Capilano Courier | Vol. 52, Issue 7. by Capilano Courier

VOLUME 52, ISSUE NO.7

March '20 CAPU HIRES DIRECTOR OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AND AFFAIRS - WALK OUT FOR WET’SUWET’EN NATION - THE ARRIVAL OF UBER AND LYFT - NO-COST CONCEPTION - CSU VP EXTERNAL’S STIPEND SUSPENSION - THE LIFE OF A DOULA - WHAT’S IN MY BAG - BLOODY COMMERCIALS - DOCTOR PIGEONS - THE COMPLICATED LEGACY OF KOBE BRYANT - AT THE ENDO THE LINE - NERDLESQUE THEY’RE MAKING USER SING ABOUT THE DEAD AGAIN - THE WAR ON DRUGS - HOROSCOPES - MORE

Sh ar l een ramos

@shiba_fox 2

letter from the editor

Women and Waffles March is Women’s History Month. I didn’t know that until last year when I was in a public relations class and had to plan an event. Being that I worked at the Courier and that it was an allwomen roster, it seemed like a natural fit to put on a tiny-desk with female performers. While it wasn’t intentional to hire a female-powered team, it worked in our favor—not because we’re all women, but because we’re good at what we do.

RACHEL D'SA Editor-In-Chief

It’s no surprise that newsrooms are lacking in diversity. Working in a male-dominated industry makes me nervous for my own career plans and my fellow female journalists. This month isn’t necessarily celebrating individual accomplishments. What makes women’s month so important is the fact that we are celebrating resilience. With the lack of representation in media rooms, we “coincidentally” notice misrepresentation or underrepresentation of minority groups. It’s a no-brainer that there are many marginalized groups fighting the good fight everyday for the same kind of progress we’re noticing with the women’s liberation movement. Women’s Month aims at educating just as much as celebrating. Pass the mic, learn to make space and what it is to be an ally. We can continue fighting and hope that we don’t need reminders 365 days of the year. "By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me." - Miranda Priestly In other news, it’s spring! Here’s a waffle recipe (it’ll suck if you don’t have a waffle iron):

2 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 7 tbsp vegetable oil 1 1/2 cups milk/water 3 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tbsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Step 1: Mix all the dry. Step 2: Mix all the wet. Step 3: Combine. Step 4: Pour batter onto iron as you sing sweet, sweet melodies.

editor-in-chief

communications director

capcourier@gmail.com

community.capcourier@gmail.com

Rachel Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sa

Helen Aikenhead

managing editor

news editor

manager.capcourier@gmail.com

news.capcourier@gmail.com

Freya Wasteneys

Sheila Arellano

associate news editor

arts & culture editor

associatenews.capcourier@gmail.com

arts.capcourier@gmail.com

Megan Amato

Ana Maria Caicedo

features editor

OPINIONS editor

specialfeatures.capcourier@gmail.com

opinions.capcourier@gmail.com

Sarah Rose

art director

Cynthia Tran Vo

artdirector.capcourier@gmail.com

Alisha Samnani

staff writer

Jayde Atchison

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Logan Dillon, Maia Lomelino, Bridget Stringer-Holden, Megan Helin, Melissa Gibbons, Alexis Ola Zygan, Lena Orlova, Beatriz Mascarenhas, Cam Loeschmann, Katherine Griffiths, Wen Zhai, Valeria Velazquez, Ben Jacobs, Hassan Merali, Kaileigh Bunting, Clarissa Sabile, Carlo Javier, Jamie Long, Tom Balog, Alden Mackay

Amy Asin, Annika McFarlane, Aurora D'Arrigo, Jamie Kusack, Ian Kaart, Karla Monterrosa, Coralie Mayer-Traynor FEATURED ARTISTS

Katrina Lashmar, Natalie Heaman, Ana Maria Caicedo, Cynthia Tran Vo COVER ART Karla Monterrosa COLUMNIST PORTRAITS

Coralie Mayer-Traynor 4

VOLUME 52 ISSUE NO.7

table Contents of

NEWS

OPINIONS

Director of Indigenous Affairs

Kotex Colour Swap

CSU Elections

Stats Canada and Houses

Wet'suwet'en Walk-out

Doctor Pigeon

Rideshare Approval

News vs Social Media

Service Animals and Rideshare

International Women's Day

Indigenous Filmmaking

Young Women as World Leaders 38

No-Cost Contraception

Tinder Panic Button

CSU VP

Dead Sperm Donors

Pride Week

Kobe and his Legacy

CapU Blues

ARTS & CULTURE

FEATURES Absinthe

Memorial Jazz

Endrometriosis

Smilin' Buddha Cabaret

Nerdlesque

Artist Feature

Life of a Doula

Thirteen

COLUMNS

Social (Media) Etiquette

CapU Music Showcase

The Long Haul

What's In My Bag

A Closer Listen

Sustainable Consumption

Recovering Achiever

ADDitude Adjustment

capu Hires Director of Indigenous Education and Affairs Director of Indigenous Education and Affairs Miranda Huron explains her future plans at CapU LOGAN DILLON Contributor

Miranda Huron has just begun her role as Director of Indigenous Education and Affairs, but she is already focused on the future. Seeing where changes can be made, Huron will guide Capilano University (CapU) as it follows its commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, the Missing and Murdered Women Calls to Justice, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). “I am starting to come up with ideas where we can strengthen and support students. Ways where we can be responsible to the five nations on whose territory the school is, and the visiting nations who come to study here,” said Huron when discussing her plans on how she will integrate these commitments. Changes will arrive on campus in the form of curriculum content and respectful dialogue. The way in which these changes will be enacted is currently a discussion amongst Huron and her team. They hope to utilize the Truth and Reconciliation’s Calls to Action; in particular, Section 62, ii, which states that postsecondary institutions should “provide the necessary funding to….educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.” “When somebody comes from Squamish, TsleilWaututh, Sechelt, Lil’wat, Musqueam, when they come to this campus, there’s a feeling of co-ownership, that this is a university that represents their identity is making those strides to be true partners,” said Huron. The support of students and faculty is important in this cooperation as it is key on allowing these new changes to be brought forward.

Students and staff can take part in bridging the gap by learning the history, understanding the myths that exist surrounding Indigenous peoples and even taking part in cultural workshops held on campus in the Kéxwusm-áyakn Student Centre. “There’s always more that can be done,” Huron said. “There is still this massive gap in education, where there have been generations of nothing that was learned about our history and so, moving forward, people are working really hard to make up that education gap so that they can be responsible teachers and staff.” Most institutions are in their early days of approaching the topic of reconciliation. The statement that “Capilano University acknowledges with respect the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, Sechelt, and TsleilWaututh peoples on whose territories our campuses are located” is just a small part of what reconciliation truly means. Reconciliation is defined as “the restoration of friendly relations,” which is Huron’s goal with her new position. These efforts come as part of a developing partnership between the Nations whose land the school resides on and the students who are welcomed guests. The continued development of reconciliation at CapU is Huron’s vision, and she hopes to combine the learning experience with the teachings of the First Nations peoples as a way to heal the wounds from the struggles of the past. “Reconciling means that we’re opening ourselves up to a population as they become ready to connect with the societal wrongs and change them for the better,” Huron said.

NEWS

Capilano Students' Union Elections Return to Campus A breakdown of why students should care about the CSU elections and how their vote impacts their school life MAIA LOMELINO Contributor

As the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) gets ready for the Board Elections from March 17-19, many students still have questions about what role the CSU plays in their academic lives. The CSU is the voice of students at Capilano University (CapU). “In a nutshell, the CSU is here to make sure that the interests of students are heard, understood and respected by educational decisionmakers,” CSU President and VP of Equity and Sustainability Emily Bridge said. At the CSU, the entire Board of Directors is elected by students. “The Board plays a critical role in deciding organizational priorities; for determining what the CSU’s stands for, on behalf of CapU students; and for ensuring that the needs of CapU students are met,” said Bridge. “These elections are an opportunity for the members of the CSU (i.e., all CapU students) to set the organization’s direction for the next year,” Bridge said. Students can participate in the election process by campaigning for their preferred candidate or by running in the election themselves. To aid students in choosing their representatives, the CSU will promote the Candidate’s Forum on Tuesday,

Mar. 10 and Thursday, Mar. 12 at noon. The forum is an opportunity for candidates to express their perspectives and say what they would bring to the board if elected. The CSU has implemented important changes in CapU such as a gender diversity audit of the university’s policies and practices. The university identified how the campuses could be made more inclusive for trans, two-spirit, and gender nonconforming students. In addition, the creation of a fall reading break was due to elected student leadership pressing for the change. “Recently, the university administration committed to a number of accountability measures and consultation requirements around the assessment of the university's new ‘student success fee’ being implemented in September 2020, due to the advocacy work of our elected student leaders,” said Bridge. The election process starts with the “notice phase.” After the notice, it is time for the “nominations phase” from Feb. 25 to Mar. 5. Following the nominations, campaigns begin and candidates can use the period from Mar. 5 to Mar. 16 to communicate to the other students why they are the best choice for the board of directors. The

voting period starts at 9am on Mar. 17 and closes at 5pm on Mar. 19; voting takes place online and information can be found in students’ emails. Recently, students approved a modification in the electoral system; in this election, students voting will rank their candidates instead of only choosing one. The change ensures that every vote counts. “One of the things that we noticed in the last student experience survey we conducted is that there is less awareness than we would like of the advocacy work that we do behind the scenes with the university administration, and with governments, to ensure that the interests of students are taken care of. This is something we’re committed to changing,” Bridge said.

Voting is an essential part of our lives in a democracy and a right that should be cherished and used with responsibility and respect. Make sure you make your voice heard and vote. Students can find more information on the election process at the CSU website.

NEWS

Students Walk Out for Wet’suwet’en Nation BC students show support in the fight for Wet’suwet’en land rights SHEILA ARELLANO News Editor

Conflict continues between the Indian Band Council, the Wet’suwet’en peoples and the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline. On Jan. 27, around 600 university and highschool students in Vancouver staged a walk-out from their classes to show their support for the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chiefs—whose authority as a governing body predates European contact—do not authorize the passage of the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline being built from the northeast of BC to Kitimat over their ancestral territories. The protestors—mainly consisting of students— gathered at Vancouver City Hall where speeches were given by Dakota Bear, Jean Swanson, Ida Manuel, Siiam Hamilton, Jo Walden, Jaye Simpson and Patricia Kelly. This was followed by a visit to BC Environment Minister George Heyman’s office. “The nature of the [student] walk-out must be conducted with the desire to create room for Indigenous peoples to resolve this problem without external interference,” said Capilano University (CapU) Indigenous Politics professor Tim Schouls. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) requires consultation with Indigenous peoples' around natural resources and dictates that every measure must be taken to secure Indigenous peoples consent for projects of this nature. The Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chiefs have not been consulted or offered their consent. “As citizens of the state that exercises its power to constrain Indigenous peoples, we have to stand up against the ongoing attempts to control,” said Schouls. “My concern is that the BC court has said that the Wet’suwet’en law does not apply in this case because

the nature of the law they have pointed to has not been drawn into the fabric of British common law in a way that is recognizable to the province of BC. And that’s a real problem.” The student walk-out was just one of many protests emerging in Canada and the world in support of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders. People are standing up and supporting solidarity actions across the globe today. Still, on Feb. 4 the Federal Court dismissed an appeal to Ottawa’s decision to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. On Feb. 8, 11 arrests by RCMP took place on Wet’suwet’en land. “There’s no way to put a positive spin or a silverlining on what’s happening. This is real and this is scary, but we still have to find our own ways for picking up and moving on with goodness in our minds and in our hearts. But, how do we do that?” asked grassroots environmental movement activist Audrey Siegl at the CapU showing of the film Invasion during sustainability week. The film follows the developing story of the Unist’ot’en Camp, Gidimt’en checkpoint and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against Indigenous peoples. “It is important to create awareness,” said Schouls. “As a teacher I must demonstrate that, while we live in a liberal democracy, nevertheless our history and our ongoing use of state power has significant moments of injustice and oppression.” It is crucial for Canada to not congratulate itself for being the best country in the world to live without recognizing and confronting its injustice and abuse of power that remains today.

Uber and Lyft come to Vancouver

CapU community members share their ride-hailing experiences BRIDGET STRINGER-HOLDEN Contributor AMY ASIN Illustrator

Ride-hailing has been a long time coming to British Columbia. According to Uber, there were over 100,000 people who opened the Uber app to see if the service was finally available in December 2019. Now that Uber and Lyft are hitting the streets, people are eager to try them out, but there appear to be mixed feelings about what this means for transportation in BC. In anticipation of the approval from the Passenger Transportation Board, Uber started approving drivers in the Metro Vancouver Area and distributing decals as early as November. However, there seems to be a shortage of drivers and students have been experiencing long wait times. In order to respond to this concern, Lyft has temporarily limited its services to the core of Vancouver but is planning to expand once it has acquired the capacity and available drivers. CapU alumna Emma Hall-Stevenson also commented on the limited drivers currently available but said that she liked Uber because of the ability to coordinate with friends to split trips and fares, and added that she feels safer with Uber because the reviews hold them accountable and there are cameras installed in the cars. Instead of grabbing a cab one night, Acting for Stage and Screen student Husain Sattar suggested to his friend, “Why don’t we try Uber? It’s way cheaper and we haven’t tried it yet.” They downloaded the app and managed to sign up in under two minutes. A visibly marked car with an LED “U” on the

dashboard arrived after about five minutes. “It was super clean and super warm for us when we got in from the cold weather. The driver was very sweet and asked us how our night was,” said Sattar. He added that the speed limit was maintained throughout the trip, something he had not always experienced in taxis. Others argue against the safety of using Uber. On his personal account, Josh Thomas, the Director of Policy and Campaigns for the Capilano Students’ Union tweeted, “@Uber puts the lives of riders in danger, adds on erroneous charges and provides no customer support.” He experienced an unsafe driver and a waiting fee, with no recourse from Uber other than an email with a $5 credit reassuring Thomas that they reviewed their standards on a regular basis. During his first trip, the driver drove distracted with one hand on the wheel. During his second trip, Thomas was ready at the curb but had to pay for “waiting time” because the driver overshot the address and had to find his way back during that time. “I'll be taking @TransLink exclusively from here on out, thanks,” he tweeted. Hall-Stevenson also commented that she had been unaware that they charged extra for “toll charges.” Taxis have also been affected by the implementation of Uber and Lyft with some taxi drivers making the switch, claiming that it is inevitable and there is no use fighting it. Nine Metro Vancouver taxi companies are taking Uber, Lyft and

the Passenger Transportation Board to the BC Supreme Court. They are seeking an injunction to suspend the apps until the courts can hear a judicial review of the Passenger Transportation Board’s decision to approve Uber and Lyft’s licenses, which will not take place until late March or early April. Carolyn Bauer, a spokesperson for the BC Taxi Association explained that the taxi industry is not opposed to ridesharing, simply the restrictions that are placed on taxis but that do not apply to the new ride-hailing services. Yellow Cab president Kulwant Sahota drives taxis as well and claims that there has been about a 30 per cent drop in revenue. “I frequent taxi services often, more than I want and should, and the amount of rude and aggressive drivers I’ve had largely outnumbers the kind safe ones,” said Charlotte King, Liberal Studies Student at CapU, who appreciates ridesharing but recommends people support Lyft instead of Uber. King has always leaned toward Lyft because their safety policies allow riders to share their trips with friends and also because the company is a big ally to LGBTQ2S+ communities by recognizing gender diversity and allowing riders to select pronouns. King has close friends who attempt to take taxis in drag and is frustrated with the homophobia that continues to occur as taxi after taxi slows and then continues on.

