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NORTH VANCOUVER ×

MARCH 17TH 2014

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TREES AND THEIR UNDERGROUND SUPPORT SYSTEM SCHOOL SPIRIT

FOXY MAKEOVER

APARTHEID WEEK

GAME OF THRONES

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CAPILANO Courier 09

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News

A+C

features

opinions

columns

Calendar

CABOOSE

Large Waistlines

Kris Bulcraft

Cyborg Revolution

Misogyny Pill

Highway of Courage

Redman

Cliff Diner

VOLUME

Katherine Gillard News Editor

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

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Capilanocourier.com

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Leah Scheitel Editor-in-Chief

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:

THE CAPILANO COURIER

@capcourier

04

The Staff

2

@capilanocourier

of this tree-hugging, tree-planting, tree-humping university paper.

Kristi Alexandra Copy Editor

Andy Rice Arts + Culture Editor

Cheryl Swan Art Director

Therese Guieb Features Editor

Andrew Palmquist Production Manager

Faye Alexander Opinions Editor

Jeremy Hanlon Caboose Editor

Scott Moraes Managing Editor

Carlo Javier Staff Writer

Ricky Bao Business Manager

Lindsay Howe Marketing + Web Editor

Keara Farnan, Gabriel Scorgie, Paisley Conrad, Steve Tornes, Christine Janke, Reuben Krabbe, Alva Tee, Amber Bedard, Calvin deGroot, Layla Domino

Kristen Wright, Ksenia Kozhevnikova, Crystal Lee, Sydney Parent, Ekaterina Aristova , Alain Champagne, Emily McGratten, Cristian Fowlie , Cole Pauls

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

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

my love affair with lady luck “Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.” - Hunter S. Thompson I think my karma and luck may be constantly drunk. The way it wanders in and out of my life makes me think that it’s stumbling from bar to bar, looking for the cheapest shot of tequila. I have been both terribly unfortunate and freakishly lucky, and often concurrently. My karma is so fickle that I’m now terrified whenever something lucky and great happens to me. I’m conditioned to think it will immediately be followed by the death of my mother, or something equally terrible.

The trend became apparent in the winter of 2011. I was working at a backcountry lodge in the Kootenays and was withering away cleaning toilets and making terrible coffee for 40 people every morning. My professional life was suffering after a friend of mine got a promotion that I wanted and was technically my “boss”, and the lodge was sombre because of a fatality of a skier right before the New Year. After six years of working in the remote backcountry, that was the first time I experienced the loss of a guest. Two weeks later, I got shingles and crashed my very expensive truck in the same weekend. I didn’t even know I had shingles until the crash, thinking the pain was from the impact. I still have the evidence in the scars splattered on my lower back.

I needed a vehicle to work at the lodge, as we were responsible for getting ourselves in and out of work.

So my friend Erine sold me a 1996 Jeep Cherokee for the awesome price of $1 and a bottle of Baby Duck.

I had to clean it and insure it, but it was basically mine. This was the stroke of good luck I needed, until I figured out that a family of mice had moved into the heater, and I was so freezing cold driving the five hours to work. It was minus 25 out, in the middle of January, and I was driving around in a Jeep with no heat, but a large family of mice. Awesome.

The mice and I continued to get along, at least until a packrat figured out what was going on and killed the mice. He then made the trunk of the Jeep his home and would steal garbage from the kitchen and eat in the hood of my car. The hood was covered in chicken wings and vomit — the wings from the packrat, and the vomit from me — right after I would open up the hood of my Jeep and see him scurry away. It was an instinctive reaction and there has never been a point in my life where I needed more control over my gag reflex than that winter.

I finally conquered the packrat after one of the lodge dogs had gone after him and injured him past the point of return. He was bleeding all over and writhing in pain on the deck off of the kitchen. The cook,

Leah Scheitel × Editor-in-Chief

Yves, eased his pain with the swift swing of an axe, and once again, my luck was on the upswing. I still didn’t have a heater in my car, but at least it didn’t have rodents using it as a mobile home.

The luck didn’t last long. Two days later, I got a call from my dad saying that my stepbrother, Alex, had overdosed. This wasn’t hard news, as it had happened before, but this time he didn’t come back. He was 21 and had just fathered a beautiful baby girl. The rest of the winter was spent in a pretty dark place. Alex and I didn’t grow up together or spend much time together, but seeing some of the people I love the most hurt so much from the loss of him was horrible. And I still worry for his baby girl.

The tales of my turbulent luck are plentiful. After this dark winter, I was graced with the generosity of a family friend who had just lost her husband. He left behind a car in good condition, and she heard I needed one, so she sold me his 2004 Jeep Wrangler with a working heater for $2000. That Jeep is my most prized possession. Six months later, on my first night back in Vancouver, the window was smashed in while I went for dinner and $15,000 of camera gear was stolen, proving once again that my luck is drunk.

Because my luck ebbs and flows with such volatile force, I’ve grown weary of it. My lack of trust in my own luck has hindered opportunities at times. Recently, I’ve had some professional prospects open up, and if they work out as intended, they could be great for me. And now I’m terrified that something unlucky will happen. My cats might decide to run away and get their cuddles from someone cooler, or Saturday Night Live gets cancelled before I can be a host.

It would be nice to crusade past this fear and pursue my goals with relentless ambition, but if every two steps forward equals one massive step back, I can’t really be blamed if I just want to stay where I am and get cozy there. But really, what’s the fun in that? Yeah, shingles is painful and losing loved ones is life changing, but it would be a shame if that kept me at home with the blinds closed. If the winter of 2011 and losing my beloved teeth taught me anything decent, it would be that it’s worth it to battle past the shit and come back looking for Lady Luck. She may be elusive, but when she shows up, she puts an axe in your hand right when the packrat is about to get away.

Happy St. Paddy's Day.

tweets from their seats

THE VOICE BOX

God @TheTweetOfGod I don't know where the plane is either.

with: Scott Moraes

“Now that the Courier is coming to an end soon, what are you guys planning on doing at noon on Tuesdays?”

The Courier, coming to an end? Ha! The Courier will outlive us all. This year is coming to an end though, and really, I have no clue what we'll be doing. On my first Tuesday off, I will probably sleep in and then go for a two-hour long walk somewhere.

If it's sunny. If it's not, then Netflix. Maybe we'll all just go get pizza together, for old times' sake.

What's the point of the CSU even if they did answer your emails? Don't know. I'm the wrong person to ask. Ask the CSU. Send them an email or something.

“Are all the editorial staff at the Courier like one big family?”

If by family you mean “group of independently dysfunctional individuals who barely manage to get along,” yeah, kinda. Kidding, we get along just fine. But we're also pretty exclusive,

“I'm a Catholic, and I'm offended by your issue this week.

By having the rainbow colours on the cover behind the Pope, you're suggesting that either the Pope is homosexual or that he supports homosexual relationships. Which if you knew anything about the religion, it's just not true. And in your editorial, you say at one point that 'God sucked.' I respect everyone's right to believe whatever they want, but don't ridicule anyone's religion by saying that their God sucks. I would appreciate a retraction being printed in the paper, directed to all Catholics. Thank you.”

Retractions are for when we get facts wrong and then need to apologize for our mistake. In this case, there are no mistakes, we were simply exercising our freedom of expression. Thus, a retraction is not in order. We're sorry that you get offended so easily.

Professor Snape @_Snape_ Don’t cry because it's over Cry because you’re ugly.

Miss Faye @thecellardoor_ Juan Pablo is the worst bachelor ever. YOU ARE SHITTY #TheBachelorFinale #TheFinalRose #JuanPabloGross Tinder Pick Up Lines @TinderIines "On a scale of North Korea to America how free are you tomorrow night?" -University of Florida Kristi Alexandra @kristialexandra I haven't felt so emotionally invested in something that doesn't directly affect me since Heath Ledger's death. #lostmalaysianplane #vibes StuffCollegeKidsLike @Things4College Using anything as an excuse to get piss drunk Justin Bieber@justinbieber my music is my heart

THE CAPILANO COURIER

“What's the point of the CSU if they never answer any of my emails?”

traditional even. We don't allow for new members, they just complicate everything. I mean, contributors can come to the office on Tuesdays, but they don't get the rest of the perks. I'm even contractually prohibited to tell you what those are. But there are plenty.

Katherine Gillard @KatGillard "I have a queen sized bed now so I have room for snacks." #overheard #truethat

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The Voicebox is back, ready to humbly respond to your questions, concerns, and comments about anything. To inquire, just send a text to 778 - 689 - 4642 to anonymously "express" and "voice" your "opinion" and "thoughts" on any "subject" or "issue". And, as long as it's not offensive, we will publish it here, right in the Voicebox. It's a win - win, or whine - whine - whatever way you look at it.

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NEWS

KATHERINE GILLARD NEWS EDITOR

NEWS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

Board of governors meeting Covered by

Katherine Gillard

Kris Bulcroft and the other members of the Board of Governors at Capilano got together on the evening of March 12 to discuss the academic plan for the upcoming year, international students and the budget.

There was also discussion about who will be filling the positions of retiring board members which will be decided by the Alumni Association in June.

Kris Bulcroft discussed the first draft of the aca-

demic plan and said that their plan to ask the university’s faculty on how to cut down costs has been very helpful. It has helped with creating proposed reductions in costs; however, they will not be going in until next year and she hopes to have a preview ready for next year. She says that next year will be another year of difficult decisions but that most other institutions are going through similar issues, and she hopes to talk more with the provincial government about their budget priorities. Proposed new sources

of revenue included a new continuing studies leadership program which will begin next fall, an increase in international student enrollment, and looking to the government for funding through the Canada Jobs Act which may provide funding for some of Capilano’s skills programs. They are looking into student housing because it is a great source for revenue as well as an incentive for international students; however, nothing has been proposed yet.

On May 6, there will be a special budget Senate

meeting to fully discuss the budget for the upcoming year. The Academic Plan was discussed and all conversations from their private meeting about the plan will be put online, and they are hoping to have a second draft ready for consideration by the board for the end of the month.

Natasha Prakash presented on the CSU leaving the Canadian Federation of Students which will be more fully covered in the next issue of the Courier.

feminism around the world SPOTLIGHT ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S WEEK Amber Bedard × Writer As International Women’s Day concludes, and the hype surrounding women’s equality recedes, the question remains: have women fully reached parity with men?

There is no doubt that the women’s movement has come a long way. Global recognition on the importance of women’s equality has never been more apparent. During the week of March 3, Capilano University students and faculty had the opportunity to celebrate and participate in International Women’s Week on campus. Among the roster of events held, the Courier was able to attend two events: a Chat Live session on rebranding feminism and a lecture on maternal health in Guatemala.

The Chat Live session, dubbed “Re-branding Feminism: Can Marketing Change a Movement?” was a discussion on feminism and the positive and negative connotations associated with the movement. The discussion was lead by Andrea Westcott, a faculty member in the English and Women and Gender Studies departments, as well as women’s liaison, Taylor Smith.

In recent years, feminism has been deemed a “dirty” word, often evoking more negative implications than positive. When asked why this matters, Westcott was adamant that it’s all about perception.

“It’s really about the underlying attitudes and the implications that stem from the branding of the word.”

× Cheryl Swan There are many stigmas associated with feminism, and often times these stigmas hinder its progress. The Chat Live audience tossed around a few stereotypical examples such as “bra-burning”, “men-hating”, “angry”, “hostile” and even “feminazi” as ways to describe the feminist movement.

With a reputation like that, it’s no surprise that many young people are shying away from the word, and ultimately the cause. This is precisely what Westcott is leery of.

“The kids now say they’re not ‘feminist’ because of this dirty word association, and they assume that all the things fought for [regarding women’s equality] are a part of their birthright, and that’s not really the case and we can easily lose it.”

Westcott’s presentation incurred many reactions.

THE CAPILANO COURIER

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trade deadline

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A concern was with the possibility of losing the progress made through women’s movements in the last century.

A recent study published by Statistics Canada relayed that successful women earn millions less than men, regardless of the same qualifications. The study entitled “An Investment of a Lifetime?” tracks employment earnings and the subsequent outcomes from university graduates over a span of 20 years.

The study found that men in the top five per cent of earners obtain approximately $2.5 million more than those people with only high school education.

However, the study stated that women in the top five per cent of earners only make $600, 000 more than that of high school graduates at the same level.

Many participants of Women’s Week believe that Canadians still have a long way to go in terms of pay equality and closing-the-wage gap. In this, some concluded that this made feminism relevant.

In other parts of the world, such as Guatemala, it is easy to see how important the plight of women’s liberation really is. As discussed at the maternal health in Guatemala lecture, led by students Caitlyn Swail, Avery Jones, and Christy Brain, Guatemala is rife with gender inequality. Communities, particularly in rural areas, are dominated by “machismo” culture.

As Swail says, machismo culture is “exaggerated masculinity” and is a “reactionary” process, “stemming out of Guatemalan men's feelings of inadequacy due to high unemployment and lack of resources for indigenous people.”

Furthering this, Swail relays that this type of

masculinity “emphasizes the division of labour by gender…. [Men] tie their own sense of self worth to their ability to father many children and be the breadwinner and leader of the family. [They] feel their masculinity is threatened by women working outside the home.”

Poverty and lack of education are rampant in rural communities, which result in poor maternal health. The cycle is thus perpetuated within families. When nearly half of the Guatemalan population resides in rural areas, it is not surprising to see how disastrous this cycle can be.

Women in Guatemala struggle with having control over their bodies, both sexually as sources for reproduction, and physically as domestic workers.

The repressive nature of machismo culture hinders any attempt at education or female empowerment.

Other factors that are closely linked to poor maternal health are the “indigenous struggle” and the “after-math of civil war,” says Swail.

It is clear that the fight for gender equality is still as imperative as it ever was. Women all over the world are still vying for basic rights and parity within societal structures. Perhaps the solution is found in placing further emphasis on intersectionality within the feminist critique. This means to break down barriers that exist between groups.

The events at Women’s Week reinforce the notion that the feminist movement is about human rights, not just women’s rights. The consensus of participants was that sexism and gender discrimination affect us all. From that, it is believed that equality on all fronts has never been more necessary.

SPORTS

ENCOURAGES RISKY MOVES Calvin deGroot × Writer The 2014 NHL trade deadline has come and gone and while it is almost always over-hyped, this year provided more than enough drama to satisfy emphatic hockey fans and media across the country.

Heading up the drama was the Roberto Luongo trade that finally ended the drawn out, unprofessional goalie saga in Vancouver. At this point in the season last year, the Canucks had two of the best goaltenders in the league. One year later, both of them are traded, leaving Vancouver with a back-up goalie (Jacob Markstrom), a first-round prospect (Bo Horvat), and a third-line centre (Shawn Matthias). While Canucks GM Mike Gillis could and should have been able to get more out of his former starting goalies, he is not alone in making bad trade deadline moves.

