Greetings from your friendly neighbourhood Web Editor, a.k.a. WebEd., WebE., or just plain Webby.

I apologize for the hiccup that we experienced where the site was not updated. I had actually updated it for the new issue, but something went wrong and an older backup was used. I’ve gotten most of it back up and it should be all done (again) by tomorrow morning.

Enjoy and don’t forget to leave your comments!

Shari Worden
Web Editor

An acquaintance and I were once debating the term “fundamentalism.” The acquaintance maintained that he was a fundamentalist Christian, and I strongly disagreed. I said he would never want to call himself that for Christian fundamentalism is a radically narrow minded sect of Christianity, and so we argued for a bit. We finally understood that we disagreed because we both had completely different ideas of the meaning of a Christian fundamentalist.

The Winter Olympics. It’s tough not to chuckle when you think about men’s figure skating and how everyone loves bobsledding. These things should come to mind when we think about the Olympics; it should be a time of global camaraderie and for most, it is. However, we need to examine the whole picture, including what the Olympics have become as well as the implications of bringing them to our city.

Last year marked a first for Trinity Western University – the publication of our very own official literary journal. [spaces] is an interdisciplinary collection of student submissions, ranging from short stories, academic essays, artwork, photography, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Last year’s inaugural journal received over a hundred submissions, representing nearly every department on campus.

After a selection process in which all submissions were read by a blind reviewing panel of both students and faculty members, the hundred submissions were narrowed down to 23 of the best pieces. These 23 submissions now comprise the first volume of [spaces], which can be purchased at the university bookstore.

Stephen Colbert is running for President and scientists, perennially on the lookout for party tricks, have discovered the enzyme that can create extra eyes in frogs; they are hoping to be able to grow human eyes “in a dish.” Much as these things – and indeed life itself - bring about a sense of giddy joy in a sensible person, there is one thing capable of doing so at virtually any moment on this campus that is more omni-present than politics and science, more visceral and transitive, and much more transcendent of time, creed, and culture. Faith? No! Rain.

Perhaps university culture has collapsed into a state of rambunctious tedium, but this cynical ex-agrarianite finds himself disjointedly appalled at the deficiency of learning institutional exclusive jargon.

So this pessimistic deconstructionalist makes his debut on the literary world. Perhaps university lingo has passed me by, or I am the proverbial dying toad steadily boiling, unnoticed, in a pot of water, but honestly, in my first six weeks here I have not run in to that much Tuwoo— (or TWU to the non-phonetic pronouncers among us) exclusive lingo. Granted, a few academy standards have been thrown in my face—RA, caf, prof, grad student, senior, junior, freshmen—but overall nothing jargon-based has hindered my plight into this specific venue of higher education thus far.

“Anytime something to do with Africa comes up, it tweaks my heart,” says Andrew Dawn, a third-year chemistry major. “Once you’ve been in Africa, you don’t forget it. Africa is a part of who you are,” he says. “It’s hard to get away from.”

Dawn’s parents were missionaries in Africa when he was young, making him a missionary kid, or “MK.” Six years of his life were spent in Kenya where his parents were developing a language program for Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and then later when his dad became principal of a missionary college that trained Africans to minister to other Africans.

Students and staff filled nearly every seat in Block Hall on Oct. 22 to hear Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth testify that “This Planet Needs Serious Medicine,” setting the stage for environmental discussion at Trinity Western University.

The event was hosted by A Rocha (Portuguese for “The Rock”), a Christian nature conservation organization which began in Peru. Sleeth is the Executive Director of A Rocha USA and a former emergency room physician. He graduated from Washington University School of Medicine with two post-doctoral fellowships.