NEWS

International Women’s Day on Campus

CapU focuses on Indigenous women in the DTES for this year’s day of empowerment JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

International Women’s Day (IWD) will be celebrated for the 109th year on Mar. 8. During the week leading up to the celebration, Capilano University (CapU) will host IWD events across campus led by the Women’s and Gender Studies department. Students will be able to learn more about the global day and listen to inspirational women. IWD has an official theme posted on their website each year, with this year being #EachforEqual. Although there is a suggested theme, according to the International Women’s Day website, “many organizations declare an annual IWD theme that supports their specific agenda or cause, and some of these are adopted more widely with relevance than others.” CapU is embarking on a theme of Indigenous women in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) for 2020. According to Kirsten McIlveen, geography professor and convener for the Women’s and Gender Studies program, this year’s theme “brings up issues of violence, poverty and shorter lifespans.” McIlveen teaches a course on women in prison and, after the Walls to Bridges program offered in the fall semester, CapU is also reflecting on the carceral continuum of Indigenous women. On Wed. Mar. 4, the Women’s and Gender Studies faculty will have an informational table set up in the Birch building cafeteria. Between 11:30am - 1pm there will be cupcakes, games and information on IWD. Students are encouraged to go and speak to the organizers. Another activity during IWD week is on Thur. Mar. 5 in Cedar 148 from 11:30am - 1pm. Guest speaker Sophie Marasty will

be discussing her work as an activist and her involvement as a co-collaborator in a report called Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Marasty is a Denesuline and Woodland Cree woman from Manitoba as well as an actor, grandmother and activist. Her involvement in Red Women Rising, released by the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, showcases women in the DTES calling for significant change from 113 Indigenous survivors of violence and 15 non-Indigenous women. The event will be in a moderated interview style, and all students are welcome to attend. Reflecting on past IWD events, McIlveen said, “everybody seems to find a place and finds it interesting. It is for everyone.” If students cannot make it to the events on campus, they are able to find other ways to meaningfully learn about gender equality. Engaging in events and groups around campus such as the Women’s Collective or taking Women’s and Gender Studies classes allow students to be involved. Many of the courses offered hold an activist element and students are able to meet and speak with powerful classroom guest presenters. Outside the classroom, students can seek out self-empowerment through services like the Learning Commons, Counselling and participating in events and collectives. For more information on IWD and how to get involved, stop by the Women’s and Gender Studies table on Mar. 4 in the Birch cafeteria.

Indigenous Filmmaking ’Hello, my name is Sachenne Littlefeather, I’m Apache and […] I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently because of time… but he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.” In 1973, The Godfather lead actor Marlon Brando asked Native American Activist Sacheene Littlefeather to represent him and refuse his Oscar for Best Actor. Littlefeather was forced to give this brief speech when the Oscars got word of their intent, banning her the original speech written by Brando and threatened her if she went forward with it that evening on stage. For decades, Indigenous people have been portrayed in a single narrative, otherwise known as Pan-Indigeneity, created by Hollywood for fame and monetary gain. Lumping every Indigenous person (First Nation, “Indian,” Aboriginal) into one pile and only ever referring to them as “The Savage,” “The Indian Princess,” or “The Warrior.” To be Indigenous—based upon the harmful single narrative created by Hollywood—you must be red skinned, with long flowing Raven hair in braids, and wear a headdress with turquoise around your neck

Taking a closer look into the Independent Indigenous Digital Filmmaking Diploma at CapU MEGAN HELIN Contributor

and wrists—as if every Indigenous person is either of Mohawk of Navajo descent. The Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking (IIDF) Program at Capilano University (CapU) began in 1999 in the Northwest Territories “when Northern Native Broadcasting applied to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and were successful in getting a license to broadcast,” said Gregory Coyes, Metis/ Cree of St. Albert, Alberta and faculty at CapU within IIDF and Motion Picture Arts. After success with broadcasting in a number of arctic communities of Canada, they later applied for a national networking license that became the network Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) that broadcasts to this day. In the creation of APTN, it was noted there was a need for Indigenous people in film to help run these Aboriginal networks and the conception of IIDF was born. The program eventually found its way to CapU in the 2000s. With successors like Peter Crass, Jackson Crick, and Doreen Manuel. Gregory Coyes is the current Program Coordinator for the students of IIDF. He works alongside fellow Indigenous instructors and Allies to educate Indigenous students in the history of their people in film, while training them

in industry standard practices to take with them when they graduate from the program. IIDF is the only program in Canada and one of two in North America to offer a diploma program that can lead to a Bachelor’s Degree for Indigenous film students. The IIDF includes graduates like Jessie Anthony, Petie Chalifoux, Michel Auger, and Jay Cardinal Villeneuve who have since entered the film industry and are highly regarded in their craft. They inspire fellow Indigenous people and finally represent them in film with respect—unlike in decades past. IIDF faculty and students work hard to ensure that the treatment of Indigenous people within the film industry, both on and off the screen, never again allows unjust representation, treatment and erasure. “I feel so comfortable being around people who know what my culture is and understand the fact of how important it is,” said first year IIDF student, Sunshine Waterworth of the Squamish Nation. Indigenous peoples have always been present in film and will continue to be in the future. This time, however, they will be holding the camera, writing the screenplay and editing the footage.

NEWS

BC Government Rejects No-Cost Contraceptives AccessBC will continue to fight for equality and accessibility across British Columbia JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer ANNIKA MCFARLANE Illustrator

When the Victoria City Council unanimously voted in favour to endorse advocacy for no-cost prescription contraception in BC on Jan. 23, AccessBC was optimistic that it would be included in the 2020 provincial budget. Last August, the campaign was included in the budget consultations and was in the list of recommendations, but on Feb.18 the budget was released and there was no commitment from the provincial government to include no-cost contraceptives. “Providing universal, no-cost contraception coverage isn’t just good public health policy,” said AccessBC co-founder Devon Black in a press release. “It’s also good fiscal policy, as we’ve seen over and over in jurisdictions where this kind of policy has been implemented. Today’s budget was a big missed opportunity.” AccessBC, a non-partisan campaign formed in 2017, is dedicated to removing barriers around accessing prescription contraception in BC. The campaign is run by a mix of lawyers, doctors, medical students, retired healthcare practitioners and journalists who are dedicated to creating equality and universally accessible contraception. As well as meeting with MLAs and providing research from other countries or states that have successfully implemented a no-cost plan, AccessBC is creating awareness and consulting with the government. A letter-writing campaign is attached to their website, encouraging residents to write to their local MLA using a 30-second fill-in-the-blank form. A study done by Options for Sexual Health in 2010 states that the projected savings for BC, if no-cost contraception was implemented, would be an estimated $95 million. This projection includes saving on the costs of medical fees for unexpected pregnancies. Individual costs would also decrease for contraception users, and allow people to choose the most effective option provided, instead of settling for what is accessible within their budget. “It is a matter of equality. Condoms are offered for free everywhere, but the fact that someone with a uterus has to spend $380 or more on an IUD is ridiculous and unfair,” argued Teale Phelps Bondaroff, chair and co-founder of AccessBC. Young people and citizens in remote communities are

the demographics that would benefit the most from a policy change. “What happens is when people cannot afford the expensive contraception, they either go without or they turn to less reliable methods,” explained Phelps Bondaroff. “For example, IUDs are much more reliable than the pill or condoms because they have lower failure rates.” People in remote communities sometimes put their lives in vulnerable and risky situations to obtain contraception. “[A woman] had to hitchhike to the clinic because she didn’t live in town. She got a prescription and she hitchhiked home. Then she hitchhiked another day back to the clinic to get the IUD inserted and then she hitchhiked home after having [the procedure],” Phelps Bondaroff said, sharing the experience of a woman who lives on the outskirts of 100 Mile House. Known as one of the most dangerous highways in Canada, this drastic route to obtain sexual health appointments causes concern for everyone involved. AccessBC calls for the province to help people safely secure their choice of contraception. The only opposition that AccessBC appears to receive is from citizens concerned that passing the resolution is taking time away from the council meetings. However, the discussion to endorse the campaign took roughly 13 minutes during a meeting and did not cost the city any money. No-cost contraceptives would have a positive impact on both the healthcare system and individuals as it reduces the financial and physical burdens of unexpected pregnancies. “In Colorado, they gave out 43,000 IUDs to young people. It cost them $28 million over the course of eight years and it saved an estimated $70 million,” said Phelps Bondaroff. “This reduced teen pregnancies by 54 per cent and teen abortion rates by 64 per cent.” AccessBC will continue to fight for no-cost contraception and for the BC government to create more accessibility. “This is a fight we can’t afford to abandon,” said Black. “For BC residents who can’t afford to exercise full reproductive choice, the costs are just too high.” Visit accessbc.org for more information.

NEWS

CSU VP External’s Stipend Suspended Due to “Lack of Fulfilment of Duty” A glance at the timeline and results of the investigation into the VP External’s role MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

An ongoing saga has been unfolding behind the doors of the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) over the last few months concerning the VP External, Happy Singh and complaints brought against him concerning neglect in his official role and duties. An Executive Performance Committee (EPC) was established to undergo an incamera and confidential investigation that would make recommendations regarding temporary removal of some of his external duties and his monthly stipend of $1300 until they are satisfied that the issue had been resolved. The issue was brought forward to the Board of Directors meeting by the governance committee on Nov. 22. “The VP External was asked to provide a report, or basically present his interpretation of events at the next Dec. 13 board meeting,” said Emily Bridge, CSU President and Vice President of Equity and Sustainability. “At that board meeting, we decided to strike a special committee to address those performance concerns.” During this meeting, he was removed as a delegate to the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations Policy & Strategy Conference. On Dec. 20, the EPC met to discuss the investigation into the complaints against the VP External, the “lack of fulfillment of duty proceedings” and determine the next steps as noted in the meeting minutes. On Jan. 2, the EPC recommended that Section 2, Article 14.1 of the Procedures Manual be temporarily suspended so that it would allow flexibility for who they would send in the VP External’s place concerning external meetings. On Jan. 14, the EPC recommended that his stipend be temporarily reduced by 25 per cent. The Board of Directors took this under advisement

on Jan. 17 and agreed to the temporary suspension in the procedures but determined that the VP External’s stipend be reduced by 100 per cent. All of this would be reevaluated on Feb. 14. The CSU policies and procedures regarding incamera work is confidential and so the exact nature of the complaints is unclear. However, a source who asked to remain anonymous shed some light on the situation. “He hasn’t been doing his job,” they said, which involves meeting with external bodies such as Translink and local, provincial and federal MPs. “He hadn’t been completing and submitting his reports, and misses meetings. He hasn’t been doing the work that students pay him to do.” Before the Feb.14 meeting, the EPC met on Feb. 11 to discuss the progress of the investigation and improvement to the VP’s fulfillment of duties. They resolved that the VP External “be instructed to develop a work plan, in collaboration with this Committee, to address the concerns of this Committee with the objective of full stipend reinstatement.” They also planned to recommend to the Board of Directors that his stipend be reinstated by 75 per cent which was approved during their Feb. 14 meeting. “I think the board has gone about this in a good way and followed due procedures,” said Bridge. “I really am hopeful that—and I know that the executive team is hopeful that—jthings are going to improve and we won’t have to make additional recommendations for either suspending procedures or stipends moving forward.” VP External Happy Singh could not be reached for comment.

CapU Celebrates Pride The CSU’s Queer Collective presents Pride Week. MELISSA GIBBONS Contributor AURORA D'ARRIGO Illustrator

The CSU Queer Collective is inviting students around campus to honour and celebrate pride from Mar. 16 to 20. Michaela Volpe, CSU Queer Students’ Liaison, has worked with members of the Queer Collective with a $1050 budget to bring a week of fun and educational activities. “It is important to show queer students on campus that we stand with them, and we want to celebrate our existence,” Volpe said. Activities will include a knitting workshop, a drag showcase, a queer film screening and multiple workshops within the collective space, including one on queer history and variety of games. This is Volpe’s third consecutive year planning this event. She noted that every year is different and there is a lot of fun involved in the making. “Getting to do tons of different events, workshops and then introduce new students to the queer collective is always the best part.” Volpe added that Capilano University is still behind on several institutional policies that need to be addressed for the LGBTQ2S+ community. She suggested that the University should work and collaborate with queer community on policies to protect queer students. Volpe added that there are problems with homophobic professors and name changes in

the system that students require but that aren’t prioritized. “A lot of the faculty still have a lot of unlearning/learning they need to do in order to be considered an inclusive campus,” Volpe said. “With the student union and Queer Collective endorsing pride week, we are able to provide education and support to queer students and their allies [and celebrate] all of the achievements we have made in the past year.” The CSU Queer Collective Liaison is collaborating with Indigenous Liaison Tristan Greyeyes to include a Two-Spirit event in pride. Volpe is also planning future events, such as organizing a Queer Prom, for those who didn't have a chance to celebrate prom. This event will give Queer students another opportunity to celebrate. The CSU Queer Collective association is a group of students that engage in weekly meetings to talk about topics of interest and always welcome new people to join and participate. Weekly meetings are held every Tuesday in Birch 313 from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. Volpe’s vision is to see more and get involved on campus. Volpe encourages students to reach out and contact her for further information at queer@csu.bc.ca.

See the animated illustration on www.capilanocourier.com

NEWS

Shining a Light on Women in Sport Athletes from the CapU Blues teams speak about recognition in women's sports ALDEN MACKAY Contributor

It’s no secret that women in sports receive less recognition than their male counterparts. One only has to scroll through the numerous television channels covering men’s sports to see the discrepancy for themselves. Female athletes often have to work harder than men while receiving less compensation just to reach the same level of respect and recognition. Claire Ye, defense/midfield for the women’s soccer team, and Meghan Koven, outside hitter/ midfield for the women’s volleyball team from the CapU Blues are aware of gender inequality in the sports world but take an optimistic point of view. “We’re pretty lucky here,” said Koven. “There is a lot of [support] at Cap.” Both Ye and Koven appreciate the feeling of community they’ve gained playing for the Blues. “They’re so much more than teammates,” Koven shared. Ye and Koven have both nurtured a passion for their respective sports from a young age and competed throughout high school and into post-secondary. Both are determined to succeed, despite the gendered hurdles in professional sports. “I work extra hard because I want to prove everyone wrong,” Ye said. She doesn’t want the stereotype of female inferiority to be supported.

