The McGill Tribune Vol. 30 Issue 23

COMPUTING IN THE 5K¥ CLOUDS, PAGES 10-11

Published by the Tribune Publication Society Volume No. 30 Issue No. 23

MARTLETS NATIONAL CHAMPS ONCE AGAIN, BACK PAGE

M c G i l l s t u d e n t in v e s t ig a t e d f o r h a te fu l t w e e t s “ I w a n t t o s h o o t e v e r y o n e in t h i s r o o m , ” H a a r i s K h a n w r o t e a t a c a m p u s f i l m s c r e e n i n g l a s t w e e k

By Theo Meyer________________ M anaging Editor

The McGill administration is currently investigating Haaris Khan, a McGill student who, using Twit­ ter, threatened to shoot a roomful of other students last week at a campus film screening.

Khan made the threats at a

Indoctrinate U,

screening of a documentary, on March 8 hosted

by Conservative McGill and Liber­ tarian McGill. “I want to shoot ev­ eryone in this room,” he tweeted at one point during the film, adding, “I should have brought an M16.”

None of the 20 or so students at the screening knew about the threats at the time, the event’s organizers

K n ig h t w in s S S M U

said. Khan sat in the back of the room and tweeted quietly using his BlackBerry.

The event’s organizers found out about the tweets on Thursday, said Kevin Pidgeon, a Conserva­ tive McGill member who attended the event. A friend of Brendan Ste­ ven, another Conservative McGill member, contacted Steven about the

posts, Pidgeon said. After reviewing them, Steven and the event’s other organizers decided to call McGill Security.

Though Khan has since deac­ tivated his Twitter account, Con­ servative McGill members, at the suggestion of the Montreal Police Department, took screenshots of his tweets for evidence. Over the span

of about an hour and half, during the screening Khan railed against Jews and Zionists in 10 separate tweets.

“I’ve infiltrated a Zionist meet­ ing,” Khan wrote in his first tweet, at 6:04 p.m., shortly after the event began. “I feel like I’m at a Satanist ritual.”

“Oh man, a Muslim girl just See “ADMIN” on page 2

p re sid e n c y , b e a tin g R o o n e y -C é sp e d e s

By Anand Bery and Sean Wood Contributor and N ew s Editor

SSMU exec election winners (clockwise from upper right) Shyam Patel, Carol Fraser, and Maggie Knight celebrate. (Anna Katycheva / McGill Tribune)

Students’ Society Councillor Maggie Knight was elected SSMU president Friday night, beating op­ ponent Cathal Rooney-Céspedes with 67.2 per cent of the 4,172 votes cast.

Chief Electoral Officer Tais McNeil made the announcement in a two-thirds full Gert’s, which erupted in celebration at the an­ nouncement. A number of audience members chanted “Maggie! Mag­ gie! Maggie!”

“It’s really heartwarming for me to see that people believe in my abilities to do this work,” Knight said.

Approximately 21 per cent 6f undergraduates voted in the elec­ tions.

In general, the crowd expressed overwhelming enthusiasm for each winner announced.

Rooney-Céspedes was sur­ prised by the large deficit, but said Knight won for a simple reason.

“More people came out to vote for her,” he said. “The day that campaigning started, her Facebook event had something like 50 people on it, because she had the support of all of Council.”

Knight attributed her success to the help she received on her cam­ paign.

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A d m in c h o s e n o t to a le rt s tu d e n ts Continued from COVER appeared,” he wrote in his next post.

“I thought, like me, she’s a freedom fighter. Unfortunately, she’s a co­ conspirator. Traitor.”

About half an hour into the screening, Khan’s tweets turned vio­ lent.

“My blood is boiling,” he wrote at 6:38 p.m. “I want to shoot every­ one in this room. I’m frightened, alarmed, and downright pissed.

Never been this angry.”

“This experience has hardened me into a soldier for freedom and truth,” Khan wrote about an hour later. He posted his last tweet, about bringing an M l6, minutes later.

Khan continued tweeting angri­ ly for much of the next day, though not always about Zionism or Conser­ vative McGill. (He called the Boston Bruins defenceman Zdeno Châra a “giant penis” after Châra delivered a brutal hit to Montreal Canadiens for­ ward Max Pacioretty that night.)

But at 1:14 p.m. the next day, Khan tweeted, “The jihad begins today.”

McGill Security contacted the Montreal Police Department after Alexandre Meterissian, another Conservative McGill member, re­ ported Khan’s threats on Thursday.

The police, Meterissian said, called him later that night and told him they were opening an investigation. Khan did not have any registered weapons, the police told him, and promised to call him if they made an arrest.

According to Khan, however, he has not been contacted by the po­ lice at all. He met with the McGill administration on Friday, he said, but refused to give any details about

the meeting.

McGill’s administration has not informed the student body about the threats and, citing the province’s privacy legislation, has refused to provide much information to the stu­ dents who reported Khan’s tweets.

Dean of Students Jane Everett met with Pidgeon and Meterissian on Monday, but Pidgeon described the meeting as “completely unhelpful.”

The university, Meterissian added shortly before the meeting, was using privacy laws “to not tell us anything, at least not by email or phone.”

In a brief written statement to the Tribune, Everett said the admin­ istration had investigated the matter and was taking appropriate disci­ plinary action.

“It was determined that there was no need to advise the commu­ nity of the matter because there was no danger posed to the community,” she said.

According to Pidgeon, Con­ servative McGill’s leadership knew little about Khan before reading his tweets. Khan had published an op-ed piece attacking the Prince Arthur Herald—a student news website founded several months earlier by Steven and Pidgeon and staffed by a number of Conservative McGill members—in the McGill Daily in January, but none of them had paid it much mind.

After reading the tweets, Pid­ geon said he had trouble understand­ ing exactly what it was about the event that set Khan off. , the documentary screened at the event, deals with a perceived liberal bias in American universities and

Indoctrinate

U

does not touch on religion.

“It had nothing to do with Zion­ ism or Israel or Judaism in general,” Pidgeon said.

In an interview with the Tribune on Monday, Khan, a soft-spoken U2 international development studies and software engineering student from Laval, apologized and said that Conservative McGill’s members had taken his tweets out of context.

He uses Twitter, he said, simply to vent his emotions.

“Whatever comes into my mind, I say it on Twitter,” he said.

“It’s kind of my outlet.”

Khan doesn’t own any weap­ ons, he said, and doesn’t know any­ one who does. He has never fired a gun.

Despite his threats of jihad, Khan said he is not particularly re­ ligious and doesn’t have much at­ tachment to Islam. His sister-in-law is Jewish, he added, and he doesn’t consider himself anti-Semitic.

“I don’t have a problem with Jews,” he said.

Though Khan sent an email to Zach Paikin, a Prince Arthur Herald columnist who attended the screen­ ing, on Sunday night, Khan said he has not had any contact with Con­ servative McGill members. But he would like them to realize, he said, “that I’m not a demon.”

Pidgeon and Meterissian, how­ ever, said they were concerned for their safety.

“I’m 100 per cent for free speech,” Pidgeon said, “But when it encroaches on my and about 15 other people’s right to life . . . I think right to life wins out over right to free speech.”

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R ez c a tc h e s fire

18 s t u d e n t s m o v e d t o D e lta H o te l

By Sean Wood________________ N ew s Editor

Students who live in McGill residences are all too familiar with fire drills. Last Tuesday, however, New Residence Hall experienced the real thing.

In the late morning, a small fire on the 14th floor set off the sprin­ klers, causing major water damage to 12 rooms, which has dislocated a number of students to a hotel for the rest of the semester.

After pulling an all-nighter for a chemistry midterm, Aleksandra, a student who wishes only to be iden­ tified by her first name, lit a scented candle on her windowsill to help herself fall asleep at 9:45 a.m. Both­ ered by the sunlight coming through the window, she got up, shut the cur­ tains, and went.back to bed.

Her roommate returned from class around 10:10 and two minutes later the curtains were ablaze.

“I turned around and saw the fire a half a metre away from my head,” Aleksandra said.

The girls tried to smother the flames to no avail. They got a fire extinguisher from the hallway, but couldn’t get back into the room be­ cause the door had locked behind them. They went to pull the hallway fire alarms, but couldn’t get any to work. Frantically, they rushed down the building, stopping at each floor trying to find one that would sound.

The alarms, in fact, were working, but the alert sounds had been dis­ abled because of maintenance.

“The crazy coincidence, which had about the same odds as winning the lottery, was that we were doing some maintenance on the sprinkler system at that exact time, so we shut off the actual bell, not the alarm sys­ tem, so that we wouldn’t acciden­ tally have to evacuate 700 people,” said Michael Porritt, McGill director of residences.

Building employees used the building intercom to inform stu­

dents, and the alarms, functioning silently, still notified the Montreal Fire Department. According to a Montreal Fire Department represen­ tative firefighters, received notice at 10:23 a.m. and had taken care of the fire by 11:20. All 700 students in the residence were evacuated safely and efficiently.

“It was one of the fastest evacu­ ations we’ve ever had,” said Porritt.

The fire did not spread beyond Aleksandra’s room, and only dam­ aged the curtains, the window, the wall, and a pillow. The real costs of the fire are a result of water dam­ age. Sprinklers damaged four rooms on the 14th floor, four rooms on the 12th, and four rooms on the 11th badly enough that they will not be usable for the rest of the year. 20 students have had to move, 18 to the Delta Hotel at the intersection of President Kennedy and City Coun­ cillors Avenues, and two to other rooms in New Rez. According to an email sent from Porritt to all New Residence residents, construction on the dam­ aged rooms will begin in May. Given that it will take six weeks, there is no incentive for McGill Residences to rush to complete it before the end of the school year as there is no chance that students will be able to move back into them. Meanwhile, Resi­ dences will be replacing wet drywall and insulation in the near future.

The estimated costs of the damage would not be available for several weeks, Porritt said. Also, at this point it is unclear whether Aleksandra will be held liable. Open flames are forbidden in McGill Resi­ dences, which might put her at risk.

A disciplinary hearing is tentatively planned.

“It was a total accident,” said Aleksandra, “It could have hap­ pened to anyone.

“I want to apologize to all the people who had to get relocated,” she added.

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N e w s in B r ie f McLennan and Redpath libraries to undergo maintenance renovations; services will be unaffected

After many years of planning, deferred maintenance renovations are now under way in the McLennan and Redpath libraries. The project, which is planned to be completed by next September, will replace the libraries' 50-year-old heating and cooling systems.

“In both of these libraries there's a real variation in the com­ fort. It's often too cold or too hot,” said Amber Lannon, the renova­ tion's project leader. “With the old equipment we have it's hard to get the temperature in the right range.”

Lannon also noted that the new system will also be more environ­ mentally efficient. During the re­ placement of the mechanical room equipment (scheduled for after the exam period) however, temperatures in the buildings may be warmer until the new equipment is in place. Stu­ dents may also notice work in prog­ ress and increased noise.

Because the work will be con­ strained to relatively small areas however, Lannon is confident the impact on students will be limited.

“We can't say there won't be any impact during the exam pe­

riod, because of course in the area being directly worked on, there will be impact,” she said. “But because they are going floor by floor and working on relatively small areas at a time, the impact should be mini­ mal. We will direct students to other study areas as the work progresses.”

Carole urbain, associate director of Client Services (Humanities, Law, Management and Social Sciences) added that access to the libraries' collections should not be affected at any point. In addition, students will be kept up to date regarding where exactly in the library renovations are currently taking place through a special page on the library website.

On site signage and renovation mes­ sages on public screens will also be posted throughout the library.

“The workers themselves will work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” Urbain said. “Also, there will be no impact on the 24-hour access.”

For the current status on McLennan-Redpath library reno­ vations, visit mcgill.ca/library/ library-about/renovations/ — Tori Crawford

CAM PUS

Z a id i to ta k e N e w b u r g h to J-B o ard W a n t s to s e e w h e t h e r h e b r e a c h e d c o n flic t-o f-in te r e s t p o lic y

By Matt Essert News Editor Students’ Society Vice Presi­ dent External Myriam Zaidi plans to file a case with the SSMU Judicial Board against President Zach New­ burgh over the alleged conflict of interest stemming from his involve­ ment with Jobbook, an employmentbased social networking website.

Concerned with the lack of “in-depth analysis of the conflict of interest policy and whether or not it was breached,” Zaidi said she wants to present all the new evidence that has come to light in various campus media outlets since the February 3 Council meeting at which council­ lors voted to censure Newburgh.

However, Newburgh believes that all pertinent available evi­ dence has already been presented and that “there’s nothing lurking or hiding around any comers that peo­ ple should still be waiting to hear about.”

Zaidi maintains that it is still important for the J-Board to have an outside perspective, to look into the financial transactions section of con­ flict of interest policy in order to ar­ rive at a “final, impartial decision.”

“One thing that's good about JBoard is that politics are not mixed into it, or other things like relation­ ships,” Zaidi said. “All they look at is the policies.”

Zaidi added that since the JBoard’s main function is to interpret SSMU’s policies, they are most ca­ pable of providing a thorough and informed analysis of the issue at hand.

If the case is heard by the JBoard, Newburgh will be facing his second case concerning a violation of the conflict of interest policy.

Newburgh claims “to know this policy very well,” and to be com­ fortable at a hearing.

“It’s going to do a lot of clari­ fying on the issue and I think it’s clarification that’s certainly needed.

Individuals need to know that there was not a policy breach, and I am looking forward to the verdict of the Judicial Board, if this case is if even heard. To my knowledge, there cur­ rently is no case in the first place,” Newburgh said.

