Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Shivaun Hoad, Paul Collier,
Phil Isard, Harry Potter,
Tim Foster
EDITOR Most people I know would be really offended by Christine’s opinion. While
I live behind Mel’s she has her ways of being cheeky, she does raise an important perspective.
Diner, so late night As a campus minister in the city, I thought it appropriate to say thank you for
trips through the plaza Disagree with Pastor bringing these problematic evangelistic methods to the forefront. Also, I’d
on Fubar and Caesar Russo? Read something like to assure Christine and the readers of Imprint that many Christians are
Martini’s nights are else that irks or excites doing their best to re-examine and re-articulate their evangelistic zeal in a way
always interesting, to you? that is truly authentic. I’m also sure the Campus for Christ desires to grow in
say the least. their approach to serve and support students on campus.
A few weeks ago, I Christine’s important perspective is a great sign on how much we can learn
was crossing the plaza
Send us your your
even from those who don’t particularly agree with our perspective. Thank
to a set of stairs I use as a cut-through when a group of guys hanging thoughts. you.
from a giant pickup truck started heckling me. It was late — around 1 — Domenic Ruso, M.A.
a.m. or so — and I was alone, mildly intoxicated and completely powerless opinion@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Lead Pastor, The Embassy
but to keep my head down and suffer through their pigheaded remarks.
As I approached the stairs, they proceeded to pull their truck in front of
the entrance. When I tried to go around the front, they pulled forward;
around back, they backed up.
Furious, I stormed around the back of the truck, giving a wide berth
Pink tie activism
and just daring them to test me further. Shaking with rage, I stalked home.
My own helplessness, my inability to do anything except try not to exacer- The Internet Collective actively tries COMMUNITY is spent dealing with revolving-door
bate the situation further and even the prickle of fear I felt infuriated me. to court computer geeks to work on a attrition and retraining instead of
Every fiber of me wanted to turn around and tell those motherfuckers centralized WPIRG infrastructure so EDITORIAL matters at hand.
exactly how ignorant and childish they were — but I knew that doing so that the rest of the organization can 3) I wish I could say that all uni-
could potentially result in a very nasty situation so I left the four rednecks do the important things like, you know, This is probably due to the follow- versity students spend most of their
to their longnecks and stormed around my room instead. change the world (instead of changing ing reasons: time doing work, but it does feel like
It’s not the first time that something along these lines has happened to their web pages). They don’t get all that 1) This school loves balkaniza- select non-math faculties work in
me and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Discussing the event with a group of many people, but it’s a great resource for tion. I have heard arts faculty crave extreme workload bursts while math
female friends, I heard tales of fear — both real and imagined — when people who want to carry the revolution interested people to work on their is more of a constant churn. If this
walking somewhere alone at night. I hate the fact that I have to consider without being that in-your-face or even convergence of english/philoso- is actually the case, who can blame
what path to take through a park or walk in fear to my own front door all that idealistic about it. phy/etc. and computer science and students for spending their time on
just because I’m female. I was at a meet’n’greet for the Wa- not even think about asking their weekly assignments instead of taking
I know 90 per cent of my paranoid freakouts stem from too many terloo Sustainability project a few weeks northern neighbours, many of whom advantage of their student population
scary movies and episodes of Buffy when I was little, but the question ago. I encountered a few people who would love to work on an educational membership?
still remains; how valid are those fears, and how many of them are our were frustrated with the state of their video game based on the Canterbury
own fabrications from years of pop culture submersion? group’s online communication and in- Tales or whatever. For goodness’ I hope that the Internet Collective,
From Little Red Riding Hood to Scream, women are taught to look twice frastructure. They were not at all aware sake, we have at least one class per Waterloo Students for Information
when going down a dark alleyway or to look over their shoulder when of what other like-minded groups were term of idiots who sacrifice sleep for Commons and all other geek brother-
walking through a park. From our first fables through present day horror doing, and it even sounded like these OpenGL! In general, one faculty’s hoods continue growing as I’ve seen
flicks cautionary tales have been told to young girls so they know what groups shared similar mandates but population tends to be ignorant, them do in these last few months. I
kind of situations to avoid; however, what if those little life lessons are remained isolated; two different groups condescending and rather scared of hope that the UW Website Designers
actually perpetuating the problem? dividing resources that could better be any other. If that stupidity permeates (a proposed Feds club pending ap-
I have to wonder, if I didn’t have that tiny grain of fear twitching at spent together. But that’s a political issue our primary function, can you expect proval) achieve their plan of forming
the back of my head, would I have turned around and faced them? Told upon which I’m digressing. it to dissipate when it comes to our a centralized computing resource for
them off and stopped them from bothering another girl? Or would I You’d figure that, in the centre of extra-curricular activities? Feds organizations, and that some kind
have made it worse? nerd batongaville, there would be at least 2) Surely there are a significant of movement allows Waterloo to have
Most likely, had I stopped they would have laughed, said something a sizeable enough bunch of nerd-activ- number of people who don’t par- a strong activist presence in math/CS
crude and that would have been it. They would have done it to the next ists to set up these ships and keep them take in co-op, but this school is that matches that in the interest/ethnic
girl too, and I probably would have been even angrier. The situation running. This fourth-year CS nihilist structured such that too many CS groups we tend to favour.
could have proved dangerous, so logically I know that walking away was shouldn’t have to be concerned about people spend two months settling
the best thing to do. the state of his faculty’s attitude on so- into their roles at Waterloo before — Gaelan D’costa
Are scary movies and modern day fables created to teach women to cial activism. This school has untapped preparing themselves to leave again. Gaelan D’costa was one of those
protect themselves from necessary evils? Or, are they abetting the system power — coder power — and we haven’t I’m certain that no matter how many OpenGL idiots, in which case the term is
by normalizing a female culture of fear? yet done a damn thing about it. people stick around, too much time apt description and not one of endearment.
My thoughts are split on this one, because I feel pop culture is more
a manifestation of the ills of our society than a catalyst; however, its
impact on our society is equally undeniable. So, I leave it to you. Go
online to http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca and share your thoughts in the
comment section because this issue is too complex and multifaceted
to be fully explored here. I’ll be adding thoughts, research and links to
other articles throughout the week on this very subject to help further
the discussion.
acsanady@imprint.uwaterloo.ca