All Posts Tagged With: "Cycling"

What students are talking about today (March 20th)

UBC Bike Rave (parkermckay92/Flickr)

1. Students at the University of British Columbia celebrated cycling culture with electronic music and glow sticks at the UBC Bike Rave on Friday night. It was organized by student residence advisors and was funded by a community grant. Unlike the drug-fuelled all-night parties of the 1990s that inspired the bike rave, this one was, according to The Ubyssey, “good clean fun.”

2. A student writing in The Varsity at the University of Toronto reports that the stress seminar she attended is a sorry excuse for counseling. “I had hoped that this “Coping with Stress” workshop, run by U of T’s Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) would help me, but instead it left me frustrated and angry,” writes Amanda Greer. “After a hard first semester, I approached CAPS about meeting with a counsellor. I was told there was a four month waiting list and to start looking for other options.” She points out that despite much discussion about the mental wellness of Canadian students, including in a recent cover story in Maclean’s, students often can’t access the one-on-one counselling. It’s a shame, but I think the explanation is obvious: tight budgets.

3. Western University is mourning the loss of student Noah Kishinevsky, whose body was found in a parked car at a high rise in London, Ont. The cause of death has not been confirmed, “but a hazardous substance was found in Kishinevsky’s car,” reports The Gazette. Police told the student newspaper that there was “no foul play” and that they won’t release more details.

4. A commentary in The Griff student newspaper at MacEwan University defends Ohio University photography student Sara Lewcowicz, who witnessed a man beat his girlfriend and documented it with photos instead of intervening. The heartbreaking photos of Shane, 31, abusing Maggie, 19, were published in TIME. Rebecca Trites supports the young photojournalist, arguing that intervening can be dangerous and that the photo essay creates awareness of domestic violence.

5. Police arrested 45 people in Montreal who were demonstrating against tuition fee hikes on Tuesday, reports CBC. As usual, police immediately declared the demonstration illegal because organizers did not submit an itinerary in advance. Several of the protesters threw snowballs, and four were arrested for assaults on police, reports Radio-Canada. The hikes recently proposed in Quebec under its Parti Quebecois government are about $70 per year—much less than the $325 increase that was planned by former premier Jean Charest. Quebec students pay about $2,200 per year.

What students are talking about today (February 15th)

Verizon/YouTube

1. Toronto’s Payam Rajabi had to leave his girlfriend Clare behind when he moved to San Francisco for a job, so on Valentine’s Day he did something extra special for his long-distance love. NPR reports that he “jumped on his bike, opened his iPhone to a map of San Francisco, and tracking himself with a GPS, he rode 27 miles around the city, taking 2 1/2 hours, burning 1,135 calories and carefully etching a heart shape onto a city map.” After his bike shop shared the story, Verizon Wireless called and asked him to do it again for an advertisement.The commercial is on YouTube already where it has 230,000 views.

2. Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut and soon-to-be Commander of the International Space Station talked to University of Waterloo students live from space today. It’s worth watching the whole thing, but here are some highlights. Asked to describe how he felt leaving earth, he said: “My apprehension was low. I was more concerned about not going to space than going to space because there are so many complexities leaving Earth. I had a lot of eagerness to put all that training into practice. So it was with a sense of buoyant energy and readiness that I left Earth’s protective sheath.” Asked what feature on Earth’s surface he was most surprised to be able to see, he said noctilucent clouds, which are hard to see from down here too and may be useful for tracking climate change. He took photos that he says “may be one of the most enduring legacies of our time up here.” He also offered advice for wannabe astronauts: stay healthy, get an advanced education and be able to “make big decisions when consequences matter.” Oh, and don’t be boring: “Are you going to be an interesting person to go to Mars with or not?”

3. A political science professor at West Liberty University in the U.S. recently gave his students an assignment where they were to record their reactions to various new articles and the professor listed two sources they couldn’t use: The Onion, which is a satire, and Fox News because, she says, it’s “biased.” Biased it undoubtedly is but uncovering biases is sort of the point of analyzing news, isn’t it? Robin Capehart, the school’s president, thought so, telling Inside Higher Education that the professor was wrong. “Isn’t the idea that you use what sources you can and then you have to defend the facts?” he said. “To me that’s what college is all about — being able to conduct your research and conduct your own conclusions, and the professor needs to be able to challenge it.” The rule has been changed.

4. Liberal candidate Justin Trudeau continues to travel across the country stopping on university campuses. The Queen’s Journal got a shot of him looking like a sasquatch (scroll down after the link to see it) when he spoke in Kingston, Ont. earlier this week. He spent Valentine’s Day at Trent University where 250 people showed up. One interesting policy idea he floated is a gap year between high school and university during which young people could be funded to serve their country through programs like the now-canned Katimavik, in other countries or in the military.

4. The Harlem Shake trend continues to capture attention from Canadian university students. The University of Guelph’s version has now shot to first place in the competition for the most views of any student version at 1.85 million views compared to Western University’s 1.39 million. The University of Toronto is at 334,000 and Brock University is at 200,000—not bad for late entrants.

