Coulda been a contender

Shocked, my darlings, shocked to be snubbed by the Oscars.

Think you’ve got it bad?

Students and faculty alike always have lots of complaints on the first day of classes – courses are full, parking is tight, books are expensive, copy machines break down. Got a little perspective this morning from an e-mail from my colleague, Alexis Krasilovsky, a professor in our Cinema Television Arts Department. Alexis is in Bangladesh presenting her documentary, “Women Behind the Camera,” at a film festival. Turns out she’s also joined in some student protests at Dhaka University.

Alexis reports that students and faculty were jailed in a conflict with the government back in August and the ones in this photo she took a couple of days ago were calling for their release. Bangladesh has been under a state of emergency since last January with students and professors playing a leading role in challenging their government to behave more democratically. It was announced just a few hours ago that the government had released the academics.

So I guess I can’t really complain about the long lines at Freudian Sip, ’cause it could be a lot worse.

Couldn’t see a damn thing

I nearly got busted yesterday when I ventured over to the CSUN student union to try to get a glimpse of Hillary Clinton.

A decent-sized crowd (they claimed 2,000) showed up but most didn’t get to go inside and hear her talk. A couple of us profs stood on top of a picnic table to get a better glimpse when a student union flunky marched over and tried to order us to sit down. Heh.

Looked like they only let in Democratic activists, select CSUN students in school attire, and a handful of university administrators.

Some Ron Paul supporters showed up with sexist signs (or maybe they were extras from that ’70s show), a couple of impeach Bush signs were brandished, and a class of what appeared to be high school kids milled about (at one point shouting, “Go Obama.”)

Here are some lame photos and a video with good audio of Hill greeting the crowd.