The Tribune

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.

Has history not taught us anything? Aren’t we the ones who hold our predecessors accountable for the human rights atrocities that occurred due to their complicity in events such as European anti-Semitism, the centuries of slave trading, and most recently, the Rwandan and Darfur massacres? How contrite do we feel that past generations stood idly by and permitted Apartheid in South Africa? Better yet, why do we still slip into a vacuum of radical nationalism that blinds objective thinking? It’s as though we have yet to learn that this road will only lead to self-destruction – but somehow we keep submitting to this primitive train of thought.

Over the past four years, I have alternated between feelings of repulsion and uncertain excitement when thinking about graduate school. After attending the department of English Symposium – an event where English professors present the papers they have been working on – I experienced these feelings side by side and learned that conflicting feelings, if they had a colour, would be the baffling tint of ashy water.

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.

What the hell was that? My first General Assembly is, of course, today’s topic. But don’t go! I understand your weariness – the front page article, the editorial, and all the guest commentary pieces from student politicians with an overestimation of their own importance, as if we the constituents waited impatiently all weekend for their straight-talk account of things.

I am worried about the future. There are many things that make me think that the future will not be as exciting as Back to the Future 2 and The Jetsons, such as global warming, international strife, the possible collapse of capitalism, and other similarly serious problems.