October 2011 Issue!

TRENT’S ALTERNATIVE PRESS

13.2

October 2011

$4.00 CA

But only if you want

The mandate of Absynthe Magazine is to encourage constructive dialogue and critical thinking within the Trent community. As an on-campus publication, Absynthe shall strive to represent as many people of the community as possible by presenting varying views on all matters that are of importance to the community and especially the student body. In the spirit of free and independent press, Absynthe shall strive for the highest degree of journalistic integrity and excellence while providing a medium for creative and alternative expression. It will actively stimulate and concourage discussion through itself or any other means available to members of the Trent community.

Hey, you!

Yeah, you!!

You look like you’ve got some talent in you, kid.

Submit your work to Absynthe Magazine!

Submission Guidelines Absynthe is a submissions-based magazine. Any Trent student who wishes to be published can send their work to us at trentabsynthe@gmail.com. Submissions can be any length, and can be written in any style.

Submissions will be subject to editing for spelling and grammar as well as verified for appropriate content.

Please include your name for publication. Photos and images are encouraged, but are required to have a minimum resolution of 300dpi. Articles may be held for publication at a later date.

Horoscopes - 14 Champlain College Photo Spread- 16 Crossword - 20 Colouring Contest - 21 This is the year of time travel - 5 Cyanide & Happiness - 24 A student’ guide to making Skittles Vodka - 6 Michaelangelo’s David -8 International students spend Thanksgiving at TISAlympics- 9 Censorship and safety - 10 Absynthe Recruitment - 13 Greater love hath no man - 18 Inside the world of Fandom - 22

Just a reminder: Absynthe Magazine is a submission based publication. You can create, submit, and make it what you want it to be. If you have something that you’d like to see featured, please, do not hesitate to contact us. With that said, many artciles that are featured will be written in a conversational style of writing.

Ah! October! The month of rain, wind and falling leaves.

Fall, while it is incredibly beautiful, also has the capacity to be a little soul-sucking. The changing of the seasons is a wonderful (though overused) metaphor for many of life’s events. Includingbut not limited to- the current phase that Absynthe Magazine is going through. Absynthe is currently facing a staff shortage that needs someone like you. Yes, you! Are you a little bit awkward? But witty? A fan of Friends, Firefly, or Buffy?

Would you list campy films in the selection of your favourite movies? Or do you just love writing? If you said “yes” to any of these questions then Absynthe is probably right for you! In order to be a member of Absynthe Magazine’s staff you have to be witty, charming, and devastatingly goodlooking. (Seriously, google us, we’re hilarious AND awesome!)

Absynthe Magazine is currently looking to employ three Member Representatives, an Advertising Manager, and a Web Master. Working for a magazine is great experience, an awesome forum to discuss issues that interest you, and a great way to stick it to the man!

Absynthe Magazine has gone through a lot of changes since it first began, but with each year it’s important that caliber of the magazine increases. This for-

absynthe Issue 13, vol 2 2011

Masthead Editor-in-Chief: Caitlin Jones President: Joel Vaughan Production Manager: Vanessa Lupton Production Assistat: Ryan Knowles Secretary: Carly Robillard Treasurer: TBA Member Representatives: Jack Braithwaite, Field Reporter: Michelle Mackey Copy Editory: Sarah Stunden Ads Manager: TBA Web Master: TBA

mat is a great place to showcase student talents, so we hope that you will take advantage of the free publicity and become active in the process of the magazine.

After all, we are what you make us. If you have something that you’d like to see in print, please Contributor: Zach Ruiter send it our way. Be it artwork, poetry, prose or even a picture. To contact our office:

October is a good one, readers, Halloween and reading break are two of the best times of year. Do you have a great costume planned? If so, send us a picture for a chance to be featured in the magazine. (Do it!)

Here are some October facts for you! Did you know that: The opal and the tourmaline are the birthstones for October, the zodiac signs for October are Libra and Scorpio, the birth flower is the calendula and it’s National Pizza Month!

Famous people who have birthdays in this month include Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ashlee Simpson, Julie Andrews, and Groucho Marx- to name a few.

Keep Calm and Absynthe On! ■

e-mail: trentabsynthe@gmail.com phone: 705-748-1011 ext 7316 office: CC207 (adjacent to Champlain College Office) http://issuu.com/absynthetrent http://absynthemagazine.wordpress.com www.twitter.com/absynthetrent

Out of all the amazing and wonderful things physicists have brought the human race, nothing feels more romanticized than the concept of time travel.

