Letters to the Editors

March 30, 2007
It is humorous but disgraceful for the AMS to award the Golden Cockroach Award to Phil Lam. Indeed, doesn’t the real problem lie with the housing minister, our own Kingston and the Islands MPP John Gerretsen and the government in which he serves?
The epic global warming debate is too politicized, evoking a climate of fear and false premises. Hardly a day goes by without the declaration that our propensity to burn fossil fuels has resulted in the Earth’s heating.

Letters to the Editors

March 23, 2007
“It’s inaccurate to say that ‘After retiring this year, Logan asked Greenblatt to come and speak at Queen’s in his honour.’ In addition to making me sound pretty vain, this sentence takes the credit for Professor Greenblatt’s wonderful visit to Queen’s away from the person to whom the credit really belongs: Professor Patricia Rae, head of the English department,” says Professor George Logan.
“The past should be modified to fit the future and the University’s character can change for the better with the construction of the Queen’s Centre. The destruction of the buildings between Union and Division streets represents the obliteration of the tradition, but it is a necessary one for the sake of progress,” says Celine Song, ArtSci ’10.

Letters to the Editors

March 16, 2007
“This letter is written on behalf of the Studio Q executive committee for 2006-07. Based on the Journal’s editorial, it’s evident the Journal has neither watched our show, nor has any clear idea of what Studio Q actually does,” writes outgoing Studio Q executive producer Tristan Moran.
Today, approximately 2,500 Canadian soldiers serving under a NATO-led mission in the volatile Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan sombrely await a violent Taliban spring offensive to burst forth with the ferocity of a river engorged with the winter’s melt. The impetus that keeps them there today is not that which sent them in the first place. …

Letters to the Editors

March 9, 2007
“Congratulations to Yoni Levitan for saying what has already been said (several times) in other letters to the Journal. The Other Campaign should have run for office, they should have run referendum questions, and they should have worked with the AMS. It’s easy to complain; it’s hard to “step up” and run for office. The first meeting of the Other Campaign occurred after the referendum period, at the beginning of the election period, but according to Levitan, the people who were to become Other Campaign should have known to run an AMS campaign on behalf of a group that didn’t exist yet. What were we thinking?”
The good news is that many people don’t think that Islamic and Western countries are doomed to clash. According to a recent BBC World Service poll taken by the reputable Toronto-based firm GlobeScan, an overall majority of respondents living in 27 countries said there was no inherent incompatibility, and hence no inevitable clash of civilizations, between Islam and the West.

Letters to the Editors

March 2, 2007
How ignorant does the Journal think the Multicultural Festival Committee is? There are problems with our campaign and we are working to improve our ads, but in the limited time we have, we cannot address all the issues surrounding such an ambiguous concept like “multiculturalism.” No Caucasian person has taken interest in our committee, demonstrating that the term multiculturalism is commonly accepted as involving minorities only.

Looking beyond coffee

March 2, 2007
University students are reported to drink an average of three cups of coffee daily. Given this statistic, it’s perhaps unsurprising that interest in the fair trade movement on campuses across Canada has focused on coffee. Students have increasingly come to demand a fair trade certified coffee product.

Letters to the Editors

February 16, 2007
Ah, the age old gender double standard. Time and time again it sparks debate and controversy—tale as old as time really. I find it quite the predicament now that it is overshadowing the amazing production that I was able to be a part of this year, that being The Vagina Monologues. Yes it’s true one of our directors has a penis—and now the Journal won’t let me forget it.
Chris Lee is the best president the AMS never had. He envisioned student government as more than a West Wing for aspiring politicos or fraternities with student-subsidized bars.

Letters to the Editors

February 13, 2007
Peter Saczkowski asks who is running the show and concludes that it is “a small cadre of elites.” The people on the Queen’s Board of Trustees and the people behind the numbers quoted in the article, are anything but. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the writer dug any deeper to answer his question …

Too early to define sexuality?

February 13, 2007
In November, the Toronto District School Board distributed a census survey to all 270,000 students in the school board. Students in Grades 9 through 12 were also asked to answer questions about their sexual orientation.

Letters to the Editors

February 9, 2007
I find it ironic that Chris Horkins, in his rebuttal to Woodhall’s column, uses similar tactics to those being implemented in his defense, calling the piece an “unprovoked attack” and “uninformed vilification.” This is exactly the stance Woodhall seeks to criticize …
People’s true characters are only revealed under duress. Take, for example, Sodexho’s decision not to grant a liquor license to Science Formal in 2003 because they deemed the raucous event too risky.

Letters to the Editors

February 6, 2007
I’m not clear on what the point of having Tom Woodhall writing a column on the AMS election is. Pointing out that both teams are very cautious and not prone to expressing radical opinions can only be said so often. The most unfortunate aspect of his effort, however, lies in his critique of the Other Campaign. I’m not connected to it directly, but I would think that alternative views and voices would be appreciated, especially in this two-team race.

Who is running the show?

February 6, 2007
Surely, most, if not all of us, want a say in the institutions that shape our lives. We may even be crazy enough to want to control part of those institutions. We assert this control, to a limited extent, in our political system through voting; and this, we’re told, guarantees that we are properly represented. This is what we call a democracy, and, flawed as it may be, we find solace in knowing we can dismiss our representatives if they exploit their power.

Letters to the Editors

February 2, 2007
“I was completely baffled by your editorial against the new counsellor for the School of Business,” remarks one Journal reader. “I’m supposed to be outraged that business students have decided to spend their money on a service that will help them? Even though it won’t hurt me in the slightest?”
AMS elections come and go, but there is one thing about Queen’s that doesn’t change. We work hard. We play hard. When I was first thinking about this year’s AMS election, I thought I would remain unbiased. But after spending more time with Alvin Tedjo, John Paterson and Liz Craig (TPC), I know they are the right choice for next year’s AMS executive and for me. TPC represent more than just three faculties or three issues or themes—they represent the Queen’s lifestyle, the balance needed between work and play.