Segacs’s World I Know

It’s about that time again . . .

Allow me to take this opportunity to wish a Happy Passover to all of you out there celebrating tonight, tomorrow night, and this week.

I hope everyone has a nice, crazy, family-filled seder. Enjoy your cardboard – er – matzah. And go easy on that Manichewitz wine. The stuff is awful, I’m telling you! Tastes like syrup! (Update: Wendy agrees with me).

With most of the polls reporting, the fairly final election results are as follows:

• Liberals – 76 seats – 45.84% of popular vote
• Parti Québécois – 45 seats – 33.25% of popular vote
• Action Démocratique – 4 seats – 18.28% of popular vote

The race in this election was pretty close all along, with Charest and the Liberals really only gaining momentum after the debate, and pulling away in the past 3-4 days. Tonight, however, the biggest race was between the networks, to see who would predict the outcome the soonest after polls closed.

And all the candidates for Premier have really bad hair. Dumont’s isn’t all that bad, if a little stiff. But Charest’s still got the chia-pet thing going on, and Landry, oh that combover is painful!

And of course in more important news, Mike Weir won the Masters yesterday, becoming the first Canadian golfer to win a major PGA tournament ever.

Personally I am not particularly interested in golf. But living with a father whose motto is “golf is life”, I’ve picked up a thing or two about the game. And I suppose that with the Habs practicing their own swings while other, better teams compete in the playoffs, a little pride can’t hurt. So, uh, yay Weir!

Charest and company have reason to celebrate tonight, as the Liberals take a projected 75 of 125 seats in the National Assembly. The PQ is down to only 46 seats, with the remaining 4 going to the ADQ.

Hopefully now sovereignty can take a back burner and the government can actually focus on governing for the next five years. It ought to be refreshing.

As I’d predicted, my vote wasn’t really that important in my home riding of Robert-Baldwin, where Pierre Marsan, the Liberal candidate, took 86% of the vote. Somewhat surprisingly the PQ finished second, and the “why did they bother” Equality party was fourth with only 347 votes at the time I write this. I would have thought the ADQ might do better here, because it’s such a safe Liberal stronghold that some people might have felt like they could get away with voting for them, but the ADQ candidate only managed to get 5% of the vote for a third-place finish.

The swing ridings are much more interesting to watch. Jean Charest managed to win his home riding of Sherbrooke in what promised to be a squeaker. Landry and Dumont also won their home ridings.

This is a new era for Quebec. Let’s see if the Liberals can deliver on their promises to improve healthcare and cut taxes. A pipe dream, perhaps, but a nice one.

Well, I exercised my democratic right to vote this morning. It took all of 15 minutes: wait in line, present ID, check the ballot, and go. Simple, straightforward . . . and yet for some reason I voted with a new appreciation for the process this morning. Maybe it was a reflection that it’s a minority of the world that has this basic right.

And while I know that, thanks to our relatively undemocratic ridings system, my vote probably won’t matter in the least, it still felt good to be able to participate in – well, maybe not exactly democracy, but at least our version of it. Sure, the system is corrupt and the government forces through unpopular legislation despite the objections of the citizens. But it’s a far cry between that and what people in most of the world have to contend with, under oppressive dictatorships with no rights whatsoever.

So make sure to vote. It’s not only your obligation, it’s your most precious right!

Just got through watching the Dennis Miller special on HBO. And I just have three words for you: Dennis for President!

This comes from Mazin Fahmawi, a regular poster on the Link’s board and an SPHR member:

SPHR would love to see the link unbiased towards anybody because that will only show the true faces of what SPHR represents, making the public aware of the Palestinian Human Rights abuses, and what Hillel represent, a blind nationalist zionist ideology.

I could comment, but that pretty much speaks for itself.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend, spending time outside enjoying the beautiful weather.

In case you’re looking for some entertainment, check out the Link’s board for more on the story below, and a very indignant Adam Slater initiating a pissing contest. Reading the interaction I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at the sheer idiocy of politics at Concordia.

Ah yes, and don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

I guess it’s not enough for SPHR that most of the middle east doesn’t have a free press. Now they’re trying to control the student press at Concordia, as Link editor Steve Faguy explains in his journal entry, “SPHR takes over Link . . . again”:

Allow me to vent. Being the editor-in-chief of a student newspaper, it’s my job to see that everyone gets his/her voice.

But today wasn’t about giving people voices, it was about silencing the voices of others.

For the second time, members of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights flooded our Annual General Assembly, the meeting where we approve financial statements and elect people to our board of directors.

[ . . . ]

And Samer Elatrash is voted onto our Board of Directors.

It’s not that I disagree with Samer’s politics (or Laith’s or Adam’s for that matter). And it’s not that I’m guided by racism against Arabs and Muslims (though some might disagree). I opposed Samer’s nomination because the last time he was on our board of directors, he attended only a single meeting, which he had to leave early.

As my colleague Julia Cyboran said during the meeting, the Board has no editorial control over the paper, and as such the positions are not political but administrative. All I ask of administrators is that they administrate. Samer has no interest in doing so (as he explained to me shortly after the meeting).

But now he’s on our board of directors, until he’s removed for lack of attendance. All to prove a point that when the SPHR disagrees with your editorial stance, they’ll try to take you over.

I guess they were pissed about losing the CSU election, and decided to take it out on the Link. It’s becoming increasingly clear how these groups operate. And it’s a real shame – especially for the journalism students who would love to see the Link emerge as a respected campus newspaper like the McGill Daily, instead of the zero-credibility rag that it is becoming.