A steady stream of micro-news has been filtering in today about the reoccupation of 65 Fifth Avenue by students of The New School for Social Research. The best stuff out there at the moment can be found here, via the New York Times CityRoom blog:

[…] students at the scene described a tumultuous situation in which protesters were pepper-sprayed before being placed in handcuffs and loaded by police officers into the back of a white van, around 11:30 a.m. Mr. Browne said it was “untrue that pepper spray or mace were used in effectuating the arrests.”

A video (see above) shot by a freelance journalist, Brandon Jourdan of Brooklyn, showed about a half-dozen police officers standing near the door on 14th Street when it was pushed open from inside. The footage then shows officers shaking cans of pepper spray as they hold the door back, spraying inside the corridor, and then slamming the door shut. The footage showed an officer, a few moments later, lunging toward Mr. Jourdan’s camera, before swerving toward a young man standing on the street shouting. In the footage, the officer pushed the man’s face and knocked him to the ground before arresting him.

NY1.com reports:

Police have arrested 19 New School students who took over a university building in Union Square this morning, demanding the resignation of the university’s president and vice president and asking for more say in school policy. About 60 students from New School in Exile and the Radical Students Union had barricaded themselves inside the graduate faculty building at 65 Fifth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. […]

ArthurMag.com contributor and New School student Andy Folk was on scene showing his support:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ruMQM4_bQQ

“Our demand for them to resign is consistent with the faculty’s ‘no confidence’ vote in Bob Kerrey,” said student Andy Folk. “That demand was not met. Other demands were met, such as starting a socially-responsible investment committee, which Bob Kerrey is trying to bury in red tape. So, we need to show him by force and civil disobedience that students have a right over the school that they pay money for. This is just a demonstration of students taking back their space.”

Other sources to check out are Student Activism website. Also worth checking TWITTER SEARCH for the most recent occupation chatter.

UPDATE 7PM: Head down to Union Square South at 10PM tonight to show your support!

MARCH 31 — JULES DASSIN
Blacklisted, exiled American film noir director.

MARCH 31 holidays and festivals:
* Ancient Babylonia: SACRED DRAMA DAY, in which the King, in the role of Marduk, re-enacts the conquest of Tiamat, the watery chaos. 
* Islamic: MAWLID AN NABI, Muhammad’s birthday.
* BUNSEN BURNER DAY.

ON THIS DATE:
1492 — Ferdinand and Isabella expel all Jews from Spain.
1809 — Russian fantasist writer Nikoloi Gogol born, Sorochinetz, Ukraine.
1855 — Charlotte Bronte dies, age 38 and pregnant, Haworth, Yorkshire.
1926 — British novelist, essayist John Fowles born, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.
1959 — Tibet’s Dalai Lama, fleeing Chinese repression, seeks asylum in India.
1968 — U. S. Prez Lyndon Johnson announces that he will not seek re-election.
2008 — Blacklisted American film noir director Jules Dassin dies in Athens, aged 96

All info courtesy The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

MARCH 30 — PAUL VERLAINE
Radical French decadent symbolist poet.

March 30 Holidays and festivities:
LIMITED LIABILITY DAY
FESTIVAL OF REALITY FABRICATION

On this date:
1842 — Anesthesiac drugs first used successfully in medical operation.
1844 — French symbolist, decadent writer Paul Verlaine born, Metz, France.
1853 — Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh born Groot Zundert, Brabant, Netherlands.
1867 — U.S. buys Alaska from Russia, for two cents per acre.
1870 — Black men win the right to vote, U.S.
1925 — Anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner dies, Dornach, Switzerland.
1981 — U.S. Acting President Ronald Reagan shot in chest by John Hinckley, Jr.
1990 — Radical labor organizer Harry Bridges dies, San Francisco, California.

All info courtesy The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

MARCH 29 — EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Swedish religious mystic, inspirer of utopianists worldwide.

March 29 Holidays/Festivals:
“BORROWED DAYS” begin. In calendar lore March is said to have stolen its last three days from April.
FESTIVAL OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:
1772 — Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg dies, London, England.
1790 — Marquis de Sade freed by “demand of the people,” France.
1957 — British novelist Joyce Cary dies, Oxford, England.
1982 — Modernist composer Carl Orff dies, Munich, Germany.

All info courtesy The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

MARCH 28 — JOHN BERESFORD
Canadian-based psychedelics researcher, drug-law reformer.

March 28 holidays:
EARTH HOUR: Turn off your lights.
STANK DANCING DAY.

Also on this date:
1515 — St. Theresa of Ávila born, Ávila, Spain.
1881 — Barnum and Bailey’s Circus formed.
1924 — Canadian based psychedelics researcher John Beresford born, England.
1939 — Spanish fascists under Generalissimo Francisco Franco take Madrid.
1941 — Virginia Woolf commits suicide, walking into the River Ouse.
1979 — Three Mile Island nuclear “accident,” near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
1985 — Russian born muralist Marc Chagall dies, Saint Paul de Vence, France.

All info courtesy The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective