Students occupy Colosseum, Tower of Pisa

This afternoon students protesting austerity plans for Italy's education system occupied iconic monuments around Italy, including the Colisseum and the leaning tower in Pisa.

Photo IGN

The proposed cuts of over €12 billion would reduce dramatically student stipends, research funds, cut course offerings, and cost 130,000 jobs. Protests gripped Rome, Florence, Bologna, Pisa, and many other cities. As jaded as I am about protests, I was gripped by the drama of occupying these ancient monuments. (Though the students' attempt to bum rush the Italian Senate chambers was good too.)

Photo ADN

Scuffles between cops and students broke out here in Rome, where I happen to be today to have Thanksgiving with some friends - we saw my student and researcher comrades on the march but were home to start on Thanksgiving dinner before the tear gas started smoking.

The "education reforms" proposed by the governments are a Trojan horse for privatization and slashing "unproductive" subjects like literature and the arts. The symbolic connection between the monuments of ancient culture and contemporary knowledge under threat is kind of forced, but it still works for me. Probably because I agree with the analysis on the Italian street - those who created the economic crisis took the world economic on a long speculative binge, and now that they're hung over they want the rest of us to pay their bar bill for them by sacrificing our futures. Hell with that.

Finally: a bunch of people made these effigies of classic books as shields for scuffling with the cops. Petronius' Satyricon as riot equipment? I think Encolpius would appreciate those priapic police batons.

Literature fights the man (Rainnews.it)

Iowa Archaeology at RAGBRAI

Today the 2009 RAGBRAI bike ride begins. The seven-day ride will see some 15,000 cyclists cruise 472 miles across Iowa. This year, the Office of the State Archaeologist is sending a team - complete with custom 'Team Archaeology' jerseys.














The Team Archaeology posse strikes a pose.

Radio Iowa reports:

Lynn Alex, at the state archaeologist's office, says members of Team Archaeology will also be pedaling along the entire 472-mile ride, talking to other riders and folks in the dozens of communities about the amazing sites nearby.

"One of the things we'll be telling people about are some 900-year-old earth lodge village sites that Native American people created," Alex says. "There are over 300 examples of those sites, particularly in Mills County, Iowa." In addition to the team of archaeologists riding on RAGBRAI, she says she and several other staff members will be setting up exhibits in about a half-dozen of the communities where the 15-thousand bikers will be overnighting.

You can follow Team Archaeology's ride on twitter: @iowaarchaeology. They also produced a nice educational booklet about archaeology to go with the ride. Props to the Iowa OSA for some creative thinking about public outreach!