In less than 24 hours, the fates of thousands of same-sex couples fell into disturbing ambiguity before Justice Minister Rob Nicholson cleared things up on Friday. On Thursday, it was announced that all same-sex marriages of non-residents performed in Canadawould be considered void, if the marriage would not be considered valid in the couple’s home country. So basically, Ottawawas saying that if you drove up from Floridato spend a weekend in Nova Scotiaand get married, your marriage wasn’t technically legal.
The outrage that spread across Twitter and Facebook was palpable. Canadians, Americans and Europeans alike condemned Canada as hypocritical, overly conservative, and as losing values.  But the issue of same-sex marriage was not re-opened. Nobody was trying to criminalize same-sex marriage. Canada was simply stating that it does not have the legal authority to overcome the laws of other countries.
Infuriated activists, supporters, and homosexual couples protested the switch, and demonized the Conservative party. But it was the very “victims” of this legal loophole that were misinterpreting the issue at hand. To say that by revoking these marriages means Canada is “anti-gay” is utterly untrue. Canada was simply taking the modest stance that foreigners cannot simply use our country as a mean to subvert their home country’s laws.
As Canadians, we are proud that we aren’t pushy with our values or overtly bossy with other nations. America gets a lot of criticism for throwing its weight around internationally. It is simply not Canadian to say that our laws trump others. As progressive, open-minded people, we can encourage other countries to consider our values- but we can’t and shouldn’t tell American citizens to jump over the border for a marriage still considered illegal in their home state.
As a country, it is not our job to provide these rights to non-citizens. Not only is it taxing on our system, it also undermines our foreign relations. Consider any other foreign policy: travelers are expected to know and obey the law of the countries they are visiting. I can’t simply waltz into Uzbekistan and expect them to cater to my Canadian sensibilities. Likewise, people cannot expect to waltz into Canada and automatically be entitled to all the rights of being a Canadian. For example, if marijuana was legal here in Canada, but illegal in the USA, nobody would question that one could not buy weed in Ontario and bring it into New York.
People will argue that same-sex marriage is a human right, and therefore, Canada is obliged to provide this to any person, just as we are obliged to provide safety to refugees fleeing violence. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am absolutely, 100% pro same-sex marriage.  But I believe the more constructive way of achieving equality for everyone is to change the mentality and the law in the person’s home country. There is simply no point to marry a gay couple in Canada if they’re going to live in Texas, where the values and opinions haven’t changed. They won’t recognize the Canadian marriage, and Canada should not be responsible for non-citizens. If you’re a gay couple you can either protest for change in your home state, with the full support of Canada behind you.  But you can’t ask Canada to put its foreign relations at stake to circumvent your country’s laws.
Of course, the outcry was deafening, andCanada has immediately backed down, in typical meek fashion. Less than 24 hours after the legislation was proposed, Minister Nicholson is reassuring everyone that their marriage still stands. And as far as I’m concerned it does: it stands as a matter of principal and it stands here inCanada. But just because we say it stands doesn’t mean other countries have to listen. At the end of the day, what frustrates me is how quickly people were willing to condemnCanada- people who in the recent past have enjoyed great freedoms fromCanada. What bothers me more is the apparent lack of understanding of the issue, or the way some chose to interpret it. This wasn’t a same-sex marriage issue. This was a citizenship issue.

Most people work 9-5, seven days a week, and at the end of the week, their employer pays them for the work they’ve done. That money gets spent on rent, food, hydro, and, if there’s any left over, fun. But this all goes in the shitter when your employer mistakenly overpays you.
That’s what happened to me. I worked for the government this summer, having obtained a student position. They sent me on a mandatory work trip and gave me a stipend- money to spend on restaurants and toiletries- you know, things I would need seeing as I was being forced to be away from home for work purposes. Apparently, they budgeted incorrectly and gave me too much. Now, seven months AFTER the work trip, and about four months after I officially stopped being their employee, they’re asking for that money back.
Morally, I understand that it’s sort of theirs.  I can see in the paperwork where the budgeting went wrong, and I understand that it was never really my money to begin with.  But on the other hand, isn’t it a little immoral to ask a STUDENT for money, especially right after the very expensive holiday season?  I mean, that money is gone.  Long gone.  It was spent on a bus ticket home and on books for this semester.
What I really want to know is whether or not there’s a time limit on these things. Like, maybe any pay mistakes have to be corrected within three months of the issued payment? It seems to me like your old job from five years back can’t show up on your doorstep demanding cash. Likewise, it seems pretty unreasonable for employees not to verify their pay cheques and only complain about discrepancies years down the road. I mean, for all you know, the company might’ve gone under by then!
I spent a decent part of Christmas break looking up the Canadian labour code, and on the phone with various government agencies, but I kept getting transferred and everybody kept telling me “I can’t help you with that. That doesn’t apply to this bureau.” I even emailed the Globe and Mail’s employment lawyer, but he told me his legal fees would cost more than the stipend. Thanks for your help, buddy.
In the end, I didn’t find the information I needed.  I have no idea whether legally, I do owe them this money, or whether I’m getting screwed because I don’t know the law, and my boss is counting on me not figuring it out.  All I know is that I sure as hell don’t want to work for them ever again.

