The McGill Tribune Vol. 30 Issue 26

LITERATURE WEEK, PACES 12-13

REPORT CARDS FOR SSMU AND SPORTS, PAGES 6-7 , 22-23

Published by the Tribune Publication Society Volume No. 30 Issue No. 26

Été à Montréal, pour les étudiants

Cultural critics face off at Walrus debate

By Théo Meyer

Managing Editor

Two prominent cultural critics squared off at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, arguing about—and, more often than not, agreeing on—how best to promote the arts in Montreal.

The debate, hosted by McGill and The Walrus, a monthly publi­ cation that fancies itself “Canada’s Best Magazine,” was planned to focus on the merits of the Quartier des Spectacles, a cultural district anchored by Place des Arts that the City of Montreal has been develop­ ing for years.

But the participants—Witold Rybczynski, a University of Penn­ sylvania School of Design profes­ sor, and Simon Brault, the CEO of the National Theatre School and a vice-chair of the Canada Council for the Arts—often veered off in other directions, commenting on more general issues of culture.

Rybczynski, for instance, who is also Slate’s architecture critic, kicked off the debate by comment­ ing on a ranking of world cities com­ piled by Foreign Policy magazine, on which Montreal ranked 31st.

In the subset of visual and performing arts, however, the city came in fourth in the world. This, Rybczynski said, was evidence that

Maybe the world’s greatest city in which to spend the summ er. (Ryan Reisert/McGiil Tribune)

Montreal had little to worry about in terms of culture.

“What does it take to build a cultural metropolis?” he asked, re­ ferring to the debate’s theme. “We are a cultural metropolis. It doesn’t take anything to build it. We’ve done it.”

Both men have roots in Mon­ treal—Brault is the head of Cul­ ture Montreal and Rybczynski is a McGill alumnus—and they came close to agreement on one of the de­ bate’s main topics: the value of des­ ignated cultural districts in cities.

“I don’t think cultural districts are a good idea,” Rybczynski said.

“I don’t think it’s an organic way for cities to grow. It’s a kind of warmedover idea from the 1960s.”

Brault agreed on this point, complaining that most such districts were artificial and instituted from the top down. But the two men dis­ agreed on whether or not the Quart­ ier des Spectacles fit this stereotype.

The Quartier, Brault said, had been a cultural centre for more than a century. The construction of new venues there will simply emphasize this, he argued.

The Quartier des Spectacles, he added, is “not something that has been created as a theme park, as a Disney, in the middle of Montreal.”

Rybczynski, however, seemed See “ RYBCZYNSKI” on page 5

Students’ stress levels increase as April exams approach M cGill Counselling Services reports six week waiting period for appointm ents for stressed students

By Kyla Mandel________________

Contributor

McGill Counselling Services is currently experiencing an unprec­ edented wait period of five to six weeks for appointments. While all students can be seen during intakethe first visit-follow-up appoint­

ments are being delayed by over a month.

“We can’t take a lot of second or follow-up appointments for about six weeks now and that’s never happened before,” said Director of Counselling Services Ted Baker.

In the past, the wait time for a follow-up appointment was usually

two to three weeks.

“We’ve even added more hours and still have that wait period, so that’s very different from other years,” said Evelyn Rodinos, a psy­ chologist with McGill Counselling Services.

Counselling Services believes that the stress from exams may be

contributing to the influx of pa­ tients.

At this time of year, Baker said, “all those academic obligations are kind of like the icing on the cake.”

He said the added stress of exams, on top of other issues that students might be struggling with, such as financial, family, or relationship

C o n g r a t u la t io n s to o u r t e a m s a n d t h a n k you to o u r fa n s a n d s p o n s o r s fo r a s u c c e s s f u l 2 0 1 0 -2 0 1 1 v a r s it y s e a s o n !

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stress, can increase student anxiety.

Many students are seeking help with regards to “preventing exam stress, school stress, feeling over­ whelmed,” Rodinos said, adding that increased stress might be partly due to the personality types of stu­ dents who choose to attend McGill.

See “ IRREGULAR” on page 3

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Job market shows some promise for graduating students Em ploym ent has increased in the past two years in the service sector and independent businesses

By Holly Stewart Photo Editor

Does the slowly rising Canadi­ an economy indicate better job pros­ pects for university students and re­ cent graduates? A recent New York Times article on the unprecedented number of unpaid and often illegal internships held by college students might be of concern for Americans, but things up here seem to be in bet­ ter shape. ' Quebec labour laws, which re­ quire that employers buy insurance for their employees—including in­ terns—makes it difficult for Canadi­ an students to be exploited. Accord­ ing to Paul Smith of the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers, the 2008 recession cre­ ated more unpaid internships in the U.S. than in Canada, which was not hit as hard.

“People in the U.S. were re­ sponding to the market pressures that came about in 2008. Compa­ nies would offer unpaid internships and they found people willing to do them,” Smith said.

Though pay varies from field to field, Canadian students shouldn’t expect compensation either. Intern­ ships in engineering and business are traditionally paid, while students

entering fields like social work often have to accept unpaid positions to get experience before moving on to other positions. This is true across the board, according to Catherine Stace, Arts advisor at McGill’s Ca­ reer and Planning Services.

“Media? Forget it. You’re not getting paid for an internship in media,” she said.

However, there are several in­ dications that things will improve for graduating students. On-campus recruiters, while only accounting for a small portion of hires, can accept less-qualified candidates, as the top students are receiving multiple of­ fers.

“We’ve noticed that jobs have increased over the past two years,” Stace said. “Service sector jobs are going to increase with the popula­ tion.”

The new jobs haven’t been evenly distributed for all graduates, though. Oil, gas, and mining indus­ tries are in active need of skilled labour. Even though demand for health and education services has in­ creased, this is part of an increasing shortage of doctors and educational professionals, especially in Quebec.

Smith explained that it’s impor­ tant to look at the trends in different sectors before drawing conclusions,

as certain demands might only be local.

“Northern communities are having a hard time finding people to go there and teach,” Smith said.

“Across urban Ontario, school boards are cutting back.”

Smith said that thefe are two pieces of advice commonly given to those starting a new career: ei­ ther work in a field that you love, or avoid it altogether.

“You need to know what it is that interests you, what you value and what you’re good at,” he said.

“Until you know those things there is no use looking for a career.”

Taking a year off after graduat­ ing to travel or teach English abroad is an increasingly popular option among graduates struggling to de­ fine themselves. Those that have established their goals then need to actively seek out companies that are likely to hire them and shouldn’t wait for jobs to come to them. Choosing a city in which they would like to live is a good place to start. From there, students and recent graduates should look for small to medium-sized companies that specialize in certain areas.

“The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses hires interns for policy and all sorts of interest­

ing things but you need to look for it in that city. They’re sitting there waiting for students to apply,” Stace added.

Ultimately, with the Canadian

economy recovering and baby boom­ ers retiring, students have reasons to be optimistic. “There are going to be spots open on the corporate ladder,” Smith said.

T h a n k s to a ll o u r N e w s c o n tr ib u to r s t h is y e a r : Z a c h C o n n e r ty -M a r in , N ick A n n e H a ld a n e , M o r g a n

F rid , K yia M a n d e l,

A b r a h a m , K irsten W il­

lia m s , M ic h a l Z u k , A n a n d B ery, R ic h a rd R a m c h a r a n , B e a tr ic e S is o n - P a e z , V ic to r S z u p e r , N iro s h a S a r u g a s e r , A m a n d a D e S o u z a , Ivan D i, E lisa M u y l, D y lan D o y le, T o d d C h a n , J im m y L o u, Kat S ie n iu c , S a r a h F e ld m a n , A n d re w M ille r, S t e p h a n ie S o u ro u jo n , E ric M a u s e r , N a th a n ie l F in e s to n e

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The CLARK LEWIS MEMORIAL PRIZE, estimated value $400, is open to major or honours students in the Department of English. The prize is awarded annually or from time to time for original plays staged in the course of the academic year.

The CHESTER MACNAGHTEN PRIZES IN CREATIVE W RITING (two prizes, one of estimated value $600 and another of estimated value $300) are open to undergraduate students of the University for the best piece o f creative writing in English, i.e. a story, a play, a poem, an essay, etc. Printed compositions are ineligible if they have been published before April 11, 2011.

The PETERSON MEMORIAL PRIZE, estimated value $2,000, is open to undergraduate or graduate students registered in a degree program in the Department of English with distinction in English Literature (CGPA 3.30 or above) who has also shown creative literary ability.

The LIONEL SHAPIRO AWARDS FOR CREATIVE WRITING, three prizes of estimated value $1,300 each, to be distributed if possible among the genres of poetry, fiction, screen writing and playwrighting. Each prize is to be awarded on the recommendation of the Department of English to students in the final year of the B.A. course who have demonstrated outstanding talent. (A note from your academic adviser verifying you will have completed your program requirements and the minimum credits required by the Faculty o f Arts MUST accompany your submission.

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N ATIONAL

Political clubs gear up for election Irregular diets and sleep patterns add up Liberal, Conservative, N D P M cGill focus on student issues Continued from COVER

By Nathaniel Finestone

Contributor

On March 25, the Conservative government of Canada fell after a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons. Students in campus political clubs are getting as active­ ly involved as they can, even with exams only a week away.

Charmaine Borg and Matthew Dube, co-presidents of NDP McGill, have focused on re-electing McGill alumnus Thomas Mulcair in the Ou­ tremont riding. Mulcair is the only NDP MP from Quebec, and one of the two deputy leaders of the party.

“We want to get people in­ volved and to vote, even if they’re not voting for us,” Borg said. “We don’t have the resources to pay peo­ ple, like the Conservatives, but we have committed volunteers, which makes it more fun.”

A big issue the NDP faces is strategic voting.

“Many [voters] don’t vote NDP even if they agree with our policies because they figure we can’t win and we’ll never win if people don’t vote for us,” Dube said. “It’s like the chicken and egg question.”

A major part of the NDP’s plat­ form is advocating for free univer­ sity tuition on the premise that post­ secondary education is a right and should be universally accessible.

Jack Layton, the NDP’s leader, also recently announced a proposal to put a cap on credit card rates, another reform directly relevant to university students. This proposal would limit the amount credit card companies could charge in interest.

Downtown election signs. (Miranda Whist/McGill Tribune)

which is a huge issue for debt-accru­ ing students.

Kathleen Klein, president of Liberal McGill, said her club is also working hard to publicize the Liber­ als’ platform and to get the vote out.

“We’re concentrating most on the Westmount-Ville-Marie riding, where most students live, but we also want students in Upper Rez, which is part of the Outremont riding, to vote Liberal,” she said.

“What’s great for us as students is that we can choose to vote either at home or here in Montreal.”

The Liberals’ main student-re­ lated cause is their newly proposed Canadian Learning Passport, which would provide $4,000 to all Canadi­ ans about to attend accredited post­ secondary institutions.

“The new program is basi­ cally tax-free money for every high school student which will be paid for by scaling back corporate tax cuts,” she said.

Conservative McGill however, is also working hard to seduce the constituents of the Westmount— Ville-Marie riding. Brendan Steven, principal secretary of Conservative McGill and editor-in-chief of the Prince Arthur Herald, was unhappy that an election was called but is eager to campaign all the same.

