Not only does the city of Kingston and Kingston Police need an attitude change, but Queen’s students do as well. It is a fact that students are “an aggregate body of drunken slobs.” There is a lack of maturity and responsibility on the students’ part that reinforces that statement. A couple weeks ago, I was awoken by neighbours next door who decided to place their television in the middle of the street and take a bat to it. Shrieks of laughter indicated that this was a hilarious thing to do after a night of partying. I was completely baffled as I watched from my bedroom window.

There was some fairly big news recently. You may have heard about it. Three by-elections in Quebec, in which the federal Liberal Party fared poorly and infighting was rumoured between leader Stephane Dion and his strongest competitor for leader, Michael Ignatieff. So when Ignatieff, a prominent politician, appears on campus, one would expect the campus newspaper might actually want to ask some questions—either about the by-elections or any number of other substantive issues—instead of just providing a transcript of the man’s bloviating and pandering to the issue of “youth apathy”.

The statements of Queen’s Coalition against Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (QCRED) and professor Margaret Pappano reflect at best an ignorance of the the British University and College Union resolution proclaiming a boycott of all Israeli academics, or at worst a complete renunciation of the principles of non-discrimination that QCRED’s name suggests.

Engineering Frosh Week at Queen’s is defined by tradition— traditions that build a notion of camaraderie, teamwork skills and a sense of belonging. It is through the activities they participate in, the songs they learn and the people they meet that unify them into “a year.”

Principal Karen Hitchcock’s denunciation of the academic boycott of Israel is short-sighted and ill-informed. Israeli universities are not the bastions of freedom of speech and inquiry that Principal Hitchcock imagines. They have abdicated a crucial role that all universities ought to play in society—that of analyzing and explaining the world in ways that promote justice and equality and acting as centres for critical examination of dominant ideologies and social policies.

According to a recent Kingston Whig-Standard story, Principal Hitchcock’s strong denunciation of the British University and College Union’s (UCU) proposed boycott of Israeli universities has prompted some of the Queen’s community to call for public dialogue about the position she has adopted. One reasonable starting point for such a dialogue might be to compare Principal Hitchcock’s position to that taken by other leaders of Canadian universities. Hitchcock’s opposition to the proposed boycott is in fact widely shared.

“Mr. Tedjo its his ‘view on the subject [of Virginia Tech] can change with [his] mood’—and how lucky we are to be privy to his mood swings. He initially proposes that, since “we have had memorials” and ‘we have had discussions,’ we need to have action. Yet the statement, ‘doing something for the sake of action is not the answer’ qualifies even this apparent call for action. These quotations are indicative of Mr. Tedjo’s complete inability to form, much less argue, an opinion, ironic for someone headlining the ‘Opinions’ page.”

“B. Shiva Mayer’s opinion piece on the “ineffectiveness” of the SGPS is flat out wrong. He might have recognized that if he turned back from his article to page 3 of the April 5 Journal describing the task force on the needs of Muslim students that the SGPS participated in through its hip in the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario), and brought to Queen’s,” says former SGPS VP (external) Andrew Sadler.

Regardless of the causes of global warming, the chief suspect—fossil fuel burning—cannot be dismissed as a harmless industrial venture. It’s unfortunate that arguments about global warming have distracted us from the more imminent realities of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are a limited resource and not a sustainable source of energy. The burning of fossil fuels severely threatens the respiratory health of billions worldwide.