A free four-part video series has been created by the non-profit Turtle Island Project (TIP) in Munising, Michigan on the third annual "Cowboys and Angels" concert that benefited the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society (WBCWS) in Mission, South Dakota – the world's oldest Native American domestic violence shelter...WBCWS battles domestic violence, sexual assault and an alarming increase in teen suicides on the Lakota Rosebud Sioux Reservation...A wide variety of social problems are among the causes for the Rosebud suicides and family violence including poverty, depression, no jobs, and substance abuse Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard performed original songs and seasonal music during the free concert on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2008 at the Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore in Munising, Michigan.

By NEVE GORDON and JEFF HALPER - December 31, 2008

Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week...Recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies' Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.

By Leigh Phillips - Znet

As disparate but linked militant youth protests simultaneously erupt in a number of countries across the continent, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has retreated on two controversial pieces of domestic legislation out of fear that a spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of 1968...Sarkozy...has dropped plans for changes to high school curricula and Sunday retail opening hours in dread that the "Greek syndrome"...could spread to France, or even across the continent.

By Costas Panayotakis - December 24, 2008

In the evening of Saturday December 6th, 2008, a police officer shoots and kills Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 16-year old in Athens, Greece. In the days that followed this incident large numbers of people, in cities across Greece, have taken to the streets...The great protagonists of these demonstrations have been young people, including high school and university students, but other participants have included parents, labor unionists, immigrant workers, Greece's political Left, and Greeks from all walks of life.

There's a freeSkool launching in Hamilton, Ontario on January 3rd. Freeskool is a place where people who know a thing can meet with people who want to learn a thing. We’re all curious, clever people with a lot of knowledge and skills to share with each other. Freeskool is a way to learn without incurring crippling debt, to tap into all the knowledge already in our community.

Communiqué from the Occupied Polytechnic University in Athens

(Saturday 20/12 ) Two weeks after the state murder of comrade Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the social and class counter-attack continues...We continue the occupation of the Athens Polytechnic School that started on the evening of December 6th, creating a space for everyone involved in the struggle and providing a steady point of resistance within the city of Athens...Following a collective decision of the occupied Polytechnic's general assembly on Saturday 13/12, we called for global actions against state terrorism on Saturday 20/12.

On various campuses, Hillel is launching campaigns to pull funding from PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) because of the strong stand taken by some PIRGs around the issue of Israeli Apartheid...Hillel at the University of Ottawa approached OPIRG Ottawa to endorse one of their events. OPIRG refused on the grounds that as a social justice organization, they cannot work with Hillel because of their support for Israel. In response, Hillel contacted the local media, who have joined in a smear campaign against OPIRG Ottawa...Now, the President of Ottawa University is threatening to pull funding from OPIRG Ottawa.

By Kumaran Ira - December 20, 2008

(19 December 2008) -- On December 15, French Education Minister Xavier Darcos announced the temporary withdrawal of a highly contested high school reform, in the face of student protests...The decision to temporarily postpone implementation of the law, which would cut teaching staff and rearrange high school curricula, is an embarrassing about-face for the government...Since then, however, there was the eruption of massive and violent anti-government protests in Greece...The basic economic conditions that provoked the Greek riots exist in all of Europe, and in particular in France.

By PANOS PETROU - Counterpunch

On the night of December 6, a special police squad in Athens murdered a 15-year-old student in cold blood in Exarchia, a neighborhood with a long tradition of activism among young people, the left and anarchists...This was only the latest instance of police brutality against immigrants, and left-wing and anarchist activists--especially youth, in the wake of a major youth resistance movement against privatization of education that rattled the right-wing government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis.

By JOHN ROSS - Counterpunch Weekend Edition

At first Lucia Morett couldn't make out where she was and what had woken her up in the pitch-black jungle dark. Then the Mexican graduate student remembered. She reached for her schoolmate Veronica Velazquez's hand but Vero was not there. She would never be there again.

By Eric Newstadt - December 08, 2008

Placed neatly in the middle of a global economic maelstrom, it is near impossible to understand or predict what, if any, consequences the strike by 3500 odd teaching and research assistants and contract faculty at York University...will have for higher education in Ontario and throughout Canada...[T]he strike seems also to have engendered the anger and vitriol of the public such that the viability of similar strikes in the sector are in question. And while the tenor of the action was...pitched firmly at rolling back the "neoliberal university," it is questionable whether even outright victory at York would or could have such far-reaching consequences across the university sector.

*please distribute widely - apologies for cross-postings*

Dear family, friends, allies and supporters,

Vancouver Status of Women is excited to invite you to:

Daring to LEAP: The Art of Building Community and Collective Voice

Thursday, 11 December 2008
6:00 – 9:00pm
Hastings Community Centre (Room 9)
3096 East Hastings St.
Vancouver - Coast Salish Territory

Authorities have oft labeled the insane as Rebellion Personified. Michel Foucault, in his classic book, Madness and Civilization (1961), writes “This is why idleness is rebellion – the worst form of all, in a sense: it waits for nature to be generous as in the innocence of Eden, and seeks to constrain a Goodness to which man cannot lay claim since Adam. Pride was the sin of man before the Fall; but the sin of idleness is the supreme pride of man once he has fallen, the absurd pride of poverty.”

Foucault also writes, “the question Voltaire would soon formulate, Colbert’s contemporaries had already asked: “Since you have established yourselves as a people, have you not yet discovered the secret of forcing all the rich to make all the poor work? Are you still ignorant of the first principles of the police?”

By Henry A. Giroux - November 23, 2008

While there is an ongoing discussion about what shape the military-industrial complex will take under an Obama presidency, what is often left out of this analysis is the intrusion of the military into higher education...[This] should be of special concern for intellectuals, artists, academics and others who believe that the university should oppose such interests and alignments.

By CHUCK O'CONNELL - Counterpunch

We are living in difficult times and our situation is not good...I am referring to broad historical trends in the relationship between employers and their workers. These trends have developed over the past thirty years and appear to be intensifying. These trends are political and economic developments that have eroded the power and position of those of us who labor for wages or salaries. We are losing income, benefits, free time, and even our health...How did this come about?