Former Canucks GM Brian Burke famously

argued that NHL general managers make more mistakes on deadline day than the rest of the year combined. If this is true, then there have been some astonishing moves over the last few years.

Here are some of the worst trade deadline deals of all time: First, looking on the positive side for the Canucks, there is Markus Naslund. Naslund was acquired at the 1996 deadline from Pittsburgh for Alek Stojanov. Stojanov ended up playing just 45 games for the Penguins, recording six points while Naslund became Vancouver’s all-time leader in points (until Henrik Sedin) with 756 points in 884 games.

Next, Canuck fans can delight in the misery of the Calgary Flames who traded Hall of Famer Brett Hull to St. Louis in 1987 (a rookie at the time).

After being traded, Hull scored 41, 72, 86 and 70 goals in his first four respective seasons with the Blues. The Flames received a back-up goalie, a prospect (who never panned out) and a defense-

man who scored 23 points in two seasons before leaving the Flames.

The third terrible trade is more a case of bad luck than anything — but it was so terrible that it simply could not be over-looked. In 1999, the Florida Panthers traded Rhett Warrener and a fifth-round draft pick for Mike Wilson. Warrener and Wilson never sustained long careers in the NHL, but that fifth-round draft pick ended up being none other than Ryan Miller, one of the best goalies of the last 50 years who won the Vezina in 2010 and was fantastic in the 2010 Olympics as he led team U.S.A. to a silver medal.

Fourth, the Buffalo Sabres acquired Daniel Briere and a third-round pick at the 2003 trade deadline from Phoenix in exchange for forward Chris Gratton and a fourth-round selection. Briere went on to be a key player for the Sabres as he scored 92 goals and 230 points in his first three seasons, not to mention scoring the most game-winning goals in the NHL during that time. Gratton only lasted

one season for Phoenix and put up just 11 goals comparatively.

The last, and most remembered terrible trade deadline move involved six players between the Hartford Whalers and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins traded John Cullen, Jeff Parker and Zarley Zalapski for Grant Jennings, Ulf Samuelsson and Ron Francis. It has since been called the trade that changed Pittsburgh forever as Francis and Samuelsson were integral pieces of a dominant team that went on to win two Stanley Cups.

Francis had a Hall of Fame career. He eventually became team captain as he played seven seasons averaging over a point a game. In his career, Francis scored 1798 points, which is behind only Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Gordie Howe for alltime scoring leaders.

But trading always involves two (or more) parties, and if one side is on the wrong end, then the other is coming out on top; these trades could also just as easily be the best trade deadline deals of all time.

news

the obesity trend WEIGHING IN ON A NATIONAL PROBLEM Leah Scheitel × Editor-in-Chief

Over the past three decades, the average Canadian waistline has been growing. According to the Globe and Mail, obesity rates have tripled in Canada since the mid ‘80s. It is estimated that if the trend continues at the current rate, one in five Canadians could be obese by 2019, which would place strain on the health care system.

Health Canada defines obesity as a Body Mass Index (BMI) score of 30 or higher. The BMI is a ratio of height to weight and translates a high BMI with a high percentage of body fat. A low BMI score, defined at 18.5 or lower, classifies as underweight, which has its own set of health concerns, such as osteoporosis and a possibility of eating disorders.

Obesity can lead to numerous health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, and risk of stroke, among others. These risks impact the health system, as well as the individual families affected, and can be lethal in the end. A report for the Public Health Agency of Canada shows that obesity-related health issues are costing the health service more every year. “The economic costs of obesity are estimated at $4.6 billion in 2008, up about 19 per cent from $3.9 billion in 2000, based on costs associated with the eight chronic diseases most consistently linked to obesity. Estimates rise to close to $7.1 billion when based on the costs associated with 18 chronic diseases linked to obesity,” the report specifies.

One aspect that is important is the difference between weight and health, and weight and illness.

× Ksenia Kozhevnikova “When looking at obesity statistics I think it's important to look at the assumptions connected with these statistics. One of the first implicit messages is that fatness itself is something to be feared, avoided or prevented and is associated with less worth or value,” explains Tiffany Brown, a counsellor at Inspiring Pathways, a wellness practice in Vancouver.

“It is also important to look at the assumptions that connect fatness or thinness with health. The concept that lower weight or weight loss is responsible for health and higher weight or weight gain as being responsible for illness is a common misperception that has potentially dangerous side effects,” Brown continues.

Obesity is often just one symptom of a greater issue that has deep psychological roots. “I think what doesn’t work is looking at food and exercise alone,” says counsellor Gina Vanderham. “I think you have to look at psychological health as well,

like stress and emotional well-being and emotional heartiness, and look at the whole person. Even look at the social life and the social functioning, and their spiritual life. I think that’s why most diets fail, because people aren’t looking at the emotional or other aspects of their lives.”

As with other medical and psychological problems, it can be overwhelming and getting help can be difficult. “For people who are experiencing challenges with body image or eating issues there are many resources available. Counselors and mental health professionals like myself, doctors, dieticians and other health professionals and community programs are available to support people with body image and eating issues. There is also a specific ‘Health at Every Size’ registry, which lists practitioners that use a ‘Health at Every Size’ approach in their work,” says Brown.

Vanderham agrees that counselling services are

a good place to start, but there are other resources.

“There’s also a 12-step program, like Overeaters Anonymous, like AA but for overeaters. Overeaters Anonymous is a free resource for people in the community,” says Vanderham.

An interesting factor to point out is that the influx of obesity is not evenly dispersed across the country. According to the Globe and Mail, “the highest proportion of obese adults is in the Atlantic provinces and the lowest is in wealthy and healthy British Columbia.” As Brown says, it can be difficult to understand the root cause as to why obesity is more of an issue on the East Coast.

“In terms of higher weights in different populations, there are many complex factors that influence weight. These factors include genetics, lifestyle factors including physical movement and nutrition, the environment, and social factors including access to resources and discrimination and stigma,” she explains.

When asked how many people the Capilano University Health Services help with obesity and weight problems, it was estimated to be less than one a year. The campus Health Services has a proper scale and Body Mass Index scales available for students who are interested. If more help is needed, the Health Services can help students with resources and finding counselling services for help, either on campus, or specialized help off-campus, usually through the Lion’s Gate Hospital.

Capilano University Health Services clinic is located in Birch 249 and can be reached at 604.984.4649.

a controversial protest ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK IS MORE THAN JUST PALESTINIAN RIGHTS Amber Bedard × Writer

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colonialism, oppression and injustice wherever it may be,” Farah says.

Samiei calls this act “cross movement solidarity.” She believes the experience and struggle of each group is not equal, but by placing a correlation between the two experiences “we can learn from each other and gain strength from supporting one another.”

The goal of IAW is simple for Farah. “We hope the outcome of IAW will be that students and community members will have learned about Israeli apartheid and the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and self-determination, and so we can strengthen global support… and more effectively pressure Israel to comply with its obligations under international law.”

For Samiei it is more than that. As a final note, she believes it’s about remaining politically aware and self-reflective. “Students should work hard to create a space that is open for critical discussion and engagement with the their political community. It is really important to analyze your ideology and the status quo in order to stop any kind of oppression and injustice happening anywhere in the world.”

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that the Capilano Student Union (CSU) prefers to remain neutral, therefore seeking to remain impartial on controversial issues.

“The CSU supports its members’ right to free speech. Students are welcome to start a CSU-sponsored club for any issue that interests them…. As an advocacy organization the CSU considers political issues on a case-by-case basis. The Board of Directors has been reluctant in the past to endorse controversial positions as we are elected to represent all students’ interests,” Hofmarks says.

It is a possibility that by next year, more awareness regarding IAW will take more precedence at CapU. To activists like Farah and Samiei, the continuation of such a movement is paramount. It represents the awareness of all human rights violations, like those that have happened in Canada regarding the First Nations community. Supporters of IAW actively seek an alliance with the aboriginal community. Both groups claim to be the victim of settler colonialism.

“We recognize that we are living on stolen land here in North America, or Turtle Island. So it is our responsibility that if we are to speak about Israeli apartheid, then we must be consistent and recognize the apartheid and injustice that was and continues to be inflicted on the indigenous people of North America. And we must recognize the links between the two struggles so that we can collectively resist

THE CAPILANO COURIER

Earlier this month, Canadian students from across the country banded together in solidarity against Palestinian discrimination in Israel.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) has quickly gained precedence on university campuses across the globe.

Starting in 2005 at the University of Toronto, IAW has spread globally to over 200 cities. In Canada, IAW ran from March 3 to 11.

Hammam Farah, co-founder of Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at York University in Toronto describes IAW as “a week of lectures, film screenings and workshops on university campuses.

It aims to educate and raise awareness about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and its policies of segregation against the Palestinian people.”

With this, the movement has not gone without its fair share of controversy. IAW highlights the rather explosive Israeli-Palestinian conflict, evoking strong emotions in some and leaving others critical of the issue. The seed of discourse runs so deep that the movement is sometimes labeled as anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic.

Nyusha Samiei, vice-president of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at UBC, clarifies the purpose of the movement. “What we’re trying to do is draw the parallel between the apartheid

that happened in South Africa, as it was originally defined, and the apartheid that is currently happening in occupied Palestine under the Israeli state.

Apartheid is segregation based on ethnicity and the ethnic cleansing and forced occupation that the Palestinians are currently experiencing in Israel.”

Support for the cause has grown substantially since its origins, and has received encouragement from many Canadians. Many universities support student campaigns to exercise this type of political freedom, as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others.

Vancouver is one such example of this support, with events being held at campuses all across the city. UBC, Simon Fraser University and Langara College all hosted various lectures and screenings through out the week. The UBC community, including both students and faculty, has been responsive to the cause.

“The university was actually very supportive and open about us practicing freedom of speech and allowing us to organize at the university. As it is with bringing awareness to any human rights violation in the world, at times there can be those who disagree with us,” Samiei adds.

The same response and recognition of IAW has not been felt at Capilano University. It is unclear as to why this has occurred. Some speculate that the movement does not represent student interests as has been seen at other institutions. Others suggest

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arts + Culture

ANDY RICE ARTS + CULTURE EDITOR

ARTS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

keeping it glassy GLASS BLOWER AIMS TO INSPIRE NEW WAVE OF YOUNG CRAFTS PEOPLE Keara Farnan When Kwiis Hamilton begins to talk about his hobby as a glass blower, a bright smile stretches across his face. “There’s no greater joy than creating,” says the Capilano University student. “It’s what we’re all here to do.”

After blowing glass independently for a number of years, Hamilton recently joined three others to form a lamp-working collective in Vancouver's Kitsilano area. "We’ve got a shop set up with some ventilation and all of our prep work is there, our tools and things like that,” he says. “We are all together having a good time blowing glass, listening to music; it's what we do for a hobby, and it's a lot of fun.”

For Hamilton, the process has been both a learning experience and a bonding experience. “I’d never met these people before, so we’ve all become really close really quickly actually through just working together and being able to inspire each other. It’s been a cool little journey,” he says. “There’s very few of us that are out there doing this so it’s really cool to be able to get together with them.”

The group’s creations include a variety of objects large and small. “Basically we’re making things along the lines of pendants and marbles, tea cups, tea pots, goblets, chalices,” Hamilton explains. He even made kiddush cups recently for a Jewish art show and fundraiser held at UBC on March 6. Members have also teamed up for a chandelier, which was commissioned for a private collection.

A transfer student from the University of Lethbridge, Hamilton plans on pursuing a career as a history and biology professor, and is currently taking general studies at CapU. “Glass blowing is kind

× contributed

× Writer

of a side job,” he says, adding that it helps maintain a creative balance in his life. “It’s also like a meditation for me. It’s really healing... and really centring.”

Hamilton also hopes to use the art form as a way to get in touch with his Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) and Stó:lō roots. “I’m currently studying under a man named Derek George to carve canoes and do First Nations art, and I will be transferring that over into my glass skills as soon as possible. I’ll be doing a lot of West Coast style First Nations art... trying to incorporate my tradition and my culture into my work.”

“It’s such a cool way to express yourself and it’s really a dying art,” he says of lamp-working. “There’s not a lot of glass blowers out there anymore who are creating marbles and goblets and cups. And on a person-to-person basis, not many people can say,

‘Oh yeah, I know a glass blower.’ It’s sort of shrinking in our society. It’s kind of sad for me to think about it because I really love it. I love making things out of glass and I love glass as a medium... silica is the most abundant natural resource we have on earth, so I don’t see why more people don’t work with it.”

Hamilton and his fellow collective members use primarily borosilicate, a glass made from silica and boron-oxide. “It’s lab-grade glass or Pyrex, that’s what most people know it as, so that’s what we melt with,” he explains. “There’s a lot of different possibilities with it and we’re really trying to explore it as young people.”

They’re also trying to share their knowledge with others, regularly inviting friends and acquaintances to join them in their workspace. The Jewish art

show at UBC — Hamilton’s first time displaying his works publicly — provided a great opportunity for him and the others to explain more about their methods. "Everyone who I talked to wanted to know more about the artistic process of glassmaking,” he says. “I am hoping to build some interest around glass and introduce a generation of people to the beauty and intricacy of the material as a medium of expression of personal art. I hope to ignite the want to create in [everyone] who shows [an] interest."

Hamilton says he feels proud to have had people take an interest in his creations and was intrigued by how many people showed up at the art show just to see the team's glass blown artwork. He and his friends received multiple orders for custom glass sets at the event, and it provided a chance for everyone to get their names out there as artists.

"I gained quite a lot of experience just chatting with potential patrons,” he says. I really enjoyed the environment of the show. I felt great, surrounded with people so interested in what I was doing ... I will really treasure the connections I made at the show more than anything.”

With their first art show behind them, Hamilton and his friends in the collective are now looking at ways to grow their business. “We’ll be expanding majorly in the next few years actually,” he says. “In the next 10 months we’re hoping to have our own colour business going, so we’re going to be making our own coloured borosilicate glass and we’ll be using furnaces to pull coloured tubing for other artists to work with. We’re hoping to encourage a wider community to start coming out and actually doing this. We’re trying to revive lamp-working here on the Northwest Coast.”

free lunch in the garden SPRING FESTIVAL SPREADS ITS ROOTS ON CAMPUS Carlo Javier

THE CAPILANO COURIER

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By bringing together students from all facets of Capilano University, the inaugural Ode to Spring festival aims to build community on campus and create a dialogue on healthy, accessible and sustainable food. Hosted by CapU PatchWorks, FoodWorks and the CSU, the event will be held on March 20 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the community garden adjacent to the Bosa Building.