“Growing up now there is a different culture than twenty years ago,” she continued. Ye credits athletes like Burnaby-local Christine Sinclair for this shift. The celebrated forward for Canada’s women’s national soccer team recently set the all-time record for international goals for men and women, almost doubling Cristiano Ronaldo’s record. Despite positive steps towards gender equality in sports, there is still a major deficit in the media coverage women’s sports receive. The FIFA World Cup, for instance, primarily focuses its coverage on the men’s teams because of the assumption that men’s sports attract more views. The lack of coverage, however, perpetrates the idea that men’s sports hold the public’s interest, which also impacts the funding of women’s sports since pay comes from views. If women are not broadcasted then they are not going to get paid as much as men, regardless of skill. Ye and Koven are hopeful that this will change. The growing global interest in watching women’s sports shown in polls indicates hope.

NEWS

Inside the DIY Jazz Spot Reinvigorating Vancouver’s Music Scene Drawing a crowd of young and old alike, Memorial Jazz is creating a space for musicians across the city to perform and collaborate ANA MARIA CAICEDO Arts & Culture Editor MANJOT KAUR Photographer

“I don’t know what the fuck to do with these pieces of plywood,” Ilhan Saferali exclaims, lifting a plank off the floor and placing it against the wall. I’m sitting on one of many mismatched stools in a loft on Main and Hastings, watching Saferali prepare for the show. Today the space is slightly more disheveled than usual, he tells me while rearranging furniture and picking up bits of plastic. He places his Stussy coat on a chair, reserving it for his Dad, a jazz aficionado. Since October of last year, Ilhan Saferali has been putting on jazz nights monthly and they’ve steadily grown in recognition and popularity. Dubbed Memorial Jazz, the event has quickly accumulated a loyal following of attendees who face a dark alley of rats, needles and body fluids each time to get here. On my Twitter feed, news was circulating about an underground jazz night that “serv[ed] pizza pops on paper towel sheets at the bar” with vibraphone solos that “fucking slayed.” So when CapU Jazz Student Colin Zacharias told me about a DIY jazz show that might peak my interest, I was really hoping it’d be the same one. Lucky for me, it was. At 30 minutes to showtime, owner Peter Marren arrives and starts drilling legs onto the mystery planks to make benches. Saferali is quick to notify him that the Snakes and Ladders set is missing a die. A procession of musicians start ascending the stairs, 18

instruments in hand. They’re residents of what’s universally known to the Vancouver music scene as “Jazz House”— a home in South Vancouver full of Jazz musicians that frequently host open-jam nights. It’s just after 10pm now and the space is packed; you’re lucky if you’ve found somewhere to sit. We’re listening to jazz, a genre of music I thought was reserved for elevators and ageing restaurants. The audience tonight, whose ages range from teenagers to seniors, are totally transfixed by the music—and so am I. Just an hour ago, I wasn’t sure the show would pull through. But here we are. The space has character—under the glow of disco light, there’s a giant teddy bear slumping on a stool, a chess set is tucked between decaying couches adorned with a High School Musical pillow, piles of magazines hold up a game of Clue. Saferali stumbled onto the space after being asked to fill in for a live band on a film set after a last-minute cancellation. The loft is nestled between artist studios, and when Saferali noticed the piano in it, he immediately recognized its potential as a live music space. That day, he asked owner Peter Marren if he’d be willing to let him organize jazz shows there. “After [the first show] I was like, okay, we have something special here,” Saferali recalls. “Like, this is something that’s gotta continue.” He’s sipping a beer as I interview

him, a detail that would be unremarkable if he wasn’t 17. “This is the biggest thing I’ve done—like, I’ve never had my own keys to a place before,” he gushes, dangling them for emphasis. A classically-trained jazz musician who plays piano and trumpet, Saferali sources performers for the jazz nights from his large pool of musician-friends. “The Vancouver jazz scene is a pretty tight-knit community, so I kinda know the people who are playing a lot and the people who are good and who I should book,” he says. Tonight, renowned saxophone player John Gross is playing, accompanied by Jimi James Fraser (son of musician Hugh Fraser) on piano, Max Huberdeau on drums, and Brad Pearson on bass. All three are residents of Jazz House. “It means a lot for them to play with someone like him,” Andrea Milagros, one of the only two non-musician residents of Jazz House, says to me. I approach Gross and tell him he’s the talk of the town. He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I’m just a sax player,” he responds dryly. Gross has been playing with Fraser, Huberdeau and Pearson for a few years, and originally met Fraser at the Libra Room. “I gave him my card and said ‘let’s play,’” he recounts. “When I was growing up that’s what older players did—play with younger players. So, you know, I’m old, so I play with younger players. Of course, everyone’s

younger than me now, but that’s okay. That’s what people did, and that’s what they still do now,” he stresses. “That’s just part of the art; you pass on what you know to other people.” After hearing the Winston Matsushita trio, Saferali settles the crowd to announce the John Gross Group. “This is some of the best music you’ll ever hear,” he says solemnly, pausing and adding with a smile, “hopefully.” The trio begins to play and the room is enthralled. Ripples of whistles, cheers and clapping punctuate the particularly remarkable moments of sound. Next year, Saferali plans to move east to study music at McGill. Recalling his most recent trip to Toronto, he says of Vancouver, “You know how they call New York the city that never sleeps? This city just sleeps.” Even though he’s leaving, he wants to continue these jazz nights once he’s gone. “I’ll give a spare set of keys to Colin, and we’ll try to keep it going, and I’ll book the bands when I’m out of town and I’ll be here when I can,” he says. “I’ll just literally try to keep it going as long as possible.”

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After closing last October, SBC remains in the memories of many Vancouverites as a pillar of underground culture

ALEXIS OLA ZYGAN Contributor PAUL CANNON Photographer

For more than 60 years, the Smilin' Buddha Cabaret (SBC) carved out a multi-functional space that embraced a variety of communities, from 60s psychedelic rockers to 70s punks, and most recently, Vancouver’s skate community. Last October, co-owner Malcolm Hassin announced he would be closing the venue to the public due to mental health reasons. SBC embodied the intersection of music, skateboarding and art, fostering a space where "everyone was welcome” as graffitied above the front door. Smilin' Buddha Cabaret opened in the 50s as a nightclub and restaurant, and was known as a space that allowed working-class folks to relax and enjoy music, theatre and dance. SBC morphed into a rock n' roll mecca in the 60s, with Jimmy Hendrix and Tina Turner rumoured to grace the stage. In the 70s, SBC cultivated a budding underground punkrock scene that launched the career of bands like D.O.A and The Subhumans. Music enthusiasts would congregate in the venue to drink and listen to live music, watching as the punk scene in Vancouver unfolded before them. Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret’s new owners rebranded into SBC Restaurant in 2013, opening their doors to skaters of all abilities with the biggest public indoor skate ramp in BC. Up until their closure, SBC continued to host punk-rock bands every weekend and would allow inner-city graffiti artists to paint the venue once a month. As a homage to their punk

origins, they dedicated a section of their wall to photos of the venue in the 70s, back when they charged only $3 for cover and even less for a pint of beer. I have fond memories seeing Vancouver-based punk band Alien Boys performing at SBC. The platform at the front provided a space for musicians, while attendees assembled alongside each side of the ramp, jumping down throughout the set to be closer to the stage and mosh on the slippery beersoaked structure. In a city plagued by persistent rainfall, the indoor skate ramp provided skaters with shelter. But SBC was much more than just four walls and a roof. “The autonomy of the space and feeling like this was where I belonged on a Friday night definitely kept me away from selfdestructive things like drugs and falling into hopelessness,” said Elly Ryland, the president of the Vancouver-based skateboarding circle Late Bloomer Club who had her wedding party at SBC. “The DTES neighbourhood that SBC is a part of is undergoing rapid gentrification—which is essentially a modern colonialism—displacement, and also in the grips of an overdose crisis. Death is daily down there and I've seen it first hand. Anyone who has skated SBC has seen how the community is suffering and dying,” she continued. “SBC was really one of the only safe places on that stretch of Hastings that

kept the community in mind. SBC wasn't a fancy overpriced coffee shop that nobody really needs—it had a positive and profound purpose: community.” For many, the glaring lack of music and art venues in Vancouver became even more evident after SBC’s last show and skateboard session in January of 2020. Unfortunately, the closure of SBC is not a one-off, but rather a persistent issue in a city plagued by gentrification and skyrocketing rental rates. Following the termination of SBC, underground art space RedGate posted a Facebook event for a fundraiser to keep their venue afloat. Then, Little Mountain Gallery announced a new development application might push them out of the Mount Pleasant community. Before SBC’s closure, a long list of iconic Vancouver venues like Club 23 and the Cobalt have been shutting their doors, in addition to lesser known underground venues like anarchist community organizing space 38 Blood Alley Square. “It's really a shame that we're losing our community spaces and seeing them replaced by businesses that only alienate and push out the Downtown Eastside community,” Ryland reflected. In a city where isolation is ubiquitous, venues like SBC that nurture much-needed community and culture are becoming rarer and rarer.

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A R T I S T F E AT U R E

Coralie Mayer-traynor LOGAN DILLON Contributor

If you’re an artist in this age, you know it’s difficult not to feel pressure from the sheer amount of people doing similar work. It’s hard to feel that your art is truly unique with the immense amount of other work there is to compare it to. Yet it’s through this self-doubt that artists thrive and create their best pieces—never fulfilled, always trying to improve. Coralie Mayer-Traynor’s inability to be content with her own work is what defines her as an artist. Mayer-Traynor’s work draws in the viewer with a level of intricacy and detail that makes her pieces so unique. She draws from moments or memories that begin as an image in her head. Mayer-Traynor visualizes that image, and brings it into reality through her work, sculpting and perfecting it until it’s materialized as an artwork. The IDEA student draws inspiration from the Baroque period. She is particularly influenced by Caravaggio, an Italian painter known for

combining a physical and emotional view of the human state, along with his dramatic use of lighting. Caravaggio’s form is embodied throughout much of Mayer-Traynor’s work. For Mayer-Traynor, art is a way of communicating her feelings; it allows her to express herself without words. When asked of her defining stylistic elements, she found it difficult to answer. “I know that every person who does any form of artistic expression has their own unique mark; like the way that artists paint lines, there’s always going to be a difference,” she explained. “But I don’t feel like it has too much soul yet—if that doesn’t sound too grim.” This self-effacing comment makes her chuckle. Her words, it seems, are a reflection of her art practice: never satisfied, revising, tweaking and reworking each piece until it’s the best it can possibly be. “Everything I do has to be perfect.”

Follow Coralie Mayer-Traynor on Instagram @cmaiyr

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The Life of a Doula A glance into the world of the birther’s helper LENA ORLOVA Contributor KRYSTA SHORE Photographer JAMIE KUSACK Illustrator

Every hour, at least 10,000 parents bring little humans into the world—a task taxing for both the mind and the body. Labour rooms mimic battle zones, with sleepless doctors and rushing nurses turning over linens soaked in blood, sweat and tears. At home, post-labour life promises sleepless nights, baby anxiety and routine adjustments. In birth, not only is the baby born, but so is the parent. They leave the comfort of an independent life to become a 24/7 caregiver to a child completely dependent on the consistent provision of nourishment, attention and safety they provide them. Many ancient cultures had customs around childbearing involving a community of relatives, parents and neighbours. In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, some parents undertake a “cuarentena,” which literally means quarantine. Despite how catastrophic the word sounds, the cuarentena is a period of complete rest and bonding with the baby. At this time, a helper takes over light housekeeping tasks like cooking and cleaning. Doulas resurrect the ancient role of the birther’s helper, providing non-clinical aspects of support for parents. They provide parents things like nonjudgemental, non-biased emotional and physical care, physiological education, birth planning and advocacy. Since the early 1900s, parents have been birthing under the direction of doctors, nurses and midwives, who dramatically improved safety in childbearing. Since then however, the rate of labour interventions has grown higher than at any other time in history, and so has postpartum depression. Studies have shown that proper holistic care, which a Doula can provide, often alleviates these effects. “People don’t have a community anymore. Especially in these larger city landscapes where people are literally just with their partner and the partner goes back to work and they are alone. That’s just not the way anybody intended to be postpartum,” said Shania Lane, a native Torontonian and a Doula-in-training at Bunky Bambino, a Vancouver-based business of birth and postpartum Doulas.

A tribe of heart-oriented people make up Bunky Bambino. Their services include pre and postnatal visits, attendance at birth, access to learning materials, herbal support, guidance in breastfeeding and postpartum recovery, and baby-minding. What’s more, every Doula has their own philosophy informing their authentic style of practice. “Bodies birth...how they want to and how they need to and that can look different for everybody,” said Lane. “I do have lots of clients who just want to go to the hospital and get an epidural and lay on their back and birth, and that’s fine, but they also have the opportunity to explore the other options of what else they can do. I think that’s mainly what people are looking for. The opportunity to find out all the options, not just one way of birthing.” Emma Devin, the owner of Bunky Bambino, discovered her passion by chance and intuition. Before beginning her Doula education, she worked as a nanny and had already felt within her an interest for parenthood and childbearing. Devin also has a talent for building connections. She credits her association with the LGBTQ+ community for broadening her understanding of family. “Family can mean anything,” Devin emphasized. “Sometimes having blood relatives around isn’t an option.” At its core, family is defined by love, caring, support and nurturing. No matter the family structure, every soon-to-be parent benefits from having someone warm and understanding to watch over their birthing journey. A positive childbearing experience can have lasting effects on a baby’s mental health. Children born to parents struggling with stress and depression are more likely to develop similar symptoms later in life. Research shows that parents who receive the support of a doula are less likely to view the birthing process negatively, and less likely to have a C-section. The Doula’s role is to preserve the sacredness and significance of the birthing experience, making for a happier parent and therefore a happier, healthier child.

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Thirteen Explores Family Disintegration During The Okanagan Forest Fires Capilano Alumni come together to create a film about family ties JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

The cruelty of being a teenager is, for many, a time we’d rather leave in the past. Teddy Edwards brings to light the trials of being a 13-year-old boy in his latest short film, Thirteen. Based on memories of his childhood, this is the CapU Motion Picture Arts (MOPA) alumnus’ most personal project to date. The film follows two brothers coping with their father’s absence when the Okanagan’s destructive fires first began in the early 2000s. Thirteen is inspired by Edwards’ own experiences; at nine his family home burnt down in a forest fire, which led to his parents getting divorced.The film is composed of 13 scenes cut together in a way similarly spliced to how the brain retains memories. “I could only remember glimpses, moments and certain beats and then I thought that could be a brilliant way to structure a short film,” explained Edwards. Over shots of younger brother Finn (played by Caden Hergott) smiling in the rearview mirror, viewers can hear sounds of media reporting on the fires in the Okanagan. While there is no direct visual reference of fire until an intimate moment between brothers at the end of the film, the underlying sound of fire is intertwined throughout the film. The experience of filming Thirteen was a moving one for Edwards, one that he was able to share with his fellow MOPA alumni. The entire crew was composed of Edwards’ classmates,

an experience that allowed him to be surrounded by friends as he reflected on the feelings the shoot brought back. “It was very moving to feel things that I hadn’t felt in a long time,” he said. “I was trying to, in a spiritual aspect, come to terms with what I was feeling and how that was influencing what we were filming.” Brothers Finn and Wes share moments of happiness while shooting cans, heated fights in the kitchen and an emotional dialogue while playing ping pong. The unbreakable bond between the boys is clear through the quiet moments of grief spread through the seven minutes. Both Hergott and Peter MacLeod (who plays Wes) are active Kelowna theatre actors. “I found it super compelling to [use local Okanagan actors] because they hadn’t really done film before,” said Edwards. “It was refreshing to witness people experience the magic behind the way we make [films].” Thirteen is premiering at Cineplex Odeon Park & Tilford Cinemas on March 4th, prior to the screening of Portrait of a Lady on Fire as part of the North Vancouver Arts International Film Series. Tickets for the screening of Thirteen and Portrait of a Lady on Fire can be found on the North Vancouver Arts website. Thirteen is also available for viewing on the Yellow Chair Films Website.

