Comment

Comment September 28, 2015

Speak no evil

There was a time when you could call something evil and people knew what you meant. They understood that you were not speaking in hyperbole. They understood that evil is one of the central players in the human drama, a thing that will not perish from the earth. Nowadays, to call something evil is to invite scorn and a sniggering assumption of provincialism. To be labelled as “religious” or “spiritual,” words which have of late gained a patina of ironic contempt.

The slow-motion disaster that has been our culture’s embrace of post-modernism, in which no viewpoint enjoys special privilege or validity, has robbed us of the language needed to discuss even the concept of evil, which presumes certain immutable truths. What we do not discuss, we are prone to forget exists. Men who do not believe in evil cannot believe that they (or anyone) serve it. They are perhaps the most likely to do evil.

Comment September 22, 2015

The trouble with transit

Like any regular rider of buses in this city, I’ve come to hold a constant low level of loathing for the form of transit that I’m dependent on. The perennial lateness, overcrowding, and poor service to many areas of the city is just a fact of life that I’ve made my peace with.

When I heard that service was going to be reduced on several routes due to maintenance issues with the bus fleet my reaction was a study in indifference. It’s still nice out (warmest year on record, folks!), and I can still avoid buses by biking or walking. Come winter all bets for anything resembling regular service are off in a normal year, so I figured this year couldn’t possibly be worse.

But then I read that our mayor had said of the reduction in service that “The service level expectation needs to be more realistic than they were,” and my reaction was considerably more colourful than indifference.

Comment September 22, 2015

Blood politics

By highlighting MSM as an exposure category, current data collection and reporting methods support Canadian Blood Services’ screening practices. If UMSU wants screening practices to focus on specific high-risk behaviours, it needs data collection to also focus on specific high-risk behaviours.

Comment September 15, 2015

The death of innocents

The Syrian civil war has been raging for four years. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, surely including many toddlers. Certainly no shortage of refugees meeting tragic ends. But we weren’t confronted with the image of their lifeless bodies; the thought of these innocent deaths was not in our collective mind.

Comment September 15, 2015

Putting the eSports dispute to rest

Games are not art. Games are not sports. Games are games. They’re their own thing, and all this arguing over what else they might be betrays a secret anxiety as to whether they’re a pursuit worth spending time on. Private inferiority complexes don’t make a good foundation for aesthetic debates.

Editorial September 15, 2015

Marching in Shoalidarity

On September 12, hundreds of protestors marched from the Manitoba legislature to the Winnipeg Aqueduct Monument to raise awareness for the dire water situation in…

Editorial September 9, 2015

Ideas matter

The term “liberal education” was coined in classical Greco-Roman times, selected to emphasize its role in analyzing their rulers critically. It was thought to make one wise through studying over time, with the goal of producing a more educated electorate.

No Picture

Comment September 8, 2015

‘That’s not fair!’

It seems to be something of a trend with people my age to confuse their own interests with the common good. The idea that it is somehow unfair for us to not have all our desires (and a lot of what we call needs are really just desires) met is not a healthy mindset, though it is increasingly widespread. Seeing unfairness as a state of discontent is a big part of why we live in such an unjust society: we are willing to put up with a lot, so long as things seem “fair” for number one.

It’s not just young people, of course – though I think that as digital technology permeates more and more of our lives, we are more likely to be susceptible to it. The social media we use is designed to show us the things we like to see; algorithms track what we click on and deliver more of the same. We get a false idea of how much the world agrees with us and of how important we are in the grand scheme of things.

Comment September 8, 2015

Who does UMSU really work for?

Welcome to the University of Manitoba: a campus that “thrives” and “grows” by disengaging from the student population via the brick walls of bureaucracy and oppressive ideology. Please do not be fooled by our school’s glittery and distracting advertisements that announce “I am a trailblazer” or “I am a rebel.” In fact, you are not a trailblazer or rebel, as a student of this university.

Instead, you are expected to pay your dues and enter into a submissive relationship with both the university administration and student union. This was shown during the 2014-15 school year when several student, faculty, and staff groups protested the austerity budget that would see four per cent cuts to most faculties and some non-academic units. Here are some – certainly not all – things to consider should you decide to continue your academic journey through this treacherous campus.

Editorial September 2, 2015

Harper’s war on news media

Canada’s 42nd general election campaign is now well under way and the media is in full campaign coverage mode, although for one party that might not mean much.