Vote Yes for acrostics!
Re: “Vote Yes for The Daily” | Commentary | March 6, 2008
Daring
Awesome
Intelligent
Legacy
Yes!!! Vote YES!!!!
Dina Cipin
U2 Psychology
Vote Yes for optimism!
Re: “Vote Yes for The Daily” | Commentary | March 6, 2008
“Why is the McGill Daily?” does the pessimist persist.
“At least,” says the optimist, “it does exist.”
Lester Corbeau
U1 Ornithology
Vote Yes for rice!
You guys are absolutely fantastic. Don’t let the man get you down. You are easily the hardest working men and women in show business. I read you every day, even though you only publish two issues a week. Which kind of sucks, because I end up reading a lot of articles, twice, thrice, or sometimes rice.
Whatever, you rock.
Marie-Marguerite Sabongui
U3 International Development Studies & English
Shave The Daily
Re: “Vote Yes for The Daily” | Commentary | March 6, 2008
Every single issue printed this month has been filled with the rhetoric of salvation. The word “save” is most often reserved for church bulletins and supermarket circulars, but now what’s in peril is this newspaper, not dollars or souls. When I first started to work for The Daily I didn’t think I would ever see the day that it needed to be saved.
Over 97 years, The Daily has had its fair share of hurdles, but you’re still holding it in your hands. In 1981, when the student body voted to make The Daily autonomous, founding the Daily Publications Society (you’re a member!), the editors and readers adapted to the new independence. The suits in James Admin, and SSMU too, at times, have tried to strip the Daily of its fees and its office, but none of it stuck.
In my opinion, The Daily remains steadfast because of its quality. At a school where there is no journalism department – the joke is that the editors run the McGill Daily School of Journalism – the independent paper has one of the largest circulations of Canadian student publications and is routinely recognized for its excellence. I’m sure there are those who dislike The Daily and its politics, but I challenge those people to provide an acceptable reason for its obliteration. Good luck, bastards.
Joseph Watts
U3 English Literature & Art History
Daily columnist
Former Daily editor
Max Silverman is Monica Lewinsky, Drew Nelles is Ken Starr
Re: “SSMU exec wannabes vie for powers” | News | March 6, 2008
Has anyone else noticed that the SSMU Presidential campaign is a white female (whose boyfriend is a previous president) running on a campaign of experience against a white (no comparison is perfect) male running on a campaign of change? But I digress, RJ’s charisma has not inspired a “mania” and Jake is certainly no Bill Clinton (sorry, I just don’t see him using a cigar in that way) even if he did have a scandal of his own calling for his impeachment.
I do find it interesting that a campaign is running on the slogan, “not another student politician” defined as “a student who isn’t afraid to take a risk.” Student politics and politicians suck, no argument there.
But by claiming one is not a student politician, there is an implication that the other side is. Last year, that claim would have certainly been true of Jake. But is it true of Kay? This allegation has yet to be proven. It reeks of politics. Is association by relationship an association of guilt? Surely, Kay is a strong enough woman to differentiate herself from Jake. Furthermore, I fail to see how two years of AUS student politics is that much different than student politics in SSMU for two years. And even more pertinent, is whether someone who initially ran for AUS President with the help of Jake and his “political machine” (as ridiculous as that sounds) and then chose not to run the next year when Jake was running for president, can be considered a non-politician.
A student politician is one who is interested in themselves, back room deals and bureaucracy, not one who is afraid of risks. Defining it as the latter is not getting out of the realm of politics but staying firmly within it just in a different flavour, populism.
I would love to see student politics and politicians removed from our campus. It’s almost pathetic for people to care enough that they turn into these visceral animals. But even more dangerous than a student politician is a student politician masquerading as not being one.
Having said that, I want to emphasize this is not an endorsement of either candidate, merely a deflation of rhetoric.
Dave Schecter
BaSc U2 History & Biomedical Sciences
Student Politician
A Nuit Blanche whodunit
Re: “An editor’s look at the plagiarism allegations” | Commentary | Feb. 21, 2008
Firstly, Nuit Blanche in Shatner was definitely one of the most successful events I have ever seen pulled off in my three years at McGill, and for that I believe that The Daily must give credit where credit is due.