The ghouls walking past you aren’t sick; they didn’t catch an early cold, nor have they been assigned the earliest-possible midterms. They don’t have food poisoning and they’re not all naturally Edward-Cullen tinged. The truth is, they used to be students just like you- until they wound their way through a labyrinth of graduate school applications of mythological proportions.

You third-years scoff: how hard can it be?  You are snug in the cozy distance from your own graduation, warm in the radiant heat of what becomes, as time moves forward, a burning inferno of graduation woes.  But let the haggard faces of your senior friends be a warning to you: the application process is stressful, confusing, complicated and sad.

Each grad school asks for its own unique application formula.  Some want everything in a single package mailed directly to them. Others want it all sent separately, to various addresses, and only on their official letterhead. Still, others prefer it all be done online. The only criteria they share in common is that reference letters go in signed, sealed envelopes. Don’t forget that the magic formula they want you to use is hidden in the most remote locations on their website, and often is embedded in hex of hoity-toity language that forces you to ask yourself “Am I smart enough for this school?” Obviously, there’s no one standard per province. That would be too easy.
So check and double-check your lists. Transcripts, writing samples, reference letters, online applications, fees, new student ID number (Damn it!  Just when I finally got my BU ID memorized…) proof of citizenship, letters of intent… never has so much been riding on so little. Some schools give you just 500 words to tell them about yourself, why you want to study there, and what you plan to research. Oh, and even though it’s a first person essay about YOU, try not to use ‘I’ too much.

In the end, it’s not the frenzy of papers, the postage fees, or even the hyped-up organizational skills that get us grad school applicants down. It’s merely the needlessness of it all.  One can be a supreme student and still not be accepted, purely because a transcript got lost in the mail, or a third reference not being notified. A simple typo can set you back. And even if the application is rejected purely because of a postage error, the school still gets to keep your $100. You’d think in the Age of Instant Messages, we could have one universal application.  Just think of it: a paperless process, which you feverishly, thoroughly type, once.

In the end, the worst part is that we go to all this effort and our reward is that we get to leave Bishop’s. Sucks.

It is absolutely ridiculous the amount of attention that superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z commend on a daily basis. Thus, when Beyonce announced her long awaited pregnancy in an immensely public fashion, the celebrity obsessed instantly became infatuated with the already famous fetus. The January 7^th, 2012 birth of their daughter brought a media frenzy; and in an already publicized birth, Blue Ivy’s choice of name grabbed headlines and discussion everywhere.

Why is it that celebrities feel the need to carry on their attention seeking ways right down to the naming of their children? Blue Ivy Carter was destined to have fame, and now not even her name can be deemed normal.

Ellen DeGeneres demonstrated the ever-growing trend of celebrity baby names hilariously on one of her recent shows. With a quick spin of the “Baby Name Generator” celebrities are able to choose their baby names easily, with various random items being put together to create a lovely and suitable name. Ellen’s hypothetical twins were thus named Banjo Fire Escape, and Elbow Gas Lamp for a boy, of course. Comical, yet it does not even appear to be that far off. The more obscure, the better.

Jason Lee unfortunately named his son Pilot Inspektor. Frank Zappa named his child Moon Unit. Memphis Eve was named under the influence of Bono, and fellow U2 member The Edge named his child Blue Angel. We are all aware of Michael Jackson’s son Blanket, but even more bizarre is his older brother Jermaine Jackson’s choice for his son Jermajesty. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Blue Ivy is now just an addition to the embarrassing list. Celebrities can trend set their hearts out, but if this catches on with the general public, we are all in for a troubled future.

