The McGill Tribune

TAs go on strike today

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Effective today at 12:01 a.m., teaching assistants of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill will be on strike, after negotiations with the McGill administration this past Saturday and Monday deteriorated.

AGSEM Vice-President External Natalie Kouri-Towe pointed to a general lack in response from the negotiators representing McGill as the final decision to strike.

BoG ratifies Plan

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

McGill's Board of Governors approved the new Physical Master Plan of Planning and Design Principles at a meeting in the University Club last night with little debate. The approved portion established yesterday is only half of what will comprise the final Master Plan.

SPEAKERS: Ignatieff talks human rights at Concordia

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Liberal Party Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff's speech to a crowd of approximately 150 students at Concordia University last Friday featured a combination of personal anecdotes and his years of human rights teaching experience.

Ignatieff posed the question of whether or not the definition of a "global citizen" is a member of the human race or of one particular state, and whether this is valid in an increasingly globalized age.

INTERNATIONAL: Montrealer on Saudi death row

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

In the latest development in the case of two Canadian citizens charged with murder in Saudi Arabia, Sultan Kohail, 17, was sentenced to one year in prison and 200 lashes last Saturday.

The fate of Concordia continuing education student Mohamed Kohail is uncertain after his lawyer was threatened by judges hearing his appeal case on Mar.

CAMPUS: Fee bump sees funds for Shatner space improvements

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The Students' Society's decision to raise their base fee by one dollar last semester has resulted in the accumulation of $19,000 in funds specifically designated for the improvement of student space in the Shatner building.

"Students will see the effects of the [fee] increase," said Marcelle Kosman, SSMU vice-president clubs and services, citing increased locker space on the fourth floor and improvements to Gert's, in addition to paint jobs, soundproofing and more space for clubs' offices that needed upgrades in Shatner.

NEWS ANALYSIS: SSMU's balancing act

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

With its lease set to expire this summer, the fate of room 103 in the Shatner building-better known as Caférama-will be decided at this Thursday's Council meeting.

A flurry of mandates from General Assemblies, referenda questions and the SSMU Constitution will be considered to decide upon the new occupants.

CAMPUS: Close result in SUS elections

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Next year's Science Undergraduate Society executive results were announced last Thursday with SUS representative to Council Neil Issar winning the presidency by one of the closest margins in recent student election history. With 49.5 per cent of the electorate, Issar edged out Harald Gjerde by 30 votes.

SPEAKERS ON CAMPUS: Saideman illuminates realities of ethnic friction

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Professor Steve Saideman gave an overview of his work in ethnic conflict to an audience of students in a presentation by In Their Shoes, a Montreal organization which educates high-school and university students about global problems such as genocide and poverty.

News brief: Locker break-ins spread across campus

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Students storing their possessions in lockers have continued to be plagued with problems of break-ins and thefts, with hits occurring throughout the semester in nearly all faculties. Last week, engineering, management and arts have all been hit recently, but few details have been gathered about the incidents, including information on break-ins in the Bronfman Building last Monday.

Grand opening of the Tribune and Grill!

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

It was a tense and panicked atmosphere at the grand opening of The Tribune and Grill last Thursday night when Editor-in-Chef Tiffany Bok Choy revealed the Shatner building's newest student-run initiative.

Memo from the future

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A recent e-mail addressed to McGill futurology professor Marty McFly revealed that we don't need to worry about buying dream Hummers or eating lunch from styrofoam boxes after all. According to McFly, an e-mail he received from his "grandchildren's children" revealed that our generation's excessive consumerism has had no effect on their livelihood.

SSMU GOES SMUTTY: SSMU linked to prostitution ring

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Current President of the Students' Society and local celebrity Jake Itzkowitz stepped down yesterday morning after a wiretap initiatied by VP Internal Kay Turner linked him to a secret, extensive Shatner-based prostitution ring, operating for months under the façade of the "bike

club initiative.

