Now, I wish to make myself very clear. I have met a lot of these students and they were very pleasant and nice to me.
God knows what it said in that classroom?..lol...
I know Philip Lee and he’s a swell guy.
He reads my blog and he was keeping a very close eye on my trial in Saint John.
The class debated the issue of blogging and I wish I could have been a fly on the wall.
I have nothing against the Journalist course but my main concern are the Irvings!
I was going to take a journalism course at Saint Thomas two years ago but this all changed when the Irvings gave one million dollars to the Centre.
As I told the New York Times - It would have been an impossible task for me sitting down and listening to an Irving employee.
target="_blank">Charles
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Just like the time the Irvings flew in Neil Reynolds from out West for a speech in 2005.
Boy? I mellow down a little compare to my earlier blogs about the Irvings. I went toe to toe with Neil. You can read the blog I wrote in 2005 by clicking below -
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I wish to add that 99% of the students I chatted with disagreed with the administration decision at Saint Thomas in accepting that money.
It left a huge black eye to the students because these days the journalist course and the Irvings go hand in hand.
These students will graduate and they will be gun-ho but they will soon find out who’s in control of the media in New Brunswick.
They will not be allowed to investigate the Irvings in certain issues.
These students are a radical bunch.
I heard last year. Jamie Irving showed up in the classroom.
target="_blank">Charles
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I remembered joking about it by asking if all the students quickly jumped up from their chairs and stood attention?
From what I heard? Jamie got some nasty questions about the media monopoly in this Province.
I guess he wasn’t amused.
Now, I got nothing against the students or the teachers.
They are fine people but I believe it’s time for the Irvings to back off from the Journalism course at Saint Thomas because it truly leaves a bad taste in everyone mouth.
Especially the students.
7 comments:
Well as a former student of UNB Forestry and now a graduate from that program I can tell you that without the donation from larger companies or organizations most programs at both UNB and STU would not be given. Now I agree that a donation does not warrant a free pass to control what is tought in those programs but their donations do help with paying teachers, building maintenance, equipment etc...
So without the Irving donation to the STU Journalism there probably would not be any Journalism program.
So are you againts BMO? Because they donate to the UNB Business program? Are you againts CFS (Canadian Forest Service) because they donate research money to UNB Forestry?
Well I could go on and on but you see that without those donations from large organizations most programs at all Coleges or Universities accross Canada would not be available. So you should not be so negative towards donations from large organizations. Because without them I could not imagine how high student tuition would be.
My main concern is the people who gives the money owns all the newspapers in this Province.
It's simple as bonjour!!!!
The Irvings don't own the Acadie Nouvelle. If you want a differing opinion regarding Irving matters, read the news in french.
That's actually not even true. Most european universities get by quite well without corporate donations, and private schools in the states are the same. The essential question is where you get the money from. In Canada, and especially in NB, Corporations are given a free ride, then donate a little of that into an educational system that the province can barely keep going.
So UPN, a company under indictment in the States, can get by without paying taxes, and so have some to donate back. Go look at last year's budget, the grand total of what New Brunswickers get from stumpage fees and licenses for the rape of the forests is $58 million.
For Irving its even more obvious, given a free ride for LNG. That 110 million would pay for a LOT of the curriculum.
The liberals, while they told Tim and Charles, that it was 'all about money', had no trouble making one of their first acts reducing the tax payable on Stock Dividends. That doesn't even spur investment, its literally a gift to the 25% of New Brunswickers who actually have the means to own stock. While its true that NB does have one of the higher tax rates on dividends, this still is not smart policy unless your only interest is robbing from the poor and paying to the rich.
These are political choices, if you have lower taxes from corporations or people, then you can't afford to fund programs. Even with increasing equalization from Ottawa NB is now in the red they say. That's hardly good news since canada's economy has been doing better than it has in decades and seems to be slowing. If Canada's good times have such little impact on NB, imagine what bad economic times in Canada will do. If Graham wants 'self sufficiency', giving a tax break to the wealthiest is hardly the way to go about it.
But as for business, you could run a business school for almost nothing. Newspapers are free, online textbooks are free, there are tutorials everywhere. People still haven't caught on that professors are becoming highly redundant in higher education. For most faculties they aren't even needed. Much of the growth at UNB was in administration, where costs should be practically nil.
Unfortunately,that is an idealistic point of view.It is not realistic-not here,anyway.
"Idealistic" is being too kind. Its more naive and simple minded chatter usually heard setting round some coffee shop table by minds that know little of what they speak. So sure they know all the answers and more typical who is to blame..(in this case that's more often than not the Irving's). Sadly, more times than not these "idealists" contribute nothing except dirty coffee cups to the society they spend so much time complaining about.
Hardly, that's what certain people would like people to think. These are political decisions that are made with political pressure. Ignoring the ignorant remarks by adolescent minds, the reality is far different. THere's a reason why Irving virtually never covers news from south america, for one thing many governments there have been elected on very 'left wing' or rather statist platforms. In Bolivia a city of impoverished people rose up and literally threw the Bechtel company out of the country. In Columbia they arrested the Board of Directors of...gee, that can't be right, but I guess it is.. Repsol!
This is FAR from 'idealism' but there is a certain type of person in society, and if they don't work for Irving or the government they are certainly brainwashed by them, that want to keep people sitting at home THINKING that controlling their government is 'idealism'.
It comes from political activity though, not from sitting around drinking coffee-that much is very true. But first people have to find out exactly what is going on, which is exactly what this website is all about. It's hard to convince people there's an alternative when people aren't even aware of the problem.
Right here we have the best example of that, Charles wasn't sitting around on his butt, that's true, and he's not often doing that. But it was just him and Tim Smith and their political activity that changed legislation that barred boarders and renters from basic human rights. That battle is still ongoing, but its a HUGE victory that was accomplished by two people on social assistance and some luck (the by-election).
And that's an issue that only affected the most destitute. Imagine what happens when regular people start paying attention to the options available. As for post secondary education, that is already happening, enrollment at virtually all NB universities is down, yet go look at some of the most popular websites and downloads. If you want a business degree you can get it online, often at little expense. Most skills you can learn online, in computer programming they don't even ASK for a resume, they just want a link to what a person has created, something that anybody with internet access can easily accomplish.
So thats FAR from idealism, not even close. Canadian universities used to get funding at a much higher level, that's because of political pressure, before that only the most elite of society got higher educations. If it happens once, it can happen again. As for corporate taxation, that's once again up to people and it is different in every province.
But there are naysayers who are even worse that the idealists who make plans in the coffee shops, they're the ones that tell them they might as well not even bother trying. I think maybe they were brought up wrong, because in our society there is little sympathy for quitters, and most parents aren't the Homer Simpson type saying "if it's difficult then its not worth doing".
Just go read the comments from the journalism students about Irving. Its a new generation coming along that doesn't buy into the "whats good for Irving is good for New Brunswick" crap that's been fed by a monopoly media.
As they say, "get on board or get the hell out of the way".
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