Last week, U.S. presidential hopeful Rick Santorum made a sojourn into the land of utter political bewilderment, admonishing Barack Obama for wanting more American youths to go to college. “What a snob,” the former senator proclaimed, going on to say with Biblical tact that university liberals wish to remake students[Read More…]
Articles by Noah Caldwell-Rafferty
Monkeys threaten crop production in Barbados
(inspiritmagazine.net)(travelpod.com)(Noah Caldwell-Rafferty / McGill Tribune) (inspiritmagazine.net)(travelpod.com)(Noah Caldwell-Rafferty / McGill Tribune) Every two years McGill’s department of geography sends a group of McGill students on an environmental field study in Barbados. Led by Professor Thom Meredith this year, 14 students touched down on Feb. 18 to spend reading week studying in[Read More…]
Rooting for the grassroots
It was the week before Christmas in 2009, and an air of disappointment hung over environmentalists around the world. The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen had just ended in failure, only weeks after world leaders strode confidently into the downtown Bella Center, brimming with hope for the future[Read More…]
Multitudes of microbreweries available in Montreal
amberwavesrally.com Every year as the Superbowl comes around I am painfully reminded of the cheap, watery, tin-flavored, mass-produced beer being consumed endlessly across the continent. The attraction of this yearly football phenomenon is synonymous with Budweiser and Coors, as countless advertising campaigns and beer sales will attest. But now that[Read More…]
The chaos, it seems, has passed
Last semester I remember walking by countless campus tours, the huddled crowds of eager high schoolers and their skeptical but silent parents, and thinking to myself, “God, they came to visit at the wrong campus.” Considering that one of the main concerns of protesters last fall was the lack of[Read More…]
How to get experience when you have no experience
As graduation looms, I seem to have had thousands of conversations recently about what to do after university. What I’ve found is that there emerges one snarling, pesky paradox: you must have experience to get experience. This poses an obvious problem for even the most investigative of job-seekers, a problem[Read More…]
The dark side of Black Friday
I’ve always thought the generic soft-pop music played in department stores and supermarkets works fairly well to calm shoppers. It lulls you into a peaceful state, and is never catchy enough to excite you. But on Black Friday, in America, it’s useless. Stores might as well blast Metallica or angsty-screamo-punk[Read More…]
A chronology of campus protests at McGill
Sam Reynolds Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or found yourself trapped in a chemistry lab because the person with the key is a MUNACA worker, by now you’ve caught wind of the protests dominating our campus. If you’re looking for an impassioned defence of the protesters, or even[Read More…]
From James McGill’s crest to Molson stadium
During the national soul-search last week surrounding the dire question of “beaver or polar bear,” I felt left out. National symbols embody the spirit of a distinct people, and despite three glorious years now spent in Canada, I am still indubitably and irrevocably American. Thus, forgoing the right to soliloquize[Read More…]
Geuss’s winning maxim
Last October, philosopher Raymond Geuss stood in a graveyard in Cambridge, England for a mysterious filmed interview. In an eery setting, Geuss communicated an inspired statement: knowing the historical context of what you stand for “will change your attitude toward the world and toward yourself … It will prevent you[Read More…]
Exploring Montreal’s agricultural past this autumn
Noah Caldwell-Rafferty To me, autumn is not an urban season. Its characteristic elements do not translate well through a city’s lens. Yellowed leaves, pumpkins, and apple cider are organic parts of nature, and their imagery doesn’t stand up well amidst the chaos and concrete of the city; they dwindle and[Read More…]
Walking through history and nature on Mount Royal
Ryan Reisert On the coldest day of the season so far, with the first frost sure to come that night, I made my way along Chemin Olmsted up the west side of Mount Royal. I thought I would find myself alone, trekking unnecessarily up a mountain (or just a small[Read More…]
Prevention before punishment
You know a Montreal news story has blown its lid when it appears in your hometown newspaper in Vermont. That’s been the case with the recent incident at University of Montreal, when business students dressed up in blackface for a back-to-school event, mocked the Jamaican patois language, and chanted[Read More…]
The evolution of Chinatown
Noah Caldwell-Rafferty Ryan Reisert “Is it religious, what you’re doing?” I asked the young man who had just finished a stint of standing meditation in a plaza off of de la Gauchetière Street. His fellow practitioners milled about nearby, either preparing for another session or taking a well-deserved rest. [Read More…]
Montreal’s fine arts
Imagine strolling through campus on your way to the studio for CERA 335, Introduction to Ceramics, in a blissful jaunt that stirs your creativity with each step, making you wish you were already sitting at the pottery wheel. You remark, “How wonderful it is that I can study fine art[Read More…]
Little Italy, big market
Noah Caldwell-Rafferty Noah Caldwell-Rafferty One recent Tuesday afternoon near the entrance of Marché Jean- Talon, a young man with slick Elvis hair played blues on a chrome resonator guitar. Among his audience were two casual wall-leaners, a pair of dancing five-year-olds, a whole market full of produce vendors, my roommate,[Read More…]
College Mindset
Every year Beloit College releases a new College Mindset List. Compiled by a professor and administrator, the 75-item list is a summary of sociocultural entities which the incoming freshman class may take for granted because of their age. The umbrella of topics is broad; some are banal, some insightful, and[Read More…]
Taking a gander at Goose Village
As I trudged by a workshop on Mill Street in the pouring rain, a kind-eyed, pony-tailed glassblower stared at me. He wore an expression of shock and sympathy, holed up in his abode of warm kilns and red-hot vases. I had little time to stop and commiserate, so I pushed[Read More…]
Bixi popularity helping small business owners despite concerns
Just around the bend from La Bicycletterie J.R., on Rachel Street, is a Bixi stand. But the public bike service now known around the world doesn’t threaten owner Jaime Rosenbluth’s business. “It’s good for business,” Rosenbluth said. “With Bixi, people discover the joy of biking, they buy a bike,[Read More…]
History faculty members address BP Gulf oil spill at forum
McGill history professors Jason Opal, Thomas Jundt, and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert spoke at a public forum on Wednesday to address last April’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The aim, according to Opal, was to tackle “the legal, cultural and political dimensions of deep-water drilling in and near American waters[Read More…]
TaCEQ Gears up for a Second Year
The Quebec Student Roundtable (QSR, or TaCEQ in French), a provincial student lobbying group, is gearing up its campaign for the coming school year.
TaCEQ represents the student associations of the undergraduate and graduate students of Laval University, the graduate students of the University of Sherbrooke, and the Students’ Society of McGill University. According to SSMU Vice-President External Myriam Zaidi, the organization represents roughly 65,000 students in total.