Stand up, or hang, for your beliefs

"I think they probably have better things to do with $30,000 than hang from the library all day," spouted first year Isaac Natter. Natter echoed the opinions of many who stopped flat in their tracks after viewing Joshua Raisler-Cohn and Kimberly DeFeo hanging from Mudd Library next to a 750 foot banner proclaiming "Changing the World Starts Here, Stop Live Animal Experimentation."

We agree with Natter that there could be better things for students to do with 30,000 a year than hang from a building ... but why aren't lots of students doing these things? And honestly, what better to do with $30,000 a year than to stand, or hang, for what one passionately believes. Activism comes in all kinds of packages, and the most effective types of activism are usually those that are initially labeled as assanine, trivial or over-the-line. Of course the publicity protest didn't change folk's minds about Neuroscience, but was it really supposed to? Sometimes, making people aware of a perceived wrong and the accompanying lengths people are willing to go to, to right those wrongs are what's initially most significant. Tuesday's protest provided, among other things, a model of what students can and should do to make their activism seen and felt.

New sources of funding needed

Sometime before the parents arrived on campus last weekend, someone put an expiration date on Shabbat. Signs that had appeared on campus warned that Spring would mark the end of Shabbat at Oberlin. The signs were somewhat misguided; Shabbat isn't a carton of milk. A tradition that has weathered thousands of years of oppression, pogroms and inquistions isn't going to disappear overnight, no matter how harsh the SFC budget cuts might be. There is a teaching that Jews have not kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jewish people. As Hillel has reiterated, the celebration of Shabbat is essential for the matienence of Oberlin's Jewish community. Food at Shabbat is not a luxury; it is a neccessity. The problem is that all that chicken and kugel cost a lot of money. There is currently no adaquate structure in place to fund the Shabbat meal. The SFC is already taxed by the enormous burdens placed upon them to fund everyone from philosophers to steel drummers. However, the President's discretionary fund is even more problematic. Running to the President for emergency funding, before exhausting all the other possible sources of funding and using the appeals procedure in place, is unproductive. OSCA should be paying Hillel a reimbursement and there should be an easy way for Hillel to get its reimbursement from CDS. These solutions should not be thought of as permanent however. The College needs to determine a viable alternative funding mechanism for religious organizations that would prevent disputes like this from happening.