Capilano Courier | Vol. 49, Issue 14.

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE 14

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RIDING THE RAILS

ALL KITTEN ASIDE

CSU’s popular UnCapped Rail Jam returns to campus for fourth year of snowboarding fun.

Despite its best intentions for adoption awareness, Vancouver’s new cat café has more flaws than claws.

JANUARY 18 - 24 | 2016

STAR TECH: THE NEXT GENERATION

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C O NTE NTS

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Cover Art

Editor's Desk

News

Opinions

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THE TECH OF TREK

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VIDEO GAME REVIEWS

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Features

Shorts

Arts

Columns

PAUL BOICI

THE STAFF Andy Rice EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

editor@capilanocourier.com Carlo Javier EXECUTIVE LIFESTYLE EDITOR

carlo.capcourier@gmail.com Therese Guieb

ASTRONOMY 101: THE HOLLYWOOD SUPERNOVA

FERTILE GROUND FOR THEATRE

PETITIONING FOR A COLLABORATIVE SPACE

COLUMNISTS

Kevin Kapenda OPINIONS EDITOR

opinions.capcourier@gmail.com Gabriel Scorgie FEATURES EDITOR

specialfeatures.capcourier@gmail.com Christine Beyleveldt CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT

reporter.capcourier@gmail.com Cristian Fowlie ART DIRECTOR

artdirector.capcourier@gmail.com

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

Syd Danger

SIP SIP HOORAY! BURRITOS AND WINE

CONTRIBUTORS Aidan Moulliec

Aidan Mouellic is a low-key veteran in the world of student journalism. He’s written words of wisdom and of satire for Douglas College’s The Other Press and yours truly. Ever the music aficionado, Aidan will be writing his critical analysis and thoughts about the current state of music, while amalgamating ongoing musical developments with treasures from the past. What up, Pitchfork.

EXECUTIVE NEWS EDITOR

news@capilanocourier.com

BLOOD, SWEAT AND POVERTY

Paul Boici COVER ART

Danielle Mainman ART

Brenna Mackinder ART

Zed Alexandra

Caitlin Manz This semester, CapU student Caitlin Manz will take the reins of our traditional political column. She’s an arts and sciences student with a focus on English and Biology, so naturally, she’s writing about politics. Caitlin will be discussing political issues around the globe and she’ll be sure to put the science in political science.

ART

Steve Tornes WORDS

James Martin WORDS

Sabrina Kuhn

Mike Allen Mike Allen is our very handsome columnist writing about absurd news stories you may have missed. He’s a selfproclaimed train enthusiast and he stands firmly by his utter lack of belief of Iceland (he doesn’t think the country exists.)

Mike also has an inherent fear of long commercials, which means his columns will get straight to the point.

WORDS

Milana Bucan WORDS

Keara Farnan WORDS

PRODUCTION MANAGER

pm.capcourier@gmail.com Alva Tang COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER

community.capcourier@gmail.com Tianyi Bao BUSINESS MANAGER

businessmanager.capcourier@gmail.com

Max Ley Back by popular demand, Max Ley is here to help. Much of the student population tends to live on a limited budget, which creates a hunger for cheap and accessible “student” foods and the occasional glass (or bottle) of wine. What Max will be doing is finding the perfect budget bottle to pair with your go-to snacks. Yes, we know, we should have this column every week.

Brandon Kostinuk WEB COORDINATOR

web.capcourier@gmail.com THE CAPILANO COURIER is an autonomous, democratically-run student newspaper. Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Capilano Courier will not publish material deemed by the collective to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. The views expressed by the contributing writers are not necessarily those of the Capilano Courier Publishing Society.

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EDI TO R 'S D E SK Astronomy 101: The Hollywood supernova Andy Rice EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

THE VOICEBOX with Carlo Javier

So, how much do you figure you guys saved in toner on the “Colouring” issue?

Actually? $178.50, a.k.a. my salary for the entire year!

Where the fuck were you guys last week? I walked all the way up to Maple for nothing.

You could’ve hung out at the CSU Maple Lounge just next door! They have state-of-theart pool and foosball tables as well as some trendy couches. It’s really a nice place to hang out in. Hey, rumour has it that they might be building a new hang out spot, so this space has already got an expiry date on it.

THE CAPILANO COURIER

It’s about time you guys gave away some free pizza at your free pizza events that no one goes to.

We’re on a diet!

The Voicebox is back! If you have any questions, concerns or any other bitchin’ to do, text it over to our boy Carlo at 778-865-2649. “Please text me,” he says. “No one else does.”

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

If you call NASA and ask what happens when a star burns out, someone with a pocket protector is probably going to start talking to you about supernovas.

“Eventually, a star will run out of fuel,” they’ll explain, “and it will collapse into a titanic explosion. Then, for a short time, it will appear brighter than all the others before slowly fading into darkness.”

I’ve finally realized why celebrities are called stars too. Their lives begin and end much the same way — especially the big ones. These legends almost always experience a posthumous popularity flare right after their death, receiving one last hurrah in the galaxy of heavenly bodies before the newest star takes their place.

Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie, has been dead for about a week, and in that time we’ve seen the world embrace his music and his legacy like never before. Nearly 20,000 tweets per minute poured in once the news broke of his passing, growing to over 4.3 million in the first few hours alone. But the tributes weren’t just confined to Twitter.

People painted their faces, posted snippets of lyrics and told stories of where they were and what they felt the first time they heard “Space Oddity” come over the airwaves. Everyone from Madonna to Mick Jagger entered into full fan mode, drowning their sorrows with the same cocktail of loss and nostalgia that is stirred by the death of a pop culture pioneer. Best of all, they drank it right alongside the rest of us.

Music is a powerful thing that way.

What really struck me hard this week is the fact that we’re going to lose many more of these legendary artists, Jagger included, in the next 10 to 15 years. In fact, it would be entirely age-appropriate for their supernova moment to come any day now. John Lennon may have been taken before his time, but the same couldn’t be said about his songwriting partner, Paul McCartney, if he were to die tomorrow.

He’s old now, and everyone gets old eventually, but I think sometimes we can be convinced that our favourite stars will burn forever.

Yes, one day I’ll have to say goodbye to Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder and James Taylor — and eventually even to Bieber — but I can take solace in the fact that their music will never be far from reach when I need it. That’s the beauty of art. Art can last forever.

Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson are prime examples of this. When Jackson died on June 25, 2009, his music rose above his body like a spirit, flowing boundlessly toward

anyone who ever judged his appearance or balked at the sordid details of his personal life. None of that mattered on June 26. The streets were filled with cars, their sunroofs retracted, speakers blasting Thriller toward the summer sky. Innocent or guilty, dead or alive, MJ reclaimed his throne as the King of Pop that day. He has yet to abdicate.

Whether or not you were Bowie’s biggest fan or completely unfamiliar with his work, you probably heard a few of his songs on your TV or radio this week. Maybe you searched up “Changes” on YouTube or put Aladdin Sane into rotation on your Apple Music playlist — or maybe you’ve been a fan since childhood and are reading these words through your tears. If it’s the latter, you’re probably feeling extra lucky.

Bowie left an amazing parting gift to his fans through his newest album, Blackstar, released just a few days before he passed. Jackson did the same with This Is It, a documentary that offered a glimpse into the rehearsals for his planned comeback tour. But, as history has proved, their biggest legacy might just be the music that will start to emerge from others who were inspired by them.

Jackson’s death directly influenced how songs were written in 2009, and in the years that followed. Daft Punk’s 2013 release, Random Access Memories, borrowed many elements of his grove and aesthetic, right down to the musicians that were used on the tracks and the fonts that were used on the cover. The album was a smash hit with a slew of heavily-played singles that brought us back to a time when talent was a job requirement for the world’s celebrities. People actually began asking themselves why they’d ever come to accept anything less.

It is almost undeniable that the same will happen now that Bowie has passed. His theatrics, his lyrics and his talent were too accomplished to ignore.

I know they will inspire something good and something new — maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe next year.

But for today, let’s dance. Bowie would want us to.

NEWS Whats new with the CSU? Plans floated for yacht party's return Christine Beyleveldt CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT

During the winter break, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) conducted several Board of Directors’ meetings discussing plans such as sending selected CSU directors to the Northwest Leadership Conference in Portland, increasing advertisement for the organization, releasing funds for CSU student clubs and hosting another year-end yacht party.

CSU directors voted on four directors to attend the Northwest Student Leadership Conference (NWSLC) from Feb. 5 to 7 at Portland State University. The conference is hosted by the Oregon Student Association, benefitting university students through training and workshops to further develop their leadership skills. Among the CSU directors in attendance will be fine arts and

Fertile ground for theatre Exit 22 Productions harvests four nominations from The Secret Garden Andy Rice

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

It may have been called The Secret Garden, but Exit 22 Productions didn’t make any attempt to keep their show a secret from the critics. It’s a move that certainly paid off.

The Capilano University-based theatre company staged a version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel last March at the Blueshore Centre. Ten months later, the production has been nominated in four categories for the 2016 Ovation! Awards, given each year to honour outstanding local musicals.

Nominees were announced online on Jan. 12 with winners to be unveiled at a gala held Jan. 31 at the Vancouver Academy of Music.

Several CapU students, faculty and alumni were present on the nominees list, including Conor Moore for lighting design, Gillian Barber for direction, and Darren Adams for male support performance.

The play itself was nominated in another category for large community theatre productions.

“I’m honoured to have been nominated for an Ovation Award for my performance as Dickon,” celebrated Adams on his Facebook page shortly after the nominees were announced. “Thanks to the entire cast, crew, and artistic team for putting on such a great show.”

For more information on the Ovation!

Awards, visit Applausemusicals.com.

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applied sciences representative, Melissa Pilsic, accessibility justice coordinator, Jullian Kolstee, business and professional studies representatives, Emily Solomon and Michelle Gervais. The conference will cost the CSU $3,100 which will be taken from the internal development budget for the Union.

Taylor Wilson, vice president of external relations moved a motion to spend up to $1,900 from the union’s marketing budget to increase outdoor advertisement for the CSU. A campaign is set to launch this month in the Purcell Way bus loop. In addition, the Board of Directors is also in talks for additional locations such as Phibbs Exchange.

Capilano Gaming Club and the IDEA Library Club were given $104 each by the CSU to assist both clubs in creating activities for their members.

Kate Phifer, vice president of student life, presented a proposal regarding another Rock the Boat party as an end-of-the-year event hosted by the Union. Last year’s Rock the Boat party raised concerns from several CSU directors due to to the fact that it could only accommodate 400 students. Another major issue was that the event had a loss of $5,000 and if it were to happen in 2016

there would be a projected deficit of $3,500.

