the newspaper
www.thenewspaper.ca
toronto’s student community paper
Capture The City! By Matthew Pope Were I a cantankerous old man, NewMindSpace’s (NMS) capture the flag game on Friday night would have been a nightmare. Luckily, I don’t think I’m quite there yet, because I had a blast. I’ve been to NMS events before and masterminds Kevin and Lori play gracious hosts and make sure people have fun. A little research at the NMS website yielded rules and maps for the event and information on the organizers. The basic rules of the game are: 1) Divide playing field in half. 2) Divide players into two teams. 3) 1 flag per and the teams hide them in their territory. Objective: capture the enemy’s flag
and bring it back to your territory to score a point. The team with the most points at the end of the allotted time wins. It’s Capture The Flag! The game took place in the Financial District, and as I approached the corner of Bay and King I saw a staggering number of people; final guesses placed the number of participants at about 1500. With a few exceptions the crowd was overwhelmingly under 21. Once everyone had a map and a glow stick for visibility and team identification, the rules were announced over a loudspeaker. A few friendly warnings were issued, team captains identified, and everyone was sent off to hide their flags. The game was afoot!
Over the course of the next two hours countless attacks, counter-attacks, defenses and methodologies were put forth by the teams and most were met with limited success. I had fun experimenting with direct assaults, covert ops, and mass kamikaze missions, but after an hour or so, I was done running my ass off (with a backpack attached) in a futile attempt to outrun the Pinks (I was Blue team). I went with my companions to a nearby Timmies to warm up and get a coffee. While we were there we watched a variety of CTF players come through, showing various states of wear and tear. The most notable was a young man
the inside: the newspaper Steps Into the Twilight Zone. Kind of.
pg. 5 Jock Talk Goes to the Movies
pg. 3 People Tell Us What They Think About Stuff
pg. 4
See City cont. pg. 12
the science
by Timothy Ryan
New Comic!
pg. 8
New Drug May Cause Racism African-American with congestive heart failure? We’ve got just the thing for you. BiDil, a combination of isosorbide dinitrate with hydralazine which combats heart failure, is a race specific drug which has been on the mainstream market for just over a year now. The drug was originally rejected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) citing that the drug had showed inconclusive benefits for patients overall. However, a study by Taylor et al. in 2004 showed that the drug reduced
mortality by 43% in AfricanAmerican patients who, as a group, respond less effectively to conventional congestive heart failure treatments. Despite this breakthrough, debate still rages concerning its approval by the FDA on the basis that approving a drug for use only by blacks could be interpreted as validating a genetic basis to race that does not exist. These critics, some of whom are prominent medical researchers, believe that the FDA is implying
October 18 2007 Vol. XXX No. VII
that there is some fundamental physiological difference between black and white Americans, citing that race is a crude and invalid scientific concept. On that basis there is no argument here However, no one is claiming to be genetically identifying these individuals as “black” or “white”. There is no insinuation that there are “black genes” and “white genes” and it is clear that race is defined by society and not by science. In fact, throughout the trials performed by Taylor,
the 1,050 patients tested were self-identified blacks, meaning they simply checked a box designating themselves black. The drug may affect ethnic groups differently due to a number of factors such as environment (diet, exposure to pollutants), sociological factors (access to good health care) and genetics. It is most likely a combination of all three. The inherent racial nature of this supposed, positive medical discovery has drawn a plethora of unfounded
Photo by Matthew Smith
criticism. Scientists complain that people are being racially profiled by their genetics, while anti-racism crusaders believe the implications of this drug and its different action on various ethnicities may be used to promote racist thinking. It becomes a footnote that we have found a drug that is saving African-Americans from heart failure. That is something to be celebrated and exploited, not bitched about.
A Year in the Making By Mayssia Elajami
Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Center @ UTM
The day has finally come for UTM to celebrate the official opening of the Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Center (RAWC). And although that day is Friday October 19 2007, the center was officially in use by the students and the faculty about a year ago. Ken Duncliffe, the director of Physical Education, Athletics and Recreation at UTM, says that the opening of the gym “was consistent with the commitment that was made to the students with respect to the fee increase”. The facilities that are now available include 3 full size gyms (one with a seating capacity of 800 people); a competitive
pool and a hot tub; a fitness area with over 100 stations of cardio and strength equipment; a high performance centre with Olympic weight lifting equipment; golf training facilities; three multipurpose teaching studios; and a indoor track that circles around the facility overlooking the main gym. The new facility will also house a sports/medical clinic, which should be open in early 2008. The Toronto Argonaut’s also use the new complex. Duncliffe explains the organization “has an agreement with the university, which includes the use of the athletic center and the sport field for training purposes”. Duncliffe points out
that this new complex is much larger than anything UTM has previously had access to: “this development of a new athletic space had been well received by students, staff and faculty. The previous facilities were built to service a student population of 2500 and we now approach 12000 in which the old facilities were definitely inadequate.” With the increasing population of students flooding the university campus, a need to improve facilities, and create more space will be on the agenda for the university’s administration. Creating a new space for improving the physical wellness of stressed students is definitely a step in the right direction.