Et tu, brutes?
While walking home two Saturdays ago, I fell upon the demonstration against police brutality. At first, I watched the protestors calmly walk down Ontario as they chanted. Looking from afar, I was pleased to see the demonstration, as police brutality is an issue that needs to be addressed in Montreal. However, as they marched toward St. Laurent and Maisonneuve, I realized that this demonstration was simply another angry display of anarchy.
There’s no denying that Montreal police have been using unnecessary force in recent years. But the hostile, anti-authoritative attitudes that were used by some of the demonstrators did not help in forming a collective understanding on the issue of police brutality. Most of the onlookers, including myself, were either irritated or ashamed at the situation that took place on Saturday.
The number of police that were present for the demonstration did seem excessive. Police on bicycles, in helicopters, in vans, and probably plain-clothed officers, were all present to watch over. Unfortunately, the actions of the protesters later warranted the high attendance of officers.
Rather than express their frustration with police brutality through peaceful actions and words, protesters began cursing and throwing sticks at the officers and police vehicles. At one point, several masked protesters grabbed a garbage bin on wheels from behind a store (which I’m certain had no involvement with the police) and began to jump on it as others pushed and blocked the police cars.
Now, I’m not quite sure if this act is meant to represent a passionate hatred towards the police, but I simply saw it as an embarrassment to those who actually work in addressing and resolving police aggression.
Another high point of the demonstration was the vandalism and total disrespect for public property. Although the protest had finished by Saturday evening, I now have to read “Fuck La Police” on buildings and signs as I walk to school everyday. I’ll give it another few day – I’m sure I’ll get the message soon.
Melody Lotfi
U1 Political Science
Former SSMU Prez should’ve just visited CAPS
Just the other day I was sitting in the computer room in my barracks at Fort Lee, Virginia, where I recently attended school to become a Unit Supply Specialist for the U.S. Army. I pulled up The Daily looking for the latest SSMU election scandal. I found it, and couldn’t help but notice that not only are SSMU elections predictably scandalous but so is the McGill admin. Going after the “McGill” in “McGill First Aid Service” (MFAS) reminded me of the sick world I left to go be trained to kill.
Later that day I learned to disassemble and reassemble an MK19 40mm Grenade Machine Gun, one of the deadliest weapons in the US arsenal, capable of firing grenades up to 2,212 meters at a rate of 375 to 400 per minute. To my shock and awe I discovered, engraved on parts of the bolt assembly, the name “MCGILL.”
Aaron Donny-Clark
B.A. 2007
A love letter for The Daily
This human issue was awesome. You might not have seen it like that, but please suffer my enumeration: It all starts with the Book of Life. Then you speak about evolution. You then go on with childhood at a length, from daycare to literature to radio to music to biking. Fertility is discussed under sex education, contraceptive methods, gametes donation, adoption. Jobs are touched on in politics, sex workers, and student-parents. Finally, death is represented in germaphobia.
I’m really happy to read articles about events I would have liked to attend but couldn’t (technology, adoption is bad), or were unappropriately covered in the mainstream media (Jérôme-Forget’s budget, especially on the environment).
Lastly, reading your upper editorial, I understood certain people’s view that minority rights are threatening. As an enviro, I of course want a sustainability center. Student parents want an office. Someone in the admin wants a learning centre. If all those changes were to be implemented at once in a timely fashion, our dear institution would lose ground and become alienated from its statutes. Maybe the solution is status quo, maybe it’s participatory democracy.
I’m going to miss you, Daily, once I graduate (even if you’re online).
Lynne Champoux-Williams
U3 Environment
SSMU Arts Senator
Clinging onto cheesy jokes
The word “Bike” begins with an upper-case “B” when it’s at the beginning of a sentence. A lower-case “k” is easily transformed into an upper-case “R,” while a lower-case “e” is only a tail away from becoming a lower-case “g.”
Now, if you had only put an extra space between the “i” and the “k” of “Bike” in your last cover, it would have made it easier for me to change “Bike collective” to “Borg collective” on the cover of every copy of The Daily I could lay my hands on and annoy everyone I know who is not a Star Trek fan and thus does not get the reference.
Thanks any way for putting such an entertaining and reasonably vulnerable word on the cover page, that too coupled with a relevant word juxtaposed. It made my day.
Manosij Majumdar
U1 Chemical Engineering
Crackpot attempts humour, fails due to utter craziness
This is a poem in response to the Literary Supplement in the issue from March 20. It is entitled, “Gettin’ Crunk”: “Poetry is dead, Let’s all go to Jonestown, Poetry consumed the Kool-Aid, let’s have an old-timey hoe-down.”
The fiction was so-so.
P.S: Watch the skies! The aliens are monitoring their monitoring beams, which are in turn monitoring us, who are monitoring others through devices such as the world wide web and telescopes. These telescopes may be used to monitor the aliens in turn. Watch the skies through your telescopes!
Devon Welsh
U1 Religious Studies
Not hooked on Phonix
I would like to commend “DJ Phonix” on his recent big-screen debut at the Fokus Film Festival. His masterful depiction of a complex human being making their transition from youth to man exhilarated me and my associates from the modest opening credits to the “much-too-soon” ending. Having wanted the film to continue, I suggest a sequel. If I may offer a criticism, I believe that the film did not feature enough pot-smoking. Also, the film was edited too well. Give some of the other wannabe-Phonixes out there a shot! I suggest that The Daily write and publish a feature story on the incredibly interesting and obviously hardship-fraught life of this elegant artist of a man.
P.S: I suggest that more aliens also be included in the sequel. Keep watchin’ them old-timey skies!
Devon Welsh
U1 Religious Studies
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