I fundamentally disagree with Garrison’s view that “It’s not very productive to continue the weak argument that the two [Homecoming and Aberdeen] are separate. Queen’s has to accept that the two go hand in hand and find a solution that is going to impact both.” To assert that Aberdeen is a result of Homecoming simply because the street party occurs after Homecoming starts is not just a weak argument but a logical fallacy.

I was appalled to read “City wants Queen’s to foot the bill” which outlined city council’s decision to have Queen’s pay all extra costs for municipal reinforcements during homecoming. The council’s actions betray a clear prejudice against the Queen’s community and many remarks about its students were totally unreasonable.

First, I agree with Eddie Ho’s conclusion that the administration of this university is not responsible for policing costs associated with the Aberdeen Street party. However, I take issue with most of the rest of his assertions. If he thinks it is a fact that Queen’s attracts “the top students and researchers from around the world,” I fear he has swallowed a little too much of the Frosh Week Kool-Aid. Queen’s is a great university, but it’s a large-ish fish in a pretty small pond.

Whether it’s students frantically trying to type every word that drops from the instructor’s mouth, back-row slackers mindlessly playing solitaire or professors reading aloud the text of their Powerpoint slides, Lisa Jemison suggests that the introduction of the computer into the classroom has undermined the personal connections that once made university classes special places to be.

As a graduate student here at Queen’s, I am not proud of the events that seem to inevitably occur each Homecoming weekend. I freely admit there are a number of students out there who make terrible choices, doubtlessly fuelled by the hype of what they mistakenly assume to be ‘tradition.’ However, this feeling of shame is nothing to what I would feel if I had chosen to be represented by Lakeside district councillor Dorothy Hector.

I would like to congratulate the Journal for the article “Fairing well in the workplace” from the Oct. 2 issue. Your discussion of the Career Fair recently hosted by Career Services was informative and interesting. The article contained several reflections on the event provided by students. I value those reflections and they have been included in our post-event discussions. In particular, I would like to address those made by an ArtSci student.

In your editorial, you defend Columbia University’s decision to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and deride those who opposed his appearance as having closed minds. You state: “There’s a huge rift between Western ideologies and those promoted by leaders such as Ahmadinejad, but that rift won’t be reconciled unless open discussions are welcome on both sides.”

Jeff Brown should be ashamed of himself. In his editorial, Brown speaks about how a recent Cowboy and Indians-themed kegger epitomizes the “otherness” created at Queen’s.
The appropriateness of the party theme is not the issue, however. The AMS has no right or responsibility to interfere in the events of students that are held off campus.

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”.