A savings safety net

By Peter Shawn Taylor, Jullia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 11 Comments

Carlπos Hernandez understands the restaurant business. The retirement business, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery.

After a career spent working in other people’s kitchens, Hernandez, a native of El Salvador, is on the verge of opening his own restaurant. Inigo, in downtown Toronto, will offer takeout Portuguese churrasqueira-inspired fare—oven-roasted chicken, salads and brown rice. At 48, Hernandez felt it was time he became his own boss. So he’s sunk 15 years of savings into his venture.

While most financial advisers would argue against putting a lifetime of savings into a single, risky asset, the chef figures he knows his way around a kitchen counter much better than a stock portfolio. If the restaurant flops, however, he’ll be left with nothing.

“This is a gamble,” Hernandez admits of his foray into the notoriously fickle restaurant industry. “But it’s all I know. I’m not thinking in terms of a retirement plan.”

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GM back on the stock market

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 6 Comments

Shares of General Motors hit the open market on Thursday and were available to investors for US$33 a piece. The automaker, which filed for bankruptcy last June, had become known as “Government Motors” in recent years thanks to bailouts worth billions of dollars from the Canadian and U.S. government. Now, those same governments are hoping to make at least some of that money back by selling their stake in the company. The U.S. government plans to sell 400 million of its shares in GM, reducing its ownership from 61 per cent to 31 per cent. Canada, on the other hand, is planning a more modest sell-off of just twenty per cent of its shares. For Canada to break even on its $9.5 billion bailout of the automaker, share prices would need to reach $43. In their first hour of trading on Wednesday, the stock was priced at just over $35 on both the New York and Toronto stock exchanges.

CTV News

This is why we can't have nice things

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:25 PM - 35 Comments

On Monday, the Winnipeg Free Press reported that Michael Ignatieff had warned against “splitting the Filipino vote” in Winnipeg-North or at least that the Liberal leader had said “voters in Winnipeg North deserve a ‘straight-up’ campaign free from attempts to split the Filipino vote.”

On Tuesday, the Conservative candidate in Winnipeg-North expressed her disappointment. The Free Press editorial board deemed Mr. Ignatieff comments “an insult to voters in general and Filipinos in particular.” The Conservative government sent up a backbencher before QP to deem his comments both “insulting and offensive” and to call on the Liberal leader to apologize. And radio host Charles Adler added his unique brand of sanctimony.

Thing is, by Tuesday afternoon the reporter of the original story had posted a transcript of Mr. Ignatieff’s remarks. And, as it turns out, he hadn’t said what was reported. Continue…

Dress warmly, and watch out for the mice

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

It seems that if you can make it at the Canadian Consulate General in New York City, you can make it anywhere. Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, has uncovered—thanks to an access-to-information request—troubling details about the working conditions at the Consulate General’s visa office in the Big Apple.

According to the annual report, staff working in the basement office at 1251 Avenue of the Americas are often forced to wear their winter jackets and scarves to deal with temperatures dipping as low as 15° C. Air quality is “uncertain,” the report states: “Studies conducted several years ago were inconclusive.” Employees there have complained about a lack of natural light, which affects morale. Sanitation is also questionable; a fleet of mice has invaded the dank quarters, and are often seen scurrying about, leaving droppings on peoples’ desks. Extermination attempts have “proven unsuccessful.” A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade told Maclean’s that they are “aware of the issues” and have “consulted with the landlord and taken steps to correct the situation.”

Still, Kurland is “shocked” by his findings, and that the complaints have not been fully addressed. “I’d expect to see this in a Canadian operation in the Third World, but not in New York,” he says. Kurland hopes his discovery will shed light on the challenges that can arise in Canada’s embassies. “Enforcement of Canadian standards regarding workplace issues stops at the Canadian border,” he says. “People think that it’s all champagne and fancy dinners overseas, but sometimes you’re relegated to the basement and dining on ‘rats-a-roni.’ ”

Big school, small city: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

By Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 1 Comment

Ishmael Napoleon Daro is a fourth-year political science student. Originally from Afghanistan, he grew up in Saskatoon.

Why did you choose Saskatchewan?
“Basically, geography. I have a safety net with family around and friends.”

What’s campus like?
“The U of S is one of the better-looking campuses we have in Canada,” says Daro. “The buildings all have a stone finish that gives them the same sort of look. Even when they build a new building, they’ll still have the stonework done to make the whole campus look consistent. It’s beautiful.”