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CapU Music Diploma Students Compete for a Spot in a Student Showcase Winners are awarded scholarship money and spots to play in front of diverse audiences MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

Music Diploma students at Capilano University put on their finest clothes, performed their best pieces with professional aplomb and competed for scholarship money in a musical showcase at the BlueShore Financial Centre for Performance Arts on Feb. 29. Thirteen first and second-year music students demonstrated their skill by presenting a classical piece in their chosen musical medium, most whom were pianists or singers. “It started as a way for us to give our students more performance experience,” said Wendy Grant, who has a doctorate of Musicology and is Music Diploma Program Coordinator. “We do some fundraising as a way to give them some scholarship money as an award for them performing... in a formal atmosphere on a theatre stage professionally. This is where you’re going to present the very best of yourself and the result of all of your work; it’s a special occasion.” First and second prize winners were chosen from both years by judicators in the CapU music faculty, including Choral Director Laars Kaario, Instructor David

Vandereyk and Grant herself. The winner’s scholarship money was raised by donations, events and the annual book sale. Winners from both first and second years will get to perform in the Cap Classics, the winners showcase on Mar. 20 and at the Silk Purse Gallery on Mar. 21. “My favourite thing about the showcase is that I get to announce the winner,” Grant laughed. Her office is a cozy time capsule, filled with photographs, past concert flyers, and cards and letters from students pinned to the walls. She tells me stories about some of the pieces and still remembers the names of her students from the early 2000s. “There is a lot of love in this program. The students are a family and all support each other so that even though they are competing with each other, they’re still rooting for each other. People have a spot here—no one is disenfranchised.” The winners from competition will play in the Music Department Student Showcase hosted at the Blueshore Theatre on Mar. 20 at 11:45 am. Entry is free.

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Larissa, 19 BEATRIZ MASCARENHAS Contributor

Larissa Marcatto is a Business Student, Student Life Hub assistant and Event Planner at Capilano University. With her busy schedule, she carries a simple, yet highly functional black backpack which she said is “worn out from carrying heavy books.”

The first thing Larissa reached for was her Canadian advertising book from her favourite class this semester. Her pink planner with rose designs is protected by a plastic layer to keep the notebook from folding. “I have a terrible memory, without my planner I wouldn’t know where to go. I am nothing without it.” Inside her rose gold pencil case, there’s pictures of some of her favorite memories at CapU, including last year’s Halloween party, her volunteer job at the international leadership and mentorship program (ILMP) where she made a lot of new friends, and from the Climate Strike. “My friends and I made our own posters at university but we got lost and could not find the strike. At one point we heard a trombone and my friend was so excited to join the protest that she started running and yelling towards the crowd. It was really funny!” Larissa also always carries her business cards inside her wallet “just in case.”

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Ana M ar i a Cai ced o

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@cynthiatranvo FEATURED ARTI ST S

Bloody Commercials U by Kotex is swapping out the unsettling blue liquids for an honest red JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

Sitting in class, I get a sign that it is time to leave the room and deal with my business. I reach into my backpack and grab the right supplies, hiding them in my sleeve. I dash out the door and make my way down the hall, hoping no one suspects what’s going on. Am I on my way to a suspicious drug deal in the middle of my history lecture? No. It is something much more taboo: I’m discreetly carrying my tampon to the bathroom because I have been gifted a lifetime subscription to Period Monthly. Across most mediums, period advertisements bombard us with images of pads being tested with blue liquids and women skipping around having a jolly time. Any person with a uterus can confirm that our monthly bleeding is certainly not blue nor is it particularly enjoyable. Thankfully, there are less ads showing white women spinning around fields in a hills-are-alive-withthe-sound-of-music kind of way. People are shown powering through their day-to-day life, crushing a workout or thriving in their passions. This is a much more accurate portrayal of what we are capable of, because “anything you can do, I can do bleeding.” U by Kotex came out with an Instagram video on Jan. 22 that shows two pads absorbing a realistic blood-red liquid to showcase the superior absorption power of the Kotex brand. They are not the first brand to start using red instead of blue in marketing materials. Bodyform, a UK sanitary napkin brand, used a picture of a redstained pad, as well as a video of a woman in the shower with blood running down her legs, all the way back in 2017. Prior to this, Always, another sanitary napkin company, used a visual of a cartoon pad that looked like a maze with a red circle in mid 2011. The Kotex ad is the most recent ad to attempt a break in the typically taboo topic of the female condition. Historically, period products have been shown with the infamous blue liquid because it was associated with cleaning supplies (think toilet bowl cleaner and Windex). Blue liquid then became the staple colour among all brands, because showing red liquid could make people feel uneasy. What makes me uneasy is how

I have been conditioned to feel the need to hide this uncontrollable phenomenon. I did not ask to experience grueling cramps, mood swings, hormonal acne or an unpredictable amount of blood exiting my vagina once a month. If people with uteruses are required to repeatedly be wary of which underwear they use each month, everyone else can handle seeing red liquid poured onto a pad in a 10-30 second advertisement. There is an unwritten law that we should be secretive about periods, period products and anything else uterus-related. I believe that a great way to normalize periods should begin in elementary school when the sex education lesson unit comes around. When I was in elementary school, I was corralled into a classroom three doors down from where the boys were gathered. I learned about the magic of “becoming a woman” and the wonderful changes my body would soon go through. To this day, I still don’t know what the boys discussed in their session (back in 2003 I imagined it was Yu Gi Oh cards and Razor Scooters). If we had those discussions together, maybe the two groups wouldn’t feel so unprepared for what the other gender was going through. If the sex and body talk happened in one room, future boyfriends might be more sympathetic and knowledgeable about periods. For the folks that are already experiencing body dysmorphia at that age, they can have insight to what goes on with their gender identity without outing themselves before they’re ready. Hopefully, U by Kotex has ignited a flame under other period product companies and we will be seeing more honest advertisements in the future. For a lot of people, periods occur whether we like it or not, and we don’t want to feel like we are committing a crime each time we go to the washroom. We’d also like to not have to pay for the best products each month (or invest in reusable products), but that is another issue all together.

Homeowner’s Bias

Stats Canada and their foray into Twitter polls CAM LOESCHMANN Contributor

On Jan. 24 2020, Statistics Canada released a Twitter poll that seemed innocuous at first glance. “How old were you when you bought your first house?” The options began at “under 24” and ranged up to “over 46,” with the majority of those polled answering “25-34” (52.1 per cent at the time of writing). If one follows the fiction of the “American Dream” then this may seem reasonable, but personally, I only know one person who owns a home— my mother—and it’s a condo, not a house. She also bought it when she was in her fifties. This poll brings up some interesting questions. Who is answering this poll? Who made this tweet? What conclusion are they reaching based on this data? Most importantly, how would the data differ if there was an option for “I do not own a house?” The replies to a poll ran the predicted gamut of the 21st-century Canadian internet. Millennials overwhelmingly volunteered their renters’ status or commented “ok boomer,” while those able to participate in the poll talked about participation trophies and how much their homes from 1981 are now worth. One image posted by Twitter user Tristan A.F Long (@thelonglab) illustrated this issue poignantly, if you understood the reference. This image was an outline of a World War II military plane marked with red dots, representing gunfire damage, concentrated on the aircraft’s cockpit, tail, and the tips of the wings. Statistician Abraham Wauld famously rethought WWII bomber designs with his thinking on survivorship bias. Previously it was taught to reinforce those areas until Wauld considered the damage on the planes that could not even limp home. With that taken into consideration, those red points became a different set of information: how much damage an aircraft could take without falling to enemy fire. With no option for Canadians who are not homeowners, and knowing that in this given market they might never reach this milestone, there is a huge sector of people

who cannot place a vote. Survivorship bias, or in this case homeowner’s bias, has skewed the numbers in a way that cannot lead to accurate, thoughtful data. How much do we trust our national statistics and data service? Since 1918, this agency has existed under the federal government to provide social and economic statistical information. It has done this via surveys, census and, apparently, Twitter polls. This brings us to an interesting question: how is one of these unlike the other? Let us say, for example, that I needed answers about a particular aspect of Canadian life. For the sake of argument, I want to know how much Canadians spent in the last week, month and year on groceries. Let us also say that I, for whatever reason, do not trust any official channels to provide me with this information but instead prefer to ask Canadians directly. Now, approximately 37.8 million people live in this country. What would be the best, most accurate way to get the data I need?

(Above image description: Reply to Stats Canada’s Twitter poll. “Did a house write this?” Statistics Canada replies: “You caught us” with a smirk emoji and a house emoji. @BohemianEden says, “This is such an unprofessional response.”) The internet is hypothetically a great place to start as 91 per cent of people

across ten provinces were reported to be active online last year. It is, however, a very large place and there is no one avenue or website that would be simple. Facebook is something that many Canadians have access to, as is Twitter and Instagram. For those too serious for everyday social media, I might do something on LinkedIn. What about people who are on several or all of these sites? Let us consider people who might be comfortable giving me a sampling of their financial data but would only be comfortable with this if it is anonymous. Already, my survey methods are in the mud. Ideally, I would find every single internet user in this country, exactly once, and collect this information without violating privacy or letting anyone answer multiple times. Already we have another problem. If only 91 per cent of people across the ten provinces are active online this brings us to an approximate Canadian internet user count of 34.3 million. Very different from our 37.8 million total population count. To be sure, this discrepancy is not huge in the grand scheme of things. Let us not forget that the internet user data that Stats Canada provided me with did not include the territories. If the objective of my hypothetical grocery cost study was to look at the disparities in grocery spending between the provinces and territories, any internet-based study would be incredibly out of step as I would have no idea how many people would even see my study. A foray into census by Twitter poll is Stats Canada’s way of trying to be more visible and involved in Canadians’ everyday lives. The lack of forethought about who would see this tweet and who would be able to respond comes across as insulting and abrasive. This is an organization funded with our tax money. In order to stay up-todate in the internet age, they must remain reliable and nonpartisan—not succumb to the ease of polling Twitter users from their desks.

OPI NIONS

Doctor Pigeon “But doctor, what small eyes you have,” I say. “The better to diagnose you with,” they answer KATHERINE GRIFFITHS Contributor CYNTHIA TRAN VO Illustrator

If I was told that my radiology reports were being read by a Columba livia, the only thing that I would be impressed by is their understanding of the Latin name for a pigeon. Researchers from both the University of California and the University of Iowa conducted a study that shows pigeons can be trained to identify benign from malignant breast histopathology. Beyond the insane ability that pigeons can be trained to be even remotely successful in identifying diagnoses such as breast cancer, the time and effort it would take to train pigeons to that level of competency horrifies me. I understand that any advancements in health care should be considered a win. However, the amount of effort it would take to train a legion of pigeons capable of producing effective data seems like it mitigates the need for medical training. Not to mention the fact that no ethics committee would agree to let a pigeon diagnosis be a standalone discipline within health care, therefore needing radiologist and

pathologists to then confirm the pigeons’ findings. There would need to be pigeon handlers, cleaners, feeders, and animal rights legislation allowing pigeons to work in a hospital or clinic setting. Pigeons also do not have the best reputation for hygiene, so the patient safety aspect would be a hard one to work around. Can we safely house pigeons in the imaging departments of our hospital and not spread even more disease? While pigeons have the ability to differentiate stimuli, the article suggests that there is still human input required. The images need to be manipulated by human hands, to the trained pigeons, and then the interpretations then need to be recorded, again by the human. Depending on how many pigeons are on staff, that amplifies the human staff required to handle them. While, it seems like a great job creator, I am not sure that it would be the best use of taxpayer dollars. Despite the logistics and relevance of the study, it is fascinating to learn the birds’

abilities to distinguish between benign and malignant breast tumors. However, the lack of complete accuracy is troublesome. Humans, too, can make errors in health care. However, I would feel much more confident knowing that those errors came from someone who might ask for a second opinion later on. A physician can be spoken to, reasoned with and questioned. And while it seems like a great technique to aid in the diagnosis of cancer with the aid of the mighty pigeon, it concerns me that this was even tested. I have images of a seasoned radiologist handing out food remnants to a bird, who stares at images just as intently as the radiologist, but is dreaming about hitting up the garbage pile on its break. It certainly does not align with my idea of a medical breakthrough at all. Let’s leave the medical images to the doctors that have spent years training for this very job, without the need for breadcrumb bribes.

OPI NIONS

Rideshare and Service Animals

Do ridesharing drivers have a right to choose who they service? WEN ZHAI Contributor IAN KAART Illustrator

Some Uber and Lyft drivers in Seattle are refusing to pick up people with service dogs, even though under their terms and conditions they are required to respect the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and allow service animals in their vehicles. Do ridesharing drivers have a right to choose who they service? As I’ve seen fellow students taking the bus with their service dogs to school, I wondered: Isn’t it discriminatory to refuse people with service dogs? I consulted the social justice education textbook Is Everyone Really Equal?, where discrimination is defined as “action based on prejudice toward social others,” warning of different forms such as “ignoring, avoiding, excluding, ridicule, jokes, slander, threats and violence”. Both the US and Canada have explicit restrictions on discrimination against people who uses service dogs. Discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation is strictly prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), while Canadian laws also prohibit ridesharing drivers from discriminating

against people with service animals, including refusal to provide service. What if the driver has medical conditions such as asthma and what if the driver has some kind of phobia towards dogs? Ridesharing companies have anticipated many different scenarios and indicated a driver’s expected or recommended actions in their service contracts. All drivers who use Uber and Lyft are well aware that they shouldn’t turn down passengers with service animals—meaning those who are allergic should seek other work elsewhere. The service animal policies of both companies make it very clear that it is illegal (similar to not wearing seatbelts) for drivers to refuse service to riders with service animals. Any refusal because of the service animal is a violation of the law and the agreement with ridesharing companies, resulting in penalties upon confirmed allegations ranging from being permanently deactivated from the driver app to being “liable to civil and government penalties.” But what if other passengers are allergic or refuse to share with service animals? According to Lyft, that rider “may ask to

request a different ride” and the driver may cancel their ride without penalties. How does a driver know whether an animal is a service animal, since the animals are not required to wear tags? While the driver certainly can ask the passenger to confirm, Lyft suggests drivers accommodate all service animals since it’s very rare that people will report a non-service animal falsely and those passengers who do so might face deactivation. In practice, drivers technically have the right to turn down non-service animals since there are no legal requirements for this yet. With all that being said, laws and regulations only define the baseline of actions. Ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft could provide training or at least raise awareness against discrimination towards people with service animals, but personal experiences and feelings always ring louder.

