Youth Suicide

Since 2008, youth suicide has tripled in BC’s North Shore. Dr. Michael Markwick, a North Shore resident, discusses how insufficient clinical services funding for youth has impacted youth suicide rates and the need for systemic change to better support youth with mental health issues.

The River In My Basement

By David Swanson

The little boy in the black and white pictures
doesn’t know know why a mother turned away or
why sisters are the only ones who stay safe,
spared from radical intent and
sad stories tainted with distaste.
Hand always come from skylines, forgetting to whistle
and are strongest behind closed doors,
blinds drawn and windows shut.
Deaf ears sound like tear drop definitions and
the mute mouth speaks about the days that didn’t matter.

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The Inbetween

By David Swanson

The structure of a transitioning soul
still anchored to an earth-bound territory.
The guilt of an egocentric storyteller avoiding vertical behaviours
that solidify his health.
The damaged thief alone without community.

It’s transparent.
The intent to be honest reveals the style of one’s soul.
Slow moving construction.
Aluminum sidings grafted with Renaissance pillars and cemented paradigms.
Blueprints published on historic paper back novels.
Likeable T.V. characters, attractive with a soundtrack introduction scene,
an episodal conflict that takes 30 minutes to resolve.

Symmetrical bodies, perfect smiles and a revenue storyline
during prime time viewing hours.

Maybe the cast needs an audience to ignore
before bruises become tangible,
a trophy display of pleasantries prior to the trivial curtain call,
the victims defence attorney politely waiting to resolve
the estate and dissolve his assets.

I would agree sleeping in the fetal position
becomes more demonstrative and deplorable when your lover
can’t tell your posture is nationalistic,
a poverty alliance with an unskilled general who cannot
administer self-discipline, his formal jacket bare.
No purple hearts.
No high honour.

The exception is clever.
Armed cavalries of cocaine barrel bayonet dollar bills,
the morning spent with picture prostitutes
transforming dignity into dead eye video illumination.

Three hours.
Seven inches.
A world away.

False liberation and my post party animal animations
drain my body of its fluids and inhibit my soul’s economy.

Progress is archival.
It’s prioritized for demand, only referenced during duress.
The coercion.
Expecting the patterns extension, using an ex-lover’s will for attachment
to continue a cycle fixed in a time more familiar.

Science is the new faith

David Swanson — The Link (B.C. Institute of Technology)

science is the new faithBURNABY, B.C. — In many parts of the Western world,  people have removed the crucifix from their wall, hid their Koran in a dusty storage space, abolished the Star of David from their neck, and washed the Bindi from their forehead. They are slowly dismantling their religious beliefs and, in its place, elected science as the chief dictator in their pursuit of meaning.

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E-Waste is one man’s trash and another man’s tragedy

David Swanson — The Link (B.C. Institute of Technology)

Electronic Waste

A young boy scavenging e-waste materials

BURNABY, B.C. – Do you remember the old Walkman you used to rock back in grade 6? How about your family’s first computer that ran Windows 95? I am sure the only old electronic you didn’t misplace or throw away was your Super Nintendo because, let’s face it, everyone gets the urge to play a little Mario Kart a couples times a year.

The truth is the majority of our old electronics were probably stored in our garage for several years before we threw them in the trash.  Unfortunately, our old televisions, music players, computers, and cellphones didn’t disappear. In all likelihood they were shipped to a developing country and are now causing major health and environmental problems in the form of electronic waste.

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The first date fallacy

David Swanson — The Link (B.C. Institute of Technology)

The first date falacy

Zack and Kelly on their way to "The Max" for a burger

BURNABY, B.C. — Dinner and a movie: The cliché first date ritual. It’s been romanticized by your favorite after school special and very well might be the go to move in your courtship playbook.

I know Save by the Bell’s clean-cut, California rebel, Zack Morris, always brought cheer squad captain Kelly Kapowski to “The Max,” for a burger before they took in a flick at their local single-screen, 10-person cinema.  But is the dinner-and-a movie combo actually a good first date activity?

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