All Posts Tagged With: "James Holmes"
HBO’s Girls, the plagiarism debate & free speech at U of T
What students are talking about today (January 14th)
Girl's Dunham (HBO/Instagram)
1. Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls won the Golden Globe for best TV comedy series last night right before the highly-anticipated premiere of the second season. I’d argue the opener was a bit of a letdown. Lead character Hannah (played by Dunham) has smartened up a bit by rejecting her mean sort-of-boyfriend in favour of new guy who presumably treats her better. If she gets too mature, that’s a problem as her Gen-Y cluelessness provided so much of the comic relief and provoked so many of the broader societal questions. Some of the other characters, including straight-laced Marnie, seem to also be changing in ways that make them less believeable. Interestingly, Dunham seems to have acknowledged those who accused Girls of being too white; her new fling is a black man.
Continue reading HBO’s Girls, the plagiarism debate & free speech at U of T
What students are talking about today (Aug. 31 edition)
Arcade Fire, James Holmes, professor pay and maple syrup
Lori L. Stalteri/Flickr
1. Thieves in Quebec stole $30-million of maple syrup from a warehouse in St-Louis-de-Blandford, 160 kilometres northeast of Montreal. You may think this is funny until you realize that it affects maple syrup prices for all of us. It’s a clear sign we need more offshore production.
2. Here’s a charity basketball game actually worth seeing: POP Montreal will host the second annual “POP vs. Jock,” game featuring Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Nikolai Fraiture of the Strokes while Arcade Fire’s lovely Régine Chassagne provides organ accompaniment. They will battle with McGill Redmen and Concordia Stingers on Sept. 22 at McGill’s Sports Centre.
3. Harvard University is investigating 125 students for cheating on a take-home final exam. Nearly half of the students in an introductory government class are suspected of jointly coming up with answers or copying off one another. It’s a sad day folks: the honour system has been discredited.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 31 edition)
What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
Guns on campus, a Bar Mitzvah video, teacher’s college…
nukeit1/Flickr
1. The University of Colorado Boulder announced it will require students who live in undergraduate residence halls to forgo bringing handguns to campus. That may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s a bold step for Boulder in light of a Colorado Supreme Court decision in March that affirmed students’ rights to handguns on campus. The rule does not apply to graduate students. Let it be noted that James Holmes, the man who killed 12 and wounded 58 others at The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado in July, was a graduate student.
2. A new $100 bank note with an Asian-looking woman peering into a microscope was deemed too controversial by a focus groups. Instead of simply rolling their eyes, the Bank of Canada purged the note in favour of a “neutral” Caucasian-looking figure. To quote from the report received by The Canadian Press: “Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology… Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes.”
3. Research In Motion is laying off so many people right now that it isn’t even bothering to meet with all of them in person. The BlackBerry maker dumped 100 workers in Halifax this week by herding them into a room and then showing them a teleconference link with someone at Waterloo, Ont. headquarters. One worker called it “inhumane,” because she couldn’t even ask questions.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
What students are talking about today (Aug. 13 edition)
Drunkorexia, James Holmes and fake guns at U. Alberta
ARTSTARSTV/YouTube
1. Drunkorexia, a diet where students skip meals and load up on the calories in alcohol, isn’t an urban legend as some once thought. In fact, a Canadian clinical psychologist surveyed 230 York University students aged 17 to 21 and found that heavy drinking was more closely associated with dieting than other forms disordered eating, like emotional or impulse eating.
2. The University of Alberta Students’ Union Building was evacuated on Sunday after reports of someone carrying an assault rifle on campus. It turned out it was a paintball rifle and an airsoft gun that were part of a movie shoot. Considering this campus witnessed a triple murder earlier this year, we can understand why students reported what they saw.
3. Canadian electro-pop star Peaches performed to hundreds in a Berlin park to show support for the members of a feminist band on trial in Russia for performing a “punk prayer” against President Vladimir Putin in a cathedral. Her new song is called “Free Pussy Riot.”
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 13 edition)