Kid's Menu

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

SSMU Council calls for copies of the Tribune to be used as alternative energy source Last night, SSMU Council passed a new environmental ordinance to make the campus more sustainable by requiring all 11,000 weekly copies of The Tribune and Grill to be burned to power the Shatner Building.

Tribune and Grill deemed unsanitary

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

After the recent independence of the Tribune, the editorial board's head office was relocated to an adjacent room beside what is now the kitchen of the Tribune and Grill.

The new room is composed mainly of archival stacks of newsprint from the early 80s and loose sheets of cardboard found by rooting through SSMU's recycling bins.

Students find out Montreal is French

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A recent survey has revealed that eight out of ten McGill students are unaware Montreal is in Quebec. The survey, conducted by the McGill Alumni Association, brought to light the disturbing unawareness many students have of the city in which they spend, on average, four years.

Student language interests dishonoured

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The SSMU initiative to recognize its multilingual fabric hit another snag last week when a Council meeting revealed that student language ambassadors are not what they appear. During last Thursday's SSMU council meeting, Klingon Ambassador David M'yak-Ny'gchka was rushed to Royal Victoria Hospital after choking on a complementary Nanaimo bar.

Suggestion box

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Service / Information and Interest of Topics
My doctor has banned me from ordering the General Tau special because it raises my blood pressure to an offensive level.

Cleanliness / Presentation
The newspaper article that my fish-sticks came wrapped in contained over four spelling mistakes.

TRIBUNE AND GRILL PUBLIC EDITOR: Everything a-okay with the Tribune and Grill this year

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Another year gone by-and a few more grey hairs. Luckily, I'm pleased to report that everything is a-okay with the Trib this year. No problems to report whatsoever.

This year saw the Tribune acquire some great contributors, with great articles penned by the elusive Author Name and the equally shadowy figure Kun Sun.

PARRY AND SQUIRT: Mustard vs. civil liberties

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

There has been a non-standing debate over the virtues of civil liberties versus mustard-a debate which has wracked the souls of almost no one. Here, two Tribune chefs debate this contentious issue.

Caramel fires up the grill: Mustard is one of the most versatile foods on the planet next to ketchup or things that can be microwaved.

EDITORIAL: You can't stand under my umbrella

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Three years ago a schoolmate approached me, asking if I had any interest in journalism. Coming from the corner of campus that is generally isolated from all other faculties, it was an intriguing proposition to break free from Bronfman and to experience what else McGill had to offer.

YOU HAD AN OPTION, SIR: I had an option, sirs

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

I never expected to be a Conservative. Hell, I never expected to be interested in politics at all. I remember joking with young socialists in my high school classes about the upcoming teachers strike. "The revolution is nigh," I said, sitting on the weathered school bus seats.

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCAE: Blu-ray is a grade-A scam

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Last week the Montreal Gazette printed an article about the recent, surging notoriety of the blu-ray disc. The blue-violet laser which the technology is named after uses a shorter wavelength and thus allows each disc to have greater storage capacity, perhaps 5-6 times that of a regular DVD.

TINTED GLASSES: Play that punk-y music, white boy

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Let's compare the following lyrics: "God Save the Queen / In her Fascist Regime" versus "I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare / I'm just a kid, I know that it's not fair". Both lyrics come from groups that have been called "punk" at one time or another, but the genre this label describes has undergone such a radical transformation that any suggestion of sustained influence is laughable.

VOX POPULI: Words matter

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

I wanted to write an American election column, but I'm not going to. I wanted to explore Hilary's claims of experience, Obama's message of hope and McCain's plans for American foreign policy. But most of us have heard all of that. So let's turn back the clock to the forgotten days of six years past.

+/- 40 DEGREES: Life, the university and everything

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Although my dad is a mathematician, over the years he's learned that my brain magically turns off the moment he mentions anything involving numbers. Yet one thing he explained to me recently actually made sense: It is impossible to measure the speed of an object at any exact moment.

