Issue 5 - September 25 2003

the newspaper

25 September 2003 Vol. XXVI No. 5

U of T’s Independent Weekly

on the inside Lots of comics • Should voting be mandatory • Hate Mail

Students blocked from voting Residences not enumerated for provincial election

VOTE AT HOME SAYS RETURNING OFFICER by Peter Josselyn

PREGNANT CHAD BUREAU

Maggie MacDonald gives it during a Peel session at the BBC

PHOTO BY KATARINA GLIGORIJEVIC

On tour with the Barcelona Pavilion by Katarina Gligorijevic EUROPEAN TOUR BUREAU

As my band mate Maggie MacDonald and I sat through an incredibly turbulent flight to Frankfurt, trying to ignore our chatty 9 year old seatmate’s proclamations that the water would be very cold once we crashed into the ocean, it occurred to me that when my friends and family greeted the news that I was embarking upon a self-organized (and self-funded) European tour with my band with the exclamation “Oh, how brave! How exciting!” what they really meant was “how incredibly reckless, foolish and potentially disastrous”. After all, we had no tour manager, no label backing, no crack team of PR experts extolling the virtues of The Barcelona Pavilion’s pop stylings from Vienna to Helsinki, and no money (outside of a few pre-tour CD sales and what we’d raised during our last pre-tour gig in Toronto, a CDrelease/fundraiser). I shook the doubts off by reminding myself of the success that was to come – after all, we’d managed to set up shows in Austria, Germany, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, in addition to securing a Peel session (a coveted but far-off dream that had been the subject of many band in-jokes before becoming a plausible

possibility and finally, a concrete reality). We’d spent months organizing the tour, and on paper it looked tight but manageable, and more than a little ambitious. Still, what are young artists if not brash, self confident and optimistic beyond reason? We packed our bags and set off for what promised to be, for better or worse, a very intense month. Organizing your own tour, especially one that will take place on another continent, is very, very hard work and you’re almost certain to lose money on it from the outset. Plus, there were hours (weeks, months) of phone calls and emails to promoters and organizers, days spent in front of a calendar circling, crossing out and shuffling potential concert dates, and endless conversations with travel agents trying to puzzle out whether the European train system could accommodate our hectic schedule. Being a woman of very little influence in the international music scene, I happily stayed out of the fray during the months of organizing, lending only my unwavering support, and a hand toward the end to print, cut and assemble hundreds of CD covers. Once in Europe, we faced a new set of challenges. Our tight schedule involved many late

filling the hours

(“Speakerboxxx/The Love Below”)Seriously, everybody. I’ve had this thing for a few days now, and I’m not sure can find a bad track on either disc. André 3000 has now ascended into full-on lunatic mode, and his record is full of space-age love themes and romantic heartache. He’s not a rapper anymore, just some kind of lunar loverman. If this is a comedy record, it’s still the best thing in years. But the real suprise is Big Boi’s “Speakboxxx”. He’s stepped up his game considerably and provides the hip-hip fundamentals to keep the headz satisfied, and Dre from drifting into the cosmos. So buy this record - it’s not just for genre-nazis. In fact, it’s what everything good will sound like in 5 years. Get in at the ground floor and impress your friends; Outkast will not be denied. Monday, September 29th and Tuesday, September 30th, Lee’s

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH A SHEEP?

PAGES 6

the newspaper asks:

How much can one worker take? PAGE 8 Trinity Spadina at (416) 9213600 or visit the office at 295 Spadina Avenue. For those living in Toronto Centre Rosedale, the Returning Office is located at 184 Front St. East, Suite 500. The Returning Officer is Sharron Marlow (416) 504-2704. The Elections Ontario web site, www.electionsontario.on.ca has proxy voter forms (which students are allowed to fax).

Bioterror without bioterrorists

What happens if smallpox reappears?

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the newspaper’s guide to spending your time

Go Buy The New Outkast Record—Now!

The Polyphonic Spree

nights of ‘rocking out’ followed by early mornings of frantically dragging ourselves and our gear to the train station, praying not to miss our connection, and trying to soothe our exhausted selves with train-naps and weird European vitamin-enriched juices. Luckily, we’re a very low-gear band. With two bass guitars and a laptop and/or CD player, touring by train was relatively easy – no drum kits, amps, keyboards or other, cumbersome, delicate pieces of equipment to lug around. Ironically (or just frustratingly) our most cumbersome and irksome piece of luggage was the enormous plastic bag holding our merchandise – nearly a hundred Tshirts of varying sizes and colours, which did not sell as well as our (small and easy to carry) 8cm CDs, and which we dragged with us all over Europe and back to Canada in the end. The lesson learned? If you’re bringing merch, bring more music than anything else – if people like your band, they’ll like the record, and you don’t need to worry about accommodating sizes and colour preferences. Still, one can’t exactly spend a month traveling through Europe with a bass guitar and