How are the people?
“It’s mostly local people. You do get a lot of Albertans from Calgary, Edmonton or some of the smaller towns, but it does feel like a very Saskatchewan university.” However, he doesn’t mind being surrounded by prairie folk. “I don’t imagine that people in other cities are so freakish or terribly interesting that I’m missing out.”

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Small school, small town: St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, N.S.

By Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 5 Comments

Sean McEvoy is a first-year business administration student from Quispamsis, N.B. He plans to be a lawyer.

Why did you choose a school in a small town?
“I grew up in a town about the same size as Antigonish,” says McEvoy. “I like the familiarity of knowing where everything is. When I first visited here, I noticed everybody smiles at you. I’ve heard stories about Halifax and the crime rate, but there have never been any major issues with crime in Antigonish, so I feel really safe here.”

What’s the small campus like?
“I can get anywhere in 10 minutes or less. You can walk everywhere. I’ve woken up 10 minutes before class and I still managed to get there in time.”

Is there anything to do after class?
“We’ve got two bars, one on campus and one downtown. We’ve got a lot of clubs and societies within St. FX. There’s also a movie theatre and restaurants.”

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A song in their hearts

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Thank the Gleeks. First, the fans of the hit TV show Glee made singing and dancing programs cool in high schools everywhere. Now, just as the high-schoolers on Glee will wind up going to the same college, Glee-mania is migrating to real-life universities.

According to Jazz Times magazine, American universities have “noted a sharp rise in student interest and enrolment” in choral and music programs, and some have created new groups to meet the Glee-fuelled demand. Ditto in Canada. Earlier this year, after two students at Carleton University started the school’s first glee club, one of the founders, Emile Scheffel, told the school paper the Charlatan that, “I got, like, 47 comments from people wanting to join in the first two hours.” It could be only a matter of time before Glee mania becomes as ubiquitous in school as it is on TV.

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How to feel happy as a single woman

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 10 Comments

For one woman, the most lonely night of being single came when she had to drive herself to the emergency room. The doctor “asked if I could get anyone to pick me up because of the narcotic medicine he needed to give me, and I briefly thought about it and said no. Maybe there were people I could have called in a dire emergency, but lots of my friends go to bed early and I didn’t feel comfortable waking them. So I had to wait until the sedative wore off, then drove myself at 1:00 a.m. to find a 24-hour pharmacy,” remembers the 41-year-old nurse.

“This should never, ever happen to anyone,” writes Michelle Cove in Seeking Happily Ever After: Navigating the Ups and Downs of Being Single Without Losing Your Mind. She spent three years interviewing single women, many of whom worry about a future medical emergency. Cove suggests lining up support well before you need it.

Start with girlfriends: “Let them know it would comfort you if you knew they could be part of a support team to help you in duress.” Each friend should know she’s part of a small team, not the only one helping, and be specific about what you are asking for, “such as being your emergency contact, taking care of your pets if you’re hospitalized, bringing you to the ER if necessary.”

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Big school, big city: University of Toronto

By Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Emily Kellogg is in her last year of a book and media arts and philosophy double degree. She’s from Pebble Beach, Calif.

Why did you choose U of T?
“I’m one of those people who always dreamt of living in New York,” says Kellogg, explaining that she enjoys the fact that eastern cities have four seasons, unlike California. “I chose U of T because I wanted to be at a big school in a major city in the East and I couldn’t afford to go to NYU.”

Was it the right choice?
“I knew I’d made the right decision at my first Nuit Blanche,” says the arts editor of U of T’s student newspaper, the Varsity. “Seeing art everywhere and having the city vibrating at 4 a.m. was so exciting.” Kellogg also loves being able to walk to literary, music and art events right after class. “I can walk to Queen Street and go art-gallery hopping or I can go to the Horseshoe and see an amazing band for $8. Plus, all the big bands come here. I really enjoyed the Arcade Fire concert on the island this summer.”

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Hire education

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Ian Collins was almost a cliché. He finished a degree in visual arts at the University of Western Ontario and then spent four years waiting tables. “I was going in for job interviews, but I wouldn’t get the job,” explains the Toronto resident. The deal breaker? “It was always because someone else had real-world experience.” So Collins decided to enrol in a one-year diploma in sport and event marketing at George Brown College because, he says, it had a built-in internship. That led to a job after graduation, and now he’s an account executive at the marketing firm Zoom Media. At 31, Collins has his career on track. “College helped me by getting my foot in the door,” he says.

