[Vancouver] Women Athletes Challenge Gender Barrier in 2010 Olympics

re-posted from NPR.org

Gender Barrier Persists at Vancouver Olympics

By Howard Berkes, 12/29/08

All Things Considered · No man or woman has flown farther than American Lindsey Van off the K90 ski jump built for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Van holds the distance record at the K90 hill in Whistler, British Columbia.

But Van and other women contend they are barred from the 2010 games simply because they're women.

Ski jumping is the last Winter Olympics sport closed to women. So Van and nine other women from six countries are suing to get into the 2010 games. They argue that the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games is violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by staging ski jumping competition that excludes women.

"[It's] just pretty painful to watch [men] I grew up training with be able to have that opportunity and me sit there knowing that I don't even have that opportunity because I'm not a male," says Van, of Park City, Utah, who has been ski jumping since she was 7. "It's depressing to tell young girls that you don't have the same opportunities just because they're girls."

The Technical Mark

"If the men are going to jump the women have to jump. And if the women aren't going to jump then the men can't either," says DeeDee Corradini, who served as the mayor of Salt Lake City during its bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics and is president of Women's Ski Jumping USA.

Corradini describes the legal reasoning behind the ski jumpers' lawsuit, which is now before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

"VANOC is a quasi-governmental entity. If you look at the composition of their board [and] if you look at who's funding all of the venues in the Olympic Games, it's the federal and the provincial and local governments," Corradini contends. "And therefore, under Canadian law, [VANOC] is subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which prohibits discrimination."

VANOC declined interview requests for this story, but its officials have blamed the International Olympic Committee, which voted two years ago to keep women out of the Vancouver ski jumping competition.

"We have, obviously, put the IOC in a position that they could, if they'd made a decision to put this on the program, we would have attempted to accommodate it," said VANOC CEO John Furlong in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in May. "But the frustration is it's not our area of jurisdiction at all."

That is not a credible argument to Margot Young, a professor of law at the University of British Columbia.

"The games have to be run according to Canadian law when they're on Canadian territory," Young asserts. "I don't think VANOC can say 'Well, the International Olympic Committee made us treat women unequally.' So, I think the IOC and what it believes is essentially irrelevant if the event's being held in Canada."

The International Olympic Committee did not respond to interview requests for this story. But IOC President Jacques Rogge spoke to the CBC during a visit to Vancouver in May.

"To become an Olympic sport, a sport must be widely practiced around the world, universal, and have a big appeal," Rogge explained. "This is not the case for women's ski jumping. So there is no discrimination whatsoever. They did not pass the technical mark. That will change in the future. We have no doubt about that. But today they're not ready for it."

Corradini says Rogge and other IOC members are grossly misinformed. She says more than 80 women from 14 countries were competing at the elite ski jumping level when the IOC's executive board voted in 2006 to keep women's ski jumping off the 2010 schedule.

"If you look at the facts of ski jumping versus other sports that we should be compared to, which are luge, skeleton, bobsleigh and ski cross, in particular, we have more women and more nations competing at the elite level than any of those sports did when they were admitted," Corradini adds.

'They're Not Good Enough'

The IOC's rejection angers Anita DeFrantz, one of the few women on the IOC and chairwoman of the committee's Women and Sports Commission. She's an African-American and former Olympian herself who has tried to open more Olympic sports to women. And she doesn't understand why her fellow IOC members won't include women in the Olympic ski jumping competition.

"The words I heard were, 'They're not good enough,' " DeFrantz recalls. "I've heard that before. I understand discrimination very well. And this is a nearly textbook case of discrimination."

Some believe the IOC chose the new Olympic sport of ski cross for the 2010 games, and passed over women's ski jumping, because ski cross will attract younger television viewers enticed by so-called extreme sports. Television is the biggest generator of revenue for the Olympics, and young people immersed in extreme sports are coveted by television sponsors and Olympic organizers.