Most of enlightened society, at least here in the western world, seems to be in agreement that racism is bad, in addition to sexism, ageism, etc. Whether or not you agree with this ideology, (and if you don’t, clearly university has not benefited you much), we all have an awareness that it is unacceptable to discriminate against any one group, and that human beings are all equals. Why then, is it okay to bash Americans? It seems like the many non-Americans even view this type of discrimination as funny. Some of you may even think it’s funny that I am even suggesting that bashing Americans should not be considered funny. But guess what? It shouldn’t be. Please crawl out of your discriminatory ideological trench and start giving people the respect they deserve as human beings, regardless of their nationality. Just because one country makes bad policies, is it fair to assume that every citizen of that country supports those policies? Of course not! In voting, there is always a majority and a minority. Just because the minority loses, does not mean that their views no longer exist. As an American, I certainly do support the idea of nationalised health-care, pulling out ofIraq, and legalizing gay marriage, to name just a few. I am also not religious, I don’t go to McDonald’s, and I don’t consider “socialism” to be a dirty word. And I assure you, I am not the only one. America is a big place, and it is therefore absurd to assume that every single citizen holds the exact same views. If that were the case, we wouldn’t bother with having different presidential candidates.

With the footage of the Republican primary all over the media at the moment, it’s hard to sit back and listen to people stick me in the same category as people with such drastically different views than my own, and judge me accordingly. You may think that I’m overreacting. “Come on, we’re just teasing you,” you might say. But would you tease someone for being black, or Asian? Not unless you knew the person well enough to know they wouldn’t take offence. But no matter how light-hearted their reaction is on the surface, how do you know that deep down they aren’t gritting their teeth? You don’t!

As someone who has travelled a lot, I’ve been encountering the “ugly American” stereotype pretty much since birth. I am used to people assuming that my family and I are stupid or rude before any of us have even opened our mouths. This is not something I discovered upon moving to Canada. One thing I did discover, however, is that some Canadians, (notice I said some Canadians, not all or most), seem to have actually internalized the notion that Canadians are “better” than Americans, to the point that they do not realise they are being offensive, when they negatively stereotype Americans directly to their faces. In fact, a Canadian friend of mine made one of these statements in a class we shared last semester, and I was shocked at how casually and unapologetically she made such a vast generalization.

But the truth is, no one country is better than another, because politicians and laws are not representative of the moral character of every citizen who happens to live in any particular place; might I add that people also do not choose where to be born. I’ve met nice Americans, and I’ve met rude ones. I’ve met nice Canadians, and I’ve met rude ones. The same goes for pretty much every other country I’ve ever visited.

So next time you are about to stereotype any nation, please remember that the majority is only one group out of the whole, and that the minority still exists, even after they lose. When two people meet each other for the first time, more often than not preconceptions only hinder their ability to get along. So, let’s just forget these stereotypes and start judging individuals by their own actions.

People are constantly asking me why I’m in a cat club. Do we talk about cats? Do we sit around with our knitting (actually some of us do…) and gossip about feline breeds? I wish it were that simple. Bishop’s University Cat Association isn’t a cat club; it’s a second chance at life. Over 4 000 cats are euthanized each year, and that’s just in the Sherbrooke area alone.

We rescue cats, we feed strays, we trap and neuter feral animals, we take in community cats and all around help fix and heal anything that purrs.  Except for the mountain lions that live in the woods behind the golf course, I wouldn’t suggest trying to neuter those wild felines.

The easiest and most effective method of avoiding such widespread euthanasia is to spay and neuter your pets. Only by implementing widespread sterilization programs can we get a handle on pet overpopulation. Having your pet spayed or neutered is a relatively inexpensive procedure if you consider the long-term costs you would have to pay, should your pet remain unsterilized. BUCA is here to help you afford the proper veterinary care for your feline friend.

So next time you see a BUCA table in the SUB, or a poster in the library, you won’t wonder if we spend our time debating on Himalayans or Siamese cats, but instead whose turn it is to drive to the vet, or sit at a fundraising table, and most importantly, how we can help find new homes for the kittens we have rescued, or provide help with neuter/spay services for those who can’t afford it! We also participate in bake sales, craft shows, community events, and we even have cat-themed items and thank-you gifts for our donors.  Anything helps, be it a monetary donation, or the gift of kitty litter, food, or even offering up your place as a temporary foster home.

If you are interested in helping our non-profit organization, are interested in adopting one of our many rescues, or want to make an appointment to fix your kitty… send us an e-mail!
If you see an animal hurt or in trouble on campus or witness cruelty towards an animal contact Bishop’s Security at: 819 822-9711 or ext. 2711 from a Bishop’s phone. If you notice an abandoned pet on campus, or if you yourself can no longer take care of your own pet, please contact BUCA at: bucats@ubishops.ca.
“Neuter and spay, it’s the kindest way.”

