The story of Africans being brought to the Americas, mainly in bondage, is well known. The transatlantic slave trade has been exhaustively mined and narrated and, if the plot is misunderstood, one only needs to peruse the history books for clarity. We know relatively little, though, about African-Americans and their voyages back to the other […] More »

International development and foreign aid is a complicated and contentious field. A thousand different components—such as water, sanitation, food security, child care, education, infrastructure—need to be addressed simultaneously. The targeted community must be the leader of all changes. Financing must come from a sustainable source, such as partial subsidization by the community itself, to ensure […] More »

12,000 people showed up at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary on Sunday night to see a concert by Punjabi singer Gurdas Maan. According to the Calgary Herald, about 10 of those concertgoers were wearing Kirpans, the ceremonial dagger worn by some observant Sikhs. When security guards at the venue refused those people entry, citing […] More »

It seems like everything has “gone green” these days. From retailers to celebrities, airlines to hotels, banks to even runway fashion, the environment is sexy in the marketplace for the first time. But is all the publicity really helping Mother Nature? When consumers are being “greeenwashed” in their attempt to fit into a petite size […] More »

A war broke out this month. A war not to the east but to the south, that has been little covered by the media. It comes complete with human rights violations, murder, and corruption caused by the exploitation of the Amazon. The blood of this war is on Canada’s hands. On Friday, June 5, an […] More »

The English language reached 1 million words yesterday. It’s a bit of a humbling realization if you’re intent on developing your vocabulary. It means, if you want to know every English word, you will need to learn a word an hour for the next 114 years, which means you’re probably already too late. That’s also […] More »

This might be old news to some: Burger King’s “Whopper Virgins” ad campaign has been running for a while. Here’s the promo: I felt intuitively icky about the whole thing before but couldn’t quite define why. Luckily, blogger Evan Calder Williams has articulated that feeling very nicely already, so I’ll just let him take it […] More »