A growing chorus across campus claims Elections Ontario is discouraging students from voting. Student residences in Trinity-Spadina have not been enumerated, and some students are worried they will be turned away from the polls. This election marks the first for a new clause to the Elections Act introduced in 1999 that returning officers have used to tell students that they must vote in their parents’ ridings. Students and Administrators are worried whether students will vote when the onus is on them to prove where they live. Dr. Bruce Bowden, Trinity College Registrar and Dean of Men said enumerators only went certain areas of residence where staff live full-time. Although he suggested that they set up a table or booth where students could register to vote, it never happened. Trinity College has over 400 students in residence. Critics are pointing the finger at the Lesley Singer Returning Officer for Trinity-Spadina, the riding that includes the University of Toronto, west of Queen’s Park. She has been adamant that students should use proxy votes. She claims that a student’s permanent address is with their parents. Therefore, she will only add students’ names to the voter’s list if it is their intention to make U of T their permanent address. But across Queen’s Park in the Toronto Centre Rosedale riding, students at St. Michael’s College were enumerated. Students, who happened to be enumerators, set up stands to so that students could be added to the voter list. This is not normally how enumerations occur, but residences present unique problems. At

University College, for example, enumerators are not allowed in the building, said a source in the residence office. Students have every right to be confused. Elections Ontario was working with student groups across the province to develop information to make voting easier. According to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), a text was released 17 March 2003 where the issue of what riding students vote seems simple enough. The Elections Ontario text reads “You may vote in the electoral district where you live while you are at school or while you’re home – it’s up to you! You decide which one you call your permanent address, regardless of when an election is called.” The newer edition, released 9 September 2003 makes the issue much more complicated and states students must vote at their permanent address defined as “the place to which you intend to return whenever you are absent for any length of time.” The CFS claims the rules are ambiguous, and they have the legal opinions to back up the claim. Regardless of any changes to the Elections Code, any student may show up at the Returning Office, located at 295 College St. and demand to vote. They cannot be turned away as long as they have identification and proof of residency. This could be a lease, bill, or other document. “I will ask that it have a signature,” Ms. Singer said. Dean Bowden knows how he will help students. He is willing to furnish Trinity students with signed letters stating they reside within the electoral district. And legally, nothing can stop students from voting. Anyone seeking more information should phone Lesley Singer, Returning Officer for

the newspaper asks:

Palace. All the fun of cult activity without the ritual suicide (yet), The Polyphonic Spree is sure to be a good time. Watch out for our Associate News Editor; please restrain her from running wild-eyed into the throng, clutching a piccolo.

R.E.M.

Tuesday, September 30th, The Air Canada Center. Okay, so maybe you don’t like REM anymore, but that doesn’t mean their not one of the greatest bands ever. Swallow your pride and come sway along. It may be a bit cheesy that their touring a greatest hits record, but aren’t you secretly happy about that?

Johnny Cash / Warren Zevon Tribute

Saturday, September 27th, the Rivoli. Look, we love Cash. Zevon too. Listen to local musicians perform some great songs. Plus, all the money goes to help The Regent Park School of Music & The inner City Angels, so there are worse ways to spend your time.

In 1885, a smallpox epidemic swept through Montreal, killing 4000 people, most of them children, a staggeringly disproportionate number of them French. U of T Prof Michael Bliss has just re-released his book, Plague, a history of the outbreak. He spoke with Stephen Hay and Peter Josselyn of the newspaper. the newspaper: Why the new edition? Michael Bliss: Two reasons, after 9/11 people began to say “maybe smallpox isn’t dead” and “what happens if smallpox reappears in the world?” And I realized that I had written a history of the last major epidemic of smallpox in a Western city. The second reason was the reappearance of SARS. The sense of deja vu was eerie. Is medical history relevant? Does it get its due? MB: Since history has tended to be written by non-medical people, medical history has tended not to get its due. For example, this story of smallpox is a story, among other things, of a conflict between English and French in Montreal in the same year that Louis Riel is causing a rebellion in Western Canada.

The smallpox epidemic in Montreal was a far more important event in terms of Montreal English-French relations than Riel was, and the death toll was twenty times the death toll of the Northwest Rebellion. But Riel tends to get all the attention because history has been written by political historians. But this is changing as we become more and more obsessed with heath issues. There is a market now for medical history, for good and obvious reasons.

The smallpox epidemic in Montreal was a far more important event in terms of Montreal EnglishFrench relations than Riel You write that the ultimate cause of the epidemic was irrationality and fear, particularly people refusing to vaccinate their children. Are we still irra-

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the newspaper

the editorial

Let students decide where they vote Academics have lamented for years the lack of participation among young people in elections. Sure, there are a few politicos and party hacks who make a hobby of it, but mostly students simply don’t vote. Why Elections Ontario has made it harder for students to vote is beyond comprehension. There are serious anomalies in the riding of Trinity-Spadina that must be accounted for. The most egregious is that students living in residences were not enumerated. Anyone wishing to vote must present themselves to the Returning Officer and plead their case. The legal right to vote is not something to tamper with, but it seems that is exactly what is happening. Students are being told the seemingly baffling statement “Yes, you live in residence, but you actually live somewhere else. So why don’t you let your parents vote for you?” Elections Ontario has worsened the situation by changing the information that it distributes to students. The new guidelines are incredibly vague and this serves only to worsen the problem, especially in Trinity-Spadina with a headstrong Returning Officer. We believe that if the homeless can be enumerated (and that is a challenge) it’s reasonable for students to expect the same. For residences where this is not allowed, there is a solution that worked well at St. Michael’s where students could sign up at a booth. Trinity-Spadina has some big problems. It’s easier to assign these to malice or some group that wants to stop students from voting. The truth is probably closer to incompetence. But when was that ever an excuse for not doing your job?

