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“One of the many upsetting aspects to being in your forties, is hearing people your own age grumbling about “young people” the way we were grumbled about ourselves.”
That’s how British comedian and activist Mark Steel begins his op-ed column on the current wave of British student protest and the dismissive attitude that many people his age take toward the youth of today. It’s a smart, funny piece, and worth a read.
For those of us who couldn’t make it to DC, the Powershift ’09 folks have put a bunch of video from the conference up online. Check it out.
I haven’t yet fully unpacked the politics around Obama’s nomination of Chas Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council, but though his views on Israel and the Middle East are getting the most attention, my eye was drawn to this email he wrote three years ago on the Chinese government’s handling of Tiananmen Square :
I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans’ “Bonus Army” or a “student uprising” on behalf of “the goddess of democracy” should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government’s normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang’s dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.
The Chinese government reported the death toll of their suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests at 241. Amnesty International estimated that one thousand protesters were killed, and other observers believe that the true number may have been several times that.
I’ve come across three pieces of writing about Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the last couple of weeks, and they’re all worth passing along.
First, an article from the New York Times about the devastating effect that the current economic downturn is having on HBCUs. Second, a personal reminiscence from an HBCU alum. And finally, a response to that reminiscence. The third piece, a short post by Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic, produced a comment thread that’s well worth reading for its own sake.
After the jump, excerpts from President Obama’s address to Congress last night on the subject of higher education.
studentactivism.net 
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