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On the Way to School

November 17, 2009

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T.W.I.N. #4: Natural Selection; A Series of Unfortunate Events; Sports

In all my time working with youth I've never experienced young people truly believing that their leader(s) believe in them. Tuesday that changed. Here's what I said to my students: "Today is a big day! A new day! Today, this day, is different than any other day in our lives; different than any other day in our nation's history. "We elected Barack Obama last night! (Hoots, hollers, jubilation) "Yeah! WE did it! Our parents, our aunts and uncles did it! We, the People, did it! We said that we believe in this man, and we will allow him to lead us. Make no mistake, he didn't get to where he is without us--we put him there. That's right. We elected a leader we believe in (affirmations!). And for the first time in our lives, we have a leader who believes in us. Yes, yes, today is a new day! "But just look around us. There's trash on our play field. Again. That dog crapped in front of our school entrance this morning. Again. Last night people were a...

T.W.I.N. #6: Mumbai, Gujarat, Pakistan

TANQUERAY If you're going to listen to anyone talk about Pakistan and India, Tariq Ali is the one. The round-the-clock coverage of the Mumbai hostage crisis was essentially hollow. I had MSNBC on for nearly all of Thankstaking Day, and they talked about nothing but Mumbai. Unfortunately they provided scant context and history, let alone analysis of the attacks. And forget about any discussion of root causes--I didn't hear " Gujarat " mentioned once. In 2002 over 1000 people, mostly Muslims, were massacred by Hindus (in retaliation for a Muslim massacre of 58 Hindus on a train). As if the deaths aren't awful enough, the slaughter was apparently carried out with encouragement from the right wing Hindu nationalist state government, which takes the whole affair from "communal violence" to a pogrom. According to Ashutosh Varshney, associate associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and director of its Center for South ...

Gaza Freedom March Day #4: Polishing a Turd

Susan Mubarak, Dictator's wife, has graciously agreed to send 100 people, w/ supplies, from our group of 1400.The delegation will be under her auspices. Code Pink/Free Gaza March has formally agreed to this "generous offer." Their thinking, one supposes, for this process was not transparent, is that the aid that people brought (there are individuals here who have raised upwards of $15,000 in aid by themselves) will theoretically reach the stranded Palestinian people. This delivery, from the grassroots, should not be dismissed as symbolic. It is essential that this material aid land in the hands of the intended people. If it doesn't, it would have to be considered an act of piracy. We have seen President Obama deal, rather decisively, with pirates from Africa before. Though something tells me that, if anything, Obama is on the side of the pirates this time. In addition to the aid getting across the border, 100 people from 20-30 countries accompanying around 50,000 Pale...

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