“Conservative McGill is work­ ing hard for Conservative candi­ dates to get elected,” he said. “We are organizing election teams to go on door knockings, to get volunteers involved and working with riding associations.”

“I think that the students se­ lected to come here to McGill are high achievers and expect enormous amounts from themselves,” she added. “There’s a lot demanded of them academically; there’s a lot of self-imposed stressed as well to per­ form well.”

Traditionally, one may think that it’s the students with poor study skills that are prone to stress, but Rodinos thinks that, instead, it’s the perfectionists.

“They can’t just do well, they have to excel. Their worthiness is dependent on their marks,” she said.

“Because of the exceptional quality of McGill students I think that [exams] can be very, very diffi­ cult for people who really feel some­ how they’re failing even though ob­ jectively they may be doing quite well,” Baker added.

Guillaume de Langre, a U2 po­ litical science and international de­ velopment studies student, said that he is “a bit anxious” about exams, becausé he knows he has to make up marks lost during midterms.

Seyoung Choe, a U2 student in East Asian studies, said that even though her finals are during the last week of exams, it’s still stressful because it’s “the last day of school on the upcoming week, [and] I feel that everything is rushing here and there.”

When students are stressed about school and exams, they “stop .exercising, are using caffeine, stop socializing and everything’s focused on their work,” Rodinos said.

But this is exactly the opposite of what stressed students should

be doing. Rodinos emphasized the importance of prioritizing self-care when trying to reduce stress and its symptoms.

“Sleep is a non-negotiable item,” she said. “I sound like ev­ erybody’s mother, but basically, eat, sleep, exercise and have some social contact so it’s not just studying.”

Rodinos added that maintaining these good lifestyle habits should make studying more effective.

“I love to take the time to bake ... or to even watch a short movie,” Choe said. But she added that her “sleeping habits do change during exam period because I tend to work until late at night.”

When students are stressed, they become sleep deprived, can­ not creatively problem solve, cannot write papers, concentrate or focus properly. Baker said the physical symptoms include insomnia, irri­ tability, upset stomachs, headaches and increased levels of depression.

“At this time of year the doc­ tors [in the McGill Health Services] are seeing a lot of psychosomatic stress responses like upsetting of stomachs, headaches, insomnia...but I think [these] have a stress basis to them or are aggravated by stress,” Baker said.

Therefore, he feels that it’s im­ portant for students to know how to recognize symptoms and learn how to manage their stress.

One positive aspect of the huge numbers of students coming to Counselling Services, Rodinos said, is that they may be “understanding that maybe there’s another way of managing without having to suffer.”

SPEAKER ON CAM PUS

Novelist Carlos Fuentes speaks on literature and law Mexican author received a law degree; worked as a diplom at during successful literary career

By Eric Mauser

Contributor

Last Wednesday, renowned Mexican author Carlos Fuentes de­ livered a lecture at the McGill Fac­ ulty of Law. His talk covered a broad range of topics in an equally broad range of languages, employing Eng­ lish, French, and Spanish.

Fuentes’s talk was titled “Lit­ erature and Law,” but it ranged over numerous subjects, including details from his personal life. Fuentes has a law degree from the University of Mexico and worked as a diplomat during part of his literary career. In an effort to directly connect with his audience, Fuentes recounted his own struggles in choosing a career path and encouraged students to follow

their dreams.

“If you are doing what you do not like, you're not happy,” he said.

“If you do what you like, you have a measure of happiness. So I urge everyone in this room tonight to do what they want to do. Don't let par­ ents and obligations deter you from doing what you want to do.”

Fuentes also spoke of the world’s changing power dynamics.

“The countries that used to be called 'third world' countries are suddenly the great countries of the world,” he said. “They are Bra­ zil, they are China, they are India.

You could not believe this 50 years ago. They are the protagonists of the world order. So what do we say when the world is changing so quickly, when the conditions that we

thought were secure and stable are no longer there?”

After the lecture, Fuentes said that he enjoyed speaking at McGill.

“It was a good audience and a great response. I was delighted to be here.”

When asked about the message he hoped students drew from his lec­ ture, Fuentes said, “I hope they un­ derstood that we're in a big change of civilization. We're going into the unknown, into something absolutely new and it’s up to them to see that whatever happens is good. It's un­ foreseen but it is good.”

Fuentes seemed to have made his point well. Carolina Millan Ronchetti, a U1 economics and in­ ternational development studies student, said, “As a student with

Hispapic-American heritage, I really respect Carlos Fuentes as an author and as a lawyer. I was really inter­ ested to hear his insight about the state of the world today. The world is changing and he made some in­ sightful comments about Mexico, Latin America, and the world as a whole.”

The McGill Law Journal was responsible for bringing Carlos Fu­ entes to speak at the Faculty of Law. The journal’s editor, Sara Ross, de­ scribed how she chose him.

“I thought, 'If I could have any­ body come to give our annual lec­ ture, who could I pick?’ And it was Carlos Fuentes,” she said.

Ross indicated that there had been some difficulties in arranging the lecture. It was originally sched­

uled for January but then had to be postponed. Throughout the process, however, Ross said that Fuentes re­ mained very “receptive” to speaking at McGill.

Ross added that she was happy Fuentes spoke because of what his personal story meant for students at the Faculty of Law. “McGill Law has this reputa­ tion for alternative legal careers and going into law school and not becoming a strict by-the-books law­ yer ... I think that it's so important to hear from people who have used their legal education to great ends and used it in different ways as Fu­ entes has.”

4—

Curiosity Delivers, www.mcgilltribune.com

EXCLU SIVE INTERVIEW

President Zach Newburgh reflects on his time in office “The great things we achieved far surpassed others which individuals might consider un successful” How would you evaluate your year as the SSMU president?

With every year, there are cer­ tainly ups and downs. I think that the great things we were able to achieve far surpassed the others which indi­ viduals might consider to be not so successful. This year featured the very first student-run homecoming, and the revival of Faculty Olympics.

We saw our very first equity confer­ ence hosted by the equity commit­ tee, we had a forum on undergradu­ ate education. Clearly, I think it was an extremely successful year.

What did you learn from the events surrounding the closing of the Architecture café?

Something I took out of it is that if the administration is re­ ally bent on something, that it’s very difficult to change its mind. I think the whole issue regarding the Architecture Café was a really bit­ tersweet one. We lost the café that was loved by a lot of people, even if not occupied by many. But out of it we got this really great group. And the administration of this university has on the forefront of its mind the importance of communication and consultation with every member of

McGill. Perhaps we lost the battle to win the war.

What thoughts do you have about your push for G A reform?

I wish the Legislative Council did what its job was, which is to deliberate on items that are coming before it, rather than referring ev­ erything to committees. We talked a lot about consultation throughout the year and I’m the culprit in cre­ ating a buzzword. There is merit in consultation, but one needs to prove why one needs further consultation before making calls for it. There’s also this notion that committees are always better suited to solve chal­ lenges, which I don’t think is neces­ sarily the case.

What I think was really great about this referendum question is that it got people talking seriously for the first time about, ‘Is the Gen­ eral Assembly democratic? Is the General Assembly something we ad­ mire? And, if we’re going to change it, what would be the model that people would be the most interested in developing?’ And that conversa­ tion had never really happened be­ fore outside of the newspaper.

Looking back, what thoughts do you have about the events sur­ rounding and the process of Jobbook?

Personally, I think that Jobbook is going to be a great tool for students. At every opportunity I dis­ closed my potential for conflict to the relevant decision-making bod­ ies; there was never any withhold­ ing of information to that end. In my mind, this is an instance where there may be a perceived conflict of inter­ est that was managed in accordance with the conflict of interest policy and I’d go further in saying these really are parallel interests, not con­ flicts. It is both in the interest of the Society and Jobbook.

I’m disappointed that some members of the executive chose to bring a motion to remove before a Legislative Council rather than ad­ dressing the issue with me before­ hand and I wish that they had also consulted the Society’s lawyer on this issue before making false accu­ sations.

How did Jobbook divide the Execu­ tive Committee during its last few months in office?

. I think that we did a very good

job at hiding our differences in pub­ lic during the first semester. But it’s very clear that second semester our dirty laundry was put out before ev­ eryone to see.

Do you have any advice for M ag­ gie Knight and next year’s SSMU exec?

The one piece of advice that I would give is that it’s very easy to adhere to ideologies. However, I Do you have any thoughts on the don’t think adhering to ideologies is campus media’s characterization something that will make individu­ of you throughout the Jobbook als successful. Many of the Society’s saga? policies are in many ways uncom­ I think certain media sources promisingly ideological, and if the decided to take the very lazy route. Society is going to be successful, It’s very easy to assume bad will we’re going to need to step beyond and to criticize and to bring some­ those ideologies and make meaning­ one down. I think the more difficult ful, thoughtful, and intentional deci­ task is to see that the situation is not sions for the betterment of student entirely black or white, that certain­ life at McGill.

The president is the face of the ly there are times when individuals have bad intentions, but that there Society. [Knight] is going to be the should also be consideration for one who speaks to the media, who's goodwill along the way and I think out there in front of students giving that was totally in every way disre­ presentations or speeches, or what­ garded by some sources. ever it is. She’s going to be the one The media coverage was very whom people look to. And balanc­ surprising. It’s interesting in the first ing that with making sure the rest of place that documents that were con­ the team is on board along the way fidential were leaked and that mem­ is definitely a challenging task, but bers of the Executive and Council I think they’re blessed in the coming were commenting on a confidential year that they have a group of indi­ issue, which is a breach of confiden­ viduals who seem to be cohesive and tiality and yet no sanctions were im- • seem to be ready for whatever will posed on them. come their way.

—C om piled by Matt E ssert

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Alumni Association launches Greatest McGillian campaign

McGill has plenty of famous alumni, from prime ministers to Grammy winners, but who is the greatest of them all? With McGill”s 190th anniversary approaching, the Alumni Association has decided to seek the answer to this question.

The Alumni Association began its search for the greatest McGillian by creating an area on its website where anyone with a past or present McGill connection staff, faculty, and students could nominate any McGil­ lian they think is most important.

This has led to some predictable nominations, such as James McGill and William Shatner, but also to more creative ones “The Future McGillian”—and unexpected ones, such as “The Three Bares Statue.”

“Part of this is all in the fun.

We've tried to be lighthearted about it,” said Daniel Chonchol, a repre­ sentative from the Alumni Associa­ tion. “It's a fun way to look and re­ flect on our history.”

Voters have nominated a num­ ber of professors, he added.

“It's been really interesting to see so many professors nominated,

which I think is really a nod to the quality of education at McGill,” he said.

The Alumni Association in­ tends the competition to be an op­ portunity for those who have moved on from the university to reconnect with it.

“One of the major points of the contest is [to let] anyone who has graduated from McGill say, 'I'm part of this community, I'm part of this great illustrious history,'” Chonchol said.

Nominations will be accepted on the Alumni Association website until April 30. Then, the associa­ tion will decide which nominations have qualified for the “final” round of voting, which will take place over the summer. The winner will be an­ nounced sometime late this year.

The Alumni Association also plans to use the nominations to help make an interactive time-line of McGill history, which will eventu­ ally be available online.

