Charity creams coffee
Re: Student sour on sorority sale, Nov. 24
Upon reading Mike Ghenu’s front-page piece in Thursday’s Varsity, we felt that those quoted were erroneous in their assessment of the sorority’s charity sale. Alex Tepperman completely contradicts the democratic principal of minority rights by grousing, “It’s this tiny, tiny minority putting out hundreds of students who use the JCR every day.” Tepperman, they have every right to do so, and one cannot simply dismiss them because they are a minority. There are plenty of other places to get coffee and schmooze with your compatriots.
As for Joshua Perry’s remark, to claim that “Charity itself is a symptom of our capitalist system” is to imply that capitalism is a disease. While this point can be argued, one cannot ignore the fact that charity can also be considered a remedy for that “disease.” Helping out other people and “repairing the world” is an age-old tenet, dating back many centuries before modern capitalism. To downplay the idea of charity by calling it the vomit of capitalism is irrefutably out of touch with the reality that charity can be beneficial to the less fortunate
Steven Kraft and Ben Greisman
A+ for everybody!
Re: Students used for ‘cheap labour’: TA union, Nov. 24
I think the controversial peer-marking system in Psych classes at UTSC is a bad idea for reasons unstated in the article. Although Prof. Joordens has good intentions in building critical thinking skills (and I can assure you that in my own experience, lack of critical thinking skills are not in any way limited to the sciences), this seems to me more like some sick psych experiment than a valid way to obtain marks.
TAs’ complaints aside, the alarming thing about this situation is the ease with which the professor has managed to pit students against one another in an environment where it would benefit them to work together. Perhaps this is an accurate paradigm of the world at large? We are made to compete with the very people we should be working with, and end up working for the people we should be working against. Until the university really begins to view education as collaborative exercise between profs and students, a program like this seems to be against the best interests of the students. The best way to get rid of it faster than you can say “pass” would be to give every paper a 90 or above-I’m sure the program would come to a halt.
Matt McGeachy
Hamlet too hammy
Re: Honourable Hamlet, Nov. 20
Although Hart House’s Hamlet has ended, we feel it necessary to express our disagreement with Luke Higginson’s review. We can only conclude that Mr. Higginson saw a completely different production than we did last Friday night.
Mr. Higginson lauded Mr. Hutton’s portrayal of Hamlet for nailing “all the iconic lines.” While Hamlet may be the most demanding role in the Shakespearian repertoire, we cannot praise a performance in which the actor mangled his lines on at least four occasions, twice during the pivotal duel scene with Laertes. As well, a bipolar Hamlet may have been the actor’s or director’s decision, but the rapid change between comedic and serious scenes was clumsy.
We disagree with Mr. Higginson’s claim that the other performances were “understated.” Although Mr. Rouse performed well as Claudius, we were unimpressed by the portrayals of Polonius and Osric. We felt that the character of Polonius was played up for cheap laughs, destroying Shakespeare’s subtle characterization of the character. The portrayal of Osric was even worse: he was made cartoonish, jarring with the serious tone of the last act.
Unfortunately, the awkward exaggeration of the comedic aspects of Hamlet rendered the tragedy, as a whole, bathetic.
Christine Yao and Denis Yarow