Perhaps it’s the idea of going back to fix one’s past mistakes, or perhaps it’s just David Tennant’s dashing good looks, but in a culture with powdered protein, massive breasts, and genetically modified fish-tomatoes, we’re drawn to the idea of modifying the one thing we can’t: the past.

This year the possibility of time travel has been toyed with more than ever before.

July prompted a group of Hong Kong physicists to dash away our science fiction-inspired hopes, “objectively proving” that time travel, at least within our universe, was downright impossible. Only a few months later, a European team revives the theory with some breaking new information. Perhaps a ride in the TARDIS won‘t be limited to our dreams. To discuss whether we can or cannot travel backwards in time, perhaps it’s fitting that we first discuss why we ever thought we could.

Time travel as a theory was discussed in scientific communities long before it became the popular fictional motif that remains. Isaac Newton proposed that time resembles a fired arrow - the same speed here in

Joel Vaughan Peterborough as in some distant black hole. Albert Einstein, however, took the stance that time is not necessarily a constant - that it is more like a meandering river that goes faster in some places than in others. Einstein’s works are often sighted in an attempt to make time travel seem theoretically possible, when his writings carried substantial limitations that would have to be ignored in order for the math to work.

In order for something to travel backwards in time, one would have to devise a way to exceed the speed of light. The easiest way to explain this is through example:

If Bobby sent Andrew a signal at less than the speed of light, and Andrew sent the signal back, then when we divide this exchange into frames of action we can expect time to act as it normally would. But if Bobby sent Andrew a signal at a speed faster than that of light, there would be frames where Andrew received the signal before it was sent, and if he sent it back to Bobby at the same speed, then Bobby would be receiving a signal back before he had sent anything at all. This concept flips cause and effect upside-down, and breaks major rules that we depend on.

Though Einstein’s theories on time inspired many a math-

ematical dream, these equations would be ignoring his “Theory of Special Relativity”, which states that nothing can surpass the speed of light. On July 24th, a team of Hong Kong-based physicists formally announced that time travel is impossible. They had put individual photons through a series of tests that they believed proved Einstein’s “Theory of Special Relativity” correct. Up until now, our scientific community had been working under the assumption that this is a sound and proven theory - light is as fast as it gets.

On September 22nd, a group of European physicists announced that they may have discovered a subatomic particle that can just barely pass the speed of light. While comparing the distance travelled to the time in laboratory beamed “neutrinos”, the team was struck with the prospect that these neutral particles may be the fastest thing humans have ever recorded, being just 60 nanoseconds over light-speed. While these findings have been met with scepticism and a demand for replication, it shows that time travel theory remains alive and well.

The conclusion that can be drawn from this year is the fact that not only are we fascinated with the prospect of revisiting the past, but there is quite a bit out there that we have yet to understand. ■

Jack Braithwaite As you’re reading this, Trent’s reading week is fast approaching, and nothing says a good time during a much deserved break like drinking with your friends both new, old, and imaginary (in my case anyhow).

But what if you’re tired with all those old boring mixed drinks and want something to spice up your week of drunken debauchery? Do you want to channel the spirit of your four-year-old self and throw candy into the mix? Well do I have good news for you! Here’s how you can make what is perhaps the greatest drink mix ever discovered by wasted frat boys with too much time on their hands, Skittles (TM) Vodka.

One 1.75L bottle of Vodka One pound of Skittles (I find getting them at the Bulk Barn to be cheaper as opposed to just buying a bag of them) Five resealable glass bottles or flasks (8.5 oz or greater) Five empty plastic bottles (Notice a pattern here?)

A funnel Bowls for separating Skittles by flavours A measuring cup Coffee filters (If you don’t have any then you can take the cheap man’s way and use paper towels)

Cover your workspace with newspaper as this will get messy unless you and your roomies want a Skittles-Vodka flavoured table to lick in the morning (pretty tasty I find it to be; especially with wood tables as it accentuates the flavours).

Separate the Skittles into the separate bowls so that you have approximately 60 Skittles of each flavour in each bowl.

Use the 5 plastic bottles (now called “infusion bottles” to make this sound like a cool science experiment) and fill them with 6 fl. oz. (or about 175 ml.) of Vodka.