The problem with Irshad Call us old-fashioned, but manners still count for something at the newspaper. Saying thank you can’t be that hard, can it? Irshad Manji has just finished writing a book The Problem with Islam: A wake-up call for honesty and change. Nothing extraordinary really, except that she wrote it at Hart House, while there as a writerin-residence. For a whole year, students could see the spiky-haired author flitting about the third floor wielding a laptop in sock feet. It only seemed natural that the newspaper would send a writer to the launch—after all the book is linked to U of T in many ways (the launch was at Hart House). But this was not to be, since all student media was shut out of the event. We only found out about the launch by reading the National Post’s smarmy gossip column. A few calls to Hart House revealed that the event was “by invitation only” and that invites would be checked at the door. This was not to guard the finger food, but part of security measures to protect Irshad, from what she figures would be scores of angry protestors. Calls to the publishing house also go us nowhere. One Editor even went to Hart House where he was told there was no way for the paper to get press accreditation for the event. Even though students gave Irshad space at Hart House—precious space that could have been used for countless other projects—they were shut out from the actual launch. We might be tempted to call Ms. Manji ungrateful or even indignant, but that would be rude and this is a discussion about manners. So on behalf of U of T students whp paid for her residency the newspaper would like to say “You’re welcome, Irshad.”

Erratum In the last edition of the newspaper John Ritter, star of “Three’s Company” and “Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Daughter” was identified as country music legend Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash, the “Man in Black,” was also identified as comedian John Ritter. the newspaper would like to apologize for any confusion this may haver caused our readership who could not see through the blatancy of the mix-up or its thinly veiled humour. Now can you stop with the mail?

the newspaper

500 words each Election turnout is a huge issue since fewer and fewer people are going to the polls

25 September 2003

the newspaper asks...

Should voting be mandatory?

—YES— by Spencer Bruce It should be compulsory for all citizens to vote. Immediately, this reform would create heightened popular awareness, and a collective strengthening of our communities. The concept of ‘fellowship’ would take on a new meaning and public opinion would start to reflect the public’s opinion; it is difficult to skew the statistics when your sample is everyone. The only ones who might be opposed are the extremely rich and of course, politicians themselves. The former is likely to suffer higher taxes, and may be devastated to see the establishment/renovation of social programs: the latter will be forced to fairly represent those by whom he/she is elected to represent. If they do not, they are sure to be replaced by someone who will. How could a system in which every man and woman votes ever elect a Ronald Reagan or a George Bush? Until all citizens are voting, fair political representation of ‘The People’ (or what conservatives deftly refer to as “special interest groups”) will continue to be marginalized or ignored in favor of issues which typically have greater payoffs. In other words, the needs of the poor, the uneducated (or more generally the uninformed), the elderly, educators, workers, minorities, women, youth etc. will be disregarded, as politicians would rather scratch the backs of their benefactors, namely big business and rich/powerful/influential individuals. When the poor and uneducated vote en-masse, health care, education and

other public goods will certainly improve. To grant voting rights to all is essentially meaningless when just 58.3% (turnout for the 1999 Ontario general election) of eligible citizens are exercising their vote. This phenomenon of low voter turnout has been widespread and has gotten worse in recent years. Clearly we are losing faith in the democratic process. Compulsory voting is exactly what is needed to bring new enthusiasm and awareness into Canadian politics. To be forced to vote is an interesting contradiction. Is it democratic to be coerced into taking an active role in democracy? Being forced by the government to exercise your democratic rights is in a sense cutting into individual freedom for the sake of the greater good, a very non-democratic notion. Does this mean we no longer have the right to ignorance? Am I suggesting that the government should be allowed to dictate that I exercise my democratic rights? The answer is yes. When everyone votes, we are all held accountable, because it took all of us to put our elected officials into office. Is a mandatory vote just some absurd, unrealistic or half-baked idea? Some say it would be nice to get everyone to vote but it’s too unrealistic. In response, I look to Australia where voting is mandatory. All citizens (with the exception of criminals, children and those ‘of unsound mind’) must vote in state elections, or they are fined. If mandatory voting works in Australia, there is no reason to believe that it would not be met with success here in Canada.

