Columns
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White lies
Sometimes, I feel like the wrong kind of African. I came to Canada when I was 17. Now, I am a citizen. All the time, I get the question: “have you gone back to Kenya since you left?”
I get it from immigrants and Canadians alike, and each time my answer is the same.
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A people’s history of streetcars
In September of 1955, a streetcar made its final run down Portage Avenue. This was the last time a streetcar went down a Winnipeg street – nearly 70 years ago.
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Ghosts of Winnipeg past
As I write these words on Wednesday afternoon, the Windsor Hotel is on fire.
The hotel and music venue on Garry Street, built in 1903, has sat vacant since March, when it was closed due to a provincial health hazard order. Its future remained in doubt before the fire. Now, its fate is sealed.
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University culture in flux
As a smaller institution, fostering an internal culture is integral to attracting students to the University of Winnipeg (U of W). When I weighed my options, my perception of the university’s culture brought me in.
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Unclear critical-minerals strategy sparks demand for answers
While navigating the climate crisis, governments have to balance people’s needs with the planet’s health. Switching to wind turbines and electric cars obviously helps wean communities off coal and oil. However, renewable energy systems come with their own environmental risks.
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Burrowing
By some accidental sequence of thoughtless actions, I discovered the possibility of disappearing into a man’s life for a day, a week, a short time, burrowing into a shared warmth, a stillness away from the ever-moving surface of everyday life.
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Consent isn’t rocket science
For this month’s Mother of Goo, I felt like getting back down to basics: consent.
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The political evolution of Edith Hancox
In last month’s “A people’s history of Winnipeg” column, I introduced Edith Hancox, a socialist and feminist organizer involved in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and activism throughout the 1920s.
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Build it, and they shall bike
In 2021, Coun. Matt Allard, then the chair of Winnipeg’s infrastructure and public-works committee, requested increased funding for active transit.
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Ecosexuality: I kiss the ground I walk upon
Performance artist and sexologist Annie Sprinkle and her partner, University of California art-department chair and professor Beth Stephens, are credited with popularizing what is recognized today as ecosexuality.
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Turning 24
January 2023 hit like a ton of bricks, and something else is on the way: my 24th birthday.
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Introducing Edith Hancox, socialist feminist
In early September 1919, thousands of Women’s Labour League meeting attendees resolved to march to Manitoba’s provincial legislature and demand that jailed strike leaders be released from prison.
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Deicing’s impact on Lake Winnipeg
Most Winnipeggers can recall a time they slipped down frozen porch steps or skidded through an icy road’s stop sign.
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Pleasure is power
I first wrote about pleasure activism in September of 2020 for my first Mother of Goo column.
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Grey areas
My sister and I call them “grey areas.”
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Pop my cherry!
Virginity is a loaded word.
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Your lawn isn’t as green as it looks
There isn’t an ecological disaster in your backyard. Your yard is the ecological disaster.
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Sex work laws in Canada reek of moralism
The term “prostitute/prostitution” is used in Canadian law, but the preferred terminology is sex worker/sex work.
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I don’t have friends
Reading week was rough. On the second lonely night, I waited for my sister to come home from the library.
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Gets her salad tossed
In the shower, high on psilocybin, I ate ass for the first time.
