Re: “Dr. Cornett’s favorite play? Monty Python’s Spamalot.” by Anait Keuchguerian (9.2.10) Under the banner of academic transparency, a recent student letter advocated the screening of Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary about the remarkable teaching style of Norman Cornett, a professor whom McGill let go three years ago.
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
RIGHT MINDED: Haiti’s real problem
On February 9, Max Silverman wrote an article that viewed the aid effort in Haiti through the prism of Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” theory. The shock doctrine posits a theory of “disaster capitalism,” where practitioners take advantage of emergency or upheaval to force free market reforms onto a rebuilding country.
EDITORIAL: A double standard for Olympic women’s hockey
One of the best things about the Olympic Games is its commitment to gender equality. Eschewing the common male-dominated athletic hierarchy, almost every event in both the Summer and Winter Games awards medals to both genders as equals. And after some of the great female athletic performances we’ve witnessed during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics – by Joannie Rochette, Petra Majdic, and Clara Hughes, to name just a few – it has been refreshing to see people who normally ignore women’s sports sit up and take notice.
EDITORIAL: Buying Haven Books was a costly, irresponsible mistake
Haven Books was doomed from the start. In March 2007, the Students’ Society paid approximately $40,000 for a consignment bookstore in a poor location, with an unmemorable name and a bad business model. They did so despite a Memorandum of Agreement with McGill that prevented SSMU from advertising the bookstore on campus, and a report from their auditing firm that showed Haven had lost about $95,000 in the previous year.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The weekly letter about Brendan’s column
Re: “Right Minded: An offensive motion” by Brendan Steven (09.02.10) Columnist Brendan Steven makes an argument that the upcoming (as of this letter) General Assembly motion on discriminatory groups constitutes a vote on freedom of speech. However, his analysis is significantly misguided.
COMMENTARY: The “P Word”
Has history not taught us anything? Aren’t we the ones who hold our predecessors accountable for the human rights atrocities that occurred due to their complicity in events such as European anti-Semitism, the centuries of slave trading, and most recently, the Rwandan and Darfur massacres? How contrite do we feel that past generations stood idly by and permitted Apartheid in South Africa? Better yet, why do we still slip into a vacuum of radical nationalism that blinds objective thinking? It’s as though we have yet to learn that this road will only lead to self-destruction – but somehow we keep submitting to this primitive train of thought.
BLACK & WHITE: Halfway on humanities
Over the past four years, I have alternated between feelings of repulsion and uncertain excitement when thinking about graduate school. After attending the department of English Symposium – an event where English professors present the papers they have been working on – I experienced these feelings side by side and learned that conflicting feelings, if they had a colour, would be the baffling tint of ashy water.
THE SITUATION: Let’s talk about the GA
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.
OFF THE BOARD: A stereotypically Canadian ceremony
Stereotypes can sometimes be funny. Although insensitive and often in bad taste, where would “guy-walked-into-a-bar” jokes be without them? Despite their comedic value, the Olympic Games are not an appropriate forum for stereotypes, and it would be far beyond good taste to greet the Italian teams with pizzas and Mario Kart.
PIÑATA DIPLOMACY: Reforming ourselves
What the hell was that? My first General Assembly is, of course, today’s topic. But don’t go! I understand your weariness – the front page article, the editorial, and all the guest commentary pieces from student politicians with an overestimation of their own importance, as if we the constituents waited impatiently all weekend for their straight-talk account of things.
