DRAG SCHOOL

hey all,

The Blazing Textbooks team talk gender, performance and the finer points of fake hair with the students of Drag School!  Drag School helps give queer youth the history, politics and practical skills they need to become drag superstars.  So to check out an amazing example of radical education in action, tune in to blazing textbooks tomorrow (saturday) at 12:30 pm on 3CR 855 AM!   Featuring Rusty O’Toole (Bron Richardson), Johhny Jay Izz (Ren Flannery), Marlena (Andrew Ranson), Paige Prozac (Kayla Costello) and Rei Alphonso.

and check out the Drag School Facebook page!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=97447704148&ref=ts

xx
BT

Show – 14/11/09

As if it wasn’t hot enough outside already, Teish and Pete fire up the airwaves with an interview with Eduardo, the International Students Officer at the Newcastle University Student Association about attacks on international students in Newcastle and the measures being taken increase safety. Next up, we follow up our recent review of The Coming Insurrection, a situationist-style political manifesto proving to be influential among students and activists,  with a discussion of a feminist critique of it, Why She Doesn’t Give A Fuck About Your Insurrection.

+++ Plus music from:

Pandie Panther http://www.myspace.com/pandiepanther

Kt Spit http://www.myspace.com/ktspit

10/10

Pete and T jump on the mics for another week, starting with a short news round-up including International students submssions to a State Governments inquiring stating a total lack of trust in the police to take action on the rcist attacks against them [The Australian]

Next we have a look at a recent trend of student occupations in the UK and US. From campaigns asking for their Universitys’ to divest from military corporations involved in the Israel’s recent war on Gaza and demanding, amongst other things,  scholarships for Palestinian students in the UK and divestment from university shares in arms corporations. We then examine what can be seen as a more liberated and open ended analysis of occupations being less about demands for reforms or concessions from the institution (which is bound to operate in a capitalist market-place anyway) to seeing the occupation, and the autonomous zones that they create, as a means, not an end to specific reform, such as at the University of California, Santa Cruz . Read the manifesto of the UCSC students here. Also, read a statement by the New School in Exile (students from the New School for Social Research, New York) here.

+++ Plus new music from Baaddd http://www.myspace.com/baaddd

3/10 Show

This week Allegra and James roundup some local and international news in higher education, interspersed with music from the Shang Ri Las including “Leader of the Pack”, and local act Mutiny.

James kicks off with analysis of the recent student protests at Berkeley campus of the University of California. State financial crisis putting pressure on the USA’s premier public higher education system, leading to staff and student protests at undemocratic management edicts aimed at transferring the burden of balancing the budget onto the backs of lecturers students and workers. Doesn’t the situation sound familiar?

After a killer track from the collection of MC, mad radio host and jelly bean providore John, Allegra goes in depth on the student protest in Iran, the continuation of the  movements contesting the legitimacy of the revolutionary government that have courageously disregarded the threat of police crackdowns to challenge the labelling of the humanities and arts as seditious subject areas.

Following an eclectic jump to the Shang Ri Las, Allegra rounds out the show with updates on Premier Brumby’s comments in India, and the continuing issue of the State Government’s response to violence against Indian students in Melbourne. Mutiny takes us out, and onwards towards next week.

Show 26/9

Max and John provided a stellar radio show, with issues ranging from strikes in California to riots in Beijing to international student being exploited by dodgy education agents and Melbourne uni’s hypocrisy in criticising the state government for interfering in academic freedom.

Here are some links to a few of these issues:

Beijing Students Pressed to Stop Protesting Lecturer’s Detention-

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/world/asia/22china.html

And shit going down in california-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/24/california-university-berkeley-budget-protest

and some statements from the UC santa cruz occupation-

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090925011912550

http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/

Show 12/9

Pete and Teishan jump on the mics again, giving a schorching roundup of the latest education news. Including fresh claims of international stutends being rorted by Australian private education providers [The Australian], and calls by the Federation of Indian Students of Australia (FISA) for the federal and state governments to take seriously the rorting of students as wells as the racist attacks [Press Trust of India].

Next up, since Friday marked the anniversary of the September 11 2001 terrorists attacks in the US, we take a look at some of the ramifications the war on terror has had so far on higher education. These include the increasing monitoring and control of students (and academics) from both without (government security agencies) and, more disturbingly, from within the university itself. E.g.: Books on terrorism banned from Melbourne University; A Monash student interrogated for studying terrorism course and hiring terrorism related materials for scholarship; research on terrorism hindered due to anti-terror laws; student protestors raided by terrorism squads. Moreover, UK and US professors asked to monitor students’ activities; universities passing private information including library records to police; biometric and information profiling of international students in the US. Whislt we hear less about this in the news now that the Howard/Bush/Blair years are over, the laws that allow this to happen remain and, alarmingly, these activities have been normalised and are increasly accepted in colleges and universities.

