Opinion

Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.

VOX POPULI: Canadian citizenship is not a right

As pointed out by Andrew Coyne in the National Post on September 23rd, approximately 7,000 of the 15,000 Canadians evacuated from Lebanon have since returned. The cost of the evacuation, around $85-million, will not be picked up by the evacuees but rather by taxpayers.

SIMPLY SPEAKING: Harper needs to stand up for gun control

The House of Commons returned from summer recess last Monday. I don’t know about you but I miss recess. It’s fun to leave your work at your desk and run outside to the playground and play games like hide-and-seek. But I don’t think that MPs appreciate recess or hide-and-seek; now that recess is over, they’re “it.

WET PAINT: Let’s go play on the gender gym

I remember what a taunt it used to be to be told that you throw like a girl. A girl obviously can’t throw very well. Of course we all now realize that, as a girl, it should be a compliment to be told that you throw like a girl. How terribly anti-feminist to think otherwise, right? Along with this reasoning came a wave of other reclamations-a process of recoding all that is deemed “women’s’ work” as nothing less than superb.

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.

UNCOMMONLY THOUGHTFUL: Distinctly Confused

My name is androgynous. Upon hearing it, you cannot tell if I am a boy or a girl. Some people say that they can tell if they know how it’s spelled: Jessie is a girl and Jesse is a boy. I doubt my parents meant to spell my name the “boy” way, but I sometimes wonder whether it was a Freudian slip; whether somehow, even then, they knew.

EDITORIAL: Quebec should leave religious paranoia to the French

There are many areas in which France is worth emulating. The French have impressive universal health care, a generous day care system, and they enjoy a high standard of living. But unfortunately, the Parti Québécois and certain elements of Quebec society seem hell-bent on copying one of the worst aspects of French culture: religious paranoia.

INFORMATIONATION: Ideas are cheap in the digital age

There is one massive economic difference separating ideas from physical goods: The marginal cost of an idea is now zero. If I eat a sandwich, you cannot also eat it, but once an idea, an essay, a song or a better web browser comes around, it can be shared, from anyone and to everyone, network to network, at a negligible additional cost.

OFF THE BOARD: The self-shot revolution

The bastard son of the 17th century’s commissioned works and the late 19th century’s photographic revolution, portraits are here to stay. We’ve all had one taken. Graduations. Weddings. Family Reunions. Selfies in the park. Sunday night webcam sessions. Blue Dog Friday night Canon-fests.

EDITORIAL: The error of SSMU’s handbook ways

Every year, the Students’ Society produces a handbook, largely for freshmen students. The handbook contains all sorts of useful information about university life, including, among other things, tips on surviving frosh, good places to eat and details on the SSMU health plan.

OFF THE BOARD: Of football and 9/11

For many, the highlight of the TV viewing experience this weekend was the season premiere of The Simpsons or Family Guy on Fox. Both shows are usually funny, occasionally outlandish and once in a while insightful, but don’t ask me to comment on them because I didn’t watch either one.

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