Over the coming weeks, the Student Life Committee will look into creating a survey for students to offer their opinions on last year’s event. Zach Renwick, vice president of internal relations, and Ben Glassen, CapU senate representative, suggested further research for the event and the creation of a risk management plan to be approved by the Board, Student Life Committee and the chosen boat company for the event.

The next CSU Board of Directors meeting is set for Friday, Jan. 22.

SEAS THE DAY: David Fryer, Sacha Fabry, Zofia Rodriquez and Zach Renwick of the Capilano Students Union (CSU) were in attendance at last year's Rock the Boat party. The CSU is considering a similar event to cap off the 2016 Spring semester.

@CAPILANOCOURIER

Recreational drug overdoses continue to increase Mother of former student advocates for better drug policies in Canada Therese Guieb EXECUTIVE NEWS EDITOR

Jennifer Woodside never saw her son Dylan graduate from Capilano University.

The 21-year-old passed away in April 2014 due to overdose of OxyContin laced with fentanyl. His classmates from the Studio Arts program would attend their convocation without him.

Woodside hopes that with enough awareness the same tragedy will not be experienced by others. As a result, she co-founded a coalition called mumsDu to advocate for better drug policies in Canada and to combat the perils of recreational narcotic use. "It’s a coalition of mothers. We all lost a child to the form of substance abuse,” she explained. “It’s not a self-help group. It’s an advocacy group and a voice for the family and friends of victims both nationally and globally to address drug policy.”

The number of illicit drug overdoses

Shanghai Noon CapU Field School to visit China this April Carlo Javier EXECUTIVE LIFESTYLE EDITOR

Students from across all faculties are eligible to apply for this year’s China Field School, a 21-day trip taking place between Apr. 24 and May 14.

Led by business administration professors, Andrea Eby and Michael Molson, the field school will encompass cities such as Guangzhou, Huizhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. The trip will start off with a series of university visits where students will get a fully immersive experience of the Chinese society and culture.

Alumni group petitions to join presidential search committee Christine Beyleveldt CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT

continues to spike rapidly with 465 deaths last year compared to 366 deaths in 2014 — a 27 per cent increase according to a report by the BC Coroners Service. In December 2015, there were 62 deaths in BC alone due to illicit drug overdoses.

Illicit drugs are classified as street drugs, recreational drugs, medications that were not prescribed and drug contents that are unknown. Synthetic drugs are the most common culprit behind many of the overdoses in the past year. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, synthetic drugs are man-made and are oftentimes mixed with multiple compounds that produce unknown effects to the user. An example of this drug is fentanyl, a synthetic opiate that is usually used as a painkiller and is stronger than morphine.

“Fentanyl… was developed for [a person] who’s at the end of his life, so if you had cancer. It’s an extremely potent painkiller,” said Woodside. “They make the drug, they send it into Canada, and then they make the pill here. When they add the fentanyl when making these pills you don’t know the percentage of the fentanyl that’s going in the pill,” she added.

In Dylan’s case, he had taken a pill that had fentanyl but was masked as OxyContin, a painkiller. “So you could take a pill that they’ve masked as Oxy[Contin], and they don’t know that it has fentanyl.

You could take one tablet one day and be fine, and then another time take half a tablet and it could kill you, because it might all be concentrated in that area of the pill you took,” noted Woodside.

According to Woodside, it is important that users are educated with the drugs that they are ingesting and parents should open a conversation with their children about the use of recreational drugs. “The majority of young adults are going to experiment,” she argued. “My son knew his source, but your source doesn’t know what’s in it. He is getting it from somebody else. And maybe knowing your source is good to a certain degree, compared to buying it from somebody off the street, but the odds are still against you.”

Since a drug overdose is something that happens unpredictably, especially with the increase of laced drugs, one of the policies that mumsDu is advocating for is instant access to Naloxone or Narcan kits. These kits are used for immediate reversal of the

effects of opiate drugs like OxyContin and fentanyl. “It’s like an Epipen. You jab it in the leg and administer it and a training course that goes along with it,” said Woodside. Health Canada has recently announced that an amendment proposal has been made to allow Naloxone to be used without a prescription for emergency use.

Health Canada created the amendment in the hopes of combatting the increase of opioid overdose in the country.

Woodside believes that death from drug overdose is both senseless and preventable.

“It’s already happened to a Cap student, and you don’t want your mother walking across that stage to get your degree posthumously…

If it happened to Dylan and to your average North Shore family, it can happen to anyone.”

“We’ll be doing language exchanges, cultural classes and business classes, in the Canton province and in Huizhou to start off the whole thing,” said Molson. The group will visit Hong Kong as part of the middle leg of the excursion as a tourism break, and will then fly up to Shanghai and Beijing to finish up the trip. Students are slated to visit several businesses and marketing agencies, factories and museums. Molson explained that the trip itinerary is roughly divided into three main segments: tourism, business-centric activities and academicfocused exercises.

The trip presents the opportunity to visit niche fields of the business and marketing world, a feature that Eby deems to be a potential highlight for students accepted to go. “For me being a marketer, there’s a really great digital agency called

SapientNitro Worldwide, so we’re gonna go see them, they’re gonna take us on an agency tour and talk about some of the work they’re doing for their clients in Shanghai,” she said.

Students will also get the chance to have a first-hand look at business aspects such as plant production, supply-chain, pricing and inventory.

The China Field School can offer a dramatically different experience than other field schools simply because of how the society, government and culture of China is starkly different from that of Western societies. Students will be in for a culture shock, and this is an experience that both Molson and Eby welcome.

“We want them to experience the culture shock, we want their jaws to drop,” Molson said. “We want people to

think about working in China later on in the future, we want people to have China in their radar when they graduate from Capilano.”

Throughout the trip, students will be staying at a variety of spaces, from university dorms to hotels and bed and breakfast spots.

The trip will cost $3,300 plus course fees and the tour includes six credits from two upper level business administration courses. Other venues on the itinerary include the Forbidden City, The Great Wall of China and the Olympic venues.

The deadline to apply for the field school is Jan. 29, 2016.

Accili explained that the Alumni Association is already moving toward becoming a member of the Committee on a recommendation from the Board of Governors, and that senate support would prevent further delays in the Board’s consideration of their request. Furthermore, the association’s reasoning for wishing to join the presidential search included their close connectivity with the student body, seeing as it is composed of former CapU students, as well as being able to bring alumni ties closer to the university. Accili also sees the search as a good opportunity for alumni to join the process. According to a report from the previous Senate gathering on Nov. 3, 2015 all scheduled stakeholder interviews had been moved up and the search process is will

commence this year.

The Senate debated Accili’s proposal and concluded that the association must have a strong regard for current students, not simply their own interests. Also, a number of Senate members were uneasy about their motives in joining the search and felt they were lacking information.

After going to a vote, the Senate struck down the association’s request, and moved onto informed correspondence. Shelley McDade, chair of the senate, announced that all positions on the Board of Governors are finally filled and sub-committees have been fully formed.

However, the University is still waiting on the appointment of a new chancellor. The search is currently being conducted with the help of the Alumni Association.

Finally, two new courses were approved for the Business Administration program.

Originally, students were required to have a specific GPA in order to graduate from the program. The Senate agreed that the new courses will help students achieve their program requirements.

For more information about the Field School or the requirements to apply, visit Capilanou. ca/studyabroad/chinafieldschool.html.

The Senate by-elections electronic voting will take place between Feb. 16 and 22. Voting will be completed through students' MyCap accounts. Positions open for nominations until Jan. 18 include faculty representative, Global and Community Studies representative and a student representative. For more information on the Senate elections visit Capilanou.ca/ senate-elections/.

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

Capilano University’s Senate faced a big decision at their first official meeting of the year. Eric Accili from CapU’s Alumni Association petitioned the Senate on Jan. 12 to allow the association to join the Presidential Search Committee, which is still currently reviewing candidates to replace president Kris Bulcroft at the end of her term in April.

/CAPILANOCOURIER

THE CAPILANO COURIER

Hunt continues

@CAPILANOCOURIER

CAP YOU Hello from the other side CapU professor visits NY to talk to dead Americans Carlo Javier EXECUTIVE LIFESTYLE EDITOR

Dr. Leonard George didn’t go to New York to enjoy the sites of the world’s most famous city. He was there to talk to the dead.

The Capilano University Psychology professor spent part of the summer of 2013 in Lily Dale, New York, where he trained under world-renowned psychologist, Dr. Judith Rochester. Lily Dale is noted as a haven for the religion of spiritualism, and,

Snow business Rail Jam returns this week Christine Beyleveldt CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

For the fourth consecutive year, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) will host its annual UnCapped Rail Jam. Skiers and snowboarders can bring their equipment out to the Cedar courtyard on Thursday, Jan. 21 and take a chance on the rails and freshly laid powder.

According to Kate Phifer, vice president of student life, this year the Rail Jam is expected to be bigger and better than ever.

“The [communities] both on campus and outside of campus have come to expect and look forward to it,” she said. “We also have a Capilano Ski and Board Club on campus now that are stepping up to ensure the event’s success.”

Last year, the Rail Jam drew hundreds of spectators and is steadily growing with every new incarnation.

The event will be set up by 11:30 am, and many of CapU’s student collectives will be there to hand out hot food and drink, free merchandise and prizes. Students are encouraged to turn out for the games and

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according to George, the town is exclusive to spiritualists – and has been since 1848.

“One of my specialty areas in psychology is a field called anomalistic psychology,” George explained. This certain field focuses on the study of unusual experiences with a scientific psychological perspective, and George added that it also includes strange occurrences such as out of body, ESP and UFO abduction experiences.

These strange experiences are willingly sought out and studied by spiritualists.

Spiritualists believe in some of the most popular aspects of the paranormal: the continuity of life and the interaction with the dead. This is where a spiritualist medium comes in.

“I'd always been curious about what mediums actually experience when they report that they're interacting with dead people,” said George. “I figured the best way

contests, as well as to cheer on CapU’s resident skiers and boarders.

“Riders will shred the rails for about an hour and a half,” said Phifer, “Immediately following, everyone will head down to the Narrows Pub.” Pizza and drinks will be provided and the charities will pitch up as well, providing students with the opportunity to donate or bid in the silent auction. The morning event is free to all students. Entry to the Narrows Pub is $10, including food and drink.

The Rail Jam has raised thousands of dollars for local charities since its launch, and this year the CSU is partnering with Project Change Foundation. “Project Change is a great foundation to bring awareness to,” said Phifer. Led by CapU tourism instructor, Joe Kelly, Project Change aims to generate positive development in individuals and in communities through empowerment and openness. Kelly will be at the event to speak with students about the importance of initiating change. He has also worked closely with the Lipstick Project, another charity run in part by CapU students. “The charity gives time and money to Canadian Changemakers,” Phifer added.