Ski jumpers consider their sport one of the original extreme sports. And it's long been part of the Olympics. Men have been jumping in the games since the first Winter Olympics at Chamonix-Mont Blanc in 1924.

DeFrantz notes that some women used to jump disguised as men, and some have dominated the sport, sometimes jumping farther than men. In fact, American women do so well in international competition that the U.S. Ski Jumping Team does not include any men.

None of that may matter to the judge at the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who will hear arguments in the lawsuit in April. The case will come down to interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and whether it applies to VANOC and the 2010 Olympics, says law professor Margot Young.

"When it comes to organizations like VANOC, it's just not clear," Young says, despite government funding, government control and the staging of the Olympics as government policy. "The case law is contradictory and unpredictable. … It's not a slam-dunk. It's a complex argument. … I wouldn't bet on the result myself."

DeFrantz is usually reserved when she speaks of the IOC, where she has represented the United States since 1986. "It makes me feel embarrassed that our organization, which is built on mutual respect and fair play, is doing this to a group of women," DeFrantz admits. "It's just wrong."

Ski jumper Van is hoping the IOC or the Supreme Court of British Columbia will still open the 2010 competition to women, so she can fly into history as one of the first women to break the final gender barrier in the Winter Olympics. Van is 24 now, and 2010 is her last chance at the Olympics.

"I grew up expecting to be in [the] '98 [Olympics]," Van recalls. "And then 2002. And then 2006. So, the expectation's always been there. The dream's always been there. But there's no reality to that dream at this point."

[editorial on Greece's insurrection] A Road to Revolution?

suggested by Javier, printed in the widely read Israeli paper, Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050296.html

A road to revolution?

By Uri Gordon

Three weeks have passed since the unprovoked police murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens, and the riots engulfing Greece show no sign of abating.

While the student occupations of the capital's three universities (Economics, Polytechnic and the law faculty) are expected to end soon, a major student demonstration has been called for January 9, and the protests, street clashes and seizures of television and radio stations are set to continue in full force.

A Greek blogger wrote this week: "We have a duty to move here, there, anywhere but back to our couches as mere viewers of history, back home to the warmth that freezes our conscience."

The international ripples are also tangible. Solidarity demonstrations and attacks on Greek embassies have taken place around the globe, from Moscow to New York and Copenhagen to Mexico City. Declarations and manifestos issued by student assemblies at Greek schools are almost immediately translated and posted online in English, French, Italian, Turkish and Serbian.

In the first few days of the revolt, bloggers were trying to put together a list of all the solidarity actions taking place, but the task proved impossible: There have been literally hundreds of them; thousands of people have taken to the streets. Last Saturday, a global day of action against police violence saw raucous demonstrations in over 30 cities worldwide.

The corporate press has trotted out various theories to explain the cause of the unrest - frustration with a corrupt government, the global financial crisis, and discontent among Greece's youth, who face meager prospects of secure employment or welfare rights - the riots being a blind reaction to objective conditions.

But all these explanations are in fact decoys intended to silence and ignore the rebels' own declared motivations.

A declaration by the students occupying the Athens School of Economics was quite clear about how they see the issue: "The democratic regime in its peaceful facade doesn't kill an Alex every day, precisely because it kills thousands of Ahmets, Fatimas, Jorjes, Jin Tiaos and Benajirs: because it assassinates systematically, structurally and without remorse the entirety of the third world ....

"The cardinals of normality weep for the law that was violated from the bullet of the pig Korkoneas [the policeman who shot Grigoropoulos]. But who doesn't know that the force of the law is merely the force of the powerful? That it is law itself that allows for the exercise of violence on violence? The law is void from end to bitter end; it contains no meaning, no target other than the coded power of imposition."

Or, in another declaration, this one anonymous: "What do we seek? Equality. Political, economic, social. Between all people. Our possibility of convincing the servile consumers to refuse being commodities and subjects is rather limited. What can we do? Ravage and plunder the market, distribute the goods to everybody, dissolve the myths that support inequality."