VOX POPULI: "Student run" fetishism

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

I am appalled by the blatant irresponsibility shown by some members of SSMU council. I am dumbfounded that they do not seem to learn their lesson. After the fiasco of Haven Books, that council would even be considering backing a similar venture astonishes me.

OFF THE BOARD: A note from the managing editors

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

This has been a defining year for the Tribune, both internally and externally. Earlier in the year, we had the reoccurring question of French content come to a head and more recently, we changed our identity as a paper when the move to independence was forced upon us.

OFF THE BOARD: Goodbye, cruel McGill

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Now that graduation lurks around the corner, I can't help looking back on the last four years. For the most part, they've been rough and fraught with difficulty-I even left McGill for a short time in 2006. But as my loan counsellors start to demand repayment and my diploma is being printed, I can't help wondering what my time and money (and my parents money) has bought me.

Letters to the editor

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Didn't he write the Wealth of Nations?

Now that I'm out in the real world, I have tried to avoid paying too much attention to the goings-on back at McGill. However, the recent Council motion forcing independence on the Tribune was too much and I felt that I had to come out of retirement to excoriate the Students' Society one last time.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Edible fig-newtons

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Did your parents give you Fig Newtons in your lunchbox? Weren't they gross? In accordance with the ancient truth that anything tastes better with booze, these fiberlicious cookies hold the potential to de-nastify the legacy of the lowly fig in the hearts of generation Y-ers everywhere.

HEALTH: I forget!

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Learning and memory involve many areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, caudate and cortex. Memory is all about "changing the connection strength between one neuron and the next," says Sam McKenzie, currently working on his Ph.D. with Dr. Veronique Bohbot, of the Psychiatry department at McGill.

X VS. Y: Hepburn vs. Hepburn

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Katharine Hepburn
Most memorable role: The spirited, bible-thumping spinster-turned-romantic Rose Sayer in "The African Queen."

Signature look: Being rail-thin and inducing gasps in the 40s-onwards by wearing wide pants, vests, collared shirts and other 'male' fashion.

FILM: Oscar-winning Pixar whiz on robot romance

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Wall-E -a film about a trash-compacting robot running around a futuristic, uninhabited Earth, with nothing akin to vocal chords and thus no intelligible way to express himself-is, oddly enough, writer-director Andrew Stanton's most intimate work.

POP RHETORIC: Oprah's philanthropy for philistines

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Leave it to Oprah to turn philanthropy into a gaudy, voyeuristic reality television show. In a hysterical peacock-like parade of moral one-upmanship, ten contestants on her new reality TV show Oprah's Big Give compete in a holier-than-thou display of charitable licentiousness week after week in the vain hope of being crowned the most generous by the Queen of Selflessness herself.

CONSERVATION: Conserving culture

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

In North America, when a building passes the hundred-year mark, there's a good chance that a plaque will be put on it. We don't have much antiquity here, and if there's a building that our grandparents remember from their youth we'll probably fight tooth and nail so that our children will be able to see it.

FILM: Gritty and rehashed

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

In life there are bad guys and there are good guys. The question Street Kings poses is: how do you tell the difference? To be honest, the speculative morals of this film are as tired as the rehash of the old genre of cop thriller itself. Last year's Gone Baby Gone did the convoluted morals shindig with more grace and panache (to say nothing of classics such as Taxi Driver and The Wild Bunch).

MUSIC: Into the groove at last

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The intense wailing of heavy guitar and hard double-pedal drum kicking is impossible to ignore in the hardcore sounds of Misery Signals. Since their initial formation in 2002, they have been on a slippery slope as various members came and went. Their lineup stabilized in 2005, when the monstrous but melodic vocal styles of Karl Schubach were introduced to their sound.

BLOGS: Stuff white people write

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

What do Asian girls, co-ed sports, music piracy and expensive sandwiches all have in common? According to comedy blogger and former Mcgill Tribune Sports Editor Christian Lander, they are all things that white people like. Obvious? Racist? Hopelessly simplistic? Maybe.