The Young, the Restless and the Gamechangers Lessons from Finland on gender equality and leadership in politics LENA ORLOVA Contributor

34, 32, 34, 32, 55. No, these are not the numbers of your next lottery ticket, these are the ages of Finland’s government leaders. Sanna Marin, at 34, was elected to lead a 5-party coalition on Dec. 10, 2019. She made world news as one of the youngest female politicians in history. Marin adds a fresh face to the line-up of 50-something-year-old men preceding her. Canada has its own string of primarily male, white, or upper class government leaders. The first and only ever serving Canadian female prime minister was Kim Campbell, who held one short, lacklustre term in 1993. Seventeen years later in 2010, Canada secured a modest 50th place in international ranking of female representation in parliament. We were preceded by Rwanda, Bolivia, and Costa Rica among others. In a recent article on “rewilding politics”, Guardian’s columnist George Monbiot argues the nature of Western politics is a topdown control system. The richest and most powerful people pay for expensive social media management in order to spread inaccurate, highly biased information. We only have to remember the torrent of attack ads against Justin Trudeau sponsored by the Conservative Party during 2019 elections. This kind of playground bullying is a well-documented method of winning an electorate misinformed by superficial media. One only has to look across the border for the results: hello Trump! While we air each other’s dirty laundry, Finland makes headway in information education. In 2014, Finland instated a “programme to counter fake news.” Moinbot writes, “The result is that Finns have been ranked, in a recent study of 35 nations, the people most resistant to post-truth politics.” All defamatory campaign strategies do is erode trust and no one comes out the winner. “The much bigger change is this: to stop seeking to control people from the center[…]” argues Moinbot. “I believe the best antidote to demagoguery is the opposite process: radical trust. To the greatest extent possible, parties and governments should trust communities to identify their own needs and make their own decisions.” The government can better identify the needs of the electorate if the government consists of those who genuinely identify and advocate for the values of their community. Instead, our population of women, minorities, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, LGTBQ+ and working-class individuals has a parliament lacking many of these identifications. “Most MPs are married, 30 per cent are bilingual, 13 per cent were born outside of Canada, women make up 26 per cent of the House, 14 per cent are visible minorities, 3 per cent are Indigenous, most studied politics, most were lawyers, and more have post-

secondary education” summarized researcher Kai Chan to Hill Times. In Vancouver, most Translink, Metro Vancouver and Lower Mainland city hall jobs still employ an overwhelming percentage of men. In a recent news series on salaries, the Vancouver Sun reported that men comprise 80 percent of these high earners. “There are nearly 9,000 employees who make more than $75,000 annually, but there is a shocking gender divide: 7,150 of these employees are men, while only 1,800 are women,” write Lori Culbert and Nathan Griffiths. Underneath efforts to increase female representation lurks the danger of more surface-level marketing politics. “Parties are willing to choose women as leaders when they don’t really think they’ve got a chance of winning power,” said Mount Royal University’s Lori Williams in an interview with CTV News. “Women bring a different perspective to the table. Often, they focus more on family issues like domestic violence, care for elders, and children.” For Finland, Sanna Marin ushers a new wave of modern leadership. Some believe that her age works to her advantage, facilitating communication between other party leaders. To run a 5-party coalition government she needs to build trust—something the world needs now more than ever. Infighting between political parties sucks up energy better used to address looming problems such as climate change, overpopulation, housing crises, class divides, pollution and increasing health concerns. This is a new way of approaching politics, which makes sense since Marin is a new kind of person to see on the world stage. “Marin is something of a poster child for the egalitarian Nordic model of social democracy. Raised by her mother and her female partner, she comes from what she calls a ‘rainbow family’ and moved around a lot as a child.” writes Philiip O’Connor in the Irish Times. “She worked in a bakery and as a cashier while taking advantage of Finland’s generous education system to get her degree in Administrative Science.” We can relate. Most of us reading the Capilano Courier aren’t lawyers, graduates or millionaires. But we are contributing members of society who pay taxes, work in bakeries and coffee shops, use public services and engage with our community. We don’t have to be like Finland and we don’t have to be perfect, but we can learn from what’s outside the box. Like a child looking up to a mentor, Finland is an example of the kind of goals and values we strive to reach. Finland teaches us that leaders don’t have to be old, upper class, rich or a specific gender. People from all walks of life can become leaders of their community.

OPI NIONS

In the midst of Tinder’s catfishing catastrophe, an app called Noonlight offers a panic-relieving solution VALERIA VELAZQUEZ Contributor CYNTHIA TRAN VO Illustrator

On Jan.23, 2020, the giant of dating apps launched two new functions dedicated to the safety of its users. Tinder, in collaboration with Noonlight, added both photo verification and a panic button to its app. Sounds great, right? However, in order for the functions to work, the user needs to have both apps installed on their device. Unfortunately, the Noonlight App is still not available in Canada, so we won’t have access to these safety features yet. However, the functions might be available in the future, and the fact that they are being tested in the US will give us a perfect opportunity to discover if they will actually work. Photo verification is designed to verify and authenticate the users. It is designed to decrease the number of people who catfish and trick subjects by avoiding their real identity. The way that I see it is that, yeah, it is going to be cool to not get tricked thinking you are talking to a hot supermodel when you are actually talking with an old creepy dude (trust me, this happens a lot) but I think there will still be ways around it. Tricky people always find ways. Not to scare or anything (or to give ideas), but a person could just not authenticate their account and make excuses for it. For all we know, people could say that it’s just not available in their region yet or that they don’t have the newest version of the app, or any other stupid explanation as to why their photos are not verified.. The other feature, and the one that is being the most highlighted, is the panic button. The way this will work is

the following; Users sync the apps, and whenever they go on a date they place the details on the Noonlight app. These include who they’re going with, as well as when and where the date takes place. This will activate a silent panic button on the app which the users can use if they ever feel endangered or uncomfortable by their date. This “ideal scenario” assumes that the subject will be able to reach for their phone and press the button to ask for help. However, we all know that this is not the way things always happen. Someone might find themselves in a position where they’re unable to reach for their phone when they feel at risk. They could be drugged without realizing, they could be away from their phone, or they could have had their phone taken away from them. The fact is, dangerous situations can happen with or without a safety feature on the dating app. Yes, a panic button might reduce the probability of people trying to commit an act of violence, although it’s important to keep in mind that people can always find ways around safeguards. We still need to be careful. Apps like these should have filters, regulations, and tools to care for their users—but the fact that they are trying is a step forward. It's not going to be enough to keep someone out of danger, but steps towards creating a safe environment on dating apps are finally being taken. We still have a long way to go to get to online and real life dating communities where safety is a given and not something we have to worry about every time.

See the animated illustration on www.capilanocourier.com

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The Complicated Legacy Of Kobe Bryant Bryant was a basketball legend, but we need to remain honest about his life HASSAN MERALI Contributor

Warning: this article contains references to sexual assault that may trigger trauma. If you need support, please go to Student Affairs (LB 116) or Counselling Services (BR212). Although Kobe Bryant was my favourite player growing up, I stopped idolizing him a long time ago but when he died in January I was affected a lot more than I thought I’d be. Perhaps the fact that I’d just lost my grandfather made it harder. Maybe it was the nostalgia of my family living in LA when Kobe and the Lakers won their third championship in a row. Maybe it was because shortly after my dad passed away playing basketball, the sport we both loved, I had to watch our favourite team lose in the finals to the Pistons. Maybe it was because I spent so much time arguing with my friend Connor about who got to be the Lakers when we played NBA 2K, or that we’d both yell “Kobe!” after making a shot when we played in my driveway. I messaged Connor immediately after the news of Kobe’s death and we began recalling memories we’d shared of a man we had never met but felt we knew: the impossible fade-away jumpers, the legendary work-ethic and competitiveness, his famous game-winning buzzer-beaters. We reminisced about watching Kobe’s final game, when he closed out his legendary career by racking up a ridiculous 60 points at 37 years old. As we recounted our fond memories of Kobe, I told my friend about what had been bugging me since I heard the news. Kobe Bryant was charged with sexual assault in 2003, and as Robyn Doolittle recounted in the 2019 Globe and Mail article “This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like,” the case was emblematic of how horribly 40

reports of sexualized violence are treated in the courts of law and public opinion. The media cast doubt on the accuser’s character while portraying Kobe as deserving of compassion. Staff at the courthouse “accidentally” released details of the woman’s sexual history to the press, and her name and photo were leaked and published. Kobe’s legal team suggested that her having sex with another man close to the incident was the reason for her vaginal lacerations, even though her blood was found on Kobe’s shirt. The prosecution only dropped the case because his accuser decided not to testify after all of the death threats and hate mail. Kobe put out a statement apologizing for the ordeal she’d been through without an admission of guilt, saying that although he believed the encounter was consensual, “I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did… I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.” He lost some sponsors, but after the case faded away, his reputation recovered and his sponsorships flourished in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The sadness I felt about Kobe dying, was immediately followed by guilt, shame, and dissonance. The slut-shaming, the unfounded suspicion toward the accuser, the reckless attitudes of courthouse employees, the sympathetic press coverage toward the accused, and the character assassination are, as Doolittle points out, emblematic of the rape culture that prevents justice for survivors of sexualized violence. So many thoughts started to run through my head: How can I remember this man fondly when he abused his power this way? How must this woman feel about the whole

world mourning her rapist and singing his praises? I’ve openly identified as a feminist my entire life, proud to be a male ally. I’m the longest-serving member of our school’s consent education campaign and I’m proud of the work I do alongside the incredible women who run the campaign. I literally teach workshops about how rape culture perpetuates toxic gender norms that themselves perpetuate sexualized violence. How can I do that while feeling bad about the death of a man like Kobe Bryant? Am I just a big fucking hypocrite? When I read that Kobe died, I thought about wearing his jersey to school the next day, but decided against it after realizing I’d volunteered to help out at the consent campaign’s booth at an event. How could I continue to preach about consent after I texted my friend, “RIP Kobe Bean Bryant”? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. I know I shouldn’t mourn a man that almost certainly sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman, and definitely used his power to drag her through the mud when she tried to pursue justice. Yet, I couldn’t help watching highlights from his illustrious 20 year career before sitting down to write this article. Part of me wants to hold on to the good memories I had that involved Kobe: watching and playing basketball with friends and family. Can I hold onto those without deifying him? Can I feel bad for his wife, who just lost her husband and 13-yearold daughter, and his accuser at the same time? I’m not certain about how I should feel. The only things I know for certain are that his legacy is complicated, and Kobe Bryant is as polarizing in death as he was in life.

Media, Responsibility and the 280-Character Obituary That Shouldn’t Have Been Even tabloids need to be held accountable for journalistic integrity and accountability MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

I was in my seat during an intermission of the play Dirty Dancing at the Edinburgh Playhouse, my sister-in-law had just gotten up to get refreshments for us both. I powered on my iPhone to check my messages only to stare down blankly at a Facebook message from my father: “Your mother is dead, this is not a joke. Call me.” It took me a few seconds to understand the message—confusion lingered due to the words “joke” and “dead” being used in the same sentence—before I burst into tears. Concerned patrons turned and patted my back and asked what was wrong, before telling me that I better rush home. I stumbled out of the theatre, tears streaking down my face as I searched for my sister-in-law. She found me after my sobs attracted the attention of others who had come to find out what was wrong. She ripped me away from the crowd, supported me under her arm and guided me out of the theatre. I had thought that receiving a Facebook message was the most impersonal and insensitive way to find out about a close family member dying. I was wrong. On Jan. 26, a helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, five other adults and two teenagers crashed in Calabasas, California, killing everyone on board. The gossip site and celebrity tabloid TMZ reported on his death before the investigation had finished—and perhaps more importantly, before next of kin could be notified. This means that Vanessa Bryant, wife and mother, along with the crash victims’ family members potentially found out about the death of their loved ones in a tabloid before officials could notify next of kin privately. It means that people spread the news of their death across the world faster than officials could gather evidence to give a factual report. People all over the world grieved for those losses before the victims’ families could. I have no idea where their family members were when they learned the news of their loved ones’ death, but I hope it was someplace private and that they were surrounded by someone caring. But more than the premature and insensitive notice of death to next-of-kin, it meant that false information about the crash, including false deaths and inaccurate details, was spread across various news networks. There is an old adage that journalists hear from the very beginning: It’s better to be right than first. This proverb is

undoubtedly used—maybe reworded and in different languages— in reputable newsrooms and publications across the world. I am a student journalist, have taken only one communications class to date and the importance of triple-checking facts and details over publishing first has already been ingrained in me. How then, did so many journalists, editors and media outlets miss the mark? Some may argue that TMZ isn’t, nor has ever been, a reputable news source. They’re a tabloid, meant to entertain and postulate on the lives of celebrities. While TMZ tends to be more accurate and less speculative than tabloids such as the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Star, their primary goal is to entertain, not to inform. However, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions that not only caused the victims’ families real grief but was the catalyst in spreading misinformation. Many of those who work for TMZ have journalism degrees. They had a responsibility and they failed. Don’t get me started on the legit news sources who ran with it. Part of the problem is America’s rather lax privacy laws, but the bigger issue is social media and how fast information is spread. Do me a favour: the next time you’re scrolling through Twitter and come across a buzz-worthy news story and start to retweet—stop. Read through the news source, examine who the news source is and determine their credibility. Try to find another credible source with a similar story, and think about who the story will affect. And if you’re in any journalistic position, whether it be a blog or working for the Globe and Mail, repeat after me: It’s better to right than first. Scratch that—it’s necessary to be right, not to be first.

