The McGill Tribune Vol. 29 Issue 11

SILVER STARLING SINGS WHAT THEY KNOW, PAGE 14

FALL REFERENDUM ENDORSEMENTS, PAGE 7 ♦

M c G ill Published by the .Students' Society uf McGill University

T r ib u n e www.ineEilltribune.com

Vol. 29 Issue 11 • Tuesday. November 10. 2009

Dynastic dominance: Redmen rugby wins fourth Quebec title in as many years

JOHN KELSEY

The M cGill rugby team raises yet another Q uebec cham pionship b an n er after dem olishing the Bishop’s G aiters 55-7 on S atu rd ay afternoon. Full story on Page 17.

CAM PUS

Senate approves revised anti-doping policy for McGill athletics U pdated code aligns M cG ill with national standards M ARIA FLO R ES C ontributor

M cGill’s revised anti-doping policy was approved by the University Senate at their meeting on November 4. The agreement is an update of M cGill’s current policy, which was implemented over 10 years ago.

“The anti-doping policy that has been circulating is outdated,” said Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendel­ son at the Senate meeting. “It was approved in 1995 [and] since then issues have evolved con­ stantly, so the new policy is more streamlined and straightforward.”

Mendelson explained that revising the current policy will put M cGill’s stance on the issue in line with the updated policies of regu­ latory bodies.

“It will also tie the infractions of the anti-doping regulation to the Code of Student Conduct and other regulations with respect to staff,” he said.

The new policy is consistent with the World Anti-Doping Agency standards, the Ca­ nadian Anti-Doping Program, and the Canadi­ an Centre for Ethics in Sports, which provides information to Canadian athletes about which medications may contain banned substances.

“There are no significant relevant changes

other than we are bringing it up to date with the current CCES rules and regulations on doping and doping infractions, and the only other item is that we are creating a direct link to students and the Code of Conduct, but that was actually buried in the previous document,” said Drew Love, executive director of athletics and recre­ ation. “As was stated in the Senate, the revised policy is clearer with respect to how it actually applies.”

SEE TEN ON PAGE 2

MARTLET HOCKEY - 2009 CIS Champions Banner Ceremony S a t u r d a y , N o v e m b e r 1 4 th - C a rleto n v s. M cG ill 2 o h 30 -

M c C o n n e ll A r e n a

!R i McGill ATHLETI CS & RECREATION

red bird

SPO R T S SH O P

McGILL BASKETBALL - Cross-Town Rivals Concordia S a t u r d a y , N o v e m b e r 1 4 th - C o n co rd ia v s. M cG ill M a r t l e t s - i 8 h o o R e d m e n - 2 0 I100 M c G ill S p o r t s C o m p le x

Best Prices on Campus! w w w .m c g ill.c a / a t h le t ic s Com plex \ ave des pin s / ( McGill Sports 475

514-398-1539

2 « Tuesday, November 10, 2009

NEWS

mcgilltribunexom

CAM PUS

CAM PUS

Three fees up for Fall referenda Ten-year-old policy updated Includes 50 cent p e r credit sustainability fe e THOMAS QUAIL Editor-in-chief

Three fees are on the table for this year’s fall referendum period, slated to wrap up on Thursday.

The first referendum question, on the Sus­ tainable Projects Fund, calls on the Students’ Society to institute a non-opt-outable fee of “$0.50 per credit per student per semester” for new campus sustainability initiatives.

“The decision is simply up to students: two and a half million dollars towards sus­ tainability—or nothing,” said U3 environment student Jonathan Glencross.

If the fee passes, a working g r o u p composed of four students and four adminis­ trators—would review and approve funding applications. For example, supporters of a liv­ ing laboratory at Macdonald campus and an urban sustainability “field semester” at McGill are interested in applying for funding. But, ac­ cording to Glencross, “We’re demanding, ex­ pecting, and hoping that the 40,000 people of the institution will be very creative, and come up with unique ideas.”

The Ambassador Fee, the second item on the agenda, would be used to “sponsor travel to and participation in academic and extra­ curricular competitions and conferences.”

According to SSMU President Ivan Neilson, the opt-outable $1 semesterly fee “fills a void where we don’t have any support for our stu­ dents right now.”

While the Campus Life Fund currently funds similar on-campus initiatives, the Am­ bassador Fee would help students attend con­ ferences and competitions held elsewhere.

“Even if you’re not directly participating in any of these conferences or trips it really

benefits all students at McGill to have our best and brightest students out there representing us,” said Neilson. “I think everybody can reap the benefits from that.”

In addition, the McGill Legal Informa­ tion Clinic is trying to renew its $3.25 nonopt-outable semesterly fee. According to the M LIC’s fee renewal “yes” committee state­ ment, the clinic provides “free and bilingual legal information,” and “advice and represen­ tation for students alleged to have committed a disciplinary offence or who have a grievance against the university.”

Elections McGill has led the referendum period advertising campaign. Neilson has been pleased with Elections McGill, particularly with Chief Electoral Officer Michael Vallo.

“They’ve done a lot of different things.

They’ve tried to be innovative,” he said. “And they realize that they have a lot of work to do, and it’s their job to make sure that we reach quorum in the fall. And I ’m confident that they’re going to be able to do it.”

Last year’s fall referendum period failed to meet quorum, bumping a number of fee renewals and fee increases to the winter ref­ erendum period. This fall, Elections McGill increased the number of polling stations, and they’ve planned to increase their presence in residences. According to Neilson, “the whole [Elections McGill] team has been committed to making the referendum period a success.”

Two non-binding plebiscites—related to online coursepacks and the release of the final exam schedule—are also included on the agenda. And the First Year Committee elec­ tions are competitive this year, with 12 stu­ dents competing for six spots.

“In past years, w e’ve either had a number of uncontested or even vacant positions for a number of those first-year council positions,” Neilson said. “I ’m really happy that we got so many candidates out.”

continued from COVER Anti-doping regulations apply particu­ larly to student-athletes, athletic staff, and em­ ployees active in varsity sports. Every student must agree to participate in “in-competition,” “out-of-competition,” and, if applicable, “tar­ get-testing” programs conducted according to the rules of the CADP. “What they do in the testing is they agree with a sport organization that is hosting a championship to do a certain amount of un­ announced testing,” said Love. “An athlete is required to take the test, because if they refuse they are in violation of the Code of Conduct.”

Although tests are performed randomly and without prior notice, there is a strict pro­ tocol that is followed during the procedure.

Two samples are taken per test, one of which remains unopened and is examined only if the athlete is not satisfied with the results and de­ cides to appeal.

“It’s a way to provide the individual the opportunity to have an appeal on the actual analysis of the sample,” said Love.

Love explained that there are certain sports, such as football, swimming, and track, where athletes could particularly benefit from the use of performance-enhancing drugs, mak­ ing them prime targets for testing.

However, suspension due to the use of banned substances is uncommon; according to Love, less than one per cent of McGill athletes have tested positive. In the rest of Canada, the occurences are also low, and usually not caused by steroids.

For the past five years, the violations have not necessarily involved anabolic steroids or so-called performance-enhancing drugs. In­ stead, many of the positive tests have been due to social drugs such as marijuana or cocaine.

“It’s a safety net ... Even though there isn’t a problem it is good to know that you have a recourse when something comes up,”

JOHN KELSEY

The new policy requires a strict protocol. said Peter Carpenter, head coach of the var­ sity swim team. “I think it’s great that the ath­ letes will be educated on the matter and know w hat’s legal and w hat’s not legal.”

The policy has yet to be approved by the Board of Governors, but the athletic depart­ ment hopes that it will be implemented by the end of the month.

“We do everything we can to inform our student-athletes about the policy, and this is just another step that gets it into the university and to the students, it provides everyone with the knowledge that we take sports seriously,” said Love.

SPEAKER O N CAM PU S

Timothy Aitken delivers talk on “How to avoid dead man’s shoes” O ffers advice on breaking through to corporate success SEAN WOOD C ontributor

Timothy Aitken, a McGill graduate and the former CEO of eight companies, gave a lecture Tuesday on how young university graduates can break into a forbidding corpo­ rate world. The lecture, titled “From B.A. to CEO: How to Avoid Dead M an’s Shoes,” drew on his many experiences as a successful entre­ preneur to offer advice on breaking through.

His lecture specifically advised graduates on how to overcome people in “dead man’s shoes,” or those older people who care more about job security than fresh faces and ideas. “ [These are] the people who are deter­ mined to make sure that anybody young with new ideas is not going to have the opportunity to advance in a corporate situation, or indeed any other institutional setting, because they are determined to hang on to their jobs for as long as they can,” he said.

However, Aitken suggested a number of

ways to effect change in the system. For ex­ ample, confidence is extremely important, which can be brought about by a university education. “ [Confidence] already, and still forty­ something years later, marks me aside from my brother, who ... was very successful, made a lot of money, but doesn’t have the same breadth and that change and that difference is as a result of spending four years here,” he said.

A university education can also help to create focus. Focus is especially important in a world designed for distraction, Aitken said.

“The world as we see it today is set up to bombard you with information ... Somehow you have to insulate yourself enough to remain focussed,” he said.

Aitken adamantly repeated throughout the lecture that true success is not about knowl­ edge or sophistication, but about the courage to seize opportunities.

“It is the actual reality that you will al­ ways be given the opportunity. The question is whether you will have the nerve to grasp that opportunity or not. And most people don’t,”

he said.

One opportunity particularly important for young people to use is their advanced knowledge of technology, which can be used as leverage over older members of the corpo­ rate world.

“You can have a field day! You have a huge advantage with new technology. You have a huge opportunity if you can master it,” he said.

With a strong education, focus, and wise decisions, it is possible to break through the barriers imposed by people in dead man’s shoes. Aitken argued that it will not always be easy, but that change can and will occur. He said that in all of his companies, employees could change their attitudes, and when they did, it revitalized the company.

“It was like throwing a rock in a pool, the ripples start and they go out to the outside.

When you throw the rock in you have no idea of the impact of the wave that hits the shore,” he said.

Audience members were impressed with Aitken’s enthusiasm, speaking skill, and in­ spiring message for the youth.

“I think he’s very articulate, has a good way of presenting it, and I buy it,” said Jordan Altman, U3 political science and history.

Some members of the audience, how­ ever, were more ambivalent about his fighting words for the old.

“His talk was aimed at empowering younger people. I ’m someone older and I was looking at this and saying wait a second, I speak to lots of older people, older than me and they give good advice sometimes. And some students are naïvely optimistic and en­ lightened but naive,” said Malcolm Olafson.

The talk was the annual Seagram Lecture offered by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Aitken is the grandson of Max Aitken, also known as Lord Beaverbrook, a famous businessman and newspaper publisher who created a foundation for communication and media studies at McGill.

Q m osit^D elivers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 » 3

CAM PUS

Carleton tragedy brings university privacy policies into question P rivacy code prohibits sharing o f inform ation ELISA MUYL C ontributor

The age of consent, the voting age, the drinking age, and the age at which you can drive are lines in the sand drawn to establish a particular set of rules and procedures. This is not to say that on the morning of your 18th birthday, you are instantly endowed with wis­ dom and experience far beyond the capacity of any 17-year-old. Rather, these thresholds are put in place because they need to be put some­ where, and the hope is that well into almost two decades of life, you are able to behave in a manner that reflects the responsibilities be­ queathed to you.

This is the logic behind most colleges and universities’ privacy policies. These policies typically protect students’ information in a stu­ dent-administration confidentiality system; the university may not release private information concerning any of its students, which includes any history of mental health issues.

This policy type has recently come under scrutiny in the wake of a tragedy. In March 2008, Ottawa-born Nadia Kajouji committed suicide during her first year at Carleton Univer­ sity in Ottawa. The university, which is bound

by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, failed to notify Kajouji’s par­ ents that she had been demonstrating suicidal tendencies and was receiving counseling.

Under the Protection of Privacy Act, uni­ versities usually need consent from a student before discussing his or her health with any­ one, according to Suzanne Blanchard, associ­ ate vice-president for student support services at Carleton, in a statement to CTV news.

This is not an isolated incident. In 2000, Elizabeth Shin, a student at MIT, set fire to herself in her dorm room a mere day after her family had come to visit her. Shin’s parents were shocked and horrified, having received no word that their daughter had been receiving counseling. According to the New York Times, when Shin’s parents came to visit her in the hospital following a previous suicide attempt, her decision to lie about the nature of an over­ dose was left unchallenged by university of­ ficials who knew and thought otherwise.

In both cases, friends and family mem­ bers were left wondering what had happened, and were shocked as to why they hadn’t been notified. This is due to the nature of privacy laws that govern most universities. McGill, for instance, operates within Quebec’s provincial regulations that apply to all individuals above age 16. This privacy code prohibits sharing personal information with anyone not directly

VOLUNTEER

involved in a situation, and makes no distinc­ tion between students living at home and those away at school; health professionals must re­ spect a person’s right to privacy regardless of whether or not they are living at home. The assumption is that the provincial government is dealing with adults, not children.

This may come as a shock to some par-

“Saving someone’s life trumps their right to privacy but that might not include contacting their family.”

- Jane Everett, dean of students at McGill ents, who expect to maintain the same level of involvement in their child’s educational life as they did throughout their elementary and post­ secondary school years. However, universities do not act in loco parentis (literally translated, in the place of parents) and only maintain the same responsibilities to students as to staff members, again under the assumption that they are dealing with adults and not children.

If students want their families to be no­ tified, they may sign a waiver indicating that in the event of an accident, they authorize the university to contact their family. This does not mean that universities hold no responsibil­

ity to their students, particularly in the wake of tragedies such as Nadia Kajouji’s death. Jane Everett, dean of students at McGill, said uni­ versities are certainly given some discretion when dealing with extreme situations.

“Saving someone’s life trumps their right to privacy,” said Jane Everett, dean of students at McGill, “But that might not include contact­ ing their family.”

Universities, in the face of crisis, are more likely to communicate with health profession­ als or the authorities than with relatives. Fur­ thermore, a breach of privacy may only occur in an immediate crisis, and not when someone is showing “warning signs.”

According to the laws of most countries, at the age o f 18 you are entirely responsible, legally or otherwise, for your own actions.

Calling a student’s parents in an emergency, then, may be akin to calling their best friend-a nice gesture, but not a priority.

Furthermore, Everett said, very clearly some students “come to university and are looking to put some distance [between them and their families] to make their choices. It’s not up to us to make that decision.”

ACTI ON

Dreaming of

Want to

an exhilarating experience? change the world?

Get involved in your com m unity...a world of possibilities awaits you! Here are some of the advantages volunteering offers.

It allows you to: • do something different • learn more abodt yourself and target your career choices

«gags aptlvatingfiel(]aa9ooc]

explore various fields of interest in order to be able to better define your career choice improve your job prospects and discover your strengths make new friends enrich your knowledge and experience take advantage of a powerful springboard to find employment

Jean-Philippe Bolduc Youth Volunteer, Katimavik

Want to offer your services to an organization?