Carefully pour one flavour of Skittles into one infusion bottle and another flavour into another bottle until all the bottles are filled with each flavour of Skittles. The funnel could come in handy in here with pouring the Skittles into the infusion bottles.

Shake the bottles like your broken computer during exam period until the coloured coating on the Skittles dissolves and the Vodka becomes the same colour as the Skittles inside them once were. The Skittles have to be completely dissolved so set them aside for a few hours and shake them again. Let them sit overnight at room temperature. Once they’re completely dissolved you’ll notice some white gunk floating on top of the Vodka. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that if you’ll follow me to Step 5...

Put the funnel inside the measuring cup with four coffee filters/paper towels inside the funnel (more filters/paper towels = better filtering). Then pour about a quarter of your infusion in at a time to allow for better filtering. If your strainer setup clogs with white gunk, simply scoop it out with a spoon.

And if there are bits of white gunk left in the infusion just repeat the straining process until it’s removed.

Be sure to keep filtering the infusion so it has the approximate consistency of the Vodka you started off with. When finished pour the remaining infusion into one of the glass bottles/flasks. Repeat for remaining infusions by disposing of filters/towels and rinsing off funnel and measuring cup Unless you want a few new housemates, rinse off any remaining sugar from the filters/towels to avoid attracting ants).

When finished you should have around 8 fl. oz. (236 ml.) of Skittles Vodka for each flavour of Skittles.

You’re almost on the way to sweet, burning-in-your-throat excitement! Store the glass bottles/ flasks filled with the Skittles vodka into a freezer overnight.

Congratulations! You’re now the envy of your fellow students and middle-aged divorcees alike with your own batch of Skittles-flavoured Vodka! Enjoy (ir)responsibly! ■

Carly Robillard

Maybe I just hadn’t noticed it before, but it seems to me that there is a debate in popular culture that recently has been swelling into a huge, frightening monster made of fervour: the movement of God vs. Science.

More and more every day, those who have faith are harassed for being naive and unreasonable, and those who trust facts and theories derived from observation are denounced as nonbelievers.

Contrary to what I expected to be the progression of North American society, I seem to be hearing the sentiment “either you trust the bible, or you’re a Godless scientist” more rather than less.

As a science student, this whole thing really gets on my nerves – but not because I want the pro-science side to win.

I don’t. The thing that bothers me about all of this is the fact that there is a divide in the first place.

To me, the existence of god and the functional truths of our universe are not mutually exclusive to each other, and it bothers me that so many others do not agree.

To understand what I mean, think of Michaelangelo’s David. To me, having faith and appreciation for God’s work while refusing to accept the sci-

entific findings about the world and how it works, is like appreciating and praising the perfection of Michaelangelo’s David while refusing to believe that chisels and hammers were involved in its creation. Furthermore, if I were to insist that the statements “Michaelangelo made this” and “This statue is made of rock” cannot both be true, you would probably find me a nice comfy padded cell to stay in for a while.

To me, the idea that a divine creator would create

physical laws for his universe that keep the construction running, like an expert watchmaker, makes perfect sense. When a man constructs a computer and programs it, then sells it to you, it is not the man that is making things happen when you click the buttons, but the computer. The fact that the computer runs on its own, however, does not diminish the credit that must be given to its builder for making it run.

This is how I see the universe.

If I can accept that God brought life to existence, why can I not also believe that he endowed this life with a way of adapting to the growth and changing of the world? If I can see the beauty and grandness of the universe and know that I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I can learn of it, why can I not also suppose that it was brought into being by a force greater than myself that I have yet to understand? Science and the findings it produces do not seek to debunk the possibility of God or blaspheme against him. Science helps us understand how God makes everything happen. It helps us investigate his clockwork, and marvel at it even more than we did before we understood how it worked. ■

Michelle Mackey

The annual TISAlympics were held on Thanksgiving Sunday at Trent’s Athletic Complex, an all-day sporting event including track, soccer, volleyball, cricket, and basketball. Organized by the Trent International Students’ Association (TISA), this year’s theme was Unity through Sports, and attracted a diverse group of international students representing Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Southeast and Eastern Asia.

TISAlympics co-chairs, Seifudin Abdi and Virginia Chamunorwa, organized the weekend’s events which also included a traditional turkey dinner on Saturday night.

