Mayoral candidates face/off

Published on October 5, 2010 by Jonathan Růžek

via ULSU

Royalty beckons

Published on October 5, 2010 by Jonathan Růžek

Matt from Royal Canoe was cool enough to send me a heads up that they’ll be playing The Slice on October 15th. By the way this track sounds, it’s a band definitely worth seeing.

Royal Canoe (Thanks, Matt!)

Mouseland: a parable from the father of Canada’s healthcare system

Published on October 5, 2010 by Jonathan Růžek

With an upcoming civic election, I find this video really insightful. Although more relevant to provincial or federal politics, I am impressed with the message. We should keep this in mind when we cast our ballot:

Tommy Douglas was the socialist premier of Saskatchewan, the father of Canada’s healthcare system, and the grandfather of actor Keifer Sutherland. In this short animated video introduced by Sutherland, Douglas delivers his famous “Mouseland” parable, about the day the mice decided to elect their own to government.

Mouseland: a parable from the father of Canada’s healthcare system (via BoingBoing)

Skateistan builds ramps, not bombs

Published on October 4, 2010 by Jonathan Růžek

So my friend Erika lives in Afghanistan. She helps run a totally radical youth educational program called Skateistan:

Skateistan is Afghanistan’s—and the world’s—first co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages growing numbers of urban and internally-displaced youth in Afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction, education, and personal empowerment. Our students come from all of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. They will not only develop skills in skateboarding and skateboarding instruction, but also healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and languages. The students themselves decide what they want to learn—we connect them with teachers who will enable them to develop the skills that they consider important. Since Skateistan has been active in Kabul, we’ve seen that Afghan youth of all ethnicities, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds love to skateboard. Skateistan brings them together, equipping young men and women with the skills to lead their communities toward social change and development.

Skateistan