WWty.fc,

The Secrétariat à l’action communautaire autonome et aux initiatives sociales (SACAIS) and the Réseau de l’action bénévole du Québec (RABQ) will be happy to provide information on volunteering opportunities.

RABQ

SACAIS

Montréal area: 514 272-4004 Elsewhere in Québec: 1 866 496-4004 (toll-free)

Québec area: 418 646-9270 Elsewhere in Québec: 1 800 577-2844 (toll-

www.rabq.ca

www.benevolat.gouv.qc.ca

mcgilltribune.com

4 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

CAM PUS

Student senators voice opposition to new draft of research policy Two clauses regarding m ilitary research om itted MATT CHESSER O pinion Editor

A new draft of the proposed Regulation on the Conduct of Research policy was met by vocal opposition from student senators at a McGill Senate meeting last Wednesday.

According to Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) Denis Thérien the policy is intended to “reinforce, modernize, and clarify” M cGill’s standards for research ethics. However, the newest draft omits two clauses regarding military research that exist in the current research ethics policy and adds an anonymity clause for research sponsors acting “legitimately and in good faith” —changes that some student senators view as a step backward for transparent and ethical research at McGill.

“This is a blatantly regressive step for McGill to take,” said Arts Senator Sarah Woolf. “We had been working to make this research policy more progressive, and now it seems that w e’ve taken two steps backwards.

It’s not just that the clauses regarding militaryfunded research have been removed ... it’s that they’ve taken every mention of harmful research out of the entire document.”

The first clause regarding military fund­ ing removed from the draft required any “ap­ plicants for contracts or grants whose source is a government military agency [to] indicate on the check list/approval form of the Office of Technology Transfer or the Research Grants Office whether this research has direct harm­ ful consequences.” The second clause required the VP research to report on research funded by government military agencies to the Ex­ ecutive Committee of the Board of Governors, who would have the final authority to approve or disallow such research.

At Senate, Thérien claimed that the mil­ itary-funding clauses evoked confusion over whether certain research had “direct harmful consequences,” which he views a matter of opinion.

“This is probably why no university in Canada has explicitly addressed military fund­ ing in their policies,” said Thérien. “If the re­ search is legal and passes the various review and ethical boards that are applicable to the research then it would be very dangerous to try to prevent [research] on ‘flavour of the day’ criteria. It would be a very slippery slope.”

The military-funding clauses were insti­ tuted in 1988 after students protested the de­ velopment of explosives and other weaponry at McGill. According to the student group

Demilitarize McGill, the university has been involved in developing lethal weapons since at least the 1960s and some professors have con­ tinued to contribute to weapons research over the past decade.

Rebecca Dooley, the Students’ Society vice-president university affairs, expressed disappointment with the university’s decision and vowed to fight for changes to the policy.

“The clauses that were removed do not really regulate military-sponsored research at M cGill—they were more so clauses that pro­ moted transparency,” said Dooley. “And since military research is a divisive issue on which there is no common consensus, why not have an extra step to promote transparency in that area of research?”

“I think that if those two clauses had been removed and that similar measures surround­ ing research with potentially harmful effects had been included, along with a clearer review policy for such research, then that would have been a more understandable and logical step.”

The addition of a clause mandating re­ searchers to respect anonymity agreements between the university and certain research sponsors was also hotly debated at Senate. In response to criticism from senators, Thérien said that the grant office, under his leadership, would be able to determine whether a research

sponsor was making a legitimate and good faith request for anonymity.

“If the sponsor is trying to hide something then they do not have a legitimate reason to remain anonymous,” said Thérien.

When Post Graduate Students’ Society President Daniel Simeone said that he could not think of a “possible legitimate reason for [a sponsor] remaining anonymous,” Thérien did not provide an example to refute Simeone’s accusation.

The new research policy was discussed but not approved at Wednesday’s Senate meet­ ing, and will likely undergo further changes.

Woolf said that she would be “very surprised” if the policy came forward for approval at the next Senate meeting, citing the “litany” of problems raised by senators during the meet­ ing, and opposition from the McGill Associa­ tion of University Teachers and student sena­ tors.

“These moves are about research dollars,” Woolf said. “It’s about [McGill] saying, ‘We need to be as attractive and appealing to poten­ tial sponsors and donors as the other Group of 13 universities.’ ... Sure, w e’re going through a period of economic turmoil, but when you’re sacrificing ethics for research dollars then 1 think we have a real problem.”

N A T IO N A L

Harper expresses interest in bringing more NHL teams to Canada Speculation arises fo llo w in g sale o f P hoenix C oyotes MATT ESSERT C ontributor

At a recent news conference, Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his interest in the possibility of bringing more NHL teams to Canada. Due to the economic turmoil within the Phoenix Coyotes NHL franchise, specula­ tion regarding more Canadian NHL teams has once again come up. However, it seems that a move to Canada is not likely for the Coyotes, as the NHL would prefer to keep the team in Phoenix.

On November 2,. an Arizona bankruptcy court announced its approval for the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes franchise to the NHL for $140 million. The NHL will now be looking for possible suitors to adopt the franchise.

This has led to discussions o f bringing the team to Canada. In a news conference, Harper spoke in response to questions concerning re­ cent efforts to bring a team back to Quebec City.

“O f course, as a big hockey fan, I would certainly like to see more teams created here in Canada,” he said. “I think the cities of Quebec, Hamilton, and Winnipeg are all able to support a team.”

Quebec City mayor Regis Labeaume has promised a new $400 million hockey arena as part of his successful recent election campaign.

He hopes that this will act as an incentive to bring a team back to Quebec City, filling the void left by the Nordiques after their reloca­ tion to Denver, Colorado in 1995.

Scott Smith, chief operating officer of Hockey Canada, agrees that these cities are capable of successfully supporting NHL fran­ chises.

“While not aware of all the requirements to support an NHL franchise, we know that these Canadian cities represent markets with great interest in hockey at all levels, so we would assume that they could support an NHL franchise successfully,” said Smithy Even if fans think that it would be a good choice to bring another team back to the birth­ place of the sport, there is still the issue of available suitors willing to take on a failing franchise and bring it to Canada.

Research In Motion co-founder Jim Balsillie attempted to purchase the Coyotes and relocate them to his native Hamilton. Howev­ er, his repeated bids were all rejected. His most recent attempt on September 30 was rejected “with prejudice,” meaning that he will not be able to make any future bids for the team.

Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau has also expressed interest in pur­ chasing an NHL franchise to bring to Canada, in this case to Quebec City. While Péladeau has been specific about which team he is inter­ ested in, the Coyotes are the most likely team to be purchased at this time.

Although the NHL will be consider­ ing a number of bids for the Phoenix Coyote franchise, the league has stated that it wants to keep the team in Arizona. John Dellapina, director of media relations at the NHL, made it clear that the league wants to keep the team where it is.

“At this moment, there is no interest in expansion or relocation,” said Dellapina. “The

JOHN KELSEY

Hamilton, Quebec City, and Winnipeg are among the proposed cities for a new team.

Coyotes can do well in the Phoenix/Glendale market. The League’s focus is on getting the franchise sold to an owner who is committed to operating it in Glendale.”

Several suitors have been expressing seri­ ous interest in the team. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, current Toronto Argo­ nauts owners Howard Sokolowksi and David Cynamon have been said to be making a bid for the Coyotes. It has been reported that they

would prefer to keep the team in Glendale, Arizona and renew the lease on Jobing.com Arena, the Coyotes’ current home.

In addition, a group of investors have formed Ice Edge Holdings in order to collec­ tively pursue the purchase of the Coyotes fran­ chise. Ice Edge Holdings is made up of eight Canadian and American businessmen who also intend to keep the team in Arizona.

Curiosity Delivers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • 5

[ CAM PUS

N A T IO N A L

Climate change concern declines Laptops stolen from Burnside 8 p e r cent decline since 2008 KYLA M ANDEL C ontributor

During the past year there has been an eight per cent decline in Canadian concern for climate change, yet students continue to be highly active in advocacy, according to a Climate Confidence Monitor survey released November 2.

26 per cent of Canadians “consider global warming among their chief concerns,” accord­ ing to Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Energy Probe.

“The level of concern has been drop­ ping and dropping substantially,” said Solo­ mon. Both Solomon and Maggie Knight, the students’ society environment commissioner, suggested that there are various reasons for the decline, including the economic crisis.

“You can afford to be concerned about things like the environment ... when [you] and your family are ok,” said Knight. “But when people lose their jobs and don’t have enough money and are worried about making ends meet, then it’s obvious that people tend to make the choice not to buy fair trade or not to buy organic, they just do what they need to do to survive.”

However, Solomon suggested that anoth­ er reason for this decline in concern may be that many of the warnings that global warm­ ing activists have been making for many years simply haven’t come to pass. He said that both Arctic and Antarctic ice has not been melting, but rather increasing.

“Polar bear populations have been in­ creasing,” he said. “The globe stopped warm­ ing about 10 years ago, it seems to be cooling now.”

Solomon is also concerned about the political implications this sort of occurrence could have.

“It’s quite possible that politicians will stop beating the drum of global warming,” he said. “If they see that the public has lost inter­ est in the subject, politicians will lose interest in the subject.”

Knight also warned that while the youth of today will still be present in 2050—a bench­

mark year that climate scientists are looking at—some politicians may not, which could also factor into their apathy.

“There is a lot of fear around climate change, which makes sense—there are some scary things that could happen,” said Knight.

However she also stressed that the many envi­ ronmental groups present at McGill are work­ ing hard to provide solutions.

“By providing all these resources people

“It’s quite possible that politicians will stop beating the drum o f global warming. If they see that the public has lost interest in the subject, politicians will lose interest in the subject.” - Lawrence Solomon, executive director o f Energy Probe

are finding that it’s less and less hard and that there’s more and more of a cultural shift to­ ward sustainable community,” she said.

Arielle Jaffe, also a SSMU environment commissioner, said that as the connection be­ tween environment and health becomes more apparent, interest will likely increase.

“There is a growing understanding of the relationship o f climate change and environ­ mental health to every other aspect of their life and it’s definitely being shown in the interest of involvement in groups that previously had nothing to do with environmental activism,” she said.

There are over 33 environmental groups at McGill, ranging from Environmental Law to Gorilla Composting and Organic Campus.

“I think you can see the power of the growth of the movement on campus in the fact that McGill is becoming more and more active on sort of a national theme,” said Knight. “We need to work from within institutions and to not just be people that can be dismissed as hip­ pies and granola eaters but people who are re­ ally concerned about the future, and the future of their children.”

IRCM

Affiliated to the Université de Montréal

Suspects claim ed to be arm ed STEV EN H O FFE R N ew s Editor

Montreal police, in cooperation with McGill Security Services, are investigating a November 3 computer theft incident that oc­ curred in the basement of Burnside Hall.

Two individuals wearing medical masks reportedly entered the common area of the Burnside basement at approximately 5:15 pm. According to Daphna Harel, president of the Society of Undergraduate Math Stu­ dents, which holds an office in the Burnside basement, the suspects approached a working student, stated that they were armed, and de­ manded that the student relinquish her laptop.

The thieves then stole an additional laptop from another student and fled the scene.

Despite several reports indicating that the masked individuals claimed to be armed, no witness confirmed seeing a gun or any other weapon. Since the incident, all security tapes taken from the Burnside basement have been handed over to Montreal police.

Harel described her experience.

“I was sitting in [the SUMS office] and a girl who was very freaked out came in and said ‘Oh my god, I just saw these two guys wearing swine flu masks go up to this girl and say T have a piece, you are going to give me your laptop.’”

Harel then used her cell phone to call campus security.

When McGill security arrived, they at­ tempted to evacuate the basement and lower floors of the building. However, some students were left dumbfounded amid the confusion.

“All of a sudden we heard some chaos going on outside our room. We didn’t really know what it was so we didn’t think much of it,” said Nick Frid, a U 1 history student who was attending a conference in the Burnside basement during the theft. “Then, all of a sud­ den, the chaos turned to total silence. After about 10 minutes we heard some heavy run­ ning, so one girl suggested that she check out what was going on ... she looked out the door and looked back and said, ‘Everyone is gone, the whole place is deserted.’ Right about then

everyone started shoving their laptops and notebooks into bags.”

Frid explained that as his conference sec­ tion exited the classroom, McGill security approached the group of students and inter­ rogated them as to why they had not already evacuated the building. “ [The security guard] acted extremely surprised that we were still down there,” said Frid.

According to a news release later posted on the McGill website, “when security per­ sonnel asked people to evacuate the building, some people were hesitant to do so.”

“In this case it didn’t matter, but there could be a situation where it really does mat­ ter,” said Morton Mendelson, deputy provost (student life and learning). “And if people are going to try to second guess—well, should I go or shouldn’t I go—it w asn’t a fire alarm, it was a real incident that was ongoing, and to be prudent, people were being asked to leave the building.”

Shortly after, McGill Security Services entered Burnside Hall, Montreal police arrived and—as per protocol—were given authority over the situation.

“The police came very quickly. There was terrific coordination between the po­ lice and McGill security and they were there very quickly, but unfortunately not quickly enough,” said Mendelson, who added that al­ though administrators did meet to debrief fol­ lowing the incident, the incident did not raise the notion of changing any policy.

“Security was asking people to get out of the building because at the time they did not know what the issue was,” said M endel­ son. “There were reports of masked men in the building so that was cause for enough concern to try and get people out of the building.”

Mendelson also mentioned that all stu­ dents are encouraged to participate in the McGill Security Services’ Security Track­ ing of Office Property (STOP) program. For $20, Security Services will provide a barcode embedded security plate for laptops used to monitor ownership of the computer and pre­ vent theft.

Excellence in research and training Are you a life scien ces student?

Are you fascinated by biomedical research?

Are you an outstanding, driven student, enrolled in a doctorate or m aster’s programme?

Are you an undergraduate student looking for a summ er internship?

THE INSTITUT DE RECHERCHES CLINIQUES DE MONTRÉAL CAN FULFILL YOUR NEEDS. G et in touch with us today. Funding opportunities are excellent also.

www.ircm.qc.ca ad m issio n@ ircm .q c.ca

514-987-5527

9

IRCM

Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal

6 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

THE PROBLEM WITH “ GAY” WITH A CAPITAL G

I was gaybashed on Halloween weekend.

Thankfully the verbal assault didn’t turn physical, but it was still one of the scariest mo­ ments of my life. As I was leaving a queer Hal­ loween party at a bar on Jean Talon by myself to grab a taxi, a small sedan pulled up next to me. The four passengers looked at me, rolled down the window, and yelled “Tapette!” (Qué­ bécois for “fag,” but without the reclaimed nature that softens the blow of being called a “fag.”) Trying to avoid further escalation, I said nothing and kept walking. The car full of “dudes” followed me another block, yelling “Tapette! Osstie de tapette!” (“Fucking fag!”) over and over again. There was a taxi at the in­ tersection, which I entered, and left the scene.

