Incite Magazine - October 2009

Volume 12, Issue 2 路 McMaster University, Hamilton 路 October 2009

Incite Magazine

The Kimberly Hoax: Are the diamonds we buy really conflict-free?

Pseudoscience: Fighting paranoia and misinformation in medicine plus Exposed: Surveillance in our everyday lives

Editorial Costumed culture Siva Vijenthira, Editor-in-Chief

I

used to get asked a lot about “my” culture, and I used to bristle at the insinuation that “my” culture couldn’t be Canadian, or even Western. In those angry teenage years, everyone’s eager questions about my native land seemed to be thinly veiled jabs at my flimsy, laminated citizenship card, representing my flimsy, threadbare connection to this country. I spent a lot of time brusquely explaining that Canada’s is the only culture I have ever consciously known in a way that makes it mine.

It took me years to understand that the questions weren’t intentionally exclusionary. Most of the time, they arose out of curiosity. And some of the time, to my puzzlement, they arose out of envy.

The idea that Canadians don’t have any real culture has become so ingrained that I almost cringe at how cliché it is for me to bring it up now. Sure, we have some well-known images and concepts that represent us as a country; but of the staples that people begrudgingly list, many are force-fed to us by profiteering media systems (hockey, Tim Horton’s) while the others are too abstract to inspire heartfelt, irrepressible excitement (public health care, multiculturalism, pacifism).

There’s a sense that we’re at once co-

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Artwork by Laura Simon

cooned and stranded by the gentle blandness of our lives. The feeling is not just a Canadian phenomenon. Around this time of year, I’ve heard more than one American express some hunger for an experience mirroring the significance and (more importantly, I think) exoticism of Diwali, Hinduism’s autumn festival of lights.

To me, all of this dissatisfaction has always been mystifying. Maybe I’m not really fully Canadian or Western, after all, because I think I still have the perspective of an immigrant. In the same way that recent arrivals to a city will often wax enthusiastic about the natural landmarks, festivals and museums that the locals barely notice, I still have an awed love for sights and experiences that seem ordinary to most of the people around me. This month has two such cultural experiences: days that everyone acknowledges and loves, but that are rarely valued on the same plane as the holidays of countries oceans away.

What the Diwali enviers don’t realize is that many Indians see Diwali the same way Canadians see Thanksgiving or Hallowe’en: it’s just another fun holiday, to be celebrated but not necessarily exalted. They buy sparklers and watch a parade, enjoy a family meal, and stay up later than they normally would. It has his-

torical and religious value, but it is also commercialized, and every family enjoys it a little differently. So the sense of inferiority that people here feel about Western holidays seems misplaced. Foreign festivals may be older, but the value given to any cultural event is in the hands of the celebrants.

Hallowe’en, especially, is such a wonderful, integral part of Western culture.

How delightful is it that every year so many children and adults step outside themselves to inhabit these new roles for a few hours? How incredible that every year, so many millions of us take open, childlike joy in imaginative play, offer candy to strangers wandering our neighbourhoods, share in the thrill of terror at a scary movie... To my family when we first immigrated, the whole experience was exotic. And to me, it still has the mark of a true cultural event: its underlying significance is that it brings people together.

Connection and community really are the centrepoint of culture, and Westerners, including Canadians, do have it in spades.

In this issue of Incite, there’s more on the theme of Hallowe’en in Sarah Jennison’s article on page 15, Garnet JohnsonKoehn’s story on page 18 and the Illustrated Guide to October on page 22. Enjoy!

incitemagazine.ca Features

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The Kimberly Hoax Hard truths about diamonds Shohinee Sarma Pseudoscience Scaring people away from good medicine Ana Nikolic

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April 5/09 Poetry Sarah Jennison

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Nuit Blanche Photography Jeremy Burgin & Haleigh Fox

Exposed We are being watched Anna Kulikov, Kate Logan & Andrew Prine

The Magic of Hallowe’en Ode to a favourite holiday Sarah Jennison

Departments

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Happenings Selected news from near & far Letter to the Editor Response to the last issue An Illustrated Guide to...

Joyce Li & Chiara Meneguzzi Power/Play Yang Lei Sexin’ Marisa Burton

Incite Magazine is published six times per academic year by Impact Youth Publications, founded in 1997.

Entire contents copyright 2009-2010 Impact Youth Publications. Opinions expressed in Incite Magazine are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of Incite Magazine’s staff or Impact Youth Publications.

Photography by Shohreh Soltaninia

Letters of up to 300 words may be sent to incite@ mcmaster.ca; they may be edited for length and clarity and will not be printed unless a name, address, and daytime phone are provided.

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Graduated and All Grown Up Feeling lost all over again Yasmin Tayag Thank You For Your Daughters Reinterpreting the old slogan Leah Klein Spreading Yourself Thin Hallowe’en fiction Garnet Johnson-Koehn Pashminas at Polling Stations A summer in Iran Shohreh Soltaninia

Editor-in-Chief Siva Vijenthira Managing Editors Christina Lee, Graphics Yang Lei, Layout Associate Editors Patrick Byrne Chris Hilbrecht Hilary Noad Andrew Prine Contributors Jeremy Burgin, Meagan Byrne, Shauna Cowden, Haleigh Fox, Lu Gao, Sarah Jennison, Garnet Johnson-Koehn, Leah Klein, Anna Kulikov, Joyce Li, Kate Logan, Chiara Meneguzzi, Ana Nikolic, Yuan Qiao, Joy Santiago, Shohinee Sarma, Mandy Shek, Laura Simon, Shohreh Soltaninia, Sandra Szabo, Yasmin Tayag, Sammy Truong, Will van Engen, Adira Winegust, Lisa Xu, Afrisa Yeung Cover Christopher Dennis Printing Digital Art & Graphics, Inc. Contact incite@mcmaster.ca Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 3

Happenings

INSIDE THE BUBBLE...

IN NORTH AMERICA...

Home base In what will be their first visit as a married couple to Canada, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will be stopping by the City of Waterfalls this November. In a recent announcement by the Prime Minister’s Office, Stephen Harper described their visit as “an opportunity to learn more about the heritage and tradition of which we are all proud.” If the Prince’s presence weren’t enough, by choosing Hamilton as one of his 12 stops, Charles’ choice puts us, in the eyes of royalty, on level with places like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Petawawa. There’s no word yet as to how long they’ll be staying or what sort of activities they have planned, but if construction proceeds on schedule, McMaster’s Michael Degroote Centre for Entertaining and Hosting Foreign Monarchs might be all set for a truly grand opening…

Mighty mice Pasadena, California—NASA scientists have successfully levitated mice in an attempt to study the effects of reduced gravity on humans. Citing a severe magician shortage on the West Coast, the team resorted to using magnets to generate a powerful field to levitate the water inside a mouse. Although the animals don’t appear to suffer from any long-term effects (yet), they do demonstrate an understandable level of confusion as they spin around in midair, being held up solely by their water molecules. According to eyewitness reports, the first ever levitating mouse was quoting as saying “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Money in the bank New York City, New York—Fed up with your bank? Dalton Chisholm is. This New York man is suing Bank of America LETTER TO THE EDITOR for 1.784 sextillion, or 1 784 000 000 000 000 I enjoyed Marisa Burton’s exposé on books that go bonk 000 000 dollars. Alleg(or don’t). I’m less likely to enjoy her uncovering of nud- edly, he had called Bank ist colonies, a term that disappeared about the time the pill of America and received appeared (no connection). Nudists don’t populate colonies inconsistent informalike so many ants or baboons, despite general notions about tion from a “Spanish the low life of no clothing. woman” concerning a As for nudism’s connection with sexin’, Ms. Burton may bounced cheque. We be charmed out of her clothes, bored out of her mind, or (pick one) neither. That connection lies more in subFou- don’t know what made him think that BoA cauldian theory than in superficial practice.

In the spirit of the books she found in sight, I could cite had far more money a major nudist magazine found both off site and in Titles. It than last year’s global has long been sold here to much uncritical unacclaim. Still, GDP of $60 trillion, but it provides raw data (bodies of evidence) for the naked un- he probably shouldn’t bank on winning the aggression of total disclothure. case.

Dr. Paul Rapoport A topical issue Professor (Emeritus), McMaster School of the Arts Co-Editor, Going Natural / Au naturel NEW YORK CITY, NEW Federation of Canadian Naturists YORK—Researchers at 4 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Yeshiva University are developing microcapsules that could carry erectile dysfunction medication across skin cells, effectively creating hand-applied Viagra.

Yep, you read that right. The locally applied treatment has been shown to work faster, and potentially induce fewer side effects because the drug does not circulate in the whole body like the current orally-administered versions. Clinical studies are said to begin in a few years.

We only hope they come up with a watermelon flavour.

Next up: walking on water Trenton, Ontario—Instead of preparing his Sunday sermon, Lutheran minister Rev. Kevin Fast was busy breaking a Guinness World Record previously set by an Australian man. On Thursday September 17th, the quiet strongman reverend from Cobourg, Ontario set a record for how far he could pull an airplane with only a rope. He accomplished the world record by pulling a 188 694 kilogram airplane for 8.8 meters, taking 1 minute and sixteen seconds. Pastor Fast says that this was something that he has always wanted to do. This accomplishment will be put on his mantle alongside his previous worldrecord, the heaviest truck pull, with the truck weighing 57 152 pounds.

Poor execution LUCASVILLE, OHIO—An Ohio death row inmate was given an extra week to live by the state governor when executioners were unable to find a suitable vein for carrying out a lethal injection. Prison officials are using the time to consult experts on how to perform the execution, which by state law must be through lethal injection, and hope that the efforts will not be… in vain.

Photography by Haleigh Fox

...and AROUND THE WORLD What are the odds?

Bulgaria—Suspicions were raised when the national lottery in Bulgaria announced the same six numbers twice in a row, two days apart An investigation was launched with the help of respected mathematician Michail Konstantinov to calculate the odds of this happening. No scandal was found and the lottery organizers stated that manipulation was impossible, chalking up the rare occurrence to a 1 in 4 million coincidence. The numbers were 4, 15, 23, 24, 35, and 42, four of which are connected to the Dharma Initiative, but they weren’t around to comment.

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?

Hobart, Australia—Clyde the Himalayan cat returned to his owner after a three-year journey in the Australian Outback. After disappearing in Tasmania, Clyde made it across the 185-mile Bass Strait to get to the mainland, where he then travelled over 2000 miles to Cloncurry. There, the cat was taken care of by a nurse and was eventually identified by an embedded microchip. Clyde has certainly proved his ability to survive on his own for that long, lasting in the wild even longer than the pets from Homeward Bound, which happened to feature a Himalayan cat as well. Could Clyde be a distant relative of Sassy?

