As World Cup fever dies out and fans look forward to the 2014 tournament in Brazil, kits and scarves go back into the closet and the world disunites to its respective corners, looking forward to the next reunion down the road.

Everyone knows the World Cup is important. It is the global apex of sports competition and it has a power to unify the world. Sure, we all made jokes about how the North Korean national team would be subject...

With the beginning of the school year comes the slow inevitable panic of fourth year students not sure what lies beyond April exams for them. Students will scramble to determine whether they want to find work, supplement their university education with a college diploma or apply to graduate or law school.

Students increasingly are finding themselves out of work upon graduation, or lacking the skills necessary for the modern, high-tech economy. There is a false assumption that more years of...

Six months after a massive earthquake hit Haiti, foreign aid dollars have still not been delivered to the country, which continues to be wracked with destruction, impoverishment and grief. At the beginning of the month the United Nations reported that only 60 per cent of pledged aid has actually been spent on the ground as part of the reconstruction effort.

While this number is abysmal, it is nothing when compared to the fact that Canada thus far has spent only...

Recent incidents have the world’s majority condemning the Israeli state as “war criminals” and “human rights violators”.

When it comes to hot-button issues like Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the recent flotilla raid, everyone has an opinion, and everyone is an apparent expert in international law.

I’m sorry to have to point out that bias is what drives most opinions on this matter, not understanding of laws and rights.

The question at hand is whether or not Israel is...

As a political progressive who really prefers to just get things done, I’ve long shied away from the conflict in Israel/Palestine. So often I’ve seen rooms full of otherwise reasonable people descend into shouting matches. These always seem so much more personal than any other left/right division, so full of hate and closed ears and hurt feelings that I want to stay miles away.

That familiar old pattern has popped up right on cue as the debate rages over Israel’s...

“The loneliness was terrible,” Alex said. “I am rather shy and introverted.” He spoke quietly. 

“I spend the entire week going to classes, studying, chatting with classmates, then on weekends I am alone and lonely…and the loneliness is terrible.”

Alex is just one of the 25 per cent of all Canadians who suffer from chronic loneliness, and for them “the loneliness is terrible.”

We are just learning that loneliness, that most intimate and least congenial of companions, haunts our development, keeping...

On June 12, the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union (WLUSU) board of directors met to evaluate the capital expenditures budget for the coming year. Controversy has already erupted over the nature of certain spending projects designed to reach out to the student body.

The first is a series of eight new LCD screens for the Fred Nichols Campus Centre (FNCC) and the second is a smartphone application designed to make student union news easily accessible for students.

The Student Life...

This past weekend, G20 protesters got out of hand and destroyed public and private spaces along major streets of Toronto’s downtown core. Those few individuals who broke the law during what was largely a peaceful protest must be persecuted for their crimes.

Outside of the violence created and perpetuated by small black bloc groups, there have also been accusations and evidence presented against security forces protecting the summit perimeter.

A public inquiry into the occurrences of this past weekend needs...

Arriving in my Bricker Residence room on a sunny day in September of 2006, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first-year Laurier student who was eager to learn.

Somewhere between the stresses of moving and the excitement of a newfound freedom, I lost the zeal for learning I once had, which did not return until very late in my university career.

However, there are many ways to avoid the mid-university-career brain chill, where students often become bogged down with required...

John Kennedy: Against

Changes ignore the will of parents

While I’ll let the progressives and the religious duke it out in the war for moral decency and the right to indoctrinate the youth, instead I will to appeal to common sense and logic. Recently debate has exploded about the newly proposed, and highly controversial, sexual education curriculum put forth by the McGuinty government.

This curriculum would have children learning about homosexuality and gender identity as early as grade three...

In a time when Conservatives don’t really act conservative anymore, there is one field in which a more right-wing mindset has gradually advanced in Canada: crime policy.

The Conservative Party has pushed an aggressive approach to be “tough on crime” with a combination of mandatory minimum sentences on a broad range of offenses from growing as few as six marijuana plants to car theft, tightening up bail restrictions and pushing for mandatory breathalyzer tests. Why has crime been at the...

Municipal elections are approaching across the province and it is very important for students to get involved. A Laurier student is running for council in the Uptown ward, while a recent Waterloo graduate is running for Central Columbia.

This is a good sign that students are becoming engaged in the municipal election process, which will go a long way to properly integrate students into the community as a whole.

The ward structure in the city makes it very difficult for...

At the most recent meeting of the Waterloo city council a proposal was presented to install pay and display machines on Bricker, Ezra and Clayfield Avenue where Laurier students frequently park.

This proposal was designed to help reduce parking infractions.

The Cord Editorial Board is deeply concerned that this proposal is a deliberate targeting of students by the city for a money grab. Councillor Diane Freeman, who strongly opposes the measure, expressed similar concern.

What is even more alarming...

If there is one thing I remember from my short-lived days as a BBA student, it is not the countless dollars spent on a calculus tutor or hours mindlessly crunching numbers.

The thing I remember most is a joke made in the early weeks of BU111.

“What do you say to the philosophy major?” the professor asked. Despite a lecture hall of clever, over-eager business kids, no one knew how to respond. He answered for us, “How much do I...