Occupation

so I'm sitting in the UCD library right now, writing you this post. There has been protests the past few weeks about cut backs to library hours. Two weeks ago we had the first study in, we stayed an extra hour after the libray closed, there were about 250 students who stayed. Last week we stayed for two hours after the library closed and we had about 300. This week, we are having a sleep over occupation of the library. I have no idea of the numbers since many a people left before I even got here. [i went to radiohead to night and was let in at 2 am by security and ready in the back emergancy exit] It about 4 right now, most people are still up and wondering or chatting. There are a few brave souls who are attempting to sleep, there even is a tent!!!

Teh great thing is studying actually happened. The first two were silent protests and majority of people got work done expect for all of us staring amazed that it actually worked. This night I'm not sure much work got done since the library had been occupied for 4 hours before I got here. But a few people were still studying when I got here.

I did hear of twister, an obsitcale course and other random activities that took place.

The way I'm posting right now is kinda cool, the computers are connected to the internet via the library server but there is not address bar. Someone had somehow got on to indymedia adn left it on. but you could only get to linked sites from indymedia. So ready went into the ontario one and published a story saying that we were using there site as an exit point from the server. We wrote www.google.com in the short post and published it. from that I was able to type in blogger and get here!!

I feel slightly brain dead right now, it is quite late, and fuck I'm in the library . . .I have exams in a few days so I should be studying or sleeping but nothing of the sort is taking place. Its not like I was going to bring books to radiohead, and its not like I'm going to leave and miss the first over night occupation of the UCD library.

I do have a bit of a rant actually and hopefully my sleepy state won't prevent me from going on about it. Ok two weeks ago at the student union council meeting ready adn I proposed that the union support the allaince for choice demo. Adn for the union to support the alliance for choice and there aims. Basically we were asking for the union to take a pro-choice stance.

well that motion was "misplaced" so we tried again, the protest was over but we still were asking for the same thing. It was not misplaced this time and everyone on council received it in the mail and were ready. The student paper was also informed so both ready and I got calls and were quoted in the paper. The paper wanted my pic, but I said HELL NO - the last thing I needed was for the pro-lifers to have a face to the LGBRO . . . ahhh

anyways, it occured to me several days ago that I was going to radiohead the same evening as the meeting. This is a huge problem since I would have to be ther for it to go through. We thought about dropping it, but really we had made so much noise to have it in, and I was continuously getting encouraged to drop it so of course the last thing I coudl do was drop it.

we came up with a contingent plan, there is this possiblity of transferring speaking rights, and I knew this great girl who would kick some serious ass. I met her in the staff and studnets against sexism campaign, she is from the states and is doing her Phd here. She is a serious feminist raised by a feminist adn a great talker.

so the constituion says both the person who proposes the motion and the one who seconds it has to be in attendance. adn it also says that both of those people are able to transfer speaking rights to non union memebers. so here was the plan, show up and stay as long as I could - so I was in attendance. and write a letter transferring speaking writes to this other girl.

so this is waht happened via the grape vine, after I left [i did stay an hour and a half as we talked about so many stupid ass issuses, which I truely believe were being draged on by the right to avoid having the motion brought forth] the motion was brough forward, adn first they argued that it was onconstituional since I was no longer there. But that eventually went thorugh, again a ploy by the right. Actually this one guy who normally chairs the meetings said that he would not chair because he is too biased. which at first I thought was really good of him, but what it really metn was that he coudl take part in the meeting and slow the whole process down.

so it was fianlly agreed that it coudl be brought forth, but then there was a debate on wether or not it should be debated on since the right was trying to say that the union was already non directive and this motion would change the policy adn that required a referendum. so basically they just wanted it not to be voted on. The spent the night debating on wether or not it could or shoudl be debated on. ahhh and my poor friend who wasted a good part of her night comign down to this damn meeting and not being listened too. Everytime she said anything people would stop her saying that they hadn't agreed yet wether or not this was something they could talk about.

fuck how the right tried to silence this is unreal, actually it wasn't just the right, so many of the "lefties" are not as lefty as you might like. If it did go to vote, there is no wasy we would have passed it, so it is better that it didn't. but at least people are talking about it more and we could bring it back up nex semester if we choice to and hopefully get more support by then.

