New Dog!

There's a new prairie dog out today. You've had to wait a couple weeks for it, so will it be worth all the toe-tapping and long drawn-out sighs? You'll have to be the judge. But here's what it's got:

GAS STATION SHOWDOWN Every year we run a feature to coincide with National Aboriginal Day (June 21) and for a while there they were all starting to seem kind of the same: poverty and depressing things affect Sask. Natives! Oh noes! And racism is bad! Bad! So yeah, kind of a downer and frankly sort of creepy coming from a bunch of white writers. So this year when Carle Steel said "why can't we just review aboriginal gas bars to mark national aboriginal day?" we were all like..."yeah! YEAH!" And that's what we did. And it is a good story.

HOT SUMMER GUIDE a whole pile of interesting essays on the topic of summer, plus summer-long event listings. But I think I forgot to put the powwow sidebar in. ahh, shit. Oh well.

HOITY-TOITY BREAKFASTS Dining Dave veers off the egg-beaten path to poach some great brunches from a couple of highbrow eateries, and offers his benedictions.

HOLY CRAP, THERE'S MORE? You bet! We've got stories about why people hate nuclear power; about some grrrr! complaints from First Nations University of Canada board chair Clarence Bellegarde to the national university prof's union; about Iran; and about how politics might be about to suck less. We DON'T have my editorial on the city's screwed up condo situation (ran out of time, SIGH) but we DO have Street Wear, David Suzuki, Queen City Confidential, a bunch of Top 6 columns, film reviews, band previews, a look at the show up at Neutral Ground (reportedly excellent), uhh, listings, plus the ubiquitous "and lots more!" The paper's probably starting to get around out there now-ish, so look for your copy at our street boxes, coffee shop, restaurant and retail stands, all over the U of R and at other outlets later today. (Don't look for it at Saskatchewan Liquor Board outlets, because we got booted shortly after the last provincial election. And don't look for it at the Casino, because we got booted out of there a few weeks back. But we're still pretty easy to find.) Cheers!