++++++++Plus music from

Purple Duck MC www.myspace.com/mcpurpleduck

and Toxic Lipstick www.myspace.com/toxiclipstick

Show 8/8/09

Pete & Teishan jump on the mics for another week looking at recent attemps at coalition building between student environmentalists and workers in coal effected areas, and have a chat to Addy and Sam from the new Melbourne Uni. Book Co-op. Plus a round-up of the latest education news…

-Emergency Services Officers at Morwell’s Hazelwood power station in the La Trobe Vally have been striking for almost 4 months now, demanding better pay and conditions on par with their follow workers at Yallourn and Loy Yang power plants, and an increase in numbers and proper safety training.
The Emergency Safety Officers are responsible for fires, leakages, equipment failures and all other safety risks in the Hazelwood mine and the power plant. Yet their base rate of pay is just $19.32 per hour, only slightly above minimum wage.
While these workers have been on strike, International Power, who own the Hazelwood facility, have tried to distance themselves from the dispute. However, according to the union, they have been using scab labour who are not adequately trained for the work and subsequently Hazelwood staff could be in serious danger and maybe receiving sub-standard emergency support, the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union says. [1] [2]
On Friday the 31th of July a bunch of student environmentalists went down to the headquarters of International power to join the striking Hazelwood staff.
Blazing Textbooks spoke to one of the students about why climate change campaigners might want to work in solidarity with workers in coal effected areas. Listen here.

-Next up Blazing Textbooks went on down to Melbourne Uni to check out the rad new student run Book Cooperative. The Book Co-op is open Monday to Thursday 12-2.30pm. 1st Floor of Union House, Melbourne Uni (Parkville Campus), opposite the food co-op. Addy & Sam give us the lowdown…

-In the news roundup we put the blowtorch to Glyn Davis’s ‘Economic Response Program’, which will see a further 220 job losses at Melbourne University. This, of course, is part of a wider trend in staff cutback and redundancies at prominent universities, which threatens to compromise teaching quality and put academic staff under even more pressure than they already are. In response the NTEU is asking members and staff to support strike action in September.

Concommittant with the cutbacks and redundancies is the increase commodification of education and subsequent decline in education quality. Central Queensland University is offering its students ipods, laptops and flights home if they can convince other students to enroll at the university. And students at a Rockhampton Tafe were astounded when they were informed that they would not be taught, but would have to educate themselves.

Next up we look at a disturbing article in the Australian which discusses the lack of interaction between local and international students, which led to one student at an Adelaide campus to attempt suicide. A  claim is made that suicide rates in overseas students may be up to four times higher than those among their domestic counterparts. Blazing Textbooks will be investigating further in the coming weeks.

Back announce song. Show ID, Station ID Emergency Services Officers at Morwell’s Hazelwood power station in the La Trobe Vally have been striking for almost 4 months now, demanding better pay and conditions on par with their follow workers at Yallourn and Loy Yang power plants, and an increase in numbers and proper safety training. The Emergency Safety Officers are responsible for fires, leakages, equipment failures and all other safety risks in the Hazelwood mine and the power plant. Yet their base rate of pay is just $19.32 per hour, only slightly above minimum wage. While these workers have been on strike, International Power, who own the Hazelwood facility, have tried to distance themselves from the dispute. However they have been using scab/non-union labour who are not adequately trained for the work and subsequently HAZELWOOD staff could be in serious danger and maybe receiving sub-standard emergency support, the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union says. On Friday the 31th of July a bunch of student environmentalists went down to the headquarters of International power to join the striking Hazelwood staff. I spoke to Lian about why students and climate change campaigners might want to work in solidarity with workers at coal-fired power stations…

Show 01/08/09

James and Allegra hit the airwaves with special guest Yoni who channels the spirit of the Situationist International  in his polemic paper ‘On the Poverty of Student Life’.

Originally a text by University of Strasbourg students and members of the International, 10,000 copies of the pamphlet were printed by the student union (or a couple of well placed students) using uni funds. The copies were distributed at the official ceremony marking the beginning of the academic year and the student union was promptly closed by court order.