Economic exhibitionism Paris, France—While the economic downturn has left everyone from autoworkers to ponzi schemers without shirts on their backs, some factory workers in France have decided that maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Instead of just grumbling into the unemployment line (or jail), a group of laid-off workers from a heater

manufacturing plant in northwestern France have come up with a creative solution to bring attention to their plight. Unlike their colleges in other parts of France who block oil supplies, threaten to blow up factories or hold their bosses hostage, 15 workers from Chaffoteaux company factory in Ploufargan have decided to make a calendar. A nude calendar. The 15 men pose is various forms, including wearing only a well- placed cardboard box, posing like Rodin’s “The Thinker” statue, and having a flag with the company’s logo strategically placed. Workers hope that this calendar will educate citizens about the plight of factory workers and thus put them into direct negotiation with their bosses. Well, if all else fails, Playgirl is always an option.

Ariel to G20: I can help!

Kiryat Yam, Israel—The economically depressed seaside town of Kiryat Yam in Israel has recently received a boost in tourism and popularity due to mermaid sightings off the town’s beaches. Since August, numerous people have called in claiming to have seen a mysterious creature off the coast. Since then, tourists have begun to flock to Kiryat Yam. The Kiryat Yam city council has responded by offering weekly screenings of the Disney hit The Little Mermaid and even offering a one-million dollar prize to anyone who can prove conclusive evidence for the mermaid’s existence. How convenient…

McDonald’s v. McCurry PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA—While McCurry might sound like the latest addition to the menu of McDonald’s Indian operations, the Malaysian mom-and-pop shop has very little to do with the Golden Arches. That is, of course, except for the fact

that they’ve recently won an 8-year trial against the fast-food giant over the use of the trademark “Mc” prefix in their name.

McCurry, which is short for “Malaysian Chicken Curry”, hopes to now expand operations across Malaysia. Wonder if Apple will ever take McMaster’s new iSci program to court?

Information superflyway DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA—Telkom, the leading South African internet service provider, was reminded of their sub-par performance when an IT firm pitted them against a carrier pigeon in a race to deliver 4GBs of data over 80 kilometres. The pigeon, equipped with a USB drive strapped to it’s leg, took just over two hours to deliver the files, the same amount of time taken to transfer a mere 4% of the data over the internet. Telkom representatives have demanded a rematch, alleging the pigeon was on performance-enhancing drugs at the time of the flight.

Stop, Diego, Stop ROME, ITALY—Promptly after landing in Italy, football legend Diego Maradona had his €4000 earrings seized by Italian tax authorities, who claim that he owes them €31 million in back taxes from when he played for the football club Napoli in 1984 to 1991. This follows the seizure of two Rolex watches during his appearance in an Italian exhibition match in 2006, escrow of his pay for appearance in an Italian TV show in 2005, and being greeted by 20 police officers when he arrived in Rome in 2001. Maradona claims that Napoli should have paid the said taxes, but maybe he should just stop visiting Italy. compiled by Lu Gao, Hilary Noad, Andrew Prine, Sammy Truong & Adira Winegust

The Kimberly Hoax

Shohinee Sarma questions the diamond industry

M

y story begins in a jewellery store in Delhi’s posh southern district. Dragged against my will by my mother to help select bridal jewellery for my cousin’s wedding, I was coerced into spending an entire evening poring over precious stones and gold in-lays.

Walking into Mehrason’s, Delhi’s leading retailer for gold and diamond jewellery, I was immediately struck by the level of service offered to customers (a point which I noted throughout my trip across India). Attractive and beaming sari-clad women ushered us into grand halls, seated us and offered a wide selection of complimentary drinks—all before we even laid eyes on any jewellery. Equally efficiently, the women were replaced by two men, experts in the field of persuasive speaking, who predicted our tastes accurately and deftly displayed wedding sets to my wideeyed family members. Glancing around, I noticed the store divided into sections for different types of precious stones—diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds to name a few of the more popular choices.

There were also sections dedicated to traditional events, among which wedding jewellery was obviously the largest section. I was a little overwhelmed and awe6 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Lisa Xu

struck by the size and numbers of these types of stores across the country. India is the world’s largest consumer of gold and this fact was visibly evident, even to my untrained eyes. But this story is not about gold; it is about diamonds, the girl’s best friend and the world’s glittering fascination.

To amuse myself while my female relatives drooled over sets that all looked the same to me and driven partly by curiosity to compare Indian prices with Canadian ones and partly by the comeliness of the young attendant, I walked over to the diamond section of the store. Immaculately and formally dressed, he was sitting upright with perfect composure and answering phone calls while slowly sipping tea from an exquisite set of delicate China.

In all respects, he looked the part of the head honcho – there was no denying that he was either the manager or one of the owner’s sons. Too shy to approach him, I stared at the diamond jewellery thinking of a possible conversation topic. And then it hit me – we could talk about the Kimberley Process! I knew about the Kimberley Process vaguely from movies like Blood Diamond and some cursory high school research, but I assumed that a big

chain store like Mehrason’s would only keep certified conflict-free diamonds. Still too shy to talk to the assumed-manager directly, I walked up instead to a middleaged, overweight salesman and asked him bluntly: “So are your diamonds Kimberley certified?”

Although my initial foray into the Kimberley Process was not due to purely altruistic reasons, I was genuinely curious as to how UN rhetoric and dignified signatories translated into the reality of the world’s hardest currency. The salesman could not offer much insight on whether the diamonds being sold at the store were Kimberley-certified or not, he merely remarked that it was difficult to trace the origins of the stones at the retail level. With more persistent questioning I learned that the best rubies came from Burma, the best sapphires from Sri Lanka and the best diamonds from South Africa, but my interest in the Kimberly process remained unsated. Although each type of stone was once present in vast quantities within India, centuries of mining and plundering by national and colonial groups left behind only the poorest quality of stones – those too soft for cutting.

When the salesman mentioned India’s

cutting industry, I recalled reading that conflict diamonds exported to the west most often pass through India’s stone cutters first. There was always a chance that the stones, upon arrival, could get mixed up with other non-conflict diamonds. The Kimberley Process strove to create transparency in the transportation and final production chains by incorporating governments, industries and the general public into the diamond industry. Statistics have shown that it has been highly successful in preventing the diamond trade from funding violence in countries such as Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Guinea. The diversion of the trade into the legal network has also increased revenues for governments and helped address development challenges for fragile economies, but this trend seems to be on the decline. According to statistics on the official Kimberley Process website, conflict diamonds now represent only one per cent of the international supply as opposed to fifteen per cent in the 1990s. Although every process has loopholes, the Kimberley Process has been successful for the most part in spreading information on conflict diamonds and engaging the public internationally. I was aware of its success at the root end of the production chain, but I was curious as to how the Kimberley Process played out for retailers and consumers. The salesman’s stock response left me unsettled though, especially as India has played such a large role in the Process, having chaired it in 2008. For this reason, I wondered how diamond merchants within the country fit into the certified production chain.

I requested the salesman to take me to the manager, who I hoped had better answers to my questions. After a short wait, I was given permission to approach the business man who had intrigued me so thoroughly just a few minutes before.

I walked up to the attractive gentleman with a sense of purpose and thirst for knowledge. Our conversation began: “Hello sir, I’m from Canada and travelling here in Delhi. I’m wondering whether the diamonds sold in Mehrason’s are certified under the Kimberley Process.”

The manager replied in crisp Delhi English: “I am not sure what the Kimberley Process stands for exactly but I understand you want to trace the origins of the stone?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I would assume that since India is a major player in the Kim-

berley Process, that such a large retailer as Mehrason’s would be a participant? Most leading jewellery stores in other parts of Asia participate.”

The manager explained patiently that this was not the case with their store or most stores in Delhi. It was very difficult to trace the origins of the stone at the retail stage since the sorting happens at the cutting and polishing stage.

I persisted: “But how does Mehrason’s ensure that the stones sold here have not been used to fund conflict elsewhere in the world without a Kimberley stamp of certification? Is it not up to you to ensure that?”

He replied that there was no way for them to ensure anything about the stones apart from the weight and the number of karats. He added that it was also not the responsibility of diamond merchants to guarantee that they were not selling conflict diamonds because there were no means for them to find out what happened at the cutting and transportation stages. His direct, straightforward manner surprised me. I was also completely taken aback because I expected him to, at the very least, acknowledge and pay lip service to the ideals of the Kimberly Process.

Feeling a sharp stab of annoyance at his brusque response, I kept interrogating, oblivious to the onlookers and my family’s embarrassment. In my anger I said the following: “If it is not up to the diamond merchants, then who is it up to? Is it the general public? They probably assume that what you are selling is untainted. I’m very surprised and concerned that you have not even heard about the Kimberley Process as a diamond merchant. How is it that all the stores I have been to elsewhere have reassured me that their diamonds are conflict-free and you cannot?”

The manager smiled at my impassioned attitude and replied: “Perhaps it is up to the public, then, to place pressure on private and public bodies. The general public in Delhi does not know or care about these matters right now. But I must stress that accountability needs to happen at the cutting and production stages, not simply the retail stage.”

Still fuming, I thanked him very politely and walked out of the store without saying anything to my family. I walked to the nearest café, got myself a cream roll and stared at it for a while.

What bothered me was not so much

the manager’s nonchalant response (which was somewhat to be expected) but the fact that I had placed so much faith on a piece of paper that gave me, as a consumer, peace of mind. The whole encounter made me realize how delicate the consumer-retailer trust relationship was. It did not matter whether the topic at hand was conflict diamonds or fair trade products, a consumer cannot place unquestioning belief in a complex global process with so many stages between producers and consumers. I felt the full consciousness of my naïveté right then; I always took care to shop carefully and as a “globally conscious citizen” but if the world trade process was so complicated, then how could anyone place much trust in a certification label? I should have been thankful that the manager was so honest with me. Diamond merchants in North America such as Birks, DeBeers and People’s Jewellers maintain that they only sell Kimberley certified diamonds, but if most of the production process occurs outside of the field of play of retailers, then how can they assure us with so much certainty that the diamond we just bought actually did fall into the one-percent statistic or had not been mixed up during the cutting process?

No one can provide that security blanket or piece of mind that North American consumers want so much. At the same time, responsibility cannot be placed on any particular segment of the production chain; such is the result of a fast-paced assembly-line of global trade. In retrospect, the manager’s brutal honesty opened my eyes to the blind faith I had placed on globally-conscious retailers in North America. I also recognized that this global consciousness had positively impacted the roots of the production chain – that is to say, the countries where the diamonds were mined for example. Knowing this fact was enough for me to keep faith in the Kimberley Process; however, I came to realize that there was no guarantee that, at the consumer level, an individual diamond was not blood-tainted. The Kimberley Process cannot provide guilt-driven consumers with complete freedom of conscience, but blindly expecting it do so would be unrealistic. Perhaps a cognisant awareness of our consumerism is all that we realistically expect, at least until our world has recognized that goods, no matter how rare, are only worth the premium we are willing to pay for them.

Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 7

Pseudoscience

Ana Nikolic investigates anti-vaccine conspiracy theories

A

theme in the world of medical and scientific blogging even more common than the dissemination of new scientific breakthroughs is the fight against misinformation, pseudoscience and paranoia. One would think that with all the science and technology we have, including the Internet, we as a whole would be at least reasonably scientifically literate. Alas, that is not the case. Otherwise, known scammers like Kevin Trudeau wouldn’t have made a killing selling books about “natural cures”, people would be taking advice about vaccination from family doctors and pediatricians instead of Jenny McCarthy and Oprah, and homeopath Bruce Wylde wouldn’t have his own TV show on CityPulse.

Alternative medicine has become more popular in the last few decades, and it has rebranded itself as “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM).

Recently, the name has once again been changed, this time into “Integrative Medicine”—further blurring its non-scientific nature. It is estimated that 60% of US medical schools now have CAM-related teaching, and 30% have mandatory CAMrelated training. Furthermore, some large, 8 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Photography by Will van Engen

well-known medical centers, including Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, have dabbled with CAM. All of this would be acceptable were it not for the fact that scientific justification for CAM treatments is tenuous at best, and no high-quality studies have shown that these treatments are better than placebo. Conflating CAM and conventional medicine creates a false sense of equality, considering that there is a large base of basic and clinical scientific evidence that supports conventional medicine, whereas no high quality clinical trials or basic science supports the efficacy of homeopathy, acupuncture, and the like.

CAM methods have an inherent appeal because of our tendency to equate “natural” and “good”. For example, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) sounds much less natural than hawthorne or garlic, but it is far more effective at treating hypertension, and required millions of dollars worth of clinical trials to put on the market. Even so, why should we care? After all, what’s the harm in herbal remedies, homeopathic sugar pills, chiropractic neck alignments, or acupuncture treatment? First, the treatments themselves are not entirely harmless. Many herbs,

such as St. John’s wort, a popular herbal depression remedy, have dangerous interactions with other medications. Chiropractic neck alignments can tear the vertebral artery—on both sides—causing a vertebral artery dissection, a condition that can lead to strokes. Acupuncture needles can be a source of skin infection, as happened in Toronto a few years ago with an outbreak of Mycobacterium abscessus at an acupuncture clinic. But a bigger problem is that there are effective medical treatments that CAM followers eschew in favour of dodgy CAM treatments, something sceptics affectionately refer to as “woo”. For diseases like cancer, this can become a matter of life and death.

Substiution of woo for real medical treatment happens more often than it should, and the dangers are illustrated by the recently published results of a highly controversial therapeutic trial in the United States known as the Gonzalez Trial. The Gonzalez trial was started in 1999 at Columbia University, after Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez claimed in a small publication that he had come up with a “nutritional” regimen for pancreatic cancer that dramatically extended life expectanContinued on Page 10

take my hand instead of clinging to cliff-hangers withered heart. that which you think gives life leaves you limp the love for which you search leaves the soul longing the prosperity for which you yearn – all you find is empty. torn and tattered. abandoned. oh weary wanderer… your “noble” quest has left you here. what good King leaves His subjects forlorn? the truth you seek do you see it yet? in earnest, roads diverged and you sided with the most appalling. stumbled over rocks beaten by winds and rain you pressed on. you fool. to trace your steps through wilderness impossible. to find hope in this broken place – unlikely. to die without honour after a life lived in the blind spot of man… is that your choice martyr? and then with conviction: you jumped. well if you lie in the hands of certainty why are your fists clenched, your reach grasping for something to hold onto? why won’t you fall child? because you can’t see the bottom because you don’t trust the voice that said: Jump. but know that though the way is dark light becomes you. though you fear the uncertainty of shadows the courage needed will be given you. promises will hold true. there is victory in death to self. valiant are they that let go. and with a flash of defiance a shudder to the still, piercing moment and a reassuring heartbeat fingers slowly uncurled a decision made a small battle won. hands flew out of grasp, momentarily – peace. all that is known is left behind. and we find ourself: falling.

April 5/09 Sarah Jennison

Artwork by Mandy Shek Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 9

Pseudoscience continued from Page 8

cy. This initial study was sketchy, as it was not even clear whether many of the patients he had selected as examples really had pancreatic cancer. His treatment required, amongst other things, high doses of antioxidants and pancreatic enzymes, the intake of hundreds of these pills per day, and twice-daily coffee enemas (fun!), but it did not involve any chemotherapy.

In contrast, the standard treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer is chemotherapy and palliative surgery to maintain function and improve quality of life. After poking and prodding from a powerful Republican representative, NCI (National Cancer Institute) and NIH (National Institutes of Health) decided to approve a clinical trial comparing the standard of care to Gonzalez’s regimen. The trial was stopped early in 2005, due to concerns from the IRB (Instititutional Review Board – an internal ethics committee), likely due to the realization that Gonzalez’s treatment was dangerous. And finally, in early September of 2009, the results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Patients in the control group lived three times longer than those taking Gonzalez’s regimen (14.0 months vs. 4.3 months). Furthermore, there is speculation that these patients may have had poorer access to standard care and quality of life compared to the control group. Gonzalez’s false cure not only gave these very ill people false hope, it also made what life they had left even more difficult.

Strangely, there has been very little fanfare about the first results of this trial finally coming out, and almost no press coverage. I suppose part of the reason is that those involved, especially those who actually allowed this trial to take place, are likely ashamed. Making matters worse, Gonzalez has come out in protest of these results, and still advertises his treatment on his website. Gonzalez is an MD with a medical degree from Cornell, showing that possessing fancy degrees doesn’t make you correct by default. He is only one of many examples of people who allows his tendency toward magical thinking to hurt patients.

Overall, the mainstream media has very poor standards for science journalism in general, and medical journalism in particular. A large part of the goal of the 10 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

mainstream media seems to be to create and propagate controversy, in part because controversy and sensationalism attract attention. This is favourable for the CAM folks, because generating controversy allows them to put into question the reliability of the medical establishment as a source, and thus spread their own (often scientifically unfounded) views. This is well-illustrated by the history of the antivaccine movement in Britain and North America.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital in London published an infamous paper in the Lancet linking the mumps/measles/ rubella (MMR) vaccination to the onset of autism in a cohort of twelve children.

This paper was subsequently retracted and denounced by all of its authors except Wakefield himself, and upon further inspection was found to be tainted by the self-interest of the parents and the autism advocacy group that was providing funding for this project. The experimental techniques Wakefield used were dodgy and his samples were contaminated. Since the initial study, several groups have studied MMR vaccination and autism rates, and all of these larger, better-controlled studies have found that there is no association. But the “vaccines cause autism” meme just won’t die. This is partly thanks to a hefty base of celebrity support including, most notoriously, actress and Playboy model Jenny McCarthy, wife of Jim Carrey.

We could dismiss the anti-vaccinationists as a small group of crazies but their line of thinking is not harmless.

First, these people, most of whom have all their vaccinations, are imposing this dangerous decision onto vulnerable infants and toddlers. And second, there is a risk to not vaccinating—namely, the risk of acquiring a vaccine-preventable illness. Two studies that have come out recently using datasets from HMOs in the United States show that, even in the United States, where vaccine-preventable illnesses are not very frequent, unvaccinated children have a significantly higher risk of contracting these illnesses. Moreover, so do children whose family members visit naturopaths and the like, implying that CAM use is associated with decreased vaccination rates. A recent study in the Lancet estimated that 17% of deaths of chil-

dren under five, mostly in the developing world, is due to complications from Haemophilus influenzae b and Streptococcus pneumoniae infections. Both of these diseases are vaccine-preventable, and H. influenzae b is a required vaccination for all young children in North America. Parents wooed by the anti-vaccine movement cry out about how their poor little infant can’t be exposed to all of these bad, bad toxins and painful shots, but there is a reason why children need three shots of the tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis vaccine before they are one year old. It’s not that pediatricians are sick, twisted individuals who love to jab needles into crying babies; it’s because immunity at this age simply doesn’t last very long. What would these parents prefer: their baby crying because it had to get a vaccine, or their baby dying of diphtheria or meningitis?

Despite its fringe nature, the anti-vaccine movement, which is propagated by many CAM practitioners and even some woo-friendly physicians and pediatricians, has had some far-reaching effects.

The goal of vaccines is to protect the population, which is done by keeping up a level of vaccination to create what is known as “herd immunity”. For the MMR vaccine, maintaining herd immunity requires vaccinating 95% of the population. When the level slips below 95%, outbreaks can occur. This is an important point, since immunocompromised or ill children may not be able to get vaccines and rely on herd immunity, parents with unvaccinated children also put other children at risk.

Since the Wakefield paper, MMR uptake rates in the UK decreased from around 92% to around 80% nationwide, and several outbreaks of measles and mumps have occurred. Measles is a highly contagious disease, and when it’s in a population, it spreads like wildfire. As for the rates of autism? They remain unchanged.

On top of advocating foregoing vaccines, these same fringe groups propose using unorthodox and potentially dangerous scam treatments for autism instead of the standard behavioural and cognitive behavioural therapies that create gradual improvement and require dedication from both the children and the parents. These therapies aren’t the magic bullet promised by purveyors of pseudoscience, but they work. What I find saddest about this

situation is that the autistic children receiving unorthodox CAM treatments are not only being denied the treatments they truly need, they are also often portrayed by many of the CAM peddlers as abnormal monsters that must be “fixed” with intensive, invasive therapies sketchy untested therapies, rather than as vulnerable children who need help and acceptance.

North America is a society that is highly individualistic, and people want to have the agency to make their own decisions, and to take charge of their health.

In principle, this is wonderful—in fact, there has been a shift in medicine over the past few decades from paternalism (i.e. “do this because the doctor says so”) to patient-centered decision-making.

One thing required for proper decisionmaking, however, is correct information.

If the information available to a person is incomplete, or completely incorrect, as it often is, then how can we expect them to make a reasonable decision? People rely on the University of Google, but they do not question the identity and legitimacy of their sources and may have little ability to evaluate the information they read before they declare themselves experts on the topic.

When we as scientists or physicians see snake oil salesmen trying to make their pitch, in particular if they are doing so through deception and trickery, it just seems wrong not to argue with them. It is easy for a scientist to be able to tell that what CAM practitioners are proposing is incorrect, but it is near impossible for someone with a high school-level understanding of science to critically appraise these claims, due to the high amounts of jargon used in both standard medical literature and by the CAM community. Yes, CAM advocates seem like an easy target, and while that may be the case, as long as they keep trying to sneak into the world of “real medicine” and push false remedies onto an unsuspecting public, they remain deserving of a verbal smackdown.