—NO— by Will O’Neill Forced voting translates into ignorantly cast votes, allows political parties to have an unspoken alliance to avoid running good candidates, and gives those people no reason to become good. We need a hero. I see none present. If you’ll recall from The Transformers Movie, only Optimus Prime and his destined successor (Guy-Who-Turns-IntoRed-Car) could bear the Shiny You’ve-Got-The-Touch Thing that was their emblem of power and leadership. Only Arthur could pull the sword from the stone. Leadership is not for everyone; the correct person must surface, and if they do not, it should be the right of the people to express their collective disgust by refraining to vote for any of them. Furthermore, forcing people to vote is not only undemocratic, but antidemocratic. Much like how Atheism is as much of a substantive belief as Christianity or Islam, in that it implies a fixed stance on the issue of spirituality even though the stance is one of absence. If voting were to be mandatory, what would prevent the political parties from engaging in backroom deals to all run mediocre candidates who are all in the same back pockets of corporate oligarchs? You might argue that they already do, but mandatory voting would just increase the intensity of this deplorable practice. The easy response to this position would be to note that many people seem to abstain not out of a considered choice, but rather simple apathy.

Even this, however, prompts a response that returns the burden to those running: if people are apathetic, isn’t it the candidates fault? Clearly, there is no lack of general awareness that an election is taking place. If the people do not vote, it is because they do not care, not because they do not know. Is it not the job of the candidates to inspire people to care in the first place? To create excitement for the changes in government they hope to bring about? If we can’t hold them responsible for that fundamental aspect of their profession, then who are we to tell a McDonalds clerk to “Make it Bacon” and expect him to put two sticks of reconstituted dog pork on our slab of Martian cadaver? Finally, although the spirit of democracy is best served when it is participated in by all people (from a utilitarian viewpoint, at least), that same spirit requires that people be aware of what they’re voting for. Frankly, I’m happy if ignorant people don’t vote. They’d only fuck it up by jumping onto any candidate that offered them discounted chicken fence to contain their free-range children who run around in filthy diapers, while they’re smoking Marlboro Reds and drinking moonshine on their rotting wooden porches. Even Mississauga is too far out there for the tastes of an intelligent person. Ignorant people are the single most fearsome voting block in the province and we’d all be better off if they stayed home. Forced voting, an idea that aims to enrich democracy, would only poison it.

Campus Comment We asked you...

What was the most fun that you had last summer? Anna, psychology

Jessie, English

I went to Barbados

I got kicked out of a campground for illegally camping there for two nights

Tara, English

Caitlin, English

Spending an amazing amount of time with my friends, who I adore

I went to the Casino in Niagara — I lost forty bucks

Phil, semiotics & IR

Greg, anthropology

Getting arrested for public urination in Amsterdam

Om Festival. It was a summer solstice festival.

Catherine, peace & conflict

Julia, psychology

I went on a kick-ass canoe trip

Went to Europe

Established 1978 formerly The Independent Weekly formerly the newspaper Editors Edward Gebbie, Matthew Gloyd, & Peter Josselyn Associate Editors Brenda Cromb, Katie A. Szymanski, & Dora Zhang Board of Directors Rachel Bokhout Photo Editor Mark Coatsworth Contributors Spencer Bruce, Rosena Fung, Katarina Gligorijevic, Josh Gurfinkel, Stephen Hay, Paul Heckbert, Sol Israel, Sephanie Long, Jason Kieffer, Tim Kocur, Nick Maandag, Kate McGee, Morgon Mills, Stephen Notley, Will O’Neill. the newspaper is the University of Toronto’s community paper and is published weekly by Planet Publications Inc., a non-profit corporation. Contributions and letters are welcome from all U of T community. Writers old and new can drop by our office every Thursday at 4:30 for story assignments and idle chit-chat. 1 Spadina Crescent, Suite 245 Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1 www.thenewspaper.ca

editorial: 416.593.1552 advertising: 416.593.1559 fax: 416.593.0552 thenewspaper@thenewspaper.ca

25 September 2003

the newspaper

Plagues, past and present

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tional today? MB: I just had my medical history class, and we asked “Was it irrational to be suspicious of vaccination?” And at the end I asked were the students going to be vaccinated for flu? We got a whole variety of answers. Fear of vaccination is explicable, but it may also be a not very sensible fear to have. Certainly today, when it comes to things like influenza and measles, and fear of obeying public health dictates generally is irrational. This raises the whole question of alternative medicine: are people who go to alternative practitioners irrational, and should alternative practitioners be labeled “quacks”? We tend to live in a super-tolerant age, but the problem with that is our super-tolerance leads people to make stupid decisions. I think the role of alternative medicine should be very severely limited. You can can fear of preventive therapy, like vaccination, but then what we saw with SARS and we saw in smallpox, was an irrational fear of infection which leads you to say “I’m not going to Toronto for fear of SARS”, or “I’m not going to Montreal, even though I’ve been vaccinated for smallpox.” Those fears are the other side of the coin, being super-cautious with health, rather than being reckless. We tend to err on the side of super-caution these days, which is why SARS could be so devastating. It is and it isn’t irrational, for example, if you’ve got a conven-

the mail The country star and the comedian Hey there, I was skimming through the newspaper today and came across the most ridiculous and, in my opinion, disrespectful editorial ever. thinking it would be some sort of a tribute to either John Ritter or Johnny Cash, I was blown away by what I found. Not only did you refer to John Ritter as the legendary country music singer Johnny Cash, but you also included a picture of John Ritter saying it was Johnny Cash!! Are you guys actually that fucking retarded? To not know who Johnny Cash is is shameful enough, but to call him John Ritter and then include a picture of the Three’s Company star just makes you guys look like fucking idiots.