The pamphlet (the original and Yoni’s version)  goes beyond the traditional leftist critique of the university as a site of privilege under the old liberal bourgeois model or a site of instrumental knowledge disseminated through the ‘degree factory’ under the neo-liberal model. It questions the possibility of a free, open university in a capitalist society. in this way the pamphlet is a useful intervention into the debate around higher education, where the radical left increasingly defends a social-democratic line. Rather, the paper argues that the ‘extreme alienation’ of the student  ‘can be contested only through a contestation of the entire society’. Check out the paper on our pages link.

News Updates:

-Melbourne University announces a further 220 staff will have to go due to the global financial crisis.

-Analysis of Victorian TAFE  changes

Show 11/7

Teishan and Pete stoke the airwaves on a cold and rainy saturday with red-hot news and analysis of the recent Students of Sustainability conference; the aniversary of the 1999 student uprising in Iran in relation to the current movement challenging the status quo in Iran, at the forefront of which are Iranian students; the Victorian Government’s planned ‘Harmony Walk’, supposedly to promote tolerance in the face of racist attacks on Indian students, but which Indian students will not be allowed to address!  – will this turn into another cynical attempt to shore up the international student market by stifling the voices of international students?And the funding crisis at the notorious Central Queensland University.

Next up we take the blowtorch to a recently penned revolutionary manifesto out of France, “The Coming Insurrection”.  This particular book forms the primary evidence against the ‘Tarnac Nine’, who are up against terrorism charges for disrupting the French public transport system. Written in the style of the situationist manifestos of Guy Debord, and channelling the spectre of Marx’s Communist Manifesto (updated by a whole gamut of contemporary left theorists out of Europe, from Antonio Negri to Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben), it gives a devastating analysis of the contemporary state of capitalist society. “We have to see that the economy is not ‘in’ crisis”, the authors state, “the economy is itself the crisis.” But the authors see in the very forms this perpetual crisis and emergency of capitalism take the potential for alternative forms of collective existence: squat the empty buildings, occupy the flailing factories, form “communes”, the authors shout. Will this text be swept into the dustheap of history with so many other revolutionary texts, or stoke the fires of insurrection against capitalist hegemony? Read it here and decide for yourself – click ‘download printable booklet’ for the English translation.

Show 16/5

- Liz and Teishan put on our monocles and inspect the latest Federal Budget’s consequences for higher education, students, and welfare recepients more broadly. While some students will benefit from measures like the increase in the amount their parents can earn before they’re eligible for the payment, others are not so fortunate. It’s now much more difficult for many people to qualify for Youth Allowance through work.

Disturbingly, all under-17s and under 20-s without a year 12 pass or equivalent will no longer be eligible for welfare benefits unless they are in full-time work or study — effectively cutting unemployment benefits for one of the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Treasury says they should be in school; critics say it’s punitive and a cynical attempt to deflate youth unemployment figures, sure to rise in this time of recession. One text message sent to the NT News sums it up: “All those texts about the merits of Learn or Earn. I would think that the Govt would lead the World by adding a third option – or be conscripted!” Indeed.

The cap on the number of publically funded university places has been removed, with the government pledging to fund as many places as institutions attract applicants. The adoption of this supply and demand model may have negative consequences for small and regional higher ed providers.

More info:
http://www.standard.net.au/news/local/news/general/youth-allowance-eligibility-changes-has-gap-year-students-in-shock/1512597.aspx

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/14/2570264.htm?site=riverina

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2557807.htm

- We take a blowtorch to the police response to the growing problem of violence against Indian students, especially in Melbourne’s western suburbs. A new Victoria Police helpline has been set up to give advice for those at risk; unfortunately, this advice takes the form of telling Indian students to be less conspicuous. One handy tip is to avoid talking loudly in one’s native language on public transport! The Federation of Indian Students of Australia have slammed the police response for failing to acknowledge and tackle the root cause of the attacks — racism.

More info:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/aussie-cops-to-visit-india-to-advise-students-about-hate-crime/458570/1

http://chronicle.com/news/article/6475/australia-worries-that-racial-attacks-will-deter-students-from-india

http://www.theage.com.au/national/police-visit-india-to-brief-students-on-staying-safe-20090512-b1wa.html

We also plugged a few cool things that are happening soon, like the “Share Your Shame” open mic queer stand-up and storytelling night put on by the Revolting Queers collective. If you love open mic nights but hate the queerphobia, sexism and racism that permeates stand-up culture, this is for you. It’s at Barricade Books (62 St George’s Rd) from 7 pm on Thursday the 28th of May. $2 entry, BYO drinks if you want. Call Tracey on 0402926775 for more info.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=183900775486

Cheers, and don’t forget to watch Eurovision! Personally, I think Estonia are in with a chance…