—Eric M auser

Tuesday, A pril 5, 2011

Year in review: The stories that mattered on campus JOBBOOK: In the early hours of February 4, the Students’ Society Council nearly voted to remove President Zach Newburgh from office after details of his involvement with the employment-based social network­ ing website Jobbook were released to Council in a multi-hour in camera session. Though Newburgh was censured, not impeached, the details that did surface dealt his presidency a hard blow. In the same Council session, Newburgh came close to passing what had been a promising General As­ sembly reform question through Council, but ultimately failed to get his question on the ballot. For the next several weeks, students and campus media tried to learn more details about what was being called Jobbook-gate.

The inquiries eventually culminated in a February 17 Council session dur­ ing which Newburgh fielded questions from students and councillors about his involvement with the website. At this meeting, Newburgh revealed de­ tails regarding his trips to schools around the world and his confidentiality agreement. Many students wanted even more information which, to this day, hasn’t been unveiled, and probably never will.

ARCH CAFE: This fall, students returned to McGill to find that the beloved Architecture Café wouldn’t be reopening for the school year. In early September, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson claimed that the café had been losing money for the last several years but refused to cite specific figures. The idea to transform the vacant café into study space outraged a loud minority of McGill students and mobilized a broader slice of the stu­ dent population who manifested their anger in two rallies outside of university Senate meetings.

Though the administration stood firm on their stance to keep the café and their books closed, students’ demands for further consultation eventually paid off with the formation of the Student Consultation and Communication Work Group, which vowed to increase student consultation on major decisions. The Mobilization McGill group also formed in response to calls for more student involvement in university affairs. In early November, a report became public explaining that the café lost $15,000 last year and was projected to lose more than $73,000 this academic year. From the saga, students gained the consultation working group, a welcome sense of student unity, an unwelcome feeling of “us versus them,” and the knowledge that, as Students’ Society President Zach Newburgh recently put it, “if the administration is really bent on something, it is very difficult to change its mind.”

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- ^ _____________________ AU*: The AUS had an extremely rough financial year. On September 22, it an­ nounced that this year’s Frosh had lost $30,105 after executives overestimated the num­ ber of registrations. Shortly afterward, the AUS learned it had to surrender $18,000 of unpaid federal and provincial taxes. To add insult to injury, the administration announced that it would not release the $83,000 of student fees that normally funds the Society.

President Dave Marshall and his team have held up admirably, and have taken steps to change the AUS’ ways. Hopefully, future AUS execs won’t have to make emergency payments for AUS operations with their own credit cards, as the current one has had to.

TWEET* TWEET*: Haaris Khan’s tweets on March 8 were McGill’s most menacing sentences this year. Attending a Conservative McGill/Libertarian McGill film screening of In doctrinate U, a documentary about liberal biases on university campuses, Khan wrote about how he wanted to shoot everyone in the room.

Other tweets included “I’ve infiltrated a Zionist meeting;” “I feel like I’m at a Satanist ritual;” “I should have brought an M-16.” When the story became public, Khan issued an apology in the Tribune, saying that he “[didn’t] have a problem with Jews.” He has since been investigated by the university.

—C om piled by Sean Wood and Matt Essert. This sum m ary reflects the sta n ce o f the Tribune E ditorial Board.

Rybczynski and Brault talk Montreal culture Continued from COVER

lukewarm to the idea. Some of the most successful cultural meccas, he noted, such a Broadway in New York, had emerged organically over many years.

“Broadway is an idea,” he said, “and I think the problem with poli­ ticians is that they take an idea and then they make it literal.”

One of Rybczynski’s main ob­ jections to planned cultural districts was the planner-imposed unifor­ mity.

In Washington, D.C., for in­ stance, Rybczynski serves on the Commission of Fine Arts, which reviews the designs of federal build­ ings. Graphic designers, he said, often want put up signs in front of the buildings with standardized de­ signs—even though most of these buildings have their names carved over the entrances. This, he argued, makes cities feel more like theme parks than organic places.

Several years ago in Washing­ ton, Rybczynski added with a laugh, the National Park Service tried to place a sign in front of the Washing­

ton Monument to identify it—exact­ ly the type of theme park signage he was railing against.

Brault insisted, however, that Montreal’s version of the cultural district would be different.

“I hope that the Quartier des Spectacles will never be a place where we try to establish standards and make it all beautiful and per­ fect,” Brault said. “I hope it won’t be like that, and it’s not like that now.”

(Matt Essert/McGill Tribune)

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P r e s id e n t President Zach Newburgh started the year strong, acting as the ever-present public face of the movement to re-open the Architec­ ture Café. Shouting through a megaphone out­ side of Leacock prior to the September McGill Senate meeting, Newburgh presided over one of the most significant and coordinated dis­ plays of student engagement and mobilization McGill has seen in recent memory. Although the café was never re-opened, the campaign did lead to the creation of Student Consulta­ tion and Communication Work Group. While the ultimate outcome of this group remains to be seen, it at least represents some progress in administration-student relations.

Newburgh also collaborated with VicePresident Internal Tom Fabian to organize SSMU's first substantial Homekoming cel­ ebration this fall, and the two are already working on next year's event. Although the weekend was not as well attended as antici­ pated, these types of thing typically take a few years to get going, and we're hopeful the event will only grow in the coming years. Newburgh also worked hard to increase the president’s visibility, allowing any undergrad to schedule a meeting with him using Tungle, an online appointment-booking application.

Significantly, Newburgh initiated a much needed effort to eliminate the hopelessly flawed General Assembly. Although he was

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criticized for not sufficiently consulting stu­ dents during the process, and the motion he authored was ultimately unsuccessful, he suc­ ceeded in initiating a long-awaited conversa­ tion which we hope will eventually lead to major reforms to or the abolition of the GA. But most of Newburgh's successes will be forgotten, as much of the second half of his presidency has been overshadowed the Jobbook debacle. In signing a confidentiality agreement last fall, and using his SSMU email for personal dealings, Newburgh exercised poor judgment in many instances. This con­ tinued after the matter came to light, as New­ burgh only answered questions he deemed sufficiently “nice” at the question-and-answer period he held. Although it appears Newburgh did not actually violate SSMU's Conflict of Interest policy, his handling of the entire situ­ ation left many questions unanswered and many students feeling alienated. In addition, the debacle hopelessly splintered the Execu­ tive Committee, meaning Newburgh failed in one of the most important duties of the presi­ dential office: leadership.

Newburgh's revisions to the Conflict on Interest policy may help to prevent such a sit­ uation from arising in the future, but Jobbook will define how many students remember his tenure as president.

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V P C lu b s a n d S e r v ic e s Though Vice-President Clubs and Ser­ vices Anushay Khan was elected last year without facing an opponent, the Tribune was confident at the time that she would perform well in the position. Like her predecessor, Sarah Olle, Khan had a year of experience as the Students’ Society’s interest group co­ ordinator and we strongly endorsed her can­ didacy.

In retrospect, the Tribune may have been too enthusiastic. Despite her experi­ ence, Khan has often proved unable to stay on top of the portfolio’s many demands.

Various clubs have complained that she is slow to respond to emails and has failed to make time for meetings. At times, Khan has seemed to misunderstand the needs of the clubs and services she manages. She pushed for the installation of special sinks to facilitate ablutions—the Islamic practice of washing before prayer—in spite of a lack of enthusiasm from Muslim Students Associa­ tion. In addition, she spent time applying to the Sustainability Projects Fund for funds to buy energy-saving light bulbs, an area that

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the fund does not cover.

In the second semester, Khan’s disor­ ganization caused real problems. Midnight Kitchen, the Shatner Building’s popular vegan food cooperative, was forced to shut down for a week after their provincial permi i expired. According to the cooperative, Khan failed to let them know the permit was expir ing until days before they were shut down The whole situation, which was resolved by submitting some paperwork, could hat been easily avoided if Khan had been mot < on top of her responsibilities.

Shortly after elections last month, Mon­ ika Fabian, this year’sinterest group coordi nator, resigned her position after losing the race to replace Khan, her direct supervisor, next year. Though it’s not clear exactly why she resigned, Khan's management style— she once publicly criticized Fabian in front of SSMU Council—may have had something to do with it. The Tribune hopes that Carol Fraser, who will replace Khan next year, will prove more able to handle the portfolio.

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V P U n iv e r s it y A f f a ir s Josh Abaki is nothing if not zealous.

Sometimes, that translates into good results: Abaki followed through on his campaign promise to keep campus libraries open 24 hours a day for most of each semester. He was a committed defender of the student cause during the fallout of the Architecture Café’s closure. He is a man of principle.

But it’s his unwillingness to budge, which has occassionally been the problem.

For instance, in November, he insisted that McGill semesters are too long, and tried to advocate for shorter ones. His motivations were partly noble; our terms are longer than those at other Canadian universities, and in­ ternational students could use some extra time to travel in December. But Abaki wasn’t seeing the whole picture: McGill semesters aie actually shorter than they are in the U.S., faculties which have required curricula would

have to compress their material, and the exam period would be condensed. Abaki’s term has been characterized by these sorts of advoca­ cies, which seem good for students at first but aren’t necessarily in their best interests.

Abaki has also taken a stubborn posi­ tion on the Jobbook debacle. Abaki has held President Newburgh to his own impossibly rigorous moral standards. On February 7, he told the Chronicle of Higher Education that Newburgh had “lost the moral authority” to lead the Students’ Society—a clear breach of the Executive Committee’s trust. The Tribune does not know all of the details of the case, because SSMU Council’s main deliberations on it took place in confidential session, so there might be better reasons for Abaki’s fury than are immediately evident. But Council has made its decision, and it’s time to move on.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

N ick D re w VP Finance and Operations Vice-President Internal Tom Fabian’s ac­ complishments are worth recognizing. First, Fabian managed to reconcile the interests of the administration and those of students to successfully lay the groundwork for a re­ vamped Orientation Week. He also success­ fully organized the Students’ Society’s first Homekoming and revived Faculty Olympics.

Although attendance at both events was below capacity, the popularity of these events will hopefully grow with the years. Fabian did a great job not only incorporating these events into the internal portfolio but also startingto plan for next year.

Fabian’s efforts towards increasing McGill school spirit have also started to pay off, and his combined efforts with VP Finance and Operations Nick Drew have helped make Gert’s a popular spot on campus. The launch­ ing of the “Get Ready” website, where SSMU events aie listed and promoted, as well as the revamp of the SSMU listerv, were additional attempts to encourage students to participate in McGill events.

Starting with a successful attendance at

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last fall’s Fill the Stadium football game, Fa­ bian continued to promote McGill Athletics, and for the first time in the recent McGill his­ tory, the visibility and popularity of McGill’s varsity teams are actually increasing—a trend we hope will continue. In addition, Fabian proved cool and collected in his relations with the rest of the Executive Committee, es­ pecially during the lobbook debacle.

While Fabian’s overall performance was impressive, the Tribune missed two events Alex Brown, his lovely predecessor in the po­ sition, held last year: bringing a high-profile speaker to campus and holding a year-end concert. Last year’s Salman Rushdie lec­ ture and Girl Talk concert brought out many students who don’t ordinarily attend SSMU events, making them worthwhile efforts de­ spite their significant price tags.

Overall, Fabian’s efforts have left a solid platform for his successor, Todd Plummer, whom the Tribune hopes will take advantage of the progress Fabian has made.

