Perspectives from Londoners

Pride and Protest: “Parade” Screening at Museum London

Last month, I went to Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre to watch a production of Michael R. Jackson’s Tony and Pulitzer award-winning musical, “A Strange Loop.” I was stunned by its unapologetic Blackness, especially seeing it amongst a predominantly white crowd. The musical offers a gritty understanding of the lived experiences of a Black gay man in the modern era (modern as in like 2015 modern, to be fair), so much so that a white family with their young daughter packed up and left by the third song. I could not stop thinking about this white family leaving. I kept wondering if…

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Crowd of people sitting on the floor of Poacher's Arms surrounding the stage as Whine Problem prepares to play their final song of the evening

MAGICAL Evenings: June 18, 19 Music Show Reviews

Last week I went to two music events at a local bar, Poacher’s Arms, 171 Queens Ave. The first one was a free event on Wednesday called “Queerrr Jam”. This was held in collaboration with “Grrrls Jam”, a free event held at Poachers Arms once a month, where femme and gender-nonconforming people can go up and jam on the Poacher’s stage.  In this case, it was for anyone within the queer community to perform at. Queerrr Jam was run in collaboration with MAGICAL 519, which stands for Multicultural Accessible Gatherings Improving 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Affirmation in London, a collective that aims…

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Open Letter: This Emerita prof Supports Divestment

Dear President Shepard, I would like to thank you for the generous offer to attend a dinner with retired faculty from Western: it is an important gesture to remember former professors and our contributions. Normally, I would be looking forward to seeing familiar faces and reminiscing with colleagues about our days on campus. However, under the circumstances, I must decline your invitation.  It is impossible for me to enjoy a celebratory meal with Western colleagues when our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza are enduring a brutal famine deliberately imposed by an occupying power which is actively supported by your Administration. How…

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Go Eat a Flower: Full Circle Cooking Episode Two

It’s springtime, and Antler River is a mosaic of bright, beautiful flowers. If you’re anything like me, your first thought is: “How can I get a free meal out of this?” In fact, many common flowers in Southern Ontario are edible and I’m going to show you two simple ways I like to eat them.  First is a simple preparation that can be used to make most edible flowers (or anything in your fridge) delicious. Most of all, I like to use it for dandelions, whose flesh turns tender and jammy once fried. It’s a beautiful thing I look forward…

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We all go to the library

We are witnessing a slow but consistent creep of social services breaching public libraries across Canada. The London Public Library hired a social worker to provide addiction and mental health services to library patrons. The Toronto Public Library provided food bank services during the COVID-19 pandemic because food banks had closed. Some people in Hamilton have called for opening safe injection sites outside their libraries.  None of this is good or should be celebrated.  Public libraries have expanded their services beyond lending books to the public, offering a range of additional resources and programming. The London Public Library offers educational,…

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Hands Off My Post Office Rally – London, ON

Rallies were organized across Canada on Saturday, to draw support in the Canadian Union of Postal Worker’s (CUPW) on-going struggle to keep Canada Post a public entity. This is a continuation from their 5 week strike in the fall of last year. The union has tried to work with the corporation in order to establish new, innovative ways of delivering the mail, but holds fast to maintaining adequate wages and decent benefits for all employees. The corporation has refused to move on any of the suggestions posed by CUPW’s negotiating team and is pushing the union into another strike position…

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What can be done to combat the rise of anti-SOGI protests?

For Western University’s April 30th conference “Showing Up: Solidarities and Feminisms in Times of Crisis”, organized by the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, I had the honour of presenting a paper I had written in the final year of my undergraduate degree about the rise of protests against SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) teaching in schools in Canada during 2023.  In 2024, these protests arose once more, albeit with less popularity, and I suspect they will happen again in 2025. The goal of my essay was to understand what motivates these kinds of protests with the hope…

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Full Circle Cooking

Welcome to full circle cooking! My goal with this series is to bring you recipes which help save on grocery costs and offer some tips on how to get the most out of every ingredient. I’m based in the Antler River area so I’m going to point out deals at specific stores in the city, but the general advice will be universal.  Meat on a budget. $20/lb for a butcher’s cut of steak? What the f#&*??! It’s times like these when we’re reminded that meat being a staple is a relatively modern luxury. But it’s doable on a budget by…

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Doing Philosophy After Gaza

The following piece, written by Western University philosophy graduate student Farid Saberi, emerged from personal reflections of despair surrounding the genocide in Gaza. He shares his thoughts on what this scale of violence means for his field of study.  History is going through one of its darkest hours. Since October 2023, a defenseless population in Gaza has been the victim of an ongoing assault that Amnesty International and reputable scholars of international law have described as  genocide. The storm of misinformation and propaganda has been ruthless. The facts are quite straightforward: there is an occupying apartheid regime backed by Western…

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Poetry and Prose, Roots and Rhythm: Black History SLAM

As the state of the world continues to change around me, it’s been hard to decide how to respond to it. There’s an endless list of things that need attention and many systems to fight to create any sort of change. When responding to a capitalist status quo that places profits above people and the environment at large, it’s hard to feel sane in any one form of response, so I’ve been able to find solace in multiple things at once. Protesting with the community; promoting and engaging in mutual aid; and, most recently through journalism, sharing underrepresented stories and…

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