Picture Perfect

Oh, hello. Nice of you to pop in. I'm sorry I haven't been posting anything, I haven't really had the time. There've been several new developments, though...

At the moment, I'm dealing with what I'm calling the 'Freshers Letter Scandal' - a violent e-mail on the Israel-Palestine conflict sent out to all new students of the 2007/8 academic year at the London School of Economics, which I and others maintain was not constitutional and very bad politics.

I personally believe that the people responsible for the e-mail should resign from ther positions as they've failed miserably to "serve and represent," as the Student Union motto says. They were not representing the student body, but their own extreme views. Further, there were several constitutional and protocol breaches, which we were investigating and has now been handed over to the Constitutional & Steering Committee (C&S) at the LSE SU. 

They're hoping that by saying sorry, it will all go away. But it won't. The problems within the system need to be fixed and that is now our aim.

As such, i've been working day and night (literally) with a great (and sometimes not so great) bunch of individuals to bring justice to these sordid affairs. I'm findig the Politics Officer job at the Jewish Society (JSoc) is very high profile (moreso than the chair, as they are less well placed to make political statements on the J-Soc's behalf) and a full time job.

I've been working with the chair of the Israel Society and other interested individuals in order to co-ordinate our responses to the issue (my idea!! heh heh). I've been dealing with information (masses of information in fact) from the Israeli embassy, who have taken an interest in this issue. I've been interviewed by local Jewish press on this issue as well as the BBC World Service (the person interviewing me at the time didn't actually know I was the JSoc politics officer; he was just stopping people randomly. Interesting too, that he was the second and last signatory to the letter and is the Palestine Society chair (as well as the Mature and Part-Time students' representative on the SU committee). The Evening Standard have been lobbying the Student Union on the issue too, so they may quote me at some point... I'll let you know when to look out for me and where!

Obviously, I'm being quoted left, right and centre in the student media. I've also been threatened with legal action for saying the letter "at worst may cause anti-Semitism or be construed as anti-Semitic, at best being very bad politics, inflammatory and completely unnecessary." Based on my limited studies on libel and slander last year (don't forget I actually have a degree in law and anthropology to work on too) they don't have a case against me at all (I was mindful of legal action when writing a response), so no worries there. 

I've been building a team of political officers to help me on these and other issues too. They've been split up into diplomacy (building links with other societies), UGM (keep an eye on Union General Meeting motions - the stuff of student politics - for me and to file our own motions) and writers (not able to make statements on behalf of the society, whose job it is to help change the political atmosphere on campus).

I've also got someone to take over the website from me (http://www.lsejsoc.co.uk) as I don't really have the time or inclination to update it.

But that's just local to the LSE...
I'm also on the London Region Committee of the Union of Jewish Students, who are essentially a union of the Jewish societies across the nation (as the name suggests). It falls to me to help create and organise events for those Jewish students in the London region (some of you may have seen the giant inflatables on facebook...those were some of the fruits of the efforts of the UJS and London Region Committee (LRC) people. As it happens, we're currently organising the London bal, which is taking place somewhere in Feb 2008. It's actually black tie, and is gonna be great.

I've also been going to presentations of law firms. My last (and first) one was with Linlaters (whom I really liked) and my next is tomorrow with Clifford Chance (whom I can tell I will like a lot less). I don't think I endeared myself to Linklaters though when I responded to "I wouldn't lie" with "I don't know that, you're a lawyer..." Luckily, I said it to a lowly trainee and not a partner of the firm, who took it really well and said "well, that's true" though she blushed slightly (indicative of her lie, perhaps? I'm sure she was well briefed on what to say though. I noticed the partners asked me the same questions too [what other firms have you been to and what are they doing?]. There was definite co-ordination going on).

Linklaters attitude was "you're the possible new face of the company. We want you and will help you. You've nothing to lose by trying. Feel free to talk to our trainees and partners and by the way, watch our video too."

Clifford Chance's attitude [via their e-mails] was more "We don't need you. Who do you think you are? We're massive. You're tiny. We're holding an event for you and BY GOD you should be pleased with it. We're going to spend our time talking at you for a whole hour."

I'm also looking into PR firms. Of course, my brother's girlfriend, who shall remain nameless, worked for a massive PR firm - which shall remain nameless - and told me how they operate there andI was NOT pleased about what they do there.