“At a time when most university students go home for Thanksgiving weekend, many international students remain in Peterborough and this event provides a great opportunity for them to get involved,” said Chamunorwa.

Co-Chairs Seifudin Abdi & Virginia Chamunorwa

However, TISA events are open to all Trent students, regardless of international status. In fact, the group’s motto is “Bridging Boundaries, Breaking Barriers and Connecting Cultures,” and “acts as bridge between the International and the Domestic students at Trent University.”

According to Abdi, “the goal of the TISAlympics is to try and get everyone involved, especially first year international students as they don’t know a lot of upper years. They get to know each other through sports.” Fourth year student and TISA volunteer, Samudhya Jayasekara, from Sri Lanka agrees, “It’s a great way to meet international students, relax, and just hang out.”

Sharing her enthusiasm, is participant and Trent African and Caribbean Student Union President, Olufunmike Banks-Devonish. “It’s a good outing for people who don’t have families here in Canada, but anyone can

TACSLI Team

participate. You don’t have to be from a particular region to be a member of a regional group.

Events like this make my experience at Trent; it’s a getaway from all the academics and hard work,” said Banks-Devonish.

Winning teams in the specific events were TACSU in track and soccer, TSEAO in Volleyball, SAAT in Cricket, and TUCSA in basketball. The overall championship was taken by the TACSU team who were awarded the TISAlympics trophy.

TISA events are ongoing throughout the school year and include the TISA International Dinner on January 28th, 2012, and the association’s biggest event, the Cultural Outreach Show, Saturday March 10th 2012 at Showplace Performance Center.

For more information on TISA and how you can get involved, visit www.tisatrentu.org or join the Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/tisatrentu ■

TJA Team

Censorship and Safety: Health Canada and The Nuclear Information Blackout Zach Ruiter

It was our uranium. It was mined on the shores of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. And in August 1945, it exploded over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantly killing thousands and leaving a legacy of radiation-related health effects. 53 years later, in 1998, members of the Dene Sahtu First Nation of Great Bear Lake travelled to Japan. On behalf of their people and land, they apologized to the survivors of the atomic bombs.

Fast forward to Fukushima, the nuclear power plant that reached meltdown proportions after Japan’s eastern coastline was pummeled by a massive, 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Aileen Mioko Smith, a Japanese antinuclear activist and director of Green Action, was in San Francisco when Fukushima exploded. Following

her return, she observed the following: “The situation in Fukushima remains unstable and very dangerous. The status quo persists. The media are still ignoring citizen efforts, the TV programs are stacked with pro-nuclear spokespeople, and there are very few signs of real change. I worry about what will happen when the eyes of the world turn away from the Fukushima crisis, as soon as some other crisis erupts.”

government colluded with the nuclear industry to suppress information and downplay the effects of the Fukushima disaster.

In June, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station in Nebraska sat flooded under the Missouri River. A fire in the electrical switch room cut power supply, resulting in a temporary loss of cooling. Later, Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency leaked a memo received from the Interna Growing evidence sug- tional Atomic Energy Agency regests an on-going international vealing that President Obama had news media blackout on infor- ordered a “total and complete” news blackout on any information regarding the Fort Calhoun emergency. The report also divulged that Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) ordered a “no-fly zone” over the plant. Finally, an ABC news affiliate in Omaha retracted a story informing citizens of a 10-mile mation critical of nuclear en- evacuation zone around the plant. ergy. The Guardian newspaper Immediately after the Furevealed in July that the U.K. kushima catastrophe, the Cana-

dian government went into damage-control. Information on the unfolding nuclear catastrophe in Japan had clearly ignited the fears of many Canadians, as reports surfaced that Vancouver residents were flocking to drug stores to purchase potassium iodide in an effort to protect themselves from the effects of radiation. In an effort to assuage public opinion, Health Canada’s Dr. Paul Gully hastily stated on CBC news “that the risk to Canadians in Canada is negligible and will remain negligible, even in the worst-case scenario”.

Yet, despite such definitive claims by government officials, Alex Roslin, a writer for Vancouver’s Georgia Straight, investigated Health Canada’s data and found that radiation from Fukushima had traveled through the atmosphere to Canada’s west coast, exposing Canadians to harmful levels of contamination.