One important difference between CAM and conventional medicine is in the use of research to inform practice and make progress. Much of clinical research is focused on looking at outcomes, in particular examining adverse effects and weighing pros and cons. It is because of this that surgeons now do far fewer radical mastec-

tomies to treat breast cancer (since they often increased disability without increasing survival) and many pediatric endocrinologists now use methimazole more than PTU to treat pediatric Graves’ disease (as studies have found the latter to increase risk of acute liver failure and agranulocytosis). Where is this sort of self-checking in CAM? With all the studies that have shown that some of their treatments are no better than placebo, why do they keep making up excuses? In medicine this sort of behaviour would probably result in a) a lawsuit, and b) the loss of your licence, so why do naturopaths and homeopaths appear immune to critical thinking?

A particularly concerning development is that physicians are joining forces with CAM practiotioners or with anti-vaccinationists, and this brings us into a dangerous situation. Some of these are physicians with lucrative book deals who do not want to alienate their audience, like book-publishing vaccine-disliking paediatrician Dr. Jay Gordon. Some are more serious, like Dr. Mark Geier and his son David, who advocate the use of a powerful and expensive drug called Lupron on children with autism, chemically castrating them in the process. This splintering of the medical community is a dangerous thing, as it confuses the message of those who are fighting to protect science-based medicine, and gives a false sense of authority to people harbouring views with no basis in science.

But this authority cannot exist if it is not supported by media: one particular news outlet that has been particularly infamous for spreading medical misinformation has been Arianna Huffington’s incredibly popular online newspaper The Huffington Post. Huffington herself is known to be a believer in woo, and she has populated the health and wellness sections of the HuffPo with editors and contributors who spread similar views. The HuffPo is regarded as a liberal news outlet, and its tendencies towards anti-vaccine and pro-CAM views are worrying, as it is one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Every time woo-friendly doctors or homeopaths write a particularly painfully misinformed piece in the Huffington Post, the blogosphere is there to answer.

Bloggers like Steven Novella, The Guardian’s Ben Goldacre, and David Gorski

are only a few of the physicians keeping up the good fight against the misinformation and outright lies spread by members of CAM who are trying to make a quick buck off of a desperate, poorly informed public.

When Oprah decided to give Jenny McCarthy her own talk show, the media didn’t pan her, but the blogs did. When sketchy autism charity Autism One organized a conference in Toronto and claimed support from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, a few blog posts and concerned e-mails revealed that the name was being used without permission, forcing Autism One to remove all references to it from its brochures. Instead of resorting to the fallacies and name-calling CAM advocates love, medical bloggers undertake thorough, point-by-point refutations of the dodgy articles on HuffPo and CAM blogs.

They not only help deconstruct CAM arguments, but also put a human face to the oft-maligned “medical establishment”.

It’s easy to passively allow or ignore pseudoscience-based approaches like CAM, but to do so would be an affront against the scientific method, and against the incredible amounts of work that have been done by clinicians and scientists to improve and validate conventional medical practice.

ESSENTIAL LINKS • Ben Goldacre’s BadScience: www.badscience.net • Respectful Insolence: www.scienceblogs.com/insolence • Science-based Medicine: www.sciencebasedmedicine.org

Comic by Randall Munroe (xkcd.com) Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 11

ExposEd

Anna Kulikov, Kate Logan & Andrew Prine look at surveillance

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small swarm of media crews scuttle around Sarnia’s usually quiet bay front one sunny afternoon in August while a small flotilla of camera toting boaters look on. Sarnia, like most of southern Ontario’s industrial cities, has seen better days, but it’s still got spirit.

Just after 5:10 on 15 August, 2009, some 200 Sarnians bared their worser halves to their Southern neighbours. Though it was a sunny scorcher, this was not just another front in the war against tan lines. In fact, at the bottom of this somewhat unusual act of civil disobedience was something much more troubling.

Early in the summer of 2009, an American company began testing its latest invention, a super high-tech security camera. This million-dollar collection of lenses and circuitry was strapped to a large lighter-than-air balloon and left to float some 800 metres above the St. Clair River. Aside from the obvious implication that Canadians are incapable of securing their own borders, the surveillance balloon also carried some other inflammatory baggage; it happened to be anchored directly across from Sarnia’s downtown. Understandably upset by this, a local resident planned “Moon the Balloon” in protest. Although

12 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Afrisa Yeung

residents were split down the middle as to whether the balloon’s presence really was an invasion of privacy, it did give publicity to some of the issues we’ll be facing every day as Canadians in the modern age of constant connectivity and surveillance.

What does the increase in public surveillance say about our relationship with technology? More and more, both public and private spaces are turning to cameras in an effort to reduce crime and increase safety, thereby finding a technical solution to a human problem, and ultimately mediating the human experience. This issue highlights society’s growing reliance on technology, a reliance based on an inherent trust that any technological advances must improve our quality of life.

This trust may be partially attributed to the fact that technology has come to permeate almost every facet of the cultural domain.

Recently, the Office of the Security Commissioner of Canada funded the creation of a report by the Surveillance Camera Awareness Network to examine this trend in Canada, prompted by concerns over the lack of public debate and oversight into the growing use of surveillance technologies. The report found that only

if cameras are placed in a sensitive location would they cause concern; otherwise, the public would either tentatively welcome them or remain indifferent. Canadians do not see the cameras as “ominous, threatening or dangerous”, regardless of surveillance’s invasive nature. Furthermore, a lack of privacy in public spaces for most “has no resonance”. Despite initial trepidation, the public has become used to almost constant observation, and does not question the moral or ethical implications of the technology.

According Kim Vincente, a Human Factors engineer, in today’s world, a solution is created to solve a problem, but no consideration is given to determine its usability. Technology is not designed for humans; rather, technology is created to systematically solve a specific problem and humans are forced to adapt to it. Such is the case with surveillance technology.

Originally intended to deter crime, there is little evidence to support the assumption that it does in fact lower crime rates.

Even worse, these governmentally sponsored safety measures are often used for other purposes, from keeping tabs on store employees to scrutinizing the processes of panhandlers. Though there may

be some merit in this kind of observation if it led to the arrest of double dipping cashiers, because we’re not using the equipment purely to improve public safety, it also leads to a disconnect between the technology and its intent.

Technology, pervasive as it is, doesn’t allow the issue to end there though. Even when technology is functioning entirely within its designated and intended parameters, it’s still able to invade the private sphere. Today’s North American society, born and bred to sense oppression of liberty with every nerve ending, creates for itself a curious and alarming paradox.

Do we really have the right to bare bottom when we already bare all voluntarily?

Though we place a high value on our freedoms and our privacies, we have been for several years practicing a form of voluntary surveillance, a cyber exhibitionism of sorts.

Without even being aware of it, we are constantly exposing ourselves through “social-networking” tools, namely Facebook, Twitter, and SmartPhones. On Facebook, our photographs are tagged and tracked; our interactions with others are updated in our friends’ “news feeds”; and our “walls” are free for all to read. Twitter, meanwhile, refreshes the location, state and mood of its users, where a “tweet” over an hour old is a stale bagel. Popular smart phone applications however, bring exhibitionism to a whole new scale. Using GPS, users can send out their precise location to other users within the network.

Why is it then, that when our privacy is violated and our lives invaded, we protest, recite our civil rights and moon balloons, but when we are attention-starved we do not hesitate to toss these notions aside and all too willingly subject our lives and relationships to “Facebook stalking”? Do we somehow believe that these attempts will bring us closer to others in an ever colder and unfamiliar world? Or do they in fact bring about the opposite: conform our outer shells to some cybernorm and shrink our real selves inwards, perpetuating the loss of individuality? It brings us to a dark question: is the overly examined life really worth living?

In high school, we read 1984 with horrified, open-jawed fascination. The apotheosis of surveillance states stripped its citizens (and impressionable students) of personal rights, of secret feelings and thoughts, even of a private sanctuary at home; all through an intricate and wide-

spread network of watchful eyes. These eyes belong not only to technology and enforcement personnel, but to coworkers, neighbours, friends, uncles, sons, and wives.

In movie theatre, we watch V for Vendetta with justice-craving white knuckles.

Cameras, microphones, and spy gadgets watch the whole of London, all the while exerting a precise and sharp control over an entire society. In giving up their privacy and being subjected to surveillance so invasive—far beyond red light cameras and anti-theft precautions—they have relinquished control over their lives and their innermost minds to external agencies. Understandably, when one is being watched, one will tend to articulate their actions in a manner which is expected of them, and when one is watched constantly, one’s concept of normalcy will change under the pressure of unseen eyes and the fear of erring.

In these dark Orwellian and Moorian worlds, individuality caves in on itself: people’s true selves shrivel inwards for fear of expressing thought and emo-

tion until, without realization, they’ve all but drowned their humanity and become empty vessels, perfectly moulded for government control. But what of today? Are we really any better off? Between the relentless vigilance of the close-circuited public eye and the natural desire to stay in touch, it seems like nothing in our lives is really private.

Ultimately, surveillance is a case study for the broader role of technology.

Already, it has grown beyond its original purpose to become something else entirely. It is essential that the ultimate goal of any technology be reconciled with its social impact. Otherwise, our unequivocal trust could lead to our downfall, as technological systems may grow too large for human control. Our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence, so it’s to be expected that surveillance doesn’t sit well, but at the same time, if we voluntarily publish our lives and submit to technology, do we really have the right to complain?

Big Brother is watching us, and it is high time we started watching back.

Artwork by Afrisa Yeung Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 13

Nuit Blanche Photogr aphy by Haleigh Fox (Above & Below Right) and Jeremy Burgin (Above & Below Left)

14 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Toronto’s All-Night Art Festival

The magic of Hallowe’en Sarah Jennison celebrates her birthday

I

was born on Hallowe’en. I was the kid in the hand-me-down dinosaur costume who looked up at every person who answered their door to the melodious sounds of “trick-or-treat” with my big blue eyes and said, “It’s my birthday.” And bless their souls, they gave me extra candy. But Hallowe’en is more than just the zombies of years past and memories that refuse to die. The night of the living dead lives on. You figure that anything that can survive growing up must be magical. Peter Pan can testify to that. I think that because of the magic of the holiday, which I don’t attribute to the number of wizards and witches running around that night, we’ll always get dressed up and go to a costume party or sit at home and hand out candy, even when we’re 80. No other night would you walk up to the houses of complete strangers and ask them for candy; no other night would you purposely leave your home looking absolutely ridiculous. Magic like this only happens once a year—only on Hallowe’en.