It’s no wonder students like Collins are looking to college for a different path. Despite the fact that Canada has the second-highest rate of education spending in proportion to our GDP, we’re nearly the worst of the 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries when it comes to placing grads in jobs they are qualified for. That’s especially hard to swallow considering the price of education today. With student debt load reaching a record high—nearly $27,000 for university students last year and about half that for college grads—more Canadians than ever before are considering college as a less expensive, more job-oriented alternative to the ivory towers.

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High-rise horticulture

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Montreal is better known for its urban parks and nightlife, but soon, the city will be home to a world first in farming. That’s because a commercial-scale rooftop greenhouse is set to open on the flat, concrete roof of an office building close to the city’s Marché Central, north of the downtown. Planting should begin in January and, if all goes to plan, customers will be able to get pesticide and herbicide-free vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, bok choy and arugula as early as next spring.

Supermarket produce often travels thousands of kilometres to store shelves, fuelling concern about everything from food quality to greenhouse gases. Lufa Farms, the Montreal company behind the project, says its greenhouse will give urbanites a chance to eat veggies grown in their own neighbourhoods. As the population increases—especially in cities—and arable land becomes scarcer, the notion of urban farming is getting more popular. One of the best-known advocates is Columbia University’s Dickson Despommier, who last month published The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century. In it, he describes farms several stories high, in the heart of the city.

Vertical farms are still a ways away, but “to innovate, you have to do it in steps,” says Lufa Farms president and co-founder Mohamed Hage. He and co-founder Kurt Lynn talk about building rooftop greenhouses in other cities, like Toronto—which last year became the first North American city to require “green roofs” on new buildings of a certain size (the bylaw comes into effect next year). “We believe urban farming is key to any healthy city,” says Hage. “If you look around Montreal, there’s ample roof space to feed all of Canada.”

Fat could repair wounds and burns

By Celia Milne - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 3 Comments

Her friends jokingly call her “the fat lady.” That’s because Julie Fradette’s dream is to extract stem cells from fat, coax them in her lab to divide and grow, create all-natural three-dimensional soft tissue, and have surgeons use it in people’s bodies. She’s done all but the last. When that happens, a new breast could be built or a gaping wound filled without any synthetic material whatsoever—just the person’s own cells. “That’s the beauty of it,” says Fradette. And using adult cells avoids the question of embryonic stem cells, the source of a lot of the controversy.

Fradette, a researcher at the cutting-edge Laboratoire D’Organogénèse Expérimentale (LOEX) at Université Laval in Quebec City, is a world leader in creating three-dimensional soft tissue that is completely autologous, meaning from the self. Her colleagues at LOEX use stem cells—mostly harvested from skin—to produce new skin, blood vessels, ligaments, bronchi and corneas. And other groups have taken fat and re-injected it elsewhere in the body—to fill in facial wrinkles, for instance. Fradette is unique in using fat stem cells to create larger chunks of tissue.

Her experiments use fat that has been cut or liposuctioned from people’s bellies and butts at nearby clinics. (The donors have consented to have their fat used.) But one day, she hopes to rely on a patient’s own fat cells. “It is possible to harvest your stem cells from fat even if you are thin,” she explains. “We have a lot of it, and it’s so accessible.”

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The EU stands on guard

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

While the world watched Greece burn in response to austerity measures for a failing economy, the country was also quietly trying to quell another crisis: a dramatic increase in the number of illegal migrants crossing into the European Union through Greece’s land border with Turkey.

Though the overall number of undocumented migrants entering Europe has decreased of late, the trend in Greece has gone the other way; it currently accounts for 90 per cent of detected illegal border crossings into the EU. This influx has so overwhelmed Greece that it called on Brussels for help. In response, the EU sent over its Rapid Border Intervention Teams, a multinational armed force set up in 2007 but deployed for the first time to guard Greece’s external borders.

Of the illegal migrants showing up in Greece, about half are Albanians looking for seasonal work. Others claim to be Afghan and Iraqi, seeking asylum. Many will end up in overcrowded detention facilities. And few have papers, so repatriating them can be difficult. So much so that, as of August, the backlog of people seeking asylum in Greece numbered 52,000 cases.

Small school, small city: University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, B.C.

By Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 1 Comment

Shelby Petersen is a fourth-year political science student from Prince George, B.C. She edits the school paper.

What’s Prince George like?
“A lot of people coming to UNBC are from smaller towns of, like, 1,000. You get some of that city feeling, but also the community feel.”

Is there stuff to do?
“It’s small, but Prince George has got lots of local venues and independent bands,” says the music fan. “Dan Mangan was here recently. We also have Coldsnap, a winter music festival. I saw Joel Plaskett last year. It was awesome.”