“For 22 days, a Health Canada monitoring station in Sidney detected iodine-131 levels in the air that were up to 300 times above the normal background levels. Radioactive iodine levels shot up as high as nearly 1,000 times background levels in the air at Resolute Bay, Nunavut.”

The trail of conflicting

data continued. On March 19th, Kryzysztof Starosta, a chemist at Simon Fraser University, tested the rainwater in Burnaby and found readings as high as 13 becquerels of iodine-131 per litre.

Health Canada’s allowable limit of 6 becquerels per litre of drinking water is 54 times higher than the limits set by the American Environmental Protection Agency.

Health Canada’s Radiation Monitoring Data website has censored readings from the Canadian Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Monitoring Stations, set up to test the atmosphere for the radioactive traces of nuclear test explosions. The readings from these stations are sent automatically to the UN’s Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization offices in Vienna. According to Kristen Haupt, the organization’s public information officer, only member states have access and discretion to release the data.

Roy Brady of the Council of Canadians and SAGE (Safe and Green Energy Peterborough) notes that Health Canada chose to limit the data from the Canadian test-ban monitoring stations to “one day per week, beginning in May, just when the results could actually be increasing in harm.” Health Canada provides no readings for the entire month of July; in tables where the data should be reported, each reading is represented by a hyphen, which according to the chart’s table means the data was “not measured or not detected.”

After spamming Health Canada and the CNSC with requests to access the data, I received a response from Eric Pellerin of Health Canada’s Radiation Protection Bureau. Pellerin wrote “effective August 11th we will be actually completely discontinuing the posting of monitoring data on Health Canada’s web site.” Pellerin offered as rationale for the decision that “the conditions of the plants in Japan are under better control and emissions are low,” and “all radiation measurements over the last few months have been within the range of normal background levels”. This stands in contrast to Roslin’s findings in the article

mentioned above, which found levels of radioactive iodine rose above the federal government’s allowable limits numerous times.

Mr. Pellerin suggested I pursue an access to information request with the Radiation Protection Bureau (RPB), but also informed me that employees of the RPB had been instructed “not to deal directly with specific public requests.”

Canada,” she said. “From the previous record they have tended to be pro-nuclear.” Caldicott draws her assertions from her recent trip to Ontario, where she spoke at a joint federal provincial hearing to warn of the dangers of low-level ionizing radiation exposure to populations living near nuclear plants. During the hearing, Health Canada presented in favor of a planned $35bil I asked Arthur Schafer, lion expansion of Ontario’s Darthe Director of the Centre for lington Nuclear Power Station.

Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Mani- On March 11th, 73,000 toba, to put this into perspective. litres of tritium laced de-minerSchafer, who sat on the Nuclear alized water, in a leak caused by Waste Management Organization a faulty pump seal, poured into (NWMO) Roundtable on Ethics Lake Ontario from Pickering’s wrote in return that he had “no Nuclear Power Station. Accordknowledge about Health Cana- ing to the Canadian Nuclear Safety da’s postings or the rationale for Commission, the federal agency changing their reporting method,” tasked with protecting the health, adding that, given his knowledge safety and security of Canadians of Health Canada, “their prime and the environment, “The radioconcern is not the health of Cana- logical risk to the environment dians or the duty to provide time- and people’s health is negligible”. ly and accurate information to the public.”

In a recent telephone interview, Australian physician and antinuclear crusader Dr. Helen Caldicott reaffirmed Schafer’s conjecture about the government agency. “I actually wouldn’t trust Health

The nuclear industry and its governmental regulatory agencies in Canada have a long track record of relying on engineering expertise to minimize the perception of accidents, but do they have any plans or experience in disaster control? The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article, titled ‘Canada Ill-Prepared for Radiation Emergencies,” on June 14th 2011.

There, the author’s state that “Most Canadian hospitals are illprepared to handle the surge of patients that could result from a large-scale radiation emergency...

The ongoing radiation threat in Japan, the result of damage to a nuclear power plant during the country’s recent earthquake, has rekindled concerns about the lackadaisical approach to preparing for such an event in Canada.”

Mining in Northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin makes Canada the largest exporter of uranium, accounting for 40 per cent of the global supply. By fiercely protecting industry at all costs, the Canadian government promotes the use of nuclear power to the detriment of transparency and the health and wellbeing of its own citizens.

