It is sad to witness the death of one’s alma mater.  Could I ever think this tragic moment would arrive and one of the best universities in North America would die a swift but painful death?

Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi announced last Wednesday at a Faculty of Arts Committee meeting that as many as 100 classes in the Faculty of Arts are set to be terminated for the 2013-2014 academic year. The number represents 8 per cent of Arts courses. The cuts have been under consideration since September of last year. According to Manfredi, smaller classes currently taught by full-time professors will be cut, and the professors moved to larger lectures at the expense of the temporary course lecturers currently teaching them. In an email to The Daily,  Manfredi wrote that that the objective was to “increase the proportion of Arts courses and students taught by permanent, full-time faculty members.”

Rest in peace, dear McGill. You will be sorely missed.

In the meanwhile, Canadians are standing silently by and letting this happen. Good job, fellow Canucks! Who needs that boring education anyway?

Hugo Schwyzer published a post titled “Should You Let Your Little Girl Embrace Princesshood?” It is an unexpectedly refreshing post that demonstrates the idiocy of banning princesses, color pink, and Disney movies from a child’s life as some sort of a feminist gesture.

Nothing stuns me more than earnest discussions of quasi-feminists about the horrors supposedly done to a child’s future role in life by color pink, Barbie dolls, and Disney movies. They publish endless reports detailing how they have protected their innocent toddler from the pernicious influence of this or that color. I have to ask, are they really so lacking in knowledge about the mechanisms of the formation of the human psyche, or is this obsession with trivial stuff their way to relinquish their responsibility for their child’s upbringing?

Even adolescents know these days that a child’s vision of gender roles is formed on the basis of the relationship the child observes between her or his parents. You can paper every surface of that child’s life with pink and play Disney videos at her all day long and that will change nothing in how she sees gender roles. Toys, colors, and videos do not bring children up. Parents do.

So when I see anti-pink and anti-Disney rants, I wonder if people are dense or irresponsible. I see no alternative possibility.