It’s no longer age-appropriate to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny but it’s perfectly acceptable to dress up as either for Hallowe’en. It is the one time of year that it doesn’t matter what you wear.

Artwork by Sandra Szabo

Regardless, you’re in costume. You can be whatever you want: not a doctor because your parents think you should be, but a firefighter because they’re hot (get it, fire, hot?). But when did the holiday lose its virginity? I say we all put our clothes back on and enjoy it like we did when we were ten.

Kids have it right. They know it’s about the candy and the fun and that nothing else is really all that important. I think it’s true of a lot of things in life. Adults take them and twist them, commercialize them and sell them to make a profit while completely forgetting the heart that should be in it.

Believe it or not, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Hallowe’en, which earns it second place on the largescale commercial holiday podium. It’s all so mass-produced, and yet the holiday still remains about the people. It brings a community together when everyone rings each other’s doorbells all night, when you can laugh together over crazy costume ideas and just have fun. If nothing else, holidays should remind us to stop what we’re doing long enough to be kids again: to relish the magic, to have fun and to eat candy simply because it’s delicious.

Oh, candy: sweet, sour, chewy, smooth and creamy, all free, and all in your pil-

lowcase. Maybe it’s directly related to the amount of sugar intake, but I love the way that everyone is happy on Hallowe’en night. Perhaps that’s a horrible generalization and you are one of the misfortunate souls who had their heart broken when the object of your lifelong desire fell under the spell of a cutie in a witch costume across the gym of your high school dance and now you hate every October 31st (for which I am truly sorry), But for the rest of us, we associate the night with good memories from when we were younger, or funny of stories of stupid things we’ve all done growing up, or even just the costumes you’ve worn over the years.

This Hallowe’en, I’ll turn 18. I’ll become an adult. Yet I don’t think that means that I should enjoy “kid stuff” any less. I think it means that I should cherish all the more these times set aside to be a kid again, to stop worrying about grades and finances and relationships and just have fun. So remember, this Hallowe’en, get silly—slugs in your pocket and jumping in puddles silly. And eat lots of candy.

And most of all, ahead of anything else, soak up the magic of it.

Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 15

Graduated And All Grown Up Yasmin Tayag on mastering her Master’s

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ocializing isn’t what it used to be.

Grad students are different. For them—I mean, for us—molecular cell biology is no longer a joke. Neither is political theory, French literature, or fine art. I can no longer afford to laugh at how arbitrary biological terms are. Protein Kinase C is not Protein Kinase Steve. PKC is my life, and it’s costing me twenty-eight grand a year.

Four years ago, on my first day of frosh w eek, I was bewildered and uncertain. Oh my God, this guy is taking political science and history. He’s going to become a lawyer. He’s got his whole friggin’ life planned out. Why am I even here? My apprehension quickly dissipated when I realized that all these strangers were as lost as I was. Nobody had a clue what they were doing— who really does, at eighteen? It seemed, at least that week, that the primary goal was to forget high school and forge new friendships.

Oh, how easy that turned out to be.

Despite the fact that we all came from different cities and we were all studying different things, we all shared in two things: immaturity and irresponsibility. What better way was there to celebrate these than with underage drinking? And so the rules of socializing, which were to serve us faithfully for the next four years, were 16 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

photography by Thomas Hawk (Flickr)

determined. Share in your apathy towards school, share a bottle, share in an evening of debauchery, share a bed, wake up best friends. Share inside jokes and stories of “that ridiculous night”. Repeat with as many people as possible, preferably after exams (prime time for bonding). I couldn’t tell you how many “dude-I-need-to-forget-everything-I-just-learned” quips I’ve heard, and how many times I’ve agreed.

Those rules were simple, and they worked. My undergraduate years flew by in a warm haze, and I was quite disheartened when they came to an end.

But wait, I thought, why should this be the end? And so I packed my things and headed to New York to pursue a Master’s in biology. Waltzing into my first graduate student social, I armed myself with a wineglass and got ready to self-deprecate.

“Are you a Master’s student?”

“Yeah, in biology. Ha, I know, right?

I’m not really sure why. Cheers to that!”

“Oh. I’m doing a Ph.D. in politics. I spent the last few months working for a political group in South Africa, and I really think we helped... So, do you want to do research in any particular area?”

“Um, I haven’t quite decided yet.”

“Erm... good luck then.”

Well aren’t you an uppity little snit, I thought. Let’s try that again.

“I’m going to grab another glass of red. Can I get you one?”

“Thanks but I can’t, I’ve got to T.A. a class of undergrads in the morning.”

“Oh, they won’t know the difference.”

“Yeah, but my prof will.”

Immaturity and irresponsibility, the pillars of my doctrine, were crumbling before my eyes. It wasn’t long before I felt embarrassed, standing sheepishly among the ruins of my undergraduate self, clutching my glass and feeling like an alcoholic.

What’s valued in this new world of mine definitely isn’t apathy. You have to care—no, you have to be passionate about what you do. And if you want to be taken seriously, you have to know where you’re going. Your peers don’t have time to waste and frankly, neither do you.

Most graduate students are older than I am. At 22, I’m little more than an overgrown child. They’ve had their share of inebriation, uncertainty, and indecision.

Some have been working for years and some are still working, juggling their education with a full-time job. Some are even married. When, after all that, you still decide to go to grad school, you’d better know exactly what you’re doing there.

I’m still trying to figure that out for myself.

Thank you for your Daughters!

Leah Klein takes a queer perspective

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s new and returning students made the trek along the 403 to McMaster at the beginning of September, they were greeted, as in years past, with a friendly message of gratitude from our beloved engineering students, emblazoned on the Main Street overpass: “Thank you, fathers, for your daughters.” On the contrary, I would like to express my appreciation to you, future architects of civilization, for this article’s inspiration.

Welcome, frosh, to your new home. A realer world than you’re used to if you’ve just come from the safe confines of high school. During Welcome Week, I spotted many parents with their newly adult children traipsing the grounds of McMaster.

Then, suddenly, the metaphorical school bell rang and parents were either shooed away by their self-conscious offspring or dispersed on their own, anxious to begin converting their future graduate’s room into a long-dreamed of exercise/guest/ storage room. Now, first years, you are on your own. If you’ve come from a smaller town, or suburban Toronto, it is time I break the news to you bluntly.

Queers are all around you.

With any luck, you may be one of the many who will grow into themselves in

Artwork by Leah Klein

the next few years. Without the ridiculous familial pressures so close by, you might even find you are a queer individual yourself or that you enjoy the company of queer individuals, friendly or otherwise.

Every year, younger students attend this academic institution with clearer vision than the students before them. First years are more accepting, and more understanding than ever. Never before have there been so many Rainbow and Ally clubs in high schools; never again will there be so few.

Speaking to queer students in fourth year, I have come to understand that the majority of them did not feel welcomed in former communities, and were not “out” in high school. Since attending McMaster, they have become full-fledged, “card -carrying” Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Trans individuals; beautiful ones at that.

I, for one, extend my hand to any new queer students who are hesitant. I would also like to remind all students that we not only share the same post-secondary institution but also the right to be who we please and love who we want.

For those who are well versed in the terminology of “tolerance”: while tolerance was a substantial part of your high

school education, or your parents told you enough times just to tolerate other people, it is not an okay term. Here in university, and out there in the world, no one wants to be “tolerated”; they want to be accepted. So shrug your shoulders, and roll with the fact that people are different.

I know you are capable.

Though “queer” is the new “awesome”, I urge all you burgeoning LGBTQs to remember that heterosexuals are just like us, and there is nothing at all strange about sexual orientation. You should be friends with heterosexuals, but don’t date them—that always gets messy. We need to accept, not “tolerate”, people of all genders and identities and sexualities, and professions, and handedness, etc. It really makes for a more well-rounded and interesting world.

A public service announcement to all hidden queers, or straight up heterosexuals: come out come out wherever you are.

We just want to get to know you! Or should I say, I just want to get to know you! Because I’m so excited you’ve arrived! Thank you, fathers, for your daughters, indeed.

I’ll bet the Engineers never intended their banner to be so damn queer!

Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 17

Spreading Yourself Thin Garnet Johnson-Koehn’s horror fiction

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he stillness of the morning was pierced by the alarm’s strident wailing. The sound dragged Susan from sleep, pulling her bleary-eyed face up out of the pillow. She blinked in the darkness as she pushed herself up. Sitting on the edge of the bed, her arms resting on her knees and her head hanging down, she struggled to focus her mind. It wasn’t easy, though. She’d had so little sleep.

It wasn’t until the alarm went off again that Susan managed to get up onto her feet. She reached for the clock but this time she missed, her spatial awareness a little unbalanced by her jerky, half-awake movements. There was no choice but to look back, to find the source of that insistent chiming. In spite of herself, Susan found her eyes drawn to the clock’s face.

6:35.

It was still dark. The light across the street was blocked by the huge tree in front of the residence, and the sun was still too low to be seen over the surrounding buildings. Susan flicked on the lamp, squinting in the sudden illumination. Dazzled, she continued forwards on instinct, placing her feet just so on the way to the door.

Her eyes adjusted by the time she’d reached the door. Opening them again, wider this time, she found herself staring at the calendar on her door.

18 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Joy Santiago

Black for classes. Green for work. Blue for clubs. Red for workouts. Pink for volunteer work. No day had less than two colours on it. Several of the calendar’s squares were cramped little rainbows, number after multicoloured number crowded together to make them all fit.

The calendar only displayed the current month, but if she turned it to the next, or the one after that, or the one after that, Susan knew there’d be little difference.

“You’re almost out,” she said softly.

She drew in a slow, deep breath. “Keep it together. Just get your degree, land a job, and you’re golden. Just one more year, and then you’re out.”

It was a mantra, something she recited to herself each morning, with only a little variation. Marshalling what little energy her truncated sleep schedule had left her, Susan reached out for the doorknob. And missed. She frowned and tried again, moving her hand slowly and more deliberately. She felt the slightly cool metal under her hand and spun the knob, resolving as she did to try and find at least one more hour for sleep. She was clearly getting overtired.

For a second, it had looked as though her hand had gone clear through the doorknob.

At school, Susan slumped as best she could in the cramped seat, a hulking jock

on one side of her and a heavyset woman on the other. Her bag, bulging with her work uniform, textbooks, laptop, workout gear and a sad, squashed lunch, was tucked down between her feet. The mandatory stats class had just been added to her program, a last-minute change by the department head, and every last seat in the lecture hall was taken. She’d barely been able to get in, rearranging classes on the fly at the last minute. The change had wrecked the schedule she’d carefully constructed over the summer.

Her pen’s tip scratched over the paper as the professor spoke, but whether her notes had any value she couldn’t say. He seemed to be all over the place, jumping from point to point. None of them seemed to her to have any real connection, or value.