Are you guys actually that fucking retarded?

Johnny Cash = country music legend John Ritter = television / movie star What the fuck were you guys thinking? I was embarrased for you. I seriously hope you make some sort of an apology for being so clueless and ignorant in your next issue. I mean, come on! Who doesn’t know who Johnny Cash is ... holy fuck. —Rhiannon Campbell

Attend our writers’ meetings & get free stuff

Thursday 4:30

tion in Toronto, and you have a one in ten million chance of infection, on the other hand if I miss the convention it doesn’t matter in the slightest. So why don’t we just relocate the conference? It’s a costly decision to stay away from Toronto or Montreal during an outbreak, so people make that decision, and whose to condemn them? But you do condemn people when they’re reckless with their health by refusing vaccination. How do see the evolution of medicine over time, with reference to smallpox? MB: One of the issues that I wrestle with in my seminars in health care is that the history of

medicine is a story of progress. We go around this because we have an almost instinctive aversion to saying that history is a story of progress. But health care -- the fact is most of us are very pleased to live in the present and not in the past because of our access to health care, even in Canada, where it maybe could be better. The fact about smallpox is that, despite the re-apperance of my book, the virus isn’t reappearing! It may come back, but it hasn’t come back, and from day to day we don’t have to worry about smallpox. We do get new and

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deadly viruses, but SARS was not nearly as bad as smallpox, and in most other ways you get progress in medical understanding and medical competence. For example, this is peripherally medical -- doctors used to believe that homosexuality was a sexual perversion. There’s been enormous progress in my time, its medical, social, human rights, that we now live in an era when gay people, whether they can marry or not, are not stigmatized by doctors and governments and the rest. That seems to me to be progress. I think it’s fair to say that if you’re gay there’s never been a better time in history to be alive. Medical history may be two steps forward one step back, but it is a story of progress. But there are many other ways that we can argue that our easy assumption that we don’t make progress is wrong. Not in all areas, but those areas in which we do make progress drag us along, in spite of ourselves. For example, are we making progress in terms of the quality of our politicians? Do we have a better class of political leaders in Canada today than we did a hundred years ago? On that my mind changes with my mood. How did political factors affect the smallpox epidemic? MB: Could proper public health have prevented smalpox

We must combat fear, ignorance and fatalism

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in Montreal? Could proper public health have prevented SARS in Toronto? My sense from my study of small pox was that by 1885 we did have public health measures in place, and what happens is that you have the cumulative effect of a series of small mistakes. You have to have a whole series of small things go wrong, and the issue is, can governments protect against that? Yes they can, but its hard. You have to ask, what’s the cost of giving yourself perfect protection. How much are we going to cost on screening airports for SARS this winter? How much are we going to cost on screening for terrorists? The thing about the fear of small pox and SARS is that this is bioterror. And with SARS it’s bioterror without bioterrorists -- it just naturally happens. The cost of protection can be very, very high. There’s a cost-benefit equation. It’s like are you going to get vaccinated for the flu? It’s free now! But some kids are saying “I don’t know, maybe I’ll get sick for a day or two...” All these tradeoffs. Any other lessons to draw from Montreal in 1885 MB: The reason smallpox spread in Montreal was fear, ignorance and fatalism on the part of acertain segment of the population. We must always, in everything to do with public health, combat fear, ignorance and fatalism, which is still vaguely around.

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25 September 2003

the newspaper

How I spent my summer vacation ... �� ILLUSTRATION BY JASON KIEFFER

... Working on an assembly line and drinking in my truck (on the job) by Tim Kocur

WORKING CLASS HERO BUREAU

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For the first few weeks of summer “vacation”, I slacked off and waited for my employer from the past summer - a car part manufacturer whose name and product I won’t mention – to call with piles of cash. After the call, I averaged about 55 hours a week, spending any free time sleeping off the crippling physical pain that comes with long hours of brainless, monotonous and downright depressing assembly line workfare. Factory work isn’t all bad of course, especially when the only other employment for a student in Bowmanville (my hometown of about 20,000) is minimum wage. Cooking up hamburgers alongside underachieving teens in high school was enough for me. Nowadays, I get to work with their parents at the factory. You meet all types all types of colourful personalities, like the guys who spend the entire shift

hiding from supervisors in their trucks, digging into their “liquid lunch”. After about 2 days of doing the same thing 400 times, it isn’t hard to see why most of my co-workers would do anything to get off work: or at least spend some quality time with their truck. The one saving grace at the factory is working with other people who are as unhappy to be there as you. Doing the same thing for 30 years means most employees develop a vindictive sense of humour; otherwise they collapse into self-pity and spend all their time alone at their truck. Lucky for me, most co-workers were ripe with humour, moving the day along faster, even if most jokes were directed at me. Student workers are fair game. We aren’t in the union and therefore we can’t fight back. Nicknames are always popular, and the factory doesn’t hold back. One supervisor with a lazy eye got the nickname “F---

