Opinion

Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: L.L. Bean, it’s good for your heart

In her recent article Die “Hipster” Die Zoe Daniels claims that the word hipster has “become a comfortable crutch for those lazy judges who see a single pair of plastic- framed glasses as an unbridgeable ideological gap” for various groups including those “L.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Not AMUSEd

In last week’s editorial, you stated that AMUSE – The Association of McGill University Support Employees – left some students “in the dark” by failing to adequately contact all potential voters. Out of respect for the newly accredited members of the bargaining unit and the supporters who spent countless hours contacting the eligible voters, I feel it is necessary to correct some blatantly incorrect facts you stated about the voting procedure.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Brendan is simple-minded

Brendan Steven’s column “Right Minded: Defending Prorogation” is a good example of the limited nature of Steven’s political opinions. His blind reverence for everything the Harper government does is demonstrative of the same sort of extremeness that he attempts to delegitimize in his column.

BLACK & WHITE: This mortal coil

Existential crises are as awkward to talk about as bowel movements. In a milieu that celebrates irony more than sincerity, any attempt to be philosophical is either going to make me resemble an overeager, emo teenager, or an indecipherable, pompous intellectual, and I’m not sure which I’ll end up sounding like in this column.

Helping Haiti: doing our part for the relief effort

It has been one week since an earthquake measuring 7.0 in magnitude struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, devastating the country’s infrastructure and sparking a humanitarian disaster. The Red Cross has confirmed that 50,000 people are dead, while Haitian officials say the death toll could be as high as 200,000.

COMMENTARY: Change the world

As a recent graduate of McGill, I’ve been reflecting on the time I’ve spent over the past five years trying to organize for social change in a university context. I have heard people say that universities are fertile ground for this kind of activity, and it’s not hard to see why: thousands of young people in close social proximity to each other, many of them in a new place, encountering new ways of thinking about the world.

RIGHT MINDED: Defending prorogation

Contrary to what some of you may believe, proroguing parliament is not the “democratic travesty” that many are making it out to be. Canada is supposedly stirring with “grassroots fury,” according to the Toronto Star. More than 100,000 people have now joined a Facebook group in opposition to Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament, united by their hatred of our prime minister.

AMUSE vote leaves some students in the dark

The Association of McGill University Support Employees is now the official union of McGill’s non-academic casual workers, receiving accreditation from the Quebec Labour Board last month. An October mail-in vote of eligible employees resulted in an overwhelming 85 per cent of casual workers voting in favour of the union.

FRESH HELL: Die “Hipster” die

Dear Diary, Over the winter break, I was called a hipster for wearing a high-waisted skirt and glasses and then found out that Joey Jeremiah only asked me out as a joke and I totally fell for it. I was so embarrassed!! I just wanted to DIE. My life is so sucky.

MY POINT … AND I DO HAVE ONE: Bring it on, 2010

2009 was a wretched year. On a personal level, it was full of injury, emotional rollercoasters of human interaction, far too much time spent on academics, and the deaths of some very special people to me. And for the world, 2009 saw the entrenchment of superficially humanized global American military domination with the coronation of Emperor Obama.

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