LEWPOINES sororssemve woo

THE VOICE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 6

Make war
not love for
our society

magine a world without war. A
Fe where fear and persecution

didn’t exist, and everyone lived out
their own ideals, blissful, content,
and free. Could you imagine it? The
realm of imagination is the only
place this utopia could ever exist, as
world peace is contingent on the
idea that mankind can unanimously
agree on things.

A World Peace Forum wil be held
at Langara this weekend. Organiz-
ers insist that “We are confronted
with the worst crisis humanity has
ever faced,” citing wars, environ-
mental threats, changes to working
standards and capitalism as causes.
If you distill each factor down to its
essence, the entire threat can be
summed up in one word: conflict.

This of course is nothing new. As
long as man has been able to
formulate ideas, insisted that his
way was the undeniable truth and
had the passion to stand up for his
convictions, conflict has always
ensued.

Zoologist Konrad Lorenz says that
there is an innate “fighting instinct
in beast and man which is directed
against members
of the same
species.” Others,
such as animal
behaviourist John
Paul Scott, say
that “fighting
behavior among
higher mammals,
including man,
originates in
external stimula-
tion.”

I say, not only are we humans
hardwired for conflict, we thrive on
it. We even fabricate it for entertain-
ment. It’s the main element of a
good story on TV and in movies. It is
the driving force behind competitive
sports, a man-made venue of strife.
Would society even want it any
other way?

I don’t want a world where you
and I agree on everything. I don’t
want a world absent of contrasting
thoughts, ideas, and inspirations.
You may think only the most
extreme of disagreements leads to
violence, but I say the smallest clash
of wills can lead to war. Men have
killed over hamburgers.

World peace is a noble pipe
dream, but a better world isn’t.
Instead of people striving for an
impossible goal, let’s instead find a
solution that doesn’t compromise
our personal ideals.

OPINION

JENNIFER FONG

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Wage increase pitiful

rose to $9.50. Next May it will be
$10.25.

These increases follow an initial
increase in May of this year to $8.75.
They are the first changes made to
the minimum wage in a decade.

It is shocking
that the province
with the highest
house prices in
the country anda
higher than
average cost of
living, has had

L:: week the B.C. minimum wage

ay

OPINION

the lowest
minimum wage in
LYNDACHAPPLE =the country for so
long.
In comparison

to other provinces, the self-pro-
claimed “best place on earth”,
deems its minimum-wage workers,
young and old, as unworthy of a fair
hourly wage. That is an appalling
insult.

The average minimum wage
across the country is $9.80 which
leaves B.C. below other provinces
such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,
and Manitoba who average $10.

B.C.’s Liberal government has put
its own interests over that of the
minimum wage earner in the
province.

In 2007 the government gave
approved wage increases of 29 per
cent for MLAs and 54 per cent for
the premier.

During the same year, New
Democratic Party MLA Dawn Black
announced in the house that her
community of New Westminster had
introduced a living wage for city
workers.

The living wage is defined “as
enough to keep a family of two work-
ing adults and two children above
the poverty line,” stated Black. “For
New Westminster, that works out to
$16.74 an hour,” more than double
the minimum wage of $8 at the time.

The recent increase, in compari-
son, looks more like a token gesture
rather than a “living wage” that will
make a difference to those people
who need it.

Even with a small increase,
employers have gotten off easy the
past ten years and yet some are still
whining.

\

Cartoon By
ALEXANDRA GRANT

That sounds eerily similar to a
certain Christmas character that
needed to see the past, present and
future before his eyes were opened.

According to the Bank of Canada
inflation calculator, B.C. is still
below the rate of inflation. After the
current increase, it should be sitting
at $10.04. Unfortunately, that does
not account for the cost of living
increases.

The government’s minimum-wage
increases might have been more
effective if they weren’t delayed for
so long.

That way, small businesses would

adjust to the rise of inflation and the
system wouldn’t be as blindsided as
it is with the increases made in a
single year.

Overall the government must put
the citizens of its province first and
not themselves when it comes to
wage increases.

Likewise, business owners need
to recognize it is their minimum-
wage workers that allow them to
take days off during Christmas and
Thanksgiving and spend weekends
with their families.

Employees must be compensated
for what that luxury is worth.

Internet ruins political reps

elcome to the Date Matrix.
W It’s a blog entry in which

NPA Vancouver city council
candidate, Jason Lamarche, rated
women he knew out of ten in areas
like creativity, professionalism and,
controversially, her skills in the
bedroom.

Lamarche created the matrix in
his blog, The Business Student,
while studying commerce at
Langara College in 2007.

Since discovery of the blog entry
last week, Lamarche has not only
provided political ammo for his
competition, but a loud warning bell
for future professionals: what you
write online lasts forever, duh.

As a woman I’m not mad that the
former college boy rated women
sexually; men do it all of the time in
the privacy of locker rooms. The
issue is where he chose to do it.

People are constantly warned
about the eternity of the web. And
Lamarche isn’t (only) a person; he’s
a politician.

Former Democratic New York
congressman, Anthony Weiner, blew

his political career after he sent a
picture of his crotch to a young
woman over Twitter early this year.
In what became known as
“Weiner-Gate,” Weiner, a married
man, first denied the crotch shot as
his, but as more
evidence came
forward, he
confessed.
Across the
pond, UK politi-
cian Stuart
MacLennan, was
fired from
Britain’s Labour

our OPINION
careless tweeting,  KHETHIWE RUDD

A tweet he
posted about fair
trade drew the most attention: “God
this fairtrade, organic banana s***,
Can [have a slave-grown, chemically
enhanced, genetically modified one
please?”

Vancouver city councillor, Andrea
Reimer of Vision Vancouver, also got
in hot water over her tweet address-
ing the B.C. housing minister, Rich

Coleman’s, weight.

“Thinking about introducing a
motion requiring police to pick up
Minister Coleman next time in
Vancouver and dropping him off at
Jenny Craig.”

The tweet came after Reimer
disagreed with proposed legislation
for the 2010 Winter Olympics that
allowed police to forcibly move
homeless people into shelters
during bad weather.

As for Lamarche, we may only
know the consequences after the
municipal election Nov. 19.

His party leader, Suzanne Anton,
defended him to the press. But
Lamarche later apologized for the
comments and even fingered Vision
Vancouver for launching a smear
campaign against him.

And if you’re dying to check out
his blog, don’t bother. Since the
news broke you can only view The
Business Student blog through
invitation. But as we all know, the
Internet is forever and you can still
find the blog’s contents with a quick
Google search.

MeN oice

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