Across the street from the bar I was leav­ ing, a cop pulled over a man for the crime of walking in nice clothes in a poor neighbour­ hood while being black. One cop car quickly turned into nine, in spite of the man’s total co­ operation with his own harassment. As almost 50 per cent of the total operational personnel of the neighbourhood’s police station harassed a black man who was let go when he was found to be doing nothing wrong (according to friends who stayed behind and witnessed the scene) I was being targeted for violence by real thugs down the street. While irony usually makes me feel better about life, this did not.

Now, name-calling doesn’t bother me very much. In fact, painful labels have been applied to me in a multitude of situations where they had the ability to affect my life.

What truly troubles me are the societal factors that empowered those fools to feel it was okay to harass me on the street. The larger force at work is the framework of multiculturalism into which certain non-normative sexual identities have been slotted. That is to say, under multiculturalism (as an ideology com­ pared to, say, anti-racism or polyculturalist un­ derstandings) people are slotted into capital­ ized and hyphenated identities that have little

^ *

'n

Fresh Hell Zoe Daniels

zdaniels@mcgilltribune.com CALLING OUT A MAJOR FASHION CRIME My mom has always tried to teach me that human life is valuable, that everyone has rea­ sons for their actions, and that no one is wholly evil. I am realizing, however, thanks to the fall weather, that this is not the case. The evidence, friends, is the women who wear shorts with tights. There is one person on earth to whom I will give a pass for this sartorial abortion. Her name is Sophie Busby and she bakes magical cakes; I will never do anything to jeopardize my access to them. Everyone else, find some mother-effing pants.

O p in io n or nothing to do with their life experience. In such an understanding, Indian-Canadians are represented by samosas and saris, Jewish-Canadians by Israel and Hannukah, and Aboriginal-Canadians by totem polls and pow-wows.

In reality, people labelled in these categories have experiences that are far more complex than these symbols allow for, and experiences of oppression and struggle are eliminated from their narrative.

A similar phenomenon has occurred in re­ cent years with those labelled Gay (with a cap­ ital G). Gay now refers to docile, “in-shape,” silly personalities, who love dance parties and vodka. While this process has occurred along­ side increased access for certain Gay citizens to dominant society’s institutions, it has led to a new kind of homophobic expression where those who fall outside the limited framework of acceptability—those who are not capital G “Gay” —are targeted for now-legitimized op­ pression. Here I think of my trans and other gender-variant friends who face physical and verbal obstacles on a near-daily basis. Since Canadian society is now “Gay-friendly,” these marginalized communities’ expressions are further silenced by society as a whole.

But even those who are “acceptably Gay” —I am, after all, a middle-class white man at M cGill—are now far more easily slotted into a dehumanizing zoological chart of “difference” from the norm. When “Gay” becomes a regulated category of “difference,” people become checkmarks on a list of ste­ reotypes. When who I like to have sex with is considered the defining feature of my personhood, my humanity is lost.

Any solution to society’s injustices that glorifies the “difference” that was once the cause of a people’s oppression is doomed to fail. “Racial difference” only exists insomuch as racism is a factor in our society. Similarly, “sexual difference” only exists when there is an ideal, singular form of “heterosexuality” against which all other existences are mea­ sured. This is a false idea: no two people have identical sexualities. No two people are at­ tracted to the exact same things and enjoy the exact same kinds of sex-acts, be they hetero, homo, or any other kind of sexual being. Only once we recognize that humans are individu­ ally diverse and multifaceted beings can we truly address racism, homophobia, sexism, and all the other ills that keep so many people bound in primitive and cruel situations.

I understand how comfy stretchy cellu­ lite-obscuring leggings are. I also understand that it’s hard to wear pants with those too-long plaid shirts. But that doesn’t make it okay to pretend tights are acceptable replacements for pants. I am in fact one of the progenitors of the Tights Aren’t Pants movement, a movement which could compel you to throw a pair of shorts over your tights when you are leaving the comfort of your own home. But that is the problem: tights go under dresses and skirts, not shorts. Never shorts.

Tights with shorts are as point(e)less as a ballerina with no legs, and as redundant as dressing a monkey up as George Bush, dub­ bing a musical, biking to the gym, fucking twins, chewing oatmeal, or calling a whale fat. Wearing shorts over tights is an offence to common decency, as well as the eyes and fashion sense of everyone on earth.

To be fair, my anger is mostly reserved for a specific type of tights. Running tights aren’t really cute enough to layer. Those cot-

Commentary Natalie Fohl ON LIFE SUPPORT On Thursday, the Students’ Society’s Legislative Council will vote on two motions regarding Choose Life’s club status. The first is a resolution to revoke that status, on the basis that the goals of pro-life groups are “contrary to the safety and well-being of students,” and that by allowing such a group to book campus space SSMU is “providing legitimacy to the anti-choice agenda.” Furthermore, it states that Choose Life has distributed untrue information “with the intent of manipulating students into viewing abortion as harmful to one’s health.”

It will require a two-thirds affirmative vote from Council to pass.

The second motion would suspend Choose Life’s club status, to be reinstated only upon the recommendation of the SSMU Equity Committee. The explanatory clauses of the mo­ tion cite a lack of confidence in Choose Life’s “intentions to abide by the SSMU’s governing documents.” This motion would require only a simple majority (50 per cent plus one) to pass.

A suspension of club status would result in the same loss of club privileges as revocation. The only difference is that Choose Life would have to seek reinstatement as a club through the Eq­ uity Committee, rather than by reapplying to the Clubs and Services Committee.

The SSMU Constitution states that “The Students’ Society commits itself to groups, programs, and activities that are devoted to the well-being of a group disadvantaged because of irrelevant personal characteristics that include but are not limited to race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, gender identifica­ tion, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or social class.” Choose Life’s own mandate “to promote respect for human life and human rights from conception [de­ fined by the moment of fertilization]” makes it clear that Choose Life is one such group. We seek to affirm the dignity of all human beings and to challenge the injustice facing unborn persons—a group arbitrarily denied value, rights, and life because of their age.

Choose Life recognizes the concern that our mandate and activities particularly affect those who have been involved in abortion. As stated, Choose Life’s central motivation is to

ton/spandex American Apparel tights are too busy fooling people into wearing them with t-shirts to have business under shorts. (I don’t care how great your ass looks in them, stick to Lululemons like everyone else.) Controltop tights are the real culprits. They’re sheer and have been around since Grandpa got back from the war. They have a demarcation at the thigh where the leg part of the tights ends and the control-top begins, which is not meant to be seen by anyone except in a pile on the floor.

And yet, they are the tights of choice for peo­ ple who want to wear cut-offs in November.

I can't figure out why they would ever seem like a good idea. Regular shorts always have hems so short that they show the controltop, and no one wears Bermudas unless they’re golfing.

When I obnoxiously deride the fashion choices of my friends and colleagues, they offer up various excuses. I offer, for your consideration, three possible excuses, and three easy tights-less solutions. Possible ex­

mcgilltribune.com

promote respect for all human life. Choose Life has neither the intent nor the desire to condemn individuals or groups. Rather, the pro-life posi­ tion challenges society to reconsider whether abortion is a compassionate way to ameliorate the difficulties experienced by women facing unexpected pregnancies. This position is one that has the interests of both unborn children and their mothers as its basis.

There have been many accusations that Choose Life spreads false information regard­ ing the potential health risks accompanying abortion with the intent to manipulate and scare those considering it. A cursory look at the numerous studies done on the health im­ plications of abortion reveals conflicting data, with diverging conclusions depending on the partisan stances of the researchers. Debates over the validity of various claims often don’t go beyond assertions that one set of data is cor­ rect and another is not. However, there seems to be agreement that information on the risks of elective procedures should be publicly avail­ able to allow individuals to make informed choices. This sentiment contrasts sharply with the calls to silence Choose Life on the basis that some of our events have featured speakers who question the assertion that abortion has no potential consequences for the mother. What­ ever the reality about the health risks of abor­ tion, the importance of allowing unfettered in­ quiry on the matter cannot be overstated.

Both of the motions regarding Choose Life’s club status reflect a concern about our future activities. So what does Choose Life have planned? Next semester, w e’re planning to institute a discussion series where we will meet to consider various life issues, including modem biotechnologies and their bioethical implications. We are also starting a book club for students interested in reading about and dis­ cussing life issues. Non-members of Choose Life are encouraged to join us for both. We also plan to hold various fundraisers to benefit pregnant and parenting students, and to update and publicize our information on the resources available for such students at McGill.

I will conclude with a reminder that Choose Life is made up of McGill students.

The motions that SSMU will be voting on would limit the ability of students, who SSMU exists to represent, to participate as equal members of our community. The freedom of expression and open inquiry that defines a uni­ versity means embracing a diversity of opin­ ions, and I implore SSMU Council to vote ac­ cordingly.

cuse one: it’s only slightly chilly out, and you want something a little less heavy than pants.

Tights-less solution: if you can’t commit to full-on leg exposure, it’s not time for shorts.

If it’s too cold for shorts, it’s warm enough for pants, and you should wear them.

Possible excuse two: you paid a lot for your formal shorts, and you’re going to wear them, damnit! Tights-less solution: formal events and shorts-wearing events are circles of a Venn diagram that never intersect. Ergo, you will never get your money’s worth. Throw the shorts away and cut your losses.

Possible excuse three: the fly girl across from you in McLennan totally pulls it off.

Tights-less solution: no, she doesn’t, and nei­ ther can you.

Listen, ladies. I know you have pants. I know it. I also know you have skirts, dress­ es, and the odd pair of coulottes. Wear them, because wearing cut-offs with control-tops is confusing and inexcusable.

Curiosity Delivers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • 7

m

^MCGILL JÉTRIBU NE www.mcgiUtribune.com

E D IT O R IA L S 1 The Tribune’s fall referendum endorsements

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Thom as Quail editor@ m cgilltribune.com

MANAGING EDITORS Jam es G ilm an jgilm an@ m cgilltribune.com C arolyn Yates cyates@ m cgilltribune.com

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Voting in the Students’ Society’s Fall Referendum period began on November 6 and will run until November 12. The Tribune encourages students to vote and presents the following endorsements to help you make an informed decision. Vote online at ovs.ssmu. mcgill.ca

Adam Scotti ascotti@ m cgilltribune.com

NEWS EDITORS Tori C raw ford Steven H offer new s@ m cgilltribune.com

OPINION EDITOR M att Chesser opinion@ m cgilltribune.com

FEATURES EDITORS Shannon K im ball Brahna Siegelberg features@ m cgilltribune.com

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS K yle Carpenter Laura Tindal arts@ m cgilltribune.com

SPORTS EDITORS K ailan Leung Jon Rubenstein sports@ m cgilltribune.com

Sustainable Projects Fund (50 cents per credit per semester)—YES $7.50 per semester is a lot of m oney— phrasing the fee as 50 cents per credit is a clever marketing tool that somewhat ob­ scures the $15-per-year cost for the majority of students. But creating large-scale changes in M cGill’s environmental practices requires a substantial commitment—one that we hope students are eager to make. Getting the administration to agree to match the money raised by students, and to form a consensus committee made up of equal parts students and administrators to administer the fund was a huge coup for the student planners of this fee. Let’s not allow their hard work to go to waste.

Ambassador Fee ($1 per semester, opt-outable)—YES

Non-binding plebiscite questions Exam Schedule—NO

While we still have questions about how this fee will be administered (What trips qualify? How will students who are not in clubs receive reimbursement for trips?), the Tribune supports greater funding and acces­ sibility for student competitions and confer­ ences. This fund would be an excellent way to help subsidize valuable student experi­ ences gained while representing McGill that are currently paid for through fundraising and often out of students’ personal bank ac­ counts.

We hate our exam schedules as much as anyone—almost half of our editorial board seems to be stuck in Montreal until Decem­ ber 22. But this proposal to shorten add/drop period in order to facilitate an earlier exam schedule isn’t the answer. Students need two weeks to properly evaluate their classes, and creating a new problem in order to solve an old one isn’t a productive equation.

McGill Legal Information Clinic fee renewal ($3.25 per semester)—YES This one is a no-brainer. The McGill Legal Information Clinic is an extremely valuable student service that provides legal advice for McGill students and the Montreal community. Their fee allows them to pro­ vide counsel free of charge, to pay rent in the Shatner building, and to provide law stu­ dents with invaluable work experience. We strongly advise you to vote “yes.”

PHOTO EDITORS A lice W alker Julia W ebster photo@ m cgilltribune.com

Online course packs—NO The Tribune will echo one of our fa­ vourite administrators (Jim Nicell, associ­ ate vice-principal, university services) in our reasoning: putting course packs online simply shifts the cost and burden of print­ ing to individual students, since most stu­ dents would print off the articles on their own anyways. This decentralized printing is more expensive, and more harmful to the en­ vironment. If anyone could come up with a feasible proposal that allowed some students to opt-out of printed course packs, we would be all for it, but no such solution has been found so far.

Research must be ethical and transparent

DESIGN EDITORS A lison Bailey Zoe Brew ster design@ m cgilltribune.com

COPY EDITOR C arolyn G régoire

ONLINE EDITOR A lexandr Cartasiov online@ m cgilltribune.com

ADVERTISING MANAGER D allas Bentley cpm @ ssm u.m cgill.ca

PUBLISHER C had Ronalds

CONTRIBUTORS Jo h an u B o th a , C a rla B ragagR olo, L o rrain e C h eu n g , D ick C ra v e n , A lis s a F in g o ld , G e o rg in a E k lo f-G rey , M att E ssert, M a ria F lo res, Jo h n H u i, S am Jessu la,

On Wednesday, the McGill administra­ tion presented a new draft o f the Regulations on Conduct of Research policy to McGill Senate. The draft sparked controversy be­ cause of the removal of two clauses included in the existing policy that require research­ ers to report military-funded research with “direct harmful consequences,” as well as the addition of an anonymity clause for cer­ tain research sponsors. Student senators and groups such as Demilitarize McGill were outraged.

The specific goals of these students in this case are admirable. Transparent and ethical research is one of the most important principles that a university can uphold. The addition of an anonymity clause is troubling because no one from the administration has explained why it is necessary. Saying “trust us” without providing the criteria for “legiti­

mate” and “good faith” requests for anonym­ ity is not reassuring. Unless the administra­ tion can provide detailed criteria and exam­ ples of requests for anonymity that would be honoured, we suggest that this clause should be removed.

It’s also discouraging that the words “harmful consequences” don’t appear any­ where in the draft. The only mentions of “harm” come in the context of harm to the university and harm to society (mentioned only in the preamble). We agree with SSMU Vice-President University Affairs Rebecca Dooley that this whole mess could have probably been sensibly avoided by replacing the military clauses with new text that targets all research with potential “harmful conse­ quences.”

However, we disagree with groups like Demilitarize McGill in their belief that mili­

tary research should be singled out. Research should be judged on the basis of its poten­ tial consequences, regardless of who’s fund­ ing it. It’s difficult to draw the line between harmful and non-harmful research, and the wrong way to go about that is by identify­ ing the military as the sole offender. While it’s admittedly hard to come up with a fool­ proof system to ensure ethical research (ide­ ally all potentially harmful research would go through a review committee that could determine its validity), we would like to see all research go through a consistent system of evaluation—and we feel that it might be easier to argue for this than for special treat­ ment of military funding.

