We live in a highly sexualized world, so it’s ironic that most high school sexual education classes still use random objects and ‘old timey’ public service announcements to teach their students about sex. Sexual education in public schools must be more straightforward so that we can properly inform students of what sex entails. This would ensure that they become properly educated about sex and are able to avoid early pregnancies and unwanted STIs.

Remember the banana that sex ed teachers would use to show boys how to wear a condom? This sex ed lesson is ridiculously common, having been mentioned in every other Teen TV show or film. Yes, it’s important to show students how to use a condom, but this is not enough to adequately teach them about sex.

Students in middle school (and younger) are exposed to sex on a daily basis through the media and from their peers, and it is no longer sufficient to leave sex education until the senior year of high school. Instead, sex ed must begin around the time that students enter middle school, and then be taught every subsequent year. By eighth grade, 13-year-old students typically use the internet, so there is no reason for teachers to treat them like children when it comes to these mature topics.

Sex is natural and there is nothing to be ashamed of when speaking about it in a mature and sincere manner. As such, students in class should be able to ask open questions and have them answered directly and honestly if they need clarification or are confused about anything.

Students should be able to ask open questions and have them answered directly and honestly.

To make sexual education more straightforward, school districts should hire trained sexual health counsellors who can give students a concise explanation of sex and its derived topics. If the district is unable to do so, then certain teachers should take a ‘crash course’ on how to teach sex in modern society.

Moreover, the resources used to teach children about sex must change. Do away with the ‘Trojan bananas,’ and replace them with more current resources. Youtube has education channels that cover such topics — “Sexplanations” is a series of sexual education videos that are hosted by a licensed sexologist and are aimed at a teenage audience.

Educators should also inform their students about intercourse among people with different sexualities. Although it may not serve the same biological purpose, sex among homosexual couples is also for pleasure and intimacy. Opening students’ minds to these notions would prevent misunderstandings and help to promote respect between individuals.

While sex saturates our media, people can still be very sensitive when discussing the topic. Of course, adopting a more mature and open curriculum will provoke controversy. To that, I would strongly advise educators to treat both the topic and their students in a mature fashion. Students should be told, without any biased perspectives, that sex is more than what they hear about in the media, and that it’s biologically important.

Adults often underestimate teenagers, but with proper education, teens can be mature about sex, and can avoid unwanted consequences. This isn’t to say that a more direct education is going to completely eradicate unwanted youth pregnancies or other problems, but our schools do need to employ more precise sexual education to prevent sexual confusion.

Last week, a BC Supreme Court judge granted the City of Vancouver an injunction to evict all people living in the recently erected tent city at Oppenheimer Park in the Downtown Eastside. This legal battle is a decent indicator of everything that it is wrong with how our society advocates for the rights of the homeless.

The policies implemented by the city do nothing to improve the condition of the homeless, and perpetuate a disturbing pattern of behaviour which treats the homeless as intruders on land that ought to belong to them.

The logic behind the court’s decision is dubious. While acknowledging that the reality of a tent city poses many unique safety concerns such as drug use, open flames, low sanitation standards, and frequent incidents of violence, the court has failed to recognize that these concerns are not resolved simply through eviction, but rather are everyday realities of being homeless.

Similar to city police ushering homeless youth from the downtown prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics, the injunction was less about the welfare of homeless populations and more about removing the ‘social nuisance’ that the city and our society seem to see homelessness as.

We generally implement programs for the homeless that push their problems out of our field of vision. This happens so that we can proceed with our lives without the residual guilt that accompanies being a ‘winner’ in an economic system that favours the lottery of birth, and a political system that has left Aboriginal peoples — who are disproportionately represented in the homeless population — far worse off in society.

City policies treat the homeless as intruders on land that ought to belong to them.

These policies are ineffectual and harm society as a whole. The Canadian Homeless Research Network cites a report estimating that “between 1993 and 2004, Canadian taxpayers spent an estimated $49.5 billion maintaining the status quo on the homeless problem.” The status quo is that the homeless population has a far greater level of mental health problems, and institutionalization in both jails and hospitals.

According to the CBC, current prison costs are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, providing social housing for a basic standard of living costs approximately $200 a month. This research empirically shows that policies to combat the homeless, as opposed to combating homelessness, have little more practical consequence than producing exorbitant costs for society at large.

This is not to say that the court’s decision is without merit. Proponents of the eviction might argue that indoor shelters and increased oversight might substantially improve the welfare of the residents, while others may argue that the shelters will be uncomfortable, dirty, and overcrowded. However, both situations share a glaring commonality.

Both are temporary and thus fail to solve an intrinsic problem in the lives of the homeless: a lack of permanence. Without permanent housing and a basic standard of living for subsistence, these policies are simply maintaining the status quo. Permanence provides an individual with the security and basic conditions necessary to escape a cycle of poverty.

Is Oppenheimer Park a superior option to the city’s proposed temporary shelters? I would argue that it does not matter. The very fact that the issue has devolved to quick-fix solutions for a systemic problem proves that our society has failed in its duty to protect the most vulnerable and at risk.

