A love match? That’s so last century

New research into inter-ethnic unions suggests we’re reverting to a less romantic idea of marriage

Mar 15, 2008 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter

I grew up in a traditional Chinese household, where I was taught my future life partner must have an equal, if not better, upbringing than mine. That mentality is embedded in the ancient saying, “A bamboo door should match a bamboo door; a wood door should match a wood door.” Essentially, what it means is you have to marry someone in the same social class if you want the relationship to last.

The Chinese are not alone in this worldview. Many Indians are still bound by caste and the arranged unions that flow from it. And acute class-consciousness is a persistent feature of British identity.

Census tracks down where GTA’s smartest live

It’s all academic in the census tract with highest percentage of well-educated people

Mar 14, 2008 04:30 AM
Leslie Ferenc
Staff Reporter

What scientific theory did James Hutton pioneer in his 1795 book Theory of the Earth?

Time’s up. Don’t know?

Author decries food industry

Eat food, not too much, mainly plants, says Michael Pollan
Feb 29, 2008 04:30 AM
Kim Honey
food editor

Michael Pollan wants a cappuccino made with cow’s milk. But Live Organic Food Bar on Dupont St. near Spadina is vegan, so real milk, even organic, is out.

“What’s their thing about milk?” the best-selling author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma wonders aloud. When reminded it’s a vegan restaurant, he grins. “Oh right. They’re vegan. Silly me.”

Coal mining ravages Appalachia mountains

They’re ripping the tops off mountains in West Virginia coal country to feed our insatiable appetite for power. It’s cheaper that way. And the trees and the animals and the flooding? It may not be pretty, but we’ve got all those dishwashers to run

Feb 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Catherine Porter
Environment Reporter

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA–When you flick on the lights this evening, think of Kayford Mountain. Or what was Kayford Mountain, but now is a sprawling, muddy, trembling construction site 100 metres below Larry Gibson’s home.

Three years ago, Gibson hunted wild boar here, picked gooseberries and peaches, and sat under the shade of white oaks and hickories so thick he couldn’t see the sky.

“Now, you can see the sky below your feet,” Gibson says.

In the land of the Iron Chef

MARK SCHATZKER
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
February 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST

The Globe and Mail

TOKYO —

Not a single grain of wheat flour goes into the noodles at the Tokyo soba shrine — I mean restaurant — called Kikouchitei. The noodles are hand-cut from freshly rolled dough containing buckwheat and only buckwheat.

If that doesn’t strike you as unusual, then there’s something you should know about buckwheat dough: It is the world’s most temperamental substance. Without the glutinous binding properties of wheat, the dough becomes so prone to shredding that learning how to make it takes a staggering three years of training — after which one attains the status of “soba master.”

Can Burt’s Bees survive a bleaching?

Jan 21, 2008 04:30 AM
Jennifer Wells

The noble intention of ‘08 echoes the noble intentions of ‘07 and years prior: go green.

Sustainability? Still in.

Yet Kermit’s lament – “It’s not that easy being green” – rings perhaps more true today than in the frog’s heyday.

Where cancer-causing agents lurk

What do cosmetics have in common with cellphones? They both worry a leading cancer scientist about their potential as health risks

Jan 15, 2008 04:30 AM
Nancy J. White
Living Reporter

First off, Devra Davis won’t do the interview on her cellphone.

Call me back on the land line, she instructs. It’s not the money she’s concerned about. It’s the microwaves.

She’s also concerned about drinking diet pop, wearing a lot of cosmetics and eating non-organic red meat.

Does mummified baby have living cousin?

Does mummified baby have living cousin?
RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

Sep 24, 2007 04:30 AM
Francine Kopun
Feature Writer

Mummified baby was newborn boy
It was a newborn boy that was laid to rest, wrapped in a blanket and newspaper dated 1925, beneath the floorboards of a Toronto home, an autopsy and X-rays have confirmed.

Western in the news… again.

Spoof of campus feminist ‘appalling’

Women’s groups demand retraction as article in Western Ontario student paper blasted
Apr 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Louise Brown
Education Reporter
Jennifer O’Meara
Special to the Star

Just 18 months after a first-year student’s striptease posted on the Internet thrust the University of Western Ontario into the spotlight, the campus has found itself in raunchy waters once more.

Oh, those wacky Polaks..

Buffalo’s odd rite of spring

Once a year, pussy willows and water get their very own festival, writes Francine Kopun
April 08, 2007

In Buffalo, N.Y., the mad, last-minute rush to prepare for Easter includes two items that don’t make many shopping lists: pussy willows and squirt guns.

That’s because the city is home to the largest celebration of an ancient Polish rite of spring – Dyngus Day, traditionally held on Easter Monday. That’s when thousands of residents and visitors will gather in community halls and neighbourhood pubs around Buffalo and its suburbs to eat and drink and polka, and – oh yes – sprinkle each other with water and tap each other with pussy willows.