been excluded from mainstream society in a myriad of fashions (marriage being the most visible), and in the words of the court, "That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law." The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, whose jurisprudence is heavily influenced by the fact that she grew up as a white woman fighting apartheid in South Africa.
Take note of this. It's an important first.
