This column comes to you from Shanghai because I’m still on vacation. I am embedded deep in the pearl-encrusted, dragon-swarming mists of the Far East. Of course, while old Western beliefs about the yellow horde no longer hold, new peculiarities have taken their place.
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
WET PAINT: Baby and Balanciaga
As we have probably all noticed at some point, current fashions often conflict. While everyone is still flapping about flats and their newly wistful attitude to life and walking, Pam Anderson-inspired monstrosities are somehow attaching themselves to all my friends’ feet.
INFORMATIONATION: Privacy lost-browsing in the fishbowl society
I offer you questions, not answers. Privacy is a complicated issue, with many problems dwelling at the collision of our various human values. We feel differently about our information being in the hands of others depending on who they are. Information in the hands of stalkers is creepy and possibly dangerous.
OFF THE BOARD: Smart people have never been so stupid
I work at a record store and we have a listening counter on the basement level: a broad semi-circular counter with a half-dozen control panels and headphones jutting out of it at two-foot intervals. Customers stand about shoulder-length apart, skimming through the liner notes of a potential purchase, bopping their heads rhythmically.
EDITORIAL: The 4Floors conundrum
When an issue is too divisive for our editorial board to reach a consensus on it, we feel that our readers are better served by two competing editorials that look at all sides of the debate. With that in mind, we tackle the party everyone loves to hate: 4Floors-should it stay or should it go? UNLEASH THE POTENTIAL McGill students are spoiled.
UNCOMMONLY THOUGHTFUL: Oral sex is great
Warning: The following column is written with a heterosexual audience in mind (which is something I wouldn’t normally do), but generally I think the queer community is much more open to the joys of oral sex and doesn’t need a talking to on the subject. Why has performing oral sex become a derogatory thing? Why do the media, music industry and porn (okay, bad example) make it out to be all about power for the person receiving it? I think it’s about power for the person giving oral sex.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: J-Board soars to new lows
Re: “Newburgh to face J-Board” (23.03.10) There are several doses of shame that are deserved in light of this appeal to the Student’s Society’s Judicial Board. Shame on you, the J-Board, for accepting this appeal well over a month after the General Assembly.
FRESH HELL: Losing your student ID
Being a student sucks sometimes. Crazy stress, daily intellectual calisthenics, and intense sleep deprivation are all part of the day-to-day routine. By now, you’re probably used to the stress – you may even enjoy it on some level. Still, many of you, like me, have likely been wishing for a lighter course load since you started learning fractions, or at least for a break from homework that didn’t coincide with getting a summer job.
Letters to the Editor
Prayer Do you sometimes look at your watch and don’t know what time it is? Do you sometime go to sleep, wake up thinking you’re somewhere but discover you’re somewhere else? Do you sometimes go to a room in your house and wonder why you went there? Do you sometime feel so helpless that you say to yourself “God help me,” regardless of what your religion is? I do too! I can go on with an exhaustive list of those little things that we have in common and define us as human beings.
COMMENTARY: Reflections of a veiled Egyptian muslim
Throughout my short life, friends and colleagues have often asked me why I wear a veil when I travel abroad, and why I choose to hold on to my Islamic values and Egyptian traditions. For some of them, this is something quite odd and surprising. I came to Canada a couple of years ago to pursue my PhD at McGill.
