Quite recently, a motion was carried out at Carleton to stop funding for cystic fibrosis indicating that the disease was not “inclusive” enough. You can read the details here: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=992946

I am a graduate of Carleton University and as proud as I am of being a graduate, I am not so proud of this decision regardless of their true intent behind canceling support for this charity. Any disease deserves attention whether it affects the entire world or a specific race of humans. What is next, stopping funding for research to combat alzheimers simply because it predominantly affects the older generation.

But moving back to c.f., the decision does not affect “whites” as this article suggests. Cystic Fibrosis affects a larger portion of the population in numerous countries as someone had pointed in a scientific followup article:

Science behind cystic fibrosis shows fatal disease is colourblind

Here is an excerpt from the article:

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* CF affects males and females equally, although the health of girls is more severely compromised, and in past years, young women with CF have tended not to survive as long as young men.
* CF affects Caucasian populations, primarily. Caucasian populations include people from South America, Arabian countries, Israel, North Africa and populations from the Indian sub-continent, such as people who live in or originate from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
* In North America, we find that North Americans of African origin, native Canadians, and people of Chinese origin can also be affected by CF, although cystic fibrosis is less common among these groups.

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As much as I hate to say it, people shouldn’t be quick to judge the written mistakes of others. Could it have been avoidable, given the write context and material….I would say “YES”.

However, root of the problem is not necessarily the statement, but the fact they decided to cancel the charity drive. As stated, I think funding any disease is worth fighting.

Carleton, specifically CUSA. Instead of dismissing a charity, why not add more to your drive and get more people to donate worthy causes beyond C.F.

Paul

Meet Bubba J….it will make you laugh.

All of you have undoubtedly heard of the three automotive CEO’s from GM, Ford and Chrysler that have flown themselves down to Washington DC in each of their Corporate jets to sit before congress requesting bail-out money for their respective sectors.
You can all sense the irony.

The policies of their respective companies state that the CEO’s have to fly in corporate jets for safety concerns. What safety concerns? What makes them different then the rest of the population. And, who would really know what they look like?

Now, I can understand corporations leasing jets for the benefit of their employee’s. Since 9/11 Intel have frequent shuttles between their major facilities from speaking with close friends that work with the company for the benefit of the employee’s. Well, this was the case in 2003, not sure if this is still the case today. Anyways, the idea here was to save valuable employee time by not having them wait in airports for a couple hours prior to their flight. This would even make sense for companies such as GM to lease jets if numerous employees have to travel to remote locations for conducting automotive testing.

However, what I don’t understand are three CEO’s, traveling between major cities when there are cheaper more viable options by using first class airfare with local airlines. It just doesn’t make sense.

Now….on to the actual topic of bailing out the automotive sector in the United States. It would help if Americans actually bought their own products. Right now, Japanese and European collectively have the edge in the market place. Japanese cars are more economical, priced competitively without compromising interior luxury. Will the bailout actually help. Well, I am not sure. The Big-Three were sent back with a task to provide a business plan on how they will return to profitability. For starters, this is easier said then done, but not impossible.

Hopefully, the financial think-tanks at the big-three will come up with a plan to avoid bankruptcy and survive the financial difficulties of today. Is it possible? Yes. Will it be difficult? Yes. The American automotive sector can only survive if people start buying more of their cars and in order to do that, they need to be competitive with the world market. Today…they are not competitive in my eyes.

What do you think?

Paul