2 OPINION TechNews STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SINCE 1928 McCormick Tribune Campus Center Room 221 3201 South State Street Chicago, Illinois 60616 E-mail: editor@technewsiit.com Website: http://www.technewsiit.com 1'0:th STAFF Editor-in-Chief Kori Bowns Opinion Editor Austin Gonzalez Sports Editor Nathan McMahon IT Manager Pranava Teja Surukuchi Business Manager Kyle Stanevich Copy Editors Vijai Baskar Kristal Copeland Shireen Gul Sharath Ramesh Anoopa Sundararajan Layout Editors Shreya I ha Ruby Le Sijia Wu Xiaoyu Zhang Distribution Manager Khaleela Zaman Financial Advisor Vickie Tolbert Faculty Advisor Gregory Pulliam MISSION STATEMENT Our mission is to promote student discussion and bolster the IITcommunity by, providinga newspaper that is highly accessible, a stalwart of journalistic integrity, and a student forum. TechNews is a dedicated to the belief that a strong campus newspaper is essential to a strong campus community. 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TechNews holds the right to deny any advertisement unsuitable for publication. Media Kits are available upon request. Ad space is limited and is taken on a first-come. first-serve basis. Contact the Business Manager at business@ technewsiit.com for more information. LOCAL 8 NATIONAL ADVERTISERS To place an ad, contact us via email at business@technewsiit.com. TechNews I Tuesday, November4th, 2014 Raising awareness to promote peace between nations Samaneh Ahmadi TECHNEWS WRITER A memorial to the 521 Palestinian children and one Israeli child killed during Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” this sum— mer was brought to the HTS campus in the form of pinwheels in the field north of Galvin Library. This tribute to the children will be ac— companied by a call to end the eight—year siege of Gaza as an important step towards a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In this project, 522 black pinwheels were placed in the ground. The name of a child killed in the conflict will be attached to a pin- wheel. The pinwheels will memorialize the 521 Palestinian and one Israeli child killed during Operation Defensive Edge in July and August of this year. The purpose of the named pinwheels is to bring home that these children are not statistics, but are individuals who have had their lives cut tragically short. During this attack, more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed, including the 521 chil— dren represented by these pinwheels. Seventy- two percent of the casualties were confirmed by the United Nations to be civilians. This does not include the more than 300 individuals whose bodies have not yet been identified, nor those whose deaths have not been reported. Five civilians in Israel, including one child, were also killed. Children have been exceptionally damaged by this summer’s attack on Gaza as 60 percent of the population is under the age of 18. In addition to the 521 Palestinian children killed and 3,000 more wounded, 58 hospitals and over 216 schools were damaged or com~ pletely destroyed. As many as 360 factories were also damaged, and most farms and agri— cultural land were destroyed. As a result of 51 days of relentleSS bombing, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) estimates that hundreds of thousands of Gazan children are in need of psychosocial support. More than 10,000 Palestinians were injured, many of whom will suffer permanent disabilities as a result and many more are likely to die from their injuries as medical treatment and equipment are scarce. Nearly 500,000 Pal- estinians living under siege in Gaza were dis— placed from their homes with no safe place to go. Over 16,000 homes, hospitals, businesses, schools, and places of worship were destroyed. Large numbers of Palestinians will remain without permanent shelter, adequate food, ad- equate running water, and regular electricity for months to come. Eight out of ten of Gaza’s 900,000 children are dependent on humanitarian aid and the UN estimates 373,000 will require direct and specialized psychological support while all 900,000 will need basic psychosocial support on top of assistance with food, shelter and other medical needs. A minimum of 142 Palestinian families lost three or more mem- bers in a single Israeli attack. Significantly, Congressman Danny Davis has called for an end to the siege of Gaza in a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times: “The cease-fire between the Israeli and Palestinian forces seems to be holding . . . for the time being. That is a very good thing, but it is clear that the cease—fire itself is not a blueprint for a sustainable peace. If there is to be a sustainable peace, and there must be one, then the process must move forward, in the first place by the parties themselves. The more time passes, the more likely that hostilities will re-emerge. There are so many tragedies and horrors in this conflict that it is difficult to single out one or even two or three for urgent