Sincerely,

The BUCA committee

Fact: partying, socializing, and living in residence are essential to the Bishop’s freshman experience.  Students love to explore other residences and halls- mingling, chatting and making new friends from the seven different buildings across campus. It is always interesting to walk into another residence for the first time to visit a friend and see how they live, noting the difference in rooms and hallways. It may seem trivial, but it is an important experience in the first year of university, especially at a predominantly residential institution like Bishop’s.

However, if a student is in a wheelchair, their ability to go to other residence buildings is severely compromised. Abbott, Kuehner, Pollack, Norton, andMunsterare five residence buildings that are completely inaccessible by any other way than foot, which make them off-limits to any students in a wheelchair. These buildings all have stairs approaching the doors and do not have elevators inside the building. This means a mobility-impaired student’s residence experience is restricted to one floor of Mackinnon, and thePatersonresidence.

Although Bishop’s claims, “Mackinnon (traditional style) and Paterson Hall (apartment style) are wheelchair accessible,” Mackinnon is not equipped with an elevator- meaning that it is only wheelchair accessible on the first floor, which is home to two bedrooms, and the common room. But there is much more in Mackinnon that is only available by way of stairs, including the basement common room, with pool and foosball tables, and the entire two upper floors of residential bedrooms.

Since the first floor of Mackinnon consists of merely two bedrooms, there are no real “floor-mates,” which often become a freshman’s closest group of friends.  The Bishop’s University student handbook states that residence helps “promote a community atmosphere that focuses on mutual respect and consideration for all members of the residence community.” How is it that people in wheelchairs are supposed to find this community atmosphere when they are segregated from having floor-mates and are unable to go up to the second and third floor, where approximately 115 students reside?

As for partying, The Gait is wheelchair accessible, but every Bishop’s student knows a substantial amount of Thursday and Saturday nights are spent hanging out in the bedrooms of residence and in the common areas, quite often not even in your own residence. In the Campus Master Plan Survey, published in the spring of 2005, it was stated “several buildings that were considered insufficiently or not wheelchair accessible, including the Library, Divinity, and the Sports Centre,” yet no mention was made about the inaccessibility of the residence buildings- the buildings in which Bishop’s notes as being so important to the student experience.

According to Study inCanada, 85% of Bishop’s University is wheelchair accessible, which is great for a university.   However, I believe students in wheelchairs should have access to 100% of what other students do.  With Bishop’s growing size, we need to consider making the entirety of campus accessible by wheelchair. Personally, I would be happy to see my money going towards this end.

Bishop’s is recognized for its friendly, diverse, open-hearted community, but we are excluding every student who is in a wheelchair from an integral part of student life. Every Bishop’s student should be entitled to the same rights, opportunities, and experiences. Bishop’s should be doing everything it can to make our residences and buildings entirely wheelchair accessible, or risk excluding vibrant and important members of our community- and losing our status as one of Canada’s leading undergraduate experiences.

A topic which hasn’t been sufficiently covered as of late is the Occupy Movement. I’ve been surprised that more people haven’t been talking about this whole thing, whether their opinion is good or bad. The Occupy Movement has become a worldwide phenomeno, which has been going on for over a month now, but here in the BU bubble there has been barely any talk about it, aside from one presentation hosted by Tierra del Fuego. Since then, I’ve only overheard a few misinformed conversations about it, and overall the discourse seems to be far too sparse for such an important world issue.

My perspective on the Occupy Movement is still undecided. While I think that they have a good point, and the issue that they’re trying to raise is valid, I don’t think that the way they’re trying to enact change is at all effective. According to the organizers during a November 15^th interview with the CBC, they’ve been “occupying” various venues in over 2,500 cities for more than a month. After a month however, we still can’t see any real difference that this worldwide movement has caused- other than creating a legal debate on how long the right to protest can endure before the authorities are allowed to tell them to move along.

The Occupy Movement began in New York, with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The whole cause revolves around the global economic crisis and how the vast majority of people are being made to carry the burden. Their slogan “We are the 99%” reflects the main issue that they are trying to fight against, namely income inequality. In 2007, 36% of the wealth of the United States was concentrated in 1% of all households, with the next 19% of households controlling another 50%, and approximately 80% of the all the households controlling only 15% of the nation’s wealth.  You can see how the disparity would bother some.

What really got the movement going was the debate this summer in the U.S. Congress in which there was debate about giving the top 1% another tax cut, at the expense of the rest of the country. They believe that this trend of wealth concentration is wrong, that it is a partial reason for the recession, and that it has killed the American Dream. Those against the Occupy movement rebut with comments like “we work harder than most, for longer hours” and “you should get a job.”  Well, there are no jobs in theU.S.because the top 1% has shipped them toChina.

