>At 07:12 PM 3/4/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Did you make the Chomsky gig today in Toledo? Nice crowd. Noam brought
>>everybody down, as he tends to do. Also liked his subtle critique of the
>>audience, i.e., the responsibility to stop the bloodshed in the Middle East
>>is on *us* and what are we doing? Nothing. No mass movement to arrest
>>US/Israeli aggression, even though poll after poll shows that the American
>>public is generally sympathetic to a Palestinian state (whatever that would
>>be). Can we look ourselves in the mirror?
>>
>>DP
>>
>
>I was there and I think Chomsky's words were most distressing for
>those in the room. No, I don't think we can look ourselves in the
>mirror. Our economic sanctions against Iraq ravaged the Iraqi
>children, but we and the media were all silent. Even when media
>coverage of Middle East devastation did become major news items,
>such as Saddam's annihilation of the Kurds which was 7 times Kosovo,
>as Chomsky frequently said this evening, three words were always
>missing from these reports -- the tragedies occurred "with our
>support." Shame on us!
>
>Diane
1. I couldn't make it to the Chomsky lecture. I had to go to a local meeting instead. :-( The meeting I went to was a rather tedious business meeting of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio, but they're planning to invite the Ohio State University president William Kirwan to their next luncheon to speak on "faith diversity," so I figured that I'd encourage liberal folks in the IACO to ask how the OSU could implement its so-called "diversity plan" at the same time as raising admission standards, increasing tuition, making "selective investments" (= giving more money to already successful departments well placed to raise the OSU's academic ranking while shortchanging others), and so on. The OSU is now trying to exempt itself from the Tuition Cap, which has merely capped an annual tuition hike at the maximum rate of 6% (already way above inflation), & planning to raise tuition by 9% per year instead. By our calculation, the result of the Cap removal will be as follows (based upon the tuition of $4383 for three quarters a year starting with academic year 2000-2001 for a resident):
6% hike 9% hike 2001 $4646 $4777 2002 $4925 $5207 2003 $5220 $5676 2004 $5533 $6187 2005 $5865 $6744 2006 $6217 $7351
The Student Tuition Alliance (of which I am a member) is now collecting signatures on petitions to (a) oppose the Cap removal & (b) hold a student referendum on the Cap removal. We'll be organizing delegations to testify before the Higher Education Subcommittee also.
2. Activists in Columbus, Ohio are now preparing for a teach-in on Iraq & Palestine, April 16-20. (The next meeting for this group will be held on March 11; if anyone can come participate in organizing the teach-in or the teach-in itself, let me know.) In addition, we are trying to invite Rania Masri & Sara Flounders (if we raise enough money).
Yoshie