Currently, no case has officially been filled with the J-Board, mean­ ing that Newburgh is still unaware of the exact arguments that will be brought against him. Zaidi said she

plans to file the case by next Mon­ day.

Both Newburgh and Zaidi said that some review of the current con­ flict of interest policy ought to be undertaken in order to avoid future problems similar to those which arose this semester.

Meanwhile, Zaidi said there has recently been a “cloud” over the SSMU executive.

“Executives are more emotion­ ally involved because it's our dayto-day life, and we were a team. So there's trust issues and things like that,” Zaidi said. “I talked with Zach and told him I still believe there was a conflict-of-interest breach and he said he doesn't think there was. So I said that's exactly why I want to [go to J-Board.]”

Newburgh, for his part, argued that the best way to move forward is to put SSMU’s focus back on the student body rather than on himself.

“What we ought to do is turn our focus back to the students where it ought to be,” Newburgh added.

“But if this is the closure that some people need, then I’m happy to pro­ vide it.”

N e w e x e c : K n ig h t, F ra s e r, P a te l, P e d n e a u lt, P lu m m e r , C la re Continued from COVER “I had a campaign team of 60 people. I don’t know if that’s the biggest ever, but it’s certainly close,” she said. “It was exciting to know it was worthwhile.”

The election for VP clubs and services was the night’s tightest, with Fraser, a coordinator with Mid­ night Kitchen, beating Fabian, the current interest group coordinator, by a mere 27 votes.

“It’s a real honour,” Fraser said.

“Monika Fabian ran a really good campaign and I think she would have been just as good as me, and I think it was reflected in the vote.”

The four-candidate race for VP internal was also tight. Todd Plum­ mer inched out Kady Paterson (24.3 per cent) and Natalie Talmi (24.0 per cent) with 25.4 per cent of the vote.

Many thought the election for VP university affairs would be close, but Emily Clare beat opponent Lau­ ren Hudak by 10.8 per cent.

“I had an incredible team campaigning for me,” Clare said.

“I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Shyam Patel won the VP finance and operations election handily, and Joël Pedneault was acclaimed VP

external.

All five of the referendum ques­ tions passed, including ones that increased funding to the Midnight Kitchen and TV McGill. Students also approved increases to the SSMU Ambassador Fee; funding for Queer McGill, Nightline, and the Union for Gender Empowerment; and the cre­ ation of a fee for the McGill Interna­ tional Students’ Network.

Jason Leung and Matthew Crawford were elected Arts sena­ tors. Annie Ma and Max Luke were elected Science senators with 35.5 and 36.8 per cent of the vote, respec­ tively. Ryan Kirsch, Emil Briones, Ian Clarke, and Haley Dinel were acclaimed Dentistry, Music, Law, and Religious Studies senators, re­ spectively. Tom Acker became Man­ agement Senator with 39.0 per cent of the vote, while Usman bin Shahid was elected Engineering senator with 50.0 per cent of the vote. Sameer Apte was elected Medicine senator with 40.8 per cent of the vote.

Next year’s executive is excited to work together,” Fraser said.

“We got to know each other during the campaign. We were all really supportive,” she said.

SSMU 2011 Election Results

I o

CL

President

VP Internal

VP FOPS

VP External

VP UA

VP C&S

While the elections for most positions were decided by a wide margin, those for Clubs and Services and Internal were very close. (M att Essert / McGill Tribune)

Curiosity Delivers, www.mcgilltribune.com

4 CAM PUS

P ro fs sa y s tu d e n ts s e ld o m

ta k e a d v a n ta g e o f o ffic e h o u r s

M c G i l l ’s h e a v y e m p h a s i s o n g o i n g t o c l a s s m a k e s s t u d e n t s f o r g e t “ i n t e l l e c t u a l s u p e r m a r k e t , ” p r o f s a y s

By Kat Sieniuc________________ Contributor Psychology professor Donald Taylor does his best to make stu­ dents feel comfortable in his office.

“I tell my students that if they want to come and see me, we don't have to talk about a chapter in the book, but they have to say some­ thing nice about my bottled lights,” he said as he pointed to a bottle full of Christmas lights sitting on his desk.

Unfortunately, most students are still afraid to come in and see him. He’s not alone: sparsely at­ tended office hours are common all over McGill.

More often than not, professors and TAs find themselves alone dur­ ing the time they designate for stu­ dents.

“The number who come in is far less than you would expect,” said Taylor.

According to Louis Hermo, a professor in anatomy and cell biol­ ogy, students are probably just in-

timidated.

“I would say most of the stu­ dents are really shy and they don't like to come see the professors,” Hermo said. “I think they feel that maybe we may jump down their throats or be aggressive with them.”

Hermo receives more questions through emails than physical meet­ ings.

Gershon Hundert, a history pro­ fessor, agreed that class size prob­ ably correlates with the frequency and amount of office visits by stu­ dents.

“I think that in the smaller classes the dynamics might be differ­ ent because the professor becomes an actual human being and may be thought of as more accessible,” he said.

The second problem, Taylor said, is McGill’s structure.

“The university indirectly sends the message of education as com­ partmentalized and class-driven so as to give students the idea of going to university as only of going to class,” he said. “Their life is class,

home, and their computers, where they have access to everything. The on-campus environment of intel­ lectual stimulation is not part of the current education corporation that we’ve become.”

According to Taylor, all of this means that in their office hours, pro­ fessors either get visits from students who are greatly excelling or those who are struggling. For the vast ma­ jority, education is scheduled—and office hours aren’t included.

“The university needs to propa­ gate the idea that students are ex­ pected to learn and fully participate outside of classes,” Taylor said. “[Attending university] should in­ volve at the very minimum going to class, but more importantly talk­ ing to professors and engaging with each other as students on intellectual matters.”

Hundert said that students think of attending university as getting done only what is required and noth­ ing more.

“It should be seen as a great in­ tellectual supermarket in which you

Unattended office hours are common. (Logan Smith / McGill Tribune) have four years to take advantage of all these interesting people who have things to say,” he said.

Hundert obliges his students to come see him to talk about their term papers.

“That way, I see each of them at least once to talk one on one,” he said.

Furthermore, he sees office hours as an important way to deepen

the student’s understanding.

“By having a conversation about whatever idea or notion it is in consideration its an educational op­ portunity that most students simply don't take advantage of,” he said.

For simple questions, professor Craig Mandata said that “A TA is just as good, if not better, at answer­ ing than me.”

Official Winter 2 0 1 1 Election & Referendum Results P r e s i d e n t : M a g g i e K n ig h t C lu b s & S e r v ic e s : C arol F ra ser V P E x t e r n a l: J o e l P e d n e a u l t V P F i n a n c e & O p e r a t i o n s : S h y a m P a te l VP In ter n a l: T od d P lu m m e r V P U n iv e r s i t y A ffa ir s : E m ily Y e e C la r e A r ts S e n a t o r s : M a t t h e w C r a w f o r d , J a s o n L e u n g E n g i n e e r i n g S e n a t o r : U s m a n Bin S h a h i d L a w S e n a t o r : I a n C la r k e D e n t i s t r y S e n a t o r : R y a n K ir s c h n e r M a n a g e m e n t S en a to r: Tom A cker M e d ic in e S e n a t o r : S a m e e r A p te M u s ic S e n a t o r : Em il B r i o n e s R e l i g i o u s S t u d i e s S e n a t o r : H a l e y D in e l S c ie n c e S e n a to r : A n n ie M a, M ax L uke C K U T B o a r d o f D i r e c t o r s R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s : N ik o B lo c k , L a u rin Liu TV M cG ill F e e R e n e w a l R e f e r e n d u m Q u e s t i o n : Y e s McGill I n t e r n a t i o n a l S t u d e n t s N e t w o r k F e e R e f e r e n d u m Q u e s t i o n : Y e s M id n i g h t K it c h e n F e e R e n e w a l R e f e r e n d u m Q u e s t i o n : Y e s A m b a ss a d o r F ee R e n e w a l R e fe r e n d u m Q u e stio n : Y es R e fe r r a l S e r v i c e s F e e R e n e w a l R e f e r e n d u m Q u e s t i o n : Y e s T h a n k y o u t o all t h e c a n d i d a t e s a n d v o t e r s f o r a f a n t a s t i c c a m p a i g n a n d e l e c t i o n !

If y o u h a v e a n y q u e s tio n s p le a s e c o n ta c t u s a t e le c tio n s @ s s m u .m c g ill.c a

Hiesday, March 15, 2011

5 CAM PUS

S e v e n th a n n u a l Is ra e li A p a r th e id W e e k c o m e s to M c G ill K e y n o te a d d r e s s d e liv e r e d by P a le s tin ia n -A m e r ic a n jo u r n a lis t A bi A b u n im a h W e d n e s d a y at B r o n fm a n

By Eric Mauser Contributor Israeli Apartheid Week—a week-long series of events designed to raise awareness of alleged Israeli human rights violations against Pal­ estinians—highlights the ongoing debate around the world concerning the birth of the Israeli state, as it did at McGill this past week.

Israeli Apartheid Week is praised for its promotion of openforum dialogue by some and con­ demned by those who believe it is anti-Semitic. This week’s events in Montreal elicited similar contro­ versy.

Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah delivered the keynote address on Wednesday evening at the Bronfman Building. His talk, which was organized by Israeli Apartheid Week Montreal in conjunction with QPIRG McGill and Concordia, was designed to draw attention to poli­ cies Israel has imposed on Palestin­ ians, which he called racist.

“Israel is very, very committed to a one-state solution, but the only problem with Israel's one-state solu­ tion is that it is an apartheid state,” Abunimah said.

Abunimah argued that Israel was limiting opportunities and rights to Palestinians based simply on their

The week included a photo exhibit at the Concordia library. (Alice Walker / McGill Tribune) ethnicity, and covering up these abuses by either denying them or de­ nouncing critics as “anti-Semites.”

“If Israel placed a different ar­ bitrary restriction [on Palestinians] ... and said you can't come back be­ cause of your skin colour, then no­ body would deny that this is apart­ heid,” he said.

Aaron Lakoff, the event coordi­ nator and a Concordia student, said the lecture was in keeping with Is­ raeli Apartheid Week's goals, which he described as “to foster education and debate on campuses.”

Lakoff added: “The issue

[raised by Israeli Apartheid Week] is important for two reasons, the first being the magnitude of the situation.

The war in Gaza in 2009 showed that Israel was strong and brutal enough to kill thousands of civilians. The second reason is because Canada is one of the biggest supporters of Is­ raeli apartheid.”

Regarding the charges of some, notably Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who recently described Israeli Apartheid Week as anti-Semitic. La­ koff responded that he sees a distinc­ tion between Judaism as a religion and the state of Israel.

“I myself as a Jew am incensed that Israel claims a right to speak for Jews around the world,” Lakoff said.

“There is discord within the Jewish community and there is no consen­ sus around Israel.”

Victoria Shore, a U3 human­ istic sudies major and president of Hillel McGill, a campus Jewish group, called Israeli Apartheid Week “divisive.” Responding to Abunimah’s lecture, she said, “University students are smart; if they do some reading, they will easily find that Israel is a fully functioning democ­ racy, the only one, in fact, in the

Middle East.”

“The week does not achieve dialogue about Palestinian human rights,” she added. “It only provides a negative environment for all stu­ dents on campus. It creates a divi­ sive and hostile atmosphere. Uni­ versity is meant to be a place that provides a positive learning environ­ ment, where issues can be discussed in an open forum, meant to provide real solutions to problems; this week is a platform for hate speech and in­ timidation.”

While McGill students debated, the same argument was echoed at a national level this week. The rector of Queen's University, Nick Day, wrote an open letter to Ignatieff on news blog Rabble.ca to in favour of Israeli Apartheid Week, citing the Liberal leader’s “deep lack of intel­ lectual integrity.” Day did not claim to be writing on behalf of students, but the letter makes reference to his elected position, and he signed the letter as “Rector.”

Believing that this was an in­ appropriate use of his position, 2,200 students petitioned to have the Queen’s Alma Mater Society Assembly consider it at last Thurs­ day’s meeting. The Assembly voted unanimously to put the question of whether Day should be impeached to referendum.

S C IE N C E

A r e a s lik e ly t o b e e f f e c t e d b y c l i m a t e c h a n g e m a p p e d M c G i l l P h D s t u d e n t a n d t e a m c o m p l e t e w o r l d ’s f i r s t m a p o f h u m a n v u l n e r a b i l i t y t o c l i m a t e c h a n g e

By Nathaniel F i n e s t o n e ____ Contributor Earlier this month, McGill PhD candidate Jason Samson and a num­ ber of other researchers released the world’s first map of human vulner­ ability to climate change.

Samson, who studies climate change ecology, originally conceived of the idea while studying species adaptation to climate change. With his team, he applied similar tech­ niques to human beings and found parts of Africa and Central America to be at the highest risk. Areas in the extreme global north and south, like Russia, Australia, and Canada, are in less danger.

“I was studying beavers and how they affect their environment,” Samson said. “I was also studying how species are affected by environ­ ment changes. We are seeing species move outside their normal range.

Now we see species in Quebec we didn’t have before.”

While studying beavers, Sam­ son came across a picture taken by

NASA of the earth at night, and thought it would be interesting to see how humans are distributed across the globe and how they are affected by their environments.

“I used census data taken by governments all over, around 400,000 censuses from everywhere,” he said. “What I found is that human distribution is more related to envi­ ronment than many other species like birds and trees. They tend to live in nicer climates, with very few living in the Arctic, Sahara, or the Amazon ..; It turns out climate is very impor­ tant for where people live. ” Interestingly, some of the coun­ tries with the lowest emissions were found to be the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Murray Humphries, an associ­ ate professor in natural resource sci­ ences at McGill, is Samson’s PhD supervisor and was a co-author of the paper.

