It’s been a rough couple of weeks, eh? I mean, we’ve all been taking a serious beating in the press, our teachers are comparing us to the minions of the Third Reich, trees are attacking our homes and vehicles, and we’ve been threatened with water cannons and attack dogs by the mayor. Plus, when Principal Hitchcock isn’t checking her messages on the Ghetto snitch line, she’s meeting with students only long enough to take fingerprints.

Tuesday night, at the Kingston city council meeting, councillors voted in favour of requesting that Queen’s provide financial compensation for the costs of having the police, fire and ambulance services on Aberdeen Street during Homecoming weekend. They also approved the creation of a committee directed at finding ways to thwart any future illegal activity in the Sydenham district. It should be noted that council voted to remove a clause to potentially grant police the ability to use more drastic measures to control crowds.

Yesterday it was pointed out to me that Coffee & Co. and Stooley’s are gaining a new neighbour on the corner of Division and Johnson. While I really shouldn’t judge any company that decides to move in and market itself to the many students of the area, I’m still slightly upset by this. For those who haven’t heard, the multinational super-company Starbucks is moving in across the street from both Coffee and Co. and Stooley’s.

During the next three weeks, a gathering of Catholic bishops may consider denying Holy Communion to politicians who have ed the legalization of same-sex marriage. Although a practicing Catholic, Prime Minister Paul Martin has maintained that he will separate his personal beliefs from his duties as a politician.

Water cannons and tear gas, riot squads and Tasers. These are just a few of the recent threats made by police and city officials in regard to what could happen next year should the Aberdeen Street party continue. But wait a minute. Hold the phone. If this year’s Aberdeen party was a “riot,” where were the police this year?

An emergency AMS Assembly meeting was convened Tuesday night to discuss the events on Aberdeen street during Homecoming weekend. Unanimously, assembly voted in favour of maintaining the AMS Judicial Committee (JComm), a student-run, non-academic discipline system. It is a complaints-based system whereby any member of the community—police, Kingston residents or students—can file a complaint, which will then be reviewed by the AMS Prosecutor’s Office.

Given the stress of a new school year, a friend and I decided to spend some time on ourselves. We dubbed it “retail therapy,” and spent the afternoon shopping, not because we needed the clothes, and not for lack of anything better to do, but because we both wanted to experience the joy of buying new things. This, I’m aware, is the epitome of materialism and the result of living in a fairly capitalist society.

Back in September of my first year, I got crafty. I grabbed sparkles, squeezed out dollops of glue and snipped myriad letters from fashion magazines to construct a garbage-bag sign to post on my res room door.

Mountain Dew’s energy drink is a new addition to the slew of other caffeinated beverages that are now available in Canada. A recent Globe and Mail article that detailed how the new drink stacked up alongside other caffeinated drinks. It reported that Mountain Dew Energy contains 91 milligrams of caffeine while Red Bull has 130 milligrams and Monster has 169 milligrams. In comparison, a cup of brewed coffee contains 135 milligrams of caffeine while a cup of tea has 43 milligrams.

My main squeeze is quite the catch. He’s tall, dark and handsome. People who know him describe him as smooth, bold and full-bodied. He gives me a reason to wake up in the morning and more often than not, the means to do so.

The issue of transgendered people is still sometimes as taboo in a community as intellectually progressive as Queen’s as it is in most parts of the globe. In California, two men were convicted this week of second-degree murder for killing a transgendered teen in October 2002. Michael Magidson and Jose Merel, who had been intimately involved with Eddie “Gwen” Araujo, strangled and tortured the teen after they discovered Araujo’s sexual orientation.

It was in the midst of this revived courtship that an article about Victoria Beckham, formerly Posh Spice of Spice Girls fame, caught my eye. In an interview to promote her new biography, Mrs. Beckham casually mentioned that she had never read a book in her life. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact that she openly itted to never having read a book, or how she dropped this bombshell while promoting her own biography. I was dumbfounded, to say the least.

If someone on the streets of Kingston is caught carrying open liquor or violating noise by-laws or is judged to be drunk to the point where they’re endangering themselves or others, they should be charged. That said, students should not be held to a higher standard of the law than permanent residents. Just as visible minorities shouldn’t be targeted by police by virtue of their skin colour, neither should students by virtue of their age, where they live or simply because they are students.