40 Years Ago
Feb. 2, 1966

Birth control law “an ass,” grandma says

Priests who advocate chastity or the “rhythm method” may be guilty of advocating birth control, heard the 160 students who attended a panel on “Birth Control and the Law” at UC. Despite the “definite tendency today against the law entering people’s bedrooms” identified by the panel, it was still a crime in the mid-’60s to spread any information about birth control. The selling or advertising of condoms was subject to a $100 fine. Mrs. George Cadbury, an English grandmother of eight, chuckled at these measures and stressed that birth control was “a private and medical matter” to be handled by “sympathetic doctors.” The panel acknowledged that birth control devices were easily available to “anyone who knows his way around,” much like another “medical matter” in use today.

30 Years Ago
Feb. 2, 1976

J-E-L-L-Oh?

Proving that scientists will say anything and that the steelheads may be even thicker than previously thought, The Varsity ran this item off the CUP wire on this day in 1976:

A Canadian researcher reports that he attached electrodes to a bowl of lime Jell-o and succeeded in picking up recordings of wave activity similar to that given off by the human brain. Doctor Adrian Upton of Hamilton’s McMaster University says that the portion of Jell-o involved was about the size of a human brain.

Upton stresses that the lime Jell-o was not doing any thinking. He says the apparent brain waves from the gelatin dessert resulted from various artificial feeding machines and respirators that were operating next to the Jell-o, causing it to vibrate.

Upton did not explain why the lime flavour was used.

20 Years Ago
Feb. 3, 1986

Future stars battle apartheid

Two decades ago the university welcomed to Hart House Glen Babb, ambassador from South Africa, a country where apartheid was still law and Nelson Mandela, among many others, still languished in jail.

Babb’s appearance upheld the Hart House tradition of granting any invited guest a fair hearing, much to the chagrin of the dozens of law students who protested the debate, including some mockingly dressed as Ku Klux Klansmen. Tony Clement, now a likely Conservative cabinet minister who was then president of Lawyers for Fundamental Freedoms, supported the protests, saying he felt the students “demonstrated they stand for free speech.”

Babb’s opponent in the debate, law professor (and current Toronto Centre MP) Bill Graham, took him to task over South Africa’s dismal human rights record, much to the delight of the students in attendance.

This appearance was much calmer than Babb’s earlier stint at the House in November, 1986, during which warden (and current SMC prez) Richard Alway was injured when he blocked a ceremonial mace that was thrown at Babb.

  • J.P. ANTONACCI