“My main role was to encour­ age Jason in getting and following up on ideas,” Humphries said. “Lots of work has already been done in

Map shows human vulnerability to climate change based on colour-coded index. (Jason Samson) collecting climate control data, we mostly pulled [climate data and human vulnerability data] together.”

Samson had use of a super­ computer at McGill and was able to crunch the numbers in a matter of months. On a regular computer, the task would have taken years.

Dominique Berteaux, professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Quebec at Rimouski, was another co-author and co­ supervisor of Samson’s research.

As an expert on Quebec mammals, Berteaux became involved in Sam­ son’s research early on, when he was

mainly studying beavers.

“When he was studying beavers we worked together to study how climate change affected these crea­ tures. Then [we] figured why not get involved in doing it for humans too,” Berteaux said.

O pinion James Franco: the patische kid If given the opportunity to be James Franco for a day, would you take it?

He’s creative, sensitive, pro­ lific, and intellectual, but at the same time fashionably disaffected, hinting at a slightly tortured artis­ tic soul. He makes risqué films that screen at Cannes and plans to di­ rect William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy adaptations. He gets his stories published, but not in stuffy magazines. He got an Oscar nomi­ nation and hosted this year’s cer­ emony, but didn’t seem to give a shit about it. He has art exhibitions that blur the line between real and surreal. He plans on having a bar mitzvah, but he’s not weirdly spiri­ tual, either. You can never really tell if he’s being serious or ironic. The man is a mystery.

He has played a comic book villain (in ), a masculine 1950s movie star (James Dean), a gay Beat poet (Allen Ginsberg in and an imperiled mountain climber (in To show that he doesn’t take himself too seri­ ously he did a stint on To show that he does take his craft seriously he takes acting class­ es. He controls all his facial move­ ments, including his sexy wink. He has a beautiful girlfriend without an artificially enhanced chest.

Some of the top searches in the James Franco category on Google are “James Franco genius,” “James Franco quotes,” “James Franco awe­ some laugh,” and “James Franco hot pics.” He also moonlights as a col-

Spiderman

Howl),

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127 Hours).

GeneralHos­

Forget finder’s fees From January to April, almost every conversation you will over­ hear at McGill will be about finding a place to live in Montreal. Espe­ cially when looking for your first apartment, it often feels like you will never find the right place unless you act fast and start early. While the rest of the city is more flexible when it comes to finding and successfully renting an apartment, getting a place in the McGill Ghetto can feel like a rat race—40 people visiting one

lege student—NYU for filmmaking, Columbia and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, a small poetry program in North Carolina, Yale for a PhD in English, and Rhode Island School of Design to do artsy stuff. He is the true embodiment of the postmodern pastiche—and he knows it.

If James Franco had been bom a couple centuries earlier, for example, in 16th-century Italy, he would have been called a “Renais­ sance Man,” along with Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. The question is how Franco’s achievements rank beside these predecessors. Are his accomplishments actually signifi­ cant in comparison to theirs, or are they simply evidence of how unac­ complished the rest of society has become?

There is no doubt that Franco is a sex symbol. He is the type of guy who would happily have a meaning­ ful, emotional conversation with a girl the next morning, while whip­ ping her up a home-cooked break­ fast. People have been known to stare at a particular video of James Franco for hours on end. The clip in question is just him taking a bite out of a burger, then turning around and giving his signature wink. You just can’t help feeling happier after watching it a few times. It’s easy to picture a .sque scene taking place just minutes be­ fore, in the comfort of someone’s living room.

In the end, the thing about James Franco that makes him so ap­ pealing (despite your overwhelming jealousy) is that he seems like he could be ydur friend. He is the type of person with whom you can eas­ ily picture yourself having a casual conversation, finding common inter­ ests, or just hanging out. Despite his many and diverse successes, James Franco represents the modem day everyman and people seem to love him for it.

Even to Canucks themselves, Canadian politics can be a vague procession of events that occur in another dimension; somewhere be­ tween an ice rink on Jupiter and a Tim Hortons at the end of the uni­ verse sits our Parliament. There, people discuss the two topics urgent to the Canadian agenda: our temper­ ament and the weather. Being nice is essential to our self-image, and so is surviving winter. Maintaining pleas­ antry in 40 degrees below zero is the paramount objective of our leaders.

Assured that our government is happily plugging away in la-la land, we spend our time looking below the 49th parallel to comment— respectfully—on our neighbours’ woeful ignorance of their own state of affairs. We chuckle—politely— as the majority of them struggle to name a single Supreme Court justice or pinpoint Iraq on a map. We enjoy how their right wing satirizes itself, and find it amusing that some think they actually have a left wing. But the irony here is striking: we whole­ heartedly delve into Americans’ po­ litical system and criticize their own ignorance of it while completely ig­ noring our own. Rarely do we look into the nitty gritty of our own polit­ ical machine. And why should we?

Our leaders seem to be doing fine up there, somewhere ... whereever they are. Canada, relatively speaking, is doing great. Our banks rocked it during the recession, our income inequality is relatively low, our cit­ ies consistently rank among the top places in the world to live, and we

place at a time; same-day lease sign­ ings; forming quick friendships with current tenants in the hope that they will remember your name when it comes time to give up their lease.

Throughout all of this turmoil, the most effective way of securing your “dream apartment” five min­ utes from school seems to be paying a finder’s fee, or, as some people call it, a “furniture fee.” This practice, once the exception, seems to have become the rule in the area, and has been getting more outrageous by the year. Often, groups of students end up paying huge sums to other stu­ dents to “secure” an apartment and beat out the large numbers of other students vying for the same place.

But while it may seem like a neces­ sity to fork over thousands of dol­ lars, it’s actually possible and prob­ able that you can find an apartment without paying fellow students.

Finder’s fees are an abuse of tenant’s rights in Quebec, where ten­ ants are legally allowed to control the end date of their lease. Landlords are not allowed to evict people, and this is where finder’s fees come in.

Without written confirmation of the end date of a lease, landlords cannot legally rent the apartment to another group. This puts great power into the hands of tenants, and while it is nec­ essary and fair for many, these rights can be taken advantage of, and land­ lords can’t do much about it.

One justification for both charging and paying finder’s fees is that it’s another version of a security deposit that you will presumably get back at the end of your time in the apartment. If you paid a finder’s fee when you moved in, this might seem fair, but the whole point of a security deposit is to get it back from the per­ son you paid it to in the first place.

Pineapple Express-e

Bringing it ail back home

continue to find really valuable stuff to sell in our massive north.

But things might not always look so rosy, and when they start to pale—or to keep them from pal­ ing—we should know who’s got the power to do what. And so to proper­ ly tackle low voter turnout (which is decreasing every year), there’s po­ litical enthusiasm to re-spark. And no, I don’t mean standing in front of Parliament holding a poster with a bad pun and yelling obscenities (though that could count as well).

I mean realizing that the issues our government deals with are com­ plicated, diverse, and—dare I say it—just as interesting as those'in the U.S. of A. Sure our television shows don’t bake them into tasty parti­ san pastries for a partisan crowd to gobble up, either in fierce agreement (Bill O’Reilly) or raucous laughter (Jon Stewart). But they hold intrigue without this sort of decoration. Be­ tween the Canadian warship cur­ rently lingering on the Libyan shore, to the Conservatives’ push to gain support through a tough-on-crime plan that makes most social scien­ tists shudder, you’ll find something that sparks your attention—and hopefully a reaction.

If you’re still not convinced, watch the parliamentary debates.

Seriously. While U.S. congressional “debates” may suffer from C-Span Comatose Syndrome, Canuck lead­ ers barely stop short of throwing tomatoes. As nice as we all are, it’s not all hugs and high-fives when it comes down to the big decisions.

The kind you don’t want to disagree with in hindsight. We should engage in these debates now, while the deci­ sions haven’t yet been made. It sim­ ply comes down to directly shaping the world you’re living in. That, and bringing our galaxy-abolished gov­ ernment back to a place where we can stare it in the face, and maybe even make it blink.

The next person who takes your apartment has no business in your previous business arrangements, and should not be responsible for what­ ever fees you paid when you moved in. So if the deposit argument is going to be at all valid, you should get your finder’s fee back from the people who charged you for it.

Obviously, this isn’t how things work. Relying on the idea that you will get the money back when you move out, many decide that paying a finder’s fee is “worth it” for the apartment. This might be valid if the apartments in question were wellkept, nicely furnished, and clean.

However, the majority of apartments in the Ghetto have seen better days, as landlords often don’t feel the need to keep them in good condi­ tion because students will rent them no matter what. In my mind, paying a huge finder’s fee for a mediocre

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apartment definitely isn’t “worth it.”

Having spent a long time searching for an acceptable fivebedroom apartment in the Ghetto, I can attest to the fact that it’s hard to find something that’s ideal without compromising on a few things. But one of those compromises shouldn’t be a finder’s fee. If you want to rent an apartment, don’t listen to the jus­ tification from current tenants that it’s only “fair” that you pay one; you aren’t responsible for someone else’s decision. And yes, while that may mean giving up your dream apartment—like my roommates and I ultimately decided to do to avoid paying $5,000, a price that appears to be on the lower end of the finder’s fee spectrum—you will be able to find another, perhaps better place to live without handing over hardearned money to another student who did nothing to deserve it.

The M cG ill

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S e n a t e s h o u l d p a s s g e n e r i c d r u g e x p o r t b ill This week, the House of Com­ mons passed Bill C-393. The bill seeks to amend the Canadian Ac­ cess to Medicines Regime (CAMR) to streamline the process by which generic copies of patented drugs can be shipped to people who need them in the developing world. Despite criticism from some academics and politicians, C-393 has the potential to save lives, and should be passed by the Senate.

Canada currently has legisla­ tion permitting the export of generic versions of patented drugs. It was passed after some loosening in the Agreement on Trade-Related As­ pects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 2003. Many countries around the world have regimes simi­ lar to CAMR, which are seen as vital to supplying low-cost treatment for HIV/AIDS in poor nations. Brandname drugs, on the other hand, are often prohibitively expensive.

Though CAMR has been on the books since 2004, only two ship­ ments of one drug have ever made it out of the country. Generic drug

companies have declined to produce additional generic drugs, despite the profit incentive, because of a labori­ ous application process. To increase the number of shipments, the new bill removes current limitations on licensing, and would grant generic companies who are approved to make a particular drug as much of it as they want. Currently only one third of the 15 million people in need of HIV/AIDS treatment worldwide have access to drugs. Many of these generic drugs come from India— which makes some of the cheapest generic medication—but these drugs tend to lose effectiveness as the virus adapts. New drugs will be needed, many only available in their brandname form right now. Any legislation that will help save the lives of HIV/ AIDS victims who simply cannot afford more medication is welcome and necessary.

C-393 has not been without its detractors. These have mainly con­ sisted of the big brand drug com­ panies represented by Rx&D; some prominent MPs, including Industry

Minister Tony Clement and down­ town Montreal’s own Marc Gameau; and some academics. The argument against rests on two premises. First, that C-393 loosens restrictions on intellectual property laws. This al­ lows generic drug manufacturers to profit off the work of others and may hamper research and development into drug manufacture in Canada.

Second, Canadian generic drugs are notoriously expensive compared to those coming out of countries like New Zealand and India, and this bill may not be performing an afford­ able service at all. People who buy the drugs may be impoverishing themselves while the wallets of ge­ neric drug makers thicken. This, they argue, is pat-on-the-back legislation, not real humanitarianism.

These arguments, while they have validity, are not enough to war­ rant obstruction of this important measure. Intellectual property laws are important, but finding a balance between protecting producers and consumers is important, too. Ham­ pering R&D would be a negative

outcome, but protecting the interests of an extremely profitable industry is hardly a moral issue. Saving lives, on the other hand, is, and the current re­ gime we have in place doesn’t do it.

It makes sense, then, to try something else. It would of course be naive to suppose that generic pharmaceutical makers are entirely altruistic. Firms like Apotex operate for-profit and do so successfully. Yet they still sell their products for less than brandnames, and hopefully a higher vol­ ume of sales will push prices down accordingly. Moreover, it is not for Mr. Clement to decide if Canadian generic drugs are too expensive. If they are, they won’t sell. The worst that could happens is a return to square one, and in that case it would be time to re-evaluate.

Despite being introduced by the NDP and gamering opposition from some key MPs, some Conservatives and many Liberals voted for C-393.

We hope the Senate will rise above partisanship too, and do something good for impoverished HIV/AIDS victims: pass this bill.

sweeping through the Middle East in recent months demonstrates this.

It shows the concern we all feel to not merely jump from worry about one disaster to the next, as the head­ lines bid us to, but to stay focused, to remember, to not be swept away.

A 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, of roughly the same magnitude as last week’s in Japan, caused European philosophers to reconsider all their previous assumptions. The problem was how such disaster was possible in a world created and governed by God. It has often been said that the earthquake compromised the very structural integrity of previous phi­ losophy. The earth shook—and ev­ erything had to be re-thought.

Connected by remote to the far­ thest reaches of our global village, we in the 21st century have no such luck afforded to those in the 18th century. Those of us with a major news outlet saved as the homepage on our Internet browser have to face disaster multiple times a day. Try to imagine a non-computerized version of this, someone passing a paper be­ fore your eyes with large-print, every time you go do something. Open the refrigerator: CLEVELAND RESI­ DENTS STILL REELING AFTER GANG RAPE OF GIRL, 11. Pour milk into cereal: MELTDOWN ALERT AT JAPAN REACTOR. It’s a nice morning. Maybe step onto the porch, smell the fresh air, watch a squirrel bounding up a tree: 103 ORPHANS CAUGHT IN MIDDLE OF SOUTH SUDAN FIGHTING. Enjoy your breakfast.