Other sponsors of the event include Seymour, Grouse and Cypress Mountains, Lululemon, David’s Tea, Jägermeister and Tap & Barrel.

to find out would be to get some training myself, so I arranged for mentoring from a highly respected medium who lives in a town of spiritualists.”

Despite having no previous experiences in mediumship, George has practiced numerous forms of meditation and consciousness-exploring methods for many years. He cited this extensive history as a potential reason as to how he was able to seamlessly slip into a mediumistic trance state. “I was able to experience travel in a spirit world and meet beings there,” he said.

However, the only one of George’s dearly departed that he was able to meet under the trance was his old cat Xanthia. According to Rochester, George had authentic contact with the other side, while as a psychologist George stated that he’d gone under an incredibly vivid visual and auditory mental imagery.

During his training, George also had the opportunity to try and read people.

He recounted sitting across a complete stranger, going into a mediumistic trance and going deep into their innermost memories.

“I had a vision of a small house in a forest,” George said, “The name ‘Mabel’ or ‘Annabelle’ came to me. The trees around the house were hung with ornaments. A wind was blowing, yet none of the ornaments fell off.”

George would later learn that the woman in his visions was a neighbour of his practice client.

Despite the training, George ultimately came away with no scientific proof that verified the religion of spiritualism. However, he’s not letting the lack of tangible takeaways discourage his interest in spiritualism. After all, the concept of afterlife has yet to be disproven either. “At least I know that I don’t know, and that’s something.”

O P I NI O N S You have got to be kitten me Catfé’s business model is far from purrfect Andy Rice

Cat butts are like bingo daubers; inked, moist and ready to plunge up and down on literally every surface this world has to offer. Nothing is safe — not the table you eat on, not the pillow you sleep on. That is why, even as a cat lover, I find the idea of a cat cafe truly repulsive.

Vancouver’s one and only Catfé recently found itself in the news, but not for the toxoplasmosis outbreak or ventilation fire I would have expected. In the end, it was a feline shortage that caused its doors to close for the better part of a week.

“Paired with holiday hours and bad road conditions for our northern cat transfers, our partners at the BC SPCA have been low on cats to send to us,” said a message from owner Michelle Furbacher on the cafe’s website. Later, she explained to CBC News that instead of unleashing an onslaught of daily visitors on the two remaining cats, she thought it would be best to wait until Jan. 8 when a new supply of adoptable felines would arrive.

Those felines, by the way, are all handpicked by the BC SPCA to ensure that only the most social specimens can be found roaming the premises. After all, customers are charged a cover fee to interact with the animals — $5 for a one-hour visit with purchase, $8 without — and antisocial cats would only serve to disappoint them.

The problem is, cats aren’t very easy to control, and they’re often quite antisocial.

They’re also nocturnal, which is an obvious problem for a business that is only open from 11 am to 9 pm. While most customers have

Harder, better, faster, stronger Amalgamation offers big benefits for taxpayers

a sleeping cat, can’t chase a cat, can’t pick up a cat and can’t bring your own cat. Even more insane is the rule that states you must wash your hands upon entry and use hand sanitizer between petting the different cats.

I’m willing to bet that’s why they all keep running away from customers. Have you ever smelled hand sanitizer? One whiff is strong enough to make a human’s eyes water, so imagine what it would do to a domestic cat. Their sense of smell is around 14 times stronger than a human’s, not to mention the stuff is full of ethanol and artificial fragrances. A quick Google search will tell you that hand sanitizer is actually toxic to animals if ingested or deposited on fur — but I suppose that’s okay. Most of them would have died at the SPCA anyways.

Catfé’s cat room is booked solid until March, at which time they’ll resume

appointments for up to 18 people at a time to attend their glorified petting zoo. And despite the news headlines that seemed to celebrate a shortage of orphan cats, there are still thousands more who need homes. Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA) takes in around 1,800 animals every year and it’s rumoured that Surrey is overrun with over 20,000 free-roaming felines. But then again, what haven’t you heard about Surrey?

Don’t get me wrong, Catfé is still worth checking out, but I’ll be drinking my coffee somewhere else for the time being. The idea has brought some fantastic attention to the notion of animal adoption, but I can’t support a flawed business model where customers can quickly become a cat’s-paw.

political entities could lead to savings, which could pay for more services like law enforcement and public transportation, two issues that dominated 2014’s municipal elections. From a financial perspective, amalgamating municipal councils and reducing bureaucratic expenses makes perfect sense. It’s the politics of getting more progressive and conservative municipalities to get married that won’t be so easy.

Unless you are from a large city in Metro Vancouver, you probably wouldn’t be able to name most of your city councillors, and perhaps even your mayor. If that is the case, you are definitely not alone. There is a good chance that Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson has more name recognition in the Lower Mainland than his counterparts in Pitt Meadows, Langley and Delta combined.

This is because Metro Vancouver is home to 21 municipalities, ten of which that have populations under 50,000. Most of these municipalities are in such close proximity to each other that their boundaries are unconsciously crossed by foot, car, bus and train thousands of times per day.

Having so many municipalities on our

map kind of looks cool, until you realize that every single one of those towns has its own mayor and council, with staffers and large bureaucracies to support them. Depending on the size of your municipality, it will most likely have six, eight or 10 councillors, in addition to one mayor. Small towns like Belcarra and Lions Bay have four councillors.

The region’s largest municipality, Vancouver, has 10 councillors, while the next four largest cities of Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Coquitlam have eight. In total, there are 21 mayors and 134 councillors serving four-year terms across the region. By comparison, the city of Toronto, which has a population of 2.7 million residents, only has 45 councillors and one mayor. Calgary has 15 councillors representing a population of just over a million people, while Edmonton has 12 councillors for its city of 900,000 residents.

There’s no reason Metro Vancouver and its 2.4 million residents need 21 mayors and 134 city councillors, other than complete exorbitance.

If Edmonton had the same population, it would have a council of just 34.

According to a 2014 article published by Vancity Buzz, Metro Vancouver’s 21 mayors

earned a combined $1.8 million for serving a population of only 2.4 million residents. John Tory, on the other hand, only costs Toronto’s 2.7 million residents $177,000 annually to keep his city up and running. While saving $1.6 million might not seem like that much, it would be a huge boost to a police force, and even TransLink. New buses, for example, cost Coast Mountain Bus Company about $450,000 each, and as students we all know how badly more are needed right now.

Amalgamation, or the dissolution of multiple municipalities into one larger city, is almost never a popular idea with voters.

Communities like autonomy and feel that large cities almost never work because they’re simply too big to serve everyone.

However, from a perspective of saving money and increasing accountability, the only solution to actually knowing who your damn mayor and council is, would be to have fewer of them. Metro Vancouver is not a country or province and has no need for 155 politicians. In a region that is struggling to fund transit projects and put more police in cruisers, fewer politicians are exactly what we need to get more out of the cities’ budgets.

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

Every time I visit another Canadian city, and someone asks me where I’m from, I often stumble over that question. That’s because I reside in Greater Vancouver, but live in Surrey, a standalone municipality.

Unlike most large centres in Canada, Vancouver is not amalgamated politically, which means that roughly three quarters of our population lives outside the city most of us still call home.

While our municipal setup does have its advantages, it comes at a hefty price for taxpayers because Metro Vancouver cities have so many councillors, mayors and employees to pay. Consolidating our nearly two dozen municipalities into smaller

had positive experiences, several others have voiced their frustration on social media after booking an appointment for cat cuddles only to be ignored by the cafe’s furry residents.

Catfé’s sunny location on the second floor of the International Village Mall is divided and partitioned so that no meowing little munchkin is able to enter any areas where human food is being served or prepared.

While this does keep the 12 or so animals from simultaneously presenting their sphincters to customers as they eat, it also creates a bit of an us-versus-them vibe. If you’re really that into being stared at by cats through a glass window, I’d recommend picking up a coffee from Starbucks and hanging out in PetSmart for a couple hours instead. I promise it’ll save you a good chunk of change.

There are many rules at Catfé as well. For instance, you can’t rub a cat’s belly, can’t wake

THE CAPILANO COURIER

Kevin Kapenda OPINIONS EDITOR

— DANIELLE MAINMAN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

@CAPILANOCOURIER

If you want more original movies, go and see them.

Gabriel Scorgie FEATURES EDITOR

For movie fans, the past 12 months must have been fantastic. Mad Max, Furious 7, Jurassic World, The Avengers and Star Wars all came out in the same calendar year. Most people were too busy having their mind blown by special effects to be critical of the theme to these movies, but some have begun to ask why there aren’t more original movies making headlines.

The truth is that new, original movies come out all the time. The problem is that the general population doesn’t give a shit about them. Looking at the top grossing movies of 2015, only one of the top 10 isn’t a sequel. That movie is Inside Out, Pixar’s cute way of explaining why teenagers are impossible to deal with. Movies are expensive, so unless a movie is hyped to the point where escaping it is nearly impossible — looking at you, The Revenant — people are going to stick to something they know is going to be fun and entertaining. It’s partly why the Marvel movies do so well. There hasn’t been one surprising plot line in any of the 15 or so movies they’ve pumped out into theatres, but each one is funny and entertaining in its own cookie-cutter way.

It’s also no coincidence that when award season rolls around, rarely are any of the big franchises nominated for best film or best actor awards. The last franchise film to win an Oscar for best picture was Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.

It was also the last time that the movie winning the Oscar was also the top grossing film for the year. So there are good, original

Blood, sweat, and poverty Why it’s time NCAA schools paid their athletes Kevin Kapenda

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

OPINIONS EDITOR

If you’ve ever watched American collegiate sports, you probably know that it’s a big deal down there. With football stadiums that dwarf those of European soccer teams and basketball arenas that are large enough to host concerts, it is no secret that US college sports are popular and important to the students and fans who watch them.

But what many Canadians also don’t know is that college sports are also big business for universities. Revenue from athletics and sport-related sponsorship is often used for scholarships and funding research. For the coaches and administrative staff, such as athletic directors and their assistants, the rewards for running successful football and basketball programs can be very generous, with salaries in the hundreds of thousands, and even millions for those who win more than

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/CAPILANOCOURIER

movies coming out each year, but they win awards instead of breaking box office records.

When it comes to movies, people vote with their wallets. Hollywood isn’t a big fan of making movies that don’t turn a profit, so if they know that making Transformers 9 will gross nearly $1 billion, then they’re going to green-light that over some original idea that may or may not be profitable.

What people say they want and what they actually want can be two different things.

Supporting original movies doesn’t mean just seeing the really good ones that get nominated for Oscars. It means going to see as many as possible — the good, the bad and the ugly. That’s the only way to convince Hollywood to make more of them.

