CHRONICLE 16-17 ISSUE 03

chronicle.durhamcollege.ca October 25 - 31, 2016 The Chronicle 5
Opinion
Birth control is the best method
Nicole
O’Brien
Let’s face it, college students are
having sex. In fact, the Sex Information
and Education Council of
Canada recently released a report
stating 72 per cent of Canadian
college students are sexually active.
So with hormones running high
and limitless opportunities for
intimate encounters on campus,
birth control such as the pill, an
IUD, hormone shots and the patch,
should be considered a college girl’s
best friend. Why? Other popular
methods, like abstinence, the withdrawal
method and condoms are
simply not effective.
What’s the problem with abstinence
when it comes to female college
students?
In college, both female and male
students are on their own for the
first time, with little supervision.
Women especially need to do more
than abstain to protect themselves
because we all know men aren’t
always the reliable ones.
However, many women do
choose to avoid sex as a birth control
method due to religious or
other moral reasons.
In 2013, the SIECCAN reported
27 per cent of college males and
23 per cent of college females had
never engaged in vaginal, oral or
anal sex.
For those who do have sex, the
withdrawal method is a popular
choice of birth control. A 2016
study, which appeared in the journal
Conception, claims 33 per cent
of women used the withdrawal
method as a form of birth control
in the last month. But this method,
where the male withdraws his
penis from a woman’s vagina prior
to an orgasm in an effort to prevent
pregnancy, is ridiculous.
While your male partner may
reassure you it is a foolproof method,
Contracept.org reports “pulling
out” has a failure rate of 27 per
cent.
As many have seen around campus,
Durham College is doing their
part in advocating for consensual
sex through the use of powerful
message. Messages such as “silence
is not consent” are plastered
around the campus in an effort to
get students thinking about what
safe sex looks like.
When it comes to students having
sex, condoms are a much better
option. This is why condoms are
such a vital part of the sex education
curriculum in Canada, especially
when it comes to protecting
yourself from sexually transmitted
diseases.
Unfortunately, according to the
SIECCAN report, 50 per cent of
students are not using condoms.
When it comes to protection
from pregnancy, condoms are not
a guaranteed birth control method.
According to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention,
condoms have a failure rate of 12
per cent.
Despite the many benefits of
taking birth control into our own
hands, female-led methods have
been criticized for being more expensive.
According to the Society of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists of
Canada, over 11 European Union
countries including New Zealand,
and Australia, offer universal
coverage for birth control, but
Canada is not one of them. But we
should be.
But while birth control does add
an additional expense to a college
woman’s budget, it is a much easier
thing to budget for than the cost of
raising a child.
In college, sex is everywhere.
Knowing your options is so important
to the success of your future.
Abstinence doesn’t work, the withdrawal
method is unsuccessful and
condoms are known to be faulty.
Aren’t we tired
of hearing about
Rob Ford?
Doug Ford
releases
book to
‘tell all’
Now that Rob Ford is no longer
with us, his brother Doug has taken
on the role of verbally beating up
the media.
Doug Ford has secured one of
the biggest publishing houses in the
country, Harper Collins, to print
copies of a “tell all” book. Chances
are Ford Nation will sell like crazy
cakes or at least like Crazy Town, the
book Robin Doolittle wrote about
Ford’s brother Rob, the late mayor
of the GTA.
The difference being Doolittle’s
book was published on proof of
being a really good journalist.
Crazy Town was published in 2014
and tells the story of what the late
mayor did as well as what Doolittle
endured to get it reported.
Bottom line is Rob Ford (RIP)
gave the media the most talked
about story in the history of mayoral
duties. And the story, along with
the Fords, made it all the way to
Hollywood in an interview with
Jimmy Kimmel in March of 2014.
At a recent press conference in
Etobicoke, with a barrage of, you
guessed it, reporters, Doug Ford
announced he and his late brother
co-wrote the 260-page book. Ford
Nation stems from the brothers’ desire
for a nation to be named after
them.
The book was written before the
former mayor succumbed to cancer
Angela
Lavallee
earlier this year.
