pai

received this morning from take back!nyu

"Islamophobic Warmongers Pied at NYU!

Tuesday, November 18, 7:15PM

NYU students disrupted a university event this evening featuring Robert Spencer from "Jihad Watch" and Elan Journo from the "Ayn Rand Institute for Individual Freedom." Students called out the panelists for their Islamophobic, warmongering hate-rhetoric, shouting and launching pies at the speakers. One student was detained, and several were escorted out of the building.

The event, entitled "The Jihad Still Threatens America," encouraged viscous Islamophobia and promoted aggressive military intervention in majority Muslim nations. Speaker Elan Journo actively promotes devastating attacks on Iran, claiming that "victory in World War II required flattening cities, firebombing factories, shops and homes, devastating vast tracts of Germany and Japan.... Victory today requires the same: smashing Iran's totalitarian regime and thus demoralizing the Islamist movement and its many supporters, so that they, too, abandon their cause as futile." Fear-mongering comments such as these promote the expansion of US imperialism, and contribute to the wave of anti-Muslim hate that is sweeping our nation.

The pieing came on the heels of an anti-hate sit-in hosted by the Islamic Center at NYU. The event was a response to NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan's recent article entitled "Going Muslim," a new term he has coined in the vein of "Going Postal" (article available here ).

While it is disturbing to see hate being expressed on such institutional levels on our campuses, the students' refusal to be silent is an inspiration to us all."

This Beard Is For Siobhan

Rude Mechanical Orchestra showing support for Take Back NYU!'s occupation this week back in NY (stolen picture, facebook)

"The occupiers, including both undergraduates and graduate students, issued a list of demands, including: open accounting of the NYU operating budget and investments; university recognition of GSOC, the graduate student employees union; a socially responsible finance committee composed entirely of students, with full control of NYU's investments; re-imposition of a recently lifted ban on Coca-Cola products, as a protest against Coke's complicity in the murder of Colombian trade unionists; tuition stabilization; and public access to NYU's Bobst Library.

The students are also asking NYU to divest from war profiteers--in particular, companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In addition, the occupiers are asking for 13 annual scholarships for Palestinian students and donation of excess school supplies to the Islamic University of Gaza." - read more here: The fight to take back NYU (socialistworker.org)

The Purchase Independent is getting shittier with every issue. I try to stay somewhat connected to school but all I'm reading is about how there are different students from different places at Purchase and a whole section about Panther sports news. Also despite budget hikes, the school is going to be spending $53,000 for an online news service sponsored by the journalism department that no one will read.

Post-high school secondary learning is no different then high school, reproducing hegemony, keeping us all in check. I think even though I feel detached from everything in NY it's in a unified way. Everything I read and do here somehow reminds me of things at home.

I finished the weaving part of my project this week. I just have to attach a strap of sorts. I think it will become a sweet fanny pack. I want to take a weaving class when I get back to NY. come weave with me!

Yesterday we ended the week with a tortilla making workshop. Pedro said the first step to making perfect tortillas is to dance first, so we did that. I had enough guacamole and fresh corn tortillas to feed a small family. Today at the market, 5 avocados cost 8 pesos, or about $0.54.

LA RESTENCIA ES FÉRTIL (stolen, Oventic)

photo from the Mayan Medicine Museum last week. we were posing in a sweat lodge.

speaking of the museum, they had a whole section about childbirth. taken from an e-mail to a friend: "the way they see birth is very different then in western societies. the woman hugs the man and is squatting on her knees because it is the most natural position in terms of alleviating back pain. i liked the idea of the hugging of the partner for physical and emotional support."