For those who are too impatient to wait for Hollywood to be behind the next Safety Not Guaranteed, there are plenty of small, independent film companies releasing good movies that few people end up hearing about or watching. A24 is a US-based company behind movies like Locke, Spring Breakers and Amy, the new Amy Winehouse documentary that’s gotten some attention from mainstream media. Movie aggregators like Netflix and even YouTube are a great resource for watching movies that didn’t have the budget to be shown in every theatre in the world for an entire month.

People will still be piling into theatres in 2016 to see a new Star Wars, at least two new Marvel movies, Star Trek, and whatever other franchise gets rebooted. But in between these big blockbuster titles there are plenty of smaller films getting released that in some ways are better than watching an emo Darth Vader bitch and moan about being a teenager.

Some of those smaller movies will end up winning big awards and launching people’s careers. So try going to a half-price movie on a Tuesday and watching something that isn’t in 3D. Who knows, it might actually be good.

lose. Between the four head coaches whose teams qualified for the 2015 College Football Playoff, each one earned an average of $4.8 million. Alabama Crimson Tide head coach, Nick Saban, whose team went on to win the National Championship game on Jan. 11, earned just under $7 million this season.

For Saban’s athletes though, scholarships and tuition deferrals are pretty much all the compensation they got for showing up and risking their health for his program. With no income for playing sports, most NCAA athletes live in poverty, having everything they need supposedly given to them by their schools.

Giving athletes a slice of the larger pie is more than overdue, in an era of college sports where teams can earn tens of millions of dollars in TV rights, sponsorship and merchandising.

There was a time in which paying NCAA athletes was not possible, but those days are long gone due to outrageous TV deals and sponsorship revenues. According to a CNN News article published in June of 2015, the 64 teams who play for the NCAA’s five major conferences earned a combined $2.8 billion in revenue in 2014, with each school raking in an average of $43 million. The University of Texas hauled in over $70 million that season as the nation’s top-earning football program.

Whether or not schools begin to pay their players is up to them. What is certain is that they can no longer tell tales about not having

— CRISTIAN FOWLIE

Indie inaction

@CAPILANOCOURIER

the cash to do so.

Some detractors believe that athletes should not be paid because they receive an education for playing collegiate sports. That argument is just about as solid as saying that models should go unpaid because they get to keep the clothes they wear. Just because athletes receive an education from the universities they play for does not mean that it is adequate compensation for the amount of work they put in, earning their schools millions of dollars per year. Whether it’s dealing with the media, helping out at summer camps, travelling across the country for games or participating in multiple workout sessions a day, playing NCAA sports is not easy and there are no financial or ethical reasons as to why these athletes shouldn’t be allowed to earn a few grand a month for the dedication they give to their schools.

The day in which college athletes will be paid is quickly approaching, whether the NCAA likes it or not. Like a ticking time-bomb, it is irrepressible and can no longer be fought with inaction. Most NCAA athletes will never go professional. Even if they do, many of them will end-up in minor professional leagues, making a few extra thousand dollars per year to supplement earnings from their day-jobs. Paying athletes won’t only prevent them from starving, which

many former ones have complained about in memoirs and films, but will give them more purpose and motivation to be better students and athletes. With income would come increased responsibility, and more accountability for their actions, as well as the obligation to be more forthcoming with the media, for example. This issue is not about turning student athletes into millionaires.

It’s about fairness and rewarding them for the role they play in bringing notoriety and revenue to the schools they put their bodies on the line for.

FE ATU R E S Becoming that new you How to succeed with New Year’s resolutions Milana Bucan CONTRIBUTOR

more positive lifestyle. He explained that the dynamic of modern times we live in places us in a permanent need of personal growth and development, as well as adjusting to our ever-changing environment. Students juggling school and work are experiencing more stress than ever before, and trying to squeeze in a spin class before that midterm can be overwhelming.

Keith Lam, an international student counsellor at CapU, has his own theory. “One advantage of having a New Year’s resolution will be that more people are thinking about making positive changes in their life at the beginning of the year, and so there will be more resources available to them,” he said. “Recognizing good days and bad days, and being able to look at the big picture is important.”

Realistic goals for success

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

Another way to fail at accomplishing a New Year’s resolution is to adopt someone else’s goal. What might seem like a good idea for your best friend might not work for you. Accepting other people’s goals as our own is often done with good intentions, but deep down it is not what we truly want. A best friend telling us to quit smoking wants the best for us, but unless we actually want to put away our cigarettes and are willing to follow through with it with all our will, we will not succeed.

Lam suggested that people make their New Year’s resolutions public, whether that means posting it on Facebook and letting others know about their new commitments, or encouraging friends and family to join in and establish a support system. Chances are, people will want to give up. After all, being awake before the sun rises is hard, but having someone waiting at the gym could be that extra motivation people need.

There’s no harm in setting rewards and milestones along the way either, to lessen the grind. “No one will like to do it if the experience is miserable and the only reward has to wait for months or longer to materialize,” explained Lam. Making positive changes takes time and patience and should be considered more of a lifestyle adjustment, rather than a temporary fix. This process requires discipline and consistency, and the results may not be visible instantaneously. This may be discouraging for some, however, it is important to remember that all good things take time and that the feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment of goals is priceless.

THE CAPILANO COURIER

We’ve all heard resolutions about going to McDonald’s less and eating at home more, but sometimes these things are easier said than done. Really thinking through your goals takes time, and planning out and visualizing how this new lifestyle will look may require some imagination and a little creativity.

“There needs to be a definite clear plan of how to carry it out, and ways to assess success and advancement towards goals,” said Lam. “That, of course, means a realistic time frame of how long it may take for changes to take place to reach the realistic goal.”

People can’t expect to do the Sun Run this year if the last time they laced up a pair of Nikes was for the Terry Fox run in high school. Mentally preparing themselves for it, and actually working towards it, is the only solution to attaining this goal. Regularly running every week and training the body will take time and patience.

If someone’s goal is to eat healthier they’ll need to plan for that as well. Luckily, there are plenty of fantastic resources for healthy meal preparation, even for people with budget or time restraints.

One size does not fit all

of another calendar year is a good time to reflect on previous experiences, and to see what we need to do to change or improve in the coming year,” said Dr. George Kljajic, a family practitioner who has done extensive research on the topic of a healthier and

— ZED ALEXANDRA

New Year’s parties came and went, and now is the time to commit to our goals for the year.

People around the world have vowed to eat healthier, keep up with school readings and start their assignments on time. But what is it about the New Year that inspires people to want to make better decisions and to stay on track with their resolutions?

The New Year isn’t just about the few weeks it takes people to remember to write 2016 instead of 2015, but is an opportunity to start things off on a clean slate. Many people set new goals in hopes that they will change their life for the better, making them more happy and productive as a result. People think that if they only shed a few more pounds they will become happier, or that they will be stress free if they stay organized.

Major news organizations reported earlier this month that Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Facebook, has set a New Year’s resolution to run 365 miles in 2016. That seems like a feasible personal goal, but what does it take to stay on track and actually accomplish this?

“In reality, 90 per cent of people fail [at their New Year’s resolutions] and it’s just to make you feel like you’re doing something,” said Alex Chima, a second-year Communications student at Capilano University. “My resolution for this year is to try harder in school.”

According to Forbes, only eight per cent of people actually achieve their resolutions.

Setting realistic goals for the New Year may be harder than people think. Some are too vague, too numerous or too unrealistic. The key is to keep it simple, be specific and be realistic.

Success can also greatly depend on the time of year.

“The end of one year and the beginning

The Tech of Trek

How Star Trek is helping you to live long and prosper, even if you don’t know it

James Martin CONTRIBUTOR

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

This coming September will mark 50 years since the original broadcast of the iconic Star Trek television show starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. While there are a few programs from 1966 that have retained a foothold in our cultural memory, none had anywhere near as substantial or lasting an impact on our modern world as Trek. In particular, many of the technologies imagined in the famous science fiction odyssey (and its subsequent spin-offs) have inspired the innovation of countless realworld inventions that we enjoy every day. As a result, people with no interest in the franchise continue to feel its ongoing influence on a daily basis without even realizing it.

While many other science fiction books, movies and TV shows have presented their own compelling visions of what the future might look like, nothing else seems to compare to Star Trek’s influence. Perhaps what makes it stand out is the idealistic, almost utopian outlook that creator Gene Roddenberry infused into the show.

In the world of Star Trek, Earth is a unified and peaceful planet that has overcome major issues such as racism, poverty and war. In this way, the original Star Trek stands apart from other popular science fiction works that carry much darker views of the future, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner, or Terminator.

“There’s hope, and nothing shines a light of hope brighter than Star Trek,” explained Nick Norris, a co-organizer of the Star Trek Vancouver fan group who grew up watching the show with his father. “It’s a way of making future technology and those advancements less scary for people. There are people who are reluctant, resistant, or even downright terrified of change, but something like [Star Trek] can put it in a perspective that’s easier to swallow so you find you can accept change more readily.”

we live in the future One of the most iconic gadgets from the original Star Trek series that has been embraced in real life is the communicator.

This pocket-sized device that could directly call someone thousands of miles away and also track their location seemed like just another piece of high-tech fantasy when it was first featured by Captain Kirk and his crew. The first cell phone that could bring

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this idea to life wasn’t made commercially available for another 17 years after the show’s debut. Cellular phones were still a niche product when the first flip-phone — which aesthetically resembles the flip-open communicators of the Trek universe — was launched in 1989.

Another Star Trek dream-come-true is the video call. Private two-way video conversations from services like Skype and FaceTime are a mundane part of ordinary life now, but this technology was featured as a staple of the future when the show first aired.

Also within the purview of communications falls the Universal Translator. While the perfect and instantaneous translation abilities demonstrated by this device in the show are perhaps slightly beyond realistic, modern equivalent technologies are getting very close.

“I think what Star Trek has done is it creates these props that they imagine the world is going to have, and it inspires people to figure out how to make that because it looks so cool on TV.” In some areas, current technologies have even surpassed the visions of Star Trek, making aspects of some older episodes seem rather dated. “Computers in the original series were very simple, very basic.” Norris said. “It may have been ahead of its time then, but it’s been left in the dust by what we’re capable of today. It’s amazing how far ahead we’ve come in that regard.”

He also pointed out that while Star Trek may have correctly predicted some technologies, the show’s writers didn’t necessarily imagine the full extent to which they’d be used. “They had interconnected communication, like the internet. But the social aspects, both positive and negative, weren’t even remotely considered at the time.”

The Star Trek franchise was first rebooted in 1987 with Star Trek: The Next Generation, starring Patrick Stewart. Set 100 years further in the future and filmed 20

years later than the original series, this new incarnation of Star Trek featured even more imaginative leaps forward in technology, inspired by the microcomputer revolution of the time. Computers could be spoken to and operated using natural voice commands, just like many newer phones and video game consoles today. The classic hand-held communicator was upgraded to simple badge pinned to the characters’ uniforms.