We support the fight for transparent and ethical research. McGill Senate needs to get this right, and we hope the administration will listen to our senators’ concerns.

Jo h n K elsey , A d a m L e v in e, K y la M an d el, E lisa M uyl, M ax im e S a w ic k i, H o lly S tew art, S ean W ood

TRIBUNE OFFICES

EDITORIAL

ADVERTISING

Shatner U niversity Centre

Brow n Student Building

Suite 110, 3480 M cTavish

Suite 1200, 3600 M cTavish

M ontreal, Q C H 3A 1X9

M ontreal, QC H3A 1Y2

T: 514.398.6789

T: 514.398.6835 F: 514.398.7490

The McGill Tribune is an editorially autonomous newspaper pub­ lished by the Students’ Society of McGill University in collabora­ tion with the Tribune Publication Society. Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Students’ Society or McGill Uni­ versity. Letters to the editor may be sent to letters@mcgilltribune. com and must include the contributor’s name, program and year and contact information. Letters should be kept under 300 words and submitted only to the Tribune. Submissions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or sole­ ly promotional in nature will not be published. The Tribune reserves the right to edit all contributions. Editorials are decided upon and written by the editorial board. All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the McGill Tribune, its editors or its staff. Please recycle this newspaper.

Even Ricky’s friends think he’s a hypocrite Re: “Pinata Diplomacy: The ‘counter­ revolution’” by Ricky Kreitner (03.11.09) Dear Ricky, Let me begin by commending our friend­ ship of almost two years. It has been a great ride, and I ’ve had fun giggling, drinking fuzzy navels, and arguing with you. With that said, let me highlight the hilarious irony inherent in last week’s “Pinata Diplomacy.” Your article protests “protesting for the sake of protest­ ing.” If that sentence seems absurd and con­ tradictory, it’s because it is. You passionately bludgeon youth who respond “passionately” to issues on campus. Your treatment of them could be described as treatment of a “diaboli­ cal enemy.” as you do, after all, hypothesize that they will have a superfluous job and breed “inconsequential” children. Are you out of your fucking mind?

One could easily compare, especially as a result of your ill-conceived article, “student activists trying to be student activists” to “stu­ dent opinion writers trying to be student opin­ ion writers,” could they not?

Let me admit that I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Are you suggesting that we have reached some horizon of supreme eq­ uity? Is there nothing left to fight for? Is the idea of protesting for change defunct? If this is what you suggest, I find myself question­ ing the McGill Tribune’s wisdom in offering you a column—I can’t see any self-identifying “news organization,” great or small, studentrun or professional, advocating this position.

In any case, I suggest that you take a very long look in the mirror and repeat your own words as a mantra: “It’s a truism that the loudest voices often have the deepest insecurities.”

—Ian Becker U 1 English Literature

The case of the mistitled hack Re: “PGSS submits referendum petition to disaffiliate from CFS" by Tori Crawford (27.10.09) In your article about the petitions of thou­

sands of students trying to escape the iron grips of the Canadian Federation of Students you printed a factual error. Rick Telfer, in his insane and inane attempt at nasty and patent­ ly untruthful character assassination (of the many social justice-oriented students working to leave the bureaucratic mess of a multimil­ lion dollar corporation called the CFS) was identified only as Western’s Society of Gradu­ ate Students President. This is an inaccurate label. Mr. Telfer served on the executive o f the C FS-0 for many years, followed by a wellpaid stint as all-powerful staff person of the University of Toronto Students’ Union. It is only now that there is “trouble afoot” at the SOGS that Mr. Telfer has slid himself quietly into the position of President. At minimum, Mr. Telfer should have been identified as “Decade-long, well-paid hack for the CFS-O.” A more accurate label would have outlined the many patronage positions Mr. Telfer has occu­ pied since declaring his unconditional loyalty for the Powers That Be (a necessary political declaration to get anywhere inside the CFS).

—Max Silverman Tribune columnist

mcgilltribune.com

8 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Commentary Ben Paris SETTING TH E RECORD STRAIGHT I was surprised to read the editorial “If SnowAP’s dead, Haven Books should be next,” in the October 20 issue of the Tribune.

Neither I, nor any of the Haven Books' staff were consulted for this piece. Further, many of the “facts” presented are misleading or just plain wrong. I would like to clarify.

First, while Haven Books did operate at a deficit of $91,159 dollars last year, much of that was adjusted for inventory from the previ­ ous year, the year of purchase. Actually, Ha­ ven’s operating deficit for last year was closer to $68,000. This decline occurred due to a large increase in sales, a trend that is continuing this year—sales in 2007-08 were $84,966.35, and 2008-09 were $214,028.81. We’re projecting sales of over $240,000 for 2009-10 But even if you take that full $91,159, meaning $7.50 per student per year, let’s see what that $7.50 actually gets the students.

Haven is a unique operation in Montreal in that it both obtains and sells books. We op­ erate on a consignment system, which means that students bring in their old textbooks, stu­ dents set the prices, and students get 80 per cent of that price when their books sell. If their books don’t sell, they can come pick it up or change the price at any time. There is no fee to consign a book.

What does this actually mean for stu­ dents? It means instead of textbooks lying on their floor or being thrown away, they can bring them to a centralized location and make money off them at a price they think is fair.

It also means that students can purchase many books at one location at a fraction of the cost of anywhere else. Our textbooks are con­ sistently cheaper than at the McGill Bookstore, and usually cheaper than The Word, the other used textbook store we work with on Milton.

We also sell a small but growing number of new textbooks at a significantly lower price than elsewhere. Our textbooks sell for about 5 per cent less than list price, while the McGill Bookstore charges 15 to 30 per cent more than list price. That means that a textbook that cost $100 at the McGill bookstore would cost $80 or less at Haven.

This low profit margin is the principal reason that Haven loses money. We could eas­ ily charge a higher percentage for commis­ sions, or more for our textbooks, and still be less costly then our rivals. However, w e’re a student service, and keep prices low so stu­ dents benefit from using the store.

And as for the claim no one knows or uses us—we ask anyone at the Tribune, or anyone else for that matter, to come by in the first week o f January. We are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. In September, during that time, there was a long line of students waiting to enter the store as it was over capacity. When was the last time you saw a line like that at SnowAP? So far this year we have had over 3,000 students use the store, consigned over 3,000 books, and sold about 4,000 items, for sales over $130,000. Not bad for an operation “few McGill students have ever visited.” One must also consider the nine students we employ, and the positive value of having competition for the McGill Bookstore for new books.

Bursaries, while an excellent idea, don’t confront the issue of having books at lower cost for larger numbers of students, nor would they provide a place to sell back your books.

Haven is a service run by students, for students. SSMU takes the financial hit, so stu­ dents don’t have to. While we hope to lessen Haven’s deficit, SSMU also recognizes that the service Haven offers is worth the budget hit.

Oh, and by the way, the McGill classi­ fieds are not free. They are maintained, like everything else at McGill, by tuition, govern­ ment grants, and/or donations. In other words, McGill suffers a deficit from this service, just like SSMU suffers a deficit from Haven.

Ben Paris is the manager o f Haven Books.

Commentary Mahak Jain D E B A T IN G L U N C H I know there aren't a lot of vegans in the world. So I understand the curiosity about us lettuce-munching creatures. I get why some of you can’t help but parse my politics over lunch. You want to know why I do it—how I can tolerate my life of gastronomic asceti­ cism. “Don’t you miss the sensual pleasure of eating a greasy, oozy, cheesy pizza?” you ask.

“W here’s the hedon in you, woman?”

That’s fair enough. Becoming a vegan was a conscious decision—I should be able to ex­ plain myself (even if I shouldn’t have to), and most of you are polite about it anyway. Many of you are thinking about veganism for your­ self, trying to see if you should care about it, if it’s a good fit. I ’m not a missionary and am not looking to convert you, but it’s cool that you’re interested. We should become friends.

But the rest of you—you find out I am a vegan and suddenly think I want to know about that kangaroo you ate in Australia? And oh, now your friend wants to chime in too? He had the chance to try horsemeat, but he was too chicken? (I know you intended that pun, don’t tell me you didn’t.) How sad for him.

I could try to change the topic to the weather, but you aren’t done. You want to share the history of your culinary adventures.

Fine. I’ll stare at my water and smile politely.

My theory is that this is a test. You’re cut­ ting your blue steak and telling me about those juicy lizards you ate in Thailand and you’re mentally salivating for me to give myself away. You want to see if I’ll condemn you to the bowels of hell for your carnivorous appe­ tite. If I’ll rise in fury, point at you propheti­ cally like damnation will come upon you, and stomp out of the restaurant with my nose in the air.

I’m tempted to do many things, but I won't

F a ll For FYC And Fall R e f e r e n d u m V O T E O N L IN E

do that. For those of you who don't understand the irony behind steering a conversation about the philosophy of veganism to a conversation about all the animals you have devoured, I can see why this would be hard to get.

So why don’t I just stick it to you and walk out? To understand that, you need to know why I’m a vegan. There are the usual reasons. I like that it promotes environmentally friendly hab­ its. I like that veganism attempts to reduce the amount of harm and suffering and pain that humans inflict on other beings. I like that it makes me conscious that we need to become less tolerant of violence, all kinds of violence, so that’s a part of it as well.

But it teaches me about respect, too— respect for all life, animals, humans, plants, whatever. It helps me become a better person.

That means I try—even when I find it dif­ ficult—to respect your thoughts. You teach me something. I see your point that eating other creatures is a key aspect of “nature.” That’s why I don’t feel comfortable saying or even thinking that non-vegetarianism is “wrong.”

How could I possibly know what’s “wrong” or what’s “right”? I form tentative ideas about it, but I also have a fallible mind.

So do you. But I try to think about where the food I eat comes from, and about morality, principles, and the meaning of life. I dive into books about anthropology and philosophy and food politics to attempt to find some answers.

And you know what? I think so much that sometimes when I go out to lunch I want to eat my dairy-free, coconut-rich, Jamaican pad thai in peace. When we are better friends— good luck—we can talk about food politics in a conscientious, thoughtful manner, but you have to earn that. Being deliberately provoca­ tive doesn’t win you any points, and neither does staring at the food on my plate and say­ ing things like, “A m eal’s not complete with­ out some dead animal.” Thanks, but you’re the only one who found that kernel of insight profound.

Mahak Jain is a U3 Cultural Studies stu­ dent.

Cam pus Polling Lo catio n s Nov. 10th-12th (10am-4pm) Bronfman Lobby L e a c o c k Lobby Sh atn er Lobby M cConnell Lobby R e sid e n ce Polling Lo catio n s Nov. 10th-11th (5r New R e sid e n ce Bishop Mountain Hall RVC (Only Nov. 10th) Carrefour (Only Nov. 11th) Solin (Only Nov. 11th)

NOW ! e le c t io n s m c g ill.c a

elections^ mcgil

A

G o t

th e

S w in e ?

Self-report suspected H1N1 illness

Mail

Personalize You have 41 61 unread messages Inbox (4 1 6 1 )

T r ib u n e G u id e to H 1 N 1 Other Canadian universities brace for pandemic Pg, 1 The origins of H1N1 Pg. 1 Swine flu confessions: I think I have the Swine Pg. 2 Thoughts on campus Pg. 2 Dr. Joe debunks the myths surrounding the H1N1 vaccine Pg. 2 Exclusive interview with Morton Mendelson, Deputy Pro­ vost (Student Life & Learning) Pg. 3

♦

T he

origins of h in i THOMAS QUAIL

It all began with a Mexican pig. “ [This pig] was infected with two or three influenza viruses,” says Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, director of McGill Student Health Services.

“And well, if you put all this stuff in a blender, you’re not going to have the same virus after­ wards.”

H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, is a novel influenza strain that has swept North America and the world. Governments, com­ panies, and campuses across the globe are scrambling to prepare for the oncoming wave of H I NI , and, according to Tellier, “It’ll prob­ ably get worse before it gets better.”

But what exactly is H1N1? While many people may not understand the scientific makeup of the virus, the facts behind its con­ tagiousness are surprisingly simple.

The H1N1 influenza strain is composed of genetic material from pigs, wild birds, and humans. It’s transmitted easily among humans, in part because it’s an immunologi-

cally unfamiliar strain—though, according to Tellier, it’s similar to a 1950s influenza type.

Though there are a few specific target groups, anyone can be infected.

Swine flu is transmitted from person to person through infected fluid that can be spread by sneezing or coughing. Neverthe­ less, the infected fluid does no harm outside the body, and, therefore, must enter the body to cause damage. Typically, the infected droplets—containing the H1N1 virus—enter through the mouth or nose.

Once inside, the virus needs a hom e— somewhere to feed, replicate, and reproduce.

The H1N1 strain is particularly attracted to human lungs. There, it penetrates healthy, happy cells, replicating willy-nilly and acting like a microbial parasite.

But the human body is no wimp. While the virus is busy, it mounts a coordinated, fo­ cussed, and powerful immune response. The response, though, takes time, and it is usually a few days before the body’s antibodies van­ quish the conquering viral material.

There are preventative measures to avoid the unpleasantness of five days in bed. Hand­ washing and hand-sanitizing, it seems, are crucial. Also, coughing or sneezing into the fabric of your sweater is a surprisingly effec­ tive bug-killer. According to Tellier, the H1N1 virus dies quicker on cotton than it does on hard surfaces. If someone sneezes and depos­ its H1N1 droplets on a hard surface, the virus can survive for up to 48 hours, infecting any­ one who touches that area.

“The virus survives well on surfaces,” Tellier says. “This depends on the environ­ ment, the amount of humidity, the warmth, and the heat of the environment.”

Though the preventative measures are helpful, there’s only one sure-fire way, Tellier says, to protect against the virus: vaccii Available to students on December 7, tf cination, he says, is safe. Nevertheless, discussed the mercury-based reagent vaccination’s preservative, which has up recent controversy, saying there’s n to worry about.

“The preservative has mercury in it. And mercury has been linked to neuronal dam­ age,” Tellier says. “Now, the mercury itself is metabolized to ethyl mercury, and not methyl mercury. The difference is that methyl mer­ cury is the one that has been associated with neuronal damage.”

But before students begin to receive vac­ cinations, Tellier expects the pandemic to ramp up. So wash your hands, sanitize before and after meals, and if you should contract H1N1, do your fello

Other Canadian UNIVERSITIES BRACE FOR PANDEMI JAMES GILMAN McGill is not the only Canadian school launching an aggressive H1N1 strategy. Uni­ versities across the country are taking similar steps to combat the spread of the virus, and are also cooperating and sharing information in an effort to fight the pandemic effectively.

According to Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, M cGill’s H1N1 strategy wasn’t developed in isolation.