“Are there any questions?” the professor asked, gripping the lectern and leaning forwards, peering up into the packed ranks of students.

Her hand shot into the air. She had nothing but questions. The professor selected a student in an engineering jacket off to the far side of the classroom. After him, an older man down in the front of the class. Then a girl wearing far too little clothing for the weather, off on the other side. No matter how high she reached or how much she waved, the pro-

fessor skipped over her, picking student after student who asked question after meaningless question. Low on sleep, halfstarving and completely perplexed, Susan could feel her temper fraying. A little more of it wore away with each question answered that wasn’t hers.

The class ended with Susan’s hand still high in the air. All around her students shoved textbooks into backpacks and clicked laptops shut, the silence of the room exploding into the clamorous noise of dozens of conversations. The jock beside her tossed his bag over his shoulder and turned, walking into her legs as she tried to get her own things in order again.

Susan flinched, startled. Her books tumbled to the floor. She grabbed for them and missed, snapping out, “Hang on a second!”

He ignored her, pushing past. She had no choice but to swing her legs sideways, abandoning her lost school supplies for the moment, drawing back as far as she could. Susan glared up at him as he shoved towards the aisle, the well-built young man utterly oblivious until his foot came down on her pen, snapping it neatly in half. He glanced down, pausing just for a second, then gave a little shrug and carried onwards.

“Don’t apologize or anything,” Susan said, but he was already gone, lost in the great mass of the collective student body, trying to get out of the lecture hall.

Susan sighed and reached down, scooping up her notebook, which now had most of a large, dusty footprint on the cover. Jamming it into her bag, she stood up and joined the shuffling ranks, heading towards the exit. “Jerk”, she muttered, glancing down at the spreading blue stain of her broken pen.

Someone stepped on her heels as she walked, nearly taking one of her shoes clean off. She was jostled three times, hard enough she almost went over the back of the lower row of chairs. Not once did anyone apologise to her.

“Susan? Susan!”

She looked up from her register, blinking away a moment’s fugue. “Yes, miss?”

Her manager was looking for her, the older woman’s head swinging back and forth. Susan waved a little, then leaned farther out and waved more, until her manager’s roaming gaze settled on her.

“Oh, there you are,” Ms. Nielson said, bustling over. “Did you go to the bathroom?”

“No, miss. I’ve been here since my shift started,” Susan replied. Her eyes flicked over to the clock, noting that she’d been standing at the register, without exception, for two hours. “Was there something you needed me to do?”

“Hmm?” Mrs. Nielson’s eyes had un-

focused for a moment, and she blinked as she homed in on Susan again. “Something I… No, no. I just hadn’t seen you, wanted to make sure you were still around.”

Since she clearly was, she couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She glanced away, looking up the line of students, holding textbooks and courseware, chatting with friends or listening to music. It wasn’t as bad as the first week, The Rush, but it was still busy enough. “Should I get back to my register?” she asked, as the line picked up a few more people at the back.

“Hmm? What? Oh, Susan.” Mrs. Nielson smiled absently, a slightly flustered smile. “I didn’t see you there. Yes, yes, back to it, please!”

The older woman bustled away, her attention drawn by another cashier’s puzzled frown and a customer that wasn’t moving. Susan moved back to her register and looked up at the line, waving at the person in the front. “Over here, sir? I can help you over here! Sir!” The man in the front of the line glanced around for a moment, never quite focusing on Susan, then smiled and headed over to a newly-free cashier at the front of the block. “Way to pay attention,” she muttered under her breath, then raised her voice to shout, “Help you over here, ma’am? Over here!”

“I can help whoever’s next!”

“Over here!”

“Sir?” “Ma’am?”

“Hey!” Hands shaking, Susan reached for the door’s push bar.

Once again, it wouldn’t open.

“OK,” she said, her voice trembling, and then again, “OK.” She closed her eyes and tried to get control of her racing heart. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands, and she bit down hard on her lower lip. Hard enough that she tasted blood. “This cannot be happening,” Susan said, her head up, her back straight.

“You’re just overtired. You didn’t eat enough. That’s all. Now,” she said, her eyes narrowed, her words slow and forceful, “Open. The. Door.”

It was no use. For the fifth time the bar failed to yield the slightest resistance as she pushed against it. Susan couldn’t feel anything against her palms, and the door stubbornly refused to open. It wasn’t broken, and it wasn’t blocked. It was a glass door. She could clearly see the night time campus beyond, lit by the tall, baroque streetlamps and the light spilling out of offices and common areas. There were a few people moving about, mostly in small groups, students coming back from a night class or friends walking over to the campus pub. Even if she’d wanted to she couldn’t have called out to any of them,

they were so far away. And she didn’t trust her voice anymore.

Susan didn’t trust anything. She couldn’t even trust her hands, hands that slid through the push bar every time she reached for it. Driven by sheer bloody minded determination she forced herself to try again. When her hands once more encountered no resistance from the metal rod, she couldn’t help but scream out her frustration. Raising her fists she tried to bring them down on the glass.

Instead, Susan found her momentum carrying her forwards as her hands passed clean through the door. She tumbled out of the building, landing in a sprawl on the ground.

Scrambling to her feet she looked back, hoping to see the door swinging closed. It was as still as the walls on either side of it though, showing not the slightest sign of having moved. Susan reached back and pulled out her cell, intent on calling someone, though she wasn’t exactly sure who. Her lack of a plan was moot, however. The phone couldn’t find a signal.

“Come on,” Susan said, shaking the phone. “Come on. Come on!” The cell remained stubbornly unresponsive, and with a muffled growl she stuffed it back into her jeans. Glancing around, she spotted a couple walking towards one of the residence buildings, arm in arm. Susan hurried over to them, calling out, telling herself it meant nothing when they didn’t respond.

“Please,” she said, “Please, you have to help me.” She easily overtook them, spinning around to jog backwards in front of them. “I think something’s wrong with me. Could I borrow your phone, please?

Please?”

The couple ignored her, their attention focused utterly on each other. She continued to plead with them, telling herself over and over again that this was some silly joke. But when she stumbled, her foot slipping on some loose gravel, she was finally forced to accept that this was no joke. It wasn’t a hoax. It wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

Because when she stumbled, and slowed, the love-struck couple had walked right through her.

She stopped in place, staring blankly at the ground. Minutes passed, minutes and minutes, as she struggled with her situation. “I was almost done,” Susan whispered, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “Just one more year, and that was it.

I just had to get through one more year…”

“I was almost out…”

“Please!”

“I was almost out!”

Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 19

Pashminas At Polling Stations Shohreh Soltaninia was in Iran during the election

I

t’s over 35°C and I am slowly being suffocated by the thousands of people and motorcycles weaving through the narrow alleyways of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Adding to my anxiety is the ridiculous combination of clothing I’m wearing: a long-sleeve dress, jeans, and a thick pashmina tightly wrapped around my head.

Although exhausting and uncomfortable, revisiting my motherland after 12 years of neglect proved to be an extremely fulfilling exploration of my ancestry and heritage. At the same time, it also served as a harsh reminder of the life I left behind at the age of eight.

Iran is a deeply religious country situated in the heart of the Middle East.

The country is best known to the Western World for its intricate Persian rugs and repressive Islamic Regime. What the media often neglects to show is the country’s rich history dating back to 1200 BC, diverse climates ranging from deserts to tropical forests, and a variety of culturally rich ethnicities.

Arriving at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran, my first worry was my attire.

Before leaving the airplane, I quickly donned a head scarf and a baggy trench coat that extended past my knees. And so 20 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Photography by Shohreh Soltaninia

began my continuous struggle to understand the nuances of dressing in the Islamic Republic. I knew that all women are legally required to wear a veil concealing their hair, a long-sleeved overcoat extending to the knees, and pants to cover their legs. However, I had clearly underestimated the people of Tehran, especially teenagers, who confidently viewed these rules more as guidelines. Schlepping around in my thick and unbelievably unflattering coat while adjusting my hijab, I noticed that the majority of Tehranians were wearing tight half-sleeve tops with loose scarves barely concealing their stylish updos. Following their lead, I slowly began to adhere to Tehranian fashion trends. Hust when I began looking like an Iranian fashionista, though, I almost ended getting myself arrested by the Morality Guidance Patrol at the local mall for an apparently too-short and too-revealing top. Luckily, I got away with a warning by pretending not to speak the language.

Aside from the run-in with the morality police, the rest of the first month was an amazing exploration of the various historical and cultural sites of Central and Eastern Iran, ranging from a tour of Ancient Persian sites, including Persopo-

lis, Naghsh-e-Rostam (the burial tombs of Darius I and Xerxes I), to Zoroastrian fire temples and vast, intricately-decorated mosques. In the South was the astounding Persian Gulf, with its unbelievably clear turquoise water, and in the North was a series of small cities infested with pricey villas overlooking the Caspian Sea. Although Iran has an array of stunning historical and natural attractions, even more interesting are its unique culture and people. Despite the government’s denunciation of the Western World as the “enemy” and root of all of Iran’s problems, the Iranian people have an intense obsession with the “Western way of life”.

Walking around the streets of Tehran, it is hard to come across a woman who isn’t impeccably dressed in this season’s latest trends. The men have adopted a more European look with too-tight pants and t-shirts, which complement their dangerously spiked hair. Many people were shocked to hear that my unmade up face and “simple” attire was acceptable in the West. Looking too plain wasn’t the only topic my relatives commented on. Somehow, everyone seemed deeply interested in when I was going to get my nose done.

Explaining the scope of Iran’s obsession

with rhinoplasty to non-Iranians can be difficult. Simply put, Iran is considered the “nose-job capital of the world”. It’s estimated that 35 000 nose jobs are performed in this country every year. The obsession doesn’t simply apply to fashionable urbanites in Tehran. Walking around the streets of any city, it is guaranteed that you will run into someone with a bandaged nose.

Nose jobs and interest in Western style aside, the most fascinating aspect of Iranian culture is the people’s connection to politics. Ruled by a theocratic government headed by the Supreme Leader, the Iranian people have only one remnant of democracy in which they can participate: the election of a president. Before and after voting, the major talk around the teapot was about the candidates. Even in the villages and nomadic tribes I visited, discussions were always about who to vote for, or if voting even mattered. After all, as one gentleman told me, “Even if you vote and they don’t rig the elections, at the end of the day the President still has to kiss the hand of the Supreme Leader.”

Even with such scepticism about elec-

tion processes under the Islamic Regime, many people viewed this summer’s election differently. Presidential nominee Mousavi promised change, and people believed in him. In the weeks before the polls opened, a normally ten-minute car ride anywhere to Tehran took two hours because people would park their cars in the middle of the streets and simply dance, in defiance of the Iranian law against public dancing. At night, almost every street was covered in green signs and ribbons in support of Mousavi. Tehranians seemed hopeful and optimistic for change.

