Scarborough is U of T too!Just because Scarborough Campus is more than a half hour’s drive from St. George Campus doesn’t mean we’re not still part of U of T. We pay the SAME FEES, share professors and our degrees will have the same school’s name on it. It’s about time that the rest of U of T acknowledged us! We are students just like those on the St. George and Erindale campuses, yet we are left out of the rest of the school’s activities! Do you know that if we want a course calendar for St. George we have to pay $4 for it? And just try to find a current issue of The Varsity on campus. Usually they don’t show up until they are already two or three days old, if at all. It’s bad enough that we do not have access to a library this year, and finding a study space is impossible, but why leave us out?Elisa WilliamsCellucci’s dysfunctional familyLike any and all Canadians with a drop of self-respect and patriotism left in our blood, I find that blood almost at the boiling point over Ambassador Cellucci’s hypocritical lecture on the meaning of family and friendship between our two countries. Surely most Canadians can recall that well before Iraq became an issue between our countries, the treatment we were receiving at the hands of the Bush administration was not of the kind one usually affords a fellow family member. If the Bush administration really sees Canada as part of the family, then how does the Ambassador explain the fact President Bush broke with tradition and still has not made an official visit to Canada, or even received our Prime Minister at his ranch in Texas? Why does Mr. Bush rarely mention Canada in his speeches when he would go out of his way to mention other countries? Why did he have to be prodded by a journalist to say anything at all about the Canadian soldiers killed in the so-called “friendly fire” incident in Afghanistan? How to explain the huge increase in U.S. agricultural subsidies that will make life even tougher for Canadian farmers already under siege? And what about the arbitrary and unjustified imposition of huge tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber that cost thousands of Canadians their jobs? Is this the way to treat family? I don’t know about Mr. Celluci’s family, but in my family people don’t treat each other so shabbily, even at the worst of times. So spare us the lecture, Mr. Ambassador! Canadians understand well enough Iraq is contained and does not pose an imminent threat to the United States. But when you do find a country that does indeed pose a genuine threat to the security of the United States, then please do let us know about it and you can rest assured Canada—in the true spirit of family and friendship—will be ready, willing and able to help. Till then, I suggest the ambassador stop playing political quarterback for Mr. Harper and the Canadian Alliance, and get back to doing real diplomatic work.
Armando F. LuisI want to be a communistWith the recent controversy surrounding Big Ern and his decision to present the next budget outside Queen’s Park, as well as the possibility of an election call, I have begun to ponder for whom I will cast my ballot.As a lifelong fence-sitter, all my votes to this point have gone to the Liberal party, but being left of centre I am now considering going to a slightly different shade of red in the next election. That’s right, folks, the big “C,” the party of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev—the Communist party. It’s not that I have any particular fondness for the history of world-wide Communism, nor is it due to some overwhelming moral desire to live in a classless society. It simply boils down to one incontrovertible fact: I’m lazy. I have no ambition, no drive. I miss my mom, and I want someone to take care of me—somebody to push me in the right, or in this case the left, direction. Canada may be a socialist country compared to the States, but it just does not provide me with all I need.I recently moved to Toronto and have been unable to find a job, and this I find disturbing. I would like nothing more then to be able to escape the boredom of my dingy basement apartment and go out into the world to earn enough money to buy some bread and vodka, maybe even get myself a nice reliable Lada and a little dacha in the country. But nobody will hire me, and I just cannot bring myself to pound the pavement, day after day, shamelessly promoting myself to prospective employers. It is just not in my nature. How nice it would be if Ernie or Jean already had it all planned out for me in advance. Go to school for free, no $30,000 debt, then place me in some job that is commensurate with my scholastic achievements. Hell, I’m smart: graduated top of my class in elementary school and left university cum laude. Surely that could land me a job in the Politburo or the Ministry of Information. If not, at least I would be assigned a job somewhere, being a productive cog in the machinery of society, instead of a spare part, all shiny and new, just sitting on the shelf.Alex Carter