“The idea with this event was to connect everybody on a common ground and everyone to a common area as a community garden and kind of celebrate everything that’s going on, on campus,” says garden coordinator Sage Birley.

Through collaborations with various branches of the university, the organizers of Ode to Spring are looking not only to promote healthy and sustainable living on campus, but also to create a platform in which students from all sorts of programs can participate. “The idea was to bring music, some art and connect with the film program and showcase all the different talents in Capilano and bring us together with the sustainability and opportunities we have here, especially with the community garden,” he adds.

Apart from live music, food talks and a composting workshop, Ode to Spring will feature a free lunch that will exhibit, and potentially serve as the inspiration for, CapU’s movement towards

healthier food options. “Starting at 11:30 a.m. we’re going to start serving free lunch,” says organizer Tiaré Jung. “It’s not just any lunch though.

It’s going to be really cool because we’re going to be working with [CapU’s] food service director, Aramark.”

She explains that the goal isn’t just simply to have healthier and more sustainable options, but also accessible ones. “We’ve been working with the community a lot on what would make it easier to eat well on campus, and one of the biggest subjects that has come up is price-identifying meal options that are healthy and accessible,” begins Jung. “Accessible might mean affordable, it could mean convenient — people don’t have a lot of time. It also might mean including more dietary restrictions, so having a vegan option or a gluten-free option, or having different kinds of protein.”

Ode to Spring’s lunch will be free-flowing, meaning people will be able to grab a dish at their leisure and sit down with their friends to enjoy it. Also included will be two circle sessions where organizers and participants can discuss and share their thoughts and ideas about the event and the meal. “The idea behind the meal is that it’s an example of the kind of food that we could be serving on a daily basis on campus, or like an inspiration for that,” explains Jung. “We’re going to talk about what kind of foods you’d like to see on a regular basis on campus and what’s going to make it easier for us to eat well here.”

Jung has also made a request to Aramark that

Ode to Spring’s lunch provision be environmentally-friendly. To fulfill that, the event aims to use reusable plates and utensils instead of disposable ones.

Birley’s focus has been more on adding an educational component to the event. “As a community garden coordinator, I’m also trying to find a way to pull an educational component into it. I’m just in the process of confirming some workshops,” he explains. One of these workshops will be about composting, where participants can learn about the basics, how to start their own and the significance of compost to gardening.

“The idea with the community garden — and any community garden, is to know exactly where your food is coming from and it also gives you the opportunity to really make a relationship with your food,” says Birley. He alludes to recent studies about the therapeutic effects of gardening and having a close relationship with nature. “There’s also all kinds of therapy around getting your hands dirty,” he adds.

Aside from the dialogue and sense of community that organizers are hoping will be initiated, the event will also serve to mark the start of the growing season. It may even provide an opportunity to expand the garden’s footprint as well. “What we’re going to try and do is have something physically built at the event,” says Birley. “Right now we’re exploring with what we could do with building a vertical garden.”

Above all, however, Ode to Spring aims to create a change in CapU’s food options in the cafeteria.

Jung cites health, sustainability and accessibility as being among the biggest goals the event looks to achieve. “Having healthy options with vegetables and proteins, and also featuring as much local ingredients as possible,” she says, “and then trying to come up with a meal that, in theory, would cost between $5 and $9 in the cafeteria so that students could purchase it on a regular basis.”

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arts + Culture

puppets and politics STUDIO ARTS PROF SCULPTS HIS RESPONSE TO PROGRAM CUTS Andy Rice × Arts + Culture Editor “What I’ve done, it’s not violent. There’s no violence involved. It’s a bloody puppet for Christ sakes. I mean, really. A puppet. People forget that.

Are we at this point in Canada where we can’t have puppet shows of political figures? I mean, are they that scared of criticism? It’s just ridiculous.”

George Rammell has been a faculty member of Capilano University for 14 years. Passionate and perceptive, the mustachioed sculptor has helped to mold a reputation for the institution’s Studio Arts program that will linger long after its demise at the end of the current academic year. And when that announcement came last April, he certainly wasn’t happy about it. While his fellow instructors set to work writing angry letters, making banners and holding protests, Rammell gathered his thoughts, found some clay and immersed himself in his art.

The result was as controversial as the figure he chose to model it after.

“A member of the board who is actually on faculty, he came to me and said we need an effigy of the [CapU] president and I thought ‘Oh, that’s an interesting idea.’ So as soon as he walked out of my office I got to work on some clay and two hours later I had thrown together this portrait,” he says.

“It was very, very spontaneous. I just looked at all the spin online where Kris Bulcroft is promoting herself... and it all looks very cozy, you know.

And there’s a picture of her with her poodle. And I thought ‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ so I used that image online as a model and I threw together this portrait within a matter of hours, and threw some plaster onto it with some students and the next morning we had a casting.”

It was his first effigy in decades. “I used to do a lot of sculptural portraiture years ago and I gravitated away from that form of art into much more conceptual work,” he says. “I’ve been doing public art, huge stone pieces in Europe, I’ve done installations in Europe, I’ve done a lot of mixed media

a campus, but Bulcroft is a political figure, like Harper. She’s not that different. She’s not that different than Margaret Thatcher, okay, especially in the way she goes about her business.... It’s in the realm of a political cartoon and we live in Canada where political cartoons are legal.... I don’t think it’s terribly unbecoming either. I mean, I could have made it really grotesque. Apparently it was grotesque, according to her. I could have made it much more grotesque.”

The sculpture was initially brought to the president’s attention after a video surfaced on YouTube.

In it, Rammell can be seen unveiling the piece — built to be a functioning ventriloquist dummy — at a faculty meeting and conducting a mock interview with it. Some in the crowd laughed, others jeered and several chastised the work as a childish personal attack before walking out altogether.

Bulcroft herself acknowledged it at a later meeting.

“In her April presentation to the community Bulcroft labeled the makers of the puppet as mi× contributed sogynist and sexist,” recalls Rammell. “Afterwards, several instructors who teach women’s studies conart in my studio... and I found I returned to the tacted me about her comments; they didn’t see whole idea of portraiture through this issue at Cap, anything sexist about the effigy whatsoever. They sort of by default in a way.” see it for what it is; a political cartoon of a president.”

“I think somebody would have to do something Still, others disagree. “And that’s great,” says really incredible or incredibly stupid for me to do Rammell. “This is a university, right. If some their portrait,” he continues. “I have a project people disagree with me, bless their heart. I’ll planned. I actually went out to a friend’s farm up congratulate them for taking a stand... I disagree the valley, an organic farm, and I gathered up some with a lot of other people too, you know. That’s bullshit. Like I have five pails of fresh, steaming the nature of art. I gave up trying to make work bullshit, okay, and I’m going to model a portrait that was everybody’s cup of tea at once years ago. of Stephen Harper and I’m going to cast it in solid You’re never going to appeal to everybody.” bullshit. And on one level it sounds like a slapstick “Everything in that work is a metaphor,” he joke but on another level it ties in philosophically continues. “Who is articulating the lower jaw? with everything I’ve taught here, in that all materials have value. Ultimately, bullshit has more That’s a metaphor. The anatomical gloat is a metaphor for administrative gloat, okay. The work is value than money, that’s the irony of it all... so full of metaphors and that’s how art functions. there’s somebody who really deserves to have their That’s how art works. I didn’t make this personal.” portrait done by me.”

“There’s different ways of conveying your posiRammell says he views Bulcroft as a political tion, there’s different ways of protesting,” he adds. figure as well. “Some people think this is personal and that personal attacks have no place on “There’s all kinds of letters from faculty in the

press, on the walls, that are very perceptive and very cutting. They speak to the truth. That seems to be okay. As soon as you make a big puppet that’s suddenly not okay.”

Although there was initially a fear of punitive action, Rammell says the university’s human resources department decided not to pursue the issue. “I congratulated them because for me it’s all about freedom of speech and I think it’s really important that you allow for various points of view on campus,” says Rammell. “I think that it’s about academic freedom, it’s about freedom of expression, it’s about not being censored.”

“You know, there’s been so much self-censoring going on on campus,” he continues. “People are scared. People are scared to criticize this administration here, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens when the next round of cuts comes down. I mean, there’s going to be a whole new round of people that have nothing to lose by speaking their mind.”

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fox cabaret PORNO THEATRE SWALLOWS MAKEOVER LIKE A CHAMP Faye Alexander

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programming the Khatsahlano Art and Music Festival. With the loss of venues such as the Waldorf becoming more the norm than the exception, the Fox’s resurrection has offered hope to many in the local arts community.

“The city really needs these kinds of spaces,” says Fazio. “I think it’s really sad anyone involved and interested in culture in Vancouver has to see how many of our great live entertainment venues that we’ve lost over the past 20 years. The real tragedy is a lot of these spaces we have lost are not renewable resources. Spaces like Richards on Richards, no one is going to ever build a space like that again. Once they are gone, they are gone for good.”

“What we were able to [do] with the Fox, we were really able to rescue a great entertainment space,” he continues. “Even though it was a theatre, the same principles apply, the whole room was built for performance and entertainment and it really feels like that when you walk in.”

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The once Fox Cabaret in Mount Pleasant has opened its doors once again to the public, but a lot has changed since locals were last welcome within.

Arrival Agency took hold of the space in May 2013 and has been keeping itself busy scrubbing the old sleaze off and out of Vancouver’s last porn cinema.

For 30 years, the Fox Theatre screened 35mm adult films, hosted the Canadian premiere of Deep Throat, as well as countless lewd acts amongst attending porn enthusiasts. The Fox name remains intact, but a new five-year lease hopes to reinvigorate the space and introduce a new generation to Mount Pleasant’s latest arts and culture venue.

“People love this bar and this story already. It kind of writes itself — ‘porn theatre turns live music venue’ — there is so much support for it. It’s been overwhelming,” says Daniel Fazio, brand and design director at Arrival Agency. David Duprey, who was responsible for opening the Rickshaw Theatre as a music venue in 2009, placed his signature on the lease with high hopes for the famous 37-year-old

day-a-week neighbourhood watering hole. Once the projection room bar is complete in April, the Fox Theatre will be fit to host its highly-anticipated grand opening.

In the meantime, however, the Fox will be hosting a steady stream of shows and events downstairs.

Popular Waldorf staple, the Ice Cream Social, has a new home at the Fox every Monday with free admission, the Sunday Service improv show has also made the Fox its new home. “We had our first live performance last Friday when No Sinner played and it’s a great venue. It’s great for that size of a band, a local band with a big draw,” explains Fazio. “It’s a space that really has an element of spectacle to it.

It’s not like playing a pub or something, which a lot of the spaces in that size, those kind of mid size spaces, are more like pubs.... This is more of a really showbizzy nighttime space and all the feedback I’ve heard from performers so far, they just love it. It’s such a great venue for them to play.”

For the past several years, Arrival Agency has been on a mission to create extraordinary experiences that bring the Vancouver community together. Past projects include the re-imagining of the late Waldorf, FUSE, Food Cart Fest and

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× Opinions Editor

building in partnership with Arrival Agency. “We can do anything from there. We can do theatre. We can do comedy. We can do live music, we can have DJs. I mean, the place is 200, 300 seats. It’s the perfect size,” Duprey told CBC News.

The space may have lost its lust appeal, but is making up for it in newfound lustre. Duprey took a hands-on approach to cleaning up the venue and took to scrubbing out the theatre himself (along with a crew). “Lots of bleach,” he said.

Old furnishings, as well as 260 seats that had accumulated at the Fox Theatre over the last three decades were ripped from the venue, while other ghosts of the Fox’s past were allowed to remain.

A life-size painting of Scott Baio still hangs in the women’s washroom, which likely didn’t get as much traffic as its male counterpart. “We converted it from a theatre space into a venue space,” says Fazio.

“We put in a big stage, we tore out the seats, we brought all our lighting and sound gear from the Waldorf, so now we have a really great music venue and performance space on the bottom floor.” The second phase of the renovations will be transforming the old projection room into an intimate 50-seat bar, which hopes to gain a reputation as a seven-

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art shorts

KRISTI ALEXANDRA ART SHORTS EDITOR

COPY@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

Floyd Collins THE CULTCH, MARCH 13 Paisley Conrad × Writer Local theatre company Patrick Street Productions is back on the scene, mounting their second production at their home theatre, the recently renovated York Theatre on Commercial Drive. A strong follow-up to the winters Out of a Dream, written by power duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, Floyd Collins was written by Rodgers’ maternal grandson Adam Guettel, who is a Tony-award winning playwright himself. The play centres around the true story of Floyd Collins, an amateur cave spelunker in the 1920s in Kentucky who got trapped in a cave. This event was reported by William Burke Miller, who interviewed Collins while he was in the cave, and his coverage went viral across America, bringing in tourists by the thousands. It became the third-biggest media event in the United States between the two world wars, and makes for an unconventional choice for a musical.

While the real Floyd Collins was a white man, the

show was blindly cast, and the lead was played

by Bermudan Daren Herbert. Indeed, this casting decision was inspired, as Herbert brought a lighthearted intensity to the doomed character. Krystin Pellerin stood out in her role as Nellie Collins, Floyd’s sister. Playing a recently discharged patient of a mental ward, she danced the line between sane and slightly-less-sane perfectly, her sweet soprano providing a much needed lightness to the nearly all male cast. The stage itself was raked, and had three large sloped platforms, which gave the impression of the floor of cave. The rest of the set was minimal, featuring a smattering of lanterns and hanging lightbulbs. This was effective, and the lack of clutter onstage allowed for the actors to shine.

Guettel himself spent some time in Vancouver with the cast, workshopping the difficult vocals and counterintuitive melodies. The cast didn’t miss a note as they harmonized and yodelled, somehow making their Southern drawls sound like the most beautiful accents in the world.

Natural Child

DANCING WITH WOLVES Gabriel Scorgie × Writer Dancing with Wolves is the third album to be released by the Nashville-based band Natural Child.

It might also be their most cohesive effort as a band yet. This isn’t a band that is struggling to find their identity or sound. They know what they like and they’re damn good at it. The third song off the album titled “Country Hippy Blues” sums the band up nicely. Heavy and fast piano playing accompanied by a bluesy electric guitar and big band are a constant throughout the album. Songs like “Don’t The Time Pass Quickly” gives the feeling that you’re down south during the ‘50s in a Jack Kerouac novel. While the opening track “Out In

Catch the throne

The Country” has a Black Keys, slow-blues feel to start, the dynamic and tempo changes are what separate this band from the rest. You don’t hear good, old-fashioned blues piano solos anymore.

Or piano solos at all for that matter. It’s nice to hear a band in touch with their musical roots and playing to their strengths. It’s not a surprise after hearing their music to learn that they are from Nashville, they’ve clearly learned a lot from their predecessors and been able to apply it successfully to their own sound. Members in the band are a good musician on their own, which can be a problem in and of itself, but the band has still managed to blend well. They have a clear and bright future ahead of them.

