The Tribune

Although the vice-president clubs and services position is acclaimed, the Tribune strongly endorses Anushay Khan. Thanks to her tenure as SSMU’s interest group coordinator, Khan is likely the most qualified individual for the position. She is familiar with the day-to-day workings of SSMU, the organization’s policies, and also with the executive and members of many clubs.

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.

Tom Fabian has both experience and connections, which is why the Tribune is endorsing him for the position of vice-president internal – with some reservations. Fabian has extensive experience with Athletics. He’s been the president of the Varsity Council, represented athletics at SSMU Council, and created the surprisingly successful group Red Thunder, which organizes fan support for McGill games.

In the last two years the SSMU vice-president external has played a less visible role in student life. But next year, because of the provincial government’s proposed tuition hikes, the external portfolio will likely take centre stage. Fortunately, there’s one candidate with the experience to tackle this complicated issue – Myriam Zaidi, who the Tribune strongly endorses for the position of SSMU VP external.

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.

The Ontario legislature – like most political bodies representing a diverse range of opinions – is a place where it’s hard to achieve consensus. One in five children in Toronto go to school hungry in the morning and asthma and cancer-causing coal power generate much of the province’s electricity, but no consensus can be found among the provincial political parties to address such dire issues.

The Winter Olympics are pointless. They feature sports that are generally boring to watch or better showcased in other competitions (at the X Games, for example). They cost a lot of money, create headaches for people living in host cities, and don’t attract enough tourist dollars to offset the large taxpayer expense.