The AUS Fine Arts Council did a phenomenal job. Unfortunately, The Daily misinterpreted their efforts to make a political statement. Neglecting to mention the co-commissioner Laura D’Angelo at all in the article, mentioning ever so slightly the initiatives of the Fine Arts Council as a whole disrespects the efforts of those who worked weeks and months to make this amazing event happen.
So if you won’t acknowledge them, I will say it for you:
Congratulations to Stephanie Latendresse and Laura D’Angelo, Co-Commissioners of the Fine Arts Council, and the members of the FAC: Marc Goldfinger, Marina LaVerghetta, Francois MacDonald, Sarah Kestenberg, Joanna Gins, Talia Bronstein, Elizabeth Mirhady and RJ Kelford.
It really was an amazing event celebrating the fine arts at McGill. The performances were spectacular, the arts and crafts were awesome and the event on whole showcased the wonderfully talented and creative students that we have here at McGill.
My hat is definitely off to the Fine Arts Council.
Emily Elizabeth Goodman
U3 Art History
A message for you, Mr. Mahler
Re: “Anti-Daily blogger publishes letter in Daily, misses irony” | Letters | March 6, 2008
Well Mahler, I’m all for quality student press and the maintenance of high standards with regards to plagiarism, however there seems to be one gigantic hole in the logic behind what you say and the way you’ve been acting with regard to The Daily. This hole, frankly, is that you persistently (and having visited your eerily passionate blog, I can say anally) criticize The Daily from the outside.
The statement of purpose on your “Daily Watch” blog says “I’ve decided to document the errors, infelicities, EMO-writing, empty-headed pretentiousness and obscurantism I encounter in the issues [of The Daily] I read this year.” Great. I get it, the media needs their own watchdog, someone to ensure truthful, intelligent reporting. I think strong media watchdogs could go a long way – they might ensure the likes of Bill O’Reilly and FOX News were held accountable for what they say. But in your case, why criticize from the outside when you can contribute positively from the inside? I invite you, Mahler, to try writing for The Daily. I think that from within your passion and attention to detail would be of greater value.
Besides disagreeing with you over the quality of writing and production of The Daily, one further issue I take is that as a student, you choose to spend your free time deliberately and falsely interpreting what’s written, nitpicking or searching for errors to fulfill some backwards agenda of proving The Daily to be run by incompetent evil-spreading punks, all the while thinking this will somehow result in positive self-promotion.
For me, reading The Daily isn’t about reading as professional a publication as possible, it’s about connecting with my school community, understanding what my peers are passionate about, what events are going on in and around campus, what can be done to fix the world, etc. I think you’ve missed the value of The Daily entirely, and for that I feel sorry for you.
Perrin Valli
U2 Physics and Political Science
Our first message from the blogosphere!
As an avid blog reader, I’m ecstatic to see that the Daily’s web site has entered into the 21st century with its addition of blogs. I was extremely dismayed to find, however, that its RSS feed (that allows readers of multiple blogs to track and read their blogs from a central web site like GoogleReader) only contains short excerpts of the entries, and requires the reader to click-through to the website to read it.
I call on The Daily to change this and allow the entire entry to be read via aggregator! In the world of blogs, only corporate-run blogs seeking to maximize advertising revenue do RSS excerpts, while the true grassroots blogs eschew that form of revenue maximization and instead allow for information to flow freely. I hope this was not a conscious choice, as it flies in the face of all that I thought The Daily stood for. Until you allow the full entries to be included in the RSS feed, I will be boycotting your blogs. I recommend acceding to my demands, because I was probably going to be the only one reading the blogs in the first place. [Ed note: The Daily has ended its brief, torrid flirtation with corporate evil. Our RSS feed now provides full blog posts.]
Yahel Carmon
U2 Political Science & Economics
Daily not worth the paper its printed on?
Here is a question for The Daily. Why do you print 22,000 papers a week? Anyone who looks at a newsstand on Sunday or Wednesday knows that there is nowhere near that much demand for the papers, with huge piles constantly sitting unread. I’ve been told that the reason is that it allows The Daily to tell advertisers that it has a circulation of 22,000, and thus charge more than they otherwise could. So, it seems that The Daily is lying and hurting the environment in order to make more money. Is that not quite hypocritical, coming from a paper that frequently advocates for environmentalism? Or, maybe I’m completely misunderstanding the situation, but either way, an explanation would be appreciated.
Jeffrey Fisher
U2 Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Hey Claire!
Yeah, what?
Claire Caldwell
U1 English and French Literature
Daily Culture editor
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