In the words of Aileen Mioko Smith, “We will have to step up our efforts. What more can we do? Should we take to the streets?”■

We Want YOU!!!

We are looking for people to fill the following positions. If you are interested in working with Absynthe Magazine please send your cover letter and resume to trentabsynthe@gmail.com

- Each Member Representative shall endevour to attend all bi-weekly story meetings, and cover a minimum of eight story assignments throughout the course of the production year, not including short stories or woks of fiction.

- Each Member Representative will be responsible for reporting on stories or taking photo graphs as directed by the Editor-in-Chief, or Production Manager, - Each Member Representative will contribute to a minimum of three issues per term.

- Each Member Representative shall attend two production days each semester - Each Member Representative must sit at least two office hours each week.

- The Advertising Manager shall be primarily responsible for seeking advertisements to the magazine - The Advertising Manager shall actively seek submissions through various mediums, including posters, press releases, announcements and the Facebook group - The Advertising Manager shall actively seek regular contributors to Absynthe Magazine - The Advertising Manager shall sit, at least, two office hours per week.

- The Advertising Manager shall aid the Webmaster in overseeing the creation/maintenance of an Absynthe website

- The Staff Photoagrapher shall be responsible for taking photos for feature articles - The Saff Phootographer shall be responsible for digital photo editing, to the best of their judgement, in conjunction with the Production Team.

- The Staff Photographer shall participate in all story meetings.

- The Staff Photographer shall be responsible for co-ordinating the yearly Photo Contest.

- The Staff Photographer shall be responsible for at least three cover photos per year.

- The Staff Photographer shall sit at least two office hours per week.

(Sep 23 - Oct 22) This is your month to shine! Take

Librathe opportunity to do something that you’ve never

done before. Join a club, a musical, a band - anything to let your creative side shine. Trust me dear Libra, you won’t be sorry. Be the shinning star that you are!

23 - Nov 21) With so much (Nov 22 - Dec 21) As a Scorpio(Oct on the go, you might start to Sagittarius“winter baby” it’s easy

feel overwhelmed, but rest assured that everything will settled down shortly. Keep your head high, your eyes and ears open and know that you have what it takes to push through the stress of it all. Don’t forget to smile!

to give the cold shoulder. During an argument try to put yourself in the shoes of the other person. Giving the cold shoulder isn’t always the best way to go. Think before you speak, and take a deep breath. It’s better to be slow to respond than regret what you’ve said.

(Jan 20 - Feb 18) People Dec 22 - Jan 19) You’ll Aquarius Capricorn (begin might call you arrogant, to see people

through a new light this month. Take it all in stride and balance what you know and what you’re learning. You have a natural way of reading people, use it to your advantage.

but you think of yourself as reserved. Perhaps it’s time to look at why people view you the way they do. It’s time to find your softer side.

(Feb 19 - Mar 20) You’ve had a major setback lately, Even though it seems that things Pisces can’t get any worse, they can and they will. Don’t give up, and rememebr to push through. Eventually it’s bound to get better.

up! As one of the most ‘explosive’ signs, it’s Aries been hard forSpeak you to keep your tongue on a few issues, Unzip (Mar 21 - Apr 19)

your mouth and let your voice be heard!

Apr 20 - May 20) Pick up a book that has nothing to do with school. It’s time to work Taurus(your brain in a literary sense. Go back to the classics, open a bottle of wine and

enjoy.

(May 21 - Jun 21) You’re a modest person by nature, but don’t let that

Geministop

you from taking credit where credit is due. You’ve worked hard to get where you are today, stop and take a moment to pat yourself on the back.

(Jul 23 - Aug 22) A love connection is on it’s (Jun 22 - Jul 22) You have Leo way!

That special someone you’ve had your Cancergreat things in store for eye on will finally notice you. Don’t worry about playing

you this month. A new job, a new love, good grades? Think positive thoughts and good fortune will fall upon you.

games, when love is in the air that’s all that’s important.

22 - Sep 22) Take the night for yourself and just relax! It’s been a stressful few weeks and Virgo(Aug your blood pressure is running at an all time high. Even though you’ll get invites to have a night on the town, make sure that you’re giving yourself that much needed down time. Rent a movie, read a book or spend time with family. It will be good for you.

The guy I like doesn’t notice me, what should I do?

