Archive

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.Continue...

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.Continue...

Terry Fox’s legacy lives on. This past Sunday, Queen’s students, along with people across Canada and around the world, participated in the 25th annual Terry Fox Run. In 1977, when he was just 18 years old, Fox was diagnosed with bone cancer. While in hospital, he was moved by the patients around him to run his “MarathonContinue...

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.Continue...

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.Continue...

After-Hours Childcare (AHC) is an important service to those who use it and before the AMS Board of Directors took the liberty of cancelling it, they should have come up with a firm solution instead of an ill-researched alternative that has left the 17 to 20 families who use the service with no inexpensive childcare provider to turn to.Continue...

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.Continue...

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.Continue...

New York Times journalist Judith Miller was sent to jail on July 6 for for refusing to testify to a grand jury inquiry into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Miller was in contact with a source who had information about the leak, but will not reveal who it is. This inquiry has become a witch hunt and Miller’s arrest violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment which protects free speech and the free press.Continue...