Worse still, their message is being polluted by other activists trying to draw attention to their own causes.  Everybody from feminists to animal rights activists and extremists of every colour have banded with the Occupy movement, only diluting the original message.  Occupy has become so confused over what it stands for, and what its goals are, that any momentum it had has come to a grinding halt.

I agree with this message essentially: the top 1% in the U.S. are becoming an aristocracy which not only controls the nation’s wealth, but also the political process, and that unless something is done, they are going to morph into 18^th century France.  Unfortunately, we can’t all eat cake.

That being said, I disagree with how they are advocating their cause. A month with no results- and no hope of any in the near future- is a pretty poor indictment. Also, while solidarity for the movement is encouraging, bringing Canadian cities to a standstill doesn’t help anyone. The real problem is right where the movement took root.

As all of us have been persuaded to view, and no doubt the majority of us believe, this university is like no other in Canada. We are a university who takes great pride in itself, and indeed we have many reasons to be proud. From its small size, long history, and the personal bonds students have with our professors, to our outstanding sports teams, and close-knit community, the list goes on and on. But have you ever noticed how impolite we are with each other in our daily lives? I bet most of us haven’t even noticed this peculiarity of our campus culture. Foreign exchange students have surely noticed it, along with many of us slightly more conscious individuals. I noticed it right away in the first few months of my academic career here at BU.  And yet, I am guilty of it too.

The impolite peculiarity that I speak of is the superficiality of people’s attitudes towards students they don’t know, but even worse than that, is the superficiality they unconsciously impose on the people they do know. It’s a habit, this “Hey, how are you,” complex that permeates our campus culture. Most of you are probably still wondering what I mean by this. Those of you who were aware or sharp enough to notice the subtle erroneousness with the phrase, would have noticed that it should have rightfully been a question instead of a statement. Even as I type the phrase with the software I am using, the grammar checker flagged it as incorrect; that is, until I quoted it. To most Anglo-phones or fluent English users, it even should have seemed intuitively wrong somehow. Still, day in and day out, I hear the same incorrect idiosyncrasy. This strange paradigm that is, “Hey, how are you.”

How rude is it for someone to walk away without even waiting for a response to the apparent question? Well, to outsiders of our culture and to some of us insiders, it’s actually pretty rude as a fellow German exchange student, among other Canadian and exchange students, have told me over the years. Sure, those believing it to be rude may and do get used to this ludicrous mannerism, or to put it more bluntly, a good example of our selfish and overly stressed culture. However, it would be a whole lot nicer and more evolved of us to either tell it how it is, by simply saying “Hi” or something similar, or to simply stop and actually give a damn about the personal question we just asked. More importantly though, to actually give a damn about the person you just asked a personal question to, whether we are well acquainted or not.

In a discussion with my editor, she brought up the fact that this particularity more than likely occurs with less known acquaintances than it does with friends, which seems pretty accurate from my own experience. Now, there are all kinds of fringe occurrences like the one I’m talking about, when you feel like junk, but don’t want to admit it. Though this seems to be because of the fact that more than likely, the other person doesn’t want to hear about how terrible of day you had, or listen to how you still can’t figure out what you want to do with your life.

This preposterous part of our ostensible individualistic and impetuous culture is a prime example of our superficiality and small-minded thinking coming to head. Sure, many things could be debated, such as the fact that sometimes we just don’t have the time, etc., but frankly, there are few cases where it is acceptable to ask something and walk away without waiting for a response. Furthermore, this debate is far beyond the scope of this curtailed opinion, and section of the paper. But most importantly, there is one other thing that needs to be said: no matter how you look at it, it’s rude! Stop doing it. If you are going to say something at all, make it a simple “Hi,” or even a “Yo,” but stop asking questions about people’s lives without caring about or even waiting for a response. It’s rude, whether it’s intentional or not.

Then again, you know what is even worse than that, especially for a campus of this size? People who cannot smile back at other people. It’s just a smile. Deflate your ego and get over yourself already. You aren’t that good. It’s okay to smile back. In fact, it might even make you feel better and okay with who you really are under that overinflated ego. I guess what I am really trying to get at is that we should let go of those character traits that are holding us back from being friendly with each other. I am no hippy, but with such a small community, we should at least embrace each other’s existence by caring about one another and how we are doing. Perhaps we could even smile back at those who we may not even know, but embrace our presence on this planet with a smile.