These are no single-issue protests or vague grievances. This is full-blooded revolutionary anarchism.

The mainstream media simply cannot stomach the notion that what is happening in Greece is by now a proactive social revolt against the capitalist system itself and the state institutions that reinforce it. It is time to acknowledge that the Greek anarchist movement has successfully seized the initiative after the killing of one of its own, framing the issues in a way that appeals to a larger - albeit mostly young - public.

Few people realize that the Greek anarchist movement is appreciably the largest in the world, in proportion to its country's population. It also enjoys wide social support due to its legacy of resistance to the military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974. Highly confrontational demonstrations are a matter of regularity in Greece. It is practically a bimonthly occurrence for anarchists and police to engage in fiery street battles in Thessaloniki or Athens. The current events are only marked by their breadth and duration, not by their level of militancy.

Another rarely appreciated factor is that Greece is a country in which the security apparatus is normally kept on a relatively tight leash. For example, Privacy International's 2007 assessment of leading surveillance societies found Greece to be the only country in the world with "adequate safeguards" against the abuse of government power to spy on its citizenry. The legacy of the dictatorship has created a lasting image of the police as inherently oppressive, even among the middle class.

Will the riots in Greece lead to an anti-capitalist revolution? Only if the opening they have torn in the social fabric widens and deepens, involving ever-growing sections of society and creating new grass-roots institutions alongside the destruction of the old. This seems unlikely in the short term, as bureaucratic labor unions and the Communist Party attempt to domesticate the revolt and cut their own political coupon with their demand to disarm the police.

But there is no doubt that a new benchmark has been set for what can be expected in Western countries during the coming era of economic depression and environmental decay. European governments will no doubt ratchet up their policies of surveillance and repression in anticipation of growing civil unrest. But that may not be enough to keep the population subdued, as crisis after crisis calls the existing arrangement of power and privilege into question.

------------------------------
Uri Gordon is the author of "Anarchy Alive!: Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory" (Pluto Press); www.anarchyalive.com.

[CA] RAC's Food Program

re-posted from IllVox.org

RAC's Food Program, posted by apoc on December 24, 2008

The Food Program is a mutual-aid project where people themselves are organizing and distributing food in their own neighborhoods. This is not charity, we do not believe that change will happen this way. This is self-empowerment, where working class neo-colonies are feeding themselves, and organizing to feed themselves.

Since the first week of November, 2007, RAC has distibuted much needed grocieries to the needy workers of the area. Las week more than 200 people standing in line received food packages.

You can join us every Sunday at 1:30 PM. Meet at the SE Corner of Wilshire and Parkview in MacArthur Park.

RAC Mission Statement:

We feel that this system is killing our people by what the corporations feed us or don’t feed us. At the same time there is an abundance of healthy food that goes to waste. They would rather let food go to waste than allow the prices of food in the market to drop. Then they disconnect people (all indigenous and colonized people) from the land, which a free and independent people need to survive. They centralize power and resources in the hands of the few, this is how they keep oppressed people dependent on a white-supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist-imperialist system.

RAC’s Food Program is a way that we can work with supporters and other organizations to feed healthy food to our communities. We want people to connect with each other, to pick up and distribute the food amongst themselves. We will support, help connect people and to supply whatever resources we can. Through this process our goal is to connect our communities and to take them back. Our overall goal is to regain our necessary connection to the land. We need land to survive, and the land belongs to us, not the colonizer. We want to relearn how to live off the land and how to truly be self-sustainable.

We’re Still Here, We Never Left

Support our Food Program.

Help Pick Up Food.

Help Distribute Food in Your Neighborhood.

Donate to our Community Mutual-Aid Program.

Get Organized!

Take Back Our Communities and Take Back the Land!

All Power THROUGH the People!

