Uninhabited Spaces

Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz has caused a minor earthquake for arguing in a recent memo to company executives that the ubiquitous coffee merchant has lost its way. Asking that the company look in the mirror and reflect on the decision it made to grow from 1000 stores to 13,000 over the last decade, Schultz contends that Starbucks has been watered down and commoditized. I say "Bravo, Mr Schultz!" If only more companies took stock at the concept of unbridled growth. This reminds me of a conversation I had with 1-800-GOT-JUNK founder & CEO Brian Scudamore last year here at Queen's. He said he wanted to take his rubbish and debris removal company from a $120-million to a $1-billion company over the next decade. I asked him what consideration he had given to the environmental footprint a $1-billion company would have and whether he felt the service & experience that now defines his company could be sustained at that level of sales. Sadly, he had no real answers t...

The rapid proliferation of organizations and related web sites touting family values should be of great concern to anyone who truly cares about the protection of minority rights, equal rights, and equality of opportunity. The collective power of said organizations is serving to sway legislation in the United States--the self-declared beacon of democracy--toward the actual limiting of human rights. Hinged on Puritanical moral arguments about the nature of sex, sexuality, and marriage these organizations are advancing an image of family not seen since "Father Knows Best". America presents a great paradox: the billions successfully spent on marketing centre around the objectification of young women and, increasingly, young girls. And yet, rampant censorship of words and images reflecting basic nudity and sexuality is carried out by network television and even some cable channels--many owned and operated by the very same entities spending the marketing dollars. It is a shame that...

Last night I had the privilege of attending a very special event hosted by the Ottawa branch of the Queen's School of Business alumni association. The reception was in the Senate Foyer and we had 120 guests attend. There were some good nibbles and a cash bar. I turned around and there was our guest speaker, former Prime Minister Paul Martin . He saw me and immediately came forward and stuck out his hand (what a great political tactic--it made me feel special). We chatted a bit. I was tongue-tied and stupid. After about 45 minutes we moved into the Senate Chamber (see attached image) and we all took our seats. I was rather emotional, as it is a great privilege to be able to go past the brass bars and actually enter the Senate. In fact, as "Commoner" (a member of the House of Commons), Paul Martin is allowed to enter but not to speak in the Senate Chamber. Last night an exception had been made, and he noted that the event was also a privilege for him. Interestingly, our Hea...

A new report by Maclean's magazine highlights that 53% of all Canadian university students admit to serious cheating in written work, 56% of all business students admit to cheating, and 44% of profs said they didn't report students caught cheating. Let me give you a moment to let those figures settle in...................Doesn't leave you with a very good impression for the future now, does it? It's worrisome that such a large percentage of those entrusted to uphold our standards of academic honesty aren't doing so. One has to wonder what has changed in the university and our culture for such alarmingly high incidents of cheating? On the silver-lining side of things, at least these cheaters honestly self-reported for the study!! [Illustration: Zanne DeJanvier ]

In his 1982 book Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism Philip Kitcher argues that despite their appeal for balanced treatment and tolerance, Creationist's theory (a.k.a. "Intelligent Design") has no place within scientific curriculum as it cannot offer any advancement of knowledge nor any viable predictions more successfully than Evolutionism. Now I am not so much interested in the did-He-or-didn't-He? debate as I am in Kitcher's thesis that ideas have to earn our right to respect . He believes that not all views are deserving of our attention because some theories are better than others. In case this smacks of an infinite relativity, Kitchers strongly emphasizes that we need not "abandon our intellectual standards but that we use them to examine the credentials of the ideas that others espouse". Still, we have to determine what grounds we have to claim that some views (moral or scientific) are better than others. Kitcher suggests that some vie...

Imagine the following headline: "Majority Democratic Congress passes act to withdraw all funding of foreign government". The quoted experts would forecast that the withdrawal of American military would de-stabilize the foreign country's economy, lead to an OPEC oil embargo and a subsequent world economic recession. Sound familar? This is, in fact, what happened in 1975 to South Vietnam. I am not a historian nor a political scientist, and I was only four years old in 1975, but I can't help but think of the striking parallel to our times. The American body politic, disenfranchised under the disgraced Nixon, embraced Reagan's optimistic, down-to-earth persona and "government is the problem" ethos. Reagan's administration would go on to raise the national debt to 41% of the GDP, turning the United States into the world's largest debtor nation. Fast forward to the good-old-boy, "compassionate conservative" persona cultivated for G.W. Bush. T...