11 Jul
Religion

No Take Backs

By Steven Philp There are times when “reclaiming”—politically redefining a word or symbol—goes a little too far. On Sunday, July 3 members of a small, but growing, religious sect called the International Raelian Movement (IRM) set up shop at Pride Toronto 2011 to raise awareness about their organization, featuring a rather curious juxtaposition in their official logo: a star of David intertwined with a swastika. This is not the first time that their chosen symbol has caused controversy; as detailed in an article from Trinity College, over its 35-year history the IRM has faced criticism from both Jewish and non-Jewish organizations for resurrecting the swastika. After a brief hiatus from incorporating the swastika in to their symbolism—supposedly out of concern for its negative association with the National Socialist German Worker’s (Nazi) Party—in 2007 the leader of...

Continue reading

16 Feb
Latest

Bizarre Tales from the Holy Land

By Jeremy Gillick Evidence of the approaching end-times, a society gone-psycho, or just more proof that humans are weird? In the first tale, Haaretz reports that a man dressed up as spiderman (from a settlement, logically), was arrested for harassing commuters: "Israel Police have grown accustomed to strange sights on Israel's highways, but nothing could have prepared them for the sight of a man in a Spiderman costume jumping on top of cars and throwing ropes at the startled commuters' vehicles. "Cops were called to the scene after receiving a flurry of calls from gridlocked commuters near the Rosh Ha'ayin intersection who reported a man in a Spiderman costume throwing ropes at cars, the improvised lassos presumably meant to substitute for the web-crawler's famous mechanical web-shooters."After his arrest and during the police investigation, "the man told police he...

Continue reading