Such optimism quickly turned into utter disbelief following the election. As a dual citizen, I was extremely excited to vote in what could have been a historic event in Iranian history. But by 11:00 the next morning, the news stations were reporting that incumbent President Ahmadinejad had been re-elected with an overwhelming 64% of the votes. The rest of the day was unusually calm; the streets were relatively empty as most people sat in a state of shock. When they collected themselves, Iranian youth took to the streets for two weeks to demonstrate their dis-

satisfaction with the government and demand a re-election.

Unlike the Western World, Iranians weren’t getting streaming video and updates from the local news about the protests, arrests and deaths. The local channels, all government-controlled, chose to focus more on Obama’s unwarranted meddling and reruns of Charlie Chaplin, a personal favourite of one state-run channel during any political unrest. Satellite signals for the BBC or CNN were intercepted, leaving many Iranians to formulate their own conspiracy theories on how the government rigged the elections.

Iran is a country immersed in culture, history and contradictions. In the villages and under the watch of the Supreme Leader, a traditional and “Islamic” way of life is practiced, preached and never questioned. However, the Iranian people have shown both their government and the international community that they are willing to explore and question their government and society without losing their culture and heritage.

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Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 21

An Illustrated Guide to October Joyce Li & Chiara Meneguzzi, Columnists

S

omehow, it has happened: September has disappeared in a flash, and its busier sibling October, with all its promises of crisper weather, autumn leaves and free candy, has arrived! Any month with a long weekend devoted to gratitude and a designated day for dressing up and eating sweet things has got to be a good one. Wrap a scarf around your neck, pick up a pumpkin for your porch or window sill, and get ready to enjoy this glorious month.

To start, take advantage of the cold to be one of those stylish people who can pull off WEARING A SCARF with jeans and a t-shirt. Then enjoy that cool walk home from class while CRUNCHING

22 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Meagan Byrne

LEAVES. Walk in the street (avoiding cars of course) and put every single step in that accumulation of leaves right next to the curb. Crunch your way home and enjoy fall in all its wonder.

Speaking of autumn leaves, an excitingly juvenile October activity that should not be neglected is JUMPING IN A PILE OF LEAVES. Get together with some friends and pretend to be excellent citizens by raking a lawn. Of course all the leaves need to be arranged in a pile in order to facilitate pick up, so put those leaves in a pile. When those leaves are in a pile, take turns jumping in them! Enjoy that moment of free fall, followed by the landing, the crunch of leaves and the

soft thump, and the bits of leaves that get stuck to your clothes.

We are extremely lucky to have a wonderful “wilderness” filled with trees right outside our back door. What better way to avoid doing that huge pile of reading (um... we mean take a break from that huge pile of reading) and de-stress than to take a walk through Cootes Paradise to check out all the FALL COLOURS. As the leaves start changing, try heading along the waterfront trail that starts out from behing Brandon Hall. Stop on the board walk and look out across the water at all those pretty trees. If you’re willing to go a little further, take a hike up the mountain and have a look out from the escarp-

ment. See how many colours you can spot in between all the buildings! Or, check out The Fall Colour Report from The Weather Network (www.theweathernetwork.com/ fallcolour/on) and plan a road trip to go see some very nice scenery.

The change in seasons means that it is time to start enjoying FALL FOOD! Airy, light summer dishes are out; robust, hearty ones are in! Take advantage of the Greenbelt’s abundance: this month, grocery stores and farmers’ markets are replete with grown-in-Ontario squash, cranberries, potatoes, pears and cauliflower, just to name a few. At the downtown market (enter near King and Bay), you can buy small, dried cobs of corn that act as decoration and which, we are told, can be popped into the microwave four weeks later to become popcorn! We bought some out of sheer novelty and can barely wait the required time to see what will become of the funny little purple cobs. Less foolproof than bagged popcorn or even stovetop popping, but so much more exciting! Visit www.greenbelt.ca or www. foodland.gov.on.ca for more information on eating in autumn.

On Thanksgiving weekend, many students reunite with their families (or put together makeshift ones) for a celebratory feast after more than a month of low-budget eating; we can hardly wait for all the pie and turkey and deliciousness. What can you do all the leftover TURKEY your mom forces you to take back with you?

Here are our suggestions: 1. turkey & cranberry sauce sandwiches; 2. turkey stir-fry; 3. turkey pot pie; 4. cold turkey out of the fridge; 5. give it away to your neighbours; too much turkey is not a good thing.

It’s almost Hallowe’en. What better way to get in the mood for the sea-

son than by PUMPKIN CARVING? It’s easy enough to do if you’ve never done it before.

First you need to get a pumpkin. You can buy one in early October from the grocery store and let it sit on your porch as a pretty fall decoration until it’s time to carve. When you’re ready, lay out newspaper on a table and grab a serrated knife and a big spoon. Using the knife, cut around the stem. You need to make an opening big enough to get your hand in. Pull off the top and dig out the pumpkin’s innards. Clean it right out. If you like, you can save the pumpkin seeds for roasting (directions here: http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/RoastingPumpkin-Seeds). Now, begin carving. If you feel the urge for perfection, trace on your pumpkin face before you start cutting it out. Stick with your traditional jack-o-lantern face, or take some ideas from the folks over at Extreme Pumpkins (www.extremepumpkins.com). On the night of Hallowe’en, don’t forget to stick a lit candle inside your jack-o-lantern so you can show off your creation to the neighbourhood.

If you are celebrating Halloween, then celebrate it. COSTUMES are necessary. Of course, girls can, as Mean Girls put it, simply wear “lingerie and some form of animal ears”, and guys can just wear the same clothes as always and say they’re going as a buddy— but a few moments of creativity will get you far. Pop into a thrift store like the Salvation Army downtown or the huge Value Village on the mountain for inexpensive inspiration.

As a university student who probably will end up coming up with a costume very last minute, you have permission to be cheap (make a mask out of paper); punny (imagine costumes for a Devilled Egg, Black-Eyed Pea, or Dust Bunny); and/or obnoxiously pretentious (go as an abstract concept like Post-Modernism or ProblemBased Learning). When in doubt, refer to pop culture (how many Interrupting Kanyes will we see this year? More than last year’s Sarah Palins?), your favourite childhood TV show (The Secret World of Alex Mack, anyone?) or gather some friends and dress as a group (the entire Alex Mack cast, please!).

October does mean lovely things like food and family and costumes (three of our favourite things in the world), but it also, regrettably, means that you probably have three midterms and a paper due next week. Now, we don’t necessarily condone procrastinating, but if you want to take a little bit of a break from studying to return to your childhood and decorate your living space, try making a HANDPRINT TURKEY with your friends. You’ll need glue, scissors, black felt-tip pen/marker, brown construction paper, red construction paper, and construction paper in other fall colours. Here’s what to do: 1. Place your hand flat on the piece of brown construction paper with your fingers spread. Trace around your hand.

2. Cut out the outline of your hand.

3. Draw a face on the thumb of your cutout.

4. Cut out feather-like shapes from the fall coloured-construction paper (including red). Glue the feathers to the fingers of yo ur hand cut-out.

5. Cut out a small tear-drop shape (about the size of a finger nail) from the red construction paper. This is going to be the wobbly bit that hangs down from the turkey’s throat. Glue it to your the thumb of you cut out in the throatarea.

6. Show your turkey cut-out to all your friends and reminisce about kindergarten crafts.

Illustrations by Chiara Meneguzzi & Joyce Li Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 23

Power/Play a reason to fight Yang Lei, Columnist

O

n the morning of June 28, 1914, a bombing assassination attempt in Sarajevo failed to kill its intended target, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heirpresumptive of the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Archduke, oblivious to the attempt on his life, changed his plans to visit the victims of the earlier bombing in the hospital. As his car drove by Schiller’s delicatessen, a disgruntled assassin from the bombing, Gavrilo Princip, walked out.

Seeing his opportunity, Princip shot the Archduke and his wife. This sparked the First World War... or so we are taught in Ontario Grade 10 History curriculum.

If we wrack our memories, perhaps we can remember that the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir-presumptive caused Austria-Hungary to move against Serbia, which in turn caused Russia to move against Austria-Hungary. Mutual protection pacts forged before the start of hostilities came into effect and Britain and France joined on the side of the Russians while the Germans and Ottomans joined on the side of the Austro-Hungarians. The assassination of the Archduke is what is called the proximate cause. Proximate causes are events that directly cause the events following.

24 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Shauna Cowden

In contrast, ultimate causes are underlying currents of events that make happening of a certain event nearly inevitable. In the decades prior to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Europe had been engaged in an arms race. The rise of Prussia and later a unified Germany challenged the hegemony held by the United Kingdom near the end of the 19th century.

Ironclad after ironclad were built as Britain tried to keep ahead of the rapidly expanding German Baltic Fleet. Britain soon entered into mutual mobilisation pact with France and Germany responded by signing a similar agreement with AustriaHungary. Austro-Hungarian ambitions in the Balkans pushed Serbia into the hands of Russia. Russia signed a mutual defence pact with France, and the stage was set for a titanic European military clash. The previous military conflict was the Boer War for the United Kingdom and the FrancoPrussian war for the Continental powers.

All of the major European powers were well-armed and well-populated. The internal instability of Austria-Hungary emboldened separatists in the Empire. Had the Archduke not been assassinated, it is highly likely that a casus belli would have been found and war broken out regard-

less. When there is sufficient fuel, the slightest spark will start the fire.

Proximate causes are easier to identify and analyze than ultimate causes, which not only may be multi-faceted but also interacting with each other. When the 2003 Iraq war began, the casus belli cited by the American coalition was the non-compliance of the Baathist regime with regard to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons de-armament. Since the CIA’s report of the absence of such weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) after the initial invasion, the public has largely discarded the search for WMDs as a legitimate reason for the invasion of Iraq. Often one finds university students arguing that the cause for the invasion was the American want for oil. This can be regarded as the proximate cause popular with the general populace. However, under examinations heavier than the “Americans are evil and want to steal Iraq’s oil” procedure, the case for invasion for oil fails to make sense. The US government has thus far spent far more money than it has made. Prior to the invasion, it was clear to all sides that should the Republican Guard adopt a scorched earth policy, there could have been massive environmental and fi-

nancial damage from the burning of Iraqi oil fields larger in scale than the burning of Kuwaiti wells in the First Gulf War. In addition, there were influential people like Alan Greenspan who believed that there was the danger of Saddam Hussein trying to seize and control the Straits of Hormuz. Such claims geographically are wildly off. Iraq has a pithy piece of coastline in the straits of Hormuz, and its naval power projection capabilities are existent at best. Even without the presence of the nearby US 5th fleet, the only country with the possibility of controlling the straits of Hormuz is Iran. Since Iran’s main foreign income is from oil, the Straits will stay open unless Iran is invaded.