“We developed the strategy on our own, but we do have a consortium at the level of the province,” he says, referring to the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universi­ ties (CREPUQ), a private organization that fa­ cilitates cooperation among the province’s 19 universities. “And we regularly meet to talk about plans and w hat’s going on, and to share information.”

However, inter-university cooperation hasn’t been limited to the provincial level. Ac­ cording to Tellier, universities across the coun­ try are finding informal ways of collaborating and sharing information in order to improve their pandemic strategies.

“For example, the reporting strategy on

Minerva came from [the University of] West­ ern Ontario,” he says. “It was on their website, so we contacted them, we asked for permission to use their data, and we worked on that.”

But Western and McGill are not the only schools using an online self-reporting system.

Laurie Stephens, director of media rela­ tions and stakeholder communications at the University of Toronto, says that students are being encouraged to stay home if they feel sick. U of T has set up a self-reporting system to make sure they are not penalized.

“They don’t require a doctor’s note; they can go into the student portal and they can ad­ vise their professors that they’ve got flu-like symptoms,” she says. “If they miss an assign­ ment, or miss an exam, or miss a couple of classes, they can make alternative arrange­ ments with that professor to get caught up once they're back, without penalty.”

In fact, many universities across the country have waived the requirement for a doctor’s note for students who miss school with flu-like symptoms.

“Note that the university is not requiring a medical certificate for H1N1 illness absenc­ es except under compelling circumstances,”

reads a message on the University of 1 Columbia’s website.

“Instructors are strongly discouraged from requiring medical notes from students, to prevent local clinics, including Student Health Services, from becoming overloaded,” says Queen’s University’s website.

The Universities of Alberta, Calgary, Laval, Montreal, Ottawa, Windsor, and many others now have online self-reporting systems up and running.

A key part of every strategy has also been prevention and communication. Universities across the country have undertaken aggres­ sive campaigns to educate students, staff, and faculty on how best to avoid the flu, and what to do should they get it.

But prevention and communication can only go so far. While many universities hope that students will be able to get the H1N1 vac­ cination as soon as possible, they are limited by the same supply issues that affect the coun­ try as a whole. For now, universities can only provide a small number of vaccinations to high priority individuals, if at all.

In Quebec, the provincial and regional governments have no plans as of yet to allow

s on cam­ pus. Although Concordia expressed interest in hosting a clinic, vaccinations will not be avail­ able through Concordia Health Services.

In other provinces, however, many uni­ versities expect to give students vaccinations whenever the supply becomes available.

In Ontario, U of T plans to set up vac­ cination clinics on each of its campuses, and is working with Toronto Health Services to obtain more doses.

However, Queen’s announced on Nov. 6 that a vaccination clinic scheduled for Nov. 9 has been cancelled because not enough doses are available.

On the other side of the country, students at University of Alberta will have to wait, as the university announced that its vaccination clinics will be delayed by two to three weeks.

Until enough vaccinations become avail­ able, universities across the country are con­ tinuing to emphasise prevention, and are en­ couraging students to be as careful as possible, self-isolate if they come down with flu-like symptoms, and self-report their illness if they have to stay away from campus.

Past ( l o t h C e n t u r y )

Hong Kong influenza pan­ demic kills one m illion people w orld­ Spanish influenza p a n d e m i c kills an estim ated 40-50 m illion people w orldw ide.

w ide

Asian influenza pan­ demic kills tw o m illion people

Hoffman-La Roche an ­ nounces the release o f Tamiflu, to com bat influenza A and B after diagnosis.

w orldw ide.,

1918

1999

I fi

Swine

flu confessions :

GEORGINA EKLOF-GREY I rarely get sick. During most flu seasons, people around me drop like flies, while I usu­ ally remain cough-and-sneeze-free. I always thought of myself as immune to the flu, so you can imagine my surprise when I realized I had H1N1.

I woke up the Friday before Hallow­ een with a slight headache, stuffy nose, and fatigue, but I thought nothing of it because I had been out late for pre-Halloween celebra­ tions. I stayed home that night, hoping that all I needed was some rest. But the next day my symptoms had worsened, my throat hurt, and I was so exhausted that I could barely concen­ trate on what I was reading.

I felt nauseous, so I restricted myself to

;

Dr. J oe

I think I have

a diet of oatmeal and toast. That was my first m istake—I only became weaker as the days went on.

Feeling sick and sad due to my inability to celebrate Halloween, I made the mistake to invite my friends to snuggle into bed with me to watch a movie. I was still coughing. I was still using my hand to cover my mouth. I was not using hand sanitizer as much as I should have. I was spreading my germs to the two people who were kind enough to spend time with me in my condition.

By Monday I was phoning home. My mom was listing all of the symptoms of H1N1 that she had found online. I had them all. Coughing, shortness of breath, headache, body aches, and chills. It looked like I would finally get to use that thermometer that my

the

Swine

mother had so lovingly sent me in a care pack­ age during my first week of school. I broke out my thermometer and after five tries the reading came out as 102 Fahrenheit. I got on a train home the next morning.

After my fever had ceased to fall after five days, I went to the hospital for tests. Hours of endless waiting later, I was told officially that I had H1N1 and, because of that, I now had a secondary infection—double pneumonia. So my personal advice to you is if you suspect that you’ve contracted H1N1, don’t make the same mistakes I did. Although I am recovering well, this battle may have been easier if I had seen a doctor sooner.

X

Thoughts on campus

“ ... Have you seen I am Legend?

I ’m not going to get something that hasn’t been tested and may not be re­ quired.”

“The more I think about it, I get more nervous. I thought people were too worried about it but I ’m starting to know people who have it, so now I ’m worried too.”

debunks the myths

SURROUNDING THE HlNl VACCINE

JAMES GILMAN As the H l N l virus continues to spread across the country, and vaccinations are slowly beginning to be offered, many are ask­ ing themselves whether or not they should get vaccinated. Dr Joe Schwarcz, director of M cGill’s Office for Science and Society, has a simple answer for them: yes.

Schwarcz, in his weekly column for the Montreal Gazette, has recently taken up this subject, writing that it is time to panic about “the stunning and spectacular amount of mis­ information being bandied about,” in the de­ bate over the H l N l pandemic and the alleged side effects of the vaccine.

The biggest myth concerning the H l N l vaccine, according to Schwarcz, is that the risks outweigh the benefits. The reality, how­ ever, is that “the scientific evidence is way over on the other side. The benefits outweigh the risks.”

Instead of listening to “noisy alarmists,” Schwarcz says, we should pay attention to ex­

perts in the fields of immunology, toxicology, and epidemiology, including scientists at the United Nations, the World Health Organiza­ tion, Health Canada, and major universities.

“The scientific community is firmly be­ hind the [belief] that the benefit outweighs the risk,” he says. ’’You’ll find a few alarmists on the other side, but it’s not an equal opinion.

In the scientific community, there’s no contro­ versy.”

A sore arm, a headache, and a mild fever, are, just as with many vaccinations, possible side effects of the H l N l vaccine. But other than that, there’s little to be worried about, says Schwarcz.

“It’s impossible for the vaccine to trigger the flu, because it contains a killed virus. That’s completely out of the question,” he says.

Schwarcz has also written about the myriad conspiracy theories concerning H l N l and the vaccine, including those that claim the virus was designed by pharmaceutical companies who then created the vaccine in order to make huge profits. Or that H l N l , and

later the vaccine, was concocted by the UN, the WHO, or by a government (depending on which wacko you listen to) in order to cull the world’s population.

“I mean, this kind of thing is absurd on so many different levels, because even if there was some sort of conspiracy like this, this would be an idiotic way to try to do it: the death rate from the vaccine is very, very low.”

For anyone who is unsure about whether or not to get vaccinated, Schwarcz simply sug­ gests looking at the scientific evidence on the topic.

“Unfortunately there’s a lot of confusion out there because some of the anti-vaccine people are very, very noisy, and they know how to get the attention on the Web,” he says.

“I think the really important thing for people to understand is that there are experts in this field who merit being listened to, and the ex­ perts are not these noisy alarmists.”

“I don’t think it’s very good and I think they should set up a vaccination site on campus. I would get vaccinated ... If 20 per cent of Douglas [Hall] has it, it could easily spread.”

“I think it’s super hyped-up for no reason. I think it’s not really an issue...

For regular healthy adults I don’t think it’s a big deal... And the virus could easily evolve. It could get worse every year.”

PHOTOS B Y

J U L IA

W EBSTER

R e ce n t ( 2 0 0 9 - )

The WHO announces a new strain o f influenza A, know n as H l N l or sw ine flu, w ith outbreaks in M ex­ ico, the U nited States, and C anada

A p r il

2 J

First C a s e o f drug-resistant H l N l in Q uebec. T he patient, an el­ derly man, had travelled to M exico, and eventually recovered from all flu sym ptom s.

First confirmed case o f H l N l in the M ontreal area.

A p ril

3 0

First death from h i n i in Q uebec. T he victim w as a 65-year old w om an w ho had been suf­ fering from bacterial pneum onia w hen she acquired H l N l .

J u n e

8

Dr. Margaret Chan o f the W orld H ealth O rganization announc­ es a global pandem ic o f H 1N 1.

J u n e

I I

G o t

th e

S w in e ?

Exclusive interview with M orton M endelson , Deputy Provost (S tudent L ife & Learning) CAROLYN YATES

M cGill has recently instituted a self-reporting absentee system for those who have, or think they might have, H1N1.

How is the system working out so far?

W ell, I think it’s going fine. I have yet to get our first report about it, but w e h av en ’t had any indication that there are problem s, so I assum e it’s going fine.

Has there been any change in the number of students showing up at Health Services?

We had been tracking the num ber o f cases in residence and the num ber o f cases that w ere show ing up to H ealth Services, and they had been increasing—as w e expected they w o u ld —as was the case at virtually every university in N orth A m erica. T hen the ate o f increase seem ed to accelerate— it still w asn ’t alarm ing but : w as an increase—and we decided at that point that w e w ould istitute the self-reporting because w e w anted to be ahead o f a otential big increase.

Have you been satisfied with the university’s coordinated esponse to the onset of H1N1?

I think the university’s response has been excellent actually, because w e’ve been planning since the spring, and there have been many, m any m eetings, a lot o f people involved. As you can im ag­ ine, there are all kinds o f issues that are relevant to this prepara­ tio n —H R issues, student issues, essential service issues, and so on. So th e re’s been a coordinated planning across m any areas o f the university and, so far, I think w e ’re getting it right. T he plan in residence seem s to be up to dealing w ith the issues there; w e’ve had good discussions am ong faculties to m ake sure that there is a coordinated approach to accom m odations if students m iss classes or assignm ents o r exam s and so on. H R has provided lots o f rel­ evant inform ation to the various units regarding absenteeism and so on. I think w e ’re w ell prepared.

How have the departments worked together to prevent transmission?

business, and so people often w ill com e to w ork w ith a cold or com e to w ork with som e other ailm ent, but [H1N1] is so contagious and potentially dangerous that w e’re really asking people not to com e to work.

U p until this w eek, the provincial governm ent has refused to set up an on-cam pus vaccination site at M cGill. B ut ju st this w eek, according to Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, the provincial governm ent has said “m aybe” to an on-cam pus vaccination site.

Would you be able to tell us how the talks are going?

T h ey ’re going. F or several w eeks now, if not longer, w e have been speaking to various people in governm ent agencies, trying to get vaccinations on cam pus. L ast w eek w e finally m ade contact w ith som eone w ho w as a little bit m ore open to the idea than had previously been the case, and now w e are in talks w ith governm ent agencies to see w hether or n ot this w ill be logistically possible.

T h a t’s w hat w e ’re looking at now, and if it is, then it w ill be up and running at the point w here the vaccine is m ade available to the general public. I t’s not that people at M cG ill w ill be able to ju m p the queue; it’s ju st that there w ould be an additional vaccination site.

Is it important that McGill secure an on-campus vaccina­ tion site?

I think it w ould be a big help because I think that particularly students are going to be less concerned about their health than other people; being young and generally healthy, people a re n ’t re ­ ally concerned and they m ay not see the need fo r a vaccine, and if they did see the need for a vaccine, they m ight not w ant to travel dow n to the Palais des C ongrès and w ait in line. A nd especially as w e ’re com ing up to exam s and students are busy w ith com pleting their sem ester’s w ork, they m ay n ot w ant to take the tim e aw ay to do that. I think for the sake o f students, it w ould be a big benefit to have it on cam pus.

T he key m essage is, w ash you hands, w ash your hands, w ash your hands. If you happen to be coughing o r sneezing, m ake sure you do it into your sleeve. T hose are the key issues. A nother key issue is, if you happen to be sick, stay away. T his is really im por­ tant. W e’re really counting on people w ho are sick to stay aw ay for a full seven days for their ow n sake, so that they get better, and also for the sake o f the com m unity, so even if people are feeling sort o f O K after four days they really should be staying hom e for the full w eek. T h a t’s often difficult to persuade people to do because there are a lot o f people at M cG ill w ho are very co m ­ m itted to doing w hat th ey ’re doing, w hether th e y ’re w orking for the university or th ey ’re students. T hey w ant to get on w ith their

;

k -v .

te * N

f

SKETCHES BY ZOE BREWSTER

Leona Aglukkaq announces the second

H ealth M inister

w ave o f H1N1 in C anada, citing outbreaks in British C olum bia, the N orthw est T erritories, and Q uebec.

H1N1

V a c c i n e available for healthy M ontreal residents.

C u rre n t (2 0 0 9 -) O c to b e r 1 3

D ecem ber I

C m osit^D elivers

St u d e n t Liv in g

THE CUPBOARD KITCHEN The development of a food-blogging com­ munity and the increased ease of access to rec­ ipes, tutorials, and general culinary news have given rise to innovative and exciting trends in food. Chefs are becoming more adventurous and finding new outlets for culinary creations that might not appear in a typical restaurant.

One such innovation is the supper club: a chef cooks out of his home kitchen and serves the meal to diners right in the apartment.

My friend Mikael, who is also a student at McGill, runs a Montreal supper club called

The Cupboard Kitchen, which serves a threecourse meal every Sunday evening to eight fortunate eaters, with a suggested $10 dona­ tion to cover ingredient costs. Mik and I have cooked and talked food together since first year, and I was really excited the first time I got to eat at The Cupboard Kitchen—and it was delicious.

This past week, I was even more ex­ cited when I was invited into the kitchen of The Cupboard Kitchen to test recipes with the head chef himself. Mikael invited me to make ravioli from scratch and to tinker with some possibilities for a garnish.

Making pasta from scratch is not the easi­ est task in the world, but it certainly is gratify­ ing. Pasta is a temperamental blend of flour, eggs, and salt. If you don’t have a food proces­ sor, you can use a technique called the “well method,” in which you measure out three cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt. Use a spoon or fork to create a recess, or well, in the center of these dry ingredients. Crack four eggs into

the well, and use a fork to slowly mix the eggs and flour, bringing more flour from the edges into the mix each time, until a ball of dough is formed.

