On Friday, the Students’ Society’s Judicial Board will hear Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights’ case against Zach Newburgh, SSMU’s speaker of council and SSMU president-elect. SPHR claims that by acting as chair of the Winter General Assembly, Newburgh “placed himself in a serious conflict of interest, making it impossible for him to perform his task in an impartial manner” during the debate over the motion “Re: The Defence of Human Rights, Social Justice, and Environmental Protection.
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
THE SITUATION: Turn to the right
I thought I knew who I was before I came to university. I thought, for instance, that I wasn’t a racist. But when I told two girls tabling against Israel that the State had a right to exist, they cleared that up for me. Which was lucky, because after a year of educating my Jewish youth group on the dangers of Islamophobia, I might have gone my whole life not knowing how much I hated people different from me.
EDITORIAL: The wrong McMann for the job
After what can only be called an absolute debacle in 2005, 2006 was supposed to be different for the McGill football program. With their off-field issues supposedly behind them and a strong nucleus of veterans on offence, Head Coach Chuck McMann set the second round of the playoffs as the team’s goal.
EDITORIAL: Memo to HMB: Put the pal back in “principal”
As some of you may have noticed this past Friday, just across the street from McConnell Engineering, a sizable cross-section of FACE school-from faculty members to kindergarten students-hit the sidewalks, calling for the swift return of their school principal, Nick Primiano.
THE HELPLESS ROMANTIC: Cogs of the Big Red Machine
I agreed to stand as a delegate to attend the Liberal leadership conference, so I found myself in church last Sunday. The service was well under way and so was the delegate selection meeting. Delegates get to pick the next Liberal leader and possibly the next Prime Minister of Canada.
SIMPLY SPOKEN: Canadian defence indefensible
I was lying in bed last week, spaced out from migraine meds and depressed from feeling out of sorts and useless, when I finally found something that made me laugh: “Guards walk off job at four B.C. border crossings.” As you may already know-and as I quickly found out-Canadian border guards have the right to walk off the job if things get dangerous.
EDITORIAL: Our assemblies are dysfunctional
The Tribune found itself in a difficult position last year when deciding whether or not to support the constitutional amendment on general assemblies. Essentially, we supported the idea of having regular assemblies but believed it would be damaging, democratically speaking, to lower the quorum from 200 to 100 students.
Money makes the world go ’round
Private donations constitute a bulk source of income for most post-secondary institutions. McGill is no different. In 2004-2005, total private funding for McGill was just over $55-million dollars. This may seem like a large number, but keep in mind that it’s just under $1,700 per student and with tuition covering a minor portion of total university costs, gifts are a very necessary part of the income.
WET PAINT: ‘Talking is just masturbating without the mess’
I’ve recently noticed a change in the way people are talking. From the street to the metro and from the library to the grocery store, people everywhere are talking to themselves. While I encountered this widespread habit upon first moving to Montreal and tried to think of it as one of our city’s endearing little quirks, the trend seems to have increased of late.
OFF THE BOARD: Mac for President
Those stupid Apple commercials are everywhere. If you haven’t seen the black and white Warhol-esque ads of people dancing in a faux-minimalist frenzy, the towers of cds exploding into pretentious, post-modern music mayhem or even the latest iPod glow-in-the-dark graffiti kick, you are missing out on one wild ride of counter-culture appropriation.
