I think the Financial Ethics Review Committee cares a lot about human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. I also think that the Israeli army and the Israeli government sometimes do things that are morally questionable, if not repugnant. However, I think that Wednesday’s motion is not primarily a function of anybody’s commitment to human rights, social justice, and environmental protection, but of condemning the State of Israel.
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
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.
EDITORIAL: Be it resolved: that SSMU abolish the General Assembly
If there’s one thing the Students’ Society’s biannual General Assembly does a good job of, it’s helping to discredit – on both an intellectual and a practical level – direct democracy, or at least the twisted, substandard version we will once again be exposed to tomorrow afternoon.
COMMENTARY: The GA for dummies
Tomorrow’s Students’ Society Winter General Assembly is an opportunity for McGill undergraduate students to decide what we believe in and what policies SSMU should abide by. The GA is a venue to propose positions, in the form of resolutions, for our community to debate and decide on together.
MY POINT … AND I DO HAVE ONE: The shock doctrine in Haiti
Irony’s a funny thing. And whether it’s a minority-elected government preaching democracy to the global south or an American-educated, torture-supporting opposition leader speaking about returning Canada to its place of soft-power prominence in the world, Canadian politics is ripe with irony.
COMMENTARY: Human rights and the GA
At Wednesday’s Students’ Society Winter General Assembly a motion entitled “The Defence of Human Rights, Social Justice, and Environmental Protection” will be presented. The core of this motion reiterates SSMU’s longstanding commitment to human rights. In addition, it calls for the expansion of the Financial Ethics Review Committee mandate, or the creation of a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, in order to investigate any investments in corporations that operate outside international law and profit from human rights violations.
OFF THE BOARD: Class you can watch in bed?
PSYCH 213: Cognition is like most 200-level psychology courses: it’s straightforward, chock-full of interesting studies that explain human behaviour, and it’s in Leacock 132. But unlike most large science classes, it’s not recorded. Among the many redundant questions posted on WebCT, there have been well over 100 requests to record Cognition lectures – in addition to dozens of emails and in-class appeals about the same subject.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Dr. Cornett’s favourite play? Monty Python’s Spamalot
The singular noun “transparency” can mean many things. The quality of being clear and transparent is the most important. But this quality depends on the material’s capacity for allowing electromagnetic radiation to be transmitted. Materials that allow transmission in the range of human visibility are called transparent.
FRESH HELL: I never knew’d
Although I’ve played team sports since I was old enough to don a pinny, I’m usually quite awkward in locker rooms. Part of it has to do with my upbringing. My family was never a particularly naked one – we didn’t do a lot of topless sunbathing in the backyard or play nude family Monopoly – so nakedness has always startled me.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Bianca Van Babbles
Re: “Pop Rhetoric: Fist-pumping IQs away” by Bianca Van Bavel (02.02.10) Dear Bianca Van Bavel, I’m writing in response to your article on Jersey Shore, MTV’s newest reality show. You seem to be upset that, as “young impressionable intellectuals,” we (speaking on behalf of non-closet Shore fans) have decided to spend some of our free time being entertained.