THE MIXTAPE

Carlo Javier

THE CAPILANO COURIER

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A collaboration between the Lannisters and rappers? Not even the brilliant Tyrion Lannister could pull this off. In preparation for the heavily-anticipated season four debut of its hit show, Game of Thrones, HBO commissioned some of hip-hop’s heavyweights and some underground names in crafting a Thrones -inspired mixtape. Though a project such as this may initially seem like a marketing ploy to further broaden the already massive Thrones fan base, Catch the Throne surprisingly contains some potent tracks that will surely brighten the days in Winterfell. With the first being the aptly titled “Mother of Dragons,” by Big Boi of OutKast. The drum-heavy beat is very much reminiscent of a pre-war chant and the reference heavy lyrics are a delight to the fans of Khaleesi. In the Daenerys Targaryen dedicated track, “Fire”, Snow tha Product illustrates the rough route that the aspiring queen has had to take to make a name for herself and her dragons. One of the usual praises that Thrones receives is for its abundance of strong, independent female characters. It’s fitting that Snow tha Product, one of hip-hop’s new wave of rising female rappers got the chance to rap about Khaleesi. One of the more interesting

tracks on the album is the last song, “King Slayer”.

The track samples the recognizable intro theme of Thrones, giving the Washington-born rapper Wale a unique sound to demonstrate his go-go inspired style on. Not every track is worthy of Lannister gold. In fact, some should be paying the iron price. Tracks such as “The Ladder” by Common sound forced and lack any relations to anything in Westeros whatsoever. In Kilo Kish’s “Magical Reality”, she channels a trippy, Massive Attacklike atmosphere that is ultimately a good song, but apart from the dialogue in the beginning, it really has no relevance to Thrones. However, one song does prove to be a true highlight. The relatively unknown Dominik Omega’s immersive storytelling — from the perspective of Arya Stark, in the undoubted highlight, “Arya’s Prayer”, shows that Omega probably does know a thing or two about the George R.R. Martin’s beloved series. Omega drops reference after reference, even chanting the names of the people Arya wants to kill. To put the icing on the cake, Omega finishes his hook with the ever catchy, “Valar Morghulis, all men must die.” Ultimately, Catch the Throne adds fuel to the excitement behind the coming season, and if that’s HBO’s goal, then it’s achieved.

Death Rider

CHILLS ON GLASS

Faye Alexander × Opinions Editor Remember those Friday afternoons where you'd skip 12th grade trigonometry to drink ‘shroom tea with your stoner friends? You can relive the trip via sound with Dead Rider's third studio album Chills on Glass. This stoner rock outfit brings the noise, and they bring it in to full effect with heavy hands.

Frantic and off kilter drum lines and seethingly jagged guitar riffs keeps you guessing where the tracks will slide to next. Chills on Glass combines elements from all ends of the musical spectrum; there is jazz on the tracks, electronic dance floor hooks and plenty of pure rock n' roll. However, by pushing the boundaries and bringing so much

inspiration to a single album, it's a struggle to understand it. The dizzying quality of genre smashing confusion results in an album that never truly finds a cohesive tone. The big save is Todd Rittman's vocals which sing out over the noise like a '70s Bowie reborn. His howl is savoury poured over the screaming sound. “Sex Grip Enemy” is an abrasive post-punk effort and will leave you feeling paranoid and “Blank Screen” pops a heavy downer for a good time turned bad. Chills on Glass isn't what one would consider “easy listening”, it's challenging at best and impenetrable at worst. You have to give Death Rider props though, they have released a unique experience and made themselves a band hard to classify — an accomplishment in itself. We celebrate being different for the sake of being different, right? So roll one up, bud. It's a bumpy ride.

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A generation of human cyborgs INTRODUCING THE GOOGLE GLASS AND WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY Gabriel Scorgie × Writer

× Kristen Wright

Last year, Google launched a wearable computer called the Google Glass. Glass users are enjoying the interface and easy-to-use voice commands. “Technologies like Glass are providing people with a new means to do what they’re already doing. It’s fulfilling the same functionality over other devices but much more seamless,” says Carman Neustaedter, an assistant professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.

The technology is only currently available in the United States since the Glass is slowly being introduced to consumers. Though it has had mostly positive reviews, there are still complaints of the product’s poor battery life and accessibility. Both of these issues are expected to be fixed in the future models before its worldwide launch. Along with technical issues, privacy and surveillance are the biggest problems that hinder Google’s development of the product.

THE FUTURE FOR GLASS AND WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY Wearable technology may be perceived as new to the public, but the technology is actually rather old. “If you look at academic research, you’d see that this stuff has been around for 10 or 15 years,” explains Neustaedter. “Only now are we begin-

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The seamless and simple interactions with Glass are the reasons why users have found themselves using the headset over their smartphone. When the user says, “Ok Glass,” a list of options and apps will appear in the top left corner for them to navigate through via voice command. Commands such as “Ok Glass… Google, take a picture, take video and send message to” are some of the most common and used functions. If you have an Android phone,

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ning to see it in society. It takes about a decade before it becomes available for industrialization.”

While the future of wearable technology is still uncertain, it looks promising. “The trend is noticeable. Google’s Glass, Samsung Glass, even UBC students have developed something similar. There is lots of research being done in a lot of schools,” notes Neustaedter.

The hurdles that developers like Google currently face are ones that are commonly found in the first generation of technologies. The current cost of Glass is $1,500, only 38 apps are offered in the Glass store, and the glasses are only available in the United States. However, Google hopes to initially mark the price down to around $250 for worldwide mass consumption soon. “It needs time to be more available. It’s really challenging to get a pair to try out and Glass is currently limited to small numbers of developers. In the next few years there will be thousands of apps and the cost will be lowered,” says Neustaedter.

It may not be long before devices like Google’s Glass are as common as iPods and smartphones. Although Google is out to a clear head start, it doesn’t mean that they will win the race. Samsung is working on a Glass-esque prototype as of now, and Apple has the iWatch being developed and set for launch late next year. It’s unclear who will dominate the market of wearable technology, but there is plenty to look forward to in the coming years.

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The ability for anyone to be able to record or take pictures without anybody knowing is something that already makes people rather uncomfortable. It’s fairly obvious when someone is using their smartphone to take a video or picture. The way they hold the device and operate it is different than if they were sending a message or surfing the web. However, with the Glass, all the wearer needs to do is press a button and look at what they want to record.

There is no red light or indication that would let the people around them know that they are recording.

“When I walked into a Fatburger in Murray Hill, I was greeted quite graciously by inquisitive employees who were interested in Glass as possible users themselves,” wrote Marvin Blugh, in his blog for the Huffington Post. “Yet, when I entered a Starbucks, also in Murray Hill, I was immediately told to take them off before I even ordered.”

It is uncommon to be asked to take off the Glass, but it has happened enough to get the attention of Google. Shortly after the release of

phone calls and texts will go straight to the Glass display. The sound is conveyed to the user through a Bone Conduction Transducer, a technology used in hearing aids, which is, in fact, inaudible to the people around them. Social media users can check Twitter, receive Facebook updates and upload photos on Instagram all through voice command.

Because the technology is still new, there are only 38 approved apps available through the Glass store (equivalent to Google Play and Apple’s app store). There are several other unofficial apps that may be side loaded. This means that you would download the app from the developer’s website onto your computer and upload it from there onto the Glass. Although Google warns that doing so is at your own risk, even these preliminary apps show the potential that Glass has.

Of the limited number of apps available from the Glass Store, a few have already caught the consumer’s attention. WordsLens is an app developed

by Quest Visual that could become a traveler's best friend. With the app enabled, WordsLens translates words and phrases and overlays the translation on top the original word. For example, if someone was travelling in France and looked at a stop sign that read “Arrêt,” the app would translate it and the sign would read “Stop” to the wearer of Glass. However, as helpful as it may be, the app doesn’t translate in real-time and requires a few seconds of processing. It also struggles with phrases, sentences and words that are written on a busy background. But it illustrates the real-life potential that Google Glass has.

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Glass, Google published an etiquette guide for users of their product. These instructions include tips such as “Ask people’s permission before filming or taking a picture” and “Don’t be creepy or rude.” Google understands that with new technology comes skepticism. As a result, they want the wearers to be respectful of people’s privacy.

Stop The Cyborgs, an anti-surveillance group, has become the first group to create signs and stickers for business owners who don’t want the wearable technology worn on their property.

"People make a personal decision to check their smartphone or log in and check their social media accounts, but Google Glass is out of their control," said Larry Rosen, a psychologist who focuses on technology, in a recent CNN interview. "They are not able to make a decision as to whether they want to be 'on' or 'connected' through someone else's process, and they are concerned and unhappy that they do not have a say in the matter."

However, Neustaedter believes a lot of the apprehension is because of how new the technology is to the public. “We still aren’t used to this technology,” he says. “We haven’t developed social norms like we have with smartphones.” Neustaedter points to the invention of the telephone to further his argument. “If you look back at origins of [the] telephone, people were really apprehensive, they scheduled time to call other people’s houses. Over time, people relaxed about the technology.”

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A Tree-mendous World How the ecosystem communicates

× Cheryl Swan

Alva Tee × Writer

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“We are one with the environment,” states Suzanne Simard, professor of forestry at the University of British Columbia. The actions of humans affect everything in the world. Understanding what those effects are, and how we affect the environment, is very important to help keep the planet alive. A great first step to further our knowledge on how to better our world is to learn about the communication between different organisms. In doing this, we will learn how to help our world instead of disturbing its natural order.

Communication between flora is often considered a theory more than it is a fact. The idea that one tree is able to convey information to another seems almost impossible, but further research has proven this theory is true. Though the concept has been around for more than two decades, a video released in December 2011 titled “Mother Tree” regarding the topic has opened the eyes of many.

It features Simard sharing her knowledge on the theory. She has conducted numerous studies proving that trees do in fact communicate with each other. With an underground network linking the trees in an area altogether, those in an ecosystem are able to “speak” to each other.

ONE STEM AT A TIME Trees play a vital role in the survival of all living organisms. Photosynthesis is the cycle of turning the sun’s energy into the oxygen that we breathe.

Plants are the only living organisms on Earth that can allow for this process to take place. Their intake of carbon dioxide (CO2) reduces the impact of global warming and it also helps maintain balanced ecosystems.

This is why it is important that an environment is created where a tree can grow as strong as it can.

Room for growth on a tree is very limited and is usually at the tip of a tree. The addition of new cells grows vertically and the diameter of the trunk of a tree continues to grow as long as the foliage on the tree continues to grow.

A tree’s development is heavily dependent on its roots, meaning that the roots need to be kept strong as well. How deep the roots can penetrate is based on three main components: water, oxygen and low soil compaction levels. If all these conditions are met, long roots can flourish and integrate themselves through the soil and help connect the trees of an ecosystem together. They are a key part of the communication between trees. Simard’s research has measured transmittance of isotopic carbon, nitrogen and water from one tree (donor) to another (receiver). “This transmittance occurs below ground through mycorrhizal networks that link donor and receiver plants together,” she explains, “and to a much lesser degree, through soil, from the donor root, to soil, to the receiver root.

This information transmittal from donor to receiver has been associated with increased survival, growth, and nutrition of the receiver tree.”

Simard’s research also examines the transmittance of defense chemical signals. Though they have not yet been able to identify the exact chemical composition of the defense signals, they have discovered that a donor tree under stress due to insect, mechanical or chemical damage will signal a neighbouring receiver tree to increase its defense against the stressor. “There is some evidence that the defense signal molecule is jasmonic acid,” says Simard. “There is evidence that these signals travel from plant to plant below ground via mycorrhizal networks.”

The term “ecosystem” conveys that nature is comprised of a system of parts and interactions

between those parts. The mycorrhizal networks are where fungi and trees join into a large network through which matter such as carbon, nutrients, and water flows. Defense signals, hormones, and other information move through these networks as well. They are part of nature’s system from which emerges structure and function, resulting in ecosystem goods and services.

MOTHER TREE AND THE MYCORRHIZAL NETWORKS Simard’s research leads her to believe that there are always mother trees, which are the biggest and oldest trees in an ecosystem. A mother tree is usually the dominant tree that is connected to most, if not all, of the trees around it no matter what plant species they are. A critical role they play is that they supply local seeds for future generations.

Her research shows that mother trees preferentially transfer more carbon to kin than stranger seedlings, thus favouring its specific genes to be passed on to future generations. “This may be a benefit for the adaptability of trees to local growing conditions because locally adapted trees tend to outgrow those that are not,” notes Simard. Locally adapted seedlings that are facilitated by the mother tree’s nutrient and water transfer are able to withstand the stress of climate change much more than seedlings that are poorly adapted. If one were to remove a mother tree or if it were to die, there would be lack of survival and production of seedlings from the same species as the mother tree because a mother mycorrhizal network would no longer exist.

Aside from mother trees, any tree that is dying can transfer their carbon content and nutrients out of their roots into the mycorrhizal network,

which is then accessed by new trees. “In this way, the dying trees can direct their energy to new generations of trees by sending it directly to them through linking mycorrhizal networks, rather than dispersing that energy to the multitude of organisms in the soil,” Simard shares. “Trees that are damaged by insects, disease or other stresses can also send defense signals to new trees via their mycorrhizal networks. The dying trees can warn the young seedlings of an attacker or the young seedlings can ‘eavesdrop’ on the dying trees to find out what’s going on.” The young seedlings use these signals to pass on their defense genes so that they can make more constitutive defense enzymes to inhibit potential attackers.

“When the mother tree is alive, seedlings are colonized by the mycorrhizal network of the mother tree, and hence they become part of this large network of mycorrhizal fungi,” Simard elaborates. “The mother tree helps the young seedlings either by sending carbon, nitrogen or water directly to the emerging seedlings tapped into her network, or simply by supporting the mycorrhizal network with its own photosynthetic carbon.”

“The mycorrhizal uses the mother tree’s carbon to grow and take up nutrients and water from the soil, which it can then supply to the seedlings,” she continues. This allows the seedlings to benefit from the vast mycorrhizal network that is supported by the mother tree. “This can make a critical difference in the life or death of those seedlings before they have built their own photosynthetic capacity before they’ve grown much foliage.”

On the other hand, seedlings released from the mother tree could be competition. If the seedling is able to establish itself without the help of the mother tree, it can grow faster long term because of the reduced competition for light, water and

ON the Cover

that what is done on the ground should be based on local knowledge and activities, sustainable intentions and good science. “Local knowledge is essential,” Simard continues. “Forest management depends on local conditions meaning that we need to vary our approaches rather than doing the same thing everywhere, which is what we tend to do under the corporate global model of forest management.” She believes that doing this will help foresters make more informed decisions for managing forests so that they are sustainable, resilient and highly adaptable to our future uncertain climate.

