Sean Nortz writes:

New York University Graduate Students Strike

NYU Grad Students, through GSOC/Local 2110 UAW, have authorized a strike this morning which will result in a complete stoppage of work by graduate students in response to the administration's refusal to renew their contract, which expired on August 31, 2005 (the National Labor Relations Board, composed largely of apointees from a reactionary Bush administration, determined, contrary to a 2000 ruling, that universities do not have to negotiate with graduate student unions). A contract "offered" to the union by the administration in August was "little more than a public relations stunt" which acquiesced to none of the principal demands in an acceptable fashion.

No New Trial For Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart

"http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=3&aid=54524" >New York 1

Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart will not be getting a new trial. A federal judge upheld her conviction Tuesday on charges she helped pass
messages from a convicted terrorist client to his followers.

Stewart said Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was practicing free speech when he
issued a press release about a cease fire by Islamic militants in Egypt. But the judge said: "The First Amendment lends no protection to
participation in a conspiracy, even if such participation is through
speech."

Stewart's sentencing is set for December. She faces up to 20 years in
prison.

Rahman was convicted of planning to blow up several New York City landmarks.

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005

Civil Rights Icon Dies at Age 92

Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post

Rosa Parks, the dignified African American seamstress whose refusal
to surrender a bus seat to a white man launched the modern civil rights movement and inspired generations of activists, died last night at her home in Detroit, the
Wayne County medical examiner's office said. She was 92.

No cause of death was reported immediately. She had been suffering
from dementia since 2002.

Parks said that she didn't fully realize what she was starting when
she decided not to move on that Dec. 1, 1955 evening in Montgomery, Alabama. It was a simple refusal, but her arrest and the subsequent protests began the complex cultural struggle to legally guarantee equal rights to Americans of all races.

Within days, her arrest sparked a 380-day bus boycott, which led to a
U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated the public transportation of that
city. Her arrest also triggered mass demonstrations, made the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. famous, and transformed U.S. schools, workplaces and housing.

Italian Playwright Dario Fo to Run for Mayor of Milan

Robert Simonson, Playbill

Hey, it worked for Václav Havel. Dario Fo, the Italian
playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997,
has said he wants to run for the office of mayor in Milan,
his home city, next year.

"We must hold primary elections to choose the center-left
candidate for mayor of Milan," Fo said, according to the
BBC. He added that he wanted to help people "get our city
back" from conservative Italian prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi and current Milan mayor Gabriele Albertini. "In
Milan, we can fight a good battle to remove the right.
Winning here would have an enormous significance. After
Berlusconi, a center-left victory would be a breath of fresh
air."

Fo is a well-known advocate of left-wing causes, and most of
his plays have espoused his political views. His most recent
play was the anti-Berlusconi political satire "The Two-Headed
Anomaly."

A playwright being elected to high political office is not
without precedent in Europe. Václav Havel put down his pen
to take up office as president of the then-new Czech
Republic (part of the former Czechoslovakia) in 1993. He
served until 2003.