I’ve tried everything but nothing seems to work.

- Lonely Girl Dear Sad, Lonely Girl: GIRL you’ve got to SMIZE! Smile with your eyes. Don’t let that silly boy get away. You’ve got to stalk him like a lioness stalks her prey. You’re in Peterborough, but you’ve got to summon the downtown 416 in you.

I’ve been trying to get into the fashion world. Do you have any suggestions?

- Fashion Chick Dear Fashion Fabulous Try out for my show. That’s the only REAL way to make it big...

Wanna see YOUR questions responded to in rhyme? CAN DO!!!

Email trentabsynthe@gmail.com

We at Absynthe feel that you should check out this amazing youtube video. Also, be sure to check out this area of the magazine every month, ‘cause chances are, one of the staff members has stumbled across another video gem that should be shared with the world...

Okay, so just Trent’s population that reads the mag...anyways...

Numa Numa - An oldie, but a goodie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o

Designed by Master Architect Ron Thom, and built in 1967, it is one of Trent’s most picturesqe buildings.

The design was inspired

by Eero Saarinen’s Morse College and Stiles College at Yale University. The Champlain College mascot is Pax, a gorilla from West Virginia.

Ryan Knowles

Everyone wants to be loved. It’s a fact of life.

Everybody wants to be important, to mean something to someone else. This is in no way exclusive to sexual relationships or crossgender relationships. In fact, the some of the most meaningful connection and interaction between people is that of a brotherhood or close friendship. I’m not saying that other relationships do not run deep in our collective unconscious, but what I am saying is that fraternal love and camaraderie always run deeper. It is a fact noticed by many, and professed by many. Though I am not in any way a religious guy, the Book of John phrases this sentiment in the simplest and thus most powerful way: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. This kind of love, the love between brothers, has been lost on today’s society, and is either dismissed or understood as homosexual relationship. Do not take

me for homophobic, but this kind of platonic relationship is not sexual in any way; it comes from a prehistoric sense of fellowship.

When whatever crawled out of the primordial ooze decided it would be a good idea to work in groups, the first instance of brotherhood came into being. Although the biological imperative was there first, our sense of communal brotherhood transcends it in a way that is just as inexplicable as it is true. From that first instance of deciding to group up to the pack instincts of many mammals, the sense of fraternal fellowship has been rooted in our psyche, if only as a biological reaction to the fact that everyone who walked around by themselves got eaten. It is not until we decided that it was a good idea for our different groups of monkey to kill each other that our platonic brotherhood senses begin to transcend science.

Though there are no doubt many more instances of brothers in arms, I think the most understandable is that of the hoplites of ancient Greeks. As Leonidas explains in 300, in a phalanx, Greek soldiers would defend the man to their left, trusting the man to their right to defend them. Although shortly after this, Leonidas decides to break ranks and go for a kill-crazy slow motion romp through the Persian army, his lesson holds. The amount of trust required for a phalanx is incredible; you cannot think of your own defence, but must trust your brothers in arms to defend you.

Such a trust must without exception breed love. This love is not a love expressed sexually, but a love of trust and camaraderie, and the more they fight, the more the love shall grow. Though the phalanx really personifies the essence of fraternal love, it is similar for most other militaries, especially some of the newer wars. In more modern warfare, sol-

diers fight in small companies, subdivided into many fingers of the war machine’s hand. Because of this, companies, units, and battalions will often form similar bonds of fellowship, including one man who fought in the First World War, a fellow, by the name of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The stories that Tolkien created are lined with brotherhood and fraternal love. The most prominent example of this is of course The Lord of the Rings, specifically through the Hobbits. The Hobbits are midgets, short and fat and next to useless in most senses, unless drinking or smoking is involved. The thing that they do seem to have over their taller, more badass compatriots is their bonds of friendship that surpass mere friendship.

Brothers in everything but blood, the Hobbits show their worth through their close companionship.

This is not to say that the other peo-

ple of the Fellowship were blind to brotherhood. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli pass through the entire saga, thick and thin, countless battles, because they are brothers in both arms and in their predicament. When Gimli says that the Fellowship is finished, Aragorn sums up the sentiment in a firm compliment of the Book of John: “Not if we hold true to each other”. But when the movies came out and destroyed anything else that came out during the same time, what was suggested by many viewers? The Hobbits are gay. Now, I’m not saying that there would be anything wrong with that, but it is not true; they aren’t.