Mik and I discussed the merits of a pasta roller (not very expensive, available in any kitchen supply store) for a pretty long tim e— mostly to pass the time that we spent using a conventional rolling pin to get paper-thin sheets of pasta dough. This is not a task for the impatient or the hungry. We stuffed the ravi­ olis each with a tablespoon of a blend of fresh ricotta, Italian flat-leaf parsley, and caramel­ ized onions and garlic. Mik had made a deli­ cious traditional tomato pasta sauce in which to serve the raviolis, but we came up with a quick and exciting extra component to serve on top.

We steamed some fresh shrimp until they were cooked and then chopped them, adding lemon juice, olive oil, and a generous squeeze of Sriracha hot sauce (if you don’t know what this is, see the $2 chow mein window or Bron-

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • 13

CALIFORNIAPHOTO.COM

fman cafeteria for examples). The texture from the shrimp, freshness from the lemon juice, and heat from the sauce rounded off the cheese ravioli’s heavy and rich edges.

I ’m a big proponent of the do-it-yourself approach, and this dish (or some variation) is definitely a great one to make at home. But I also recommend that you let Mik serve it to you at The Cupboard Kitchen. Reservations can be made by emailing thecupboardkitchen@gmail.com.

A l l A b o u t T o u r s - D e l u x e B u s T o u r s t o t h e U .S .* P la tts b u rg h , N Y - Christmas Shopping

Freaky Friday 5 p.m. Redpath Museum, Auditorium Find out the reality of schemes to fix climate change and watch Six

Degrees Could Change the World.

Soulstice a Cappella 8:00 p.m. Le Cagibi, 5490 St. Laurent Soulstice is joining Potsdam Piches in a collaborative concert features cappella pop, indie rock, and soul.

Saturday, N ovem b er 2 1 st $35/person * New York City, NY & Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Center Valley

Black Friday American Thanksgiving Weekend Special Saturday, N ovem b er 2 8 th - 2 9 th (2 days/1 night) from $147/person

For info, call Claire 514-979-6277

passports required

—

P rin c ip a l H e a t h e r M u n ro e -B lu m

invites McGill students, faculty and staff to an open forum to discuss issues of relevance to the McGill community.

Tu esd ay, N o vem b er 17 th, 2 0 0 9 1 2 :3 0 > 2 :0 0 pm Tanna Schglich Hail New Music Building 527 Sherbrooke Street W est

It's o u r u n iv e r s ity , le t's t a l k a b o u t it.

Information: townhall@mcgill.ca www.m cgiil.ca/townhall

' f: :\W i: msSiMSsSIWwM

14 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A &E

mcgilltribune.com

M U S IC

Silver Starling sets gold standard for Montreal music M cG ill alum puts recording engineering degree to g o o d use LAURA TINDAL A & E Editor

If you listen to what you read online, you would expect something dreary and depressing from Silver Starling’s new self-titled album.

The Montreal band’s debut has garnered a lot of attention focussed on the fact that the album is dedicated to lead singer Marcus Paquin’s friend, Chris Ireton, who passed away from cancer last year. Yet the music alternates be­ tween soft, intricate ballads and upbeat, head­ bobbing dance-tunes. Paquin stresses that death is not the only topic of the album.

“It’s not altogether a cathartic album,” Paquin says. “I mean there’s a couple of key songs [such as] ‘The News,’ which is really about my friend and my feelings about his passing away and whatnot, and I mean most of the songs are written about all kinds of dif­ ferent emotions that I had over the last couple of years that are not necessarily related to [Ireton]’s passing away.”

Marcus Paquin has had a lot happen in the last couple of years. Besides working as a recording engineer for Stars and Arcade Fire and losing his oldest friend, he started his own band, got married, bought his first house, and did some travelling—all of which influenced Paquin’s writing. “In that time I experienced a lot of amazing things and I think that those emotions are sort of the predominant ones: joy, happiness, and discovery,” Paquin says. This has transformed into an album that is a highly emotional concoction, a balance of soaring, hopeful discoveries and tragic, crushing pain, all sung in Paquin’s lush, fragile voice.

But the vocals are just the beginning; Silver Starling uses a range of instruments, layered together to build their songs, includ­ ing strings (such as banjos) and keyboards.

Given his experience with Stars and Arcade Fire, Paquin is no stranger to multi-instrument, orchestral-pop arrangements.

“I think the bottom line with our music is conveying an emotion and making people feel something,” Paquin says. “And when w e’re working on a song, when w e’re trying to develop a song, we use whatever instruments

MAXIME SAWICKI

Silver Starling sings last Thursday, opening for Ohbijou at Club Lambi. we need to convey that message. On this re­ cord it’s been a wide range of instruments. But w e’ll see, you know? Maybe next time w e’ll do everything on a keyboard.”

If that were the case, Paquin might be ac­ cused of picking favourites: he recently mar­ ried Marika Anthony-Shaw, keyboardist and violin/viola player for Silver Starling. They

“A ll o f us have checked out a bunch o f different things ... So I think we can kind o f get to the good stuff a bit faster.”

- Marcus Paquin previously worked together through Arcade Fire for which she plays viola as a touring member. The other band members also have ex­ perience being in established Montreal bands.

Drummer Liam O ’Neil plays in Young Galaxy, guitarist and banjo-player Gab Lambert is in Marathon, and bassist Peter X plays in We Are Star 69. Although people may approach Silver Starling’s music with pre-planned assumptions on what they want to hear based on the artists’ previous works, Paquin only sees the positive in having a band composed of artists in other successful groups.

“I think it’s helpful to have a background from a bunch of different scenarios and differ­ ent musical experience, because ... all of us have checked out a bunch of different things and we have a better idea of what w e’re aim­ ing for. So I think we can kind of get to the good stuff a little bit faster,” Paquin says.

The good stuff is definitely present on the album, an impressive debut no matter who’s in the band. Simple, upbeat songs like “Ghosts” remind you of sitting in a circle around a fire, clapping along to a banjo and singing along with friends, while “Something Over Noth­ ing” is a beautiful, haunting, but private song, that makes you feel like you’re listening in on somebody’s inner turmoil set to strings. The ability to balance feelings of hope and excite­ ment with those of death and longing, as well as layering a number of instruments and ef­ fects while still keeping songs clean and un­ cluttered, may come from what Paquin brings to the song writing and sound as a recording engineer.

“I have a clearer idea of what we can ac­ complish in the studio. Ultimately, being a recording engineer allows me to kind of skip the middleman when it comes to being in the studio. I have a clearer idea of how to attain certain sounds and textures,” Paquin says.

Pop lÿietoric CAN’TCON I I am a proud Canadian. This country is home to some of the world’s greatest artists, writers, musicians, and performers. Howev­ er, there is one area of the arts and entertain­ ment world where Canada is clearly lacking: television.

Canada’s television shows—news and non-fiction programs excluded—are terrible compared to their American counterparts.

And it’s not only in one genre: we fail in every category imaginable. In response to American comedies like The Office and 30 Rock, we come back with Little Mosque on the Prairie. For their action dramas NCIS and Prison Break, we come up with Flash­ point. Animated shows like Family Guy and South Park are met with Boh & Doug and Chilly Beach. They created Saturday Night

Live, we came up with The Royal Cana­ dian Air Farce. The Daily Show ? The Rick Mercer Report. Seriously, we couldn’t even get Sesame Street right—we had to create a monster named Sesame Park.

It’s not that every Canadian show is completely awful, but in relative terms the best we can do is create shows that are equal to a reasonably bad American one. If you don’t believe me, let’s look at the main of­ fenders. One of the most popular Canadian shows of the past decade was Corner Gas, a sitcom set in rural Alberta based on unfunny banter and Canadian stereotypes—kind of like those episodes of Malcolm in the Mid­ dle where the oldest brother was living in Alaska. It ran for six seasons and averaged about one million viewers per episode.

Another popular show, Heartland, is like watching an episode of The O.C. but

with less characters, less jokes, less drama, and if everything they did had to do with farm animals. Again set in rural Alberta, Heartland focuses on a teenage girl with a loosely explained ability to communicate well with horses. You might be thinking that only shows set in rural Canada aren’t that funny or interesting, but that wouldn’t be fair. Last year marked the end of several failed urban Canadian shows including In­ stant Star and Robson Arms, which might make you sad if you ever heard of them. It’s true: much of Canadian television is so bad that you forget it was ever on the air.

If any older readers are itching to re­ mark that a 20-year-old doesn’t remember good old comedies of Canadian TV like SCTV and Kids in the Hall, I challenge you to find a clip of either that still makes you laugh. For younger folks, SCTV is the

Paquin worked as a recording engineer in the industry for years, after graduating from McGill with an undergraduate degree in jazz guitar and a master’s degree in recording en­ gineering. While he started out doing his own solo singer-songwriter shows, he found he needed more than a guitar for company. “ [Some] people work better when they’ve got somebody else who they know and trust musically to bounce ideas off of, and in my case that’s definitely true,” Paquin says. This led to Paquin approaching O ’Neil at a Young Galaxy concert one night in Montreal, trying his hardest to come off as a colleague and not just a crazed fan. The two started playing to­ gether, and were soon joined by the other three musicians.

It’s the detailed musical knowledge and experience that comes from Paquin and the other band members’ backgrounds that allows Silver Starling to include so many different elements and juxtapositions in their album, while still retaining a continuity and whole­ ness that makes it so successful. Silver Star­ ling manages to express the tragedy of death without becoming a downer of album, and while showing that there is still plenty to look forward to in life.

KYLE CARPENTER original bad answer to SNL while Kids in the Hall is like a cleaner, remarkably less funny version o f The Whitest Kids U ’Know.

Defenders of these shows are only romanti­ cising the past, like fans of fedoras and The Eagles.

Now I know you think that Trailer Park Boys is the exception. While I admit to being a dedicated fan of the earlier seasons, the show went on for three seasons too long and spawned two unnecessary soon-to-be bargain-bin movies. While it’s not bad for a Canadian show, it certainly isn’t strong enough to be our best effort. So far, I ’ve not been able to find one Canadian TV show that I am proud to say is from my country. I’ll just have to stick with my Timothy Findley novels, Group of Seven prints, and Broken Social Scene albums until we come up with something better than Puppets Who Kill.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • 15

Curiosity Delivers

F IL M

M U S IC

Show ing o ff their ever expanding sound The M ost Serene R epublic findtherapy in live perform ance CARLA B R A GA G N OLO C ontributor

Their previous albums have been about pain, anger, and denial, but according to front­ man Ryan Lenssen, The Most Serene Repub­ lic’s ...And the Ever Expanding Universe is about healing. Released in July, it’s the band’s third studio album, and it’s an upbeat medley of piano and percussion, with great exclama­ tions of less conventional indie sounds, such as member Adrian Jewett’s trombone. While the band’s style is instantly recognizable, it’s been improved upon, and an element of ex­ perience has been beautifully woven into the unique harmonies that fans fell in love with in the first place.

This new sound is a part of The Most Serene Republic’s process of creation. When TMSR is making new music, they see it as a challenge and opportunity for improvement.

“Pages and Populations ... was a bit too objective rather than a subjective human expe­ rience,” says Lenssen. “I tried to find a happy medium, a place in which we could express our objectivity, subjectively.” Universe is the product of this expression, the band’s new, expanding outlook. The title of the album en­ compasses this positive new mental state. “We decided that maybe if we just change our out­ look, things w on’t be so hellish.”

TMSR is currently touring with fellow Canadian bands The Meligrove Band and Mardeen across the Eastern provinces. In the past they’ve played with other Canadian leg­

ends such as Metric, Broken Social Scene, and Stars, but now that they’re headlining, they’re not picky about who opens for them. “If w e’re headlining I don’t care who it is as long as they don’t drink our beer,” Lenssen says.

With seven members including Nick Gereves, Emma Ditchbum, Sean Woolven, Simon Lukasewich, new drummer Adam Balsam, as well as Lenssen and Jewett, a live performance can get pretty crowded. The band is famous for their engaging, high energy shows, but Lens­ sen confesses he gets just as much out of a live performance as the crowd does.

“It’s sort of like a primal therapy, because most o f the day you hold everything in and it’s nice to get on stage for an hour. We hold in a lot of shit, and we just sort of ignore it and have a picnic anyways and that can be very wearisome,” Lenssen says.

While live performances are a source of therapy, Lenssen doesn’t deny that touring is a hard experience for the band. Their 2008 European tour had a detrimental effect on the group.

“W hen we came back we were really de­ stroyed and we needed to have our time away from each other. That’s when I started writing Universe, and at first I felt like I needed some external guidance. That’s why I turned to Dave Newfeld.” Lenssen explains. Newfeld pro­ duced ...And the Ever Expanding Universe, and has worked with Broken Social Scene and Super Furry Animals in the past.

Luckily, the hardships TMSR faced on the road resulted in a wiser, more established al­ ternative to their previous sound. And the best way to listen to it? “Just get fucking stoned,” says Lessen. “[Getting high] is a very natural

human experience that gets to be shared by ev­ eryone. It’s exciting, it’s confusing, it’s won­ derful, and kids don’t do it nowadays, but all your parents did!”

Lenssen is nostalgic for the past genera­ tions of music listeners. Our generation has

“W e decided that maybe if w e just change our outlook, things w on ’t be so hellish.”

- Ryan Lenssen never known the world—or the music indus­ try—without the Internet, and Lessen argues we have a completely different appreciation for music these days.

“When I was growing up, one of my fa­ vorite and most annoying things was listen­ ing to my Walkman [when] my batteries were dying; the tape would slow down, so the pitch would lower. You’re singing along and all of the sudden you hear it go lower and lower and it’s sounding w eird—that’s an experience!” He explained. “It’s the same with having to flip a vinyl over; it’s a small and very important level of interactivity with the music because you are making the commitment to go and turn it over.”

Regardless of the way you appreciate your music, you w on’t be disappointed with the latest installment of TM SR’s repertoire.

The Most Serene Republic plays II Motore on November 13.

Take Your C a reer In A

W hy goats?

The M en Who Stare a t G oats raises lots o f questions SAM JESSU LA C ontributor

After reading a title like The Men Who Stare at Goats, the first and most obvious ques­ tion that comes to mind is why? What possible reason could men have to stare at goats? How can there be a whole movie about it?

Unfortunately, those questions don’t go away, leaving the audience to perpetually wonder where the movie is actually going.

But perhaps that’s what you get when you are seeing the alleged true story of the Pentagon exploring the paranormal.

This new crazy comedy deals with Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a heartbroken jour­ nalist out to prove to his wife that he is not a coward. To do so, he decides to run away from his problems and investigate the current situation in Iraq. Throughout his search for pseudo-adventure, he encounters Lyn Cassady (played by George Clooney), a veteran who was trained as a “psychic super spy” by the army. The movie looks at how this super sol­ dier program was developed, while following the McGregor-Clooney adrenaline junkie duo as they travel around Iraq.