“Everyone will be named and
we are not holding anything back,
the media will also be named,”
said Doug Ford to a group of journalists
in Toronto this September.
“My brother Rob was hounded
by you, the media,” added Ford.
Granted, Doug did go on to say
there were some really good reporters
out there.
Doug Ford does not want us
to forget his brother. How could
we? But the media is not to blame
for what Rob did, nor is our current
Prime Minister, who Doug
blames for Rob Ford’s shenanigans.
Did the media or any other
politician make Rob Ford pose
with ‘thuds in arms’?
We all know the photo. The
reporters didn’t ask Rob to pose
with his cronies. Rob Ford was a
high (pardon the pun) time politician,
but it wasn’t until after the
scandal broke that he started to
yell at reporters and claim they
ruined his life. His life may be
over but his legacy lives on.
The book will be available
November 22 nd . We can be certain
there will be a book signing
somewhere in and around Etobicoke.
Perhaps at the late mayor’s
home?
Hopefully, the book will not
turn into a movie. Some of us
are all Ford’ed out.
The Marketplace
does not have enough
food choices for students
The
cafeteria is
not ideally
equipped
to suit the
needs for
people with
dietary
restrictions
Devarsh
Oza
Getting hungry is natural for every
single living being on the planet,
but for humans it is special.
Many people on the planet not
only choose the food they eat, but
they also choose their own types
of food.
That choice could be religious,
health-related or maybe just a
choice based on personal preference.
These choices make eating a
celebration. But what if you have
dietary restrictions and cannot get
the food your body needs?
The main cafeteria at Durham
College does not have many options
for people with dietary restrictions.
The Marketplace needs
to have more vegan, gluten free
and Halal options.
Many people on campus cannot
eat food from the DC Marketplace
because of certain dietary restrictions.
As the motto of Durham
College is ‘success matters’, the
question is: how will students succeed
in their programs without
having enough nutritious food?
According to the Muslim Students
Association there are over
500 Muslim students at the college.
According to Islam, they can only
eat Halal meat. In Arabic, Halal
means permissible. Halal meat is
prepared in a specific way, which
is less painful for the animals.
But the college Marketplace does
not have a single Halal option. As
a result, Muslim students choose
to eat vegetarian food, or seafood,
because seafood and fish are not
slaughtered in the way the animals
are.
Fish and other seafood are first
caught and then they get slaughtered.
As there are fewer seafood
and vegetarian options at the café,
the students don’t get as many options.
The nearest Halal food places
are E.P. Taylor’s and Smokey’s
Burritorie, but to eat there students
have to get there by 5 P.M.
So for many students, this leaves
the vegetarian options from the
college cafeteria.
But the café doesn’t even have a
lot of vegetarian or vegan options,
and the things they have are pretty
expensive. There is veggie and
cheese pizza, fries, veggie poutine
and veggie pita or veggie stir-fry.
Most of the things in the cafeteria
cost more than $9 dollars.
Most of the things in the café
also have a lot of calories. So there
is nothing healthy to have in the
marketplace for the vegetarian
other than a salad or a pita.
But these options also shrink
when it comes to being a vegan.
There is a Tim Hortons on campus
but they don’t sell healthy food,
which not only satisfies your hunger
but also nourishes your body.
When it comes to gluten free options,
the café has almost nothing
healthy but salads.
Fries and poutine are options,
but they have a lot of calories, and
are also expensive.
Students who can’t eat gluten
can’t even eat the stir-fries as they
have noodles, which contain gluten,
unless they are rice noodles. Rice
stir-fries are available but they are
cooked using the same utensils as
other food made with wheat.
Meanwhile many people who are
vegetarian because of their religion
also don’t eat this food, as the food
is cooked with the same utensils
and there are many possibilities of
meat chunks mixing with the vegetarian
things.
When people have more then
one dietary restriction, unfortunately
the café has almost nothing
for them.
Many students with dietary restrictions
do not eat or cannot eat
in the café. They have to bring food
from home.
The college has over 2,000 students
who have different dietary restrictions.
If success really matters
at Durham College, the management
needs to increase options for
these students.