The ultimate causes for the Iraq war are far deeper and murkier than just “oil”.

As Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian military historian and journalist, pointed out in 2007, the Americans may have been sending a warning shot to China. American infantry have not seen major combat since the end of the Vietnam War. Between the end of the Vietnam War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, American military readiness had to be kept up in case of a Soviet invasion of Europe. After the dissolution of the USSR, the American military has seen action in the First Gulf War (1991), the Balkans (1990s), and Afghanistan (2001). In all three cases, American military involvement has largely been limited to air superiority and bombing missions. The First Gulf War saw the retreat of Iraqi troops before a large counter-attack by US-led UN force. The Yugoslav Wars saw a bombing campaign by NATO, and the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan was done by Northern Alliance infantry with American air support. In a sense, the American infantry and tank corps were long-overdue for exercise. American military strategists had long-foreseen the rise of countries like China and India. I believe that the coining of the term “BRIC” (Brazil, Russia, India, China) by Goldman Sachs in 2001 struck a particular nerve with some in the US military leadership. Combined with the fact that new ground forces technology has not had a chance to be tested and an ever-bellicose military-industrial lobby, the United States military was waiting for a President to start a campaign.

As the swift invasion of Iraq in 2003 showed, conventional American military is as mighty as it ever was. Shock and awe and the rapid advance of the M1 Abrams and Challenger 2 tanks saw the campaign

finish in only 21 days with little coalition casualties. While Iraqi disorganization played an important part, the fact still stands that the American coalition successfully invaded and captured major cities of a medium-large country. In the aftermath of the invasion, Chinese and Indian military men have poured over all the details. If the American intention was to send a message, they certainly succeeded. After the invasion, it appears that

poor planning and tactical mistakes by the American central command has taught everyone, including the Americans themselves, something else – hubris in conventional warfare translates very poorly into successes in occupation. With the ultimate causes pointing to an eminent military conflict, poor and hubristic planning by the Department of Defence have caused the assassination of American interests in the Middle East for decades to come.

40Crk_McMaster_Sept09_fin:McMaster - The Incite - 4x7.5 b&w 02/09/09 11:39 AM Pa

DISCOVER FORTY CREEK WHISKY

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You Be The

Judge.

Double Gold Medal San Francisco World Spirits

Best Canadian Whisky New England Whisky Festival

Gold Medal

World Selection, Brussels

Highest Award

International Spirits Challenge, London, England

Highest Score

Beverage Testing Institute, Chicago, 2007

Enjoy Forty Creek Responsibly.

FortyCreekWhisky.com Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 25

Sexin’ Sex in The Champagne Room Marisa Burton, Columnist

T

he heady days of summer are officially behind us: leaves are changing, essays are looming, and sun dresses have given way to jeans and jackets, leaving revellers who just can’t wait until Halloween wondering where they can get their fix of short skirts and heels.

Of course, you can find girls bravely testing the limits of frostbite any night on Hess Street, but if that’s not your thing, consider one of Hamilton’s two (well, sort of) fine (again, sort of) downtown stripclub establishments – open from 11:30 am!

In order to ensure that this was a complete survey, my search began at www.tuscl.net (The Ultimate Strip Club List), an upstanding product of the digital age, which boasts the the tagline “More than a list. It’s the evocation of a culture.”

Presumably this refers to the hundreds of pop-ups showcasing gyrating damsels offering me “guaranteed” affairs with older women. Viruses (digital and otherwise) aside, it did provide me with the addresses of the two downtown strip clubs, although one of them turned out to have closed down a few months ago.

The surviving club is called Hamilton Strip (92 Barton Street East). Given the number of signs in the parking lot inform-

26 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ October 2009

Artwork by Yuan Qiao

ing you that Hamilton Strip bears no legal liability for cars stolen or damaged on its property, and the fact that it’s, well, on Barton, Hamilton Strip is actually surprisingly classy. It looks like it might have resembled the Brass Rail (701 Yonge Street, Toronto—home of the $10 mixed drink) at one time, though judging from the almost overpowering Eau de Toilet emanating from the bar area I’d say these better days were quite awhile ago now. Still, the place is enormous, so staying away from the bar isn’t too hard.

I didn’t personally test this (for many reasons), but according to one reviewer on tuscl.net, the many “no physical contact allowed” signs are meaningless, especially if you pretend not to want another dance, and especially if you can find Brandi. I didn’t run into Brandi, but the staff still seemed friendly, professional, and not too pushy. Unfortunately, the same can’t really be said of the management; when I went back on a different day to get an interview, I was greeted by a different set of friendly staff and started a short conversation with a very nice, interesting dancer but was quickly told to leave by an extremely aggressive manager. As for the dancers themselves, their most notice-

able characteristic had to be their sheer numbers – there seemed to be far more of them wandering around than there were customers. Allegedly, there’s no cover, but in reality, you’re basically forced to buy a drink ($7). The menu consists of standard diner fare and features a $9 allday breakfast.

Outfits ranged from stuff that could almost pass as nice lingerie right down to the I-Can’t-Believe-Anyone-Even-MakesThat. It faced some stiff competition, but the winner was definitely a multicoloured sequinned spandex bodysuit with diamond cut-outs all the way up both sides.

The big surprise in the fashion department was the bizarre popularity of leg warmers. Sometimes they were worn low to create an effect somewhere between UGGs and stilettos, and sometimes they were pulled up mid-dance to become knee pads. Maybe this is a thing? (If anyone has heard of this, please write to Incite.)

Stage dances were done in threesong sets: lingerie, topless and nude. The triptych of exhibitionism that we enjoyed seemed to consist of a lot of pacing, strutting and sashaying, although there were some fairly impressive acrobatics and a doggy-style, four-legged seizure-

like move that I didn’t really understand.

That being said, some of those girls are a lot stronger than they look, so watch out if you’re ever thinking of backing out of paying for that extra-special lap dance she gave you.

Academic interest aside, by the end of three sets my companion and I were... really bored, to be honest. The dancing was sort of mesmerizing, but only in the same way that a shiny object is. It wasn’t really sexy; it wasn’t even that sexual. It was sort of strange—they were all tanned and blonde and exfoliated, and they were all dancing and gyrating and swinging around, but somehow it lacked that animalistic passion you’d expect from a worker who gets paid to fan the inner fires of at least one half of the population.

It was almost as if they were doing some kind of rehearsal—going through the motions, but not really meaning it. Maybe this total lack of a connection to the audience is supposed to create a sense of voyeurism, like you’re just watching this girl strip and dance around in her bedroom as she changes her clothes, but to me, at least, it was more like watching a weird, emotionless stripper robot—vaguely fascinating but not much else.

The other club in the downtown core used to be Maxim’s (95 King St E). It was right across from Gore Park and next to the tiniest shawarma place in the world, but all that’s left of it today are bare white boards. Tuscl.net still has several reviews, but they don’t seem to have helped much.

Half of them were clearly written by the owners, with permutations of the phrases “beautiful girls from around the world”, “the perfect place for a night out”, and “very classy place”, while the other half seem to think that Maxim’s is “about as classy as the city it’s in”, which is clearly not meant to be complimentary.

Having gone there before it shut down, I’d say it was about as classy as you’d expect a strip club by Gore Park to be, which is to say that it wasn’t so much “classy” as “depressing”. This was partly because the lighting was dim and cavelike, but mainly because the girls on stage don’t really look like strippers. They just looked like regular girls who might have sat behind you in grade ten chem class.

That’s not to say that they weren’t pretty, but they weren’t that kind of fake, manufactured, Barbie-doll pretty that makes someone not just a regular person, but rather a fabrication that it’s OK to stare

at. Basically, there weren’t enough layers of silicon and makeup between you and the girl who sat behind you in grade ten to offset the awkwardness. It didn’t help that the gals at Maxim’s didn’t seem quite as professional in their dance moves either: there was a lot of awkward girl-ongirl groping and very few examples of the kind of artistic pole acrobatics that would put a shirtless fireman to shame.

So Hamilton Strip is boring and Maxim’s was sad, but don’t write off downtown’s sex scene just yet, because even though it’s not a strip club, no survey would be complete without the Hamilton News Stand (61 King Street East, open 24 hours a day!). The sign outside calls it “Canada’s largest and best adult entertainment centre” but if I had to sum up the News Stand in one word, it would be “terrifying”.

If you want an idea, try to picture three entire floors of dark corridors between hundreds of ramshackle, little oneperson booths. It’s like a maze, a haunted house, and a shanty town all rolled into one, and it’s all for porn. Backlit numbered porn posters line the hallways, random porn plays from mounted screens, and loud porn noises come from the occasional booth. It’s guarded by either a half-dozen loitering men or a lone, tiny bouncer who checks ID and who might somehow be lurking around every corner of the maze like a creepy cartoon villain.

Besides the King St entrance, there’s also a more discrete back entrance on King William St, though the sign at that end says “Show World” and something about sex toys.

Once you’re in you can look at the backlit posters to see which 96 movies are available, and, with appetite whetted, you’re free to go into a booth of your choice (they’re all the same, but try to avoid used tissues). The booth is basically a plywood box with an easy chair and two TV screens. The top screen plays four random movies in split-screen. Once you put a dollar in the machine, you can control the bottom screen for about five minutes which will play any of the 96 movies depending on which channel you’re on. The problem, if you’re prone to channel surfing, is that the collection includes everything from generic, professional, male/ female porn to girls with a penis and peasants with a donkey.

This makes for a hilarious five minutes, but I doubt that I’d be as happy with

the setup if I was actually there to watch porn, which some people were. I really wonder who actually frequents this place though, when there are so many other more private ways to watch porn. I also wonder how much longer this relic of the pre-internet age can possibly hold on - it can’t be turning much of a profit at $1 a spin.

So if you do have any desire to explore Hamilton’s seedy underbelly, now is the time. Any day now the News Stand or even Hamilton Strip could go the way of Maxim’s, and while I realize I haven’t painted the most alluring picture of either establishment, exploring them was, if nothing else, a very interesting experience. It turns out that our strip clubs (and strippers) aren’t the glitzy, gleaming, dollar-bill filled places of television, but nor are they quite the dens of sin your grandmother warned you about. They’re just sort of their own weird little worlds (that goes double for the porn maze), and in the end if you’re curious there’s nothing for it but to just go.

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Volume 12, Issue 2 ▪ Incite Magazine ▪ 27

Write, Draw, Edit or Design for Incite Magazine contact incite@mcmaster.ca