Vice-President Finance and Operations Nick Drew has had a stellar year. Gert’s, the most visible part of the FOPS portfolio, thrived under his watch. This year's St. Pat­ rick’s Day celebration at Gert’s broke the sin­ gle-day sales record, which was previously held by this year’s Octoberhaus—two events vvhich have been very well attended and profitable for Gert’s and SSMIT. A multitude of campus organizations have been hosting more and more events at Gert’s, making it a consistently busy hotspot on campus. The daily drink deals have also been a key move, generating reasons for attendance any day of the week. And maybe the biggest change is that people actually want to go to Gert’s. The days of blaring music and empty tables have been replaced by a full bar of eager McGillians.

Although plans for renovations have been going slower than some may have hoped, everyone knows that money is tight.

The McGill administration can be difficult to work with, but Drew has worked hard to en­ sure that the ball gets rolling on the project.

Z aidi

VP External The biggest challenge by far in Myriam Zaidi’s portfolio this year was tuition, which the Quebec government announced on March 17 would increase by $325 per year over the next five years. Zaidi took a strong stance against tuition from the beginning.

The website tuitiontruth.ca, which she re-launched this year, was a significant step in relaying tuition information to students. The research and informa­ tion presented on the website gives students a good reason to attend protests. However, the scholarship on whether or not low tuition correlates with uni­ versity accessibility is far from conclusive, and the website only presents one side of this debate. More importantly, it doesn’t present any alternatives to tuition hikes. Zaidi should be commended for her efforts to rally students, but the Tribune would have liked to see SSMU work towards increasing finan­ cial assistance as well.

Zaidi should also be applauded for her role in

setting up the Charity Fund and working with the Charity Committee, which will distribute the new student fee, although the Tribune still has some lin­ gering concerns about how the fee will be allocated.

We’re concerned, however, about reports that Zaidi has been late to or absent from meetings with vari­ ous groups both on and off campus and has not al­ ways responded to emails in a timely fashion.

With the motion to reform the GA and SSMU President Zach Newburgh’s involvement in Jobbook dividing their team, this year’s executives often had difficult working together cohesively.

Zaidi’s decision to bring a Judicial Board complaint against Newburgh for his involvement with Jobbook seemed unnecessary, as Council had already taken disciplinary action with its censure of Newburgh in early February. Unlike many of her other admirable efforts throughout the year, this action seems to have been divisive rather than constructive.

The planned renovations include an updated kitchen, which will help with the bar’s food service. Though the food service’s potential has not fully realized, the future looks prom­ ising.

Both of the Book Bazaars, the replace­ ment for Haven Books, lost money and were relatively unsuccessful, but this may have been unavoidable. Drew has talked about plans to move the whole process online and form a SSMU Classifieds, which could be a welcome change. However, it’s unclear how useful this would be when we already have McGill Classifieds. Either way, the experi­ mentation was promising and Drew seems to have laid a good groundwork in this regard for Shyam Patel, next year’s VP FOPS. Drew has also worked with Patel to update the Club Auditing process, which aims to make the daunting auditing process much easier for SSMU clubs and services. Finally Drew has been impressive in his tactical handling of the SSMU investment portfolio, which did veiy well this year.

O Polarize Me Marko Djurdjic m 4 . mdjurdjic@mcgilltribuile.com^

T h e ink on your fingers Why do we read student news­ papers? Why do we, every week, pick up any of the campus publica­ tions and question, judge, accept, or concur with the articles inside?

We are offended by them. We are amused by them. They give us something to do between classes, while sitting down for lunch, or tak­ ing study breaks. They are there to provide information, and to give the student body its voice. We read these newspapers because, I feel, they harken back to a time when adults were viewed as intellectu­ ally stimulated individuals, keeping up with the news of the world, the state of their community, and the latest adventures of Charlie Brown.

There is something in the image of a person sitting with the pages of a newspaper spread in front of her. Over our coffee or Tiki-Ming, we read the articles in these papers because we hope to read something that we can connect to, that we feel represents us.

I am not a journalist. I don’t claim to be at the forefront of poli­ tics, student or otherwise. I write what I know and understand—that is all I ca n contribute. Sometimes, people may see my columns, par­ ticularly the topics about which I write, as being a little overbearing, or pointless, or rambling, or down­ right stupid. I wanted to write for the Tribune this year because I felt I had something to say to the students of McGill that would make them laugh, something to-take them out of the rest of the newspaper, if for a

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ikassel@mcgilltribune.com

W in ters ago Four winters ago, after class on a clear day in December, my friend Jack and I hiked up the northeastern side of Mount Royal in the snow. It was cold, but the ascent was steep— we were making our own path—and we warmed up fast enough, enjoy­ ing deep breaths of crisp, coniferous air.

Actually, Jack was making the path. He had gone up the week be­ fore and invited me to join him for

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moment, and something that might strike them as funny or odd or ques­ tionable. I never wrote anything that would purposely and maliciously offend or anger. I didn’t tackle world politics because I don’t know how, and I have no opinions that I personally consider valid or chal­ lenging. Everything I know about the world I learn from other sources, so recycling their opinions, maybe slightly varied, as my own was not my goal. I honestly just wanted to write about Facebook and BDP and how much I hate pants (though that last one somehow never managed to get through). And I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my articles were spur-of-the-moment choices that somehow managed to work out, but I write those topics better than the ones I heavily meditate on.

I appreciate our student news­ papers because, otherwise, a tradi­ tion that has been around at univer­ sities for ages would be missing.

That sense of a student-run voice on campus is telling of the impor­ tance of old styles of information transmission. We may all have so­ cial networking and cell phones and blogs and computer passwords, but we also have newspapers, and there will never be reason to get rid of them. Regardless of the various newspaper-related websites we can readily visit, I know I’d still rather walk through the halls of the Arts Building while seeing people with physical copies of a newspaper in their hands than a series of illumi­ nated faces peering into laptops and smartphones. The next time you read a newspaper, think of the work that goes into it: the editing, the pho­ tography, the layout, and the articles themselves. Remember that no mat­ ter how many Kindles we may own one day, they will never leave ink on our fingers. They will never physi­ cally imprint the words of the writer onto your skin. How much closer can you get to my words than that?

When I began writing for the Tribune, I was given certain respon­ sibilities: to express myself clearly, to write on issues that interested stu­ dents, and to comment on the events occurring around me.

After my first column, I real­ ized that the thing I loved most— writing—was much harder than it seemed. The standards were higher, the demands were tougher, and the process was challenging. But I loved it, I loved the feeling of taking a pen to the piece of paper, searching for the right words that I needed to say.

When I found them, it was a gasp of fresh air, a feeling of completeness, as if I had been able to reflect my true self in just 500 words.

But challenges remained. The hardest thing about being a colum­ nist was never really meeting my readers face to face. I communicated with you through email, through the website, and, of course, through my articles, but I rarely had the opportu­ nity to know the people behind their names. It’s hard to grapple with the fact that perhaps you are writing to a captive audience of 10,000 students and perhaps you are writing to no one. It begs the question: who are the McGill students I wish to repre­ sent? Am I even supposed to repre­ sent them? If I am, how do I do so without even meeting them?

I began this year believing that my job was to write about the issues I thought students cared about, is­ sues that a good “representative” of the student body should care about.

Throughout the year, I tried my best to find out what these issues were: Plagiarism? The job search? McGill services? The Egyptian revolution?

I thought this year was about search­ ing for a cause, searching for some­ thing that would cause me to be seen as a good representative of you.

Only later did I realize this year was about more than just you and me.

I always enjoyed reading news­ papers and it slowly became evident to me that the information I received in the news was shaping my out­ look on world events, politics, and economics. The newspaper I read was the frame through which I cre­ ated my own thoughts, the lenses I looked through before coming to my own conclusions. The writers of these newspaper articles don’t just write to me and you, they write to an audience of citizens, world lead­ ers, the old, the young, rich and poor, and tell their story. They cre­ ate a network of stories that come together and shape the way we ana­ lyze the world.

That understanding helped me realize my task as a columnist. It wasn’t simply to engage with read­ ers, but also to shape the campus conversation and dialogue. It was not only to express my thoughts or try my best to represent yours, but to develop a shared story with you. So, what story have we created here?

I think the story we’ve written is the story of a student—it could be any student—striving to find a voice in a campus of 30,Qj30 diverse voic­ es. A story of a student who wishes to fulfill all her dreams. A story of an individual who believes that the path to action begins with express­ ing yourself.

Throughout this past year, I’ve hoped to share a bit of myself in the hopes that it encourages other stu­ dents to share theirs. Thanks for tak­ ing this journey with me and I look forward to discovering more of this story.

a second go. Arriving at a decent vantage point, we took a break to look out on the city: a vast swath of the upper Plateau whose vanishing point, from that angle,-happens to be the Olympic Stadium, oddly beauti­ ful from the mountain.

As we stood there, a chicka­ dee alighted on a tree branch close by. We called him in, and to our surprise, he flew closer, jumping cautiously from branch to branch, chirping with curiosity. Beckoning him further, we held out our hands.

He jumped into my palm first, then Jack’s, then to a branch and away.

He felt weightless.

That was my first winter in Montreal, and my first year at McGill. Now that it’s my last se­ mester, I’ve been feeling reflec­ tive, sorting through my memory for cherishable moments—trying to

make sense of my time here.

Last Sunday, I went up the mountain alone, along the north­ eastern side. I hadn’t been up that way since first year, with Jack, and I wanted to revisit the experience. I think I was trying to sanctify a mem­ ory by reliving it in some way. But that isn’t very realistic. It felt a little bit like acting, artificial. As I made my way up the snowy mountainside, along a narrow path few had walked, I stopped and stood there and tried to drop the self-consciousness.

The forest was remarkably still and quiet. I had forgotten how calming that kind of stillness can be.

At that moment, I heard a chicka­ dee chirping above. Following his voice, I found him high up in an oak tree and called him in.

He came, cautious as the other, jumping from branch to branch,

cocking his head, sizing me up. I put out my hand, waiting for the mo­ ment. But he didn’t jump. I waited as he waited, and finally, he flew up and away from me, high above into the same oak.

I could have tried to call him in again. But I walked on toward the chalet lookout, which overlooks downtown Montreal. I have been there too many times to count. Enter­ ing the chalet, I bought a hot choco­ late and sat down at a table to think.

Then I walked outside to the lookout and leaned on the balustrade, view­ ing the city on a clear, windy day before the snow had melted.

I know this city much bet­ ter now, four years and millions of steps later. I looked down at McGill, its frosted green roofs glistening in the sun—quite a vantage point for reflection and nostalgia, for the re­

O u r shared stories

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trieval of memory. I kept on looking, just able to make out the little bod­ ies moving slowly through campus, going somewhere. Montreal looked so self-sufficient that day—the city made sense.

I don’t know if I’ll ever make sense of my memories. I do remem­ ber vividly how weightless that chickadee was that landed in the palm of my hand four years ago. I can’t forget. Memory is also weight­ less.

Winters from now, I will re­ member winters ago, when I hiked up the mountain alone and called in a chickadee. Because he would not land, I will remember him for his weightlessness, too.

Apply to be a colum nist at editor@ m cgilltribune.com .