-Revolutionary Autonomous Communities (RAC)

Mission Statement:

Who we are. What we believe. What we fight for.

We are a revolutionary federation of community councils & liberated spaces based in oppressed communities made up by oppressed people of color. We are a horizontal organization building self-sustainability and creating the structure, strategy, and program for change through direct participatory forms of organizing and a decision-making process based on consensus. We stand against all forms of oppression: imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, fascism, heterosexism/homophobia/transphobia and the domination of human over human & human over all living things including mother earth. We believe and we fight for autonomy, self determination, self organization & the self defense of our communities.

Our strategy includes outreach and education, community programs, empowerment, support, training and mutual aid, so people can build self reliance & gain the skills, resources and the experience to liberate themselves. In striving for liberation, we work to decolonize our minds by embracing our indigenous roots and practices.

Revolution comes from the people not a vanguard party; it is an individual and collective process where we destroy the system while we create change within ourselves and the world. The best way to show our solidarity to the people of the world is to bring the war home, and to bring down amerikkkan imperialism while we struggle to build internationalism & intercommunalism.

We fight for freedom and won’t settle for less!

All power to the people!

rac@riseup.net

[Modesto, CA] Solidarity With Greece

re-posted from Anarchistnews.org from Indybay - By crudo

Modesto: Anarchists Take to the Streets in Support of Greek Insurrection

“Bring it. We right here. We ain’t going anywhere. We right here.” - DMX

For nearly two years anarchists have stayed off the streets of Modesto as an organized presence. That is until last night. After a gathering of about 30 people at a local coffee shop, where comrades discussed the situation in Greece and read aloud a text from a prepared flyer on the revolt and how it relates to what is happening in the Central Valley of California, about 20-25 people took to the streets of downtown Modesto. Many of those in attendance that night had never engaged with others or organized themselves for such an activity as taking over a street for a march, so for many of the working class hooligan youths who marched for about 10 minutes to the downtown area of 10th and J Street, last night was a learning experience. Marchers held a large banner in front reading, “Solidarity With Greece! For Global Resistance!,” carried signs such as, “No Justice, No Peace! From Modesto to Greece,” and several youths carried anarchist black flags. The group chanted, “Who’s Streets? Our Streets,” and variations of, “From Modesto to Greece: Fight the Police!”

Right as the group approach it’s desired endpoint, the police showed up. The group did not stop and marched into the downtown blocked off street of 10th and J Street. There, youths engaged with the public and passed out several hundred flyers on car windows and to passersby. Although it was cold and not many people were about, we still accomplished our goal of taking the street, holding it, marching to our destination, and then engaging with people.

Members of Modesto Anarcho Crew (MAC - wat wat) also made it clear that the conditions in the Central Valley are just as ripe for insurrection and revolution as Greece. Several people pointed out that a young man of color was just shot to death by pigs in Stockton (about 20 minutes north of Modesto) when he came out of his house in a high crime neighborhood with a licensed firearm during the arrest of another man. The Greeks should not have all the fun. We have buildings to occupy, police to fight, and resources to appropriate as well.

Being that this demonstration was organized in less than three days mainly through social networking websites and friend networks - I would say last night was a success and hopefully only the start of things to come. Until I can light my cigarette on my on burning barricade, keep bringin da soc war, here, there, and everywhere.

[DC] Organic Farm at the White House?

re-posted from: All Things Considered, NPR

By Brian Reed, Activists Clamor For Organic Farm At The White House, December 24, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama will have his hands full when he takes office in January, and some activists want to make sure his belly is full, too — full of fresh fruits and vegetables. Several campaigns are petitioning Obama to plant an organic garden on the White House lawn, and they've devised peculiar ways of getting attention.

Take, for example, Daniel Bowman Simon and Casey Gustowarow and their upside-down, topsy-turvy bus — a vehicle that is actually one school bus flipped on its back and fused on top of another. On the roof, where the second bus's engine would have been, is a small but hardy vegetable garden.

