Features section

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  Super Real: rise of the real-life superhero

  I am obsessed with Batman — severely, disgustingly obsessed. I’ve steadily been burning through the comics for years now. I have donned the cowl on more Halloweens than I haven’t, and indulged in the rubber nipple fest that is Batman & Robin more than I should have. About the only thing I haven’t done in [...]

• Heroes of the game

  Heroes are recognized in many different ways, but there’s no better representation of how heroes are worshipped than sports. Take the Lombardi Trophy — the Super Bowl award named after a legendary coach. Vince Lombardi’s accomplishments were so revered and his body of work so influential that his name was deemed deserving of being engraved [...]

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  Relating to Superman

  Heroes. I was at a bit of a loss when it came to deciding what to write about. When I was younger, my brother and I shared a set of Batman and Superman pyjamas, each had a detachable Velcro cape. We would run around the house, jumping off of things, pretending we could fly. Needless [...]

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  Real life Lassie

  We often hear of humans who rise to the occasion and become heroes — sometimes, there comes along a story, an unlikely story where an animal is the hero. I had an experience a few years ago where I encountered such an animal. At the time, I was living in the country at my parents’ [...]

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  The steadiness of a mother’s soul

  News of your mother being terminally ill  could never hold any hope in its delivery. When my grandmother got sick, my mother stayed by her side day in and day out, making sure she was happy in her last months. Together, my mother and her sisters read to my grandmother and took care of her; [...]

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  Heroism, sustained

  When ruminating over what or whom I consider to be a “hero,” it wasn’t long before I was confronted by the relativity of the term, bogged down in semantic considerations of what kind of hero I identify with most. Apart from the supernatural and comic book hero archetypes, I’ve always been interested in the heroic [...]

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  A harsh economy for heroes

  Superman never made any money, for saving the world from Solomon Grundy,” in other words: Superman is a pretty nice guy. He is a selfless person who protects the Earth by fighting evil. So what constitutes heroism in the realm of reality? For the sake of argument let us take three people who are considered [...]

• Dr. Strange Krause or:

  Thinking about my body image isn’t something I do often. It isn’t a constant throb in the back of my mind. Issues with it flare up in the most unpredictable and uncomfortable places. For example: Last summer I was at the beach with some friends. I had stopped working out and had been eating delicious [...]

• Getting back to my playing weight

  As an avid sports fanatic, I like to borrow from the professional sports lexicon and say I’m just a little over my playing weight. The straight truth, of course, is I’ve got a burgeoning beer belly where my abs could and probably should be. I don’t get too much harassment from my family, friends or [...]

• Through the eyes of a curvy girl

  I’ve always tried to wrap my head around Western culture’s idea of beauty. In a patriarchal world, women have an unrealistic view of the ideal body image thrust upon them at an early age. Thanks to the media and societal expectations women have to take on personal battles, to create a “healthy” silhouette for themselves, [...]