Next to the Target store at Washington State’s Bellis Fair, the Old Country Buffet serves up the finest spread US$7.99 can buy. Great slabs of turkey and ham; make-your-own taco salads; candied yams with more candy than yams; and make-your-own sundaes (featuring gummy bears), among other highly-edible-after-camping-in-the-rain steam-tray cuisine.

This article was updated on August 11, 2008, at 2:50 p.m.

The nude retreat near UBC, one of the last vestiges of the “old Vancouver”, has long been a haven for freethinkers, but some believe that it now needs protection from the United Nations as too much public sex could ultimately bring about its ruin.

Walking across the sand at Wreck Beach carrying a tray of sliced fruit, Watermelon is all soft curves and muscles. The beach’s most infamous young activist could be a pinup from the ’40s, except that she’s nude, rather than seductively clothed. Her image has been used to represent the beach—which claims to be all about body acceptance—by dozens of publications. Yet back when she was 19, she chose to streamline her lumpy, teenage self rather than accept it for what it was, as it was.

When David Kuefler and his husband took their sons to Disneyland for Christmas several years ago, a “nice southern American woman” spit on them. Other amusement-park visitors taunted the same-sex parents while they were on vacation.

The Coast Mountain Bus Company has refused to run a shuttle for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which will attract 10,000 attendees per day from Friday to Sunday (July 18 to 20). Folk fest managing director Barbara Chirinos told the Straight she’s been lobbying for the service, which would take passengers from the SkyTrain station and parking lot at Vancouver Community College’s King Edward campus to Jericho Beach Park and back.

Wearing a Cree-inspired, fringed leather bikini encrusted with rhinestones and a feathered war bonnet, the woman representing Canada at the Miss Universe pageant 2008 in Vietnam appeared before more than one billion global TV viewers on July 13. Samantha Tajik, 26, who was born in Iran, grew up in Vancouver, and now lives in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

You’d think that in a region that’s running out of land for new housing, policymakers and investors would look to the water. Vancouverites have, after all, lived on the waterways since before the city was incorporated. According to one float-home real-estate agent, the demand is there but the developers are not.

Last week, two Burnaby Hospital nurses resigned over Nestlé Nutrition’s internally forwarded invitation to wine and dine obstetrical staff. Kudos to them for standing up to the formula corporation. Clearly companies that make formula shouldn’t smooze our obstetrical professionals.

Last week, two Burnaby Hospital nurses resigned over Nestlé Nutrition’s internally forwarded invitation to wine and dine obstetrical staff. Kudos to them for standing up to the formula corporation. Clearly companies that make formula shouldn’t smooze our obstetrical professionals.

Last year’s RCMP pepper-spraying of several Sechelt band infants, youths, and elders was "regrettable" but "appropriate in the circumstances", according to a police report obtained by the Georgia Straight.

It has almost all the right elements. CBC’s How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?—in which starry-eyed von Trapp hopefuls vie for the role on-stage, Survivor-style—pits talented, young, handsome (to say “hot” would be heresy for the Julie Andrews role) competitors against each other and their own young aspirations.

Naked is in.Thanks to the courts, you can swim, bowl, go yachting, and walk your dog around Vancouver without clothes, and there is no limit to the go-nude events across the city this summer.

So you missed the World Naked Bike Ride—or it whetted your appetite for more. Never fear. The region is home to a summer calendar full of nudie events.

Sitting on a log relishing a tray of crisp, greasy fish and chips is an exquisite Vancouver pleasure. Slathered in salty tartar sauce and tangy ketchup, this traditional fare has been a mainstay of Vancouver park-board menus since the 1920s.

This morning, as I was walking past the Fraser Institute building on Second and Burrard, I saw it: VPL on a man.

After the ignominy heaped on the young West End couple who allegedly put their baby up for sale on Craigslist, the challenges faced by all new parents have been brought back into sharp relief.

B.C.’s Kim Cattrall explains how she and her character Samantha have evolved from global sex kittens into modern cultural icons.

Liz Law isn't your typical fashion designer but, influenced by China and Italy, she conjures up clothes that are pretty, wearable, appropriate to Vancouver, and affordable.

Don Lee’s Vancouver School Board seat will not be filled via a by-election, board chair Clarence Hansen said today.

B.C. families have just one more month to contemplate how they’re going to spend their $100-per-child “Climate Action Dividend.” In late June, cheques will be mailed, according to the Balanced Budget website.

Drive out to Agassiz, and farmer John Hoogendoorn is more than happy to show you where your Vancouver-bought dairy products come from. His 200 Holsteins produce Dairyland milk, Armstrong cheese, and Yoplait yogurt for the shelves of the city’s megastore groceries. But you won’t find Valedoorn Farms on the brochures for the Fraser Valley’s trendy Circle Farm Tour. Hoogendoorn said he dropped out for the first time this year after organizers asked him to pay a $400 fee to be included.

Don't depend on the federal government to tell you what's safe: it's struggling to live up to its responsibility to evaluate and regulate more than 23,000 common consumer chemicals.

Suzette Soloman has launched a line of funky, First Nations–inspired casual clothing for the fall 2008 season that push traditional designs forward to keep them relevant.

My black couch set is no longer black. The sofa and love seat, secondhand loans from my brother-in-law, weren’t about to win a Better Homes and Gardens prize to begin with. But two years ago, you could sit on them with guests, and not feel sick.