"People have just kind of gravitated toward this upside-down school bus just because they want to know what it is," Simon says. "So it opens up the potential for having a conversation."

Simon and Gustowarow founded the White House Organic Farm Project –- or TheWhoFarm. Since August, they've driven through 25 states visiting farms, markets, schools and restaurants, asking people to sign their petition.

"We need to be more holistic in the way that we view health in this country, and a lot of it comes down to eating healthier," Simon says. "People who eat healthier don't get sick as much."

But for the WhoFarm guys and other sustainable-food junkies, eating locally grown produce is not just about health. They say it's also about cutting down the amount of fuel we use to transport food, encouraging communities to congregate around a garden and rediscovering America's agricultural roots. Simon says the president should lead by example.

"If we have arguably the most famous person in the country eating off the most visible piece of land in the country, which is a piece of land that we all share collectively, that could inspire immense changes," he says.

And the WhoFarmers are not the only grassroots gardeners trying to get the president-elect's attention. In February, Roger Doiron, director of Kitchen Gardeners International, launched an online campaign called Eat the View — the "view" being the pristine White House grounds.

"It might sound a bit trivial to some people, the idea of a garden on the White House lawn," Doiron says. "But it's not. It's something that would speak to millions of people in the United States and even more people around the world who look at gardens and small subsistence farms as a way of making a living, as a way of putting good food on the table."

Like TheWhoFarm, Eat the View has an online petition. In total, the campaigns have collected about 18,000 signatures. (It's hard to say how many are duplicates.) At one point, Doiron even raised money for his nonprofit by selling imaginary plots of the White House lawn on eBay.

But not everyone is so supportive of these campaigns. Alex Avery, author of The Truth About Organic Food and director of research at the Center for Global Food Issues, is critical of the larger organic farming agenda.

"I think the idea to put an organic farm on the White House lawn is as shallow a stunt as is the intellectual rigor of the organic movement as a whole," he says.

According to Avery, feeding the world's population organically — that is, without synthetic fertilizer — would require plowing down millions of square miles of wildlife habitat in order to achieve the same yield of food.

"It would create no solutions — it would, in fact, create nothing but problems," Avery says.

Not to mention that some of what the activists are proposing may already be going on. Walter Scheib, executive chef at the White House for 11 years under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, says that people might be surprised at some of the sustainable practices already in place at the White House.

"There's always an assumption that something isn't happening already," he says. "But Mrs. Bush is adamant about organics. If anything was available as an organic it was to be a default."

Scheib says that when he arrived at the executive residence during the Clinton administration, there was already a small vegetable garden on the roof, which he expanded during his time there.

Still, TheWhoFarm and Eat the View are petitioning for something a bit more ambitious and more visible. Both campaigns are suggesting that the White House produce enough food to help stock D.C. food banks. In addition, Simon and Gustowarow have proposed that schoolchildren and people with disabilities work at the First Farm.

The Secret Service would not comment on the feasibility of that.

Nonetheless, the activists find reasons to be optimistic. Famous foodies like chef Alice Waters and bestselling author Michael Pollan are calling for a White House garden. And the students at Watkins Elementary, a school TheWhoFarm visited in southeast Washington, D.C., seem pretty excited, too.

"You guys are so cool!" several students shouted when they saw TheWhoFarm's wacky ride.

"Good luck," one girl said after TheWhoFarmers had explained their project. "I'll go home and sign your petition if my mom lets me."

"Yes," Simon told her. "Ask her for permission."

Now all these traveling gastronomes need is for Obama to get on the bus.

[NYC] New School Occupation Victory!

This update is a little late. Still good though.

re-posted from NewSchoolInExile.com

University in Exile Occupation Wins Major Victoryover University Administration in 3rd Day (3 am) !!

