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My dissertation is just about done, and I’ve begun circulating it to folks for comment. This morning, one erudite friend dropped me a line to tell me something I probably should have known.
The New York Times and the BBC are reporting that leftist youth and student rioting in Greece is entering its third day.
The riots, sparked by the police killing of a 15-year-old in Athens on Saturday, have spread to other major cities, and multiple demonstrations are planned for Monday.
Protesters are using gasoline bombs and rocks against the police, and dozens of officers have been injured since Saturday.
In 1973 the military sent tanks onto the campus of Athens Polytechnic University to suppress a student revolt against the country’s ruling junta, killing at least 22 civilians. Since then, the police and army have been barred from Greece’s college campuses.
The protesters this week have used campuses as safe havens, retreating to them when pursued by police, and even throwing Molotov cocktails at officers from behind their gates.
Students and youth are co-ordinating their protests online and posting reports on events at indymedia.org. According to accounts at that site, at least three buildings at Athens Polytechnic are currently under occupation by protesters.
So the political world is buzzing right now about a photo of Obama’s chief speechwriter, the 27-year-old Jon Favreau.
In the photo, Favreau and another man are seen with a life-size cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton. Favreau is leaning in toward Clinton and smiling for the camera, like you would if you were getting your photo taken with a celebrity, but with one big difference — he’s groping the cutout’s “breast” with one hand. The other guy is kissing Clinton on the cheek and tipping a beer bottle up to her mouth.
It appears that the photo, which surfaced on Facebook not long ago, probably isn’t going to derail Favreau’s career. He has reportedly called Clinton to apologize, and Clinton’s people have put out a light-hearted statement on the incident. But the sexism and disrespect for Clinton evidenced in the photo have a lot of people fuming.
I mention all this here at studentactivism.net not because of any campus angle to this story, but because the photo reminds me powerfully of another photo — one taken more than a hundred years ago.
A new addition to the blogroll: Black On Campus.
It’s a great blog, with all sorts of material on black students, black faculty, and other issues relating to African-American higher education past and present. Just a really rich resource. I’ve already spent a chunk of the morning over there, and it’s going to be a regular read for me from now on.
Labor activist Mary Beth Maxwell, mentioned by many this week as a possible Obama Labor Secretary, is a former student activist and past staffer at the United States Student Association.
Maxwell, who is the strong favorite of DC heavyweight David Bonior, was a campus activist as an undergraduate at Marquette University, and she capped her student organizing career by serving as Field Director of USSA. From there she moved on to positions at NARAL, Jobs With Justice, and her current seat as executive director of American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy organization.
studentactivism.net 
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