Not only is our exposure to di­ saster more frequent and more im­ mediate than in 1755—think of the unbearably crisp photos you’ve seen from Japan in recent days—but sim­ ilarly augmented is our individual responsibility to grapple with such realities. The unenviable task of coming up with a conception of the universe in which earthquakes and tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns make sense is now all of ours, not just the philosophers. We have no such comfort of being told what things mean, but face the burden ourselves. I imagine my response of instantaneous and thorough depres­ sion is not as unpopular as it some­ times seems—for instance, when walking on St. Laurent, I see every­ one enjoying the nearly Spring-ish weather, populating cafés and burg­ er joints, and driving cars, apparent­ ly in total ignorance of the fact that the ground under their feet has the power to move.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the same agents who bring us news of disaster from the comers of the Earth are the same ones who, next week, bid us to turn our attention elsewhere. The re­ sponsibility to sustain sympathies over weeks, to continue to care, is the reader’s alone. “Hell today, gone tomorrow,” media critic Jack Shafer has written on Slate.com.

And still the disasters continue to strike. Our private mental com­ pilations of disasters witnessed, history experienced, continues to lengthen. We are forced to grapple

with these realities over a morning cup of coffee. We have no idea what to do.

Yuki Edano, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, has this advice for readers of the New York Times: “At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radia­ tion leakage outside ... so we’d like everyone to respond calmly.” Good luck.

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Averting meltdown The first item listed in a recent story on the Atlantic Wire website, “The Worst Reactions to the Japa­ nese Earthquake,” was an awkward construction from P.J. Crowley, a U.S. State Department spokesman, on his Twitter page: “We have been watching a hopeful tsunami sweep across the Middle East. Now we are seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan.” The of­ fending tweet was later taken down, and Crowley was asked to resign due to this and other recent public­ ity gaffes.

Only one of several cited ex­ amples of “bad reactions” to the quake, the spokesman’s blunder reveals something more than what the website called “questionable metaphors.” It demonstrates the dif­ ficulty most of us in North America, relatively insulated from any of the conflagrations ordinarily dominat­ ing the world news headlines, have of grappling with successive crises and organizing them into some kind of mentally digestible arrangement.

Comparing the very real tsunami sweeping away whole villages in minutes to the “wave” of protests

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Forget road rage, I’ve got Internet rage I’m among the vast majority of McGill students that don’t own cars.

It’s not something I think about a lot, and when I do, it’s to reflect on just how relaxing it is cruising the sidewalks rather than struggling to decipher unintelligible parking signs (what kind of city has parking signs that are only comprehensible if you have both a Rosetta stone and a calendar?).

This past summer though, I went back home to Vancouver and got a job approximately a 35-minute

drive from my house. Six days a week, I would wake up at 7 a.m. and try to avoid rush hour traffic in order to be on time. As the summer wore on and I cared less and less about renting out RVs to gawking tour­ ists, I began to cut things close in the mornings. By the end of the summer, I was no longer living dangerously. I was getting stuck in full-blown rush hour traffic, leaving me in peril of being spectacularly late.

There was a way around this gridlock, however. At one point, a two-lane highway converges for a tunnel. Where you’re supposed to merge is clearly demarcated but the winning strategy, in my, and some other unscrupulous commuters’ eyes, was to wait as long as possible and bypass the 100-200 cars that had followed the rules of the road and waited their turn.

When I left my house at an ap­ propriate time, I’d looked with dis­

dain on these lawbreakers, but sud­ denly I was one of them.

People who had waited were understandably upset when I cut them off. Sometimes they’d box me out, other times they’d just glare into my rearview mirror and honk. Once, a guy let me think he was letting me in and then rocketed forward, inches from my side mirror, flashing me the dirty bird. Needless to say, I called in late for work, citing “car trou­ ble,” and menacingly followed him around for the next half hour as he anxiously circled his workplace.

By living in this pedestrianfriendly city, I’ve excised road rage from my life. Unfortunately, a ma­ lignant habit has arisen to replace it—Internet rage.

See, this past summer wasn’t all work. I found the time to start play­ ing a board game called Settlers of Catan. Basically four players attempt to slit each other’s throats (economi­

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cally, not physically) on an imagi­ nary island until one player wins.

It’s about as nerdy as it sounds, but also incredibly addictive. I played a lot in the summer, faced withdrawal during the fall semester, and then went back at it with a passion over the winter break. Faced with the prospect of the shakes once again come January, I downloaded an on­ line version of the game. It wasn’t the same as sitting down with four friends and doing it live, but it was as close as I was going to get.

Now, Catan’s a game of both strategy and luck. It’s a little like poker in that sense. So, it’s very con­ ceivable for a worse player to beat a better one. And, also like poker, it’s not uncommon for a good player (who’s an asshole) to berate a lucky beginner for their poor play. Let me say one thing in my defence: I would never, ever say, in person, the kind of things I say anonymously on the

Internet but, for some reason, the combination of rage and the mask of technological anonymity combine to make me the biggest jerk on the planet.

I usually begin fairly innocu­ ously: “Hey, nice move buddy,” I mentally sneer. But soon it escalates.

An F-bomb here, an F-bomb there, and it’s off to the races. Soon others berate me for my immaturity. That’s when I usually bring their mothers in.

Being anonymous on the In­ ternet gives me the same feeling of invincibility I always felt in my car, but more intensely. Recently howev­ er, I learned that both my copy editor and a friend’s mother (Mrs. Wilkens) also play the game online. Next time I start chastising an anonymous Catan player, I’m going to imagine Mrs. Wilkens’s face reacting to the filth spewing from my keyboard.

I wish I had my car back.

Graduate and Post-Graduated Scholarships related with Hybrid Spyder vehicle development program Centre detechnologiesavancées BRP-Université de Sherbrooke (CTA) o ffers G ra d u a te a n d PostG ra d u a te d Sch o larsh ip s re la ­ CENTRE DE TECHNOLOGIES AVANCÉES te d w ith Hybrid Spyder Vehicle [jjj]SHERBROOKE d e v e lo p m e n t p r o g r a m . O f f e ­ red pro jects are re a lize d w ith in m u ltid isc ip lin a ry team s, in clu d in g professors fro m U n ive rsité d e S h e rb ro o k e a lo n g w ith te ch n icia n s a n d e n g in e e rs fro m B o m b a rd ie r R e cre a ­ tiv e P ro du cts (BRP) a n d th e y lead to fu n c tio n a l p ro to typ e s b u ild in g .

C T A is a c tu a lly se e k in g fo r to p -le v e l c a n d id a te s in M e c h a n ic a l a n d E le ctrica l E n g in e e rin g to ta c k le e ith e r M aster, D o c to ra te o r P o s t-d o c to ra te p ro je cts a sso cia te d w ith h y b rid -p r o p u ls io n te c h n o lo g ie s :

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S tudent L iving HOW TO

BITS & PIECES

R e m o v in g p e s ts c a n b e a ra t ra c e

C ig f u n d e d

N o r o o m fo r t w o : m a n o r rat m u s t g o

F in a n c ia lly d e p e n d e n t o n T o b a c c o

By lain Macdonald_____________ Production Manager I would call myself a pretty neat person. I wash dishes the night they’re dirtied, do laundry once a week, and occasionally brush my teeth. However, the events that transpired shortly before this past Reading Week have led me to re­ evaluate my cleanliness.

The story starts the Wednesday before break when I heard some odd sounds in my apartment. I was lying in bed, studying for a quiz when a scratching sound came from directly above me. Not the scratching sound of someone walking upstairs, but the scratching of something small­ er, alive, moving around. Shortly after the mysterious noise, I heard something take off, running directly above the ceiling, across the room. I figured this was a mouse, or squir­ rel which had gotten into the ceiling above my apartment, but because I had never heard the sound before, I thought it was a one-time occur­ rence. As a precaution, however, I set up a toilet-paper roll mousetrap in my kitchen.

A couple days later, after the Operating Systems quiz I had been studying for, I was at home making breakfast. As my apartment filled with the aroma of cooking bacon, I was relaxing and looking forward to Reading Week, which was only a few hours away. Shortly after turn­ ing off the stove, though, I heard the sound again. This time it was coming from the bathroom. I tiptoed into the

room, where I identified the sound as coming from behind the toilet.

Upon investigation, I discovered a hole, three inches in diameter, that had not been there when I moved in. My mind churned, as I tried to attribute this hole to anything other than the obvious. My fears were confirmed: a large rat poked its head out, sniffed around, and turned back into the walls. It was at precisely this point that my day was officially ru­ ined.

I shut the bathroom door, hur­ ried to my phone and did what any 21-year-old man would do in this situation: I called my mom. We con­ cluded that the most logical course of action was to call my landlord, set traps, and leave the house. I left a message for my landlord and headed out. After class, I went to Canadian Tire and bought several rat traps.

While setting these up, I discov­ ered my biggest fear in life: getting caught in one of these traps. I baited them and headed to a hotel for the night.

Returning the next morning be­ fore my train left, I found that one of the traps had gone off but Steve Mc­ Queen, as I had named the creature, was nowhere to be found. I had to leave that morning, so I re-baited the traps and left another message for my landlord, asking him to drop by and check the traps every few days over reading week.

Unfortunately, upon my return, the beast had not yet been captured.

However, my landlord told me that about a week before, when checking

the traps (at this point there were six in my eight square foot bathroom), he’d discovered that one had gone off and there was a trail of blood leading back to the hole. There had been no sign of Steve McQueen since. We decided to wait another week before patching the hole, in case Steve Mc­ Queen returned. The rat never came back, and I can only assume he was either mortally wounded in his quest for peanut butter, or he moved on to terrorize another dwelling.

As a result of the whole ordeal, I learned how to deal with one of Montreal’s most disgusting pests.

Here are some tips: You might have a rat if you hear strange noises like I did. If you find strange holes in your house, that’s another good indication of a furry inhabitant. One of the most telling sign is rat droppings. If you think you have a rat and you find drop­ pings, you should stop thinking and start acting.

If a rat has taken up residence in your apartment, you should call your landlord straight away, (right after calling your mom, that is). It is their responsibility to take care of the pest.

Avoid using rat poison. Even though you might kill the rat, if it dies in your walls, it will bring an awful stench. Live traps can work, but only if the rat really can’t get out. Additionally, you’ll need to free the pest far away from your home.

Finally, rats love bacon. Who can blame them, though?

M c G ill

By Isabel Luce________________ Contributor McGill was built with the help of a number of generous patrons.

Perhaps one of the most interest­ ing of these benefactors is Sir Wil­ liam Macdonald, a man who made his fortune in the tobacco industry.

Macdonald grew up on a farm in rural Prince Edward Island, and do­ nated a large portion of his money to McGill in order to improve the qual­ ity of education. This funding even­ tually led to the creation of buildings on campus like the Macdonald En­ gineering Building and the Macdon­ ald Physics Building (later renamed the Schulich Library). He was also behind the creation of Macdonald Campus in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, as he had particular interest in agri­ culture.

mccord-museum.qc.ca

ericsquire.com In addition to his philanthropy, Macdonald was an odd fellow. He lived a quiet, reclusive existence, never married, and spent little money on himself. Macdonald, de­ spite growing rich on the tobacco industry, could not stand people smoking around him. Whenever he was spotted entering the Physics Building, it is said that warnings would immediately circulate among the students, who would hurriedly extinguish their cigarettes and throw open the windows to air out the rooms before Macdonald arrived. If he caught anyone smoking, he could often be heard exclaiming “Disgust­ ing habit!” and students would know they had just received the ultimate admonishment.

Tobacco’s involvement in the university’s expansion did not end with Macdonald. During the De­ pression, McGill was in desperate need of funds and resorted to creat­ ing a brand of cigarettes that came in packs of 10s, 20s, 25s, and 50s. They were emblazoned with the McGill logo, and half of the proceeds from their sales facilitated the construc­ tion of the Arthur Currie Memorial Gym.

ODDS & ENDS

S O R D : S u d d e n O n s e t R u n n e r ’s D i a r r h e a H o ld o n tig h t a n d run fo r y o u r s h o r t s

By Alexandra Yaw Contributor Shin splints, stress fractures, and plantar fasciitis plague most distance runners at some point, but there’s one condition that nearly all endurance athletes face, one that makes roads unsafe and unsanitary for casual exercisers: sudden onset runner’s diarrhea. Some athletes don't poop and tell, forever ashamed of their experiences in the bushes or of the time they didn't make it home.

For others, it’s a rite of passage, and the more inconvenient and agoniz­ ing the incident, the better the story.

Who’s at risk?

Runners, joggers, bikers, and whoever is in their way.

Symptoms The condition should be selfexplanatory: sudden onset runner's

diarrhea. To qualify as SORD, the event must be absolutely unanticipated.

Anticipating the effects of last night's Thai Express doesn’t count.

It also must take place at, or near, the turnaround point of a run, far away from home. The problem begins as a slight stomach disturbance. How­ ever, what separates SORD from a stomach ache is the progression of symptoms. The continual bounc­ ing of a runner’s body turns a low pressure system into a category five tornado, and when the cramping sets in, it becomes a battle to keep put­ ting one foot in front of the other. A SORD-stricken runner will typically be seen hunched over, sweating profusely, waddling like a penguin moving at high speed, and exhibit­ ing a look of sheer terror.

Causes

With a diet heavy in fruit, vege­ tables, and whole grains, the average endurance athlete consumes more fibre than is in your grandmother’s Metamucil bottle. Occasional ex­ perimentation with supplements doesn’t help.