eyes,” while another employee of amusing proportions earned the moniker “Chernobyl.” Of course, there was always “Stinky Dave with the Colgate Smile.” He had 2 teeth. In one instance, Supertramp came on the radio and a coworker asked me, “Isn’t that your mom’s band? Supertramp?” Oh, we all had a good laugh at that one. Unfortunately, a good joke at the factory doesn’t go away. For the next 3 months, every time Q107 played Supertramp (right between Rush and Neil Young), someone on the line would remind me that my mom was on the radio again. I held back the tears as best as I could. Overall, the factory experience isn’t all that bad. It helped pay for school, the work was easy once you got used to it, and my co-workers were quite amusing, good-hearted guys. At least the nightmare is over for another 8 months, and then its back to Supertramp, “Chernobyl,” and trucks.

the newspaper Duking it up for 25 years

25 September 2003

... Singing in Europe

the newspaper dentially, the skies cleared, and we watched the rain being swept from the seats as we rehearsed. As we performed we watched (the conductor and) the sun setting, throwing light on the Parthenon at the top of the hill. Some Canadians ended up at a

mysterious centuries-old Athenian taverna, unmarked, below ground. There I met a man who claimed to have brought ambience to Canadian restaurants in 1970s Montreal. The last thing he told me, after offering to arrange a concert tour for my

dad and myself from which he claimed we would never choose to return, was to “stand up straight”. I should mention that no boys were kissed by me. Not that whole summer.

Read more summer stories online

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Tomorrow s professionals apply today! Apply on-line! OMSAS www.ouac.on.ca/omsas/ Ontario Medical School Application Service

October 8, 2003 Last day for registering for on-line applications October 15, 2003 Application deadline ILLUSTRATION BY JASON KIEFFER

by Kate McGee

SUMMER SONG BUREAU

Last summer, I catapulted myself into an environment where all the folks said, “what?” It was Germany, land of the Raised Eyebrow, land of Far Fewer Women Who Don’t Shave Than You Would Have Imagined. Young musicians from around the world surrounded me. We were all there to sing Beethoven for five weeks. I was the only radical chick with armpit hair to go with the concert dress. We spent a lot of time in mineral baths and saunas, where Germans indulge their national proclivity to spend family time in the nude. My roommate had an hour and a half long beauty routine and a clip-on ponytail. Also three Playboy logo t-shirts. We sang Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, in his hometown of Bonn. Women were only needed in the last scene, when all of the political prisoners were released and reunited with their families, when we all got to embrace joyously and sing the final chorus. The ancient

German director insisted that we stand with gaping mouths as we contemplated freedom. This could not be achieved without a fit of giggles the first few tries. Eighty-something-year-old director mutters under his breath, “Das ist nicht Oktoberfest”. Then, in an explosion of frustration: “You must all stop being so childish! I find it irresistible!” English was not his forte. Sometimes this manifested itself in absurd translations: when trying to impart to us our characters’ survival instinct: “You are over living! You are the over livers!” The conductor, Helmuth Rilling, wanted us to “explode”. He looked like a friendly elf. Later, in Stuttgart, we visited a girl’s home and sang folksongs in her back yard, Venezuelan songs and Irish songs. The neighbors threw a firecracker into the backyard rather than ask us nicely to shut up. We took a brief trip to Greece to perform the Missa Solemnis at the Acropolis. It rained all afternoon, and looked unlikely for a time that we would be able to perform in the open-air Odeon Herodes Atticus. Provi-

OLSAS www.ouac.on.ca/olsas/ Ontario Law School Application Service

November 3, 2003 Application deadline first-year May 3, 2004 Application deadline upper years

TEAS www.ouac.on.ca/teas/ Teacher Education Application Service

December 1, 2003 Application deadline

ORPAS www.ouac.on.ca/orpas/ Ontario Rehabilitation Sciences Programs Application Service

(Audiology, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy/ Physiotherapy, Speech-Language Pathology) January 15, 2004 Application deadline

ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES APPLICATION CENTRE CENTRE DE DEMANDE D ADMISSION AUX UNIVERSITÉS DE L ONTARIO

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170 Research Lane Guelph, Ontario N1G 5E2 www.ouac.on.ca

