LETTERS

Have A Straight Day

Concerns about gay propaganda around the school

I'm writing this to express my opinion that the gay
propaganda recently posted at UNBC has gotten a
bit out of control. The right for minority groups to
express their point of view is a necessary faction of
today's society, but there are limitations to making a
point. For instance, the “guess what mom/ dad, look
who’s gay” posters that are showing up on all the
UNEBC billboards. First of all, I don’t understand the
“guess what mom/dad” approach, but that’s not of
my concern. My concern comes when figures who
are not gay crusaders show up as poster-boys for the
UNBC gay awareness society. Take legendary rocker
and guitarist for The Who Pete Townsend - one of
the most influential musicians of all time who's been
married to a woman for 27 years. He does not rock-
out with rainbow-painted guitars on stage, nor does
he advocate a gay lifestyle. When asked in a 1994
Playboy interview: “What was behind all the reports
of you coming out?”, Townsend replied: “It was that

song, which is ironic because it was taunting both.

homosexuals in America - who were, at the time,
dressing themselves up as Nazi generals - and the
punks in Britain were dressing the same way. I
thought it was great the way these punks were
dressing the same way as homosexuals without real-
izing it. I did an interview about it, saying that
Rough Boys was about being gay, and in the inter-
view I talked about ‘my gay life’, which - I meant -
was actually about the friends I’ve had who are gay.
So the interviewer kinda dotted the ‘i’s’ and crossed
the ‘t's’ and assumed that this was a coming out,
which wasn’t it at all.” And Socrates as a poster-boy?

I dunno, we’d have to ask him. But I’m sure, if
asked, he’d answer in his namesake method of rea-
soning and the reply would be: “but what is gay?”
And I’m sure the contemporary answer of the day
wouldn’t be: “being gay is a social movement by a
minority class that wishes to attain equal rights for
homosexuals as there are for heterosexuals”; but
rather: “gay is a secret island where we go and fon-
dle young, naked boys in the sun.” Such islands did
exist and were frequented by notable members of
society at the time, and Socrates was reported to
have had paid for the freedom of a young male pros-
titute, Phaedo, as well as possibly having a relation-
ship with one of his male teachers, Archelaus, but to
term Socrates as an advocate for the gay rights
movement is a misrepresentation of his character,
for truly, I don’t believe that such a movement even
existed at the time. And I just wanna say that my
favorite Who song of all time is “Pictures of Lily”,
written by Pete Townsend, which is all about a boy
masturbating to pictures on his wall of a girl named
Lily. “Pictures of Lily made my life so
wonderful/Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at
night/Pictures of Lily solved my childhood prob-
lems/ Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright.” And
for every morning when I’m walking down the hall
sipping on my coffee and read “HAVE A GAY DAY”
on a piece of paper on the bulletin board, I say:
“HAVE A STRAIGHT DAY”.

Rock on,

Hardy Friedrich.

6
MARCH 10, 2004

Photo by Dana ‘the brown dart’ Schwehr
A fresh blanket of march snow covered the campus this week, returning the scenery to its previous wintery theme. Mysterious animal/human/alien/zombie Joseph Buey/yo’ mamma tracks run through the
fresh powder. FYI: lan Fleming wrote both the James Bond, and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang themes.

To the MLA’s:

No Grants =

by Stephanie Morgan

I would like to mention some-
thing that may not have come to
mind. Many students are going to
school on loans, and the grants
that are given with them allow
them to continue to go to school. If
these students are forced to contin-
ue without grants many will drop
out because it will be impossible
for them to even conceive of con-
tinuing their schooling.

Should more students continue
in this trend the braindrain prob-
lem, which is becoming more of an
epidemic, will become more of.an
issue. Consequently, the lack of
doctors, teachers, and other pro-
fessionals will become worse. This
is not something that BC would, in
my opinion, want. We are already
having difficulties keeping doc-
tors, we will find ourselves lacking
a great deal of other professionals.

With a lack of professionals, BC
will find themselves focusing
more and more on primary
resources - which has both limited
positions, and will eventually

Braindrain

bleed itself dry. With this focus,
BC's tertiary industries will cer-
tainly fall in quality.

In reference to BC’s financial
state, should this continue many
students would go to other
provinces where they can acquire
student grants. This would cause
many other problems for BC.

The MLA’s should realize that
the students have much to offer
BC’s economy, and in the next ten
years these people will be con-
tributing much to the workforce.
Should they lose their ability to
gain more forms of monetary rec-
ompensation, many will find
themselves searching for jobs that
do no exist which will cause a larg-
er burden on unemployment and
other social programs. Especially if
the fees for these schools keep get-
ting higher, as they have been
since the lift of the tuition freeze.

Please reconsider the proposed
budget should this continue many
students would inevitably find
themselves in other provinces, and
maybe even other countries.