Treatment There are three treatment op­ tions: find a public bathroom, pray you can make it home without soil­ ing your shorts, or address the prob­ lem immediately in a public place.

The first is rarely available, so learn how to politely convince shopkeep­ ers and restaurant owners to let you use their bathrooms. Phrases such as “If you don’t let me use your bath­ room, I will shit all over your floor” or “I’m in labour, where’s the bath­ room?” usually incite enough panic (or confusion) in business owners to let you end your agony in a nice, pri­

vate, sanitary stall.

The second option, getting home in time, is risky. Some can pull it off, although this often requires a super human effort.

The third option is embar­ rassing, but immediately effective.

Unfortunately, there’s no place to discretely drop trou on the Lachine Canal. The mountain is safer, al­ though you run the risk of an uncom­ fortable run-in with cross country skiers or hikers. This move requires finesse, and a basic understanding of botany, because poison ivy can ruin your day for the second time.

When to seek help As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

A pre-run poop can prevent 95 per cent of SORD cases. However, even the most disciplined can run into trouble. A general rule is don't be a

hero. If you think it might be SORD, run for your life. Or your shorts.

az.milesplit.com

C o m p u tin g 's F u t u r e : I t ' s in t h e c l o u d s Bg lain Macdonald In one of the most rapidly changing industries in the world, the next major paradigm is rolling in: cloud computing.

Much in the way the Internet altered our computing perspec­ tive, cloud computing is drastically changing the way people use their computers by increasing the speed and availability of data and computation.

Today, when someone needs to write a letter, they sit down at their computer, open up a word processor, and begin typ­ ing. At regular intervals, they save the file to their hard disk. If the user wants to work on the letter on another computer, they must manually copy the file to that machine either through an external storage medium or through the Internet by email. The idea behind cloud computing is to make such operations inde­ pendent of the physical machine being used. Examples of cloud computing services McGill students are likely already familiar with include Google Docs, Zoho, and Grooveshark.

Bernard Golden, CEO of Hyper Stratus and author of believes that cloud computing is the next major development for computer users.

“This is the next wave of computing,” said Golden. “It’s marked by much more rapid access to computing resources, and much more availability, and what is called scalability or elasticity. If I have an application which suddenly gets heavily loaded, it can easily add more computing resources to handle that load.” Where these resources come from, however, is dif­ ficult to determine.

“Cloud is a deliberately ambiguous term. It’s one that has been used a lot throughout computing to indicate a resource out there, somewhere,” said Golden. “Cloud computing is really focused on computing running off in some remote data centre somewhere.”

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T h e B e n e fits The shift to the cloud has been motivated by a few key fac­ tors. Moving operations to this format provides users with more liberal access to their data and a larger pool of computing re­ sources at their fingertips. Muthucumaru Maheswaran, associ­ ate professor at the school of computer science and department of electrical and computer engineering at McGill, says cloud computing essentially involves data and service availablility.

“You can have anytime, anywhere access to your data and any services that you would want to have in a computing plat­ form,” Maheswaran said. “In the present time, you go to a com­ puting platform not to do real corhputing, but to actually have access to your data and do some tasks.”

By shifting the location of data from desktop computers to the Internet, the barriers to data accessibility are removed. This allows users access to their documents, pictures, music, and all other personal files, from anywhere with Internet access.

“It’s a huge convenience factor,” Maheswaran added.

“Rather than having the data stuck in one place—your laptop, or home desktop—now the data is free flowing. You have oh demand access to it.”

Golden adds that cloud computing has the potential to cre­ ate major gains in efficiency for the business sector.

“The New York Times had digitized its archives, dating back to 150 years, and they had to convert them into PDFs,” he says. “They did what they traditionally would have done. They went to an IT organization and said ‘We’d like to do this, can you do it for us?’ and the response was ‘absolutely.’”

The price tag for the operation was a hundred thousand dollars or more, and would probably have taken several months.

However, Golden added, “A software engineer there went off on his own, went to Amazon web- servicés, a cloud service provider, and fired up 20 instances of what are called virtual machines. He installed some open source software on them, uploaded the data, did all the conversions and shut it down, in the course of a weekend. It cost a total of $240.”

This massive decrease in cost is the main attraction of cloud computing for the business sector, while home users are attracted to the convenience of having their data available any­

where with Internet access.

G o o g le C h r o m iu m O S One company trying to capitalize on the benefits of cloud computing is Google. The computer industry giant originally rose to the top of the search engine race due to its advanced Page Rank algorithm. Since then, Google has delved into many other areas, from email to an interactive three-dimensional view of the earth. The company doesn’t really sell software; instead, it offers services. The latest of these endeavours is the widely publicized operating system, Google Chromium OS. The idea behind Chromium OS is that many people spend their entire working day on the Internet, surfing, watching tele­ vision, and sometimes doing work. While the truth behind this statement is debatable, it certainly holds for some users.

Chromium OS is an operating system, like Windows, or Mac OS X. However, the only program which runs in Chro­ mium OS is a web browser. There is no iTunes, no Word, no Photoshop. Chromium OS is not actually a cloud computing service, but it forces the user to work entirely in the cloud. The operating system tries to improve a users speed and efficiency through the use of cloud services. This means that a user has ac­ cess to the same data, anywhere. One of the major restrictions of the operating system is its reliance on cloud applications; if it can’t be done though a cloud service, it can’t be done at all.

Google has opened its own app store to address this issue.

I sat down and built the latest development version of Chromium OS from scratch to give it a test run on my comput­ er. The build used for this review is based on version 0.11.247.

The machine used was an HP Mini 210. It bears noting that Chromium OS would not boot from USB on my Dell XPS M1730.

One of Chromium OS’s primary goals is “instant on com­ puting—” the idea is that users will be able to mm on their com­ puter and go. The goal boot time for the operating system is five seconds, as stated by the team. My machine took a bit longer to boot, but this was due to the procedure of booting from USB. The actual operating system took a mere three seconds to load, from kernel to login screen. Upon first boot, I was prompted to configure the system, which included setting my language and internet preferences. The wireless Internet would not connect, due to a driver issue. This is not surprising, as proprietary wire­ less drivers have plagued Linux users for years, and Chromium OS hasn’t been tested on a wide variety of machines. Using a shared network connection through another machine, I eventu­ ally managed to get online.

After first logging in, the Chromium OS can seem a bit strange. The interface should be familiar for any user of the Chrome browser. However, to run an operating system with nothing other than a browser was a bit strange at first. In the top-left comer are four status indicators, including time, con­ nection status, battery status, and another status icon with no apparent purpose.

I wasn’t expecting the operating system to work perfectly on my machine, as the team has customized it to work very well on the CR-48 notebook without focusing too much energy on other computers. However, I was disappointed when the sound for Flash player didn’t work. Adobe’s support for 64 bit Linux systems has been generally terrible. However, I was using a 32 bit board, which led me to wonder where the problem was.

Additionally, my embedded webcam didn’t work properly.

Curious about how the system would behave, I plugged in a USB drive, hoping I would be able to import my pictures and upload them to Picasa, or edit them in another program. How­ ever, Chromium OS seemed to ignore the drive, as there was no indication a new disk was detected.

Chromium OS does do one thing very well: web brows­ ing. As the primary goal of this project, the design team has polished the Chromium interface and made browsing fast, even on my netbook. While the use of the Caps Lock key as a search button is confusing at first, it actually makes it quite

easy to open a new tab. It takes a while to. get used to the no­ tion that you can’t alt-tab to switch to your word processor, or chat application, but that you’re instead constrained to the web browser. However, after a bit of practice, it’s not too different from the standard web browsing process.

The more I used the operating system, the more I grew to both love and hate it. Chromium OS is great as a browserbased operating system, and it is the first of its kind. However, for writing code, doing heavy duty image editing, or anything else not supported by any cloud apps, the operating system is useless. However, that’s the idea behind Chromium OS; it’s not a computer tailored to hackers or Hollywood video editors. It’s made for the average Joe who wants to take his computer to Starbucks and catch up on the latest in national news. The lim­ iting factor here is not the operating system, but the services available through the cloud. Because cloud computing is so young, there are not enough services to make it useful as your sole computing platform, at least not yet. Chromium is made to be fast, and the idea is to do one thing, and do it well. In this sense, it’s a huge success.

However, the freedom and efficiency gains don’t come without a price.

T h e D r a w b a c k s “No matter what it is in life, you get a benefit, and there are challenges that accompany it,” said Golden. “A lot of people are concerned about lack of control.”

That lack of control makes some users uneasy about mov­ ing all of their personal data files to the cloud. It’s not clear to many of them where this data is going, and who will have access to it.

“Something I hear a lot is ‘How do I know somebody is not going to walk back to the machine my things are on, stick a thumb drive in it and download my data?’ They’re concerned about those kinds of things,” said Golden.

Maheswaran agreed, but adds that data privacy is not the only security concern.

“Sometime ago, a lot of airlines went bankrupt and pas­ sengers got stranded. Something like that can happen with very large infrastructures like this,” said Maheswaran. “You have cloud computing and you don’t even know who is handling your data, how big a company it is, and what kind of practices they follow. You could have a lot of stranded customers a few years down the road.”

These concerns, however, do not affect all cloud services.

While companies like Dropbox and Mozy, which offer archi­ val service, leave reason to be concerned about data security, services like Grooveshark, which can be used without any personal data, don’t suffer from similar issues. Looking to the future, Maheswaran also raises concerns about an oligopoly in the service-oriented clouds.

“Right now, we have many choices and it is a healthy situ­ ation. But how long could this go on?” he asked. “Ultimate­ ly, there is a possibility that we could converge to a situation where cloud computing is just another utility and people are stuck with another utility provider who is just as bad as any other utility provider.”

Despite these concerns, the appeal of cloud computing is too great to shy away from. The Internet raised several con­ cerns of a similar nature when it was first developed, but it has since become an essential part of modem computer use.

“It is just like how nobody has a private water filtration plant anymore,” said Maheswaran. “Even if you are really par­ anoid about the municipality, that is where you get your drink­ ing water.”

Despite the concerns over data security, and an industry which could be expanding more rapidly than can be supported, it will eventually become a universal part of computing.

Cloud computing is still in its infancy, with room for rapid improvement as new companies make their way into the indus­ try. However, Golden has no doubt that cloud computing will

L is t

o f

C lo u d

R p p s

The way people use computers is changing. Just two or three years ago, most people used the internet to check email, play games, and surf the net. Only recently has some of this use shifted to cloud computing.

We’ve selected some of the best cloud services available for you to use on your Chromium OS notebook, netbook, or even your home desktop.

1. Gmail and Google Calendar -

Most users might not even know these two are cloud services. Gmail and Google Calendar store your emails and personal calendar together in one convenient place, and can be made to act together, emailing you reminders for scheduled events and tasks. The massive Gmail inbox is one of the program’s most attractive features.

Dropbox change the way we use computers in a serious way.

“Ten years from now, we will look back on the way we used to do computing, the way we do now when we look back at a black and white film and we see someone pick up the phone and say ‘Hey, operator, get me New York.’ People really used to do things that way?” Golden said, “I think it’s gonna be a huge game changer.”

The many advantages cloud computing offers over the tra­ ditional method of home computer use will likely cause this mass movement to cloud-based services. This shift will demand a different sort of home computer however, one which inte­ grates more readily with the Internet. These types of changes are already taking place, as some operating systems begin to incorporate social networking and sharing mechanisms directly into the operating systems’ interfaces.

G o o g l e D ocs

Dropbox -

2.

There are dozens of online storage solutions, from ADrive to Windows Skydrive. Dropbox has emerged as one of the leaders because of its competitive pricing scheme, and easy-to-use inter­ face. Sign up now and get two gigabytes free.

- You would be hard pressed to find a student who doesn’t need to write something for class at least occasionally. Google Docs is the cloud alternative to Microsoft Office, allowing you to edit text documents and spreadsheets directly in your browser.

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- Zoho is another online office suite focusing on col­ laboration. It gives Google Docs some serious competition. The difference between these two, for most people, is simply a matter of preference.

R t M c G ill One of the biggest areas where cloud computing will, perhaps, have a harder time taking hold is in institutions like McGill. The university has a plan to replace WebCT over the next few years, but could a cloud service be a good replace­ ment? Maheswaran says probably not.

“You can think of WebCT as a very specialized cloud computing situation, where we have our own infrastructure,” he said. “WebCT is very rigidly organized.”

This is due to the data handling policies often implemented at universities such as McGill. Moving private data directly out to a cloud service isn’t feasible because of the security issues involved in exposing sensitive data. However, the opportunity is still there, as professors can use cloud services independently, to augment WebCT. “We can actually download those cloud software infrastruc­ tures and set up parallel cloud systems locally,” Maheswaran said. “Those cloud infrastructures can actually be controlled by any policies that you could imagine, or that you could want.”

However, setting up an in-house data cloud just for McGill services defeats the purpose of cloud computing.

“It’s kind of like a small pond you made yourself,” he said.

“That doesn’t scale. It’s a pond versus an ocean.”

While it’s not likely that we will see cloud computing re­ placing services like WebCT, there’s still the opportunity for students and professors to use it for other purposes. With the emergence of new technologies like Chromium OS, and a dearth of cloud services, there’s no shortage of stepping stones into this new industry. Golden is optimistic about the future of the industry, and its potential to shape the way we use comput­ ers.

“We’U see a huge explosion in the number of applica­ tions,” he said. “Grabbing onto this tiger is the right tiger to grab onto.”