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T r ib u n e WWW.MCG1LLTRIBUNE.COM Editor-in-Chief

Tori Crawford editor@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors

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Matt Essert, Sean Wood, and Maria Flores news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editor

Ricky Kreitner . opinion@mcgilltribune.com Features Editors

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E d ito r ia l= Diversify the strategy against higher tuition The Quebec government’s re­ cently tabled proposal to gradually increase in-province university tu­ ition from $2,168 to $3,793—which would still make it 30 per cent lower than the present Canadian average— has predictably raised the ire of ac­ tivists who favour free education for all, and engendered promises of walk-outs, demonstrations, and even a possible student strike next fall. The campaign got off to a shaky start last week, as media coverage of a protest involving 2,000 students focused on the violence at the end, when five ac­ tivists draped in black were arrested after smashing property and facing off against tear gas bearing police of­ ficers. While the negative publicity garnered by a handful of hardliners doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on the student leaders in general, and says nothing about the legitimacy of their cause, it’s probably worth taking a step back in order to reconsider the strategy students should take in re­ sponse to these tuition hikes and the

tactics they should employ through the summer and next year.

The members of our editorial board hold as diverse views about the wisdom, efficacy, and necessity of tuition as the McGill student body at large. Some think the ideal of free higher education a worthy one. If students should not expect to achieve it, they should at least start from that position and negotiate from there: you can’t negotiate when your start­ ing position is compromise, and the constant absence of youth from poli­ tics gives leaders license to ignore them. Others consider such idealism merely evidence of stubbornness: ei­ ther free education is undesirable or unrealistic; the fear here is that if stu­ dents take an uncritically antagonis­ tic attitude toward decision-makers on campus and in Quebec City, they are basically asking to be ridiculed and ignored. Though we disagree on certain aspects of the issue, we are in agreement that student leaders need to develop a more diversified

program of action in response to the tuition hikes. Antagonistic threats of strikes and more demonstrations can only be part of the strategy. But they are at worst ineffective and at best long-term strategies: if we really care about low-income students being un­ able to pay higher tuition, perhaps more constructive and immediately practicable ideas should be consid­ ered, too.

The recent motion passed at Students’ Society Council opposing all tuition hikes and even urging that tuition be lowered is, for some, a step in the right direction. But there need to be other steps taken in other direc­ tions. For instance, why is so much effort put into lowering tuition even for those fortunate among us who have no problem paying the current rate, and would even consider pay­ ing a little more if it meant our less fortunate friends and peers could be subsidized? There should be a great­ er emphasis placed on scholarships and bursaries, which would actually

help students in need deal with ris­ ing tuition costs. Even the most ide­ alistic student activists have to admit that protests and strikes have a pretty dismal chance of convincing any Quebec politicians to change their minds.

Next year’s SSMU executives need to cast a wider net in devising their strategy regarding both tuition hikes and all other areas of disagree­ ment with the Quebec government and the university administration.

This needs to be a multipronged ef­ fort. Programs like the Arts Student Employment Fund are exactly the kind of thing we need to see more of from student leaders. Moreover, if students really want their voices heard, they should vote in the upcom­ ing election. We need to be smarter about getting those in power to not ignore us. Measures like protests, strikes, and the recent council motion merely give politicians an excuse to continue doing so—and hurt the stu­ dents they claim to help.

in the Faculty of Science, I decided to switch into Arts after two years.

This meant that I had two years to fit in the majority of an Arts program that most students have four years to do. Luckily I started my major while I was still in Science, but I still needed to make sure I had fulfilled my freshman arts requirements and also all minor requirements. This ef­ fectively limited my possible course choices for the latter half of my uni­ versity career. Luckily, I had some advance credits from high school and I was able to apply some of my science courses to my freshmen re­ quirements, but I was still stuck in a tricky situation of having to fulfill a minor, which I did not necessarily think was a great way to spend my time.

It should be made clear that this act would only remove the re­ quirement of the minor. Of course, students would still be free to pur­ sue one or more minors. Many of

the arguments that could be made in favour of minors are compelling, but few offer strong evidence that a minor should be required of stu­ dents. Requiring students to minor in another discipline can come close to hard paternalism with McGill tell­ ing students they know what is best for them. However, as an 18-22 year old, I feel confident in my abilities to decide what I ought to be studying.

If you disagree with this, then I think you would also be forced to argue that McGill should also be telling me in which program I should be major­ ing, which seems like a bad idea.

Another argument could be made that requiring a minor forces students to expand their studies be­ yond just their major and learn more about other topics. However, I think requiring a minor actually limits stu­ dents abilities to expand their study into other programs. Not only do many students feel compelled to stay within their field of study, or some­

thing related to it, but they are also forced to fulfill the minor require­ ments. Now, it could actually be said that forcing a minor is actually good because allowing students to take too many different classes limits their ability to learn something more in-depth and could lead to students missing out on interesting learning opportunities at higher-level class­ es. There are a few problems with this. First, six classes isn’t really that many. It’s quite easy to take six classes in something and not get so deep into the field. Also, the student should be able to choose whether or not they want to specialize in a few things, or spend their university life tasting as many different parts of academia as possible. You might think this is a waste of their time, but stu­ dents should be able to decide this for themselves and they are still tak­ ing a major, which will be way more in depth than any minor could ever hope to be.

Copy Editor

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Dallas Bentley cpm@ssmu.mcgill.ca Publisher

Chad Ronalds Contributors Lea Choukroun, Nathaniel Finestone, Emily Foxen-Craft, Emma Hambly, Alexander Hamilton, John Kelsey, Kyla Mandel, Eric Mauser, Kevin Nzomo, Nicholas Petrillo, Ryan Reisert, Cathal Rooney-Cespedes, Jon Rubenstein, Adam Sadinsky, Chloe TurnerBloom, Miranda Whist TMbune Offices E d it o r ia l

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Brown Student Building Suite 1200, 3600 McTavish Montreal, QCH3A 1Y2 T: 514.398.6835 F: 514.398.7490 TheMcGill Tribuneisaneditoriallyautonomousnewspaper publishedbytheSociétédePublicationdelaTribune, astu­ dentsocietyofMcGill University.Thecontentofthispublica­ tionisthesoleresponsibilityofTheMcGill Tribuneandthe SociétédePublicationdelaTribune, anddoesnotnecessarily representtheviewsofMcGill University. Letterstotheeditor may besent toletters@mcgilltribune.comandmust include thecontributor’s name, programandyear andcontact infor­ mation. Lettersshouldbekept under300wordsandsubmit­ tedonlytotheTribune. Submissionsjudgedby theTribune PublicationSocietytobelibellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely promotional in nature will not be published. The Tribunereservestheright toedit all contributions. Editorials aredecideduponandwrittenbytheeditorial board. All other opinionsarestrictlythoseoftheauthoranddonotnecessar­ ilyreflecttheopinionsoftheMcGill Tribune,-,itseditorsorits staff. Pleaserecyclethisnewspaper.

Scrap th e m an d ato ry Arts m in o r A recent report from the Dean of Arts’ Working Group has sug­ gested the removal of the manda­ tory minor from the current Faculty of Arts program. As it stands now, McGill Arts students are required to have at least one major and one minor. From both personal experi­ ence and a simple understanding of the university experience, I think it’s clear that the removal of the man­ datory minor would be an excellent move.

After starting my McGill career

TheTribune Publication Society is seeking student representatives for next year’s Board of Directors.

Dear McChill Brobune, SSMU’s open forums will be moved to Friday afternoons as opposed to Wednesdays after dark so as to avoid any scheduling conflicts (seriously, what were we thinking). Also, I finally figured out what OAP stands for. See you there in the fall! One last thing: who’s Broseph Walsh?

Cheers, Broël Pedneault Incoming SSMU VP External

The TPS Board of Directors oversees the administrative aspects of the McGill Tribune, including the selection of the annual Editorin-Chief, the approval of the budget and any expenses incurred by the newspaper, and the resolution of complaints about content.

If you are interested in sitting on next year’s Board of Directors, please send an email to chair@mcgilltribune.com for further details. All candidates must write a 300-word letter of intent and obtain the signature of 20 McGill undergraduate students advocating the applicant’s candidacy.

Applications are due before the TPS Annual General Meeting, which will be held on April 6, 2011 at 5:30 p.m. in the Lev Bukhman Room.

Errata: Last week’s article “ Liberals kick off federal cam paign with Montreal rally” incorrectly attributed a quote to Marc Bruneau.

The speaker was in fact a supporter o f Marc Bruneau.

On the back page o f the March 22 issue o f the Tribune, the T-Rex pictured w as described as flying an F-16 . He w as in fact flying an F0 4 .

The Tribune regrets the errors.

10

Reflections fro m fo u r years abroad Almost four years ago, I helped my father load our station wagon with the basic accoutrements I need­ ed to begin university life: clothes, bedding, and a new laptop. I also packed one more thing: my recently approved Canadian student visa.

As a relatively apolitical New Yorker, I assumed going to McGill would be like going to any of the American liberal arts colleges I was considering, except that I needed to cross an international border to get there. Canada was a country to which, like most Americans, I had never given much thought: I knew it was cold, I knew Canadians liked hockey, and I had heard that they often finished sentences with “eh.”

What I foolishly didn’t realize was that I was entering an entirely different world. I was suddenly a foreigner with an accent, thrust into heated political debates. “How do you defend the fact that not all Americans can get free health care?” “How did you manage to elect Bush?” “What about the fact that gay people can’t get married?”

Being “American” was never

Commentary Chloe Turner-Bloom

D itch th e self­ obsession, M c G ill North American society has an intense focus on individualism and subsequently placing one’s selfinterest and personal pursuits above all else. The consequence of this is a narrow, linear view of personal goal pursuit that does not always fit prop­ erly with our basic need for close intimate interactions and relation­ ships. It’s important to think about yourself, what you want to do with your life, and how you will achieve it. Nevertheless, there is a point where one must slow down before casting everyone to the side because they seem to be blocking your path and impeding your progress.

Recently, I read something rather sad but quite profound. Basi­ cally, people, due to the emphasis on individualism in our culture, are growing incapable of wholly loving other people. This claim is based on the idea that these people are so in­ tensely focused on themselves, and truly loving someone else necessi-

a part of my identity in the way that being female, Jewish, or a New Yorker were. Only the second generation of my family to live in America, pledging allegiance to the flag and learning about the pilgrims were things that I did; they were not, as far as I knew, who I was.

Eventually, however, the heat­ ed conversations of first-year—the ones we all engaged in because we were confronting the “other” for the first time—soon gave way to what became the reality of my life; de­ clining un s a c at the grocery store, trudging through icy winters, and or­ dering drinks at the bar sans fake ID. There was something special about being in a country where everyone was free to get married, to choose whether they want an abortion, and to obtain health care. There was also the revelation that cold weather wasn’t necessarily something to survive, but something to celebrate in its own right. On a recent trip to Quebec City, I experienced many of what my friend called “Canada boners” as I ate frozen maple syrup, watched dog-sledding competitions, and panned over breathtaking land­ scapes of snowy mountains and riv­ ers filled with floating ice.

But this isn’t about ragging on American values—I’ve heard more than enough of that—and exalting Canada for everything that it is and does. America will always be the place that welcomed my grandpar­ ents and gave them the chance to start a new life, and the place that continues to reallize the dreams of

countless individuals. Nor would I ever make the mistake of calling the lifestyle and values of the relatively small population of Canadians I have encountered in Montreal repre­ sentative of the entire country—just as I am outraged when my politics are assumed to be the same as those of George W. Bush.

