Opinion

  • The isolation/freedom dichotomy of self-employment

    I quit my office job last June in what I thought would be a liberating, career-boosting move. I expected to bask in the freedom of self-employed work, but instead it left me feeling isolated.

  • Commuting through enshittification

    I spent many of my formative years speeding down the information superhighway, hanging out, making friends and getting into trouble. Like a digital version of the teens in American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused, cruising through cyberspace was a liberating experience connecting me to a new world of possibility.

  • Take a break

    My friend Lasha has been telling me for weeks that I need to slow down.

  • Constructing peace of mind for patients

    At least I didn’t have to wear one of the sandwich-board signs.

  • Seeing Winnipeg with the right eyes

    One of the things I love about learning Winnipeg’s history is how much vibrancy it adds to how I experience the city. As I learn more history, certain areas and places take on greater significance, representing the overlap of historical continuums.

  • Letter to the editor

    Across myriad cultures on Earth, there exists a myth referred to as an Ouroboros. In the majority of cultures in which it exists, it functions as a representation of death and rebirth; depicted as a gargantuan serpent doomed to forever chase and consume its tail. In modern, Western usage, the serpent has come to embody a once-great institution, now fallen and struggling to recapture its place of greatness.

  • Be kind, rewind

    Sad news came out of Transcona this week when owner Glen Fuhl announced that his business, Video King, would be closing after 40 years.

  • Who’s afraid of nuclear power?

    In 2023, the German government announced that it had finalized the process of decommissioning its remaining nuclear reactors. The phase-out is the result of Energiewende, a decades-long strategy spear-headed by Die Grünen, Germany’s Green Party.

  • SUVs, Winnipeg’s apex predator

    Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) are quickly becoming a consumer favourite in Canada, with sales tripling in the last 10 years. They have ample cargo space, high seating with great visibility, and, according to ecologist Andreas Malm, you should deflate the tires of each one you see.

  • You really like me!

    Like many movie nerds, I spent this past Sunday evening watching the Academy Awards. Curled up on my couch with a bowl of popcorn, I settled in for what is essentially my Super Bowl.

  • Physician, heal thyself

    One’s relationship to their family doctor is a weirdly personal one. On paper, it’s professional, with its own legal dynamics and bureaucracy. But it’s intimate. Your doctor knows more about your body than anyone else. Your life is sometimes literally in their hands. If you’ve had the same doctor since childhood, it can be one of life’s longest relationships. So when your doctor fails you, it’s more than a professional slight – it’s a deep betrayal.

  • Don’t bite the hand that feeds you

    Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault caused uproar over the last few weeks after he announced that the “gov- ernment has made the decision to stop in- vesting in new road infrastructure.”

  • Higher education in Ukraine and Canada

    My four years of higher education in Ukraine flew by quite fast. Last summer, I already had my bachelor’s degree in transla- tion, somehow managed to combine remote education in Ukraine while being in Canada and started going to University of Winnipeg at the same time.

  • A problem of priorities

    Anyone who’s been reading The Uniter for a while has probably read me complaining about Winnipeg’s car-centric philosophy more than once. It’s a favourite topic of mine. As someone who doesn’t own a car and relies on sidewalks and transit to get around, it impacts me pretty directly.

  • Insufficient funds

    One of the two public tennis courts a block from my downtown apartment has been missing a net since the fall. This was a more pressing issue in October, when temperatures were above freezing and the surface was still playable – but just barely.

  • Breaking through the Saint-Boniface ceiling

    I couldn’t wait to leave Saint-Boniface behind me when I was growing up. Yet I’m still very much nestled within its confines, not for want of trying.

  • The obituary from Hell

    While editing local news stories for this week’s issue of The Uniter, I was distracted by a news alert on my phone. I usually pay these no mind when I’m deep in production of the paper, but the photo in my peripheral vision caught my eye. The long hair and dark eyes were unmistakably those of comedian and actor Richard Lewis.

  • The spectre of stagnation

    Across several countries, the subject of retirement has come front and centre in political discussions. Last year, for instance, French President Emmanuel Macron introduced a law raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. As the French so often do, the public met the law with widespread protest.

  • A possibility, not a destiny

    Somewhere in storage, my sister-in-law has boxes of baby clothes stashed away for my future daughter. This hypothetical child and all her accoutrements also occupy space in other people’s minds.

  • What the history of streetcars tells us

    I often see people commenting on photos of Winnipeg in the 20th century on social media. Many of these comments express yearning for a time when Winnipeg was a multi-modal city.

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