4. Zoho

5. Grooveshark

- Google Docs is to Microsoft Office as Grooveshark is to iTunes. This online media streaming site lets you to listen to all of your favourite tunes directly from your browser. Create an account to store playlists and upload your own music.

6. SumoPaint

- This online image editor is surprisingly pow­ erful, with many features that allow it to compete with heavy-duty com­ mercial image editors. With a free Sumo Paint account, you can edit and save images directly online.

Netflix

7.

- For a few years, Canadians didn’t have access to this incredible service, which allows users to watch high quality television and movies online for a reasonable fee. Netflix came to Canada late last year, putting an end to the days of watching on You­ Tube.

Trailer ParkBoys

8. Cliffy-

Gliffy is an online tool for making charts and graphs of all sorts. It features an extensive base of chart types, with an easy to use interface. For those who frequently use Visio, or worse, Paint, this is a fantastic alternative.

9. Github

- Github is an online source control system with an emphasis on collaboration. Github not only hosts your code in an online Git repository, but it also simplifies some of the methods in software de­ velopment.

10. Remember The Milk

- Students understand better than any other group of people the need for a “to do” list. Remember The Milk does much more than notes jotted on a piece of paper—it will send you an email, text, or instant message you right before tasks are due. Just remem­ ber to put “Sign up for Remember The Milk” on your current “to do” list.

E V E R N

Im p o r ta n t

3. GoogleDocs

Work. Online

O

T E

11. Evernote

—The Evemote logo is an elephant, because like elephants, Evemote never forgets. This online note-taking system stores all of your notes, in whatever format you like, in one place.

T erm s

Building, making, or compiling is the process o f converting computer code written in a language like c, or Java, into machine executable software.

32 bit boari refers to a computer with a 32 bit address space. This is one o f the most common types o f machines, the other being 64-bit systems.

Computing platform is a way o f using a com ­ puter, such as the standard desktop computer envi­ ronment. refers to the way in which users or computers interact with other computers.

12.

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Bubblus

- If you’ve ever thought before, you probably know how difficult it can be. Bubblus attempts to simplify this process using mindmaps, a pictorial representation of Brainstorming. It features a sexy interface and several useful features.

13. PaperRater

Rater

- If your not grate with words, even spell cheque might not catch olive you’re errors. This online service is not only a spell checker, it also attempts to make your paper more readable and does plagiarism detection.

14. Glide OS

- You probably never thought about running a full-fledged operating system from the cloud. The Glide operating system stores your cloud operating system preferences, so you can use the same computer, from any computer. Because it’s cloud-based, Glide incorpo­ rates sharing between different “computers” very well. For the true feel, run Glide inside of Glide, inside of Glide, inside of your normal operating system (we need to go deeper).

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Curiosity Delivers - mcgilltribune.com

O FF CAM PUS

C o n fe s s io n s o f a se ria l m e s s a g e b o a rd lu rk e r And you thought Facebook was addictive

By Tori Crawford Editor-in-CHief Until this September, I was a message board virgin. In fact, when a fellow editor told me last year that he had found most of his interview subjects for a story he was writing through message boards, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. He explained to me that there were two important things to remem­ ber about these online forums: the Internet contains message boards on virtually any topic you can fathom, and the majority of people who post on these forums are, like most online commenters, somewhat crazy.

The message board many stu­ dents are probably most familiar with is Yahoo! Answers. Here, curi­ ous users throw a question out into the void of the Internet, and selfappointed “experts” do their best to provide answers. Often, a question will elicit five responses each pre­ senting contradictory answers or proposing very different courses of action. While the site occassionally

provides legitimate information, it is more often useful simply for the hilarity its many questions and an­ swers afford. Another popular genre of message boards are baby name forums, where expectant parents post the option they are considering as a name for their unborn child, and ask for feedback. Because really, who better to help name your child than hordes of anonymous (and crazy) Internet users from across the globe?

Needless to say, until this fall I had never found a need to use a message board. In the midst of the extremely confusing and seemingly never-ending law school application process, I gave in. Looking for an answer about some minute facet of one school’s application, I did what anyone would do: I googled if. This led me to a message board specifi­ cally for prospective Canadian law students. After finding the answer to my question, I curiously began to click around on the other discus­ sions. Three hours later, I knew I was in big trouble. The board provides

a forum for any and all applicants applications completed and sub­ from across the country to commis­ mitted, and nothing to do but wait, erate and ask questions. Its threads reading the message boards offered are divided by topics, such as LSAT a measure of catharsis.

I quickly realized, however, or school comparisons, and by each that the majority of posters had individual law school.

For anxious applicants-myself the exact same level of knowledge included-disappointed by a lack of as I did. Everyone who answered specific information provided by the was basing their response on pure schools on their admissions poli­ speculation, or, at best, information cies, and desperate for any fragment they found in threads from previ­ of information, this message board ous years. Rumours, anecdotes, and seemed to be an endless repository information from “my cousin who of information. I found myself scan­ went to law school” made up the ning the “IN” threads from as far bulk of the “information” that these back as 2007, comparing my GPA forums provide. By far the most and LSAT scores to those who were common thread is titled something admitted in that cycle. Other threads like “Chances?” Here, an individual debated the extent to which each will post their stats, then ask other school emphasizes “soft” factors users to speculate what their odds like extracurriculur activities, while of being admitted to that school are, others debated law school rankings similar in some ways to baby name and reputations. For the next week, 'forums. Armed with little more than I spent endless hours on the site. I the average entering grades from the checked it every time I was near a previous year, which each school computer. I compared my stats to publishes, fellow applicants respond every other poster, and felt sick to with either yes or no, despite the fact my stomach as the “Accepted!” that they have no real knowledge to threads started to appear. With my go on.

If you’re applying to any grad school or professional school, there is likely one of these message boards focused on your program some­ where on the Internet. Be warned: they may provide mild catharsis and the impression of being in the know, but in reality no one posting actually has any more information than you.

When the acceptance and rejection letters start getting mailed out, the boards become even more treacher­ ous. It can be nice to know that the letters are coming, but disheartening when it seems that all the other post­ ers have gotten in except you. I don’t think most of the commenters on these grad school boards are crazy, however; they’re just regular univer­ sity students desperate for informa­ tion about their prospects for future education. I’ve now managed to reign in my addiction-I only check the website for updates once a day.

And even though I fell victim to the black hole of law school message boards, I don’t think I’ll be turning to the Internet when it comes time to name my children.

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consequencesdelacontrebande.gc.ca B u y in g c o n tr a b a n d c ig a r e t t e s c o s t s m o r e th a n y o u th in k . It f u e ls o th e r crim in al a c tiv itie s , s u c h a s th e tra ffick in g o f d r u g s a n d g u n s . In d iv id u als c a u g h t in p o s s e s s i o n o f c o n tr a b a n d c ig a r e t t e s f a c e s e r io u s c o n s e q u e n c e s r a n g in g fro m a fin e to jail tim e .

contrabandconsequences.gc.ca Gouvernement du Canada

Government of Canada

A&E FESTIVAL

P o litic s, p o rn , a n d p ro v o c a tiv e p e r f o r m a n c e S t u d i o 3 0 3 ’s 1 8 t h a n n u a l E d g y W o m e n F e s t i v a l s h o w s t h e d i f f e r e n t s i d e s o f w o m a n h o o d

By Natalia Evdokimova Contributor This year’s Edgy Women Festi­ val, a multinational, visual celebra­ tion of females and femininity, will showcase the work of a variety of different artists from Japan, Germa­ ny, Canada, and the United States.

Taking place in venues across Mon­ treal, the festival promises to be as unique and thought-provoking as it has been in prior years.

Since 1994, the goal of the Edgy Women Festival has been to provide audiences with alternative views and voices on issues concern­ ing women, which range from gen­ der and power dynamics to love and loss. This differentiation from tra­ ditional mainstream viewpoints has influenced the type of performances chosen and has subsequently made for an interesting itinerary for the upcoming festival.

"I hope that the programming helps dispel negative preconcep­ tions some people have about femi­ nism—that it's stale, dated, not fun," says Miriam Ginestier, the festival's artistic director. "At Edgy, I like to mix politics and frivolity, high and low art, emerging and established artists—pushing artists and audi­ ences alike a little past their comfort zones."

A perfect example of Ginestier's approach to the festival a per­ formative lecture by Annie Sprinkle

(a pom star and performance artist) and Elizabeth Stephens, founder of which is both provoca­ tive and challenging with its empha­ sis on “SexEcology.” Retelling their experiences of artificial insemina­ tion and breast cancer and explain­ ing their love for the Earth, Sprinkle and Stephens, founder of are sure to be the highlight of the festival with their “Adventures of the Love Art Lab” at La Sala Rossa.

"We’re hoping to make the en­ vironmental movement more sexy, fun, and diverse," says Sprinkle.

"By switching the metaphor from 'Earth as mother' to 'Earth as lover,' we want more people to come out as ‘ecosexual.’ We’re creating a new sexual identity that is really satisfy­ ing and exciting."

"Our message of messages is that love is a very powerful weapon against cynicism, adds Stephens. “It is a compelling reason to fight to change the things that are important to us. At this time the most important thing to Annie and me is the health and welfare of our lover, the Earth."

Although Sprinkle and Ste­ phens's performance relies on transmitting their unique message through words, Ginestier tries hard to offer different performances due to Quebec's bilingual nature. Fo­ cusing on non-verbal or bilingual acts, the festival shows the breadth of its approach to the feminist cul­ ture. for example, an act

SexEcology

SexEcolo­

gy,

Slippery,

Scenes from last year’s innovative Edgy Women performances. (Lisa Craves and Elizabeth Delage / Studio 303) of 40 performers with backgrounds in roller derby and hockey, seeks to play on the stereotypes surrounding the over-sexualized female self as it simultaneously points out the ridicu­ lous nature of the sports.

“The audience should be ready to experience an intriguing public intervention of performance art, ex­

perimental dance, skating practice, and competitive conceptual think­ ing," says Christopher DiRaddo, the festival's public relations director.

With Sprinkle’s and Stephens's enthusiasm about their own project and with Ginestier's commitment to quality, the Edgy Women Festival looks to be exactly what the orga­

nizers and the performers are ex­ pecting: fun, provocative, and most importantly, edgy.

The2011EdgyWomenFestival takesplacefromMarch19toApril2 at various theatres. Visit edgywomen.cafordetails.

P o p lÿ ie to r ic W e d d in g s ov er d isa ste r s?

The world has witnessed mas­ sive destruction and upheaval over the past few months, but still more apparently captivating to the public imagination is the upcoming wed­ ding of England’s Prince William to his princess-to-be, Kate Middleton.

Not only fascinating to British folk who worship the royal fam­ ily, The Toronto Star reported that “Royal Wedding” was one of the most googled terms in Canada. If you google the term—which I ad­ mittedly did—you will find count­ less Royal Wedding websites devot­ ed to outlining the wedding details, offering Royal Wedding trivia, and even more distastefully, selling William-and-Kate-related merchandise and memorabilia. One of the items includes a replica of Kate’s stunning

engagement ring, previously worn

by William’s mother Princess Diana.

Even Vanity Fair has a portion of their website devoted to counting down the days and events leading up to the April 29 nuptials. Recently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper an­ nounced that he and his wife Laureen are proud to be representing Canada at the affair. In the digital age, the publicity relating to the event has already eclipsed that of Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981—well known for being a media circus.

Some have taken the fervour even further. Clapham Common, one of London’s most famous parks, will be saturated with tents and union flags as it is transformed into “Camp Royale.” Paying camp­ ers (at a whopping £75 per person) will be able to watch the events on a giant screen while sipping on York­ shire tea. There will even be prizes awarded to the guests with the most creatively designed tents.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence in an event and a story that, to be perfectly honest, are quite enthralling. The fact that England still has a royal family is in itself pretty interesting—and yes, a little bizarre, antiquated, and. slightly reminiscent of the 400 or so years when it was a global empire.

But beyond that, in what other form do people get to witness a modem-day fairytale? In this story, a prince meets a beautiful commoner (at university instead of at the ball), falls in love, and eventually propos­ es to her (with an 18-carat blue sap­ phire ring instead of a glass slipper).

The thought of a girl from humble beginnings casually dating one of the most sought-after men in the world rightfully has many, including myself, racing with questions: How did the courtship compare to that of normal people? Would she like him if he weren’t the prince? What was it like meeting grandma?

But, while the wedding details are admittedly more interesting than those of the average couple, the media circus that has already sur­ rounded the event—and that will exponentially increase as the date nears—still raises questions about the role of the media, and the extent to which we should give a shit. The president of CTV announced that the event will be treated “like an Olym­ pics,” and USA Today, NBC, ABC, and CBC have all reported that they are going to be substantially increas­ ing their expenditures for live broad­ casting of the wedding. The costs of sending anchors, cameramen, and entire network crews to England is no small allowance, and it will come at the expense of financing coverage of more serious issues.

Yes, life goes on in the face of world crises. Yes, as many have ar­ gued, life go on especially in the face of world crises. Yes, I would love to hear Elton John write a new

should

song, as I venture to guess that he will. But even though everybody knows the monarchy has little ef­ fect on England’s political affairs at home and abroad, it seems strange that the amount of money, hype, and publicity that is going into an event in honour of the faces of the nation, has not been regarded as in any way problematic.

I’m not suggesting that, in soli­ darity to the catastrophes that have been taking place, the couple trade Westminster Abbey for their back­ yard (though that would be nice, too), Alexander McQueen for a no­ name brand, and the A-list brigade of guests for a small gathering of their closest friends. I do wonder, however, when we cross the line from interested voyeurs to frivolous and apathetic citizens of the world.