Another concern is the effect of global warming.

Global warming is the raise of the atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding climate changes. Andy Black, expert on the carbon balance of forest stands, expresses his opinion.

“Atmospheric warming means trees tend to transpire more water,” expresses Black. “An increased water requirement means there’s more chance of water stress and not enough precipitation to sustain the forest. Stress often increases susceptibility to disease or insect attack.”

Black goes on to share the national effects that global warming could possibly have. “Global warming will almost certainly change the distribution of forests on the planet,” he says. “With warming, prairie grasslands will begin to replace the southern boreal forest in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Drought in South America will have a serious effect on the health of the Brazilian rainforest.”

There are things that can be done to help the environment heal. “Adopt the policy that old growth forests are left untouched. They are far too valuable as large carbon storehouses and places where there is biodiversity that we can’t afford to lose.

We should continue to improve our management

Cheryl Swan "Maaammaaa". Thats the sound Cheryl makes when she burps. If a tree could burp would it say "lorrraaxxxx"? Not too sure. What I am certain of is Cheryl's talent to create wonderful artwork that reflects our stories, articles, staff and pizza parties.

We're winding down for this year, I'm going to take a second and say thank you very much Cheryl for being out art director and directing us well. All your hard work brings life to these pages. Thank you and happy birthday to your grandma.

nutrients. Therefore, there might be a trade-off between the greater establishment rates in the absence of a mother tree and the reduced long-term growth rate in the presence of a mother tree. All in all, it is a mutualistic relationship as the mother tree and its seedlings rely on each other to survive.

HOW TREES ARE SIMILAR TO US

PRESERVING BIODIOVERSITY

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" With warming, prairie grasslands will begin to replace the southern boreal forest in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Drought in South America will have a serious effect on the health of the Brazilian rainforest."

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Understanding that the brain and body’s relationship is similar to the mother tree and its mycorrhizal networks, it is easy to see how humans are biologically similar to trees. However, it is also important to understand the impact and power that actions have on the environment. A big concern that is having a negative effect is the overcutting of forests and not managing the cutover land well.

“The overcutting is a response to many factors,” shares Simard. “But the result is a vastly reduced amount of mature forest on our landscape. This makes our environment much more vulnerable to stress and disturbance.”

“We are not leaving sufficient living tree reserves in cutover areas,” she adds, “and not enough attention is paid to the quality of escapement [space given] or longevity of those reserves.” Simard worries that biodiversity is being compromised and the vulnerability to future disturbance is being increased due to the fact that very few species are being replanted. “I would like to see a much reduced cut and more intensive on-theground forest management that conserves, structures and functions to ensure we have healthy forests and hence healthy people in the future.”

As a solution to this problem, Simard thinks

"The dying trees can warn the young seedlings of an attacker or the young seedlings can ‘eavesdrop’ on the dying trees to find out what’s going on.”

THE CAPILANO COURIER

Trees play a big part in the existence of our planet.

With the amount of CO2 being released daily, trees are the only reason the amount of carbon in this world is still tolerable at all. Taking in 75 per cent of the CO2 produced by an average car, absorbing up to 7,000 dust particles per litre of air, and lifting up to 4,000 litres of water from the ground and releasing it into the air, the world would truly be completely different without trees.

The way the mother tree communicates with its offspring is very similar to how the brain communicates with the body. The structure of networks in brains is similar to mycorrhizal networks in the sense that brains are comprised of neurons (which in turn are comprised of nuclei, dendrites and axons) and synapses that are organized in a complex self-organized pattern through which neurotransmitters (neurohormones) travel and generate human thought and responses. In mycorrhizal networks, trees and fungi are also organized in a complex self-organized pattern for efficient travel of information and matter.

“In a mycorrhizal network, you can think of the trees as neurons and the fungi as the synapses, or the other way around,” explains Simard. “Here, the tree fixes carbon that is then transferred through the mycorrhizal network to another tree — much like a neuron produces neurotransmitter hormones that

are transmitted through the synapse to an adjacent neuron — resulting in a type of communication that makes the whole system function.”

The firing of neurotransmitters causes stimulation of different cell types, including muscle and sensory cells. This allows the body to respond to its environment and thus live. The mother tree sends carbon and messages to other trees so that the forest functions as a whole.

of agricultural land and reduce erosion losses and build soil carbon back up where it has been seriously lost over past decades,” suggests Black.

The increased CO2 helps to extend growing season and potential productivity, so not all effects of global warming are bad. Black thinks that it will very likely increase the area suitable for agriculture in Canada as long as there is adequate soil for crops. With these situations in consideration, Simard thinks that it will force humans to explore ingenious ways to live sustainably, integrally, and holistically with nature.

All of these concepts are ideas that have been passed around before. In the movie Avatar released in 2009, it highlights the exploitation of natural resources in our world and how it is essentially the same as destroying the Hometree. Simard shares her thoughts. “As we exploit, we damage nature that we also depend on for healthy lives. The parallels in the movie with how humans are treating Earth were impossible to miss.”

The actions of humans and their impact on the planet are nothing new. Thinking green to help the planet reduce carbon production isn’t new either. Just like these two ideas, Simard believes the idea that plants can communicate with each other to affect their behavior and adaptability has been around for a while and that it resonates deeply with people. She believes that the repercussions seen from competition in agriculture ha gotten people to notice and understand that respecting all of the ways in which plants interact is important, and to work together to ensure we have healthy ecosystems in the future.

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opinions

FAYE ALEXANDER OPINIONS EDITOR

OPINIONS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

bush league FROM OVAL OFFICE TO EASEL Gabriel Scorgie × Writer From the brilliant mind that brought you classic sayings such as: “The French don’t have a word for entrepreneur,” and “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures,” George W. Bush, is once again channeling his creative side and putting on an art exhibit in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. Named “The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy” the art exhibit will take place, not coincidentally, in the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum sometime in April. The George W. Bush Institute issued a statement saying the exhibit will tackle “critiques via his post-presidential view of the world from his easel.” Since the announcement of his gallery, Bush has been unfairly scrutinized by many artists and art critics.

The paintings that have been leaked don’t appear to be anything special. As of right now, it’s unclear what exactly will be on display during this exhibit. When asked by the press, the only reply from the museum was that the exhibit “will feature more than two dozen never-before-exhibited portraits painted by President Bush.” But as people saw when Bush’s e-mail was hacked in 2013, the 43rd president loves to paint dogs, landscapes and

× Sydney Parent portraits of world leaders. After leaving the White House in 2008, Bush hired an art teacher and told her to “bring out his inner Rembrandt.” And while he may have fallen short of revolutionary artist status, landing closer to a fifth grade art student, Bush maintains a serious but light-hearted approach to his new love. "I do take painting seriously, it's changed my life," Bush said on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, “and I readily concede the signature is more valuable than the painting."

Unfortunately, some artists and art critics have taken this as an excuse to attack Bush and his claim of being an artist. After Bush’s appearance on Leno, where he revealed a portrait he had done of the talk show host, CNN interviewed seven artists and art critics for their opinion on Bush’s painting.

While a few saw it for what it was, a hobby done by a man with enough name-power to be able to display his hobby to the public, others have taken the low road, calling the paintings “an accident that the world had to see.” Few even seemed to be offended that a hobbyist could have his artwork reach a national audience and get an exhibit.

It’s true that his works aren’t exactly amazing or, from an artist’s perspective, any good. But so what? The art show is in his museum located in his hometown. If the Metropolitan Museum had reserved a floor for his 12-part cartoon paintings of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, then they would have a case, but the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is hardly renowned for its exclusivity. And because, according to the George W. Bush Institute, the gallery will also feature “artifacts, photographs and personal reflections to help illustrate the stories of relationships formed on the world stage," there is a possibility that the gallery will provide a unique look into the ex-presidents time in the White House.

Bush isn’t the first president or world leader to

take up painting. Grant, Eisenhower and Carter have all picked up a paintbrush after leaving the White House. In fact, one of Carter’s paintings raised $250,000 for charity at an auction — which pales in comparison to the $1.1 million deal Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed in 2009 for one of his paintings. Neither of those works came close to garnering the amount of attention and scrutiny that Bush’s venture into the fine art has. Like most paintings done by famous people, it’s unlikely that Bush will see any of the profits that his paintings earn. Early rumors suggest that the money raised

by Bush’s paintings will go to supporting art programs around the United States.

Now that Bush isn’t the most powerful man in the free world, it’s easier to accept him for who he is: an affable and simple man. It’s no surprise that after retiring from politics, Bush went back home to his ranch in Texas and spent his free time walking his dog and dropping by elementary schools.

So, if painting cartoonish portraits of world leaders and dogs is how he wants to spend his retirement, then good for him for finding a lifelong hobby.

Those who are using this as a platform to attack him because they’re artists or art critics are highlighting their own insecurities. They also aren’t helping that “pretentious douchebag” stereotype that artists so often get stuck with.

“I think that generally, students are not proud to be a part of Capilano,” Le begins. “They come into this school, usually fresh out of high school with the idea that it’s not a big or well-known school, and perhaps that they are thinking of transferring to the other bigger schools like SFU or UBC, therefore they never were in love or passionate with Capilano to begin with, and that’s a big deal,” she adds.

Some of the more noticeable evidence in regards to CapU’s school spirit shows during school-based events. Home games for the Capilano Blues sports teams struggle to get students to show up, which is a shame, particularly for the school’s consistently successful volleyball squads. In fact, this year, the basketball teams added extra incentive for students to come out and see some games. With the possession of a student card, students had free access to games; furthermore, designated big games were treated as pub nights. Le points out that one of the most common pieces of feedback she gets in regards to participation are students claiming that there is a lack of advertisement on the campus. Yet a simple walk throughout the campus will show

booths, posters and bulletin boards that market upcoming events.

Smith made a strong point in respect to school spirit. Yes, its celebration can be immature and, yes, school spirit doesn’t correlate to producing better intellectuals.

But school spirit does help create a more enthusiastic student culture. Smith pointed out that celebrations are ultimately biased for the engineering students, or the students who so obviously display higher social class awareness. Is he right? Maybe.

Yet an interesting variable is that this is CapU. It doesn’t have the upscale engineering programs that often lead frosh weeks; it doesn’t have a Sauder or a Beedie name to go along its business programs.

In fact, all it really has are its students, faculty and staff, all under the name “Capilano”. There is no segregation by programs and there is no hierarchy by programs. It’s just a bunch of people in the same place. Some might want to start calling it a community.

where is the love THE LACK OF UNITY AT CAPU Carlo Javier

THE CAPILANO COURIER

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× Staff Writer

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Capilano University is lacking many things. And it’s not a dis, it’s a fact. Students have long voiced their desires for an on-campus pub, the school’s Internet is a source of much of the campus’ gripes and some programs have completely vanished. It doesn’t help that the primary reason for the school’s shortfalls is a shortfall itself: the budget.

Fixing CapU’s problems would require a long, financially task-driven process, but one missing aspect of the school that can be improved lies at the hands of the people: the community. Despite the myriad things the school lacks, the one glaring hole that few people seem to talk about is the utter scarcity of school spirit.

School-led spirit boosting events are also almost non-existent, one of which is a full-fledged new student orientation. Thanh Le, last year’s vice president of the Marketing Association of Capilano Students, as well as the co-founder of Speak Social, agrees that CapU is a difficult place to find student involvement in. “It’s very difficult to get students involved or even participate in any social events,” she says.

Unlike many other institutions in British Columbia, CapU doesn’t orchestrate a frosh-week to welcome new students into its grounds. Although frosh-week traditions have since developed a negative connotation due to the now infamous rape chants that became heavily publicized last year — their original purpose remains beneficial.

In a column published by the Globe and Mail, Russell Smith derides the idea of school spirit and describes them as pointless. “Frosh-week silliness, including all the chanting and all the teasing and

the all-in-good-fun hazing, including ‘school spirit’ itself, is anti-intellectual,” he wrote. Smith furthered his anti-school-spirit piece by defining it to be entirely in contrast of the purpose of university. “It’s against every quality that universities are supposed to instill. No university needs ‘school spirit.’ No university needs frosh-week bonding exercises. It’s time to end the tradition.”

Smith makes a case that immature decision makers ultimately drive frosh-weeks and those who participate are peer-pressured into fitting in. Yet one thing that remains with frosh is that it provides a strong welcoming presence for incoming students.

Looking beyond the bad-taste rape chants that were source of great controversy for schools such as the University of British Columbia and Saint Mary’s University, frosh-week exhibits the best way to immerse students into campus culture. (Albeit, implementing one at CapU will be tricky due to the lack of campus culture to begin with). Currently, CapU’s orientation is limited to a half-day of touring the campus. “Cap's orientation day is definitely lacking in that ‘school spirit’ feeling, hence giving off a bad first impression to students that Cap has no community or school spirit,” says Le. “My first semester student orientation was kind of boring, there [were] no pep rallies, no community interaction with both students and faculty, and it wasn’t fun and did not make me excited to go to CapU.” If it’s not a full-blown frosh then CapU’s annual orientation could at least do better in terms of making students feel part of the Blues. The school already has a reputation as a temporary stop gap for students aiming to transfer to Simon Fraser University, UBC or other universities, it wouldn’t hurt to at least try and make the students want to stay at CapU.

"Thanh Le is a hot girl in my communications class.

I interviewed her so I got to talk to her."

the other F-‐word CHANGING WORDS IN A CHANGING WORLD Steve Tornes × Writer

On their 535th issue, Xtra Vancouver, a gay biweekly newspaper, published a cover article on “Fag Stags”. Fag remains a hateful word and by prominently using the word, it suggests that the newspaper wanted to sensationalize the cover, thereby shocking people into reading the article.

Should the hateful word, “fag”, have been used at all? It is tempting to try and ignore the word altogether; however, the LGBTQ community is attempting something far better. It is a far more powerful act to appropriate the hateful word, turning it into a term of affection, regardless of how silly the term “fag stag” may sound. Although the term “fag stag” was probably used to shock people, it is admirably trying to change the meaning of the word. By shocking people, it is more likely to get people to regard the word in a new light.

"Faggot" is a word used pejoratively in American slang, to describe a male homosexual. It is a word used to dehumanize people, to make people feel abnormal and therefore, substandard. It is a word of horror, forcing people to compare themselves to others and to always judge themselves.

It has caused people to believe that they, themselves, were unnatural, since they did not fall into society’s definition of normalcy. To avoid being shunned, they had to imitate others and deny who they were. Faggot became a hateful slang curse because it forced people to deny their identity.

According to C.J. Pascoe, in his book, Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse, the word was also used by male children to describe effeminacy rather than homosexuality.

