Window-man saga continues: We’ve been reporting on the strange saga of “the man in the window” for the past few issues here in this column because, apparently, back in 1991 that was a big deal around Camosun. In a nutshell, a cardboard cutout of a man went missing from Camosun’s Audio/Visual department. In our February 5, 1991 issue, the story “Man in window for ransom?” detailed a ransom letter that Camosun’s A/V department received; demands for the safe return of “Cam Olsun” (the cardboard man) (I am not making this up) involved the college dealing with their parking at the time, which those who kidnapped Olsun saw as a problem. “My main concern is the safe return of Cam,” A/V employee Ken Whitehead said in the story. Guess you had to be here in 1991 for any of this to make any sense.
Sounds familiar: In the story “Arab-Canadian students harassed by CSIS,” the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) said that Arab-Canadian students involved with anti-war movements were being harassed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Apparently, these students were photographed by CSIS during protests; CSIS then circulated their photos to “members of the Arab community” for identification. The story said that in the previous two weeks, the CAF had received complaints from approximately 30 Arab-Canadians about CSIS agents approaching them for information.
GST opinions: We talked to a handful of students to get their thoughts on the then-new GST for this issue. Unsurprisingly, reactions were not good. Students thought the tax was “pretty bad,” said that “It does bother me,” and said that they “have negative thoughts about it.” But the best was the stunned tone of writer Chantal Costaz, who wrote, “Consumers walked around on January 1 in awe, paying tax on almost everything they looked at, even a cup of coffee.”