— BrahnaSiegelberg

'Riesdav, March 15, 2011

1

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A n a lie n ta k e o n th e S to n e r c o m e d y S e t h R o g e n p u t s a n e w s p i n o n e x t r a t e r r e s t r i a l s t e r e o t y p e s in l a t e s t c o m e d y , P a u l

By Nicholas Petrillo____________ Contributor Set primarily in the Western United States, is the fish-outof-water story of Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), two nerdy British vacationers who em­ bark on a road trip across the West.

When they pull over in their RV on a long stretch of desert highway, they come into contact with an alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) who calls himself Paul. Apart from your typi­ cal short, green, bug-eyed alien look, Paul is completely different from the average alien. He speaks English, he knows more about pop culture than the average human, and he’s obnox­ iously affrontive. How he came to be this way isn’t explained, but the film does vaguely describe the shady business relationship that Paul once

Paul

had with the American government.

Through other unexplained circum­ stances, Paul has been evading cap­ ture by the USA for some time now, but it’s just a matter of time before the government closes in on his lo­ cation. Thus begins the story that is part buddy road-trip and part science fiction comedy. The characters’ dimwittedness is hilarious and carries the movie.

In this film, directed by Greg Motolla, recurring gags make up the bulk of the comedy. Graeme and Clive’s mutual excitement for comic books is frequently misinterpreted as proof that the two are gay lov­ ers. Furthermore, Paul’s influence over Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a caricature of the stubborn Bible Belt Christian fundamentalist, causes her to embrace what she thinks is the lifestyle of the modem twenty­

quieter as these jokes systematically repeat themselves over and over.

The movie is decent and the requisite humour is all there. Some moments are outrageous and un­ expected, while other scenes are passable scenarios that border on conventional comedy shtick. The road trip/chase plot is similar to that of which also builds its story entirely upon the na­ ivete of its characters. But in there’s a lot of humour that comes from simply repeating certain jokes and situations rather than using an arsenal of clever comedic material.

This movie doesn’t have the same British humour angle that Pegg and Frost showed in and but their take on alien stereotypes is original and worth checking out.

Dumb andDumber,

Paul,

Obnoxious Paul doesn’t care to phone home, (heyuguys.co.uk) something. She attempts to be hip by drinking, smoking, and unexpected­ ly swearing during awkward social situations. And of course there’s the cliche slapstick comedy in which ev­

FILM

W h o ’s a f r a i d o f t h e B i g B a d W o l f ?

T w ilig h t d i r e c t o r r e t u r n s w i t h m o r e w e r e w o l f r o m a n c e s

erybody’s reaction to seeing an alien is to fall straight backward in a state of shock. These gags might not be sophisticated, but they are amusing for a little while. But the laughs get

oftheDead,

HotFuzz Shaun

Could Be Good*•

By Mira S. Sharma Contributor Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theatres, screaming teenagers have come back for the latest supernatural romance thriller.

While Catherine Hardwicke’s is innovative in that it’s a far cry from the bedtime story you remember from your childhood, the film still falls drastically short of its concept.

It’s hard to reconcile Hard­ wicke’s first critically acclaimed film, with her take on it’s with a better standing cast. This red-hood­ ed protagonist, Valerie, played by the doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried, is romantic and rebellious. She is tom between two hunks, Henry (Max Irons) and Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), one of whom may be a werewolf.

Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should; Hardwick was, after all, the first to direct the films.

Although Valerie is in love with Peter, a poor woodsman, her parents have arranged for her to be married to the wealthier blacksmith, Henry.

When Valerie’s sister is killed by a wolf, however, her plan to mn away with Peter has to be put on hold, After the men of the town fail to find the murderous wolf, they call on the town priest, Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), to help solve the furry problem. He reveals that the town is haunted not by a mere wolf, but by a werewolf, who takes human shape in the absence of the full moon and

Red

RidingHood

Thirteen, Riding Hood',

Twilight

Twilight

MARCH

Red Valerie contemplates her supernatural love triangle, (collider.com) lives among them. But who is the big, bad wolf?

Despite the grown-up makeover of this children fairytale, the film fails to enable the audience to invest in the characters. Seyfried’s Valerie seems more like a Goldilocks who stole Little Red Riding Hood’s cape.

As Peter, Fernandez is supposed to be the brooding, reclusive rebel, but acts more like one of Robin Hood’s merry men in tights strolling around town. Acting giants Gary Oldman and Julie Christie are unable to ex­ ecute their trademark performances, which fizzle underneath their overthe-top-characters as Father Solo­ mon and Grandmother, respectively.

The romance itself is a superfi­ cial plotline that barely scratches the surface, as the seemingly tensionfilled love triangle quickly dissolves and transforms into a whodunit mys­ tery.

The problem with the film is that Hardwicke tries to do too much at once, setting up the film as the stage for a fairytale orgy. For ex­ ample, during the town’s celebra­ tion, the villagers act out a scene from the story of The Three Little Pigs. There’s even a reference to the rabbit’s fur being “snow white.” At one point, Hardwicke starts to mix fairytale elements with religious zeal, at point going as far as to mimic the Salem Witch trials.

Regardless of the wannabecharacters and narrative, the cinematography was quite beautiful at times. And to be fair, Hardwicke was right to develop as a film about sexual awak­ ening rather than simply a girl who tries to visit her ailing grandmother.

But she unsuccessfully executes her ideas and in the end, all we got was a mess.

Twilight

Hood

Red Riding

1 5 -2 0

Canada’s Top Ten Cinema du Parc March 11 to 17 Canada’s Top Ten celebrates and promotes contemporary Ca­ nadian cinema and is intended to raise public awareness of Canadian achievements in film. Each film selected as part of Canada’s Top Ten must have either premiered at a major Canadian film festival or had a commercial theatrical release in Canada within the calendar year.

Check cinemaduparc.com for schedules and film details.

Giant Hand Le Cagibi March 17 Just two months after picking up a guitar for the first time, Ot­ tawa’s Kirk Ramsay adopted the name Giant Hand and was playing his first ever show, opening for Vancouver band Immaculate Ma­ chine in the basement of a record store. He’s played with Daniel Johnston, Handsome Furs, Ohbijou, Timber Timbre, and The Acorn, and brings his folk sound to le Cagibi this week.

St. Patrick’s Parade St. Catherine Street and Fort Street March 20 The Montreal St. Patrick’s Parade has run annually since 1824 and has been put on by the United Irish Societies of Montreal since 1928. This year’s parade promises to be a good time, with floats, performances, and Irish pride. The parade travels along St. Cath­ erine St. from 11:15 a.m. onwards this Sunday.

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ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

S e c o n d - r a n k e d M c G ill h e a d s t o N a t i o n a l s o n w i n n i n g n o t e

By Adam Sadinsky Contributor For the second straight year, the McGill Redmen travelled deep into Ontario and emerged Queen’s Cup champions. The Redmen put an ex­ clamation point on their final OUA match with a 6-2 rout of the Western Conference champion University of Western Ontario Mustangs, the fifth time in eight playoff matches that McGill managed to score five or more goals. The Queen’s Cup vic­ tory is McGill’s second in a row and 16th since winning the inaugural competition in 1903.

As a Quebec team playing in the OUA, McGill had the disadvan­ tage of having to play on the road in the 100th edition of the Queen’s Cup. This turned out not to be much of a hindrance, as the Red­ men scored early and often. For the second straight game, six different players lit the lamp for McGill, who will go into the Cavendish Univer­ sity Cup in New Brunswick as one of the favourites.

“I thought we had a real solid game from all 20 guys,” said Head Coach Kelly Nobes. “It was a good effort from the net out, through our six defencemen and four forward lines. You could see that on the scoresheet—we got goals from six different guys in a big game. We wanted to win the Queen’s Cup, which was one of our objectives at the beginning of the season. We’ve got one more big one to win, and that’s our next objective.”

Western fed off a large, purpleclad crowd in the opening minutes,

spending most of their time in the Redmen end. This quickly changed, however, when Max Langlier-Parent found Patrick Belzile, who notched his first goal of the playoffs just seven minutes in. Belzile also added an assist to finish plus two on the night. Nobes recognized that his team was able to count on contribu­ tions from everyone on the roster.

“It’s tough to point to one guy specifically [who has stood out in the playoffs]. I think we’ve had great contribution from everybody and we’ve won games throughout the playoffs because of many different guys having big games.”

Just 56 seconds later, with McGill on the power play, An­ drew Wright deflected a Guillaume Doucet point shot past Western goalie Anthony Grieco for a 2-0 Redmen lead. Only three minutes after Wright’s goal, Doucet recorded his second assist of the period when he slipped the puck to a net-crashing Evan Vossen, who slammed home what would turn out to be the game­ winning goal.

The Mustangs capitalized on a Redmen parade to the penalty box in the first half of the second period and got a power play goal on a wrist shot from Jason Swit just as Langli­ er-Parent was leaving the box. The teams tradeed goals in the second as Alex Picard-Hooper and Simon Marcotte-Légaré tallied for McGill, and Western scored a shorthanded goal off the stick of John Furlong.

In the third period, up 5-2, the Redmen sat back, anticipating a furi­ ous rally by Western to get back into the game. The rally never material­

ized, as the airtight McGill defence only allowed the Mustangs to get six shots through to goaltender Hubert Morin, who stopped 21 out of 23 shots in the game, including going six for six in the closing stanza. On a shorthanded defensive zone faceoff, Marc-André Dorion lobbed the puck 180 feet into an empty net to salt away the victory and signal it was time to warm up the bus for the cel­ ebratory trip back to Montreal.

The outburst of goals for the Redmen hasn’t just been a playoff phenomenon. McGill scored 141 goals in the regular season in which they went 24-2-2. Western was the nation’s second highest scoring of­ fence, managing 21 fewer goals than McGill.

“I think we scored a lot of goals all season and we’re right where we were most of the year,” Nobes said.

“Guys are peaking at the right time of the year, we’re getting pucks to the net and finding different ways to score. That’s important in order to have success.”

The scoring success will have to continue at nationals in Fredericton, which will feature the top-ranked University of New Brunswick Var­ sity Reds who led the nation in the regular season by allowing just 43 goals. McGill knows the power of the Varsity Reds, having lost 7-1 in Fredericton on December 30.

Despite the sting of that early loss, Nobes is still optimistic.

“Our team has evolved since then, and we’ve grown as a group,” he said. “We’ve improved in all facets of our game. That game [vs.

UNB] was a good learning experi­

F r id a y A p r il 8 t h , 2 0 1 1 a t 5 p m S h a tn e r B a llr o o m , SSMU B u ild in g , 3 4 8 0 M cT avish , 3 r d flo o r I te m s t o b e p r e s e n t e d ••• ...annual reports from the outgoing Board of Directors, Staff members, Rad Frosh Coordinators, School Schmool editorial board, and Summer Stipend recipients ...a review by all of our working groups of what they've ac­ complished in the last year ... bylaw changes ...audited financial statements E lectio n s fo r t h e B o a r d o f D irecto rs a n d t h e C onflict R e s o lu tio n a n d C o m p la in ts C o m m itte e (CRCC) ••• ...nomination forms for the board of directors and CRCC are available at the QPIRG offices and must be submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer's mailbox at QPIRG by 5pm, WEDNEDAY MARCH 30th, 2011. ... McGill students and community members can run for the CRCC and the QPIRG-McGill Board of Directors.

Snacks and light refreshments will be served.

Childcare and translation available, notify 48 hours in advance.

ence for us and it’ll pay dividends moving forward.”

Both the Redmen and the Mustangs will have over a week to prepare for the Cavendish Univer­ sity Cup presented by Home Depot, which gets going on March 24 and runs until March 27. Joining McGill

and Western will be the host Var­ sity Reds, the St. Francis Xavier X-Men, the Alberta Golden Bears, and the Calgary Dinos. Of the top seven ranked teams in Canada, only defending champion St. Mary’s will miss out on the tournament, having lost to St.FX in the AUS semifinals.

T H IR D M AN IN Leaf the attitude at home Over reading week, I had the pleasure of going to an NHL game.

It was my first Maple Leafs game.

Living up to their reputation, the Leafs were outplayed by the Pitts­ burgh Penguins third-stringers.

While I didn’t see Crosby, I had the honour of sitting next to one of the best hockey fans I’ve ever met. His greatest strength was his ability to support one of the worst teams in the NHL while remaining upbeat and optimistic, an ability fuelled largely by alcohol. He was the Leafs Fan. The Leafs Fan loves hockey, but he loves drinking more. By the time the puck drops, he’s had at least four beers. He must be buzzed in order to cheer for a team that just traded

Kaberle and labelled this campaign “a rebuilding year,” yet again. The Leafs Fan is preparing for a night of celebrating the win, or more likely, trying to dull the pain of another loss.

The Leafs Fan has done his homework, and has a vague idea of the three major facets of hockey: fighting, hitting the puck, and drink­ ing. His knowledge of the intricacies of rules like offsides and icing are not complete, but these subtleties are superficial to the ultimate purpose of the game: beer. But, that doesn’t stop him from sharing his understanding of the rules with anyone and every­ one in sections 110-130.

As the puck drops, the Leafs Fan stands and, with complete dis­ regard for the families, children, and real hockey fans on all sides, begins

to shout. His cry is louder than a space shuttle launch from 14 feet.

But sadly, the herd of fans is about as coordinated as the team itself, and collaborative activities like the wave or encouraging chants are out of the question.

