All Posts Tagged With: "NHL lockout"

Alcohol Studies, the Sandy Five, & a riot over Obama

1. A protest by disgruntled Republican students at the University of Mississippi following President Barack Obama’s reelection on Tuesday wasn’t a riot, according to the school’s chancellor. But it sure looked like one. There were racist epithets and Obama signs lit on fire as hundreds gathered on campus, reports ClarionLedger.com.

2. I regret to inform you that the University of Calgary is not offering a course called Alcohol Studies with samplings in class, as The Gauntlet student newspaper had reported in a humour piece, and which I pointed to in an earlier post as fact. (Mea culpa.) Too bad. It sounded fun.

3. The more than 110 deaths in the United States and the tens of billions in property damage weren’t the only consequences of Superstorm Sandy. New Yorkers say that after a week of eating processed foods while the power was out, they have trouble buttoning their jeans. The New York Times is calling the five pounds of weight gain the “Sandy Five.” Our thoughts are with them.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 8th edition)

Drake graduates, Sandy kills, & good news for graduates

High School Grad Drake (musicisentropy/Flickr)

1. At least 17 people died due to Superstorm Sandy, which came ashore in New Jersey and spread across eastern North America Monday, knocking out power in many places, including parts of New York City. It was a serious storm with sad consequences for many, but that didn’t stop students at shut-down U.S. colleges from celebrating their “hurrication.” Here in Canada, at least one person was killed when a piece of a Staples store sign in Toronto came lose and struck a woman standing underneath. Classes were cancelled on Monday evening at Brock University and Niagara College, but both reopened on Tuesday. Many flights are cancelled today.

2. Drake, the much-loved and occasionally hated Canadian rap superstar, is making headlines for the high school graduation speech he gave this weekend Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto. The 26-year-old dropped out of school at age 15 to pursue an acting job with Degrassi: The Next Generation. He said on Sunday that the lack of diploma left a “gaping hole” in his life, so he spent the past five months finishing the work. Why would a millionaire want to finish high school? “This is about the art of following through,” he told the crowd.

3. A Republican student group at an Ohio university has apologized for using the song Fake Empire by The National in a pro-Romney video they posted on YouTube. This after frontman Matt Berninger posted a testy response: “We encourage all students to educate themselves about the differences between the inclusive, pro-social, compassionate, forward-thinking policies of President Obama and the self-serving politics of the neo-conservative movement and Mitt Romney.”

Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 30th edition)

Occupy, a campus caffeine ban, campus radio and the NHL

j.dubb/Flickr

1. Ryerson lost its radio station CKLN for good last week after the CRTC denied an application to bring it back. “There were feminist programs, LGBT shows, even a series on prisoners’ rights. There was a lot of lefty politics and a lot of loopy politics. Not all of it was good, but you would struggle to hear it anywhere else,” recalls The Ryersonian. The station was shut down after years of fighting between the students’ union and non-students on the board, partly over the question how much airtime students got.

2. It’s officially one year since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. See Twitter for the latest action under #OWS, #OCCUPY and #S17.

3. One of the enduring scenes from Occupy was when University of California Davis students and alumni were violently pepper-sprayed by campus police at a peaceful protest following an eviction in November. The university just announced a settlement with 21 victims. UC spokesperson Jonathan Stein told the L.A. Times, “we did an injustice to our students that day at Davis.” Yes they did.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 17 edition)

Hockey, marijuana v. IQ, sex drive, sea ice and Sarah Palin

Vancouver Canucks' Ryan Kesler (Loxy!!/Flickr)

1. University sports writers are being driven crazy by all this talk of another NHL lockout. Karen Aney of UFV’s The Cascade blames both the players and commissioner Gary “Buttman” Bettman. “Last time there was a lockout, we saw the emergence of poker. Seriously? That was the best that sports networks could do?,” she laments.

2. Teens who smoke marijuana regularly may suffer long-term brain damage according to a study that observed how IQ changed between the ages of 13 and 38 for more than 1,000 New Zealanders. Those who smoked heavily and early are most at risk. IQ dropped among those who were dependent on marijuana before the age of 18 by eight points on average. That’s a big drop.

3. Autumn is here and that means not just falling leaves but falling sex drives. A study that looked at five years of Google searches showed “strong and consistent” seasonal spikes in searches for pornography, online dating and prostitution in spring and early winter, with lulls this time of year.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 28 edition)