During the next three weeks, a gathering of Catholic bishops may consider denying Holy Communion to politicians who have supported 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 members 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 admitted 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.

Harvard University claims to have the oldest campus newspaper in North America. The Harvard Crimson started publishing on Jan. 24, 1873. The Crimson beats out the Journal—yes, the very paper in your hands—for the title of oldest campus newspaper in North America by just 10 months. The first issue of the Journal didn’t appear till Oct. 25, 1873.

The nearly four-week CBC lockout of 5,500 of its employees has brought all of the company’s outlets to a virtual standstill. Negotiations had been taking place between CBC management and its employees’ union for the past 15 months with little progress. The main issue of contention is the CBC’s plan to hire more non-permanent employees in an effort to alleviate financial strains on the company.

Earlier this week, on a particularly sticky July afternoon, my friend Emily met me for lunch. It was one of those Maine days where the sun shines so brightly that the entire world seems illuminated; one of those days where even the most mediocre elements of your surroundings assume a certain glow. After we settled on cold Italian sandwiches underneath a patio umbrella right near the Portland waterfront, we hopped back in the hot car seats so that I could head back to work.