“Now we’ve got Bluetooth,” Norris noted, “you can have [a communicator] in your ear or on your clothing, so that technology is also here”.

Another device used extensively in The Next Generation that has been developed into a real product was a touch-screen tablet computer very similar to an iPad. A subsequent series called Deep Space Nine featured even more forward-looking technology that we’ve since made real, such as enhanced eyepieces that displayed information on the lens just like Google Glass.

“I think what Star Trek has done is it creates these props that they imagine the world is going to have, and it inspires people to figure out how to make that because it looks so cool on TV,” said Mell D’Clute, also a co-organizer of Star Trek Vancouver.

“That’s what I find interesting about Star Trek, it inspires creativity.”

A perfect example to illustrate this is the story of Steve Perlman of Apple, who was inspired to develop the QuickTime multimedia player after watching an episode in which a Star Trek character played several pieces of recorded music stored in a computer.

It is curious to note that so many of the technologies that have found their way into the real world have been funnelled into a single modern device — the smart phone.

Communication, location, translation, data analysis, voice-control technology and more can all be found in a present-day device that in many ways rivals the power and functionality of the technologies imagined in the Trek universe. Even the complex abilities of the fictional tricorder scanning device can often be matched by a modern smart phone when augmented with some additional equipment.

A local example of this has been put into practice by Dr. Homayoun Najjaran and his team at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, who have developed a handheld blood testing unit that harnesses the power of a smartphone over Bluetooth. Just like in Star Trek, this technology isn’t just limited to the medical field — it could be easily adapted to detect all sorts of chemicals

and pathogens in the environment or from specific samples.

exploring new worlds

1966, so many other new and compelling ideas for technologies have been postulated by various science fiction media that one couldn’t keep track of them all. Despite this increased competition, it has continued to resonate with people, maintaining and growing a robust fan base. D’Clute believes the reason isn’t related to the high-tech aspect of the show at all. “I think why it’s so popular is because it didn’t just focus on the technology, it didn’t just focus on exploring the universe, it focused on exploring humanity, and it focused on social issues.

The message I take away from Star Trek is the humanism, and exploring what it means to be human.”

— PAUL BOICI

THE CAPILANO COURIER

For all the excitingly imaginative inventions that we dreamed about in science fiction before they could be made into reality, there are equally as many that remain just as speculative as they were when Star Trek first aired half a century ago. The warp drive engine that allows the starship Enterprise to travel faster than light is, as far as we know, impossible to attain. Currently, the closest possibility for travelling so far so quickly might be something more similar to the wormhole featured in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and even that idea may prove to be unrealistic.

One of the most iconic technologies of the Star Trek universe that we are also nowhere near inventing is the Transporter, the glittery teleportation technology referred to when people ask Scotty to “beam me up”. While there has been a lot of research done on the transportation of matter, so far the best results lie deep in the realm of quantum curiosities far removed from any practical teleportation solutions.

Although many of Star Trek’s inventions may never come to pass, the quest to make them real may still yield some interesting and useful results. For example, consider the holodeck. This fictional technology can transform an empty room into an immersive and boundless simulated world populated by holographic people and objects that the user can physically interact with.

The premise sounds outlandish from a technology standpoint, but the idea is too cool to ignore. The next best thing may be just over the horizon with the development of virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift. Combining such technology with an omnidirectional treadmill (that can move

right/left as well as forwards/backwards) could make something similar to the holodeck experience possible.

There are several other Trek-inspired technologies that have not yet been perfected, but have seen some interesting developments along the way. We don’t have cloaking devices like the Klingons’ war ships, but scientists have definitely been trying. “They’ve been working on fabric-like cloaks that, through the use of cameras and imaging technology, can essentially render an object invisible.” explained Norris, “That’s pretty exciting”.

Perhaps even more exciting is the proliferation and continuing improvement of our 3D printing capabilities. We’re still a long way from matching Star Trek’s Replicator devices’ ability to instantly materialize food out of energy, but we are getting close when it comes to the automatic, on-demand production of types of objects, depending on the material(s) used.

While Star Trek has been one of the biggest science fiction franchises for the past five decades, there are several massively popular science fiction works that have inspired the public with other speculative technologies. Star Wars, for example, introduced us to the light sabre. The glowing, humming laser sword is an iconic piece of fictional technology that may seem impossible to build, but it’s just too cool for some people not to have tried. The hover board featured in Back to the Future 2 is another popular item that has actually been replicated in a somewhat limited fashion, using a design not unlike a giant drone quadcopter. Another staple of science fiction seen in all manner of works is artificial intelligence, particularly in androids.

Artificial intelligence and bipedal androids that look and move convincingly like people are both fields that are very much works in progress, but there have been a lot of exciting developments in recent years.

Since Star Trek hit the airwaves in

there’s hope 10

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

“There’s hope, and nothing shines a light of hope brighter than Star Trek.”

CALENDAR

18 MONDAY

IN A BLUE MOON BLUESHORE CENTRE

8 PM • $20/37/41

This is one of those ‘Arts Club On Tour’ productions where the theatre comes to you. How convenient! In A Blue Moon tells the story of a woman and her daughter who move to a family cottage near Kamloops but soon discover that another relative is already living there. That would suck, but I think living in Kamloops would suck more.

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TUESDAY

WOO HOO! CLASSIC SIMPSONS TRIVIA

WEDNESDAY

CAFÉ DEUX SOLEILS

Do you remember the colour of t-shirt that killed Maude Flanders? Can you name the locations of Sideshow Bob’s various tattoos? If so, it might be time to flaunt your Simpsons knowledge at this monthly trivia event. Get ready for fifty questions covering seasons one through nine.

Maximum six players per team. Bring your own pen.

The Fictionals are back with another night of interactive improv games. This time they’re offering further proof that Reddit is a bigger deal than we often give it credit for, poking fun in all the weird things people find and post on the World Wide Web. Bring a fully charged phone and the Reddit mobile app, Alien Blue. That sounds like a joke unto itself.

ART, EAT & SIP GRANVILLE ISLAND HOTEL

6 PM • $65

Consider this your own drunken Cast Away adventure! For one night only, you can head to Granville Island and sample all of the beer, spirits and food it has to offer before painting your own masterpiece on canvas. There’s a lot packed into that 38-acre sand bar, and there will be a lot packed into your poor liver too. You might just never want to leave!

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VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14 THE CAPILANO COURIER

FR 402

11 AM • $ FREE Capilano University’s Writing Centre turns 30 this week, making it almost one-third the age of the faculty members who currently hold their office hours there. Yikes! In lieu of the usual tough love served after every failed essay, they’ll be offering you some cake instead. Apparently there’s also a spelling bee, which is cool depending on your definition of cool.

AFTER HOURS AT VANCOUVER AQUARIUM VANCOUVER AQUARIUM

6 PM • $21-29

Notable Vancouver author J.B. MacKinnon has a new book out called The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be. If his Earthworks talk is as long as that title then you’re going to be in for a late night. According to the poster, he’ll be discussing the idea of restoring a place for nature in our urban city landscapes. Good idea, bro!

I’ve always wondered why this event is for adults only.

Is there a secret beluga orgy at closing time or something?

Personally, I think it would be hilarious to let kids see that, their virgin eyes watching in horror as the tank gets cloudier and cloudier. This particular After Hours event will focus on climate change in the arctic, not whale sperm. I won’t be going.

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW BC PLACE STADIUM

10 AM • $15-25

Other than the ones they host themselves, the Vancouver Boat Show might be the Capilano Student Union’s favourite event all year. After all, that’s where they stock up on ideas for how to spend your hard-earned dollars at the end of the spring semester. The exhibition runs from Jan. 20 to 24 at BC Place Stadium. Say hi to Zofia Rodriguez for me!

PACIFIC COLISEUM

SUNDAY

WRITING CENTRE 30TH ANNIVERSARY

7 PM • $ FREE

VANCOUVER GIANTS HOCKEY

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Believe it or not, there are people who spend most of the year awaiting Vancouver’s popular PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Pfft. Keeners, right?! This year’s installment runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 7, bringing in live performance artists from Europe, North America, Australia and beyond. For a full list of events, visit Pushfestival.ca.

8 PM • $5/7

BLUESHORE CENTRE

FRIDAY

VARIOUS TIMES • $ VARIOUS PRICES

6 PM • $5

EARTHWORKS: REWILDING

22

VARIOUS LOCATIONS

R/IMPROV

THE WALDORF

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PUSH FESTIVAL OPENS

23 SATURDAY

BLUES VOLLEYBALL SPORTSPLEX

3 PM • $ FREE WITH STUDENT CARD Finding yourself with some free time on a Saturday afternoon?

Spend it at the Sportsplex watching Capilano University Blues men’s and women’s varsity volleyball teams take on the VIU Mariners. It’ll be fun, I promise! University sports teams around this country have been hurting for fans for years. The home team could use your support!

HOT CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL VARIOUS LOCATIONS

7:30 PM • $19.75-$31.25

VARIOUS TIMES • VARIOUS PRICES

The Vancouver Giants — or, the G-Men as they seem to be called — take on the Medicine Hat Tigers in Western Hockey League action. But first, let’s take a moment to realize what a dumb name Medicine Hat is. Is that like a beer helmet made of pill bottles instead? Who came up with that?! Does Medicine Hat even have a tiger population? Posers.

Vancouver’s annual Hot Chocolate Festival returns for a sixth year, boasting 30 days of chocolate, 25 participating businesses and 59 unique flavours. Everyone from pastry chefs to coffee roasters to master chocolatiers are on board. I am also on board, but I’m just a lumpy white kid with a penchant for sweets. I bring nothing to the table.

NORTH VAN DINE OUT BRUNCH CRAWL LONSDALE QUAY

$60 • 10 AM

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge fan of brunch, so this North Shore brunch crawl is pretty much the best thing I’ve ever seen. It’s being offered by Dine Out Vancouver, which runs throughout the entire month of February. Sixty bucks will get you “passport” to several North Vancouver eateries, serving everything from bennies to hash browns.

BRAD TURNER TRIO FRANKIE’S

$15 • 8 PM

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If you want to see what CapU can do for you, look no further than pianist, trumpeter and drummer Brad Turner. He studied in the University’s Jazz Studies program decades ago before morphing himself into one of Canada’s musical superheroes. On this night he’ll be joined by Darren Radtke on bass and Bernie Arai on drums.

HOT CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL

SHORTS

Fallout 4 Bethesda Softworks

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Life Is Strange

CD Projekt

Bethesda Softworks

Undertale Tobyfox

Steve Tornes

Syd Danger

CONTRIBUTORS

PROFESSIONAL CRYBABY

Fallout: the game so absolutely massive that you can spend a whole month of playing without ever touching the main story.

