On Campus

What students are talking about today (Sept. 6 edition)

Skateboarding, Shell, eSports, Indian booze and 1812

UBC Skatepark Rendering (UBC Transportation)

1. The University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus may be the first big campus in Canada with a skateboard and BMX bike park. The final park designs are here.

2. Citing printing difficulties and a monthly schedule that turned it stale, The Cadre, one of Canada’s funniest student newspapers, has gone online-only. Arshy Mann of the Canadian University Press worries that ink-and-paper expertise will dry up, that the paper will lose most advertising revenue and that students read it less since they can’t take it on the bus.

3. A Conservative MP says Canada’s largest union of federal public servants, which represents people who work for the Canadian government in Canada shouldn’t have endorsed the separatist Parti Quebecois that wants to leave Canada. Pierre Poilievre is calling for new rules to allow members to opt out of paying union dues.

4. Carleton University is launching a first-in-Canada graduate program to train non-profit and philanthropic leaders. It will be housed in the School of Public Policy and Administration.

5. Shell will be the first big company to use carbon capture and storage in the Alberta oilsands, reports The Canadian Press. It plans to capture a million tonnes of CO2 annually and inject it deep underground. Shell estimates the project is the equivalent of taking 175,000 cars off the road. Oh, and you’re paying for some of it. The Alberta and federal governments are kicking in $865 million.

6. Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream company, is suing the makers of of a pornographic DVD series entitled Ben & Cherry’s, which includes dirty movies such as “Peanut Butter D-Cup.”

7. Brock University has created an online War of 1812 research guide that should make life more interesting for Canadian history students and researchers. It includes thousands of digitized items.

8. Apparently “eSports” are a growing trend at Dalhousie University. ESports refers to playing video games like StarCraft as if they were sports, apparently. There’s even a Collegiate Star League in which schools from across North America battle in StarCraft II. For those who are less athletic, BarCraft (watching StarCraft in sports bars) is an even less physically intense option.

9. The Toronto Police Service is investigating a sexual assault that allegedly happened on Tuesday morning at Church and Gerrard Streets in Toronto near Ryerson University. A 20-year-old woman says she was assaulted twice around 6:30 a.m. by a black man in his 20s who was between 5’8″ and 6′, medium build, shaved or short hair and was wearing glasses with frameless lenses.

10. Pity the Indian partier: Mumbai’s assistant commissioner of police has been cracking down on bars and parties with archaic prohibition laws that haven’t been used since the 1970s. Citizens and bar owners alike are expected to carry permits to buy, possess, consume or transport alcohol.

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