By Ben Hoffman
It’s not hard to find somebody to mutter disdain towards the United Nations in the years since the World Trade Center attacks. It has been brought into question time and time again whether the organization is as irrelevant as its post World War I sister, the League of Nations, became before the Second World War.… Continue reading Film Review: WhenMoviesMatter – The Peacekeepers
By Ben Hoffman
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”– Ambrose Bierce The audience was a who’s who of Calgary’s social elite, from oil baron to politician, the conversation topical and bearing the stamp of influence. I was a little out of place. This was the backdrop to a one hour invitation for a speech by the… Continue reading The new cold war
By Ben Hoffman
These hallowed university halls speak volumes about their occupants. More than the halls, these people occupy important roles in society. Some would have them called “the educated elite,” while others just quietly point out that nearly all the world’s power structures are founded and lead by them. The engineers, perhaps the most pointed example of… Continue reading Why we need Bermuda Shorts Day
By Ben Hoffman
Completely out of left field and totally unexpectedly, the Liberal government of Quebec has followed the example of its Parti Quebecois predecessor and hung Quebec universities out to dry. The recent news of a $103 million cut from its bursary program surprises absolutely nobody. After all, this raises the total cuts to $300 million in… Continue reading The Quebecois revolution
By Ben Hoffman
The late ’80s marked the maturation of comic books, an age of dark brilliance led by writers like Alan Moore (Watchmen) and Frank Miller (Batman: Dark Knight Returns). It was also the time Miller unveiled his most promising project yet: Sin City. Sin City’s release offered readers a look into a caliginous parallel universe where… Continue reading Book Review: Walk down the right alley…
By Ben Hoffman
Cancer. For many, just the word dredges up horrible memories of those lost and their painful departure. It is mankind’s omnipresent enemy, for long before we ever had a word for it, it was simply “natural causes.” Therein lies the rub–it’s hard to combat a disease nature herself controls. And yet in recent times studying… Continue reading The cancer conundrum
By Ben Hoffman
In a shocking turn of events, nearly all of the issues of last week’s Gauntlet disappeared from around campus. With the shelves bare of our perverse attempt at journalism, it was decided that pen ought to be put to paper in an effort to find the culprit; as such, we would need to appeal to… Continue reading A great whodunnit mystery
By Ben Hoffman
The American gates at the Calgary International Airport are different than any gate leading into any other country. Maybe it’s proximity, maybe 9/11, maybe it is a culture of paranoia, but the United States feels obliged to ship their own customs agents to Canada–like an embassy, but without prestige–to heavily scrutinize anyone who wishes access… Continue reading Disneyland burnout
Editor, the Gauntlet,Re: “The happy Harper fun hour,” Jan. 28, 2005, Ben Hoffman criticizes Stephen Harper and opponents of same-sex marriage by using the analogy of a redneck from “down home” to paint Conservatives as small minded.Hoffman should realize the hypocrisy in his argument. Isn’t it a bit narrow minded of supporters of same-sex marriage… Continue reading Closed-minded definition
By Ben Hoffman
One million. This is an immense number. If it takes you five minutes to read this article, you could read it 3,300 times in a million seconds; or, if you prefer, think of it this way: a million loonies stacked on top of each other stands 1.75 kilometres tall, about three times as tall as… Continue reading A million by any other name is still a lot