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Will the Royal wedding date depend on Obama?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 3 Comments

I love this exchange from a press briefing with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Particularly the reporter’s final thought on the subject.

Also, would William and Catherine really arrange their wedding date around Barack Obama’s travel schedule?

From the White House briefing:

Q    As you know, Robert, not only Buckingham Palace but all of Great Britain and quite a bit of the U.S. media is aflutter with the coming wedding –

Q    Are you aflutter?

Q    Speak for yourself, man.  (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS:  You should see me — if this is aflutter, you should see when I’m not.  (Laughter.)

Q    I may have.  Anyway — thank you.  The question is, what would the President — what sage advice, having a successful marriage, would the President offer — (laughter) — or maybe even yourself — in terms of — (laughter) — or any official statement?

MR. GIBBS:  Let me say this.  I don’t have –

Q    And I have a follow-up.  (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS:  I’m not going to impart — I don’t know what the President would say.

Q    Best wishes?

Q    Did he call?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, I would say — he’s not made any calls — obviously would wish them well, best wishes.  But I have not heard a lot of discussion.

Q    Just a quick follow-up?

Q    Do you like the ring?  (Laughter.)

Q    Believe it or not, there’s questions in Great Britain as to when the exact date would be — spring, summer — and there are some questions about, it would depend on when the President  and First Lady may be coming to accept Her Majesty the Queen’s invitation this coming spring/summer.  Is there any thought to that, when that might be?

MR. GIBBS:  I can look for guidance on the schedule but I have not heard from –

Q    See what we have to do to make a living in this business?

Canada-US Happenings: borders, privacy, and pre-clearance

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

Two interesting events coming up at the Canada Institute at Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars here in Washington:

Tomorrow: Privacy and Information Sharing: The Search for an Intelligent Border, featuring Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer in the Department of Homeland Security, and Wesley Wark,  professor in the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Dec. 8: Mixed Signals at the Border: The Future of U.S.-Canada Preclearance Programs, featuring Paul Haddow, Director General, Canada Border Services Agency, among many others.

 

A separate peace

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

When Logan Nash decided to move in with three other male students in second-year university, he imagined it would be like Joey Tribbiani’s apartment on Friends—everybody hanging around, sharing pizza and beer, playing air hockey and being, well, friendly.

It didn’t turn out that way.

Instead, the 22-year-old graphic design student found himself living in a quiet two-bedroom with only one roommate (the other two students having opted at the last minute to live at home with their parents for financial reasons). Instead of hanging around shooting the breeze and cooking spaghetti with meatballs, he and his roommate opted to live separate lives. His roommate had a severe nut allergy so food was strictly divided. The same went for toiletries. They split up the cleaning duties, conducted separate social lives and even organized their class schedules so they wouldn’t have to be in the apartment at the same time. “We were in the same program so it seemed better if we didn’t hang out together too much,” he says. “So most of the time we just did our own thing. The purpose of living together wasn’t for company, it was for each one to pay our half of the rent.”

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High anxiety

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

By the time Victoria Ciciretto left her family’s home in Kleinburg, Ont., to live and study at the University of Toronto, the 18-year-old was already a seasoned world traveller. “I’d gone away for a month in Europe for summer school in Grade 10,” she says. “I took a Grade 12 course in Greece,” she adds. “And the year before last, I studied English in England.”

Presumably, moving 40 km away from home would be easy, but instead the arts and science student was filled with anxiety. “For my first week, I was like, ‘Oh my god, why would people say this is the most amazing time of your life?’ ”

She was nervous about living in a dorm, about classes and homework, about what major to choose and if she would make friends. There was a reason she could handle summers overseas, but was scared of university. “I had really good friends with me when I went travelling,” she says. “When I went to university, I didn’t know anybody.”

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Ratko Mladic's fan club

By Erica Alini - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Calling up the hotline at the Serbian Intelligence Agency with a crucial tip about war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic could earn you a $14-million cheque from the Serbian government—and a $14,000 bounty on your own head. That’s how much an ad on SerbianNationalists.com, the website of a right-leaning group, is promising as a reward for turning in anyone who informs on Mladic, the Bosnian-Serb general who stands accused of genocide before the UN international criminal court for the massacre of over 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, and for the siege of Sarajevo.

Mladic is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the way of Serbia’s entry into the European Union. The EU recently inched closer to starting membership talks with Belgrade, but insists further progress is conditional on serious efforts to capture the fugitive. But although over 60 per cent of Serbs support joining the EU, a roughly equal percentage do not think that Mladic should be arrested and extradited, according to a recent survey.