Before starting Fallout 4, I recommend getting the flu or at least a really bad cold — something that will allow you to play 10 hours a day for a week without shame.

Most reviews will go into great depth about the story, the mechanics and the graphics. Now I would love to tell you about that, and I tried really hard to do the main story, but on my way to start the first mission I got sidetracked by about 50 subquests I wanted to do and ended up spending the rest of the time building settlements and setting trade routes between them.

For those who don’t know, settlements are essentially Bethesda’s way of turning Fallout 4 into The Sims. Players can find settlements and start building homes, planting crops and giving the place electricity. They can recruit people to join their settlements and players will have to defend them from raider attacks. It’s the gaming equivalent of crack-cocaine.

Like all the other Fallout games, the mechanics feel a little clunky. Treating the game like a shooter is more likely to end in frustration than enjoyment, so there’s no shame in playing on easy mode and enjoying the story.

Overall, the new Fallout feels like a step in the right direction. The game understands its strengths and doubles down on them, while still making small improvements to its weaknesses.

Since the dawn of franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Fallout, open-world video games have maintained a level of standard that’s been reserved only for the best titles in gaming.

With each passing year, open-world video games increase in story, features and, of course, map size, adhering to the old adage: “the bigger, the better.”

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is no exception.

Through the eyes of protagonist, Geralt, the game brings players into a vast medieval world struck by two warring kingdoms, an impressive number of beasts and monsters and a villainous group that operates beyond the constraints of space and time.

The beauty of Witcher 3 lies not with its politically-charged storyline that manages to stand out among the crop of fantasy video games with bland and repetitive narratives. The game shines because of it’s dedication to real world folklore and it’s immersive setting. Creatures found in the game are very much inspired by the same mythological and folk beasts found in real world libraries and stories. For example, werewolves gain their strength under the light of the full moon and dragons — specifically their smaller kin, wyverns — are more interested in protecting their treasure than hunting down defenceless humans. The game even seems to have drawn ideas from Filipino folklore with the utterly creepy demon baby, botchling.

Like most open-world games, Witcher 3’s pride and joy is with its world. This is an unfathomably massive game that requires quite possibly 300 hours to complete. The map is expansive and the landscape’s design is beautiful.

Witcher 3 fully utilizes the behemoth capacities of the PS4 and the XBOX One engines. Its day and night system poses as both a challenge and a tactical weapon to players, and its fast travel feature makes much of its titanic map accessible from just about anywhere.

The game is an amazing entry in the lexicon of open-world video games. Tthough it may have some framework issues here and there, its numerous features, relative realism and engaging stories make up for any hitch found within the game.

Plus, the more hours played, the thicker the main character’s beard grows.

Life is Strange, developed by Dontnod Entertainment, is a beautiful game that delves into loss and self-discovery. The game accomplishes this by giving your choices far-reaching consequences. The main character, Maxine Caulfield, is in her first year of university studying photography and she quickly discovers an ability to rewind time. While this allows her to redo her choices, it also allows the player to see the natural development of those choices.

Throughout the course of the game, Max tries to avoid loss that sometimes takes the form of death, innocence, fading friendship and alternate realities. Through the emotional consequences of her choices, the game exhibits how people deal with loss.

At one point Max muses, “I wish I could stay in this moment forever. I actually can now. But then it wouldn’t be a moment.”

Sometimes things are beautiful because they only last a moment, but to stay in that moment is to deny the creation of new ones.

Much like Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, Maxine Caulfield has to look past the phoney exteriors that the other characters project. By exploring the rich environment, players can discover items which speak to the secret inner lives of those secondary characters. For example, characters who appeared irredeemable in the beginning do have good virtues, and vice versa. This greatly adds to the immersive nature of the game.

The cinematography of this game is near perfect and blends especially well with the indie music tunes that surround the action, most strongly with Syd Matters. It is worth noting that, according to the developers, other producers wanted to change the gender of the protagonist. Square Enix made a good choice by not changing the character.

The game is not perfect. The ending has a meandering, yet interesting pace.

At times, the game sacrifices plot for emotional impact and the dialogue can be a bit wooden. However, this remains an amazingly impactful game. In the game, like in life, loss is inevitable. This game, through emotion and storytelling, helps people deal with that loss.

An indie pixel game that took the Internet by storm, Undertale is a story sculpted by the players’ decisions, morals and determination.

The player navigates through the Underground — a world inhabited by monsters that have been banished following a war with humanity. As you begin exploring, the player has the opportunity to create friends or enemies, experience some fantastic fourth wall breaks and uncover the truth behind a mysterious evil flower.

The gameplay in Undertale is a simple but clever remix on the classic RPG formula.

You have the options to fight, run, spare or check the stats of monsters after entering a battle. The player can interact with objects with X or Z, and navigate using the arrow keys. However, it is the game’s morality system that truly outshines anything seen before. Undertale doesn't just allow you to choose your dialogue — in fact, the playable character never speaks. Instead, it allows you to choose what kind of a person you want to be. It judges you for the choices you make. It forces you to see who you are.

The choices in Undertale run so deep that the game actually remembers if you have beaten it before, and the decisions that you made in that playthrough will affect all the characters and the world if you choose to play it again. Personally, as soon as I beat the game the first time I had to walk away from the computer and contemplate my existence and the meaning of life, but that’s just me.

I am filled with determination.

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO.14

Carlo Javier EXECUTIVE LIFESTYLE EDITOR

THE CAPILANO COURIER

Gabriel Scorgie FEATURES EDITOR

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ARTS & CULTURE Students circulate petition for collaborative space IDEA program chair proposes new usage for underutilized Willow building Andy Rice

THE CAPILANO COURIER

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Students from Capilano University’s flagship illustration and design program are petitioning for a collaborative learning hub on campus. While their initiative may come as news to many, the project has been several years in the making.

In an open letter dated May 15, 2015, IDEA School of Design chair Carol Aitken outlined a proposal for a collaborative learning space in the Willow building.

Similar initiatives had been brought forth by students the previous year.

“The desirability of collaborative and cross-disciplinary skills and opportunities are frequent statements to be found in Capilano University planning documents, but the university does not currently possess an academic, virtual, or physical infrastructure that supports true collaboration between or across disciplines,” she wrote. “The recent surge in communitybased “maker spaces” demonstrates that there is a strong demand for such collaborative working spaces and the innovative technology they house.”

The letter cites Zen Launchpad, a creativity lab located in Lower Lonsdale, as an example. The CapU library currently holds a membership there, which Aitken explained has been “well received by Engineering and IDEA students, with some interest from other students despite the fact that it has not yet been publicized campus-wide.” “[These] are the kind of centres for peer learning and knowledge sharing that we lack on campus,” she added. “Providing this kind of resource at Capilano would not only bring students and faculty working in different disciplines together, it could also provide a magnet for the surrounding community and facilitate some valuable community-building, community projects, and outreach.”

One of the stipulations of the University’s Academic Plan was the creation of a Working Group for Collaboration and Cooperation (WGCC). Faculty members Olga Baryshnikova, Rachal Clearwater, Ted Hamilton, Jocelyn Hallman, Arelea Mahood, Sheila M. Ross, Timothy Schouls, Ki Wight and Aitken currently serve as members, with Sandra Seekins as chair.

It is this group’s mandate “to determine what will be necessary for, and to facilitate, faculty collaboration and cooperation across departments, disciplines, and faculties.”

According to a draft report obtained by the Courier, the Committee has made recommendations for “an actual Collaborative Learning Space and a Virtual Space (Digital Café or Digital Lounge).”

WGCC deems these spaces “necessary for faculty to gather and share ideas and discover linkages and synergies as well as for students use (group projects, exhibitions, presentations, creative activities).” In this same document, the Committee formally endorses its support for Aitken’s proposal.

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It is unknown whether the CapU administration or Board of Governors has responded to Aitken’s letter directly, though the idea has sparked increasing action from students in the IDEA program.

“A few of us second-year IDEA students have been excited about the proposal for some time but there wasn't any movement from it through the school, so last Fall, Shanene Lau and I approached Carol about starting a petition in support of a makers space,” explained Danielle Vallée. “We hadn't had a chance to launch until a couple of weeks ago due to work load but since then have gotten almost 100 signatures and are looking to get around 500.”

Classmates Jesse Ellingson and Mitch Hopkins assisted them with a marketing campaign that took social media by storm this week. Vallée noted that Aitken is not directly involved at this time. “Her proposal was just something we really wanted to support and bring to the larger Capilano population,” she said.

“The main reason I'm interested in the project is I really want to see departments at Capilano working more collaboratively. I feel like its been a push from the University for a long time but the student body needs to speak up and let the university know that it's something we want,” continued Vallée.

“We can do more together than we can alone and this space could not only be somewhere creative to cross-pollinate but also just to hang out and meet people of other faculties.

Too often I feel segregated in our little IDEA bubble without any way to connect to other departments.”

In her proposal, Aitken suggested the Willow Building (formerly Studio Arts) as the ideal location for the hub, though she recognized that the University may have other plans for the property. “I’ve proposed this building as a potential space for a centre for collaboration because it’s centrally located, has large, well-ventilated studio spaces, and has some existing infrastructure that might support the installation of equipment,” she said.

“At this point we don't know what exactly the collaborative space would look like but it will really depend on what people want access to,” said Vallée. “We've had equipment/facility suggestions of 3D printers, silkscreening equipment, a darkroom, pottery studio, woodworking space, a bar, meeting rooms, classroom space, etc.”

As for funding, Aitken suggested trying to attract a corporate sponsor to help with outfitting and renovation costs. “I do not believe it would be difficult… especially if a donation allowed for a building naming opportunity,” she wrote. “The [Capilano University] Foundation office is happy to contact potential sponsors if they have a solid proposal from us and Zen Launchpad are aware of companies looking for sponsorship opportunities in this area.”

Aitken also noted that some funding is available from the Bachelor of Design

program — around $200,000 over a fouryear period — for a “smart room” housing computer, print and photography equipment.

Ideas for community memberships, government sponsorship and a materials fee for students were also fielded in her proposal.

“There are various strategies that have been proposed to fund the space and it could potentially be income-generating for the University or CSU depending on how it is managed,” said Vallée. She noted that the group is willing to be flexible about the hub’s location.

A secondary option, a virtual collaborative space, was also outlined in Aitken’s letter and would serve as a less expensive alternative. The plan was conceptualized back in 2014 by Mustaali Raj, now an IDEA graduate, as his capstone project. “Mustaali proposed a digital space where instructors could post upcoming projects in advance of the term,” Aitken explained in her letter.