For the beachcomber Unless you own a hot-dog stand, wheeling a full-size barbecue to the beach is serious nerdsville. Instead, tote the Char-Broil tabletop portable barbecue. It’s small enough to transport by bus, but will still fire up a mean sausage, and is the next best thing in the absence of bylaws allowing campfires. S’more it up with tin foil on the grill, and watch the sun set over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Move, shape and roll Has upstart little Vancouver developed a design aesthetic all its own? Form your own opinion at the Vancouver Museum’s Movers and Shapers exhibition, on until June 22. The show features 20 locally based—and internationally known—jewellery, clothing, lighting, furniture, space, and building designers. Most are young; all are inspiring.

he Chinese Canadian National Council has called on the House of Commons to respond swiftly to May 12’s earthquake disaster in Sichuan, China.

Check out Carmen Majeau’s crafty wares, and what you don’t see is as revolutionary as what you do. Majeau creates happy, summery wallets embroidered with cute octopuses and forest animals; purses that close with antique buttons and sport appliqués; and cheerful polka-dot bas. As well, she’s walking in the footsteps of the arts and crafts movement’s William Morris, and those of midcentury anticolonialist—and spinning-wheel enthusiast—Mahatma Gandhi. How?

Five years after the Ministry of Health set targets for wait times, families are being left to agonize over their kids' futures.

On Mother’s Day, the busiest restaurant day of the year, thousands of diners will see whether the Spot's new Thai and Tuscan menus match up to their tried-and-tested burgers.

Thousands of educators, students, and citizens work hard to improve the system; meet six who are making a difference.

The B.C. provincial government has created something that resembles universal, accessible childcare. But, many education experts believe the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Back in 1997, the Vancouver Art Gallery officially ushered skin art into the city’s mainstream with the show Pierced Hearts and True Love. Tattoos featuring anchors and large-breasted women took up most of the exhibit, plus some traditional fare from Asia and Africa.

Leonard Angel doesn’t mind if his “religion”, philosophical mysticism, never takes off. As the director of Douglas College’s Wisdom Institute, he is pioneering a practice that unifies his two lifelong interests: seeking to understand the universe in a rational and scientific way, and mysticism, an ancient tradition of connecting with the ultimate reality. To him, it’s personal, but he also thinks he might be on to something bigger.

This morning, I was thinking I’ll remember 2008 bittersweetly—the last year before the big climate catastrophe. When will this lifestyle end? And how?

Pope Benedict XVI is in the U.S. for a whirlwind six-day tour, including a reception at the White House, and meetings with U.S. bishops and United Nations officals.

About a year ago, in March 2007, five golden retriever puppies died of parvovirus on the Vancouver set of Snow Buddies, according to an ongoing investigation by the Los Angeles–based film and TV unit of the American Humane Association. The incident stirred up some publicity, but a local man who can prevent that kind of press coverage, Chris Obonsawin, still isn’t getting a ton of business.

For the first time, the South Asian music festival Desifest will shut Water Street in Gastown for a 10-hour outdoor concert. Organizer Rina Gill estimates that at least 3,000 people will descend on the area on May 3 from throughout the Lower Mainland.

Vancouver producers face a vexing challenge: how to give mild-mannered Canadians more razzle-dazzle

Hospital laundry aide Felinor Adriano works for about $12.50 an hour. The salary isn’t enough for his family to live on, he said, so he also works full-time as a security guard, and his wife works two jobs as well. Away from home more than 90 hours a week, Adriano misses out on raising his five-year-old daughter; he also doesn’t earn enough to visit his family in the Philippines, which he left in 2002.

The word no was pretty common around new mom Lara Leontowich’s house. Her son, Ayden, was a typical toddler, into everything, and the struggle was frustrating both of them. Finally, one rainy day last year, Leontowich switched her approach. She dressed her son in rubber boots and wet weather gear, took him outside, and told him to jump in a puddle.

Humidor-chic accoutrements Stylish, discreet gear for babies has propelled Vancouver’s Goober Baby to the forefront of maternal chic, from here to Hollywood. Now, for the first time, the label is extending their subtle-cool baby accessories to dads. The “Gents” package features a handsome rich-brown corduroy pack, big enough for a couple of diapers and wipes, plus a change pad. The pack is lined with a hip turquoise and brown argyle pattern.

A lifelong pro-choice advocate, Vancouver South MP Ujjal Dosanjh told the Straight March 25 that he has not become a pro-lifer. The denial came after John Hof, the leader of B.C.’s anti-abortion lobby group “welcomed” Dosanjh to the movement in the February 2008 Campaign Life Coalition B.C. newsletter. Dosanjh’s office staff had not heard about Hof’s newsletter statements until the Straight brought it to their attention.

Part of the reason this province’s abortion rate is so high is that parents are under tremendous financial pressure, said the Vancouver-based leader of Canada’s national pro-choice lobby coalition. About 15,000 B.C. women per year have an abortion, according to Statistics Canada.

Cristina Alarcon, Ujjal Dosanjh, Stephanie Gray, and Joyce Arthur give their opinions.

Thanks to Natalie, Girlicious’ whiny drama queen, a generation of tween girls can relax. It’s no longer superficial to pursue physical beauty.

This week, Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious sought to answer the question: Is it possible to slut up Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart”?

What should have been a $20-million core investment in a provincial child-care system has instead been frittered away by the B.C. government, according to Vancouver school board trustee and long-time child-care advocate Sharon Gregson. Half of the money, a grant from the federal government, was spent last month. Each of the province’s more than 4,600 licensed childcare centres will receive between $115 and $140 per space for supplies, minor capital enhancements, and professional development.

UBC student Andra Dediu organized the 6th annual UBC Oxfam No Sweat fashion show on March 19 in part because she believes overconsumption is killing the planet. The show outlined the manufacturing failings and successes of Lululemon, Nike, H & M, Gap, American Apparel, and others.