If someone was perceived as non-masculine, they risked being called “a fag”. To better stress that person’s effeminacy, the person could be called gay.

However, the inverse was not true. A gay man was not necessarily called a faggot. According to the adolescents boys studied, “Gay is a legitimate, if marginalized, social identity. If a man is gay, there may be a chance he could be considered masculine by other men.”

It is also important to note that the word fag was used, not only to define someone else as effeminate, but also to describe oneself as masculine.

This is because whenever a boy called someone a fag, they were implicitly saying that the person was less masculine than themselves. By calling other people fags, you were avoiding being called one yourself.

However, the article improves the word by calling

fag stags admirable people. The term “fag stag” is used in the magazine to describe a straight man that is friends with gay people and is a member of gay culture. The female equivalent of the term is “fag hag”. Take Grace from the sitcom Will & Grace as an example. Both terms are ones of affection within the LGBTQ community, and the article regarding fag stags was one of respect toward LGTBTQ allies.

Although the word "fag" was probably used to sensationalize the article, the article promoted fag stags as something to be admired, with writer Raziel Reid noting that fag stags “seem more at ease with themselves than anyone I’ve ever met, gay or straight.”

If it helps people to stop comparing themselves to arbitrary, societal normativity, then the article is doing something good.

Professional dominatrix Nozomi Momo thinks that it is important for words such as fag to be appropriated. “I honestly believe that any words that have been given negative connotations should be utilized by the community — whichever communities suffered through that word — to take it, make it their own and grow strength from it. I don’t think we should dance around words just because it has had negative connotations attached to it because that’s giving more power to that word. I think that it’s great that people are coming up with

fun little names for it, getting rid of the stigma behind it.”

The LGBTQ community has an astonishing ability to take back words and to turn those words into ones that they can be proud of. For example, the word gay used to be a common insult but has since become a preferred noun in the LGBTQ community. They take pride in the very words once used to hurt. Pride is important to the LGBTQ community because it demonstrates that they refuse to be repressed for being who they are. Regardless of definitions of normalcy, they will take pride in themselves.

Therefore, even though the newspaper used the word provocatively on the cover, its actions were for the promotion of harmony and acceptance. It caused people to read, and others to write about, the article. By trying to make “fag stag” a term to take pride in, they were trying to make the world a better place. While it remains doubtful that the term “fag stag” will ever become a popular term, the desire to appropriate the word fag remains admirable.

The Red pill GROWN ASS MEN ACTING LIKE GROWN ASS DOGS Faye Alexander × Opinions Editor

× Ekaterina Aristova

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also comes with some glaring perks — a launching point for the feminist movement itself.

“Feminism is an outgrowth of chivalry. It is dependent on male sexual competition to thrive.

In short, misandry, feminism, the stinking lot of it, is a human problem rooted in men’s mindless competition for women,” explained Paul Elam, a writer for AVoiceForMen.com and a RedPill enthusiast, in his essay “Red Pill Prescription: Take ‘em All”. Seems like Elam, along with many of his fellow philosophers need to get back to the books and quickly google feminism’s actual definition.

Feminism is defined as the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men. It has never been to trick men into serving the female population, with the power of their looks and the possession of their vaginas. Until the Red Pill, getting a free drink at

×

Men (and some women, too) have taken to the forums to promote the ideology that we are living within a feminist illusion, and have pushed for genders to assume their rightful place within traditional gender roles. They believe that the feminist movement is not a movement at all, but instead simplifies it to a sexual strategy designed by women to ensure that women get what they want. Being female does come with its perks, and that seems to be the driving force behind the RedPill users’ extreme distasteful discourse on women. The perks that have become the major gripes of RedPill subscribers, such as women expecting free drinks at bars, are petty when considering females have the ultimate perk: the ability to create life itself. It’s the small insignificant double standards these online trolls can’t seem to get off their minds. It would be reasonable to point out that being born male

THE CAPILANO COURIER

You can find a lot of interesting things while surfing the web. Whatever information your heart desires is probably available on Reddit.com. Reddit is now infamous for its open nature and diverse user community that sustains both the content and the dialogue online. The site has made it easier than ever to raise attention on just about any niche idea and has helped in opening discussion amongst its users. But with great power comes great responsibility — with Reddit users on the rise, even the worst ideas eventually find larger audiences. And some of them are just plain scary.

Subreddits can be created about any topic and can be either public or private. Popular subreddits include World News, WTF, Science and Funny.

But there is a new philosophy gaining momentum online, with over 40,000 subscribers since the subreddit was created. It’s called the Red Pill. A “man” who goes by username “Redditredpill” was struggling with understanding women and decided, like many cowardly men before him, to air his grievances online. The “philosophy” may not have ever taken shape if “Redditredpill” had taken himself to the local library and borrowed a copy of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus — but it’s too late now. The Red Pill was founded on a belief that women have it better than men. Users who “swallow the pill” maintain that it is men who have been socially disenfranchised and quickly dismiss female oppression as myth.

One user explains: "You are hating women because you have the wrong expectations for them.

Don't hate someone for something they cannot be.

Women are, by nature, manipulative, attentionseeking, inconsistent, emotional and heterogamous. Accept this truth. Once you do, you can game women for what they are ... not what you want them to be."

the bar has never been viewed as feminist activism.

The idea that women have it better than men can be easily dismissed. Only 14.6 per cent of the 2013 Fortune 500 executives were women and the numbers have stagnated in recent years. In Canada, women only comprised 35.4 per cent of management positions nationally, according to Statistics Canada. But pointing out the basics of the inequality between men and women in the workplace is not an original argument — it’s entirely played out. To be fair, success and power isn’t just defined by career and income — and the basic fact that women still have to make strides for equality, socially and in the workplace, never make the forums on the Red Pill.

Instead the discussion boards are comprised of headlines such as “The War on Women Myth”, “Open Letter to Liberal Feminists: Girls don’t have it worse than boys” and “Rights don’t matter. Acquire privilege”. Are any of these Red Pill users aware that this is no way to heal their bitter attitudes towards the fairer sex? Posting bold statements such as “If you haven’t had sex yet, a woman is looking for reasons to reject you,” is damaging — both to men and women alike. Someone who is gullible enough to swallow these pills will likely only be rejected because no self-respecting woman would spread for someone who exudes such a negative attitude towards her gender, or defines her by her genitalia. Women are not the enemy — the obstacle is the users themselves.

Congregating behind the safety of their computer monitors to spread erroneous woman-shaming propaganda does not allow for productive discussion. The truth is that both genders were not created equal, but that doesn’t mean that one is superior to the other. Creating a playground for misogyny isn’t necessary — the male users of the Red Pill could easily find sympathy and like-minded men by taking a long vacation to Saudi Arabia where they will be free to express their views within a culture quick to embrace it.

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columns

LEAH SCHEITEL COLUMNS EDITOR

EDITOR@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

the modern groupie THE ILLUSION OF EXTRAVAGANCE Layla Domino × Columnist

Layla Domino is a veteran groupie with a love of all things music and all things men. After spending her early 20s backstage waiting for her lovers to serenade crowds and in the front seat of tour buses, she has gathered some raucous stories, which she will now share with you. And naturally, her favourite movie is a tie between Magic Mike and Almost Famous.

There’s nothing like the illusion of extravagance to get you really hot and bothered. I’m sure that was the case when supermodel Pamela Anderson agreed to film a sex tape with her then-hubby, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, on a yacht in whatever beautiful place they were. It was extravagant, it was passion-fuelled and it was sexy.

As is the allure of the Playboy Mansion, with its replica grotto, several themed rooms and hundreds of ultra-pert “bunnies” in bikinis — it oozes sexiness and luxury; a welcome vacation from middleclass real life.

Now, put a hundred early 20-somethings in a giant mansion in Vancouver and watch the libidos rage.

That’s what I did when I was invited to my friend Cheyenne’s housewarming party thrown by her and nine of her new roommates as they moved into a very large house while studying at UBC. It’s a university afforded by putting yourself into massive student debt, or afforded by wealthy

“Should we try to break in?” — I cautiously turned the front door handle and nudged the door open.

Well, it was definitely a party, but we still weren’t sure if it was the party. Absolving all of our doubts was Cheyenne’s open-faced expression as she came down the spiral staircase with her arms extended outwards, exclaiming, “You made it!!!”

Rushing past the “board room”, as they called it, another extension of the house that was bordering the entrance way, she rushed up to give us all hugs, and then a tour of the house. First up, to the right, was the living room which, no joke, was big enough to park five luxury cars in. The sheer size of it made the two fairly large couches inside look × Alain Champagne like mere props from a doll house. Just beyond the living room was a raised platform with a bar, and parents who can afford to ship their kids off to behind that, a solarium that looked out into a very the most prestigious university in North America’s majestic backyard. most unaffordable city to live in.

Owned by a wealthy couple from the States, Point Grey has a reputation for expensive- the mansion was rented out separately per room looking homes with neatly landscaped lawns and to each resident, so Cheyenne hardly knew some even more expensive homes with even bigger lawns of her roommates. The rooms were large and had that are carefully manicured every two weeks. The their own adjacent bathrooms. One room, empty kind of house that Cheyenne moved into, to my for the time being, was as big as the one-bedroom surprise, was in the latter category. apartment that I was renting in the suburbs – comWhen I showed up with four other friends to plete with its own walk-in closet, ensuite baththis gigantic manse with its massive windows, room and its own solarium. cobblestone walkway and wrought-iron trellises Most of the girls were wearing glamorous maxithat decorated the lawn, we sceptically checked dresses and sparkly, funky jewellery and some of the house’s address against the address we were the guys were wearing dress pants and button-up given. We must have the wrong the house, we shirts. In a simple, summery polka-dot dress, I felt thought. There’s no way this could be it. Opening massively underdressed for what looked to me like the front gate, we tread lightly and quietly towards an amateur Oscars after-party. That was until I the front door, partitioned between two marble spotted a character that matched someone in my Romanesque columns. It felt like we were trespass- usual Saturday-night crowd — a dude in a dirty ing. Looking at each other quizzically, as if to say, band t-shirt with long hair and a moderate amount

of facial stubble.

His name was Keelan, and we knew each other in passing from metal shows he had played in and that I had been to as a former Black Wizard groupie. He played guitar in a band called Hugenelk and had actually played alongside my ex in a few cases. Being the only other person at this party who was grossly underdressed, it seemed, I gravitated towards him and we stuck side-by-side all night. I was a few vodka-lemonades in, and he was a six-pack of Cariboo deep, before we were making out in several corners of the massive mansion — underneath the spiral staircase, both of the solariums and in hidden walk-in closets all over the house. Obviously, I was attracted to Keelan, but the gratuitous opulence of the mansion upped the ante. Things got particularly steamy in the upstairs solarium which was completely visible to the outside street; it was the most exhilarating lay that I’d ever had.

After putting our clothes back on, we hung out together in the Alice in Wonderland-like backyard playing ladder ball and beer darts while other lascivious 20-somethings coupled up and fornicated all over the mansion.

A week later, we had plans to go for a drink — this time, not in a mansion — but Keelan cancelled, saying he was too broke to go out. A musician without any of his own money? I couldn’t say I was surprised. I can say it was hands down the best oral sex I have ever received — but unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the bar tab.

art of a ski bum PLAN B

Reuben Krabbe

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× Columnist

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After graduating from the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria, Reuben Krabbe moved to Whistler to shoot, ski and drink wine. His work can be seen gracing the pages of Skier, Powder, Bike, and SBC Skier, along with a multitude of other publications. His work can be seen at ReubenKrabbe.com James McSkimming is rappelling down a 10-metre cliff that interrupts the chute we're skiing in Whistler's backcountry. P-tex and the metal edges of his skis grind against the cold dark stone — elemental pieces of the skis returning to their native, raw environment. I stand below with a camera, similar striations carved into the bases of my skis. The sound of sloughing snow comes down from the chute hanging above us, the soft frozen wind sifted snow cascades like a waterfall over his shoulders.

The camera clicks in away in my hand.

A year later, the image appears on the cover of Mountain Life magazine's “Plan B” issue. Though the image looks like it fits the theme, it wasn't our plan B, it was our Plan A. How do I find myself in such remarkable and absurd situations that appear to be so contrary to the basic human instinct for self preservation? What brings me to these places?

The night before heading out to Fissile Mountain to ski and photograph this line, James and I chatted on the phone about the snow quality, exposure, length of rappel and other logistical details. As I hang up the phone, I quietly contemplated why I'd go to ski and shoot this line. The only solution came from the words of Jacob Bannon, vocalist for the hardcore punk band, Converge: "I don't really do too much self-reflection on my life. Or, what lead me here. I've been really addicted to forward movement all the time; making stuff, doing things.

Just being active in some way." I don't know if there is a motive so much as a compulsive addition to creation, to learning and wanderlust.

Twenty minutes before shooting the photo, I stood on a steep slope of rotten icy wind-fucked snow. Two planks of wood wrapped in fibreglass, with metal edges, are all that hold me to the wall of this mountain. You can't mess up up here, if you do you fall like a rag doll for a couple hundred feet, then fly off a cliff a couple hundred feet tall, and then your body slides into a crevasse. Falling would mean almost certain death or crippling injury. Why accept these risks? Ski mountaineer Andreas Frannson's words ring true as if they were my own, "So here I am again, in this game with the mountains. Could you get the thrill of your life, and feel truly alive if you knew they were perfectly safe? Would your consciousness be completely in the moment if you didn't know this was serious business? Would it be a game worth playing at all, if the outcome was certain?"

James and I skied the rotten snow, a twist-

ing tall-walled chute down to the crux 10-metre cliff. There we built an anchor for a rope and I descended first, so I could photograph James as he descended after me. Five minutes before shooting the photo, I mounted the tilt-shift lens on the camera. This niche lens' effects can be mimicked but not replicated in Photoshop. The difficulty lies in manually focusing a lens that has a very small margin of error. Though these aren't the only images I'll create in the day, missing a shot always hurts, especially on something as seemingly trivial as focusing the camera. This is another risk to an already dangerous shoot.

Several years back, my friend Andrew Higgins who was also experimenting with photography asked me, “What was it about that very first roll of film that allowed for such simplistic creativity?"

The answer is that when I shot my first roll of film I also had hopes and aspirations for the photographs, however I didn’t need to succeed. I was inexperienced, naive and unskilled. If every frame was blurry I would surely be disappointed, but I was allowed to fail. My only concern was having fun, and trying new things.

Each moment of my career now exists in a strange dichotomy. I'm intentionally walking down paths of creativity where I'm sure failure is a possible outcome of the process, but I need to continue succeeding to keep paying rent. I have to be out on a limb, with only one hand to balance when the other is holding the camera.