“Other instructors would be able to review the project, determine if their students might be able to participate/collaborate,

and contact the original poster to work out timelines and other details. A project such as this would require some funding for design and development, but it could be realized fairly quickly.”

On Jan. 21, Vallée and her fellow IDEA students will have a booth set up at the CSU Rail Jam to showcase the project, gather feedback and build support for the petition.

“We also have a Facebook page where we would love to hear any suggestions from Capilano staff and students about what they'd like to see in a space like this,” she said. “What we really need right now is support from other departments because this is really about faculties coming together. We have strong support from the IDEA and film programs but we need to raise awareness elsewhere.”

Aitken’s proposal can be viewed in detail at Capilanou.ca/about/strategic-planning under the ‘Reports’ menu. To sign the petition, visit Ipetitions.com/petition/ collaborative-learning-studio-at-capilano.

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A look at extravagant job requirements Sabrina Kuhn CONTRIBUTOR

As Millennials are putting together their resumés, they are facing a competitive job market with qualifications that would take years of experience and education to meet.

While having qualified employees is an asset to companies and customers, it can also feel like the requirements to even be considered for a job are painfully out of reach for many.

The importance of having a job cannot be understated for students — for most who are attending post-secondary, it defines their future. The Baby Boomer generation, who appear to not be retiring, had years to figure out what they expect Millennials to already know. “These expectations are most definitely unreasonable,” said Alexander Turton, who has had various positions at higher-end retail jobs. “Many of our parents lived in a time where postsecondary education was an asset as opposed to now where it appears to be an expectation.”

One of the biggest problems with higher education is the price tag, where one semester alone can cost upwards of $10,000. At four years, a degree can add up to a down payment on a house, a new vehicle or startup capital to build a new business. “More education is never a bad thing though, so perhaps this can be seen as a societal development. In that sense I don’t think these expectations are unreasonable,” said Turton. Government grants and scholarships are helpful, but obtaining them can be either difficult or entirely unattainable for a lot of people.

“Although we’re supposed to be

CapU grads gain traction with comedic web series Keara Farnan CONTRIBUTOR

after wrapping up a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign last September.

After several months of filming and postproduction, it premiered Jan. 6 on YouTube.

“The Support Group is a series that follows three unlikely friends, each facing their own challenges, coming together to save their beloved support group. We first decided to create the show during a brunch meeting,” said Doberstein.

“Our series is about friendship and overcoming the obstacles of life,” added Zarif.

One of those obstacles comes toward the end of the pilot episode. “The government has decided to no longer subsidize the support group so the girls take it upon themselves to save the group,” explained Miller. “We first decided to create the series back in March just after having finished performing a play Lily had written for the South Okanagan Immigration Society. We wanted to continue being creative and a web series seemed like the next step.”

Much like the creators, the three main characters have their own sense humour and differing personalities.

“Laura’s character, Alexis, is extremely bubbly and fun loving, whereas Lily’s

character, Courtney, is kind of dark, dry and mysterious. My character, Raina, is the straight character and my job is to make the others seem more extreme and hilarious,” said Doberstein.

“Humour is over-the-top in many of the characters, and situations they find themselves in,” added Zarif. “The show is face-paced with tons of quirkiness, which makes it a great comedy.”

Studying film and acting at CapU proved beneficial for the cast members, who all agreed that it helped them to become more comfortable within the film industry. They credit the support of their instructors as well — and one in particular.

“Jackson Davies encouraged all students to create their own work. As soon as I graduated and started auditioning I realized that in order to stay busy and proactive in this industry as a young female actress I needed to make a difference in my career and make my own work,” said Doberstein.

Miller agreed. “As actors, it’s important to not just be waiting by the phone, you have to take control of your careers, and by making this web series we are doing just that,” she said.

“Without studying at CapU and learning some of the basics of filmmaking I don’t think I would have known I had the capability to take on a project of this scale,” added Zarif.

Viewers who enjoy TV shows such as High Maintenance and New Girl may be interested in watching The Support Group.

However, its creators are confident that it will appeal to individuals of all age and gender — and hopefully to filmmakers as well.

“I hope that this project inspires other young filmmakers to get off their butts and create something amazing. It’s a lot of hard work, time, energy, and dedication, but it’s so worthwhile,” said Miller. “It’s important for actors to learn what’s behind the camera as well as in front of it.”

For more information on The Support Group, visit Thesupportgrouptheseries.com.

New episodes are released on YouTube every Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT.

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Unlike a TV series, web series are mostly self-run. This allows the actors or actresses to hire their own staff, write their own story and develop a more personable relationship with their viewers. Such was the method of choice for three graduates of Capilano University’s Acting for Stage and Screen program.

Sydney Doberstein, Laura Miller and Lilly Zarif joined forces to create a comedic web series called The Support Group

[the previous generation’s] successors, they don’t put the investment into our generation to help,” explained Leonard Nima, a Business Management graduate from BCIT. “Instead, they view hardship and obstacles (that they themselves place) as a test for our generation. But in reality, it’s just slowing us down.” Some others may think that being tested will weed out those who are capable and those who are not. The question under all this is, what is a degree worth? Is it worth more than work ethic and proving oneself in the workplace?

The answer is going to be different for every employer, line of work and situation.

Even if someone decides to get a master’s degree, is it really worth it to meet the expectations that these hiring managers are looking for? “Not at all,” said Nima.

“Getting work is a matter of knowing the lingo, realizing that you are going to have to learn a lot on the job, and coming in with a base level of experience to not fail miserably. Soft skills and personality are a big one — they are the ones risking their team synergy by introducing new people, so prove you’re a team player.”

Turton echoed this sentiment when talking about whether or not companies could ever return to the model where people learn as they go instead of coming in knowing every nuance of a given field.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to have had experiences where the employers seem to value a desire to learn over the employee’s prior skills,” he said, while pointing out that this might not work for every industry.

“Having more education and higher degrees is often to the benefit of the customer and the employers,” explained Turton.

For many lines of work there are no clear-cut paths to follow, but requirements for even lower income positions appear to be on the rise, with expectations fluctuating from high school graduation to years of work experience and, in many cases, a full postsecondary degree. The exorbitant financial investment and excruciating effort that many jobs require of peopl e are primarily a filtering method, but at what cost?

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The Support Group finds home on YouTube

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— BRENNA MACKINDER

Climbing toward a stable career

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C O L U MN S Sip, Sip, Hooray!

Pairing a beef burrito with La Poderosa Syrah Max Ley COLUMNIST

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News You Haven’t Heard 'The Donald' gets trumped by classic movies Mike Allen COLUMNIST

When I first saw the latest Star Wars movie, I was reminded of two things: the old Star Wars movies and Donald Trump. Why Trump? I'm glad you asked.

The presidential hopeful was recently interviewed about his thoughts on the most recent film and the saga in general.

Like most things that come out of his mouth, his comments have not been good for his image. Trump was caught saying he thought that the latest film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens could've used more “cool explosions” and “crazy broomsticks flying.”

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At that point you might think that Trump has gotten two popular movie franchises confused, but he reportedly insisted he knows what he's talking about. “The one with the little green guy, right? Yeah, and he's trying to go home.” When questioned if he might be thinking about the classic 1982 Spielberg film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Trump looked dumbfounded and asked, “What is that?”

At this point many would think that Trump was just pulling a fast one, messing around in an interview for reasons that likely make perfect sense in famous rich people logic but are otherwise utterly unfathomable to the rest of the population.

So I did a little bit more digging and found that Trump actually suffers from a rare neurological disorder referred to as “stultusinia” which renders the unfortunate victim of the disorder completely unable to remember characters, plot points or even general concepts of any films they watch. Similar to prosopagnosia, or “face blindness,” in which the person suffering

Welcome back to “Sip, Sip, Hooray!” I’ve signed on for another semester at the Courier, pairing your favourite cheap eats with inexpensive wines under $20! Yes, I know you’ve been wanting to stay faithful to that “Sober January” resolution you so firmly made on New Year’s Day while your head was still ringing, but come on… wine is supposed to be good for you.

To quote the great Mitch Hedberg, “A burrito is a sleeping bag for ground beef.”

Yes, you guessed it, we are kicking off the new year of “Sip, Sip, Hooray!” with the burrito. This Mexican staple has become a norm for students wanting something compact, dense and extraordinarily filling.

Every school cafeteria – except for Capilano, for obvious reasons – will surely have some kind of burrito service. Red Burritos and Mucho Burritos are scattered across the city, and who can forget the iconic Budgies Burritos supplying all of your vegetarian burrito needs? Filled with rice, beans, various spices, herbs and some kind of protein, these tasty cylinders of goodness have a wealth of flavours in every bite. So, what do we pair with something that can be filled with anything from grilled meat to extremely spicy salsas?

Burritos can go with anything from dry, fruit-driven whites to toasty sparkling bubbles or big, juicy reds. My meal tonight came from Red Burrito on Commercial Drive. I filled it with spicy beef with all the extras including beans, cilantro, sour cream and cheese. I decided to go with something a bit more robust, so I opted for the La Poderosa 2013 Syrah from Chile.

I had originally intended to pair my meal with a big, juicy Malbec I liked, but I couldn’t locate it and took a chance on this Syrah. This red from the Rapel Valley is

a fantastic wine for big meaty dishes with plenty of spice. It opens with hefty aromas of black cherries and leathery dark chocolate.

The palate, rich and powerful, is redolent of dark fruits and plenty of pepper spice.

There is a touch of oak rounded out with ripe tannins for a pleasant, juicy finish.

Although very fruit forward, the wine is well balanced and a great buy at $18.99 on the shelves at Liberty Wines Commercial Drive.

So, how did the La Poderosa pair up with my grilled beef-filled burrito? Rather excellently! The ripe fruit of the Syrah was a brilliant accompaniment to the savoury and fresh flavours within the burrito. The rice and beans helped to keep my palate clean and uncluttered while the beef, cilantro and cheese stood out as the main flavour attractions of the dish. These big flavours were where the wine truly shined in accompanying the food. The rich dark fruit of the wine accompanied these flavours masterfully, especially the beef. I will admit that I was expecting the burrito to come out a bit spicier than it did and that I had not intended the Syrah to be a perfect match with something so spicy. The spice came out a bit tamer and thus the classic pepper spice of the wine, as well as the slight presence of ripe tannins, did not get in the way.

All in all, today’s pairing went beautifully. Mexican food in general can be a bit of a tough one for wine pairings considering how prominent the flavours can be. With the beef burrito we chose today, we definitely went with the middle of the road in terms of flavours, and this lovely Chilean Syrah was an unexpected treat.

Flavourful. Ripe. Delicious.

cannot recognize or remember faces — even those that should be familiar to them — stultusinia affects the brain's ability to remember trivial facts or pop culture references whenever they are related to films.