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KATR I N A LAS H MAR

@katrinalashmarart 42

natal i e h eaman

@nmheaman FEATURED ARTI ST S

Comic Strip

A new wave of ‘nerdlesque’ style burlesque troupes like The Geekenders are taking the stage using pop culture to challenge views about women, identity and body image through performance SARAH ROSE Features Editor

Before the doors open and a storm of spotlights and glitter descend on the Rio Theatre, 30-year-old Fairlith Harvey takes a moment to sit down and prepare. She muses on the past seven years of work as the executive director of The Geekenders, a burlesque troupe where the acts are as comedic and warm as they are sexy. “It’s like a club of friends,” Harvey says with a smile, her hazel eyes always finding their way back to the stage. Below her, Belle from Beauty and the Beast is getting ready for tonight. His beard has almost as much glitter as his delicate rose corset and lace stockings. They’re grateful to rehearse here instead of the church basement they were in earlier. Vancouver has a limited number of available spaces, at high costs. But tonight, she’s just here to do what she does best: perform. Showtime creeps closer and the last of the eager patron’s trickle in from the brisk November rain in search of a rare last-minute seat. A sexy stormtrooper and Luke from Star Wars come on to wet the audience’s appetite with a short comedy routine. “May the floss be with you,” the stormtrooper says in a final send-off before the stage empties and the band strikes a tune. Bathed in garish fuchsia lights, Trixie Hobbitses offers a coy wink as she glides across the stage. Her 5’9” frame is like a painting of glitter and fishnets with a Harley Quinninspired diamond tattoo peeking out from her right shoulder. Trixie artfully peels off a handmade sequined aquamarine gown, offering expert shimmies and spins to the beat of the seventeen-piece big band (of Capilano music program alumni) playing “The Scare Floor.” Her mom claps along in her favourite seat, four rows back on the aisle. Of the hundreds of characters Trixie’s embodied in lingerie over the years, tonight, she’s Scully from Disney’s Monster’s Inc. In the final bars of her number, the adhesive holding her pasties gives way unexpectedly, unpredictable in the way people and bodies can be. Bare chested, the spirited Trixie dances as Scully with the kind of confidence that only comes from a woman who knows she is anything but a monster. The routine concludes to a 410-seat full house of roaring applause that waxes but hardly ever wanes for the rest of the two-hour performance. 44

Before she takes the stage tonight as Trixie Hobbitses, Fairlith Harvey is the woman in the unicorn onesie and red glittering bra behind the scenes of Vancouver’s pop-culture burlesque sensation: The Geekenders. The Vancouver native never imagined when she left for New York that her ideas would transform Vancouver’s members-only burlesque scene. At 18, Harvey studied musical theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, the alma mater of Grammy-winning artists like Janelle Monae. A kindred spirit to her Dirty Computer alumni, Harvey brought home a dream of redefining what it meant to be a woman onstage. In six years, The Geekenders shimmied their way from an underground club show, Geeks After Dark, to the shortlist for the Georgia Straight’s ‘Best of Vancouver’ for three consecutive years. This year, several regular cast members held best actor nominations from Broadway World Vancouver. Their overnight success in a city that had never seen anything like it before was unprecedented – and rare. Harvey runs a hand through her waterfall of pink and purple hair. “Every show could be our last,” she says. “That means we always try to make things as good as they possibly can be.” For the last decade, as the conventional strip club fades, burlesque has had a quiet renaissance. At the same time, Harvey’s self-dubbed ‘nerdlesque’ shows have also emerged on the scene. She can’t say exactly what the magic ingredient is, but she knows the formula draws deep from the historical, political roots of burlesque. The Geekenders nerdlesque brand uses pop culture as the medium to explore identity through performance. “It’s a political act to love myself on stage,” Harvey says. The Geekenders now have an agreement with the Rio to use the space, but Harvey adds, “we had to prove ourselves.” The proof came in the form of her first feature: a vaudeville style routine of the first Star Wars movie where she says The Geekenders had their lightning in a bottle moment. “We sold out four shows immediately, we had to turn away over 200 people at the door, ” she says, reminiscing. Rio owner Corinne Lee credits part of the Rio’s rescue

from looming development threats in 2018 to the diverse types of entertainment on her stage – and the relationship is symbiotic. Having the Rio as a bedrock proved to be a large contributor to The Geekenders success as a regular sold-out fixture. With independent single-screen theatres in Vancouver having all but vanished in the last thirty years, having a dedicated performance venue is crucial. Other performance companies creating nerdlesque style shows like the Alberta-based Fanchix face similar struggles. Despite the show’s success with both adult and all-ages entertainment, the Fanchix’s demand for venues showcasing adult-only performances is driven by a need for freer expression. Fanchix founder Sessla Tygur explains how, “sometimes the venue or event organizers will enforce their own preferences of policies on to the overall act.” Personal discrimination is also a challenge for many of the Fanchix members who enjoy performing as ecdysiasts at conventional strip clubs. “It was very heartbreaking to have some of the Fanchix not be welcomed to perform at those venues, as they were being censored for their body types in many cases, not even their ability to perform.” Tygur says. Both The Geekenders and Fanchix feature performers of all sexualities, genders, races and body types as a rule. Today, The Geekenders have a roster of over 300 performers, and every show will feature at least one new performer. Harvey wants audiences to see themselves and the characters they love in a way they haven’t before, “R2D2 is just a little garbage can, why can’t it be a girl?” Harvey laughs, “just being a person is performative.” The Geekenders embrace the art of burlesque as something more than risqué entertainment with fishnets and nipple tassels. For Fairlith Harvey, burlesque is about what isn’t visible. Following the haze of work around tonight’s show, she’ll come home to read an email about an audience member who spent the opening number loudly complaining about her weight. “I don’t apologize. I don’t quit. I want to give the women in the audience a mirror where they see someone who looks like them, who loves her body,” says Harvey in an online reflection she penned about the show. “I am brave, because I know that every time I get up on stage, I will be hated by someone.”

Harvey’s sentiment is echoed by Fanchix’s Sessla Tygur, who says that the request she most often receives in her inbox is for more ‘actual’ plus-size models. “They are by far the most difficult to recruit for, because many of them are hesitant to believe how gorgeous others find them to be,” Tygur said. While larger professional theatre companies are slow to embrace change, the success of nerdlesque has become a catalyst for evolution. Part of this includes The Geekenders commitment to payment for all artists – no matter what. “The movement of independent theatres paying their performers has inspired bigger theaters to follow suit,” she says. The semi-professional musical performance group Theatre Under the Stars in Stanley Park previously paid performers nothing for up to two month runs. Now, they pay an honorarium After years of eighty-hour a week schedules, Harvey is transitioning into a less intensive position and now works with Kitty Glitter, her creative partner. Her long-term vision includes increasing arts tourism to the city, maybe one day having The Geekenders’ own theatre, and starting a family. Until then The Geekenders are branching out with shows in Whistler and an interactive performance piece called Alice In Glitterland that debuted at the Fringe Festival this past spring. As the cast prances out to the final funk arrangement of The Lion King, dozens of performers in lingerie and glitter flood the stage for a final bow. Amidst the standing ovation and deafening chant for an encore is a group of friends stripping down restrictive identities to reveal themselves—each an instrument in a big band harmonizing to a pitch that’s all their own, dancing to the sway of their own tassels. “I want everyone to leave my shows having changed for the better.” Harvey smiles, “I just love warmth.”

FEATURES

At The Endo The Line A compassionate guide to understanding endometriosis KAILEIGH BUNTING Contributor KARLA MONTERROSA Illustrator

Painting the Picture Imagery can be a powerful tool when describing subjective experiences or intangible ideas. Doctors use specific adjectives frequently in their practice to help assess their patients more accurately, in hopes of settling on a diagnosis and treatment plan. Anything from ‘a stabbing pain’ to a ‘flaming hot fever’ can be helpful in distinguishing ‘normal’ from ‘serious issue’. Despite good intentions, the medical world isn’t perfect and the methods used by medical professionals looking for a diagnosis does not work for every case. For this reason, it is imperative that compassion, humility and front line education penetrate the medical bias in exam rooms. Endometriosis is a chronic illness affecting 1 in 10 women, in which cells similar to those that populate the inside of the uterus

begin to grow on other internal structures. These cells can migrate to different organs in the body (most commonly in the pelvic cavity) and through the production of pro-inflammatory factors, cause scarring of internal tissues, the adhesion of organs and other serious complications. Using imagery again for a moment: it is a disease gluing internal organs together with inflammatory adhesions like concrete wrapped around rebar. The result is a mix of debilitating pain, excruciating menstruation, infertility, and an increased risk of developing other chronic conditions. An entire thesaurus could be filled with words to describe endometriosis, however ‘it’s the fucking worst’ is also quite illustrative.

Invisible Despite the obvious gravity of endometriosis, a glaring lack of research on its pathology, diagnosis and treatment are prevalent today and throughout history. “My doctor refused to give me the surgery I needed,” Tabitha Britt, founder and chief editor of DO YOU ENDO magazine said when asked about the barriers women face in receiving a proper diagnosis for endometriosis. Britt has been an advocate for women with endometriosis since spending fourteen years advocating for her own life. “Seven gynecologists in, I started to doubt myself,” Britt wrote in an article for DO YOU ENDO, in which she highlights the importance of patient support. Women are more likely than men to have medical symptoms dismissed by professionals. Instead of listening and offering solutions, one doctor after the next touted: “that’s just normal period pain” as the only conclusion offered to Britt, like thousands of others. Not only is this apathy discouraging and dismissive, but it puts millions at risk for other complications the longer the disease is left untreated. 46

It takes women anywhere between seven to nine years of consistently reporting their symptoms to medical professionals before getting a diagnosis of endometriosis, according to The Endometriosis Network Canada. Dr. Sue Turgeon, a family physician located in East Vancouver, recognizes the gap in diagnosis for chronic pain. When asked about endometriosis, Dr. Turgeon expressed compassion for those facing the long road to treatment. Despite the surgery used to diagnose endometriosis being a relatively low-risk procedure, Dr. Turgeon stressed that surgery, big or small, should never be taken casually. While it is beneficial to understand that any surgery can leave patients at risk of serious side effects, it should not be an excuse for professional ignorance. Laparoscopic surgery is the only way to confirm a diagnosis, and it’s imperative that the medical bias surrounding a routine procedure not further impair the course of treatment.

Not Just Period Pain Menstruation, like most issues surrounding female-coded body parts, is fraught with historical taboos. Throw in chronic pain and a glossary of unpleasant symptoms and it becomes less surprising that endometriosis has been confined to the sterile walls of the OBGYN exam room. For an organ that was once the site of the mythical ‘hysteria’, it often feels like we’re still having the same conversation, especially when told the pain is all in our heads. Sarah Rose, the features editor for the Capilano Courier, “only learned about endometriosis after going through what seemed like a never-ending UTI and increasingly painful periods.” It took Rose educating herself about endometriosis on the internet and years of advocating for herself in the exam room to finally reach a medical team that believed in her illness and her pain. Not only does the lack of education on endometriosis increase diagnosis time, but it also blocks compassionate responses from friends, family and partners, leaving the weight of the illness to fall heavily on the shoulders of those it affects. “One of the more frustrating aspects of having

chronic pain is feeling the need to justify it constantly,” Rose said. The lack of conversation surrounding endometriosis only further disables support to patients, leaving lots of women feeling isolated, invalidated and ashamed of their condition. “If people want to be compassionate towards those with chronic pain…[they need to] seriously address some internal judgements they have about what chronic pain is supposed to look like...because pain doesn’t look like anything. It can be anyone, of any age, of any visible ability.” Britt echoes this sentiment. Through advocating for herself, Britt started DO YOU ENDO as a platform for expression, education and de-stigmatization of endometriosis not just for those who suffer but for partners, trans individuals and anyone looking to know what’s going on with their body. DO YOU ENDO magazine hopes to encourage empathy and create a support system for everyone to benefit from; “for individuals with Endometriosis by individuals with Endometriosis”.

Treatment: the good the bad and the ugly Even after diagnosis, the fight for patients with endometriosis of any stage continues. Lack of research and professional ignorance are major barriers on the road to treatment for women with endometriosis, specifically when reviewing the applications of hormonal therapy for women with pelvic pain. Despite mounting awareness on clinical transparency, many treatment trials are funded by industry backers, leading to unanswered questions surrounding their validity. In a study published by The Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal, “trials sponsored by [the pharmasutical] industry were nearly four times less likely to publish their results than non-industry-sponsored trials, even though these trials typically had larger sample sizes and were completed faster.” Endometriosis is momentarily in the media spotlight thanks to commercials for the new drug Elagolix. Otherwise known as ‘leuprorelin’, it’s a synthetic gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) found under brand names such as Lupron, Elagolix and Eligard. In a commercial it sounds fine, but leuprorelin is a type of chemotherapy drug controversially being used for endometriosis related pain. Like all chemotherapy drugs, it attacks both cancerous and non-cancerous cells. Some doctors purport it can diagnose endometriosis simply via pain reduction. This is false. Leuprorelin inhibits the release of naturally occurring estrogen, pushing the body into a state of chemically induced menopause. The Obstetrics

and Gynecology Journal reported that patients who had been prescribed leuprorelin had an average decrease in pelvic pain and other endometriosis-related symptoms, but a survey conducted by the Endometriosis Research Center found that almost half of the responding women reported it to be “intolerable” and “not helpful”. The ugly truth is in certain studies on leuprorelin use for endometriosis, the lead investigator perpetrated scientific misconduct and admitted to falsifying or fabricating 80 per cent of the data in two published studies on the drug, according to the Federal Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity. Ultimately, leuprorelin has not been proven to be significantly more effective in treating endometriosis related pain than oral contraceptives, a safer hormonal treatment more widely available and less expensive. Many women have come out since being treated with leuprorelin and stated that even after discontinuation, they suffer permanent side effects or it caused issues greater than the pain it was intended to reduce. The fact of the matter is too many women receiving pills and injections are under-informed on the potential side effects, as well as dismissed when concerns surrounding these side effects are uncovered. It’s one thing if the drug works and does what it’s supposed to do. It’s another dangerous issue altogether if the drug doesn’t work and was approved on faulty data.

Compassion breaks ignorance Overall, a lack of education infects both the medical community and those faced with endometriosis. From ignorance of the side effects of potential treatments, to not providing the public with factual information on the condition, the entire system is built on a defective frame. Britt recalled reading a blog comment from an eleven-year-old girl who was advised by her doctor to “get a hysterectomy,” a surgery that involves removing the uterus from the body in hopes of stopping the spread of endometriosis. This is the tip of the iceberg when speaking of patient horror stories and is something no patient should have to experience in the first place.