At home I look over the images. I did capture the frame from the rappel, but I didn't nail a cou-

ple other images. I'm a less talented photographer than I could be. Though I string myself out on a line and risk my neck, I fall short of my own wishes and expectations. If I'm going through all of these motions and challenges, why aren't I better at what I do? As cliché as it is, everyone is likely their own worst critic. Even animated characters, such as Anton Ego in Pixar’s Ratatouille, understand this. "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read,” he preached in the movie.

Spiraling self-loathing from the critic nearly overwhelms. However if I keep my head balanced enough to recognize it, I can remember to create, to keep failure in the crosshairs, move forward and be active in some way. And if I do fail, well, then there is always a Plan B.

× contributed

humans THE PLIGHT OF ABORIGINAL WOMEN IN CANADA

Christine Janke × Columnist Christine Janke is the kind of soul that cares for all of the ones around her. Her education in Human Rights from Malmo University in Sweden has allowed her to look at the world in a different light. Her Humans column will delve into human rights, in Canada and abroad.

The journey of Canada’s indigenous women has not been an easy one. For many years, concerns within aboriginal communities across Canada have grown for the safety and welfare of their female members. The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), established in 1974, was formed to be a voice for aboriginal women in Canada. While they confront issues such as education and employment, their main focus lies on violence against women and missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. The amount of data regarding Canada’s indigenous women remains largely uncollected. Even so, Statistics Canada did agree in their 2004 General Social Survey that aboriginal women face alarming rates of violence. It was concluded that they are three-and-a-half times more likely to face such abuse, often life-threatening, than non-aboriginal women. Unfortunately, the research done by Statistics Canada focuses entirely on spousal or familial violence, and there exists a lack of data regarding violence against indigenous women by strangers. This lack of statistics, due largely to the fact that roughly 60 per cent of cases go unreported, propelled the NWAC to spend years gathering information on missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada. As of 2010, they have compiled 582 such cases and have since

× Emily McGratten been pressuring the federal government to create a plan of action in order to change these disheartening trends.

On March 7, the House of Commons Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women released their much-anticipated report regarding steps the federal government plans to take to address these grave issues. While the report does recommend a victim’s bill of rights and improving the data collection regarding violence against indigenous women, it fails to take active and progressive steps that would improve the situation. Mainly missing was the setting up of a public inquiry into the numerous disappearances of indigenous women, something that is long overdue. Meghan Rhoad, a women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, is quoted in a HRW news report saying, “The committee’s weak

recommendations represent an acceptance of the shocking status quo of violence against indigenous women and girls, even by the very people who are supposed to protect them.” She was referring to the shocking reports regarding the RCMP’s maltreatment of indigenous women. Human Rights Watch reports that the RCMP in Northern B.C. used excessive force and even physical and sexual assault against native women in the region.

These reports are particularly disturbing since it is in B.C.’s north that Highway 16 lies. This highway has been dubbed the “Highway of Tears” since the stretch of road connecting Prince George with Prince Rupert has been an area where at least 18 indigenous women have disappeared since 1969.

These women living in northern B.C. needed extra protection from police, but instead they found harm and brutality, even blame. It seems that a

national inquiry into violence against indigenous women needs to take place, and as the March 7 report released by Canada’s Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women shows us, if anything is to be done to help these women, investigations need to be made by a non-governmental, politically independent organization. U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, made a visit to Canada in October of last year and agrees that an objective investigation needs to be done, not necessarily a federal investigation. Legal justice for aboriginal women is of great importance, but perhaps of even greater importance is the address of historically-based social-cultural issues in Canada that play a large role in how certain members of our nation are seen as having less worth.

Topics relating to human rights are often the more taboo subjects of discussion. They often delve into areas of violence, religion, race or ethnicity, sexual preference, political expression or even genocide. As we’ve all been taught, topics such as these are not polite conversation. While it may be true that atrocities faced by other human beings and infringements against their right to live freely or even simply live, are uncomfortable topics for discussion, it is undoubtedly and most certainly communication that will bring about their redemption. After all, I think we can be nearly certain that it is human ignorance, intentional or not, that allows for most human suffering to take place. And the only way to rid the world of ignorance, starting with us, is through education. It is through discussions, in newspapers or today’s “online coffeehouses,” where truth on the violence and injustice faced by aboriginal women can be shared and positive progress for Canada’s society can occur. We can all be part of conversation, and we can all be part of the change.

functional adult FIXING YOUR CAFFEINE FIX

× Columnist Far from her small town roots, Paisley Conrad is trying to find her way in Vancouver. Her life is now a juggling act of school, work and improv comedy, and she manages to pull it off while appearing like an adult. In her column, she will explore the tribulations of a young student trying to figure it out outside of the parent’s house.

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going to be excessively annoying to your barista and those behind you in line, it’s better that you know exactly what you’re getting. You don’t know the ins and outs of the menu, and that’s fine. You’re not supposed to be an expert. You’re not getting paid to know what these drinks are, the barista is.

However, if you truly have no idea what you are going to order, don’t wait to decide until you’re at the front of line. Stand back until you’ve decided, let those who know exactly what they want slide in ahead of you. Holding up a line of cranky people who haven’t had their morning java fix is not advisable, and you’ll be subject to a lot of dirty looks.

While coffee shops make excellent offices for students and aspiring professionals, try to buy more than one thing if your stay will be extended.

Start out with a cup of coffee. A few hours later, buy a small baked treat. If you’re there for the long haul, finish off with a cup of tea. And don’t forget to tip. This will neutralize any resentment your baristas may harbour towards you, and will pay you back in good karmic vibes and better-brewed london fogs. Think of it as a small rental fee.

And don’t forget, there is absolutely no shame in loading up your cup with cream and sugar — in fact, the more the merrier. It’s your coffee, and you can treat it any way you want.

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Being both a student and a writer, it’s no surprise that I drink copious amounts of coffee. It compensates for my poor eating and sleeping habits, and a coffee cup is also a trendy accessory these days.

It’s a relatively inexpensive way of seeming both edgy and focused.

The first time I ever drank coffee was in grade 12. My friend had an espresso machine, and she and I were pulling an all-nighter to study for our history exam. For some bizarre reason, she didn’t have milk, cream or any form of sweetener, so she just put six shots of straight espresso into one cup.

completely different and insoluble in coffee. One glance at the owners confirmed my worst fears. I don’t think that I have ever been looked upon with such pity and disdain since my mother found out that I wasn’t a virgin anymore.

I dipped my fingers into the piping hot cup to remove the weird cube and, in the process, knocked the entire cup over, spilling the Turkish coffee all over myself. Not only was this physically painful (nothing is worse than hot liquid pouring down your thighs), but it was a supremely embarrassing follow-up to my previous faux pas. I simply got up, thanked them for their kindness and walked out, red with shame, my legs slightly burning. My lesson has been learned, and I’m back to exclusively Americanos.

There are the typical questions that one may have upon entering an unfamiliar coffee shop: where does the line start, where do you wait for your drink, do you leave your used dishes on your tables, or do you drop them by the counter? The staff can only answer all of these questions. You’re not a bother, you’re a customer and any half-decent barista will answer your queries, no matter how bored and disinterested they appear to be.

If you don’t understand what something is on the menu, ask. Even if you feel like your ignorance of the inner workings of caffeinated beverages is

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Paisley Conrad

I liken that first sip unto the first time I ever drank straight vodka. And, as with vodka, I was simultaneously revolted and intoxicated from the get-go.

I’m a frequent customer at Blondy’s Coffee on West 4th. I go to this particular shop primarily for three reasons: the coffee is organic, it’s typically very quiet and it is owned by this Turkish couple who are the sweetest people I have ever met. I go in every day that I work and order a medium Americano. We’re at the point where I walk in the door and they just start grinding the beans.

One particular morning, I was extremely hung over and was in serious need of an extra kick, so I ordered an extra shot of espresso in my Americano.

They offered me a special treat that morning: a free cup of Turkish coffee. It’s highly caffeinated and would provide me with the energy that I needed to tackle the long day at work I was facing. After asking me if I would like sugar with it, they passed me a small, ornately patterned cup and saucer, with a strange green cube next to it. I thanked them and sat down, unsure of how to proceed with the green cube. Shrugging, I made the assumption that it was some bizarre kind of Turkish sugar cube and plopped it into the small cup. It bobbed a few times before settling at the bottom of the cup, but made no moves to dissolve. It began to occur to me that this was not, in fact, sugar, but something

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Kristi

Get Lucky FiveSixty 7:30 pm $15

@capilanocourier War Baby

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The Media Club 9 pm $12

@capcourier

TED 2014 M 17

Vancouver Convention Centre 6 pm Registration only

CapilanoCourier.com St. Paddy's Day Karaoke Party

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Funky Winkerbean’s 8 pm $ - free

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Guaranteed to have the most wasted white girls in one spot, this St. Paddy’s Day celebration includes DJs and magicians, probably some green beer and some douchebags in tank tops. Hosted by the Langara Social Club, all proceeds from tickets and opt-in games go towards the LSC Student Scholarship Fund.

Vancouver’s grungiest three-piece brings you fuzzy stoner rock with guests Failing and The Greater Wall, who, incidentally, are releasing their cassette.

Here’s hoping you kept that Walkman from your childhood. Otherwise, The Greater Wall might have missed their audience by about 20 years.

TEDtalks, known for its inspirational speeches by notable people, celebrates its 30th anniversary in Vancouver, this year dubbed “The Next Chapter”.

Kicking off the week-long expo is Session One: Lift Off! The panel includes Eat, Pray, Lover Elizabeth Gilbert — and that’s enough for me!

Hang out with a bunch of crust punks in Vancouver’s most metal bar since the new ownership of the Cobalt. If you can handle some burst pipes leaking into your green beer, then slam it back, sing a tune, and ask for another. There’ll be no shortage of Danzig’s “Mother”. At least we hope not.

Dreamlovers Pop-Up Shop

Chelsea Hotel

Redman

Stand Up For Mental Health

The Chinatown Experiment 11 am to 7 pm $ - price of artisan goodies

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Firehall Arts Centre 8 pm $15

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Fortune Sound Club 9 pm $28

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CSU Library Lounge 11:30 am to 1pm $ - free

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Dream Lover is a pop-up shop beginning from March 18 and runs until March 26. Bringing together a group of awesome local artists, designers and makers, Dream Lover’s focus is on original handmade quality pieces that are classic and unique — just what you need to stay up-to-date on those East Van fashion police.

If you’ve ever found yourself listening to “Famous Blue Raincoat” on repeat or rereading some of the magnificent passages from Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers, then there’s so much more in store when checking out the musical Chelsea Hotel, based on the music of one of Canada’s greatest musician/ poet/writers.

A famed Def Jam alum, Redman graces the city known for its OG chronic. Remember when he was in that movie where he rolled up his dead genius friend’s ashes in a joint and became a university whiz? Come see “How High” you can get off his knowledge at this late show, with comedian warm-up Dino Archie.

We just heard about this, but it sounds fun. It's featuring a comedy troupe and pizza. We would be there, for pizza and jokes, but we can't due to our last story meeting. So grab some pizza for us.

If there are questions about the type of comdey or type of pizza, contact Sean Stewart, the CSU disabilities liaison at Abilities@Csu.Bc.ca

Vancouver Fashion Week

Ladies Against Humanity

Nashville Hurricane

Making Sense of France

Chinese Cultural Centre 6:45 pm $150

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The Rio Theatre 8 pm $9

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Performance Works 8 pm $25

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Legacy Liquor Store 6 pm $75

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While it’s just $30 for admission to two different Fashion Week shows, the VFW’s opening gala is a whopping $150. I don’t know what makes it so expensive, since the website boasts relatively little information about it — which means you’re probably already a big deal and in-the-know if you’re attending this.

In celebration of International Women's Day, Vancouver women team up for the Fictionals' hitcomedy show based on Cards Against Humanity — female style. Join your fellow femme fatales for the hilarious and often grotesque game. At $9, it’s a lot cheaper than Vancouver Fashion Week.

Here’s one for our resident groupie, Layla Domino — the classic struggle of a musician and his drugaddled road to stardom. The Vancouver Fringe Festival presents the story of a guitar prodigy and his rise to fame, as told by his alcoholic mother, his sleazy manager and his blues-music mentor.

Not quite a sommelier but you want to pretentiously act as if you know everything about wine on that Napa Valley road trip you’re taking this summer? Learn about French wines that come from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, and the Loire and Rhône valleys—and really show ‘em who’s got the best palette.

Sleepy Sun

Nils Frahm

Pecha Kucha

Women-Only Garage Party

The Biltmore Cabaret 8 pm $12

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The Electric Owl 7 pm $15

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The Vogue Theatre 6:30 pm $15

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Trev Deeley Motorcycle Shop 6 pm to 9 pm $ - free

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North California psych-rockers come back to Vancouver to play the Biltmore Cabaret. Unfortunately, the female vocalist who sounded eerily like Vancouver’s own Amber Webber from Black Mountain left the band, but they’re probably just as ripping. Local openers We Hunt Buffalo and White Ash Falls play.

A pioneering venue for freaky electro acts and ripping dance parties, the Electric Owl presents the Berlin-based experimental pianist, composer, and producer who performs material from latest album Spaces, with guest Douglas Dare.

A (probably) more affordable version of TEDtalks — an evening of inspiration and inspirational speakers. Though this event doesn’t boast a headlining Elizabeth Gilbert, it does offer names like Erin Ireland, food reporter and owner of To Die For Fine Foods, and Connor Lowe, interactive art director at Aritzia.

Boy, this calendar is looking pretty woman-centric, isn’t it? Well, that’s because there are just so many fantastic things happening in Vancouver in celebration of International Women’s Day. This is an introduction to Harley Davidson motorcycles, motor clothes, parts, accessories and service.

Mounties

10 Bucks 10 Bands

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Floyd Collins

Commodore Ballroom 8 pm $20

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The Astoria 9 pm $10

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The Rio Theatre 11 pm $8

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The York Theatre 8 pm $19

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Canada’s newest supergroup, composed of Hawksley Workman, Steve Bays from Hot Hot Heat, and Ryah Dahle from Limblifter and Age of Electric, plays the Commodore Ballroom with guest Rich Aucoin. This show is so Canadian, you’ll be sweating maple syrup at the end of the night.

Get set for this all-night rager, starting at 9 p.m. and ending in the wee hours of the morning, for just $10 you get 10 bands, including countryrockers Grass City, Random Dander , The Wandering Halls, Colby Morgan & The Catastrophes, This is the Shoes, Hill Beast, The Prettys, Harma White, Dusty Bones, and Lightbulb Vaporizer.

Monty Python sets the cinema back 900 years in a satirical take on King Arthur and his knights embarking on a low-budget search for the Holy Grail.