Stultusinia is so rare that less than one per cent of the world's population suffers from it, and because of that, studying the disorder has been quite difficult. It has yet to be determined if the disorder affects the person's ability to remember, for example, television shows they have watched, or online videos in addition to films, as the different mediums may have a contrasting effect on the person's comprehension.

Some researchers have brought up the question of short films as well, as perhaps the length of a film has any affect on the loss of memory. One Norwegian research team has been testing to see if straight-toTV or DVD movies have the same effect as seeing a film in theatres or at home, although they had no conclusive evidence as of the time of this writing.

“There are a lot of factors that we have to take into account with this research,” explained Lukas Svendsen, part of the research team operating out of the Oslo Institute of Research, “We're not sure yet if it is by labeling the medium as a movie that triggers the stultusinia, or if any audio-visual media triggers the response.”

Testing dozens of straight-to-DVD films in the name of science isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds.“That part is quite difficult as often the films are so bland on their own that it's hard to remember anything about them in the first place, even without the disorder.”

Svendsen and his team are planning on continuing their work so that they can hopefully uncover the cause behind the disorder. Only when a cure is found can victims of stultusinia finally enjoy discussing the latest film with their friends and family.

In the meantime, Trump was allegedly shocked to find out that the planet full of monkeys in the latest Star Wars turned out to be Earth the whole time.

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State of the affairs Trump's tirade continues, both in ridiculousness and severity Caitlin Manz COLUMNIST

Comparable to Canada’s previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose politics were known for division, comes the GOP front-runner of the US campaign Donald Trump. Known for his reality TV show The Apprentice, his billionaire status and success in real estate, Trump has garnered attention for his loud-spoken, offensive style and his controversial policies.

Most viewed Trump as the running joke of the campaign, with both the public and his competitors being entertained by his outlandish statements. Trump has proved the equivalent to a comedic intervention in a Shakespearean play: A bit of humour to ease the tension and to make an audience laugh. However, the presidential hopeful

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has been gaining support amongst a group of what David Brady and Douglas Rivers of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University found to be composed of one third senior citizens – with only 19 per cent having a college degree and 11 per cent making more than $50,000 a year.

Trump’s supporters, according to analysis of his demographics, are those of a scared, poorly educated, baby-boomer generation. They are people who feel let down by their government and who want to believe the answers to what scares them are as simple as Trump makes them seem.

Trump’s following, however, isn't the biggest concern of his boisterous campaign. He has started moving towards xenophobic, fascist grounds, releasing a statement calling for, “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He continued that, “there is a great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population,” and concluded saying, “I know Muslim people, they’re phenomenal people, but there’s a problem in there.”

Trump’s declaration is now being used in an Al-Shabaab recruitment video. AlShabaab is an Al-Qaeda affiliate radical Islamist group, based in Somalia. A faction of their group, while allied with Al-Qaeda,

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has sworn loyalty to ISIS. In their latest propaganda video aimed to recruit American Muslims, old clips of a USborn Al-Qaeda figurehead Anwar al-Awlaki appear. The Yemeni man became a top recruiter for Al-Qaeda, while also plotting terrorist attacks for the militant group.

He's shown claiming that ,“Yesterday, America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching and Ku Klux Klan. Tomorrow it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps.” He further added that, “The West will eventually turn on its Muslim citizens.” Following this, the video plays Trump’s speech, which infamously called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US." Unfortunately, Trump’s fear-mongering, divisive rhetoric, is what radical Islamist groups desire. Such speech makes Muslims in America feel scared and alienated, making them easier recruiting targets for groups like ISIS. Al-Awlaki’s point of America turning on its Muslim citizens then also seems true.

While Trump proves ignorant on the power his speech holds and the corners of the globe it reaches, what’s important is how un-American his speech is and how unrepresentative of the West it is.

America is the melting pot of cultures, which historically has represented a land of prosperity and opportunity for those fleeing poverty or war.

Obama spoke on the matter when he issued an Oval Office address in December of last year. “We must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate. It’s the responsibility of Americans of every faith to reject discrimination. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim-Americans should be treated differently. That divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. We have met challenges, whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks, by coming together around our common ideals as one nation and one people.”

Similar to Justin Trudeau’s attitude of “A Canadian, is a Canadian, is a Canadian,” these are the morals representative of our multicultural nations. This is where, during crises, our power stems from. The unity of our diverse, multicultural and multitalented nations makes us unique and strong, and should never be forgotten in fear.

The beat that I'm bangin' Music appreciation with an open mind and open ears Aidan Mouellic

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is like a time capsule of a period, we hear different times and places but what stays constant past the era and language is the human condition. No matter where and when music is produced, the emotions and feelings that are delivered by a song remain intact.

Caring how we are viewed is the bane of our existence. Will people take me seriously or think I’m cool if I listen to Brubeck or Maroon 5? All that matters is having an open mind. If we approach music as a sort of more open world then you will discover beautiful music from areas you would have perhaps not strayed to. Exploring new genres and areas of the music world is like taking your ears and mind on a trip. There is a lot of great music out there, there is also a lot of not so great music in the world – but there’s no joy in discounting any of it.

Finding the similarities between all forms of music can be like finding hidden gems.

It’s not easy to create music. All musicians (and artists in general – sculpting is amazing) deserve more credit and respect. What Kanye West and Taylor Swift do is hard work, what The Rolling Stones do is hard work – we just don’t see the work that goes into it.

Listening to music with a mindset like this will open you up for greater appreciation of new genres and lots of fun. This column will be a place where I hope to turn you on to select gatherings of music that you might like to listen to. Remember though, no one can tell you that what you listen to is garbage. If it makes you feel something when listening to it then that’s really all that matters.

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Musical genres are something many of us are at odds with. Plenty of us base our identities on the genre we most listen to and identify with. Punk, Goth, Metal, Rockabilly, Hip Hop and other genres are central to the identity of the listener.

Humans crave connection and belonging.

Music is perhaps the greatest way (besides sex) to connect and belong to others. A song brings you in and elicits an emotional reaction – its something we can connect and identify with. A particular genre might deliver these feelings with greater consistency, like a group of good friends. For many of us though, balancing a variety of genres might feel like balancing a bunch of different groups of friends.

The culture that surrounds us influences us to the extent of what we listen to. More importantly, what we don't listen to is determined for us by what we surround ourselves with. I haven’t listened much to Nickelback since I was 12. Even admitting to having listened to them as a teenager is hard to do. Our society has tremendous hate for the group and most of us don’t know why we have those feelings for them.

We all blindly hate the band because we’re supposed to.

It’s the same reason why the majority of Millennials, and people in general, also tend to hate country, world music (basically any music not made in Western societies), classical and jazz. Is it because the majority of this music is viewed as old? Must we only revere what is new? New is exciting and new is where great discoveries are made, but in pursuit of fresh sonic flavours we tend to discard the past too easily. Music

— DANIELLE MAINMAN

COLUMNIST

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Write for Us!

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Story meetings Tuesdays at noon Maple 122 We pay for your words!

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HUMOUR University makes dog's breakfast of campus New Year's party Celebration ends in fiery mayhem, escaped canines EDITOR’S NOTE: The Courier received an email on Jan. 2 asking if we knew anything about an alleged New Year's bash that took place at Capilano University on the night of Dec. 31, 2015. Our source hailed it as the biggest on-campus disaster since Kris Bulcroft’s hiring, and even we thought that was a little harsh. We decided to look into it and found nothing — that is, until we located a series of live-Tweets from a user named @s_narkbeyer89.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: If you or anyone you know was in attendance, we’d like to speak with you for an upcoming story. Coincidentally, the University’s insurance adjuster would also like to speak with you. A contact form is available at Capilanocourier.com/humour.

CABOOSE Q

HOROSCOPES

THINKING CAP Which impending celebrity death will hit you the hardest?

IF YOUR BIRTHDAY IS THIS WEEK:

If you’re not turning 19 or 21, is it really worth celebrating?

ARIES (March 21 - April 19):

“Meryl Streep, because she’s the best actress ever. Also Ellie Goulding because she’s an amazing model for every woman.”

— Maria Caliciuri, Second-year Tourism

“For me, two people: Richard Branson and Elon Musk. If they die, I’ll cry like a girl.”

— Harold Williams, Second-year Business

Take some time to reflect on your life and all the things you’ve accomplished. Then feel bad that you can count them all on one hand.

TAURUS (April 20 - May 20):

2016 is the year you will go from having potential to not living up to expectations.

LIBRA (SEPT. 22 - OCT. 23):

Friends will realize that there is a direct correlation between how long you’ve been single and how much effort you put into Snapchat.

SCORPIO (OCT. 24 - NOV. 21):

Your failed New Year’s resolution to eat better has nothing to do with how good bacon smells and everything to do with your complete lack of will power.

GEMINI (May 21 - June 20):

Your group of friends will push you out of your comfort zone this week. Remember, it’s not peer pressure, it’s just your turn.

“Damien Rice and Eminem.

I’m done. See you later.”

— Sila Kiral, Second-year Psychology

“How about Bryan Cranston? I have a lot of respect for his career.”

— Hank Chan, Second-year Arts & Sciences

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 - DEC. 21):

It’s not cheating if it’s with an ex on a Thursday. #tbt

CANCER (June 21 - July 22):

Everyone still remembers the time you got a nose bleed on the first day of high school.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 - JAN. 19):

There’s a line between arrogant and confident, and everybody but you seems to know where it is.

LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22):

If you haven’t seen the new Star Wars by now, it’s your own fault if someone spoils it.

MASTER OF DIGITAL MEDIA

VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 21):

The odds of winning the Powerball aren’t great, but it’s better than your odds of getting a date without being a multi-millionaire.

INFO SESSION JANUARY 27th Startup Business Support 4 Major Canadian Universities

Competitive Scholarship Opportunities

TH 6 PM JOIN US ON JANUARY 27 , 2016 at DIA ME L ITA DIG CENTRE FOR VER, BC 685 GREAT NORTHERN WAY, VANCOU sion Register online at thecdm.ca/info-ses

SUDOKU

VOLUME 49 ISSUE NO. 14

PISCES (FEB. 19 - MARCH 20):

Past mistakes will come back to surprise you. Mistakes that were made about nine months ago.

TO ADVERTISE in the Courier’s pages, please contact us by phone at 778-855-9942 or email Alva Tang, our Community Relations Manager, at community.capcourier@gmail. com. We are proud to offer discounts to non-profit organizations and North Shore customers. A full media kit with sizes, rates and deadlines is available on our website, CapilanoCourier.com. Classified advertisements up to 50 words are free for students.

Industry – Focused Program

THE CAPILANO COURIER

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 - FEB. 18):

The return of school will make you realize your holiday sleep schedule was not normal.

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