Reviews

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

TV. Battlestar Galactica Season 4. Holy fraking shit, Galactica is back again with a bang. The show's fourth and final season opens with an explosive episode that creates yet another cliffhanger-and generates even more questions than answers. Main characters are revealed as bona fide Cylons, the human fleet is crippled by a devastating attack, and Starbuck mysteriously returns with photos of Earth.

Jake Izkowitz

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Itzkowitz' presidency has been marked by intermittent successes and progress. Before last year, the SSMU executive had been a disorganized mass with uncoordinated political agendas. Despite a stormy start with the election scandal, early concerns about disunity and conflict within this year's SSMU executive were proven wrong and can be attributed to Itzkowitz's coordinating abilities.

Kay Turner

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

As the first ever Vice-President Internal, president-elect Kay Turner's time in office this past year begs the simple question: "What exactly does the VP Internal do?" With the smallest mandate, success in this portolio should have been a no-brainer. Turner secured her position based on the quality of her ideas, including greening frosh, revitalizing the SSMU Web site and making her position more political.

Max Silverman

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Silverman is arguably the only SSMU executive this year who delivered upon his campaign promises. He has put in the extra effort to work for free education, including ordering busses to take students to Quebec City for February's Day of Action. In addition to dealing with tuition issues, Silverman has also made attempts to encourage students to reach out to the surrounding community, helping to create a neighbourhood guide that was distributed to students living in residence.

Adrian Angus

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

While Angus's ambition as a politician is unquestionable, he has hardly been able to produce the improvements to academic life that he based his campaign around. Improvements in advising have been relatively insignificant and it is uncertain what sort of role Angus played in improving libraries and keeping them open longer this year.

Marcelle Kosman

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Overall, Kosman seems to have been overwhelmed by the demands of the C&S portfolio. Although she ran on a platform of increased availability, promising to check e-mails every day, she made the decision early in the year not to return voicemail messages and replies to e-mails have been sluggish.

Imad Barake

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

In our mid-term report cards, the Tribune remarked that outgoing VP Finance Imad Barake had been thrust into a "seemingly endless string of damage control," with regard to last year's investment in Haven Books. Financially, nothing has changed with the bookstore since December and with projected losses in the tens of thousands, the bookstore has taken money away from improving student life on campus and has called the Students' Society's commitment to clubs and services into question.

Council

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

After a sluggish first semester, this year's SSMU Council has ultimately failed to legislate anything substantial. Overall, there have been few major motions presented, and debates at Council, for the most part, have degenerated into talks concerning punitive action for councillors who failed to attend, arguments about the executives' late reports and how many hours the executives should spend with a club or service as punishment for their tardiness.

TRIBUNE ATHLETES OF THE YEAR: Hockey goalies shut out the competition

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Although the Tribune awarded Charline Labonté this honour after her stellar freshman season at McGill, and we would love to recognize one of the many other great female athletes on campus, the hockey Martlets All-World goaltender made it impossible to ignore her this season.

THIRD MAN IN: Developing annoying Hab0its

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Montreal, what happened to you? I expect this behaviour from my fellow Torontonians, traumatized as they are after 40 years of utter on and off-ice ineptitude, but I always thought you were above all this. Sure, the Bell Centre is known to be frequented by the odd sit-on-your-hands suit in the lower bowl and the drunk wannabe Euro-trash fans who sing that insufferable "Olé" chant, but, nonetheless, there was always a refined dignity and class among Habs fans that has been so carefully groomed and cultivated by way of 26 Stanley Cups and 100 years of unparalleled dominance.

Sports report cards

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

REDMEN BASKETBALL - C+
The Redmen cagers got a few figurative monkeys off their backs this season: winning their own Redbird Classic Tournament for the first time since 2000, taking out nationally-ranked Windsor along the way, beating Concordia for the first time in 21 tries and finishing at .