A physics video, a lawsuit over a B+ and an unfunny Joker

MinutePhysics on YouTube

1. A new video funded partly by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo is calling on Barack Obama to improve physics education. The video is spreading surprisingly quickly, approaching 320,000 views already. “High school physics students across most of America aren’t required to learn any physics discovered since 1865,” says the narrator, who then lists off some of the discoveries since then, including photons, the existence of antimatter, MRIs, the big bang… you know, little things.

2. A 41-year-old student at Concordia University is doing what so many students feel powerless to do—challenging a grade he sees as unjust. William Groombridge is suing over a B-plus he got in his energy policy course that he says should have been an A-minus. He wants a refund of the course, alleging that the school school arbitrarily downgraded his final mark to meet an unofficial grade quota or bell curve. More in the Spectator.

3. Police in Boulder, Colo. arrested a 17-year-old who showed up at a cinema wearing a Batman Joker mask. He scared patrons who were reminded of James Holmes, the man who killed 12 people and injured 58 others at a Colorado premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. More in the Daily Camera.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 13th edition)

Ontario study looked at 129 bicycle-related deaths

Musti Mohsin/Flickr

Cyclists who die of a head injury are much less likely to be wearing a helmet than bike riders who die of other injuries, a study has found, underscoring what researchers say is the need for mandatory helmet use for Canadians of all ages.

The study, which analyzed 129 accidental bicycle-related deaths in Ontario between 2006 and 2010, found cyclists who didn’t wear a helmet were three times more likely to die from brain trauma than those who wore protective head gear while riding.

“Helmets save lives,” said Dr. Nav Persaud, a family physician and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, who led the study.

“There are about 70 cycling deaths in Canada every year,” Persaud said. “And based on our study, we estimate we could prevent about 20 of them with helmets.”

Continue reading Helmets prevent fatal head injuries in cyclists

Lady Gaga, “swarmings” in Ottawa and riot justice

Gaga in Toronto (Gn!pGnop/Flickr)

1. Lady Gaga’s latest bit of performance art/marketing is called “Sleeping with Gaga.” Last night, she climbed into a structure at New York’s Guggenheim and encouraged celebrities like Paris Hilton and Marc Jacobs to touch her while she slept. Oh, and she also got a new tattoo that some say looks like Honey Boo Boo, the proud redneck beauty queen who stars in the eponymous TLC show. (Not making this up.)

2. Sweden isn’t the fairytale land we Canadians sometimes imagine it to be. A drunk man, 38, fell onto the tracks at a metro station south of Stockholm and instead of being helped up to safety, he was robbed of his wallet, gold chain and mobile phone. The thief calmly fled. The victim was then hit by the train and seriously injured.

3. Ottawa isn’t safe either, apparently. An 18-year-old male was charged after two “swarmings” near the University of Ottawa. Hanten Hersi and an unidentified accomplice are accused of stealing from three people in two separate incidents. At one point, they showed a gun to a woman before robbing her. The second suspect is described as a 5’7″ to 5’10″ tall black male with dreadlocks.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 14 edition)

Rihanna cries, a stolen iPad and socialist summer school

Rihanna cries (from OWN on YouTube)

1. In an interview promoted on her OWN Network even more often than Proactiv acne treatment, Oprah gets pop star Rihanna to cry and admit that she has forgiven Chris Brown for hitting her. “We are very, very close friends. We built a trust again,” she said. For the record, they’re not in a relationship, even though they chill in San Tropez.

2. Vancouver cyclists are angry at police for doing their jobs. Cops have been handing out $100 fines to those without lids, as a city bylaw dictates. Helmet haters say such laws cause people to cycle less. So far this year, 1,112 tickets have been given to bikers without headgear.

3. NASA’s Curiosity rover zapped its first Martian rock with a laser on Sunday. The rover, which landed two weeks ago, was sent to help answer the question: is Mars habitable? Considering the basic human need to burn tiny holes in things, the answer appears to be yes.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 20 edition)

Total cost: $4,868

The University of Saskatchewan is the first Canadian school to install a new type of unmanned bike repair station, which has taken off in the U.S., reports The Sheaf. Students can use the outdoor Dero Fixit station to pump up tires, tighten screws and more. The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union and the Arts and Science Students’ Union split the $1,868 cost of the unit itself. The Office of Sustainability paid $3,000 for the construction of its concrete foundation. Many other schools in Canada have indoor bike repair shops, which are often staffed by volunteers.

Click to read about Canada’s best cycling schools. From the Maclean’s University Rankings.

The new political cause on campus? More parking, please.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Krejci on Flickr

From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings issue. Get your copy from newsstands now.

Watching Tommy Douglass on YouTube, one can’t help but recall Matthew Broderick’s legendary rendering of a spoiled but highly resourceful high school student in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Douglass, a fourth-year University of Regina student, has a boyish face and a sleek businessman’s attitude. And he’s on a mission: to redress his school’s parking woes. “Until now, I’ve never had a single complaint. I like my school . . . it’s ideal,” he says in one of several videos he’s used to draw attention to the issue. But, he adds, “we are seriously, seriously messing up parking.”

Against the backdrop of his student bedroom—complete with a laundry basket and a picture of a blond bikini babe tacked to the wall—he shows viewers two of three $65 tickets he recently received for parking in a staff lot. “I am not going to pay a single ticket,” he says defiantly. He’d gladly pay for one of the school’s parking permits, he adds, but the school has already run out.

Continue reading The university’s war on the automobile