No one is safe from the Leafs Fan’s buffoonery. The Malkins, the Rupps, the referees, the trivia par­ ticipants, even Carlton the Bear fall victim. Nothing is sacred. Jests such as “OH WHERE’S CROS­ BY, DOES HE HAVE A LITTLE HEADACHE? DOES HE HAVE A LITTLE BOOBOO?” incite rage in children who have come to see their Canadian idol. Noticeably absent from the Leafs Fan’s criticisms are the Leafs players themselves, who are playing like ... well, Maple Leafs.

James Reimer hasn’t held on to one

shot in the entire game, the power play unit can’t keep the puck in the opposing zone, and Kovalev plays his defenders like a fiddle. Nonethe­ less, “WHO GOT DRAFTED IN THE SEVENTH ROUND, KOVI?” I’m not sure either.

Following the game, which sur­ prisingly turned out to be an exciting shootout loss for the Leafs, the Leafs Fan shares his vision for the Leafs playoff run. They’re only eight points out, he explains, but the team shouldn’t have any trouble catching up with Carolina. Then they’ll crush Philly and move to the second round easily, he tells his friends, sloshing beer and peanuts everywhere.

I’d like to make it clear that I’m not specifically anti-Maple Leafs, despite my abhorrence for every­ thing Toronto. This fan exists in are­

nas, ballparks, and gridirons every­ where, and if you’ve ever been to a game, you’ve probably encountered him or her. Only two summers ago, I went with my lovely girlfriend to a Cubs game and became the sub­ ject of ridicule after chuckling at a Cubs-thrown dirtball. I know Leafs fans who love hockey, and who un­ derstand it. I’m just concerned about the way the culture of certain sport­ ing events has evolved. The game shouldn’t be a place to get wasted and fight. It should be Stompin’ Tom Connors’ “good ol’ hockey game.”

While I understand that people have fun in different ways, there’s a clear line between fun and obnoxious drunkenness, a line too often crossed.

Please, Leafs Fan, and sporting fans everywhere, let sports be sports.

— IainMacdonald

EAST Preview: Ohio State is, as Kanye would say, a monster. The Buckeyes, led by fresh­ man centre Jared Sullinger, should be able to drop step their way over and through the Big Dance. Combined with the outside shooting of Jon Diebler, OSU has the inside-outside combination that so many other teams covet.

UNC has the two-seed and Harrison Barnes, but both are inconsistent. UNC also has a tough matchup in the Round of 32 against Isa­ iah Thomas and the Washington Huskies, but should overcome them to make the Sweet 16.

The other top four seeds, Syracuse and Ken­ tucky, should also stick to the script by mak­ ing it to the regional semis. From there, it’s anybody’s guess. Kentucky and Ohio State are the two best teams in the region and our best guess is Sullinger over phenom Kentucky point guard Brandon Knight. UNC—Syracuse is a major crapshoot, but if Barnes gets hot he can lead his team all the way to the Elite Eight.

Final Four Bound: The Buckeyes are the best of the top four seeds, but all of them have a legitimate chance of making it to the Final Four. Still, we’ll take the dominant big man and OSU to bull their way through the field.

Potential Bracket Buster: If you’re looking for a region with lots of upset poten­ tial, look elsewhere. Still, there’s a legitimate chance of 11-seed Marquette beating six-seed Xavier. Washington also seems underseeded, but UNC will be a tough out.

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UCONN Preview: Duke, the top seed and de­ fending national champs, enter the tourna­ ment on a roll after ACC player of the year Nolan Smith led the Blue Devils to an ACC championship by demolishing UNC in the title game. While they’re always a threat to win, star Kyle Singler has been in a shooting slump for the last month. They will need him to heat up if they hope to repeat as champs.

The Connecticut Huskies enter the tourna­ ment as the nation’s hottest team. They rolled to the Big East championship by winning five straight games behind Kemba Walker’s spec­ tacular play. San Diego State is a great team but they lack big game experience and could be overwhelmed by the NCAA tourney expe­ rience. Finally, there are the Texas Longhorns.

Smooth scorer Jordan Hamilton and Canadian freshmen Corey Joseph and Tristan Thompson lead the Longhorns. While they have been a little shaky the past month, if they play their best they could win the whole thing.

Final Four Bound: Go with the hot hand. No one is playing better than Walker and Connecticut right now. Winning the tourney is all about getting on a roll at the right time and the Huskies seem to have timed it perfectly.

Potential Bracket Buster: This is a region with strong top seeds and weaker low seeds. While Texas is a great team they got a tough break in drawing Oakland in the first round. If Texas’ struggles from the last month continue, look for Oakland to shock the world with an upset and challenge the winner of the Arizona/Memphis matchup for a spot in the Sweet 16.

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Preview: This should be a top-heavy re­ gion with both a very strong one and two seed.

The Kansas Jayhawks are the top seed and team to beat. Led by 6’9” twins Marcus and Markieff Morris, Kansas only lost two games all year while winning the Big 12 regular sea­ son and tournament championships. However, the two-seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish are an offensive powerhouse led by sharpshoot­ ers Ben Hansbrough and Tim Abromatis. The Fighting Irish have the shooting and defence to make some serious noise in the tournament.

The three- and four-seeds, Purdue and Louis­ ville, are solid teams but have too many ques­ tion marks and inconsistent performances to be considered Final Four threats.

Final Four Bound: The Morris twins and the rest of the Jayhawks should have the Fighting Irish seeing quadruple in an epic Elite Eight matchup. Ultimately the balance of the Morris twins and great three-point shoot­ ing from guards Josh Shelby and Tyrel Reed should give the Jayhawks a Final Four berth.

Potential Bracket Buster: The 5-12 matchups always produce upsets and this year should prove no different as a very strong Richmond Spiders squad goes up against Van­ derbilt. Richmond won the A-10 tourney and have a great guard big man combo in Kevin Anderson and D.J. Harper. If the Spiders get hot, look for them to knock off Vandy and threaten for a spot in the Sweet 16 and per­ haps beyond.

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Preview: If you’re searching for some classic madness, look no further than the Southeast. This region will be full of upsets and unpredictability as each high seed is rid­ dled with question marks. The number one seed Pittsburgh Panthers are a great team but have a tendency to choke in big games, and have never made a Final Four. Second seeded Florida got killed in the SEC championship by Kentucky and looks overseeded. Finally, BYU lost leading rebounder Brandon Davies, which will create serious problems for them despite having an all-world scorer and the best player in the nation in Jimmer Fredette. With such weakness at the top of this bracket, look for a wild ride in the Southeast Final Four Bound: Look for Kansas State to emerge from the Southeast. Kansas State has beaten three ranked teams (Kansas, Missouri, and Texas) in the last month. They are extremely physical and are led by Jacob Pullen, one of the best scorers in the country.

Kansas State is very streaky and unpredict­ able, but if they get on a roll, watch out, they’ll be Final Four bound.

Potential Bracket Buster: Where to start? Gonzaga, Belmont, Utah State, Michi­ gan State, and Old Dominion are all very strong teams and each one has a chance to reach the Elite Eight or even Final Four. Ul­ timately, look for Gonzaga to take advantage of a favourable draw and upset Florida on the way to the Elite Eight.

SP£C/Alf b r a c k e t

SO UTH EAST

Tuesday. March 15. 2011_________ _

_________________________________________________________________________________________ _________

HOCKEY— CAME ONE: MCGILL 4 ALBERTA 2 , CAME TWO: MCGILL 3 QUEEN’S 1 , CHAMPIONSHIP: MCGILL 5 ST. FRANCIS XAVIER 2

M c G ill r u n s t h e t a b l e a g a i n s t C IS o p p o n e n t s in e p i c y e a r D r e a m s e a s o n c u l m i n a t e s in t h i r d N a t i o n a l C h a m p i o n s h i p in f o u r y e a r s ; P e r o f f n a m e d t o u r n e y M V P

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The McGill Martlets are Na­ tional Champions once again. The team capped a perfect 33-0 season against CIS opponents with a com­ manding 5-2 victory over the St. Francis Xavier X-Women on Sun­ day night at the Waterloo Memorial Recreational Complex. The champi­ onship marked the third time in four years that McGill has been crowned CIS champs.

“It was pretty special. We worked hard all year long. We came up a little short last year and to come back and win it this year showed a lot of character by everyone in­ volved,” said McGill Head Coach Peter Smith.

Jordanna Peroff, who had a goal and an assist in the champion­ ship game, was named Tournament MVP after she led the tournament with five points. Two teammates, defender Cathy Chartrand and for­ ward Leslie Oles, joined her on the tournament all-star team.

“Those three players were ter­ rific but I also think that they were part of the big picture,” said Smith.

“I thought all of our players were great for the whole tournament. I think that’s the beauty—the strength of our team is really our team. We had different players who stepped up at different points over the course of the whole season and I think the National Championship was just an­ other example of that—we had play­

ers step up at the opportune times.”

McGill travelled to Waterloo, Ontario as the number one seed.

The six-team tournament was split into two groups, with the winner of each group playing for the title.

The Martlets were grouped with the defending champion University of Alberta Pandas, and Queen’s Uni­ versity Golden Gaels who were on a 12 game winning streak. The Mar­ tlets won both games to advance to the championship against the XWomen.

GAMEONE: MCGILLvs.ALBERTA The Martlets opened the tourna­ ment against the defending champs Alberta Pandas who defeated McGill in last year’s championship game. The Martlets got revenge on the Pandas as four different players scored in a 4-2 win.

Despite McGill’s history with Alberta, Coach Smith stressed that the team prepared as for any other game.

“We didn’t spend a whole lot of energy thinking about Alberta and about playing them last year,” he said. “They were an opponent and we played them and we played them hard. It didn’t matter who we were playing, we were going to play them hard.”

The Martlets started the first period slow but eventually found

their stride. McGill dominated by outshooting Alberta 10-5 in the first period, and the Pandas were often forced to ice the puck to relieve the Martlets’ pressure. With less than two minutes left in the period, McGill went on the power play as the Pandas were called for a rough­ ing penalty. A minute into the power play Caroline Hill put the puck in the back of the net with assists from Ann-Sophie Bettez and Chartrand to score the first goal of the game and give the Martlets a 1-0 lead.

McGill carried their momentum into the second period. Just three minutes in, Oles scored the second goal of the game on another power play to double the lead. However, five minutes later Alberta scored their own power play goal as Karla Bourque scored to make it a one goal game.

The Martlets kept their compo­ sure as Chelsey Saunders, who was named player of the game, answered with a goal of her own 18:53 into the period. That would turn out to be the winning goal as Alberta was only able to score once more on a five on three advantage before McGill’s Kim Ton-That scored on an empty net in the last minute to ice the game.

—Rebecca Babcock

GAMETWO: MCGILLvs. QUEEN’S %

The clock struck midnight on this year’s CIS Cinderella as the big bad Martlets ground the Gaels’ glass slipper into a fine powder in a 3-1 win.

McGill pressured Queen’s re­ lentlessly and the Gaels were unable to maintain discipline in the face of the onslaught. McGill earned seven power plays compared to Queen’s three.

The tone for the game was set

early, as the Gaels got themselves into trouble by taking a hooking call less than a minute in. McGill’s Katia Clement-Heydra capitalized on the ensuing power play, driving the net hard and corralling a rebound for a tap-in goal.

The Gaels weren’t ready to say good night just yet and rallied to tie midway through the first.

“We were ... apprehensive in the game against Queen’s because I think the players were very anx­ ious on getting into the gold medal game,” said Smith. “That’s where they wanted to be all year long.”

The Martlets regained their composure and controlled long stretches of play, outshooting Queens 35-18 over the course of the game.

Peroff scored McGill’s second power play goal of the night 5:30 into the second period, on a pass from behind the net that caromed in off the skate of a Queen’s defender, re-establishing the Martlets onegoal lead. Alyssa Cecere provided the final margin by scoring the Mar­ tlets’ third goal. Cecere scored off a three-on-two rush with a beautiful feed from Saunders.

—Sam Hunter

CHAMPIONSHIPGAME: MCGILLvs.ST.FRANCISXAVIER The championship game was a battle between unbeaten teams, as the Martlets entered the champion­ ship game with a perfect 32-0 record against the X-Women who held a 29-0 record of their own. Despite the similar records, it was McGill who came in looking calmer and more confident than their Maritime opponents, and eventually cruised to a dominant 5-2 victory.

“I don’t think we were nervous at all,” said Smith. “Not that we took [the X-Women] lightly by any means

but it’s just that we were able to play the game that we wanted to play.”

The Martlets controlled the tempo of the game with their speed and accurate passing. In the first period, McGill star goalie Charline Labonte kept the game scoreless as she shut the door on each and every X-Women chance, including a beau­ tiful save on a breakaway. The Mar­ tlets were able to take the lead 16:26 into the first after Martlets leading scorer Bettez scored her first goal of the tournament on the power play.

McGill was able to extend their lead in the second with a beautiful goal. Oles streaked into the X-Wom­ en’s end and found Peroff in the slot with a beautiful pass. Peroff made no mistake as she rocketed a slap­ shot into the top right comer for her second goal of the tournament.

Just 38 seconds later, Hill buried a loose puck in front past X-Women goalie Kristy Garrow to give McGill a commanding 3-0 lead halfway through the game. McGill extended their lead in the third period as Jas­ mine Sheehan scored just two min­ utes into the period to ultimately put the game out of reach.

The X-Women were able to halve the four-goal deficit with two goals in four minutes but couldn t complete the comeback. Alessandra Lind-Kenny scored the fifth Martlet goal to secure the National Champ onship for McGill.

The Martlets have become a Canadian hockey powerhouse. They racked up an incredible 33-0 record against CIS opponents this season and have now won three of the last four National Championships. While they will lose many key contributors to graduation this year, they remain poised to threaten for a fourth CIS Championship next season.

—Walker Kitchens