This isn’t really about America versus Canada at all, but about how my haphazard decision to live in another country gave me a perspec­ tive I would never have had living in only one country or the other; how it exposed me to a larger set of val­ ues from which I can now pick and choose; how it taught me that we as humans are formed by a random set of factors—where we were bom, under which political systems we were raised, the customs we were handed down, and the chromosome combinations that make us like the things that we do. It has made me realize how important it is to decide how we feel about a given issue based on reason and careful thought, rather than on a given list of stances we think we should take because we happened to be bom Canadian, American, Jewish, Muslim, white, black, gay, or straight.

We certainly can’t change where we came from—nor should we ever try—but what we can do is recognize that every perspective has something to give, and offer our opinions not as already-formed indi­ viduals but as fellow human beings trying to figure out how to best live together in this world.

tates a shift of interests off oneself.

The power of self-interest doesn’t allow some people to open up and give themselves up, wholeheartedly and unselfishly to someone else.

Emotional commitment to oth­ ers is just as vital and significant in our lives as success at school or work. If school or work falter, it will be the support and care from your closest relationships that helps you along. Discussing and emphasizing this seems superficially important to some people, but there are numerous instances where it is forgotten.

This promotion of self-focus and self-serving action can seriously compromise other people through a focus only on one’s success and a disregard for the well-being of oth­ ers. Situations like this can be seen in the news in the actions of greedy people trying to get their hands on as much money as possible. Particu­ lar cases of this can be seen in the documentary F ood Inc., which illu­ minates certain situations in which large corporations disregard health regulations in their factories, result­ ing in millions of people being put at risk of contracting diseases, or even dying. All this is done to maxi­ mize their production and increase profit. Clearly extreme self-interest in a capitalist society is ultimately a negative for the whole population.

On a different level, nearing the end of one’s university adven­ ture seems to bring out this quality in many people, since it suddenly strikes them that, after a few years of fun, it’s time to get serious. Many people’s instinct is to presuppose that time-consuming relationships are the cause of their lack of con­ centration in school. I must admit that on rare occasions relationships can get out of hand. But your in­ teractions and relationships add an unquantifiable amount of pleasure and experience to your life, so even with exams just around the comer, and maybe graduation, or even the beginning of a career, don’t forget to appreciate all the important people in your life.

Five years from now are you going to remember those 10 extra hours you spent in the library, or that pretty afternoon when it finally stopped snowing and you went on an adventure? Undoubtedly every­ one is entitled to their own priori­ ties, I just wish to express words of caution: attending to one’s self and one’s future is clearly essential, but we must not forget all the people deeply intertwined in our lives.

C hloe T urner-Bloom is a U2 student in philosoph y. C ontact h er at ch loe.turnerbloom @ m ail.m cgill. ca.

Commentary Cathal Rooney-Céspedes

W h a t’s w ro n g w ith politics at M cG ill During my campaign to be­ come SSMU president, I often noted that student groups and student politicians within our community should strive to be a lot “nicer” to one another. Many found this desire to be empty, vague, unattainable, or all of the above. But quality of the argument aside it is most certainly true. Throughout this year, students at McGill have been witness to ev­ erything that is wrong with student politics at McGill.

In September, following the closure of the Architecture Café, a student Senator publicly defamed our Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) by calling him “Voldemort” in the McGill Daily.

And we expect the administration to consult with and respect our student representatives? Immaturity and name-calling: this is what’s wrong with student politics at McGill.

In October, members of SSMU Council attempted to bring to ref­ erendum a resolution that would annul QPIRG McGill’s opt-outable fee, part of a year-long campaign to dismantle the group’s finances. The QPIRG Opt-Out campaign has led to students not only opting out of QPIRG, but also wonderful services and funds like Nightline and the Ambassador Fee. Group-on-group attack-rhetoric: this is what’s wrong with student politics at McGill.

In December, student represen­ tatives walked out of a meeting with provincial government ministers and university administrators due to our refusal to accept proposed hikes in tuition. Five months later, undergraduate tuition is still going up, but we have learned little about increases in financial aid or any real progress that mitigates the problem of inaccessible education. Lack of pragmatism and an inability to com­ promise: this is what’s wrong with

student politics at McGill.

In February, three SSMU Ex­ ecutives and at least five council­ lors met in a closed-door meeting to discuss the removal of the SSMU president, based on his personal involvement with the website Jobbook. Subsequent to this we saw public and private defamation, cir­ culation of confidential information, circulation of false information, and unwavering attitudes of pettiness and disrespect. The ensuing drama and politics did far more harm to the Students’ Society than the initial lapses of judgment. “Jobbook-gate” is representative of what is wrong with student politics at McGill.

In March, a McGill student publicly released anti-Semitic death threats during a screening of a docu­ mentary hosted by two SSMU clubs.

Instead of uniting the student body in a condemnation of hate speech and threats of violence, the situation has further perpetuated ideological divides on campus. Those who had their lives threatened have been ac­ cused of exaggerating the effect as a means to gain attention for them­ selves and their respective student groups. A lack of humanity and empathy: this is what’s wrong with student politics at McGill.

This past Thursday at SSMU Council, the VP university ffairs questioned the president’s ability to re-draft the Conflict of Interest Policy, despite there being no for­ mal or informal determination that he ever violated it. The VP clubs and services opposed a financial endeavor of the VP finance and op­ erations because it didn’t prioritize her portfolio enough. Bickering, bantering, crying, swearing, disre­ specting, yelling, booing, ignoring, head-shaking, time-wasting: they’re at our Council, they’re at our Gen­ eral Assembly, they’re in our OptOut campaigns, they’re in our arti­ cles, they’re in the online comment threads at the end of our articles, they’re throughout our campus (you even hear these at Gerts): they are what’s wrong with student politics at McGill.

Cathal R oon ey-C ésp ed es is the SSMU Speaker o f C ouncil, and ca n b e rea ch ed at ca th a l.roo n eycespedes@ gm ail.com

www.mcgilltribune.com

Campus Swaps S T U F F M A N AG EM EN T

Graduating Students! Ready to move out and get rid of all of your STUFF? Trying to figure out w hat to do with your school supplies, kitchenware, extra clothing, etc?

Don't throw it in the trashl Call Campus Swaps and we'll pick it up for you! Help make our McGill community more sustainable: Text or call (514) 513 7170 on April 30th or M ay 1st

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

11

An ode to th e now sickly sw eet science Though ESPN is now my homepage and I regularly have 15-20 different tabs of sportingrelated articles open at a time, I didn’t like the majority of sports when I was young. My family never gathered around the TV for Hockey Night In Canada, and the only sports programming my dad did tune in for, my parents deemed unsuitable for a child. But this only served to enflame my interest in the one sport I wasn’t permitted to like—boxing.

My dad loved to tell me how, 45 years ago last Tuesday, the secondgreatest Canadian fighter in history, George Chuvalo, stood 15 rounds with the champ at Maple Leaf Gar­ dens. My father, 14 years old at .the time, listened to the radiocast of the fight from his bed and winced along with every blow to the iron-jawed Croatian-Canadian. Still, through 15 rounds he was convinced that Chu­ valo was in it, that he might deliver the greatest upset of all time.

Years later, he saw archival footage of that same fight and was shocked to see the one-sided beating Chuvalo had received. In this way, the demise of radio was a body blow to the sport of boxing. No longer could mismatched or boring fights hide beneath an electrifying shroud of patter woven by dulcet-tongued broadcasters.

When I reached the age of 10, I was no longer required to leave the room when the TV turned to

boxing. But my first reaction upon seeing a fight was horror. My par­ ents’ pacifism (and veganism) had rubbed off strongly on me, and the sport seemed barbaric to my youth­ ful eyes. Still, it was something my father and I could talk about, so I stuck it out. Over time I developed an appreciation. Not for the sociopathically brutal Mike Tyson, but for some of the other great fighters of the 1990s and early 2000s, like Lennox Lewis and Roy Jones, Jr. When I was 14 I joined a box­ ing club with my father and best friend only to quit after realizing that, along with being strongly against violence done to me, I re­ ally didn’t want cauliflower ears.

A year later I pitched in to see my first ever pay-per-view match—an egregiously overhyped spectacle wherein Oscar de la Hoya, the Gold­ en Boy, suddenly looked very, very old against an unimpressive Shane Mosley. Two summers ago, after a long, late day at work, I remember ignoring both signage and the safety of my fellow commuters in order to get home, pick up my dad, and then sprint off to the nearest bar to watch Manny Pacquiao fight against the highly heralded Ricky Hatton, who was out cold before we completed our drink order.

These memories are bitter­ sweet to me. All these little failures, all these weak title fights and HBO pay-per-view extravaganza flops have signalled the end of boxing as I know it. The sport is dying, soon to be universally replaced by mixed martial arts and the insufferable Dana White.

Boxing is special to me because of the bond it helped me forge with my father and, most of all, because it was beautiful. Rest in peace, box­ ing.

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tart by forgetting about doesn’t turn violent or depressed w riting a story. If you at every obstacle he encounters.

These think yo u ’re going to w rite a are things that take a long story, yo u’ll just end up disap­ time, and a lot of effort; you pointed. Don’t im agine charac­ m ight as w ell get started now. ters as you spoon your M uesli You need to go to therapy — in the morning. Don’t draw up a despite your claim s of an ideal setting w hile sitting in the back of childhood, yo u ’re actually pretty ECON 232, and esp ecially don’t messed up. A ny self-help book try to come up with a plot as you w ill tell you, the first step to w alk home alone, intoxicated on change is overcoming denial.

Remember the day your dog you don’t know quite what, at three in the morning. You’re not died? Your mom cam e to w ake you up at six in the morning to going to w rite a story.

You are not a writer. W riters tell you that she had found Z illa w rite every day. W riters work curled up among the hydran­ at w riting. W riters think about geas. You hadn’t even rubbed writing. W hat are you thinking the sleep from your eyes before about? Your girlfriend broke up you realized you had lost your with you last month; you spent best friend. Your mom ju st sat far too much money this w eek­ on the edge of your bed, in her end; the French chick in the next gray sweatsuit, sobbing. You row is pretty cute; your stom­ didn’t want to go to school that ach is tellin g you it’s lunchtime. day, but you did anyw ays. You You’re not a writer. You’re a held in your tears in front of your student, living on your parents’ friends, and when you •cam e dime, with nice-sounding hopes home your father asked, “How w as your d ay?” like it w as any and dreams.

You must think you are spe­ other.

Your feelings get stuck cial, that you have something blindingly true to share with the somewhere between your chest world, that you can reveal the and your throat. You need to fig­ beauty under the surface of ev­ ure out what is going on inside eryday life, that you can trans­ you. Weird is not an emotion. form and heal people. You are You don’t feel weird. Use your self-important. Nobody else was words. Describe how the em o­ going to tell you. Give up your tion feels. W here do you feel it? delusions of grandeur, even if W hat im ages do you associate you can ’t adm it you have them — with it? How intense is it? You w ill need a lot of practice. Emo­ because you do.

You have so many more im ­ tions are hard to pin down, and portant things to do besides w rit­ let’s be honest, your communi­ ing a story. Everything in your cation skills are lacking.

