Vol. 140

8 min 0 1637

Something rotten in the state of Greece

Reid Standish February 27, 2012

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. - Hamlet Act I, Sc. III   It all began innocently enough. Back in 2002, as Greece first adopted the Euro as its currency, the country’s economic forecast was overwhelmingly optimistic. With its new currency and fresh access to the privileges of EU membership, Greece began a bacchanalia of large-scale borrowing. This manifested in a wild period of high-profile projects that went well over budget, such as the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Although the 2008 economic crisis…

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5 min 0 1211

Canada’s apartheid

Christopher Nichols February 27, 2012

Are we 20 years behind South Africa? I'm sitting on a metal bunk in a medium-security prison in South Africa as I write this.  The blazing sunlight and gorgeous natural scenery outside seem strangely juxtaposed with the barred windows and razor…

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9 min 1 1793

“Ordinary Canadians don’t care about the arts”

Esther Tung February 27, 2012

How arts organizations in B.C. are impacted by funding cuts, and why they aren’t giving up Photos By Mark Burnham It’s official — arts and culture funding in B.C. will be frozen for the next three years. The 2012 B.C. provincial…

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8 min 0 1836

Fat happiness: Is it wrong to be fat?

Ljudmila Petrovic February 20, 2012

As a child, Kalamity Hildebrandt was put on diet pills by her doctor in order to lose weight. By age nine she was bulimic, which progressed to the point where she was throwing up blood in her teenage years. By…

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5 min 0 1401

Blood on our hands: How the international community has failed the Syrian people

Gustavo Destro February 20, 2012

In February, 1982, Hafez al-Assad ordered his army to besiege and shell the city of Hama in order to quell an uprising so strong that it threatened to overrun his regime. The army followed the orders to a tee and…

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6 min 1 5583

The Surrey stigma: The city we love to hate

Kelly Thoreson February 6, 2012

“I heard that Surrey was not the nicest place. It wasn’t a place you wanted to go to,” said Ella Sargent, a sixth-year kinesiology major at SFU. “The ‘ghetto’ is a bad word for it, but it is something along…

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7 min 1 2430

“I don’t know how to use a condom” & other tales of how sex education failed me

EIC February 6, 2012

I thought I had pooped my pants, but who poops their pants in the fifth grade? I didn’t remember going to the bathroom that day, but I guessed I must have — in my pants. Maybe it was ‘anal leakage’ —…

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8 min 0 1325

Sweat it: Why you should be worried about your lack of exercise

EIC February 1, 2012

Are you one of those people who ceased all attempts at physical exertion the moment your university career began? If yes, withhold panic: you are not alone. But panic, because forgoing exercise is (as you may have already guessed) a…

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8 min 0 1388

Being better: Where did our empathy go?

Denise Wong January 23, 2012

In late October, the story of Yue Yue went viral. The surveillance footage from Foshan, China was posted online and depicted two cars that drove over Yue Yue’s tiny body in the marketplace where her parents worked; neither driver did…

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10 min 0 1441

Penny for your thoughts

Kelly Thoreson January 23, 2012

What to consider before giving change to the homeless in Vancouver   “Panhandling isn’t a very lucrative career,” Thomas explained as we sipped warm coffees outside the entrance to Insite, the Downtown Eastside’s supervised injection site. “Well, for me it wasn’t…

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