Author: Admin

Something in the Air

In this age of greenhouse gasses and smog advisories, air pollution has gotten a pretty bad name, and rightly so. But it still looks pretty trippy. Air pollution is divided into four categories: criteria air contaminates (which create smog and acid rain), persistent organic pollutants (which travel well and bioaccumulate in body tissues), heavy metals (which enter the food and water supply) and toxins (which will, in one way or another, kill you).

CD REVIEWS: Jimi Hendrix: Valleys of Neptune

Where would Jimi Hendrix fit into today’s music scene? Seasoned but pushing into the mainstream like Eric Clapton? Playing Super Bowl halftime shows like Pete Townsend and The Who? The release of Valleys of Neptune, a posthumous follow up to 1968’s Electric Ladyland, may convince you that Hendrix was simply too much of a psychedelic, blues-thumping, break-through-the-boundaries-of-your-brain invention to ever escape the “27 Club.

Newburgh to face J-Board

Four weeks after the Students’ Society’s Winter General Assembly, the SSMU Judicial Board has accepted a submission from members of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights concerning the impartiality of Zach Newburgh, the current speaker of SSMU Council and next year’s SSMU president.

A tale of two hamburgers

For many people, hamburgers bring to mind bad cafeteria food and mystery meat. But two restaurants are redefining hamburgers, or at least getting back to the good old days. M:brgr, on Drummond and de Maisonneuve – best classified as diner-chic, with gleaming white tables and ketchup squirt bottles – serves up custom, gourmet hamburgers, spiked milkshakes, and other glamorized versions of hamburger joint classics.

CD REVIEWS: Gorillaz: Plastic Beach

Gorillaz’s highly anticipated third album Plastic Beach definitely sounds like a Gorillaz album, but it lacks the flare of their sophomore release, Demon Days. Plastic Beach feels like a concept album, but it’s difficult to tell what the concept is (but it’s certainly not a pinball wizard).

CD REVIEWS: Aidan Knight: Versicolour

Until now, if the name Aidan Knight sounded familiar, it’s likely because of his numerous backing contributions to bands in the Victoria/Vancouver music scene. But take a few listens to his debut Versicolour and it’s hard to imagine Knight backing up any musician other than himself.

PIÑATA DIPLOMACY: Obama’s declining support

From the time I arrived on campus in August 2008 to the U.S. presidential election that November, I didn’t meet a single John McCain supporter. I don’t think this was because I had a disproportionately Obamaniacal group of friends. Nor was it because we viewed him as somehow the lesser of two evils – the tone of his supporters during the campaign was hardly reflective of that kind of aw-shucks-he’s-the-best-we-have mentality that you get with someone like Michael Ignatieff.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Spring Basil Salad

A few weeks ago, I ran a workshop at Nuit Blanche. We talked about a great assortment of food facts, including a demonstration of a brilliant tool: foodpairing.be, which generates incredible (and often unexpected) flavour matches. This can be useful for writing new recipes and coming up with innovative dishes.

The Canadian War on Queers tells personal accounts of prejudice

Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile’s The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation discusses the under-the-radar – and sometimes officially sanctioned – targeting of gays and lesbians as security threats from the 1950s to the 1990s. Written from – and told through – a series of first-hand accounts combined with documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, Kinsman and Gentile discuss the history of queer Canadians in a way that is passionate and personal.

MUHC and unani.ca launch patient self-management platform

Last Monday, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and a medical-technology company launched unani.ca, an innovative new personal health record (PHR) system. The interface allows patients to store all of their medical information in one place, and its developers hope that it will contribute to a growing trend of patient self-management.

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