•Yelling is not an effective life is more important. It’s more important that you do your laun­ form of communication. Y ell­ dry, that you wish your mother a ing is not relationship building. happy birthday, that you apolo­ Neither is being com pletely si­ gize to the friend yo u ’ve been lent. You need to fall somewhere avoiding since you got a little in between the two. Try speak­ too drunk and spilled red wine ing softly; it m ay help to bring on her expensive blouse. You out your vulnerability. You need need to get over your ex-girl- to learn to be vulnerable. Your friend and stop masturbating to anger is ju st covering up your the pictures of her that are still pain, and if you don’t address saved on your laptop. It makes it, yo u’re only hurting yourself, you feel dirty anyw ays. W riting and alienating those around you.

You’re not much fun to be stories w ill solve none of these problems. W riting stories w ill around, except when yo u ’re drunk. You’re a likeable drunk. get you nowhere in life.

You wish you were a fully- I suppose you take after your functioning human b ein g—able father in a way. You alw ays pre­ to form healthy relationships, to ferred him after h e’d had a few. hold a job, to be someone who Sure, he m ay have smacked

you a couple tim es, but he was generally more charm ing, more down-to-earth, and funnier too!

You knew if he w as slurring his words, that it was safe to crack a few jokes at his expense. He would take it lightly. And if ever he didn’t, you knew you could get aw ay from him. He w asn’t very quick when he w as drunk.

You were a sprightly kid, full of energy. You’ve lost a bit of that now, m aybe it’s the pot, but m aybe it’s something else.

You would never call it depres­ sion, but the symptoms are there.

You’re not going to think about it unless yo u’re forced to. That’s not the healthy thing to do. Dis­ tracting yourself doesn’t solve your problems. Come to terms with being alone in the world; things get easier afterwards.

You don’t have real friends.

You call them your friends, but you don’t really know them, and they don’t know you. It’s a friendship of convenience, because you can ’t party alone.

Try to have a serious conversa­ tion. Try asking them about their lives. W hat are your passions?

W hat are your dream s? W hat does love mean to you? It scares you to even think about asking these questions. You don’t want to deal with actually getting to know someone.

You care too much about what other people think. You worry about others’ judgm ents.

M aybe it’s because yo u ’re so judgm ental yourself. You’re constantly putting others down.

M aybe it’s because you don’t like yourself. Cultivate com pas­ sion. Accept others’ faults, and m aybe yo u ’ll be able to deal with your own. Look for the source of your dissatisfaction. W hat do you want out of life? This is a good question to consider.

Try meeting someone new, like that French girl from your class. You should ask her on a date. It doesn’t matter that no­ body goes on dates anym ore— ask her anyw ay. Take her to a museum, or propose a w alk by the river; don’t take her to din­ ner. It doesn’t matter how th e . date goes. B e present. Listen to her, even if she talks endlessly

about how she hates Americans.

Pretend yo u ’re C anadian, and sym pathize. Don’t try and kiss her yet, even though you want to. Tell her you don’t want to go home. W alk with her towards her house, but don’t push the matter. When she tells you that her roommates are gone, don’t say anything; keep w alking.

Kiss her when she sits next to you on the livin g room couch.

Put your hand on her neck— she’ll like that. Let her take off your shirt. You w eren’t expect­ ing this, but go with it anyw ays.

You w ant each other. Your mind is racing, everything is moving so fast. You’re not sure if yo u’re ready for this. Your ex keeps haunting your thoughts; you can ’t concentrate; you can ’t get an erection. W hy is this happen­ in g? Just breathe.

Don’t accept the offer to spend the night. R evel in your post-coital glow. You m ay not feel this good for another year.

Don’t worry about how you per­ formed, or if she had an orgasm.

These things are not important.

B uy yourself a sandwich and take it home with you. Eat it slo w ly; savour it. This is the best sandwich you have ever tasted.

C all your father for the first time in two years. You still know his cell phone number by heart.

Pretend it’s ju st a casual con­ versation. Talk about politics.

Talk about the weather. Let him ask you the difficult questions: “W hat w as it like grow ing up with m e?” A nsw er honestly, even though you want to lie. Tell him he how he hurt you. Don’t try and fill up the silence, just listen to his breathing.

Look through the journal you kept as a teenager. M ake the effort to read every word, even though the handwriting is messy.

Cry over your high-school girl­ friend. It’s okay, nobody w ill ever know. Rem ark how good it feels to have let it out. Decide that you w ill keep ajo u rn ai from now on. You won’t write in it every day, or even every week, but every so often yd u’ ll scribble something worth remembering in those yello w pages.

C all the girl from your class.

You’ve been thinking about her non-stop. You know yo u ’ll fall for her, but you can ’t adm it it to yourself ju st yet. Just call her and ask her what she’s doing that night. S h e’ll say she’s busy.

That’s okay. You w eren’t expect­ ing her to be free anyw ays. Try to remem ber what she sm elled lik e —sunscreen and honeysuck­ le.

R ealize how full your life is.

R ealize how full it has alw ays been, but that the difference is your attitude. Notice sm all things throughout the d a y —your reflection pn a sheet of ice, or the w ay the couple in front o f you is holding hands—feel the urge to w rite them down. B egin to carry a notebook w ith you, but forget to w rite in it. Sm oke a joint and have a revelation; come up with the answer to life. Figure every­ thing out, and forget about it all by morning.

Note that yo u ’ve stopped caring altogether about your grades. Rem ark how much more enjoyable school has been, and that yo u’re still doing ju st fine.

R ealize that you actually like learning, it’s ju st the external control and pressure that you hate. Skip class because it’s a beautiful day. W alk somewhere yo u ’ve never been before, and watch people as they go about their lives. Pick out someone you find particularly repulsive.

Acknowledge that h e’s ju st as fragile as you. Feel the tension release from your body. Sm ile at him as you w alk by.

Stop for a minute on your w ay home. It doesn’t matter where, ju st stop and stand still. It m akes you anxious because you have so much to get done: finals aren’t far aw ay, you promised your friend yo u ’d go to his show, there’s that w riting assignment yo u ’ve been putting off, and you still have to eat. You don’t want to do any of that. You w ant to share the beauty you see in over­ w eight men; you want to inspire people to confront their fears; you want to be som ebody’s sav­ iour. Forget about what you have to do. You are w riting a story.

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h e’s looking across the table at me, but only be­ cause sh e’s trying not to look at him.

We met a couple w eeks ago at some friend’s friend’s party and got to talking about our mutual hatred of our R ussian Lit. confer­ ence. (I recognized her right aw ay but I let her guess how she knew me for a w hile.) But I was a bit drunk and had to read her name off the attendance sheet today be­ cause I was too em barrassed to ask what it was again.

And then there’s him, Marco.

M y cheerfully oblivious best friend w ouldn’t have noticed her an yw ays; he’s busy tapping aw ay on some cartoony gam e on his phone under the table.

I’ve been pretending to read along with our T.A. for the past five minutes, but I’m re ally busy com ing up with the life story of the girl w ho’s been accidentally staring at me for a little too long now. So far she’s a vegetarian camp counsellor who hated her parents for m aking her learn the violin (even though she made it to first chair in high school), but I still can ’t decide if she’s into lam e art films or if she’s more of a sham eless Katherine H eigl fan.

W hen I look up at her she quickly rolls her eyes at W hatever-His-Name-Is droning on about Tolstoy and sm iles.

S h e’s w earing a tiny cross necklace. I bet she doesn’t believe in God. A fter aspiring professor Soand-So stops talking mid-sen­ tence when people start packing up, I w alk around the table and ask her (K atie, unless I counted the number of seats she w as sit­ ting aw ay from me wrong) if she wants to come with M arco and I to this open mic thing tonight at a record store. She glances at M arco, w ho’s still fiddling with his phone, and says yes.

As we leave the room M arco asks me what I w as talking to her about.

“Nothing,” I tell him.

I meet her later on outside

the cam pus gates, she’s w earing horn-rimmed glasses and a scarlet beret. Definitely not a H eigl fan.

“W here’s M arco?” she asks.

“H e’s sick. Food poisoning I think,” I say, doing m y best to sound sym pathetic.

S h e’s disappointed but when w e start w alking and she tells me she’s never been to an open mic before I at least know she’s not dying to go home. She calls me by the wrong name (close, but still wrong) and then apologizes and says it was a “blonde moment.”

“You’re not blonde,” I say.

“I’m strawberry blonde,” she protests. “W hat colour would you call it?”

“Reddish,” I admit.

She groans and tells me I suck. We w alk about a h alf block in silence and then she musters up the courage to say w hat’s really on her mind.

“So is this a date?” she asks.

“Do those still ex ist?” I say.

“W hat? Of course they do,” she snaps back.

“Do you think it’s a date?” I ask.

“No,” she says, a little too quickly.

I try to change the subject by pointing out the record store across the street. We w alk inside and it’s a little less busy than I thought. There’s a sm all stage set up in the back com er w ith a few tables and about 15 other twentysomethings hanging around; a couple are tuning guitars, others are talking or reading over poems on their crim pled pieces of paper.

There’s a bulletin board of photocopied gig posters, most for shows long passed. We w alk to­ wards the stage, (after putting out m y arm with a theatrical “Shall w e?”) passing rack after rack of overpriced vin yl records. I alw ays thought the W ax M useum w as ju st a stupid pun, but then it hit me how perfect it is: the best songs ever written sit around in racks or taped to hip kid s’ w alls, but no one listens to them —th ey’re just plastic decoration.

We sit down at a table and

she pulls out a bottle of absurdly bright red lipstick, probably from R evlon’s Jessica Rabbit co llec­ tion. The contrast between her lips and pale skin gives her an open casket kind of look that I’ m trying re ally hard to ignore.

“Want som e?” she jokes.

“Not from the bottle,” I say.

She laughs but turns her head aw ay. Telling the truth w asn’t w orking, either.

A guy in a flannel shirt and knit cap takes the stage first, and p lays a Je ff B uckley song so ob­ scure that Jeff B uckley w ould’ve had a hard time remem bering the words. His half-assed sing­ ing didn’t matter much; the song choice w as the real performance.

A fter as much applause as you can get out of a handful of kids trying hard to look lik e they don’t give a shit, he steps down and goes back to his table.

A gu y in a plain but clearly expensive black hoodie and shiny jean s w ith carefully mussed hair hops on stage carrying a m ega­ phone. He pushes the microphone aside, and starts speaking, softly at first, through his staticky elec­ tric conch; I ’m a f r i e n d r e q u e s t f r o m a str a n g e r .

I ’m t h e Top 40 s o n g y o u h a te b u t y o u c a n ’t s t o p s in g in g .

I ’m w h a t y o u ’r e d o i n g r ig h t n ow , w ith a w itty h a s h ta g .

I ’m n o t lis t e n in g ; I ’m B B M ing a n d n o d d in g m y h ea d .

B u t y e s , I w a s th e o n e w h o p u t t h o s e drunk p h o t o s o f y o u o n th e In ter n et.

I a m a fu c k in g Y ouTube s e n ­ s a tio n !

W ho a m I? I a m t h e m o d e r n m an!

A nd I w ill n e v e r —I sa id , I WILL NEVER—a p o lo g iz e f o r it!

Just as fast as he w as there he was gone, out the door and off to God knows where. No­ body clapped. Nobody laughed.

Nobody said anything. We all ju st kind of sat there, looking for someone to roll our eyes at.

In the space between the bottom o f m y bare feet and the ground—that is where you loved me.