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6 the newspaper Barcelona Pavilion continued a tote bag – and with enough giant backpacks and wheeled suitcases to accommodate our personal belongings, we were only a slightly less obnoxious sight than the average North American backpacker spending their parents’ cash on a summer’s journey of self discovery. Touring by train does have its advantages however, as we discovered in Finland, where we drove, and where we and our Finnish tour mates, the Rollstons, nearly missed a show at an outdoor festival in Lapland because our draughty, shaky, leaky, dilapidated van broke down (again) on the side of the road in the middle of Nowhere, Finland, forcing us to drag the festival organizers away from their event and down the rainy highway to pick us up. The festival ended up being a surreal (but successful) experience, full of drunk locals dancing in the midnight sun to an assortment of excellent local bands, topped off by the bizarre headliners – a trio of masculine Scandinavians dressed in drag and calling themselves The Cleaning Women, who played an infectious, dancey set on an array of home made instruments fashioned out of various laundry implements, drying racks, washing machine drums, et cetera. We eventually retired to an idyllic cottage on a small lake near the festival site, where I tried to sleep in spite of the screaming and crashing sounds

of the diehard partiers downstairs. “Welcome to the opposite of straight-edge” exclaimed a gently swaying figure in the doorway, as I raised my head to the noise. The tour certainly had its highlights – nervously arriving at the venue for our very first show (in Vienna), where we were the only live act, to find nearly 300 people patiently waiting to hear us play, watching a neon sliver on the horizon turn into an enormous orange moon and light up the sky over the Baltic from the deck of an overnight ferry, or opening for the Gossip to a packed and excited crowd of indie kids and B-list music celebs in London. Being exposed to fantastic bands we’d otherwise never hear about was a joy – Sweden’s incredible Jmyhaze Beatbox (whose baby pink vinyl Double 7” features a great photo of Milli Vanilli on the cover) stand out as one of my favourite discoveries of the year. Check out and you won’t be disappointed. And of course, there was the Peel Session. When a young man Maggie met earlier this summer offered to put our EP out on vinyl on his label, Meccico Records, we were pleased to be getting distribution in the UK. When he said he knew John Peel’s producer and would try to get us a session, we could hardly believe it. Though Peel had already played our songs on

25 September 2003 his show (thanks to our Austrian friends at the Kessylux Organization, who originally sent him our CD), I didn’t really imagine we’d be following in the footsteps of so many of my favourite bands so early in our career by actually recording with him. Unfortunately, John Peel himself only comes in for the live sessions, but just being in the BBC studios and working with seasoned pros was exciting enough. We arrived nervous and left elated, hardly able to believe how good they’d made us sound. Prodding our sound engineer for behind the scenes gossip was also a treat – who’s peevish, who’s insecure in spite of their mega-stardom, who brings porn to the studio – I’ll never tell. Of course, a tour of this sort can’t be all candy and duty-free cigarettes. There were times when we got on each others’ nerves, felt frustrated or helpless because things weren’t going according to plan, had technical problems which resulted in poor performances, or played to strange crowds who didn’t know how to respond to our unique brand of minimalist, architecturally inspired, electro-punk-pop. In nearly every city, the people putting on our shows were also putting us up in their apartments. Though we were very lucky, and had kind, generous and helpful hosts, there was also a brief stay in an apartment full of cat vomit, an unfortunate night spent wandering Amsterdam’s red light district in a fruitless search for a hotel (on

a Friday night in midsummer) because we’d had trouble getting in touch with our would-be host, and a night spent watching my dear band mates forgo sleep in order to sit uncomfortably in a hospital waiting room while I went in for some tests after unexpectedly falling ill. Now, back in my comparatively humdrum Toronto life, I’m able to look back on the tour from a fresh perspective. The worries I had and the setbacks we experienced seem minor compared to what we accomplished and the adventure we had. My advice to any young, starry eyed musicians, or members of bands who aspire to that middling level of indie rock stardom that allows one to live off one’s art while maintaining both coolness and credibility is this: don’t wait for a label to pick you up before going on tour – choose to do something bold and extravagant on your own – doing it yourself will leave you feeling empowered, capable and free in ways you hadn’t expected. It might also leave you feeling humbled and like you have a lot to learn, which isn’t so bad either. After all, rock is at least partially about living beyond your means, and striving for goals that seem totally beyond your reach. However, you might want to consider getting someone from outside the band to help manage things, just to ensure everyone’s still friends when you get back home.

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ILLUSTRATION BY JASON KIEFFER

by Stephen Hay

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY BUREAU

This summer, I went drinking with my cousin’s burly construction-worker buddies from Donegal, a rocky county on the northern coast Ireland. Sheep are everywhere; apparently, so are lonely farm-boys. One of the lads had grown up on a farm in Donegal, and now we were shouting out a conversation in a loud bar. “Do you know how to shag a sheep?” It sounded like a challenge, not a question. “Umm...” I was puzzled. I’d never given much thought to the actual logistics of getting it on with our fleecy

friends. Besides, I’d been to a sheep farm once, and could not understand why anyone would want to stick their dick in _that_. The guy was leaning in, grinning, still shouting, “You need a pair of rubber boots!” “Rubber boots?” I didn’t know it was that messy. “You stick her legs in your boots while you’re wearing them, then she can’t run away.” Drunken lie? Rural legend? Sage Advice? I don’t know, but about a minute later, this guy was taking out his dentures to show people his missing front tooth. I didn’t ask how he lost it.