Trinity Western University is once again in the news, and for once, they’re not under attack. A graduate from the university was recently denied a job on the basis of her faith.

While the organization, Amaruk Wilderness Corp., claims that the student’s application was denied because she failed to meet the minimum requirements for the position, the e-mails that followed display an extreme anti-Christian bias, to the point where the company’s hiring manager, Olaf Amundsen, stated that if he “was to meet [God], [he] would fuck him.” Though it has since been revealed that Amaruk is not a real company, the e-mails and the discrimination are very real.

Sadly, this kind of anti-Christian bigotry is rapidly becoming the norm. Back in July, I wrote an article about the Nanaimo city council and their near-unanimous decision to ban a church group from using a public facility to simulcast a leadership conference, while equating the group with both organized crime and terrorism.

In both these cases, the reasoning behind the anti-Christian bias was based off of wrongs committed in the past; in Amaruk’s case, centuries in the past, as the e-mails reference the forced conversion of the Norse peoples to Christianity, which occurred around the 11th century. Both of these cases are clear violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, ironically enough, are founded on the dual principles of “the supremacy of God and the rule of law,” in a country whose head of state is titled “defender of the Faith.”

Christians are often labelled as gay-bashing, hypocritical folks who favour faith over science.

In the name of tolerance and inclusiveness, Canada is becoming increasingly intolerant to the nearly two-thirds of the population who claim Christianity as their religion. While it would be foolish to claim that all members of this group are innocent of the alleged homophobia used by the Nanaimo city council to justify its ban, it is equally erroneous to state that all Christians are guilty.

Unfortunately, there are many people who paint all Christians with the same brush, immediately labelling all of us as gay-bashing, hypocritical, judgemental folks who deny science in favour of faith. This is despite the fact that Canadians seem to be able to separate the good from the bad in other religions, as very few people believe that all Muslims are terrorists.

But when the Prime Minister is accused of being a fundamentalist — those evangelical Christians characterized by their militarism, separatism and biblical literalism — for his private beliefs, while Justin Trudeau can visit a mosque with links to al-Qaeda and not have the media comment on it, we have a problem.

Canadians seem to be unable to accept the fact that there are Christians who follow Christ to the best of their ability — displaying the compassion of Jesus — while others fall short of the mark. Which makes a lot of sense, as conversion to the Christian faith does not automatically mean that one becomes perfect; mistakes will always be made in how faith is expressed.

We are not perfect people, nor should we claim to be. Have Christians made mistakes in the past? Of course. We are only human, and are no better or worse than anyone else. To my fellow Christians, I ask that we learn to be better representatives of the Christ we claim to follow, emphasizing compassion and grace. To the rest of our readers, I ask for your forgiveness for the wrongs mistakenly committed in His Name, and also for a chance to prove that we are not the people that the media portrays us to be.

Most doctors recommend that people engage in aerobic exercise for 30 to 60 minutes, three to five days a week, in order to maintain a sufficient level of overall health. For many people, this means cramming a run or a visit to the gym into your busy schedule, but as it turns out, this may not be your best option.

The belief that going to the gym and jogging on a treadmill are effective workouts is wrong; not only do these inflict stress on our hip, knee, and ankle joints, but they are time-consuming activities that burn fewer calories than other forms of outdoor exercise. What if I told you about an aerobic exercise that could improve your fitness, while also saving you time and money?

Cycling is one of the best aerobic exercises for losing weight, shaping your figure, and enhancing the strength of your lower body. According to a study conducted by the National Forum for Coronary Heart Disease Foundation, cycling regularly can take you to the fitness level of someone 10 years younger, and dramatically reduces the risk of heart diseases.

What about that beer belly you’ve been trying to get rid of? According to research conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, those who bike as few as five minutes a day lose significantly more weight than those who do not.

The benefits don’t stop there. Unlike running and other high impact activities, biking strengthens your hips and knees without stressing your joints. It is unlikely to lead to knee complications such as arthritis and other orthopaedic problems. Cycling could significantly benefit people who have difficulties with mobility, not just those who are overweight or inactive.

Those who bike as few as five minutes a day also lose significantly more weight than those who do not.

Visiting the gym is a time consuming activity — it’s a luxury that can be difficult to fit into a busy day. However, something as simple as biking to work will save you time and money. Not only will you liberate yourself from the gym, but your commute may be faster, not to mention more enjoyable.

Depending on the geographic features of your daily commute, cycling to work could be significantly beneficial in saving you transit time. Even if it doesn’t, the added time would likely be offset by covering your exercise component for the day.

If you need further convincing to embrace your two-wheeled companion, talk with Louis Goddyn, a veteran Burnaby Mountain cyclist. Louis believes that his annual savings from cycling to work total $6,150. That’s a lot of coffee (or paid-off student debt).

But don’t just do it for yourself, do it for the rest of us as well. By doing something as simple as running an errand by biking, we can realize significant savings to our health care system. The more we cycle, the better the infrastructure becomes. The better the infrastructure, the more people cycle. It’s a wonderful positive feedback loop.

If you’d like to live an active lifestyle that saves you time and money, take the plunge and embrace your two wheels.