By Naomi Kreitman Staff Writer The current relationship between UCR students and Woongoed Middelburg, its only housing company, is not ideal. A poll of 147 students, approximately a quarter of the student population, has shown that 39% are dissatisfied with Woongoed’s services, and 13% are very dissatisfied. In an interview, HAC Chair Maria Verwoerd and…
Approaching the ‘War on Terror’ – Could the Westgate Mall Shooting Have Been Prevented?
By Lisanne Ophoff UCR Class of 2016 On September 21, armed Al-Shabaab militants stormed the Kenyan shopping mall Westgate. Armed with AK-47’s and grenades, the conflict caused enormous chaos and resulted in dozens of fatalities. They asked Muslims to leave and sometimes checked if people were really Muslims by asking them, for example, for the…
An Apology by Erodios
In the three years that we attend UCR, most people engage in committees, perform as motivated students and “occasionally” party. In other words: academics, extracurricular activities and socializing with or without a specific context. We probably need sleep, too. Sometimes these activities clash; your friends are partying when you have to study, a housemate wakes…
A Pope for Change?
By Tajha Chappellet-Lanier Staff Writer Pope Francis I has been making headlines since the night he was chosen as Pope. Fellow newsreaders may remember his early days in Rome, when he attracted attention by paying for his own hotel room and, famously, taking the bus to the Vatican. The societal values implicit in this are…
Catalonia: The Next State of Europe?
By Charlotte Berends UCR Class of 2014 On Thursday, September 26, the Catalan Parliament adopted a resolution stating that an exact date, an explicit question, and the precise legal process for a referendum on the self-determination of Catalonia would be determined by the end of the year. This resolution marks yet another step in Catalonia’s…
Part of the Community: ‘t Hof Welgelegen
By Douwe van den Berg Staff Writer For the last few years there have been posters in Eleanor promoting a weekly vegetable bag for students. These vegetables originate from a local farm called ‘t Hof Welgelegen, an organic farm in Middelburg run by the van der Kreeke family. This farm is quite special; the owners…
HAIM’s Debut Album “Days Are Gone”: Worth the Wait
By Lisanne Cheizoo Business Manager Every now and then there are artists who seem to have reached star-status before you’ve even heard any of their songs. Lana Del Rey managed to pull it off by becoming a cult symbol before the radio stations started to play her music. The same seemed to go for the…
In The Spotlight: GamesCo and ArtCo
By Florentina Mion Staff Writer Are you looking for some time off? Are you sick of doing your homework? Do you just want some relaxation? Well, then these two societies might be something to go and check out! If you are interested in board games, videogames, and any other sort of games you can imagine,…
Enter the Weird – Euthanasia Coaster, Sick or Visionary Idea?
By Anita Bielicka Staff Writer “The ultimate roller coaster is built when you send out twenty-four people and they all come back dead.” While browsing the Internet you sometimes tend to find little gems like this quote, and since we all know that the macabre and weird things are at the same time the most…
The Road to Equality in the UN Security Council
By Julia Airey Staff Writer Recent diplomatic actions in the 68th session of the UN General Assembly by Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, has caused the much-discussed debate about representation in the Security Council to resurface. President Mugabe argued that the UN does its members an injustice by allowing Europe two of the five seats on…
The German Elections – Is the Great Coalition in Sight?
By Peter Williamson Staff Writer It’s official, the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) has emerged as the big winner from this year’s general elections in Germany, and Angela Merkel will be Chancellor of Germany for a third term. The CDU managed to garner 41.5 percent of the vote, marking for them the first great victory since…
An Attempt at Unmasking “the State”
By Martha Hooge UCR Class of 2014 “We have come to take the state for granted as an object of political practice and political analysis while remaining quite spectacularly unclear as to what the state is” (Abrams). The task that we´re faced with now is to demystify the state, destabilize our idea of it, that…
Review: Breaking Bad, The Best Chemistry You Will Ever See On TV
By Daniel Janssen Staff Writer After finding out that he has terminal lung cancer, chemistry teacher Walter White suddenly sees his dull life in front of him. White knows his days are numbered, and with that idea in mind, he finds a way to provide for a family by cooking crystal meth with one of…
Following the Maestro Himself: Da Vinci’s Demons
By Hilde van den Berg Staff Writer Famous artist and war engineer Leonardo DaVinci has been the subject of numerous documentaries over the years; however, it’s much less common to see him being portrayed by an actual actor, in a fictional TV-series. The not-so-well-known TV channel Starz saw the opportunity and they took it. Along…
Model United Nations: Let’s Get Started!
By Koen Maaskant Staff Writer A few weeks ago a group of UCR students went to The Hague to participate in a Model United Nations (MUN). This MUN was organized in honor of the hundred-year anniversary of the Peace Palace, in which the International Court of Justice is housed, among others, and is therefore seen…
A Different Festival in a Different Kind of World: Zapatistas’ Fiesta in Oventic
By Ilja Kamerling UCR Class of 2014 Although I had wanted to participate in the Going Glocal Mexico project from the moment I had heard about it, it hurt a little inside when I booked my tickets, since I realized that I would miss out on a summer full of great festivals. It turned out…
Midterm Week Cooking
By Tessa van Hoorn Staff Writer Those dreaded weeks of the semester are coming up again, and faster than you think. That’s right; midterm week is just around the corner. As I was looking in my diary, I realized how soon midterm was coming up, and I was thinking about all the presentations, papers, and…