Articles by Mookie Kideckel

The morning before we published the story about Haaris Khan’s tweets last week, I think I startled one of my fellow editors. She was convinced that the story was a huge deal, that there would be a unanimous outcry, that this was one of those things that transcends politics and[Read More…]

Alice Walker Last Sunday, I experienced the wonderful world of Zumba for the first time.   For those unfamiliar with Zumba, it’s essentially line dancing to pop and Latin music for the sake of getting in shape. Picture a square dance meets Sweatin’ to the Oldies meets a bar mitzvah[Read More…]

On Saturday, October 30, Jon Stewart hosted his Rally to Restore Sanity

on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Today, two Tribune editors face off on whether

Jon Stewart has anything important to contribute to American political debate.

Umbrellas amaze me.  They’re just one of those inventions that make you stop and wonder.  They aren’t as mind-blowing as, say, photocopiers—they staple and collate!—or mirrors that don’t fog up in the shower. But still, umbrellas are awesome. For one thing, there’s their ubiquity. I always thought that the inevitable[Read More…]

As an Ontario student, I have no special love for the preferential rates Quebec gives its students. But if Quebec gives its students a bargain, my resentment is as much towards Ontario for not doing the same for me. In that light, I cannot support a tuition hike. Raising Quebec rates—even to parity with the rest of the country—is a big move, and one that seems far too easy of a solution for a problem tied to issues far beyond university education.

I thought I knew who I was before I came to university. I thought, for instance, that I wasn’t a racist. But when I told two girls tabling against Israel that the State had a right to exist, they cleared that up for me. Which was lucky, because after a year of educating my Jewish youth group on the dangers of Islamophobia, I might have gone my whole life not knowing how much I hated people different from me.

I went to class on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not proud of it. Society decided that this particular day would be the one where we say “the hell with it” and go AWOL – and I spat in its face. I crossed the picket line of our collective alcoholic breakdown. But then, sometimes we all have to make tough decisions.

I’m in love with popular culture. Professing my love for the things that everybody else likes makes me completely uninteresting, yet also remarkably controversial. But then again, love is love. It’s a fickle fancy. There are legitimate gripes with popular culture, such as it’s intense corporatization and rampant materialism.

In last Thursday’s McGill Daily, Sana Saeed wrote a General Assembly follow-up column in which she boiled down the cause of passions over the Middle East conflict to identity politics, and claimed that clampdowns on campus debate amount to a second front of the conflict here at McGill.

There are few parts of the legislative process as controversial as the “rider.” Riders are unrelated provisos typically attached to bills that are politically impossible to veto or postpone, usually in order to pass unpopular legislation that would not get approval by itself.

I know a lot of things. Not that I’m trying to be immodest. I mean, I am immodest: I spend most of my Facebook hours stalking myself and am the star of most of my favourite conversations. But in this case, I’m really not being self-indulgent. After two and a half years of university education and campus media, not to mention a lifetime of reading the news, I know a ton of facts.