I bet its past five now, its getting really quite, I think I'm going to go look for people that I know and stop being a computer geek at this occupation.

nite nite

my sexist roommate just had a this girl over. He is one of those guys who every girl that sees him says damn he is hot. and he also one of those guys that grunts every time a hot girl comes on tv. He is one of those guys who says things like "give her 5 years" when a 12 year old girl is on tv. he is one of those guys gets mad when you tald about getting rid of sexist posters cuz he likes looking at them on his way to class. He is one of those guys who goes to a club that he calls the "club of love" every friday night. he is one of those guys when you are talking about slave labour says "fuck the children its all about style" and you know its more then a joke. he is one of those guys wo says "why ban coke? they can't really prove that union workers are being killed".

so he has this girl over, she is beautiful, and all fem dressed up. She brings over groceries and cooks him dinner. after dinner I was in the kitchen getting yet another pot of tea for my mad studying session. The girl was washing the dishes, as the boy watched tv. making someone dinner in their apartment is one thing but then doing all the dishes afterwards that quite another. Decency allone calls for the reciever of a dinner to offer to do the dishes, even if they are guest in the house, and especially when someone makes dinner for you in your house. Fair enough she could have insisted, but thats not a pattern you want to get into withthis guy. but at leas the could have helped iwth the drying or at least stayed in the same room.

ok she is all done walks into the room to see the boy and our other male roommate watching some program on strippers. The two of them are giggling at the women naked on screen. He stood there watching the tellie with his mouth open and didn't even say thank you. he only looked away when she said I best be going . . .

I talked to this women when she made dinner and when she did the dishes she is a intelligent women, and very confident. Teh boy should should be very greatful a person like this was willing to come over and cook him dinner, i hope he gets his head out of his ass and appricaites her. grrrrr . .

out of the squating loop

a few days ago I did a mad read of indymedia in Ireland and in Canada, I have been involved in Irish politics that I havn't been reading about whats been happenging in Toronto lately. I was super excited to hear about the Nov 8th events. For those of you who did hear, on Nov 8th OCAP planned a squat action in the gatekeepers house by the Don Jail. This house once housed the jails gatekeeper but has been empty for quite a while, although it was still hooked up to electricity. They made the plans available since it was a political action to get more affordable housing Toronto. Well the police were out in full force, usign great numbers as a fear tactic. The had also went around in the surrounding neighbourhood letting the locals know what was happenind and requesting that they didn't go to the event.

The event got a bit messy and several people were arrested including a women who had her 2 year old child removed from her arms. There was great out cry from the squaters to have the child returned to the father who was also in attendance. Eventually the child was returned.

The MP in the area, who has been there for 16 years was notified of this near riot in her contingent and rushed down. He negotiated between the police and the squaters. He brought paper work with him that said that he would do everything in his power to have this house converted into affordable housing and that if he was unable to do so by DEC 8th then he would resign.

It sounds like a victory over all, I'm sure that he will be able to get this done, adn the gatekeeper squat will turn into affordable housing. If he doesn't the outcry that will happen will be intence, headlines will read "MP resigns as governement refuses to build affordable housing" I can't imagine the city letting that happen. Go OCAP, only you are militant enough to make things happen in that city . . .

I was showing ready the lyrics for some kinds of light and telling him my realization that the song was about being bi and poly. I had told him before about the whole poly thing, last night he said that he had never heard the word before but had her another term. Squatting your heart . . . I kinda like it, plus there is a symbol for it. I can't find the term or symbol on the internew anywhere but I can discribe it easily. It is just like the regular squating symbol but instead of the circle it is a heart.