Such is the fate of the greatest bonds of friendship; it is reduced to unimportance or considered homosexual.

Now you may be wondering why I’m so adamant about this whole brotherhood thing, so I guess you deserve an explanation. Before I graced Trent University with my benevolent light, I went to St. Michael’s Choir School in downtown Toronto. Yeah, a choir school.

An all-boys choir school.

You can rightly assume that we received a lot of flak for that, but it didn’t matter to us. Something about the school, whether it was the rigorous rehearsal schedule, the small class sizes, or the sense of teamwork and trust bred in the rehearsal rooms and concert halls, something bred the same sense of camaraderie and brotherhood that was brought to bear in the brave Greek phalanxes and the legendary company in the Fellowship of the Ring. I know that each of the people from my class of 13 would have my back, and I know they trust that I’d have theirs. This love surpasses any physical or biological imperative; greater love hath no man than this, that he may lay down his life for his friends. ■

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Caitlin Jones

New York Comic Con took place from October 13th-16th this year, and is likely to have more than 100 000 people in attendance.

Last year the numbers came in at around 96 000, which is triple the amount since its first run in 2006. While shows like The Big Bang Theory are bringing cos-play and cons to the mainstream, there is still a thriving online community of science fiction/fantasy/ fandom fans.

The internet has created many strange and new things to engage in, including a lot of porn (including but not limited to vomit porn, and anal punch fisting), streaming (a legitimate god send), craigslist and ChatRoulette just to name a few. Along with

these things there has been a shift of (self-identified) nerds from these conventions to internet fandoms, fan fiction, and message boards.

A fandom could be defined as a subculture in-

most aggressive on message boards. Firefly is a television show that had such a powerful fandom that after the cancellation of the show after one season they protested so much that a movie was developed. Fandoms are no longer simply having an effect on storylines, and films, but also on the publishing world. Just like there are YouTube stars a la Jeffree Starr, there are also fandom stars.

Harry Potter has been a thriving fandom since the late 90s, with original readers growing up with the story, and new fans joining each year. Because of the length of time beterested the careful analy- tween each of the novels fan sis of a certain film/tele- fiction began thriving. For vision show/book or their example, one of the leaders overarching genres. These of the BNF (big name fans) fandoms create names like was a woman named Cas“Potterheads,” “TwiMoms.” sandra Claire. Cassandra These two fandoms have no- Claire wrote a very poputoriously been some of the- lar series of Harry Potter

Crossover (crossed with another show, book, etc) featuring Draco Malfoy. The Draco Trilogy was widely popular in 2001, despite the many controversies surround Claire’s interactions with her fans. However, Claire faced problems when readers on fanfiction.net realized that she had been copying large sections of her text from Buffy scripts, and a published young adult fiction writer. In the coming years, Claire opened another fanfiction website with some other Big Name Fans called fictionalley, and continued to write her questionable stories.

Because she continued to write Claire was read, and applauded by some known Young Adult fiction writers who commended her on her work, while ignoring all of the problems with it.

Currently Cassandra

Clare (yes, she removed the “i”) has published The Mortal Instruments- which features large blocks of texts from The Draco Trilogy and rips off ideas from tons of sources- which will be made into a movie. Clare is also good friends with everybody’s favourite misogynist, Stehanie Meyer. Despite all of the disgust that has developed within the Harry Potter fandom about Clare’s plagiarism she is still able to make a fortune off of stealing other people’s ideas.

This case raises a lot of questions about the legitimacy of the publishing industry. Currently Amazon is seeking to publish over 100 works of fiction without having the author go through a publishing company, and without an agent. And while the deal seems incredibly questionable, it’s likely thatthis will be another nail in

the coffin for a quickly dying industry. So, that poses two questions: by publishing absolute garbage by people who are known plagiarists is the publishing industry further stripping itself of credibility and thus ruining making other avenues seem better? OR should book publishers take advantage of novels that sell despite cases of confirmed plagiarism?

It seems that the internet is making changes to the way a lot of industries function. And while a lot of these changes are positive for people who are seeking to put themselves out there, or make a living, Perhaps what is being compromised is the integrity of a solid writer.Which is not to say that ideas are always going to be original, but not even coming up with your own dialogue? That’s just lazy. ■