attention; nevertheless, it is impossible to ig- nore the fact that this conflict is so costly, so painful, so inhumane for civilians, for non- combatants. The rocket fire, the shelling, the bombs and missiles have stopped for now, but for the people of Gaza, 50 percent of whom are under the age of 18, 70 percent of whom are women and children and 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line according to the UN. Relief and Works Agency, daily life con- ditions are intolerable due, in the first place, to the ongoing blockade. There is an urgent need to lift the blockade, to restore free movement of people and goods to and from Gaza through Israel, Egypt and the sea. As a part of the cease—fire Israel did, in fact, agree to an opening of the Gaza crossings and an expansion of the fishing zone. This is the right thing to do for ur- gent humanitarian reasons, but it is also a critical step in moving the peace talks forward. The blockade only feeds and encourages the movement of goods and people via tunnels and other means dominated by military forces while suppressing the growth of normal civil- ian institutions and activity so critical to de- mocracy and sustainability. The international community can play an important role in facil— itating the transparent, expedited, movement of goods and people. The crushing blockade of Gaza has lasted more than seven years. Now would be a good time, the right time, to end the blockade.” The U.S. government provides Israel with more than $3 billion in military funding annually. Additional funding and weapons were sent to Israel to support “Operation Pro- tective Edge.’ ’ U.S. and international law require that human rights abuses be investigated and! acted upon. This means supporting interna- tional human rights investigations into what happened in Gaza and then taking steps to hold those responsible for human rights abus— es and war crimes accountable. For more information, visit The American Friends Service Committee: afsc. org/gaza, The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation: endtheoccupation.org, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights: mezan.org/en, The Boycott National Committee: bdsmovement. net, #Gaza Names: freedom4palestine.org, Humanize Palestine: humanizepalestine.com, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: ochaopt.org. This project has also been imple- mented at the University of Chicago campus and First United Church of Oak Park as well as at other college campuses. Photos by Samaneh Ahmadi Doctor Who at IIT Halloween Lounge Party Kristal Copeland copv EDITOR Did you notice the spooky gathering at the MSV Lounge on Halloween? Doctor Who at IIT (DWIIT) hosted a showing of Midnight, as well as Silence of the Library and Forest of the Dead. They brought Jelly Babies and Candy Corn, as well as some homemade treats; they even brought some Halloween decorations. Many people showed up, some who loved Doctor Who already, and a few who hadn’t seen the episodes we were showing. There was much discussion and attempts to tie theories in, with current episodes. During Midnight, there were shouts of “You stupid people!” and “Can’t you see what’s going on!?” Plenty of angry comments from the viewers, achieving exactly the reactions expected from the audience by such an episode. There was even a small amount of scientific debate about how the Midnight entity could have come into existence, with Superman jokes running amok During the Silence and Forest episodes, there was fright at the mysterious Vashta Nerada entity, and curiosity from first— time viewers of River Song. Sleeping that night might have been difficult for anyone, especially if they were already afraid of the dark, on this All Hallows’ Eve. Quite a lot of people came in costume, most of whom received a high-five from an executive board member dressed as a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.) So many people showed up and were still there after the official end of the party that they continued with Blink, The Empty Child and the Doctor Dances. The board was ecstatic with the amount of people that showed up and also plan to have many more events in the lounge to attract attention from the hidden “Whovians” among the Illinois Institute of Technology population. Doctor Who at IIT is a fairly new organization on campus, and has done many events on campus celebrating topics and holidays such as Halloween and LGBTQ month. In the spirit of Doctor Who, the members try their hardest to spread the message of equality and love, and also host tea time discussions and friendly debates. They plan to continue this into next semester and well into the future. If you are interested in being notified of these events, you can email to doctorwhoiit@ gmail.com and ask to be put on the mailing * list. You can also follow Whovian Friend and join the Doctor Who At IIT and Beyond group on Facebook. DWIIT would like to recognize the man in the Playboy Bunny costume, who got a small prize from the executive staff.