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An oligarch's last stand

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once one of the richest men in Russia, has found out what the consequences of crossing the Kremlin can be. The businessman, who made his fortune as an oil tycoon, was first arrested at gunpoint for tax evasion in 2003. Two years later, he was convicted. In 2005, state prosecutors brought new charges against him: they alleged he stole $25 billion of the very oil he was accused of underpaying taxes on. If Khodorkovsky is found guilty on these second charges in mid-December, when a verdict is due to be released, he’ll remain in prison for six more years—after his current sentence ends in 2011.

The case against Khodorkovsky is now widely seen as a response to his financial support of political parties that oppose the Kremlin. This current trial, analysts believe, is a ploy to keep him in jail until after the 2012 elections, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to take another run at the presidency. Until then, from behind a glass cage in a packed Moscow courtroom, he’s made no secret of his views on Russian justice. His arrest, he noted, was a display of the Kremlin’s power above the law. But, “so far, they have achieved the opposite: they turned us, ordinary people, into symbols of a struggle against lawlessness.”

Just calm down . . .

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Dr. Michael Van Ameringen, professor in psychiatry at McMaster University, shares his top four tips for coping with university-related anxiety:

HIT THE GYM: “It’s been proven repeatedly that physical activity helps people manage anxiety and elevate mood. Make sure you incorporate that as part of your week.”

MANAGE EXPECTATIONS: “It’s important to learn to have reasonable expectations of yourself when you go to a new place. You’re not going to figure out the way to learn and instantly get 90s in all classes.”

TAKE A BREAK: “There’s no doubt that people are more efficient when they work for fixed periods of time, followed by planned breaks.”

PHONE A FRIEND: “It’s important not to allow yourself to become isolated. Staying in touch with people by phone and visiting them regularly is key. So is getting involved with campus activities because they provide vehicles for meeting new people.”

You Got Prank'd

By Erin Millar - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 1 Comment

The quintessential university prank comprises two elements: first, the feat should be technically ambitious. In the words of the legendary pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), exemplary stunts require “making possible the improbable.” Since MIT students coaxed a live cow onto the roof of a dorm in 1928, engineering students across the continent have made cars, telephone booths and even full-sized sailboats appear in the most unlikely places.

Second, a good dose of competitiveness—sometimes bordering on vindictiveness—is the hallmark of a quality hoax. A famous example: at the annual Yale-Harvard football game in 2004, Yale students, disguised as the fictional “Harvard pep squad,” distributed white-and-red placards to 1,800 unsuspecting Harvard fans. The fans were told that when they lifted the placards, they would read, “Go Harvard.” They actually spelled, “We suck.”

While the foundation of the pranking tradition can be fairly claimed by American students, Canadian students have begun to challenge their pre-eminence as tricksters.

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Trying to end a murder spree

By Erica Alini - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Activists across the world are raising awareness about the dangers faced by Africa’s albino men and women. They have been the targets in a spate of gruesome killings that have left at least 71 dead since 2008 in Tanzania and Burundi (the actual number may be over 100). Murders have also been reported in Kenya, Uganda and Swaziland; victims are usually found dismembered, as killers sell their body parts, which some African witches claim have magical healing powers. African governments have responded with severe sentences for murders, stricter monitoring of traditional healers, or plans to set up registries for albinos, as Swaziland announced in October.

And the international community is working to fight widespread ignorance about albinism, a medical condition that leaves people without pigment in their skin, hair, and eyes. UKAid in the British Department of International Development recently financed the production of Hawa ni Wenzetu (“they are like us”), a 55-minute documentary on albinos that seeks to dispel prejudice and superstitions about them. Last year, the Red Cross teamed up with Salif Keita, a popular Malian singer who is himself albino, to launch an appeal for better protection of albinos.

Who am I?

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

You’re not like your parents, but you confide in them. You’ve been stamped the iPod generation, but you believe in the power of print and that some technologies are evil. Recent polls provide a portrait of the class of 2011.

OPTIMISTIC
Seventy-nine per cent believe it’s possible to create your destiny, and 52 per cent feel you will fulfill every one of your dreams. Almost all of you feel you will make it to graduation, and nearly two-thirds say you’re engaged and enthusiastic about school.

GODLESS
Is there a god? Not likely. You live in the moment, and probably do not participate in religion. In fact, your belief in science may trump your belief in god.

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