May 29, 2007
Vol. 135, Issue 1

Treat the cause, not the symptom

The Gazette, Western University’s student newspaper, published a spoof issue on March 30 containing shocking and offensive material, including a reference to London’s chief of police taking a “wild vagina” “into a dark alley to teach it a lesson.”

Leave journalists out of policing

On May 19, Vancouver police officers contacted Anti-Poverty Coalition member David Cunningham, claiming to be journalists for the commuter paper 24 Hours and requesting an interview. Cunningham met them, whereupon they arrested him for threats he made to members of Vancouver’s Olympic Games organizing committee. This impersonation of journalists by police officers is a frightening and appalling abuse of power. A journalist’s role is predicated in large part on trust: it’s the journalist’s job to be open in establishing a relationship with a subject and a reader.

A little less conversation

The year I turned 16, my parents decided that something had to be done about the unsettling notion of their daughter behind the wheel. They figured that if I ever got into an accident, everything would be okay if I had a cell phone. Apparently they hadn’t noticed the growing number of drivers swerving across the roadways in their attempts to steer while juggling their bite-sized cell phones.

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