“It’s crucial that not just those with [endometriosis] be part of the conversation,” said Rose. We’ve been talking for a long time; we need others without it to learn too. When more people know [about endometriosis], more people will feel okay speaking up about it.” During International Women’s History Month, it’s high time women’s health issues like endometriosis are freed from bias, and a better time than ever to practice patience, extend compassion and embrace education instead of ignorance. FEATURES

In Good Spirits Once a symbol of creativity and enlightenment, absinthe became a symbol of madness. Over a century later, BC distilleries have a new-found love for the devil in a little green bottle TOM BALOG Contributor CORALIE MAYER-TRAYNOR Illustrator

The stench of death filled the street of a small Swiss village in 1905. Standing before the bodies of his dead family sobbing, like a man walking to the gallows was Jean Lanfray. “Please, tell me I haven’t done this,” he pleaded against his memories as empty as the litres of wine bottles he drank the previous night. Lanfray’s crimes blazed across the headlines of Europe. His murder dubbed a result of madness, the Green Demon it was called, something so insidious the U.S. Food Board declared it “one of the worst enemies of man.” I stroll down the cobbled streets of Gastown on a brisk evening. Yellow streetlights illuminate 19th-century red-brick buildings and the trees awaiting spring. Some of the original spirit is still here, at the bottom of a glass or in ghost stories. Tonight, I’m chasing the most demonized alcoholic spirit in history — absinthe. Before the press, the temperance movement and wine industry transformed it into the Green Demon, la fée verte (the Green Fairy, a nickname used affectionately among many esteemed enthusiasts) was a spirit revered by artists, poets and bohemians alike. By 1914 absinthe was banned across Europe and the United States, where it remained banned for over a century. Despite finding a resurgence in BC distilleries and bars, the aftertaste of absinthe’s bloodied history is still hard to chase. I find my way into Pourhouse, a busy bar on Water Street filled with well-dressed people conversing in low light. I wait patiently. The hostess leads me to a corner spot at the bar, next to a vintage gas lamp and Remington Rand typewriter. “First time?” The bartender asked. “Yeah,” I respond. “Alright, let's have some fun with this.” He grabs a small ice water

fountain, tall stemmed glass and pours in my drink of choice. Finally, he places a slotted spoon over the glass with a single sugar cube on top. Two men in business suits look over at the commencing ritual in front of me. “Let us know if you see our futures,” one of them mumbles. The bartender gently twists open the valve on the fountain and ice water begins to drip, slowly and intentionally. Before imagining the future, it’s important to dwell on the past. “Absinthe is very heavy on rituals and tradition,” says Simon Buttet at the Alchemist Distillery in Summerland, BC. Buttet is the soft-spoken Francophone behind The Green Frog, an absinthe inspired by the traditional recipe of his hometown, about 50 kilometres from absinthe’s birthplace in France. He describes the use of sugar cubes as more of a pre-prohibition artifact, when absinthe was significantly more bitter than it is now. That bitterness comes from absinthe’s eponymous ingredient: wormwood, also known as artemisia absinthium. It’s the second most bitter herb in the world next to rue, and by itself the kind of bitterness that lingers longer than Trump running for office again in 2020. Wormwood has been used in herbal medicine for thousands of years, but the infamy comes from thujone; a neurotoxic chemical purported to be behind absinthe’s alleged psychotropic properties. A bit like Trump’s politics, wild tales of insanity, debauchery and hallucinations encase absinthe’s lore. Vincent van Gogh’s infamous severed ear episode is rumoured to be a result of the spirit. The flamelike appearance of thujone containing thuja trees frequent his Auvers paintings. Pablo Picasso also featured absinthe in many of his paintings and sculptures. “Got tight on absinthe last night, did knife tricks,” Earnest Hemingway penned in a letter after a night on the town in Key West, Florida. Thujone isn’t exclusive to wormwood, it can be found in things like sage and even vermouth. However, “only absinthe is tracked for [the] thujone, and all of that is very political,” explains Buttet. The thujone in absinthe is relatively as benign as caffeine, but certain absinthe brands will falsely market their spirit as containing

100 percent thujone based on reputation alone. “I end up having this conversation a lot,” says Neil Campbell. Campbell is one of three distillers, and part time volunteer firefighters behind Psychedelic Jellyfish absinthe from Tofino Distillery in Tofino, BC. To Campbell, the tales of psychedelic experiences still following absinthe aren’t the result of thujone, but belief, “the power of belief is a big thing.” Absinthe’s political significance traces back to its widespread use as medicine among French soldiers during the FrancoPrussian war. The end of the FrancoPrussian war birthed the Belle Epoque, which was France’s own artistic and spiritual enlightenment. With wine out of the way for a decade thanks to pest-ravaged vineyards across Europe, absinthe became France’s muse. World War I ended the Belle Epoque in 1914 and with it, the era of absinthe. Angry wine moguls partnered with the temperance movement to run smear campaigns, vilifying absinthe as the reason behind everything from brutal crimes like the Lanfray murders, to France’s unpreparedness for World War I. “It has a terrible past, but a wonderfully artistic past based in an immense mountain of war,” muses Campbell. In roughly 40 years, absinthe went from medical tincture to a demon drug supposedly causing many of the ailments it was originally used to treat. I calmly watch the ice water slowly dissolve the sugar cube as the gas lamp flickers beside me, creating an aura of elegance and temporary sophistication. “You'll see the absinthe go from clear light green to cloudy white, it's known as the ouzo effect,” the bartender tells me. The drink is typically diluted with ice water anywhere from a 1:1 to 1:5 ratio depending on individual tastes. Oils from the herbs are soluble in the high percentage of alcohol and once diluted in water, they are released to create the louche or cloudiness. The story of absinthe is, ultimately, a war story of social polemics between alcoholism, public and political ideologies. Absinthe, like Lanfray, and by some extension Germany after WWI became the devilish symbol people needed during intense conflict. Take Taboo, the absinthe distilled by Okanagan

Spirits in Kelowna, BC – It’s a Polynesian word that etymologically expresses itself in prohibition and restriction. There’s a Freudian idea where the taboo behaves like a contagion, the prohibited desire becomes displaced to the unconscious motivations driving them. Arguably, it’s within taboos that the real history of society is revealed, when all those prescriptive labels are peeled back. “I think there’s a romance associated with the taboo,” says Campbell. In a way, Campbell’s Psychedelic Jellyfish is a love letter to the Belle Epoque spirit. “[Absinthe] has such a brooding, solemn history, we wanted to introduce it again as a fun spirit,” he said. From the namesake to its fully certified organic ingredients, Psychedelic Jellyfish incorporates the lighthearted glow of Tofino and its own bohemian-esque history. “We follow a recipe from 1858,” Campbell added, “it’s as authentic as any European absinthe.” Ted Bureaux is the eccentric microbiologist behind the beginning of absinthe’s North American Renaissance, with his own award-winning absinthe Jade 1901. Almost a mystic in his own right, Bureaux believes, “we’re living in a golden age of the green stuff.” Alchemist Distillery and Tofino Distillery are part of the seven distilleries in BC making traditional absinthe. Aside from Dillon’s absinthe in Ontario, BC is the only province in Canada making absinthe. “It’s intensive labour, but we believe in it and enjoy putting it out in the world,” Campbell says. He pauses for a moment, his voice shifting playfully to ask about the unusually bright February sun blanketing the sky. “We’re just trying to make it fun again, it’s a cultural experience.” As Hemingway wrote in For Whom the Bell Tolls, “absinthe is […] idea changing liquid alchemy. It’s supposed to rot your brain, but I don’t believe it. It only changes the ideas.” Alchemist Distillery, Tofino Distillery and Oakanagan Spirits can be found at BC Distilled on April 4 at the Croatian Cultural Center, a showcase of BC’s unique micro-distillery culture.

FEATURES

Social (Media) Etiquette We all have TMI in our bios, and it’s okay CLARISSA SABILE Columnist

Oversharing online was a concept many were introduced to in high school, and one that I personally let go of when I graduated. The importance of keeping accounts private, deleting intimate data, and avoiding online engagements with strangers was drilled into us by parental fears of predators. But, with the extent of the world wide web and an immature craving to disobey, the warnings didn’t stop an entire underage generation from signing up for Facebook and spending their evenings on Omegle. Today, nothing much has changed, and users continue to share personal information online. Maybe the only thing that has changed is how comfortable we’ve become with doing it. Enter: the public bio TMI. Social media bios are universally used to provide a small bit of identity context for others. Depending on where they’re posted (your LinkedIn and Grindr accounts probably look quite different), we define ourselves in certain ways to set a good impression and make forming social connections a bit easier. Social media always involves a dimension of self-image: our digital personas compensate for our less interesting/attractive/ active (the list goes on) real life personalities. It became a natural, human instinct to present ourselves online as better than we actually are. With that being said, sometimes, the information we voluntarily add in social media bios is excessive or exaggerated. But worse than that, often, the information we share is a not-allthat-interesting overshare. Being one of the last of the babies born before 2000, putting 1999 in my bio at one point in time felt like a reasonable choice. Most peoples’ fascination with the 90s is correlated to the fact that it set a majority of trends that have been recycled into relevance today. But, after more consideration, I figured it’s a bit like when people get tattoos or necklaces of their birth year —it’s not that significant. You were birthed, and that’s all. Logically, adding your birth year does allow for others to calculate your age. Realistically, when I’m old and pruny, I won’t be as pumped to feature 1999 anywhere. Similarly, advertising astrological signs is only useful when other accounts provide their own and you can determine your compatibility. Like many people, I don’t know my rising sign because my mom doesn’t know the exact time I was born and I don’t want to dig for my birth certificate. Hopefully, just including “Aries” is sufficient for all the Co-Star users out there. Relationship statuses are another popular choice for bio content. Initials, heart emojis, and my personal favourite—the exact month, day and year of when they started dating their significant other. This subgenre of users are just so in love that they have to let others know right away. And for whatever reason,

if someone did want to find out if they’re single, their Facebook statuses probably already provide enough evidence of their infatuation. Just leave the date out, man. Location is a piece of information that can be interesting to some, and not to others. If we’re discussing ethnicity, there’s nothing wrong with boasting a few flag emojis! However, I can still vividly remember my elementary classmates’ Tumblr accounts plastered with things like ‘VNCVR’ or ‘604/778’ in their “About Me” sections. Now this one is annoying for two reasons. There’s the (still) ignored issue of possible predators targeting your city, but the lack of vowels and the solo area code forces unknowing people to take extra steps in understanding what you’re trying to tell them. Luckily, I haven’t seen a case of this recently. But please, just spell the whole city name out. I’ve noticed a lot of classmate accounts highlighting the university they’re attending, some also including their projected year of graduation. The explicit prestige that comes with postsecondary education was cultivated by American TV shows and their apparent frat/sorority culture. But, as most Canadians can relate, a diploma is a diploma. It can help classmates in searching for and adding you to a Facebook group, but aside from friendrequesting and working on projects, the school title will be deleted soon after graduation day. Quotes are what I consider the make-or-break micromoments of whether I’d stay on a user’s social media page or click off. Responsible users include their career titles, hobbies, and links to their art or branded work. Since most young adults don’t hold particularly prestigious jobs just yet and spend most of their leisure time watching Netflix docuseries’ instead of doing assignments (I might’ve sent this to the editor a day late for the same reason), their social media bios tend to be unprofessional and probably meme-related. In the end, I’m a hypocrite: “1999” and “Unceded land aka Vancouver” are both currently in my Instagram bio. I probably put the date of when I officially secured my first boyfriend in elementary school in my Facebook “About Me” section too. And I absolutely added “CAPU CMNS” to my Twitter bio when I got accepted. Overexposure is almost a requirement when on the internet, and especially so when using social media. We want to be noticed, give our digital selves lives, and make connections with others. Since not talking to strangers online is arguably impossible now, and people are still posting whatever they want, it’s clear that the rules of the digital world have become more lenient. Growing up with the internet made us feel comfortable with what we share about ourselves, regardless of whether it’s considered too much information.

the long haul Reunion is sweet...literally MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

Men, women and non-binary folk stand in swarms with blooming bouquets in hand. Some shift on their feet, waiting anxiously for their loved ones to walk out of the airport doors and back into their lives. As the traveller walks into the arrivals lobby, there are hesitant searching glances around the room before their gaze lands on their quarry. There are exuberant embraces, laughter and sometimes tears as loved ones spin others around with joy. It’s a beautiful moment for many. Or at least that’s how films make reunion out to be. As I follow the signs towards the exit, suitcase rolling behind me, my stomach turning with every step I take, my anxiety decides to torture me. What if he’s not there? What if he doesn’t find me attractive anymore? I pause just before the door that leads to the waiting room, steal a breath and walk out. I glance around nervously until my eyes land on him. He smiles nervously, the nearly luminous orange bottle of Irn Bru in hand—a tradition between us—and walks toward me. He seems taller. His hair is shorter. We kiss fast and almost chaste. There’s a moment of silence before he takes my bag and my hand—his are clammy— and wheels us toward the exit. He asks about my flight and we make small talk on the way out—it’s awkward. It always is with me. We get in the car and drive towards his flat. I said something about the weather. I take a sip of the saccharine Irn Bru. He makes a joke and I laugh. I begin to relax. Finally, here is my husband. Reunion. We have been together for nearly eight years now, married for a year and a half. We’ve lived together for maybe half that time, visited each other in our prospective countries over the years and know each other almost too well. And still, every time the approaching date comes where one of us hops on a plane for that eight-to-ten hour flight, our stomachs churn with anxiety. We know we love each other, we’ve put in a lot of work to be together when it would have been much simpler and less lonely to find someone else in our own countries. And still, there is this dread, this nauseating fear that it won't be enough, that I won’t be enough or he won’t be. Time and distance only add to this anxiety, creating self-doubt even though you know somewhere deep down that everything will be alright. I’m unsure if my husband feels this same level of anxiety, but I do know that he stands nervously as he waits for me, his hair recently cut and is dressed well. He wants to make sure that he looks the same from the last time I saw him. So maybe this anxiety is universal? It doesn’t take long after we’re alone together for things

to start to ease into normality. We’ve been together long enough that we have habits and quirks together that have developed over time and seem natural to us. We talk about our mutual friends and his family who have become my family. I glance out the window, taking in the sights as we pass, the old tenements with Sainsbury’s, charity shops and bookies on the bottom. Red and white double-decker buses go up and down the narrow streets, and though they are driving on the opposite side of the road that I am used to, it isn’t novel to me. The sky is grey, typical for Edinburgh, but it’s familiar and at least I don’t have to be reaccustomed to it. I take my last sip of Irn Bru, knowing my poor teeth and body are deeply offended by the drink as we pull into the garage. We walk out, and I look up at the flats I lived in before I left Edinburgh and where my husband lives again and sigh. I am home. There is reunion here too. We spend the next couple weeks catching up on each other’s lives—despite being successful at maintaining a long-distance relationship, I am bad at it and don’t reply to messages about what I am up to as often as I should. We visit friends I haven’t seen in a while, places that are both of our favourites. He takes me to the pub we first met in, him reading a newspaper and chatting with the barmaid, me being a shy tourist and overtipping said barmaid. As we walk in, the guy behind the bar greets us both as if I’ve never left, pulls the tap and slides my husband’s usual over to him and asks me what I’ll be having. Later in my visit, we drive to the countryside to visit his family who threw together a “fake Christmas” for me two months after the date. We drink wine, open presents and I’m filled with an odd and almost foreign sense of belonging. I am not used to belonging, but that’s a story for another day. This is reunion. Our trips together only last a couple of weeks—for now—but they almost always have the same pattern: The apprehension leading up to the visit, the anxiety and fear at the airport and the slow sense of easing relief when everything is as it should be. Perhaps not the same. Everything and everyone must grow and adjust, but things are right. It doesn’t make the leading up to the reunion any easier, and as I write this article I am preparing for my trip over in a couple of days. My stomach already feels tense—though that could just be from the thought of flying. Reunions are scary, overwhelming with the sense of expectancy, but it's the relief afterwards, the sense of place and belonging that makes those first moments of awkwardness worth it.

