You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2011.
“Are we allowed to sing? I imagine that at times it might improve the tone of the debate.”
–Canadian opposition leader Jack Layton on the House of Commons floor two months ago.
Layton, the head of the progressive New Democratic Party, died of cancer this morning at the age of 61. As I noted on this site at the time, Layton’s NDP won astonishing gains in this spring’s Canadian elections, transforming the country’s political landscape while electing six – yes, six – activist undergraduate students to the country’s parliament.
Lots of student-related news recently for a sleepy early August — Chile’s campus activists have intensified their campaign, youth riots are spreading across Britain, Wisconsin’s progressive uprising has won a historic pair of recall victories (but apparently failed, barely, to swing the balance in their state senate). Meanwhile a new report slams financial practices at the University of California and the federal government sues one of the nation’s largest for-profit colleges.
So why is this the first you’re reading about all this here? Because I’m on the road.
I’m smack in the middle of a two-week camping road trip with my kids that’s taking us to visit family in Michigan, historical/cultural sites in Tennessee (which one is Graceland, again?), and Niagara Falls in New York. As I write this, it’s dawn in Ann Arbor, I’m on my sister’s guest bed, and I’m almost done packing up for the long haul to Memphis.
I’m still updating a fair amount on Twitter over at @studentactivism, and I’m hoping to get some posting in before the end of the trip, but that depends on WiFi access and a bunch of other stuff. See you soon, one way or another.
studentactivism.net 
Recent Comments