The crusaders encounter numerous silly obstacles and memorable characters, like the Knights who say “Nee!” and mud-slapping peasants, along the way.

Set in 1925 Kentucky, this riveting musical is based on the true story of an American cave explorer and entrepreneur who, in his search for the ultimate tourist attraction, found himself trapped 100 feet below the earth. The performance offers authentic bluegrass music; I can already feel the straw between my teeth.

Play Shogi

Johnny De Courcy

Portobello West

Das Lexikon

Moii Café 10:30 am $ - food purchase

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The Biltmore Cabaret 7:30 pm $8

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Creekside Community Centre 11 am to 5 pm $2

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Vancouver Alpen Club 6:30 pm $38

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Johnny De Courcy hails from a long line of artists. His dad, renowned artist and photographer Michael De Courcy, forged out his fame at Emily Carr and continues to create in Vancouver. Johnny runs Pinhole Printing where he silkscreens everything from band shirts to posters and creates kick ass music with his band, the Death Rangers.

Shop for locally made art, clothing, accessories, and sweets as you listen to local musicians and bid on silent-auction baskets that will fund a booth for an upcoming designer at the next market.

Kind of like a Farmers’ Market — but inside, which is a good thing for spring in Vancouver.

Raincity Chronicles, Ken Tsui, and Bestie present a night of German appreciation infused with Krautrock, German beer, hand-picked stories inspired by German vocabulary, and a bratwurst dinner. No word if Hans Christian Anderson stories will be told yet, but I have a suspicion there might be.

Sunday Morning at Hinge Park

Lunch at the Temple

Open Mic

Season Finale of GIRLS

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Learn how to play Japanese chess—or if you’re already an expert, challenge a Vancouver Shogi Club member. You don’t have to pay to join, but must make a minimum food purchase at Moii Café during your stay. The joint has crepes ranging from $4.50 to $9.50.

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Hinge Park (False Creek) 9 am to 11 am $28

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An event sponsored by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Hinge Park is a newly designed public space which combines a century of industrial heritage with the creation of a naturalized wetland in Southeast False Creek. Meet up at the new JJ Bean location for a morning of coffee and history.

Shree Mahalakshmi Temple 2 pm $ - by donation

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Every Sunday, the good people of Shree Mahalakshmi Temple offer free (or by donation), delicious Indian food. Keep up the good karma by following a few simple rules: wash your hands at the door, smile and say thank you to everyone, say yes please or no thank you when offered more, and don't be a jerk and donate in the little wooden box stuck to the wall by the door you came in.

The Cottage Bistro 7:30 pm $ - cost of your talent

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Open mic night at the Cottage Bistro consists of three mics, a guitar amp, a bass amp, a drum kit and a keyboard… and some really passionate amateur and/or seasoned musicians. If you’re lucky, you might one day get to see our Caboose Editor Jeremy’s bluegrass Bon Jovi cover band, John Banjovi.

HBO 9 pm $ - cost of specialty cable

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If you’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster along with all of the characters in Lena Dunham’s Girls, from watching Marnie unravel through her breakup, Shoshanna’s newly wanton ways, Jessa’s stint in rehab and Hanna’s ongoing neuroses, you’re not going to want to miss the season three finale of Girls. Good god, what am I going to do with my Sunday nights?

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Staff Editorial feeling fortunate Andy Rice × Arts + Culture Editor

× Cheryl Swan

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Despite the frequency at which I order Chinese food, I’m not a big fortune cookie guy. They’re usually hiding in the bottom of the bag, stale and covered in errant splotches of sweet and sour sauce, filled with messages of questionable integrity. Two months ago, however, I found one to be in pretty good shape and cracked it open at the end of my meal. “The winds of change are blowing,” it read, and I immediately began thinking about what that could mean.

At the time, my landlords had just put their house on the market and I was keeping my basement suite in a perpetual state of clean for endless real estate tours and open houses. Had those winds already begun to blow in my drafty apartment?

Would I soon be looking for a new one altogether?

I had no idea, but I couldn’t help but make a correlation between the two.

A few weeks later, I was on my way to interview someone for an article when I received a text from my mom. “Hey hon, can you call me when you get a chance?” was all it said. Despite being 50-something and a little late to the party when it comes to technology, she’s always been a bit more verbose than that, even through an iPhone. Something must be up, I thought — and I was right.

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I called home and she immediately picked up.

“We’ve got some bad news about Sizzle,” she said.

After explaining that our cat had been showing some signs of discomfort in her jaw recently, they’d taken her into the vet for a check-up that afternoon. What he found was oral squamous cell carcinoma, a fast-moving type of cancer that, in her case, had grown in the form of an inoperable tumor. Sizzle had about three weeks until this thing would restrict most of the movement of her tongue and make living pretty hard. When your favourite hobbies are licking yourself and eating, this isn’t especially good news, and it certainly wasn’t good news for us either.

Sizzle is one of two pets I’ve ever had, and she’s been around for about as long as I can remember.

When I was seven, we picked her up at a farm south of town, along with her twin brother, who’s since passed from another ailment. People talk about cats being unfriendly and keeping to themselves, but these guys were the opposite — full of personality and a constant desire to be right where their family was. Losing her brother Nuzzle was tough on my 14-year-old self, but as I got older I began to appreciate Sizzle’s companionship on an even deeper level, dreading the day we’d have to

say goodbye to her, too.

After moving to Vancouver from my hometown of Powell River six years ago I haven’t been spending nearly as much time at home as I used to. I still make it back at Christmas time and for a few weeks over the summer, and whenever I do get to hang out on the couch with that fluffy, grey bundle of love, I’m a pretty happy guy. Knowing that she’s not going to be there the next holiday I’ll be home for is a pretty hard thing to imagine, and at that moment when my mom was explaining the situation to me, I had already begun to go there in my mind.

If only there was a way I could get out of work on short notice and make it home while there was still time, I thought. For music teachers, that isn’t quite as simple as swapping a shift or booking a day off, so it wasn’t looking too good. But on the weekend of the Olympic gold medal men’s hockey game, something happened that never happens with my Saturday lesson schedule — my last two students of the day called in sick. I had just enough time to get to the ferry, hop on a bus and make the five-hour trip back home. It was a spontaneous and heart-driven decision.

I arrived at 11 p.m., surprising both my parents and the cat. I don’t think I’ve seen such a loving

and perceptive reaction from an animal before, and I certainly didn’t expect it from one in pain who hadn’t seen me in a few months. She was clearly excited to have her entire family together again, and stuck to me like glue for the entire weekend. Her little face was almost the same as I remembered it, but there was a look of growing uncertainty in her eyes and a steady drip from one side of her swollen jaw. In no time, I became a professional at drool cleanup and cat cuddles, spending every waking moment at her side. It was an experience I wouldn’t have traded for the world. As I write this today back in Vancouver, I’m not sure how long Sizzle has left, but the way things have been progressing, this could very well be her last week with us.

I went for Chinese food yesterday to take my mind off of things. After my meal, I cracked open another fortune cookie. “You are no doubt obligated to do the proper thing,” it read. And at least when it comes to my cat’s final days, I feel like I may already have.

caboose arthur's diner Gabriel Scorgie × Writer

× Cristian Fowlie

A few years ago, somewhere on the dry cracked roads of New Mexico, between Santa Fe and Las Cruces, sat Arthur’s Diner. Arthur’s was an inconspicuous diner that looked exactly like the thousands of others that line America’s freeways.

It was the type of place that people would drive by without thinking twice about — had the diner not been located next to a cliff. Yes, back then, the freeway inexplicably and literally dropped off a cliff. A 300-foot cliff to be exact. Nobody has been able to explain why the freeway ended so suddenly or where it originally went, but the one thing that has been agreed upon is: wherever the freeway used to go, it certainly didn't anymore.

As a business student, Arthur learned a couple vital things about the world. One: That location trumps everything else, and two: that you can always count on the stupidity of others. Which is why, for a brief period of time, Arthur’s Diner was not only the most popular diner in America, but in the entire world.

The customers of Arthur’s Diner all followed a

predictable pattern. First, they could be seen in the distance driving unsuspectingly towards the cliff.

Often it was a family that was on a road trip and had been in the car for far too long. Next, upon reaching the aforementioned cliff, the car would sit at the cliff for about five minutes while the husband and wife tried to figure out how they ended up in such an odd predicament. This portion of the experience contained a lot of cursing and the throwing of many GPS 5000s off the cliff, but more on that later. Then, after admitting defeat and coming to the realization that they had at least an hour of backtracking to do before they got back on the right road again, they would decide it was best to pull into the diner and grab a bite to eat.

Arthur’s best seller and “Meal of the Day” was the U-Turn. As it turns out, the U-Turn would later go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only “Meal of the Day” that had been a “Meal of the Day” for 1,362 consecutive days.

(Arthur correctly assumed that nobody would catch on, since people don’t drive to the edge of a

cliff twice — unless, of course, the cliff was blessed with the good fortune of being called a Canyon, in which case people will take time off work, tell all their friends, and then drive several miles out of their way to do so). The U-Turn was a standard diner meal consisting of a poorly cooked burger and some fries that were cooked in a condition that would never pass a health inspection. (Another thing that Arthur correctly assumed was that health inspectors, for whatever reason, don’t drive to cliffs). For good measure, and to raise the spirits of his customers, the U-Turn also came with a complimentary map.

For a few years, Arthur’s Diner prospered, averaging over 100 lost customers a day. Many food critics credit his popularity to the great GPS debacle of the early 2000s — where many drivers found themselves horribly and irrevocably lost on a daily basis. However, his popularity was also his downfall. The attention he drew from the media for his diner quickly turned away from his diner and onto the cliff. Soon, government officials and

architects were surveying and inspecting the land — which, for an even briefer period, tripled his sales. But then came the announcement that the cliff would become a bridge.

Arthur fought for dear life to keep his diner intact, but the bridge caused too many issues for him to overcome. First off, although health inspectors vehemently refuse to drive to cliffs, they do frequently visit bridges. And not long after the bridge was completed, was Arthur visited by a man in a suit who told him he had four weeks to make $10,000 in upgrades. Secondly, and most importantly, Arthur’s Diner was an inconspicuous diner that looked exactly like the thousands of others that line America’s freeways. It was the type of place that people would drive by without thinking twice about. And since there was now a bridge, most people did exactly that.

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caboose

JEREMY HANLON CABOOSE EDITOR

CABOOSE@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

SHOTGUN REVIEWS: RACIST DISNEY MOVIES!

DUMBO

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG

FROZEN

MULAN

Steve Tornes // Definitely Not A Racist

Kristi Alexandra // Chronic Deadline Misser

Faye Alexander // Ice Cold

Carlo Javier // Secretly Li Shang

The road to Disney racism is paved with good intentions. Yes, seeing the crows in Dumbo is disconcerting but I shouldn’t ignore it. Although the crows were caricatures that reinforced stereotypes, they were supposed to be positive characters. The film was just a product of their time, and it’s not like Disney is ignoring their past racism. Sure, the crows were named after the racist Jim Crow laws, but that just helps remind us of a painful past. It’s not that bad … oh dear … the Roustabouts song in Dumbo started. Oh … they referred to a black worker as a “hairy ape.” Oh my gosh, the song just described the food of black workers as animal feed.

For the record, I don’t even like Dumbo. Ah … the black singers work for white people in horrible conditions without knowing when they’ll get paid … and they are happy to do it. Did I just listen to a slave song? Does the song imply that slavery wasn’t that bad? My childhood burns. I think I’ll go watch a film without racism, like Mulan or Frozen or the Princess and the Frog.

From the inaugural release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, Disney films have been feeding sexist stereotypes to young girls that often stick through to adulthood: find that prince and kiss him because your life won’t amount to anything if you haven’t got a man. Through Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Mulan and on, the moral of the plot never deviated much — culturally homogenous women veiled in opulence (they all lived in castles, temples or lavish mansions) who longed for love and it changed their lives for the better when they inevitably got it. What’s different about Disney’s first black princess, Princess Tiana, other than that she’s, well, the first black princess — and come on, debuting in 2009, it was a long time coming — is that she’s broke. It takes Disney 72 years to represent Africans and instead of putting her up in a castle, they give her a freakin’ run down shack in the ghetto of New Orleans. I have two words for you bigots: Face. Palm.

I was pretty stoked to watch Frozen — like really stoked. I love frost, icicles, snowflakes, snowballs, ice fishing, ice-skating, you name it. If it’s frozen, I’m probably going to get into that shit on the major. Add a dash of that Disney magic, and I’m primed for obsession. But when I took my seat, buttery popcorn overflowing from the bag and a large cola by my side — I quickly lost my appetite.

Frozen was the most racist cinematic effort I’ve had to sit through since 12 Years a Slave. Did anyone else notice that everyone in Frozen is white? I’m talking Arian white. Someone should remind Disney that we are in the year 2014 — and shouldn’t they have made strides since Song of the South?

Why are you still trying to whitewash us with your beautiful milky skinned wunderkinds. I didn’t see a single Asian. Not one. And don’t get me started on how Kristoff, the handsome guy with the reindeer, is supposedly Sami, an indigenous people of Scandinavia — he was whiter than snow from that blonde hair to those dainty freckles. Stop poisoning my mind with your Arian fantasy world, Disney. You racist bastards.

You know what’s so great about Mulan? It’s the first Disney feature that celebrated Asia. Yeah, not just China, but it also somehow managed to involve other Asian cultures in the film. You know where Mulan messed up? When it decided to cast other races for the Chinese roles. George Takei played First Ancestor, Pat Morita played the Emperor of China, Jerry Tondo played Chien-Po. Tondo was Filipino! Also, for reasons unknown, Emperor Chi Fu suddenly had a heavily pronounced, very obvious Chinese accent, especially when you realize that Chi Fu was played by James Hong, a Chinese actor — born in Minnesota. It doesn’t end there.

Fa Mulan, who happens to still remain as the only Asian heroine in Disney’s roster of princesses, surprisingly speaks perfect English, no hint of any accent whatsoever. Was Chi Fu really the only one here that actually grew up in China? Did Fa Mulan grow up in the West? WHY WAS EVERYONE SPEAKING ENGLISH!?!

W/ THE COURIER STAFF TOOTHLESS GRIZZLY GUMMY BEAR BURLESQUE SHOW CARLO, DON’T LOOK!

× Alain Champagne

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SHITTY WEEK? TELL IT TO THE VOICEBOX SEA CUCUMBER THE OCEAN’S RELISH YOUNG LIBERALS REALLY, IS THAT A THING? DARK SOULS GOODBYE BOYFRIENDS MORNING HEAD EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM LIVE HARD, DIE YOUNG CHANGE YOUR BEDPAN BEFORE NOON MISSING MALAYSIAN AIRPLANE LOST: SEASON SEVEN × Cole Pauls