After more than two weeks of concerted actions on campus, students in the occupation were finally able to win significant victories in the ongoing struggle to improve the New School. Those victories include: an agreement not to press charges or impose academic punishments for students involved in the protest, the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) committee within the university, more autonomy and power for Student Senate to communicate with the student body, more representation on the Board of Trustees for students and faculty, and finally the creation of more student study space on campus. As of approximately 4am this morning New School and other students have left the 65 5th Avenue building and declared the occupation successful, ending this stage of the action.


FULL TEXT OF THE AGREEMENT:

Agreement with New School President Bob Kerrey

1) I agree to grant total amnesty for all participants involved in the occupation and all events related to it over the course of 12/17/08 through 12/19/08 at all New School Buildings. Neither criminal charges nor academic disciplinary measures will be pursued against those involved. The University will not press charges against Eliot Liu.

Agreed.Staff and security guards will be compensated for all time lost over the course of the occupation.

This is not necessary. They have been compensated.

2) I agree that students may use the GF building at 65 Fifth Ave until a suitable replacement is secured and instituted, which would include the re-installment of suitable library and study space. This would need to be approved by the USS.

Due to my limitation under the board, and because of repeated and voiced student concern about the university's investments, this is already underway for alternative space. I guarantee that by the beginning of spring semester I will provide new library space in Arnold hall. I will also provide 7000 feet of quiet study space at Sheila Johnson galleries by the end of spring semester. I agree to meet with the students to discuss the current plans, alternatives, and financial planning.

3) I agree that students will have voting representation on the search committee for the interim-Provost and the Provost, as well as any searches that may take place in the future for a new President. The details of this will be worked out with representatives of the University Student Senate, and input from the student body at large.

Agreed.

4) I agree for student participation to establish a committee on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) for the University's endowment and that this committee will then establish an independent auditing process with the SRI framework. The committee to establish the SRI will meet by the first week of April, 2009.

Due to being limited by the board, and because of repeated and voicedstudent concern about the university's investments, I will urge myinvestment committee to establish such a committee with studentinvolvement.

5) I agree to grant the University Student Senate the ability to communicate with the student body freely and without constraint (and to not restrict their access to Groupwise email and other technologies that enable this).

I agree with the greater autonomy of the university student senate with the stipulation that the email use does not violate federal law for the distribution of materials or FERPA regulations. I guarantee that I will immediately provide the university student senate with the tools necessary to have fluid communication, in particular with reference to groupwise email, with the student body.

6) I agree that a representative of the USS should be allowed to have a representative at meetings of the Board of Trustees in order to speak to specific issues that pertain to decisions passed by the USS or directly relating to USS business.

I have already asked the chairman of the trustees to consider adding a student and a faculty member to the boards in this capacity. I have agreed to ask the board to do this.

Signed,

Bob Kerrey

12/19/08

[Canada] Students sit-in at York University

re-posted from: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/12/15/ont-yorkstrike.html?ref=rss%22

Sit-in protest begins as York University strike enters 5th week

Monday, December 15, 2008 7:40 PM ET

At least 80 people are occupying the hallway outside the president's office at York University in Toronto, as they try to increase pressure on school administrators to reach a deal and end a strike by graduate students and teaching assistants that's now in its fifth week.

The protesters, who began their sit-in about 1:30 p.m. ET on Monday, said they want to meet with President Mamdouh Shoukri, and are refusing to leave until he meets and answers their questions. He wasn't in his office.

The university has said it will cancel classes for the remainder of 2008 if a new contract can't be reached by Monday night, and no new contract talks are scheduled.

Contract negotiations between the union and the York University administration began in July 2008, but since the strike, which began Nov. 6, the university has refused to bargain, the union said.

CUPE Local 3903 represents more than 3,400 members, including 1,800 teaching assistants, 900 contract faculty and 800 graduate students at York University.

The union said it's seeking a wage increase above inflation, a two-year collective agreement and job security for contract faculty among other things.

With files from the Canadian Press