On the night of March 15, 2009, I was surrounded by thousands of celebrating Salvadorans. The first left-wing president, Mauricio Funes of the FMLN, a left-wing political party, had just been elected and San Salvador was erupting into a sea of red. I had come to El Salvador to work as one of 5,000 election […] More »

Sunday morning was dark and my alarm didn’t go off, so I slept in. I was awakened late in the morning to a fellow gringo, my friend Luke, shouting through my window. “Ashley!” he yelled, “wake up, did you hear what happened?” I had heard nothing but silence that day. I let him in and […] More »

Our (totally made up, unofficial) Legalization Week continues today with Katie Addleman’s exploration of the drug trade, and the catastrophic effect prohibition has had on law enforcement, gang violence, addicts’ health, and community safety: Ounce for ounce, marijuana is worth more than gold, and heroin more than uranium. Yet it’s only as a direct result […] More »

[Editor’s note: This Magazine columns editor Eva Salinas will be reviewing films and rounding up news about the Toronto International Film Festival over the next week. Visit us online next week for more of her dispatches.] And so it begins. This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicked-off last night, a little later […] More »

When you’re talking international development, words matter There’s nothing like an all-purpose label to bring comfort and order to an otherwise overwhelming world. But what’s comforting to one person can be downright offensive to another. When it comes to the language used to label the “non-Western” world, quotation marks just won’t cut it anymore. What’s […] 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 »