Ashima Shukla
Hot takes are killing our capacity to think
July 14, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer and Zainab Salam, Opinions Editor There is a genre of content that only grows louder with time: a viral clip where someone argues against abortion, climate change, or immigration issues — with the knowledge of a poorly summarized Wikipedia page and unearned confidence. The audience laughs, groans, or aggressively types a rebuttal, but many click. In a media ecosystem designed to reward attention over thoughtfulness, we risk trading depth for reaction. The result is a culture where complexity becomes inconvenient, misinformation thrives, and our capacity for accountable thinking erodes. We need to resist the logic…
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Book Nook: Quiet books for loud times
July 10, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer Revery: A Year of Bees by Jenna Butler This book feels like a long exhale. Set on an off-grid farm in Alberta, it follows Butler’s journey as a beekeeper. In the gentle rhythm of tending…
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Tenise Marie’s upcoming album Off The Record contains multitudes
July 9, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer Tenise Marie, a BC singer-songwriter of Assyrian, French, and British descent, is set to release her newest album, Off the Record, on July 11. I listened to an advance recording of her songs and found…
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The Vancouver Arts Book Fair returns to the city once more
June 25, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer From July 4–6, 2025, the Vancouver Arts Book Fair (VABF) returns to the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, bringing you not just knowledge transfer, but also many visions of what a publication can be.…
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2025 song of the summer shortlist
June 25, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer and Mason Mattu, Humour Editor It’s June, and the vibes are off. We’re in a climate apocalypse, the billionaires are feeling victimized, the aux cord is haunted, and we still don’t have a song of…
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Why local newspapers still matter
June 25, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer I picked up my first copy of The Georgia Straight on a crisp fall afternoon, wandering through the East Vancouver neighbourhood I had just moved into. The air smelled of damp leaves, a woman was…
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Shafira Vidyamaharani’s intuitive path to design
June 17, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer A graphic designer, photographer, videographer, painter, writer, and textile artist, Shafira Vidyamaharani’s practice resists definition — and that’s the point. Now a graduate student in SFU’s communication program, they are building a career that merges…
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Summer COVID-19 surge looms
June 16, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer Public health researchers warn of a potential global summer surge as a new highly transmissible COVID-19 variant spreads across Asia. NB.1.8.1 has been classified as a “variant under monitoring” by the World Health Organization and…
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The crisis in education isn’t AI — it’s meaning
June 15, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer In the age of AI, effort has become optional. As students, we no longer need to flip through textbooks or reread chapters. As one homework app asks, “Why scroll through 100 pages when AI can…
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Peliplat and the patchwork future of film discourse
June 15, 2025By: Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer Once, reviews were handed down from the altars of broadsheets and bylines. Today, film opinions are filtered by algorithms, taking the form of Letterboxd one-liners, TikTok edits, Reddit debates, and YouTube video essays. In this…
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