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A CLOSER LISTEN

They are making Usher sing about the dead again CARLO JAVIER Columnist

It must’ve been the magic of television, but I could’ve sworn Usher was floating. At least this is how I perceived what I was seeing on my screen on Friday, January 31—just five days after the tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven other passengers. In a literal sense, Usher was not at all floating, but the way that his velvety voice traversed through the peaks and valleys of “Amazing Grace” made it seem as if he were. Much like an NBA athlete gliding through the air for a brief moment in time. He was here just a few days ago, singing in commemoration of the three-year anniversary of Prince’s death. Just as he was here over a decade ago, when he sang beside Michael Jackson’s casket in front of the millions that watched Jackson’s televised memorial service. It is 2020 and they are making Usher sing about the dead again. A significant part of my childhood in the Philippines was spent in the care of my godparents. When I was six, my mother gave up her accounting career to move to Canada as a caregiver—one of the pathways to immigration Filipinos can take, without the exorbitant costs of traditional means. My father worked a desk job for the Philippine government, under the department concerned with agrarian reform. It was not a luxurious position, but it was stable, and often involved trips to farmlands around the country. My godparents were avid basketball fans—the type who lived through the apex of Michael Jordan’s fame—and I acclimated quickly. You could say that a significant part of my identity was cultivated during my time under their care. While living with my godparents, I got to spend a lot of time with their son, Ben. He was about 25 years older than I was and already enjoyed a successful career in pharmaceuticals when we started hanging out. In his athletic heyday, Ben was a point guard. Later in my life, I would become one, too. The Philippines can get incredibly humid in the summertime, but we were privileged enough to be able to afford and install an air conditioner in one of our bedrooms. Whenever Ben would visit, my father would let him nap in the room with the air conditioner turned on, even during the afternoons. One afternoon in 2004, Ben called me over to catch the infamous Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers brawl that saw players and fans fight one another. A year later, we saw Usher win half of the eight Grammy nominations he received for Confessions. I was in Canada a year after that. I watched Usher’s voice break when he sang “Gone Too Soon” for Michael Jackson. I saw the very moment towards the end, when his impeccable, angelic voice broke, as he willed his way through the tribute for his artistic hero. It seemed impossible for Usher’s voice to break. This guy sang note-for-note with Alicia Keys in “My Boo.” He did “Burn” and he did “Climax.” I was certain his voice was unbreakable. We thought those things about Michael Jackson, too, and we 52

certainly thought them about Kobe Bryant. It seems impossible for our cultural icons to die. That is, of course, until they do. Three years after the Michael Jackson tribute, Usher’s stepson died following a boating accident. We did not sing for him. It’s been almost 15 years since my family permanently left the Philippines for Canada, and I have not been back since. Even my parents who maintain familial ties to the country have limited their trips to bare necessity. My mother has gone back twice. Once when my grandmother passed, and again when grandfather did. My father’s only trip back was when Ben died. On the night Usher sang “Amazing Grace” to honour Bryant and those who died in the helicopter crash, rehearsal photos surfaced on social media. The images showed Usher wearing a #8 Bryant jersey, sitting alone in the empty stands of the Staples Center, surrounded by a sea of #24 Bryant jerseys draped over the seats. The images were taken from a number of different angles, but they all tell the same story. There, Usher sat alone with a blank gaze into nothingness, and shoulders slouched in defeat. For all of his energetic live performances and the galvanizing voice he was blessed with, in that moment, like he did in 2009, Usher broke. Lebron James of the Los Angeles Lakers would later take the microphone and speak on the tragedy. The teams then played basketball, and we watched. Grief will often lead us to look to our stronger friends for counsel, guidance and words of healing that we can’t quite articulate ourselves. When my grandparents passed, they looked to their youngest daughter “to say a few words.” I did not see the service they held for Ben, but I imagine it was the godparents who helped raise me who led that process of healing. Usher is 41-years-old and three times we have asked him to use his voice to help carry our collective grief at the public tributes for our dead icons. Too often, we rely on our stronger friends to lift the weight of despair. Too often, we forget to check on our stronger friends to see if they themselves are doing okay. Usher still sang that night. He had to. And it must’ve been the magic of television, but I could’ve sworn he was floating, despite the impossible weight we’ve put on his shoulders.

THE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION SERIES

How to talk to people about sustainable consumption JAMIE LONG Columnist

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” - George Bernard Shaw Today, it is well-known that mass levels of consumption and natural resource exploitation by human activity is the leading cause of environmental crisis. Because of this, a shift towards more eco-aware values and behaviours is imperative for an ecologically stable future. If we are all aware, however, that human activity is the primary cause of environmental destruction, why hasn’t our collective behaviour changed? If you’re anything like me, you struggle to do virtually anything without considering the impact of your actions on the earth. But for others, this way of thinking doesn’t come quite so easily. In fact, studies in environmental psychology have identified some of the reasons why talking about the environment in productive, and behaviourinfluencing ways can be so difficult. In the face of today’s environmental destruction, we must consider the way we talk about our own human activity as a component of ecological disruption. In the past, mass-communication strategies attempting to improve environmentally responsible behaviour have been based primarily on the assumption that people only need to be educated about the risks of environmental devastation in order to start acting. This simplistic strategy, however, has yet to encourage the necessary volume of action to really be considered effective. Psychology has played a vital role in uncovering what does and does not work in terms of communication strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour. Oftentimes, people can be blinded to the true impact of their actions, but breaking this paralyzing hold is critical for any real behavioural change to occur. Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, outlined the inefficacy of most communication strategies. First off, because nature is non-human, people have a difficult

time grasping the importance and/or severity of the current environmental crisis. Secondly, through simply educating individuals on the state of today’s environmental crisis, their moral sensibilities often do not feel violated, and these sensibilities are essentially what function as the brain’s call to action. Lastly, because environmental crises are not seen as a threat to the immediate future, humans are slow to respond. To actually encourage action, studies have suggested that providing solution-oriented messages and provoking human emotion in environmental communication each play a meaningful role. When combined, these strategies have the potential to generate real and long-lasting shifts in human values, attitudes and behaviours regarding environmental care and protection. So what does this mean for you? There are simple ways you can apply these lessons in communication to your own life. When working to promote sustainable behaviour, I believe that it is essential to identify opportunities for positive change while at the same time outlining why these actions are important. For instance, instead of attempting to convince a friend to compost by simply providing facts, it might be more beneficial to explain how simple the process of composting actually is. At the same time, you could encourage the idea of how composting can benefit your friend as well as their community in order to ultimately set them up for success. With most topics, I would like to promote unconditional acceptance and understanding for all. But when our actions remain harmful to others (human and otherwise), I believe that meaningful conversations to raise selfawareness and inspire change are imperative. Touching further on the stimulation of emotions, some study results have suggested that motivating a guilty conscience in order to promote pro-environmental values and behaviours can be effective. But please approach this idea with a grain of salt, and

note that by writing this, I am not promoting anyone to outright guilt or shame their peers. Instead, I only want to highlight the potential benefits of increasing and promoting selfawareness in consideration of the humancaused environmental crisis that we are facing today. Overall, we need to hold not only ourselves, but each other accountable for our actions. Because solutions to currentday environmental devastation are so multifaceted and can seem so convoluted, I believe that a great place to start is simply through communicating. If we can find inspiration to open up a meaningful and impactful dialogue, then why not? Go for it! Share what you know and empower others to save the world while you’re at it!

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the recovering achiever The two-way street of helping others LENA ORLOVA Columnist

I learned that there comes a point in personal growth where the next step is to extend to others. We are taught that you receive what you give. You help yourself by helping someone else. The whole “Acts of Kindness” movement is based on this theory. Preachy, I know. But there is evidence to back it up. Surveys of people who do stuff for free (i.e. volunteers) show a lowered risk of depression, gained sense of purpose, physical and mental fitness, reduced stress and enhanced social networks. Despite all these benefits, I wasn’t about to go out and do anything for anyone two years ago. Before I started counselling school, I wasn’t interested in becoming a counsellor. I hated counsellors. And let me be clear — I mean any sort of counsellor. I mistrusted doctors, teachers, psychologists, gurus, coaches, and all those very helpful people who ran around looking for places to dump their guidance. Hearing other people give me the solutions to my problems didn’t work. It left me feeling behind, like I didn’t get the Book of Life everybody else seemed to have. When I walked into the lecture room of my then-future school, I knew it was the right place for me. Their philosophy was: don’t believe this, try it. Don’t talk about it, experience it. Experiential learning spoke to my perpetual dilemma. I was supposedly smart and objective. Yet, I couldn’t for the life of me understand the difference between knowing something and feeling it to be true. As my teachers say, I lived my life from my head. Seeing as the first year of the program was going to be completely self-oriented and based on personal growth rather than on actual counselling technique, I decided to give the experiential thing a try. I found out that underneath my bitter judgements, I had deeply wounded self-esteem. I felt inadequate. I believed I could only be helpful to others if I did things right, if I was right, and if I could solve other people’s problems. How would anyone benefit from anything less? What would be the point? I completely missed the most essential dimension of human relationships— one which is not based on words and logic. It’s said that only 20 per cent of our communication with one another is content-based. The other 80 per cent is composed of non-verbal cues: feeling, emotionality, body positioning, facial expression and energy vibes. We are biologically predisposed towards connection. We wouldn’t be here if our species didn’t learn to cooperate and live in communities for thousands of years. On our own, we aren’t a very impressive bunch. We don’t have hawk-like vision, we don’t run particularly quickly, we are not the biggest or the smallest of creatures, we don’t 54

have good teeth, we don’t know how to climb trees or swim very well and most of us live with our parents until we are at least 19. Whereas our natural instinct draws us closer together, we live in an increasingly isolated society. We are taught that we can face our struggles alone or that someone, some book, some faceless figure, has the answers to our problems. We think that if we do something, do enough, think enough, we will change. If this mentality worked, health and wellness wouldn’t be a billion-dollar industry. The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that 1 in 5 individuals will experience a mental health issue in their lifetime—that’s equal to 7.52 million people in Canada. Imagine the size of Vancouver tripled. I believe— rom personal experience, research and education—change doesn’t come from marketized fixes. Change is complex and takes time; it looks different for every person. My most change-evoking experience was taking the therapist’s seat. Every time I meet with a client at my practicum, I have to remind myself of a new definition of help. Help isn’t providing an answer or being right. It’s not boxing up a person’s struggles and putting pretty bows on top. Help is a manifestation of the inner drive to connect, our primal instinct to be together. Clients struggle with all types of issues like depression, isolation, relationship dysfunctions, work stress, child raising, toxic family dynamics and more. Do I have the answer to their dilemmas? No. Can I listen? Yes. Can I empathize? Yes. Can I connect? Yes. The weird thing is, you do get what you give. Connection is one thing that works both ways. The more you connect, the more connection you get and the better you feel—no matter which chair you’re sitting in.

additude adjustment The war on drugs SARAH ROSE Features Editor

The unopened prescription bottle sat on my desk for weeks before I finally peered inside to the ocean of blue pills. Sometimes I’d swirl them around, like looking down the barrel of a gun. Sometimes I’d pry them apart and watch the tiny balls rain down onto my palm. I felt a bit like Jonah; lost at sea, staring into the giant, abyssal maw of a strange beast. I’ve mentioned how I grew up finding comfort in swimming, but the first time my head flipped underwater in a kiddy pool at the impressionable age of four, I thrashed and screamed against it. The water hardly grazed past my hips, let alone the inflatable wings attached to my arms. Still, the muted alien sensation, the weight of it all pressing down against my body and hindering my vision challenged the only previous modus of control I knew. That one small moment of silence defined chaos through contrast, introducing the concept of fear simply by offering an alternative. There’s comfort in the islands of control we build for ourselves. But spend enough time marooned there and it becomes impossible to go back exactly the way you came. Time and tide eventually erase every trace of you on its sands. But a longing fluidity exists at the root of our nature that rebels against these illusory, self-constructed iron shores. Bringing with it waves of anxiety where we find ourselves submerged like toddlers in a kiddy pool for the first time. It’s strange how something so small can occupy such vast, ominous space. Like a bottle of prescription amphetamines sitting unopened on a desk. The topic of medication when it comes to ADHD is so fraught with stigma beyond that of other psychotropic medications that I can only skim the proverbial surface. It starts with this: Until the early 90’s, the medical community mistakenly believed children “outgrew” ADHD. The numbers reveal the truth: ADHD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder. Of the 6.4 million children aged 4 to17 diagnosed with ADHD as per the CDC, two-thirds

experienced disabling symptoms into adulthood. This doesn’t mean the onethird that didn’t no longer have ADHD, it means they developed sufficient coping mechanisms. Like many other psychiatric disorders, ADHD exists on a continuum (as well as having three sub-groupings of primary symptoms: inattentive, hyperactive/ impulsive and combined). No two brains are identical, and medications don’t work for everyone for various reasons. When I finally accepted my diagnosis, it took me months to get special clearance for my medication that would then sit unused for weeks. The first hurdle is due to BC’s provincial insurance plan still relying on three-decades worth of outdated research. The latter delay and arguably more damaging, is due to a series of beliefs I’d internalized throughout my life. I first learned about stimulant abuse in middle school by watching a VHS tape of someone frothing from the mouth at a rave, ten years before I learned about ADHD. The fear mongering of today’s anti-vaxxers take a chapter from their proteges of the late 80s and their anti-psychiatry “Ritalin Generation” movement. Pushed by the likes of the church of Scientology were numerous lawsuits alleging everything from addiction to “child zombies.” Despite robust research showing stimulant medication reduces the rate of substance abuse in ADHD patients by 60 per cent. This hysteria became so widespread that almost forty years later there are still books, documentaries, and endless streams of op-eds penning the horror stories of amphetamines—a witch hunt picking up right where the anti-psychiatrics left off after the last lawsuit was thrown out of court twenty years ago. At the frantically beating heart of it all is an idea I introduced at the start: in some way, ADHD isn’t real. If ADHD isn’t real, then it’s easy to justify the dangers of using amphetamines at a controlled dose to treat a disorder that doesn’t exist. That way, we still

feel in control. Normal. The first time I took one of those blue pills, I was afraid. Maybe it had the power to confirm the internal belief that I was damaged, or worse, couldn’t be fixed. Instead, I found control. I found a break in the storm of anxiety, self-hatred and exhaustion. And within that, for the first time, was a sense of control over my impulses, emotions and my own self-reflection. I hadn’t realized I was so out of sync until I finally tuned in. There’s a moment when gazing into an unbroken mirror or the ocean after a storm where we see our true reflection staring back for the first time. Encountering that vast unknown stirs up a primal fear. It’s a practical question that quietly lends itself to an existential one: who am I? Amphetamines didn’t “cure” me, as there is nothing to cure. I work hard to use all the strategies I’ve gathered over the years to manage my ADHD. What amphetamines showed me is that there’s a whole way of being, and new things to achieve that I never considered possible. No matter what some tired, half-baked garbage on Netflix says, I’m going to continue taking my pills because I want to find out what else lies beneath the surface.

C OLUMNS

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CAPI LAN O COU RI ER VOLUME 52, ISSUE NO.7

Capilano Courier | Vol. 52, Issue 7.

Articles inside

Recovering Achiever

Sustainable Consumption

ADDitude Adjustment

A Closer Listen

The Long Haul

Endrometriosis

COLUMNS

Absinthe

Nerdlesque

Kobe and his Legacy

Young Women as World Leaders

Dead Sperm Donors

Service Animals and Rideshare

News vs Social Media

Doctor Pigeon

Stats Canada and Houses

What's In My Bag

Thirteen

Life of a Doula

Kotex Colour Swap

CapU Music Showcase

Smilin' Buddha Cabaret

Artist Feature

Memorial Jazz

Pride Week

CapU Blues

No-Cost Contraception

Indigenous Filmmaking

Wet'suwet'en Walk-out

CSU VP

Director of Indigenous Affairs

CSU Elections

Rideshare Approval

International Women's Day