If this sounds unreal and confusing, that’s because it is. Indeed, The Men Who Stare at Goats is an enigma. As a viewer, you don’t re­ ally know what to do with it. At the center, this picture has the characteristics of a good comedy: take two unexpected partners, each a little messed up by their past, and put them in an unnecessarily complex and random sit­ uation—in this case, a road trip through Iraq.

However, what is so unsettling about The Men Who Stare at Goats is the confused feeling it leaves with viewers. Parts of the film are funny and parts are moving, but it is neither a really good comedy nor a not-that-great politi­ cal dram a—think Three Kings meets Across

the Universe.

Try a health care career in C H IR O PR A C TIC , M ASSAGE T H E R A PY , A C U P U N C T U R E or O RIENTAL MEDICINE.

NORTHWESTERN HEALTH SCIENCES UNIVERSITY

Despite the lack of unity, the movie is hilarious. It is especially funny to Star Wars connoisseurs, as on top of the classic gags, the comedy is supported by Ewan McGregor con­ tinuously mocking Jedi warriors. Place that in the middle o f Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey acting like army-trained hippypsychic warriors and you have a serious recipe for laughter.

The choice of setting for such a comedy is questionable, however. Recent war movies have a legitimate right to be set in Iraq, but it seems like Baghdad has become the new setting du jour. Now that the desert backdrop is being used for comedies, it’s only a matter of time before romantic comedies and maybe even children’s cartoons begin filming in the Middle East as well.

While The Men Who Stare at Goats is by no means the comedy of the year, it’s never­ theless a wonderful pick-me-up for a Tuesday evening, and might even brighten your day before finals.

2501 West 84th Street, Bloomington, MN 55431

(952/800) 8 8 8 -4 7 7 7 , e x t. 4 0 9 w w w .n w h e a lth .e d u ACESHOWBIZ.COM

16 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

mcgilltribune.com

BOOKS

A look at the business behind The G reat O ne Stephen B r u n t’s G retzky’s Tears delves deep into 9 9 ’s problem s MATT CHESSER O pinion Editor

“It is the same story, it is a different story.”

The line that opens Stephen Brunt’s

Gretzky’s Tears: Hockey, Canada, and the Day Everything Changed refers to the lives of Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky—two of the greatest athletes of all time, separated by only a few years. It is, to be honest, part of a slightly forced and unnecessary attempt at continuity, seeking to link Brunt’s last book (the superb Searching for Bobby Orr) to his ne west work.

But the line itself is a fitting epitaph for Gretzky’s Tears. The book tells a familiar story that has been recounted many times in the past—of a superstar and a trade whose respec­ tive details are well known by anyone with a passing interest in the sport. It deals with fa­ miliar themes: greed, loyalty, and the national myth. But it is a singular work, far superior and far different than the other material produced on the subject—and there has been plenty of it.

It is the same story, but different.

On the surface, Gretzky’s Tears appears to be a book about the business of hockey—

the commodification of the greatest player to ever play the game, the expansion of hockey into non-traditional American markets, and the dealings of owners with more concern for style than substance. But it is more accurately a story of three wildly different personalities united by Gretzky’s trade from the Edmon­ ton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings. There is Peter Pocklington, the insular self-made mil­ lionaire who owned the O ilers—a man who might have escaped from the public scorn over the trade had he not tripped over his own ego.

Bruce McNall, the gregarious Kings owner, whom you would love right up until the mo­ ment he duped you out of your life savings.

And, of course, Gretzky, “cast as the small­ town Canadian boy made good” despite his acute awareness of his image, his embrace of America, and the fact that hockey was as much a business for him as it was for his owners. As Brunt writes, the details are inconsequential, “he was forever ours, because we required him to be that way. We find the heroes we n eed ...”

Still, above all else, he was an unparalleled hockey player.

Brunt himself is a remarkable talent, one of Canada’s finest journalists (no need for the qualifying word sports, Brunt is a fantastic storyteller who just happens to write about ath­ letes). He is at his best in the book’s penulti­

mate chapter, “The Last Perfect Moment (II),” where he intersperses description of Game Seven of the 1993 Campbell Conference Final between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Gretz­ ky’s Kings with the story of McNall’s desper­ ate attempts to salvage the fraudulent empire he had built on leverage, lies, and loans. The description of the game action is vivid and po­ etic, the off-ice drama enthralling and brutally frank: “The truth, unknown to everyone out­ side of his most inner circle, unknown even to his wife, was t h a t ... Bruce McNall was pretty much fucked.”

The book is only sentimental when it comes to on-ice action and the fans alienated by the emergence of the NHL as a big busi­ ness (the diehard fans are gently reprimanded for swallowing the “good Canadian game” myth that surrounds the NHL, but Brunt is sympathetic rather than stem). Brunt turns a dispassionate eye to everything else—cutting through the idealism and myth that has shroud­ ed Gretzky throughout his life. Walter Gretzky is fittingly portrayed both as his son’s confidant and best friend (the Canadian “national dad,” as h e’s come to be known) and as a demanding stage father. McNall is a crook, but a likable one. And most importantly, Gretzky is a man well aware of the “Wayne Gretzky” brand. The “aw shucks, good o l’ Canadian boy” image is

LAIST.COM

A king amongst Kings. revealed to be as much a carefully cultivated public image as it is rooted in Gretzky’s genu­ ine kindness.

There have been other trades that devas­ tated fans and changed a league, but none that altered the fabric of a country and a sport as profoundly as the Gretzky trade. There have been other books and documentaries that have dealt with this subject, but none that tell the story as well as this. And although many read­ ers, myself included, hadn’t been bom on the day of “The Trade,” Brunt will make you care about the day everything changed—the day players and fans were finally confronted with the fact that hockey is a business not just a game, the day the NHL turned its focus South, and the day that hockey’s greatest star broke down and cried.

TH EATRE

C haracters prevail in a beautiful tragedy Sw an Song o f M aria captures audience in sihiri storytelling JOHANU BOTHA C ontributor

N ovember 10-16 Half a million Canadians suffer from Al­ zheimer’s disease or dementia. Within a gen­ eration, this number is expected to double. It is a sickness that slowly but surely takes away moments of the past, robbing you of your life.

For what is the present if there are no events leading up to it? No graduations, anniversa­ ries, birthdays, or family gatherings? This is director Tyrone Benskin’s biggest fear; a fear he comforts with beauty in Black Theatre Workshop’s Swan Song o f Maria.

“It’s all about the people,” he says about this work and theatre in general, “plot doesn’t matter; it’s all about the characters.” And where better to study characters than in Carol Cece Anderson’s innovative play, which tells the story of Joe (Joel Miller) and Jillian (Ranee Lee), a husband and wife, where the latter is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. They have

ALICE WALKER

Wednesday. Theatre. The Care­ taker.

ALICE WALKER

Joe’s (Joel Miller) life changes as his wife Jillian (Ranee Lee) shows signs of Alzheimer’s. lived together for years, but the years are now trickling away as Jillian strives to remember.

But that’s just ' scratching the surface: in the shadows lurk a silent character, one in the form of a ballerina playing Joe’s muse, a figure that haunts Jillian. As she tries to piece together what she once was, she gropes for the tangible memories are left to determine her place in her husband’s life. Music that reminds us of what Jillian no longer can blends through the scenes and is created by a single pianist in the background.

The play is innovative, fusing language, dance, and music to tell a story. Both the writer and the director seek to emulate the an­ cient storytellers of their African background, where the listeners are captured in sihiri (en­ chantment). Although the play adds to aware­ ness, it is not necessarily about Alzheimer’s.

The disease is but one part of the vehicle that helps to tell this “tragic fairy tale.” “Make no mistake,” Benskin says, “it is a tragedy ... but it is a beautiful tragedy.”

Asked if modem audiences, especially students, can still enjoy theatre without the conscious intellectual attempts to appreciate it, the director and his cast were overwhelm­ ingly positive. “Students should simply come

in and absorb,” said Lee, member of the Order of Canada and award-winning performer. Ben­ skin likened the difference between movies and theatre to that of recorded music and live music, highlighting the exhilarating crispness of the latter. Miller, who Joe is so real it’s al­ most impossible to call him a mere character, simply sat there smiling, as if to say that if you don’t come, you don’t know what you’re miss­ ing.

The Black Theatre Workshop (located in the Montreal Arts Interculturels, 3680 JeanneMance) is an intimate yet airy space. The mini­ malist set is layered with large disproportionate steps representing Jillian’s deteriorating mind.

It does not seek to reflect our world, and, curi­ ously, this makes it easier for the audience to engage with the play. With it’s symbol-laden text and mysterious third character, Swan Song o f Maria has enough for the expert to analyze while still being approachable for anyone.

Swan Song of Maria runs until November 22, Wednesday to Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sun­ day at 3:30 p.m., at MAI.

Cross-dressing seems to be the big theme for student theatre this fall: TNC Theatre’s The Caretaker has three women playing men in this “tragicom­ edy” exploring a bizarre cat and mouse game. Plays Nov. 11-14 and 18-21, 8 p.m. @ Morrice Hall.

Thursday. Theatre. Quattro Matrimoni e un Battesimo.

McGill’s Commedia D ell’Arte class is putting on their annual play, filled with love triangles, drama, and plot twists.

And it’s free! 7:30 p.m. @ Leacock 132.

Saturday. Film. Strange Films for Curious People.

Cinema du Parc is running double features of dark, classic cult films, every Saturday this month. This weekend, see Canadian cult king David Cronenberg’s Stereo ( 1969) and Crimes o f the Future (1970), both of which contain perverse, paranormal sex. Like all his films. 3 p.m. @ Cinema du Parc.

Saturday. Music. Band of Skulls.

UK breakout artists Band of Skulls have made a name for themselves this past year with the release of their debut album Baby Darling Doll Face Honey.

Catch them live this time before they blow up. @ Metropolis.

Sp o r t s

Curiosity Delivers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • 17

R E D M E N R U G B Y - M C G IL L 55, B I S H O P ’S 7

Redmen rugby wins fourth consecutive Quebec championship M cG ill to take on D alhousie fo r Eastern C anadian crown TH O M A S QU AIL Editor-in-C hief

A chorus of cheers rang out on Saturday as McGill captain James Stellick—for the fourth time in four years—hoisted the Quebec University M en’s Rugby Championship ban­ ner above his head. Paying no heed to the wind and cold, the Redmen ran roughshod over the helpless Gaiters en route to a 55-7 victory, and secured a berth in the Eastern Canadian Cham­ pionship.

“We played reasonably well,” said Head Coach Sean McCaffrey. “Bishop’s came out physical like we expected. We put a lot of de­ mands on our players to respond to that—and I think they did.”

McGill will play perennial powerhouse Dalhousie for the Eastern Championship next weekend. Last year, Dalhousie defeated the Redmen at Molson Stadium in a heartbreaker, converting a last-second penalty. However, if the Redmen forwards can continue to secure a clean ball for their backline as they did all season long, the Eastern Championship is well within reach.

“I feel our team is stronger this year,” McCaffrey said. “We’ve got a ton of depth.

The guys on the bench would start for any other team. I don’t know if that was the case last year.”

The Redmen came storming out of the gates, racking up a 29-0 lead by the 22nd min­ ute. The Bishop’s forwards were physical from the onset, but the Redmen were up to the task, stifling the Gaiters’ brutish onslaught time and again.

M cGill’s backline put on a match-day clinic, combining blazing speed with dazzling creativity for a full 80 minutes. The backline also experimented with some new plays on Saturday—presumably in preparation for the

Eastern Championship. But according to sec­ ond-year centre Sam Skulsky, the new patterns still need some tinkering.

“We have some work to do,” he said. “We need to get more into the pattern. Up until now, it’s been easy to score off the first couple of phases.”

Skulsky ran strongly all game, notching three tries and a conversion. Fly-half Alastair Crow also played well, leading the Redmen backs masterfully and consistently pinning the Gaiters’ backline deep in their own end.

Ultimately, though, it was the Redmen forwards who rucked, tackled, and secured possession, allowing the McGill backline to have their way with the Gaiters.

“I told [the forwards] at the beginning of the game to put a stamp on the game [and]

T

hird

dominate,” McCaffrey said. “I felt that they did that.”

Nicholas Johnson scored the Gaiters’ lone try with four minutes left in the first half. After a questionable yellow card, Bishop’s mounted an offensive, pounding the ball up the pitch.

Johnson, Bishop’s loose-head prop, barreled through a cluster of Redmen defenders and dropped into the try zone.

The Redmen offence responded by scor­ ing two more tries before halftime. Skulsky stressed the need to stay focused, even when playing against overmatched competition.

“In the middle of the season, we slowed down a bit, because the competition wasn’t that strong,” he said. “But by the end we real­ ized that we had to pick it up, because we real­ ized other teams wanted the banner as much

M

ax

I

as we did.”

With 20 minutes left in the second half, Skulsky scored a highlight-reel try. With the Gaiters’ defence out of position, Redmen winger Michael Davis turned on the jets, speeding 40 metres down the pitch. The Red­ men forwards, in hot pursuit, rucked, and se­ cured possession. Scrum-half Josh Renick then played two forward phases before spinning it wide, and Crow neatly passed to Skulsky for the easy score.

The Redmen will need to tighten up their scrums and lineouts if they wish to challenge Dalhousie next weekend. But the pieces are in place for a strong run at a national champion­ ship, and the Redmen are eager to get another chance at last year’s conquerors.

n JO N RUBENSTEIN

CONTRACTUAL ISSUES As a die-hard sports fan, I see headlines about athletes signing extensions and free agents agreeing to major deals every day.

Usually, I gloss over the figures of a con­ tract to decide whether the athlete deserves the deal, or if the team is overpaying. After a minute of analysis, I move on to see what else is happening in the world of sports.

Then I read about Rajon Rondo’s recent contract extension with the Boston Celt­ ics. Last week, Rondo signed a $55 million extension to remain with the Celtics for the next five years. I don’t know why this con­ tract made me stop and smell the roses, but it did. Athletes are getting paid far too much money. Period. The fact that a 23-year-old makes $11 million a year to play a sport doesn’t entertain m e—it disgusts me.

How is it possible that during an eco­ nomic recession—when millions of people

around the world are losing their jobs, their homes, and their futures—some adolescent can become a multi-millionaire by simply playing a sport? Athletes’ salaries haven’t dropped in the wake of recent economic uncertainty; in fact, they’ve continued to grow.

As a fan, I understand how massive contracts come about in sports. Exorbitant ticket prices, owners with 10-figure bank accounts, and the vast amount of revenue teams generate from merchandise, spon­ sorships, and television deals allow many professional athletes access to obscenely lavish contracts. In short, the money is there for young players to become multi-million­ aires.

But what does it say about our society when the average surgeon makes $200,000 a year and the average MLB player makes $3 million a year? The surgeon’s skill often determines whether a person lives or dies.

A baseball player tries to hit a ball with a

bat, and usually misses. Going by the dol­ lar signs, society places more importance on entertainment than it does on jobs that are essential to human survival. Frankly, that’s sad.

I love sports. But I don’t think profes­ sional athletes deserve to earn what they do. I understand that they are the best in the world in their respective fields. But even still, while the best surgeon might make a couple million dollars a year, Alex Rodri­ guez makes $25 million.

