UREN LTT SOE OWT Co Opinions Editor t only took three days for me to | buckle under and give up on my New Year’s resolutions this year. Now that I’ve had three weeks to heal from my self-inflicted ego-bruising, I thought I'd devote this edition of “The Way Things Sometimes Are” to my most recent failed attempt at self-change. So sit back, fire up a smoke (I know you’ve started smoking again by now), and batten down your personal hatches. Sometimes, things get a wee bit strange. Miley’s 18 New Year’s Resolution, 2005: Break Free of Old Patterns and Be More Spontaneous I scrapped this resolution on January 3 at about 8:45am, when it suddenly became obvious to me that I may not be the type of person that can make sound decisions when acting spontaneously. Miley’s 2"4 New Year’s Resolution, 2005: Start Working Out. My new running shoes are freaking wicked. They are made of reflective, space-age polymers and cost about as much as my first car. They haven’t moved from my shoe rack since “The Great Meltdown of 2005.” It all began on January 3 at about 8:30am, supposedly a statutory holiday this year. I'd been asleep for roughly three hours when I was ripped from dreamland by a sound not unlike someone disposing of several thousand empty wine bottles through a shredder. I jumped out of bed and peeked out the window, half expect- ing to see rival gangs of tomcats reenacting scenes from Caligula while being beaten with shovels and drowned. Instead, I saw a crew of men lollygagging around two tree-trimming trucks while two younger men worked their asses off hauling branches around. Musta been a union outfit. Something snapped deep inside me. Without pausing to think, I slapped on my new runners and jogged over to give them a piece of my mind. Somewhere between the freezing cold air hitting my flesh and the end of the driveway, I developed a plan. I needed to go for a run anyway, so I'd just take this opportunity to freak these guys out before jogging around the neighbourhood. There was only one problem: I was buck-naked. Instead of turning back and putting some clothes on, I rushed up to the first truck. Several burly men were gathered around discussing whatever it is that lazy tree-trimmers discuss. The conversation that followed went something like this: Me (jogging on the spot): “Hey guys, how’s it goin’?” Bearded Man in Overalls with Look of Disbelief: “Uhhh, pretty good, I guess.” Me (naked but for my new shoes): “Oh yah. Check this out.” I then proceeded to launch into naked jumping jacks, followed by several squat lunges. The men just stood there star- ing—aghast, but unable to look away. I quickly fired off a flourish of high kicks a la David Lee Roth before finishing up my routine with several wind sprints. Red- faced and breathing hard, I turned and sprinted back home. As I raced around and shut all the cur- tains in my suite, I caught a glimpse of the men all pointing at my place and laughing. I instantly realized two things: all the blood in my entire body had apparently rushed to my cheeks, leaving the rest of me frightfully clammy; and that it was indeed a cold January morning—shrink- age had laid its chilly grasp on my favourite man-parts. I wanted to tape a couple of Hot Shots to my chota (the spot between ball sac and bum hole) and run back out to redeem the tattered shreds of my male pride with a show more reflective of my usual endowment. I wanted to leap out onto my second-story balcony with a cape on and loudly explain about shrinkage in George Costanza fash- ion. Instead, I sat down and thought about my complete and abject failure to make good on my New Year’s resolutions. It turns out that naked exercise is only fun in Blink-182 videos. In teal life, it’s just a crushing way to kick off the New Year. Post-Secondary Education: The Key to Canadas Future Stephen Harper, Special to Canadian University Press 18 | OUnEP PRESS z OTTAWA (CUP)—If Canada is to be competitive in the global economy of the 21st century, we must have the best post- secondary education system possible. Perhaps more importantly, we also need widespread access to quality post-second- ary education to ensure that we have better-informed citizens, a richer culture, and more fulfilling lives. From a public policy perspective, our investment in post-secondary education is advantageous to the economy and society as a whole because university and college graduates make a higher-than-average contribution to the tax revenues upon which the rest of our social services depend. The 15 percent of adult Canadians who have university degrees contribute 35 percent of the taxes collect- ed in this country. Thus, the future of our social safety net is inextricably linked to building and maintaining a quality system of post-secondary education. Education is an area of provincial responsibility in our federation, but since the Second World War, the federal gov- ernment has played an important role—in co-operation with the provinces—in sup- porting post-secondary — education through the funding of university-based research and direct support for students and their families through loans and grants. I believe that the federal and provincial governments, working in partnership, both have a responsibility to ensure that no student who has the desire and ability to learn is denied a post-secondary educa- tion due to lack of financial means. The biggest barrier to post-secondary educa- tion today is the rising cost of tuition fees. To address this challenge, governments will have to reassess the existing student- loan system and deal with the issue of increasing student debt loads. During the mid-’90s, the federal Liberal government balanced the budget primarily by reducing transfers to the provinces—including transfers for post- secondary education. More recently, even as increased federal dollars have been found for health and other areas (includ- ing advertising contracts and wasteful firearms registries), the Canada Social Transfer, which helps the provinces fund post-secondary education, has been sharply reduced. The result of this Liberal January = 19/2005