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25 September 2003

the newspaper

Laughter Ensues

Josh Gurfinkel

The Soapbox

Bob the Angry Flower

Jason at University

Read more comics online at www.jasonkieffercomics.com

Jason Kieffer

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Rosena Fung

Stephen Notley

8

the newspaper

Browsing for beauty of the road, boldly displaying a plethora of different shaped My roommate and I were eyebrows, yours to be had for the sitting around our kitchen table asking (and $15). We went in to stupefied with boredom. It was investigate. a Friday afternoon, that limbo The reception area was covperiod after the end of the day ered in floor-to-ceiling mirrors, but before the start of the night as if to remind every unfortuwhen you’re not quite sure what nate client exactly why she was to do with yourself. She sugthere. The desk was manned by gested, after an hour or so of just a woman of indeterminate age sitting, that we go out in search in dusky pink hospital scrubs. of adventure. I agreed, and so My eyes darted immediately to we found ourselves wandering her eyebrows as an indicator of up and down Chinatown. We exactly what I was in for. So far figured that this, being a place so good. She at least still had where you can get seaweed real ones, rather than the two chips, pig’s feet, and every kind painted half-moons I was afraid �� of Hello Kitty paraphernalia of. in existence, would be sure to Let me take a minute to say �� provide the kind of thrills we that eyebrows are funny things. were looking for. Walking down From an evolutionary point of �� the street, our eyes were caught view, they’re really quite useby a sign planted in the middle less. So what, we have them just by Dora Zhang

in case the inch of skin above our eyes gets cold? Perhaps in earlier days, when the word “bushy” still had attractive connotations, they functioned as a sort of shield, protecting our eyes from harmful bits of falling dust and whatever else. Now, though, plucked, waxed, shaved, or lasered into almost non-existence, they can hardly protect themselves, let alone us. From an ornamental point of view, though, eyebrows are a little more important. I was recently in a bookstore where I happened upon an entire book about the Eyebrow, with �� a whole chapter devoted to the revolutionary aspects of Marlene Dietrich’s. I �� had never taken much notice of this particular facial characteristic before, or considered getting my own

“done”, but its sudden ubiquity started the wheels in my head turning. Just this summer, I met a girl who told me in excruciating detail about “threading”, a technique of hair removal that involves making scissors out of thread to pull the hair out at the root. She then gently suggested that perhaps I should look into trying it sometime. It really does make a huge difference, she assured me. Although I pffted it at the time, her words came back to me now as I stood indecisively in the mirrored room, frantically squinting at my reflection. After a few hours of agonizing, I finally decided to plunge ahead, bravely laying down my $15 and preparing to become a new woman. I was taken first into another waiting area that resembled

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The art of tweezing

ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL HECKBERT

the changing rooms at a gym, complete with lockers, benches, a scale, and of course, those damn floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The pink-gowned woman told me to leave my bag in a locker, and showed me to a room that would have looked at home in a hospital. There were two beds, the kind that you find at the doctor’s office, with a curtain separating them. The occupant of the other bed looked comatose, from what little I can see of her, anyway. She was covered with various sheets and towels, and her face was caked with some kind of ointment. Even her eyes were covered with two white pads. I briefly wondered whether I had come to be beautified or mummified. The pink-gowned woman told me to lie down on the bed, and covered me from the stomach down with a towel (just in case any hair got on my legs?). She took out a menacing-looking pair of tweezers and examines my face critically, a surgeon eyeing her patient to decide exactly where to make the incision. I instantly felt hopelessly inadequate and flawed. I

thought she would bring me a menu of shapes and I could just say, “Yes, I’ll have number 37 to go, please.” No such luck. She asked me how thin I want them, to which I hesitatingly replied “not too thin”. With this clear and precise piece of instruction, she got to work, pulling, tweezing, and plucking until my entire brow bone felt numbed with pain. I held my breath the entire time. When she was finished, I opened my eyes to see my face, new eyebrows and all, reflected in the mirror three inches away. The change is actually surprisingly subtle. It doesn’t really look all that different, but it does somehow look better. I was mostly just relieved she hadn’t turned me into some kind of monster. Strangely enough, even though everyone kept telling me eyebrows are an important aspect of the face, I guess they are not the most noticeable aspects. Post-surgery, the reactions have been pretty non-existent. In fact, I’m still waiting for someone to stop me on the street and say, “Hey, what did you do to your eyebrows?”

the etymology by Sol Israel

LINGUISTICS BUREAU

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Any Barry Manilow fan worth his salt knows that if “what this joint needs is some music,” one should simply “put a quarter in the jukebox.” But those with some knowledge of the origins of the word might be disinclined to put their spare change in a machine with its roots in sinful, drunken debauchery. Juke, (also juke joint, juke house, or juke light) was used chiefly in the Southeastern U.S. to refer to a “roadside drinking establishment that offers cheap drinks, food, and music for dancing and often doubles as a brothel” (American Heritage). The word, from the Creole joog, parallels the West African word dzug, meaning “to live wickedly.” Now, the term jukebox is used widely to refer to any machine that plays music for money, but remember the next time you slip a quarter in – that hit you’ve just got to freak to is rooted in good, old fashioned sin.

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