At first, I wanted to blame the own­ ers for handing out these extravagant deals.

Then I wanted to blame the leagues them­ selves for setting up a system where ath­ letes can get paid like this. But after a bit of searching, I realized that the source of the problem lay right in front of me. The prob­ lem is the sports fan.

W ho's paying for tickets? W ho’s buy­ ing the jerseys? W ho’s wearing the Air Jordans? We are. And in the end, w e’re the

reason pro athletes’ contracts have risen to these insane levels. If w e’re willing to pay $200 to go to a hockey game or drop $120 on a football jersey, we most certainly are the ones to blame.

Many people complain about how ex­ pensive it is to attend a sporting event, yet they still go. And they’ll keep on going no matter how expensive it gets. As much as we complain, the time will never come when a team ’s fan base boycotts the club due to ris­ ing ticket prices. It won’t happen because we love sports too much.

So, the next time you read a headline about an athlete signing a ridiculous con­ tract and you start wishing you could make a fraction of what he makes, don’t blame the owners or the structure of the league. Blame yourself for feeding into an unfair economic system.

mcgil ltribune .com

18 • Tuesday, November 10, 2009

M A R T L E T V O L L E Y B A L L - M C G IL L 3, L A V A L 0

Martlets prove critics wrong with straight-set victory over Laval M cG ill opens regular season with statem ent w in KAILAN LEUNG Sports Editor

The McGill women’s volleyball team wasn’t happy to discover that they had dropped to 10th in the latest CIS national rankings. But instead of complaining, the Martlets let their play do the talking on Friday night. In front of a packed crowd at Love Competition Hall, McGill dominated the fourth-ranked Laval Rouge et Or, winning in straight sets to open the regular season and send a message to the rest of the league.

McGill started off slowly, giving Laval a couple of easy opportunities and falling behind 3-7 at the first timeout. However, the Martlets came roaring back to take a 15-9 advantage later in the first set. Back-to-back solo blocks by third-year power-hitter Alexandra Sheppard emphatically ended any chance of a Rouge et Or comeback, and McGill cruised to a first set score of 25-14.

Senior power-hitter Amy Graham fin­ ished with eight kills and a game-high 13.5 points for the Martlets, and acknowledged that the team definitely came out with something to prove.

“I think it was great that we got it done in three [sets],” she said. “There was some controversy [with the rankings] coming into this game. We really wanted to prove our­ selves, and it was definitely good to [do that] at home.”

The Martlets appeared more relaxed during the second set, quickly racking up a double-digit lead and keeping the pressure on Laval. Senior middle Kelsey Irwin anchored a tight McGill block that helped force the Rouge et Or into committing 20 hitting errors. Fifthyear power-hitter Jennifer Thomson provided excellent floor leadership and came up with

two clutch kills late in the match. McGill also dominated at the service line, finishing with 14 aces to Laval’s two.

“I think we played pretty well,” said Head Coach Rachel Beliveau. “We followed the game plan almost perfectly. We let down a little in the third set, but in general we really did what we had to do to beat them. We wanted this game.”

Laval certainly made things interesting in the third set, playing smarter volleyball and seemingly capitalizing on every McGill error.

Consecutive aces by the Rouge et Or put the visitors up by a point late in the set, and a du­ bious lifting call on sophomore power-hitter Jacqueline Ng gave Laval a 24-23 lead. How­ ever, the Martlets showed incredible poise and

rattled off the next three points, winning the game on the last of Ng’s three aces. Graham pointed out the team ’s third set performance as an indicator of their maturity and talent.

“I think we let up a bit,” said Graham. “I don’t think it was jitters, I think we just needed a final push to get going. They got back into it and we just thought, OK, w e’re getting this done, and w e’re getting this done in three.”

After a successful preseason in which the team ’s only inter-league losses came against perennial powerhouse the Montreal Carabins, the Martlets are hoping to fully realize their potential and make some noise at Nationals this year. However, the squad has to carve out a top spot in a hotly contested Quebec league.

“All the games count,” said Beliveau.

“The league is so tight and so competitive, with three teams from Quebec ranked in the top 10. [But] we want to get to Nationals, no question about it.”

There’s also no question that the Martlets passed their first test with flying colors, as they showed everyone in attendance on Friday night that they deserve to be taken very seriously.

Despite a hard-fought loss to the Carabins on Saturday, the Martlets believe they have what it takes to compete with the best in the CIS; all they need is the opportunity to prove it. McGill heads to Sherbrooke to take on the Vert et Or on November 13 at 6 p.m.

adam

scorn

Steady defensive play and a potent offense proved a winning combination in McGill’s season opener against Laval.

M A R T L E T S O C C E R - M C G IL L 1, M O N T R E A L 2

Martlets fall in hard-fought loss to top-ranked Carabins M cG ill fa ils to qualify fo r N ationals MATT CHESSER ______________________O pinion Editor____________________

In most cases, a top-10 national ranking and a decisive victory in league semi-finals play would guarantee the McGill women’s soccer team a spot at Nationals. But not this year. With only one Nationals berth available for a Quebec team this season, the Martlets had the misfortune of playing in the same province as the best team in the country.

After dominating the Sherbrooke Vert et Or 3-1 in the Quebec University Soccer League semi-finals on Friday night, the Mar­ tlets couldn’t get past the Montreal Carabins on Sunday afternoon, losing 2-1 to the nation’s top-ranked team. As a result, the Carabins will be the lone QUSL representative at Nationals this year, while all other conferences will have at least two teams in the tournament.

“We’re disappointed with the result of the game, but more upset that we can’t go to Na­ tionals when [two Quebec teams] deserve to

be there,” said Head Coach Marc Mounicot.

“I think it’s not fair, but it’s an administrative matter and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Friday night’s match was more one-sided than the scoreboard indicated, as the Martlets dominated the Vert et Or on both sides of the ball.

On offence, midfielder Anna Smith had perhaps the best game of any Martlet this sea­ son, opening up the scoring in the 12th minute of play with a curling shot to the top left cor­ ner of the net from 15 yards out. Smith was also the architect of M cGill’s other two goals.

Her low cross found midfielder Hannah Sim­ mons for a goal four minutes into the second half, and Smith’s free kick was headed in by defender Elizabeth Williams to give the Mart­ lets a 3-0 lead in the 65th minute. Smith had a handful of other shots that forced tough saves

by Sherbrooke goalkeeper Marie-Michelle Coulombe.

Defensively, the Martlets limited the Vert et Or to only two quality scoring chances in the game: Chloe Belhumeur-Limoges’s goal in

the 68th minute and a disallowed goal in the 10th minute. Aside from the miscommunication on Limoges’s goal—created by a lack of concentration from the Martlet defence and uncharacteristic hesitancy from McGill keeper Anne-Catherine H uot—the M artlets’ backline was outstanding, controlling the middle of the pitch and allowing McGill to dominate the possession battle.

Friday’s victory over Sherbrooke set up a QUSL final against the Montreal Carabins and gave the Martlets their first shot at the Quebec Championship in three years. Montreal was al­ most unstoppable in the regular season, post­ ing a CIS-best 14-1-1 record and an incredible plus-55 goal differential. In keeping with their regular season dominance, the Carabins proved too strong for M ounicot’s squad on Sunday.

A successful penalty kick by Véronique Maranda in the 13th minute and a second-half goal by Eva Thouvenot-Hébert—after Huot struggled to handle a poor pass by a Martlet defender—were enough to secure a secondstraight QUSL title for the Carabins.

Midfielder Claire Hooper had the lone

goal for the Martlets, taking a pass from de­ fender Carolyn Bell and blasting the ball past Carabins goalkeeper Martine Julien in the 74th minute.

“We had two defensive mistakes and 1 thought we wouldn’t have a chance after that,” said Mounicot. “But our team rallied and we had Montreal on their heels for the last 15 min­ utes.”

Despite expressing disappointment over the loss, Mounicot was encouraged by the per­ formance of his team this season, and claims that the Martlets are a squad built to peak in two years when McGill will host Nationals.

The team will lose Huot, Williams, and striker Cristina Di Caprio to graduation, but have an abundance of young talent that will likely challenge for the conference championship next year.

“There is no way we cannot qualify for Nationals next year,” said Mounicot. “Two Quebec teams will qualify for Nationals next year, and our team is going to mature, re­ cruit hard, and work harder to be one of those teams.”

Curiosity Delivers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 * 19

Sp o r t s

R E D M E N B A S K E T B A L L - M C G IL L 69, L A V A L 9 4

Rouge et Or rip Redmen M cG ill unable to keep up with L a v a l’s defensive pressure

i n br ief

Redmen Soccer Eugene Graske scored in the 28th minute of play and Sami Obaid added an insurance marker in the 67th minute as visiting McGill upset the fourth-ranked Montreal Carabins 2-0 in a sudden-death men’s soccer semifinal game, Friday. With the win, the Redmen have qualified for Nationals for the first time since 2004. The squad will take on McMaster in a sudden-death affair at the CIS men’s soccer championship. The eight-team, single-elimi­ nation tournament, hosted for the first time in Langley, B.C., gets under way Thursday with the quarterfinal round.

JOHN HUI C ontributor

Fresh off a convincing 103-68 preseason win over UPEI last week, the McGill men’s basketball team looked to start the regular season on a positive note, as they took on the Laval Rouge et Or in front of a packed gymna­ sium on Sunday afternoon. What started with a bang, though, soon sputtered and fizzled out, as the Redmen succumbed to Laval’s constant pressure, losing 69-94.

McGill came out of the gates on fire, with senior guard Matthew Thornhill burying a three-pointer a little more than a minute in to cap an early 7-0 run. The Redmen looked focussed and energetic, forcing turnovers, capitalizing on offence, and limiting the op­ position to one shot. The Redmen seemed to counter everything a strong Laval team threw their way, and ended the quarter tied at 20 apiece.

The home squad’s energy, however, began to wane in the second period, as the Redmen misfired on a number of shots from close range. McGill had trouble dealing with the Rouge et Or full-court press, coughing the ball up continuously on the inbounds pass and failing to set up their offence in the half-court.

Although the Redmen managed to close the first half shooting a respectable 46 per cent from the field, Head Coach Craig Norman ex­ pressed disappointment with the way his team handled Laval’s pressure.

“There weren’t a lot of positives out there tonight,” he said. “We showed that we can score. [But] defensively w e’ve got to be bet­ ter. We’ve got to execute on both sides of the court. We didn’t take advantage of some mis­ matches. They were switching on screens and they had smaller guys on our big guys and we didn’t get the ball in the right position.”

Things came apart for the Redmen almost immediately in the third quarter, as the Rouge et Or put on a shooting clinic to gain separa­ tion from the home team. The Redmen were caught flat-footed on several occasions, and Laval took full advantage, finishing the game shooting a blistering 55 per cent from the field and 58 per cent from three-point land. Senior forward Michael White, who led the team in scoring with 13 points, understands that the team needs to reverse the negative trends from Sunday afternoon.

“We have to box out,” said White. “We have to get the rebounds [and] give ourselves a chance. When a team like that gets second

Martlet Hockey Ann-Sophie Bettez of Sept-Iles, QC. tal­ lied twice and was one of eight McGill players to notch two points as the first-ranked Mar­ tlets galloped past the Ottawa Gee-Gees 6-1

in women’s university hockey, Sunday. The result improved M cGill’s record to 6-0 on the season and extended the Martlets win streak to 60 consecutive games, just seven shy of the CIS record held by Alberta. McGill will host Carleton (3-3) in an 8:30 p.m. start on Nov. 14 as the highlight of their annual Martlet Showdown high school tourney at McConnell Arena.

Redmen Hockey Sophomore forward Francis VerreaultPaul of Mashteviatsh, QC. scored twice and added a helper as fifh-ranked McGill doubled the Carleton Ravens in OUA m en’s university hockey at McConnell Arena on Wednesday.

The Redmen improved to 5-0 in the OUA East and will attempt to stretch their win streak to six when they play host to the Toronto Varsity Blues (4-3-1) on Sunday at 2 p.m.

- Earl Zuckerman

HOLLY STEWART

McGill looks ahead to UQAM on Nov. 13. chances and three-point chances like that, a gap opens [up] pretty quickly. They shot the lights out tonight and rebounded. [If] we are going to win, we have to limit them to one shot and take away their [offensive] rebounds.”

Laval’s defence also picked up in the second half, as the Rouge et Or contested every McGill shot on the perimeter and kept the Redmen guards from penetrating into the paint. The visitors’ effort showed on the scoreboard, as M cGill’s scoring production was cut in half after intermission; Laval outscored the Redmen 46 to 23 in the second half.

“During the second half, we were less ag­ gressive and just couldn’t get [any] rebounds,” said first-year guard Winn Clark, who finished with ten points and five boards.

With only a handful o f returning players, the Redmen know that they will have to follow a steep learning curve in order to be success­ ful this season. Norman, for one, is optimistic about the potential of his squad, and believes that Sunday’s loss will soon be a distant mem­ ory.

“I expect us to play a lot better than we played tonight,” he said. “I think the team you saw in the first half is more indicative [of who we are]. We are young and w e’ve got to learn to battle a bit. We will rebound from this and I think we will have a great season.”

McGill will have only a few days to make their adjustments, as the Redmen travel down­ town to take on the UQAM Citadins on No­ vember 13 at 8 p.m.

3 03 a>

CD

c

<v

Q Î CD 3

V*

-a

o o

THE

c=

o

co 03

IS... BOULEVARD SAINT-LAURENT!

“MAIN” w w w . b o u l e v a r d s a i n t l a u r e n t . c o m

Arev Computers Ordinateurs Arev Contact: Ara

514-246-7575

Installation, repair, virus removal, new com puter assembly.

Networking, laptop repair.

Computer parts sold on th e w eb site.

SSMU JUDICIAL BOARD NOTICE This will serve as notice that the Judicial Board will hear the Golle v. McGill Tribune case.

Under section 22 of the Code of Students’ Society of McGill University Judicial Board Procedures, anyone wishing to intervene in the dispute must apply directly to the Judicial Board within five (5) days from this notice. An application form is available at your student society office.

—Judicial Board

Installation de logiciels et de composantes, désinfection de virus inform atique, assemblage d'ordinateurs, réparation d'ordinateurs portatifs.

Vente de pièces d ’ordinateur sur le site web.

Any regular or large ctiporoone.

BEN « JERRY M CGILL 123# MCGILL College MONTREAL, QUEBEC V A L » UNTIL FEBRUARY

Web site: www.arevaranetwork.com

Email: arev@bellnet.ca

REMEMBRANCE DAY ON CAMPUS McGill will hold a Remembrance Day ceremony that will take place Wednesday morning, Nov. 11, on the lower field of the downtown campus. The event begins at 10:30 a.m on the lower field

Some actions are ju st plain dangerous. q ) coNsiGNaction.ca

R e tu r n y o u r c a n s.

Energy drinks 5$ deposit