I was talking to a girl doing straight law, and she's totally into the whole selling yourself to massive law firms and clawing your way to the top. I don't want that. I don't want hours and hours in the office. I want to enjoy life too. I want to travel. I want to do thing. Money isn't everything to me, neither is prestiege. I just want to earn enough to live comfortably and to travel. That is all. Oh, and be a journalist. I'd love to do that too.

 

 

                    So, that's what I've been doing and why there's been no blog recently. Stay tuned for the next blog!

 

One of the best Jewish holidays EVER.

Whassat?
It's the time the Jewish people leave their houses and live in temporary dwellings. Dwellings which are pretty much exposed to all the elements. They're essentially little huts or tents, the roof is made from any organic material which has been detached from the ground, but it has to be possible to see the stars at night from inside (thus invalidating wooden boards). There are loads of stipulations, I once learned all of them when I was 10 years old (I found them really boring, but am pleased today I slogged through it all). The basics are that it has to have three walls and be of certain minimum dimensions in width, length and height.

We sit in these huts whenever we want to eat a meal or snack. The hardcore Jews sleep in them at night too (I slept in it one year; not a terribly wise thing to do in september/october in England, is it? But really loads of fun, especially as I wasn't alone [if I was alone, it would have been rather rubbish] - just wrapped up really warm and slept on a few garden chairs all stuck together. The myriads of blankets couldn't stop the rain falling on me though, there was this one really annoying leaf above my head which constantly dripped rain drops on me...a bit like Chinese water torture. I woke up because of it at about 6:30am and left the garden at about 7:00am. 

History:
When the Jews were wandering around in the wilderness all those years, they were protected by a load of clouds during the day and a pillar of fire by night (repsectively called "ananei hakavod" and "amud ha'aish" in Hebrew). In memorium of this divine protection, the bible commands we build these little huts. In this way, leaving our dwellings into comparatively fragile dwellings, we show our trust and faith in the protection of God. 

Biblical Source:
It is recorded in the Bible no less than three times, to my vastly incomplete knowledge:

1) Leviticus 23:34 (2) Numbers 29:12 (3) Deuteronomy 16:13. 

Etymology:
In Hebrew, it is called sukkot (soo-COt, or s'cot). This roughly translates into "huts" but the official translation is either "Festival of Booths." Wikipedia tells me it's also called "Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles, Tabernacles, the Season of Our Happiness, the Feast of Ingathering, or simply The Feast." All these are English/Christian renditions, I would never refer to it in the English vernacular, it's just too cumbersome.

Other random things:
If it rains when we're eating, we can go inside, s'ok. Interestingly, the ancient scholars referred to someone as "mad" if they stayed outside in the rain. Coldness is no excuse, however (unless it's life threatening, in which case the rules are all suspended) and indeed, I remember frost on the ground some years.

 

 

As I said, this is one of my favourite festivals. Think of it like Christmas without the booze and outside the house, in September/October time.

It is the custom to invite guests for dinner and eat it in the hut. We always over invite people and end up having 15-20 guests and only 14 or so seats. But somehow, there's always a place for people to sit and eat comfortably. And there's always always enough food (obviously. And thank God, too). It must work on some sort of rotational basis...

Oh, also. I shall upload pics for you all, once its nicely set and stuff. its quite good!!

Nothing is simple with China. Everything is so controversial, but ok, I can deal with that and it appears that my editor can too. But that doesnt't make it easy; there are always complications to contend with, usually due to the trappings of Communist government.

For example, how many Christians are there in China? The official figures say there are 14 million in total, whilst unofficial estimates range between 40-100 million. 

The olympic games is being hijacked by Chinese and non-Chinese as a political device, so it's impossible to just write about the games for the sake of the games.

Human rights, pollution, taiwan, tibet, it's all old news. What hasn't been said about these topics? All one can do is report the newest developments on the issues, but it's all the same: Human rights continues to be shaky and won't really cease to be so, as one expects with a communist government.  Taiwan continues to fall to the monster of international politics and is still not considered it's own country, it's appeal to be recognised on the UN body as such rejected for the 15th year in a row. Pollution still does it's worst in China and doesn't look like it's giving up anytime soon. Tibet still isn't "free" (contentious issue, who said it was ever subjugated? I'm not convinced). 

So, what to say? I don't know, but all I do know is if I don't churn out a few more articles, I'll be out of a job before I've held it for a month!

Unfortunately, I continue to be very, very busy with other things, but have the whole of this afternoon to write articles, which I must get to straight away. So, bye folks!