No matter where you are standing, yo u ’d say. An area of mosquitoes and dirt, but to you as cap­ tivating as any. Unfazed by your own strange­ ness, basking and romantic. At dusk w e w alked, a ritual among our many. Tirades of reassurance, stopping to debate the strangeness of a stranger’s license plate, the loudest crickets on earth. We lived ip a city of warmth, a foreign city at times.

How can I explain the w ay I wanted to be there more than anyw here yet could not stand to be there for a moment longer? b y J a c q u e lin e B r a n d o n

HœfedL “You’re lyin g.”

“No.” “Yes.” “Okay, yes. S o ?”

“You’re trouble.”

“I suppose.”

He w alked aw ay. She followed. He put his hand on the doorknob. She put hers on his shoulder and turned him towards her. He frowned. She stepped closer. He tried to ignore her, but she baited him with a sm ile, reeled him in with a gaze and gutted him , for good m easure, with a kiss. He sighed and returned to the tablé. He looked down at the m oney-filled suitcase. She caressed his neck. The door was now out of reach. He w as staying, law and life be damned. b y P a u lin a K y r ia k o p o u lo s

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Summer reading list from McGill’s most popular profs A s c la s s e s e n d , p a p e r s a re h a n d e d in , a n d e x a m s a re c o m p le t e d , y o u m a y f in d y o u r s e lf at a lo s s fo r w h a t to re a d w h e n y o u d o n ’t h a v e a s y lla b u s to m a k e th e d e c is io n fo r y o u . T o h e lp y o u o u t w h e n y o u ’ re lo o k in g fo r th e p e rfe c t b o o k to re a d w h ile r e la x in g w ith a c o ffe e at o n e o f M o n t r e a l’s m a n y t e r r a c e s , th e T r ib u n e h a s c o m p ile d a lis t o f s u g g e s t io n s f r o m s o m e o f M c G i l l ’ s b e s t -k n o w n p r o f e s s o r s . If y o u g e t t h r o u g h t h is lis t by th e e n d o f ju n e , c h e c k w w w . m c g ilf t r ib u n e .c o m fo r m o r e id e a s fr o m o t h e r m e m b e r s o f t h e M c G ill f a c u lt y .

Professor Morton Mendelson — Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning)

S han taram , a novel by Gregory David Roberts, is a plot-driven page-turner, a swashbuckling tale, a comment on what is really important in life, and a glim pse into a society most of us w ill never experience. It w ill grab you from its extraordinary first sentence: “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, w hile I was chained to a w all and being tortured.” Don’t be put off by its 933 pages, yo u ’ll want it to last longer than that.

I

Professor Joe Schwarcz — Chemistry

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“Abrilliantly and preposterously funny book” —MANCHESTER GUARDIAN

Dr. Ben Goldacre’s recent book B a d S c ie n c e is a classic. Goldacre is a British physician who also writes a column in the Guardian and appears regularly on television. With vim , vigour and w it he takes on everyone who promotes pseudoscience. He is the scourge of homeopaths, self-acclaim ed nutritionists, and incompetent reporters.

Goldacre is a champion of critical thinking and evidence-based medicine. B a d S c ie n c e is a collection of captivating essays that w ill foster interest in “good science” and introduce the reader to a range of current health issues and controversies. Not only is it a great read, it is a book you w ill want to keep beside your bed for future reference.

Professor Richard Koestner — Psychology

I would recommend L ucky Jim (1954) by K ingsly Amis. Its a very funny novel about a hapless young history professor who is in danger of losing his job because of a combination of bad luck and poor judgment The story has everything I like: lots of humor, some romance, a hero who grows, and a happy ending. I’ve read it three times and I’ve listened to it another three times (you can get it from audible.com).

Professor Tobias Rees — Anthropology

Stefan Helm reich’s A lien O cea n offers a culturalogic variant of anthropology.

Oceanography, for Helmreich, is a deepl\ cultural undertaking. It exists—and can only exist—as embedded in a contestable symbolic order and set of power relations. The task of the cultural anthropologist is to travel these webs of meaning and to show how contingent and contested their production is —in Monterey labs, in Hawaiian biotech conferences, on vessels in the Sargasso Sea, etc.

ALIEN

Professor Mark Brawley — Political Science

For anyone interested in an insightful look % anthropological voyages in mi . • w ,- < at the w ay our world will be changing—and S T E F A N H E L M R E lC H / ; . the economic and political consequences that roll from those changes—I recommend T he F u tu re o f P o w e r by Joseph Nye. Important ideas made accessible, and full of interesting, grounded examples.

Professor Tom Velk — Economics

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K illin g fo r C o a l

Professor Tom Jundt — History

K illin g f o r C o a l: A m erica ’s D ea d lie st L abor War by Thomas G. Andrews is a strikingly original account of the 1914 Ludlow massacre in Colorado, when National Guard troops and m ilitia killed nineteen men, women, and children during a strike at a John D. Rockefeller owned mine. Rather than the traditional view of Ludlow as a labor dispute gone aw ry, Andrews sees it in the broader context of “energy system s,” and the complicated relationship between capitalism , consumers, labor, and the environment.

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One big book full of big ideas is A lexis de Tocqueville’s D e m o cr a c y in A m erica. Written in the 1830s, by a young man who visited the United States to write a report on prison reform, this book is not m erely about America, not simple praise for either democracy or America exceptionalism, but a prediction: an accurate foretelling of the eventual general dominance of the Democratic idea, the loss of refined Aristocratic virtue that w ill result, the replacement of those chivalric ideals by more commonplace and simple civilities, generally practised. The book is a fine antidote to the widespread but inaccurate idea that America is not special, or that her role in the evolution of civilization is not unique.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

15 G IZ M O S & G A D G E T S

ON CAM PUS

Tax filing for students Rustock Botnet Takedown D o n ’t p a ss up a c o u p le h u n d re d b u ck s

By Kevin Nzom o

Contributor As exam time coincides with tax season, filing a tax return is the last thing on students’ minds. It’s unlikely that many students will file before the deadline on April 30.

Furthermore, many students think they don’t need to file a tax return because they don’t make enough money to owe any taxes. While this is true, there are a few perks to fil­ ing your taxes that may give you an incentive, including putting a little extra'cash in your pocket in time for summer.

First, filing a tax return entitles students to receive taxes withheld at source. For example, some em­ ployers may have deducted some tax from a student’s pay check. The basic personal amount for the 2010 tax year is $10,382. This means that the first $10,382 of students’ em­ ployment income is tax-free. Since most students fall in a non-taxable bracket, coupled with many credits available to them, they are certain to get back taxes that were deducted.

If students are 19 years of age or older, they are eligible to receive the GST/HST credit. This credit is meant to assist individuals with low and modest incomes to help offset all or part of the GST/HST they pay on the purchase of goods and ser­ vices. In Quebec, students are also eligible to receive the provincial solidarity tax credit. This credit con­ solidates the QST credit, the credit

for individuals living in northern villages and credit for the housing component.

Another reason to file a return is to get a refund of property taxes as a tenant. Students may be entitled to receive the refund if they were Quebec residents on December 31 and they were living as the tenant or subtenant of an eligible dwelling on that date.

In addition, students can claim tuition, education, and textbook amounts to allow them to reduce their income taxes in the current year or carry them forward in the fu­ ture. Students can also claim interest they pay on student loans and their public transit passes.

Lastly, filing a tax return not only has benefits now, but also for the future. Filing a return creates Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contribution room. This will allow students to make contribu­ tions immediately when they begin working full time. Deductible RRSP contributions can be used to reduce taxes.

Filing a tax return may be a confusing and arduous task to some; however, retaining the services of a good tax preparer will certainly make students’ lives easier as they concentrate on their final exams.

Kevin Nzomo is a McGill University student and works at Student Tax Prep Canada in Mon­ treal, QC. He can be contacted at kevin.nzomo@StudentTaxPrep.ca

O n e th ird o f e m a il s p a m h a s been e lim in a te d by M ic ro so ft ous health hazard. Much of the spam sent by Rustock promoted fake drugs, using the name Pfizer.

If you typically stock up on These drugs often contained danger­ “VlaGr4” and “C!AL!$” from sup­ ous chemicals and were harmful to pliers who email you individually, those who consumed them. While expect to have a bit more trouble many might wonder “Who actually over the coming weeks. Last week, clicks on those links?” in truth there Microsoft shut down the largest are people who not only click on the source of spam emails on the Inter­ questionable links but purchase the products they advertise. Social engi­ net, the Rustock botnet.

A botnet is a large collection of neering techniques are often used to computers which have been com­ convince individuals to purchase il­ mandeered, and are all working legitimate drugs from the maintain­ together with malicious intent. A ed of the botnet.

Taking down a botnet is no botnet’s strength lies in its numbers.

Only by exploiting tens or hun­ easy task. The coordinators of a dreds of thousands of machines can botnet often do everything they can the botnet succeed at its purpose: to protect themselves. Because the sending massive amounts of spam botnet relies on social engineering and phishing techniques to spread, emails.

The infection spreads from computers are infected when users computer to computer, and each in­ visit links, and there is no simple fix. fected machine registers itself with a While most viruses can be fought command server. It receives instruc­ with anti-virus software, a botnet tions about what it should do from is a more complex beast. Often, this command server. In the case the best solution is to target those of Rustock, these instructions were responsible for its distribution, cut­ often to check the infected machines ting off the head of the organization. contact list for email addresses, and Microsoft teamed up with Pfizer, the begin sending spam messages to University of Washington, FireEye, those people, and any other emails and U.S. marshals in a technical and it can get a hold of. A single Rus- legal crusade against Rustock. Mi­ tock-infected machine was observed crosoft and Pfizer both had to gen­ sending spam messages at a rate of erate legitimate reasons and data to 10,000 per hour. At its peak, Rus­ back their requests for the seizure of tock sent over 30 billion emails per the command centers for the botnet. day, which consisted of 33 per cent Once the plea was successful, the seizure of these computers was exe­ of all spam emails.

The Rustock botnet was not cuted by federal marshals. When left only a nuisance, but posed a seri­ without a commanding server, the By lain Macdonald

Production Manager

botnet is useléss. Usually, after tak­ ing the command servers down, the search begins for those responsible.

Often the perpetrators end up being charged as criminals, as creating and deploying a botnet is one of the most serious forms of cyber crime.

This is not the first instance of a well-executed search and de­ stroy for a massive botnet. In early 2010, Microsoft successfully seized control of the domain names used by another large botnet: Waledec.

Transferring control of these do­ main names to Microsoft crippled the botnet. Controlling these sorts of threats is something that would not be possible without collaboration between many different companies and governments. Unfortunately, there are many more cyber criminals out there than anyone has time to track down and prosecute. However, Microsoft has taken measures to eliminate some of the more prolific organizations.

Spam has more serious impli­ cations than many think, and should not be taken lightly. Many people have spam filters on their email in­ boxes, however, some messages still get through. It’s important to be vigilant when browsing the Internet, especially when giving away per­ sonal information. Avoid clicking on suspicious looking links and always verify the sender of an email before reading it. Help control the botnet population by using up-to-date an­ tivirus software, and being smart about your Intémet browsing.

jsa a g p a n e e r

By M anisha Aggarwal-Schifellite * •

A&E Editor This is my mother’s easier and healthier version of the clas­ sic Indian spinach dish that can be adapted to suit whatever you have in your kitchen. Paneer is an Indian fresh cheese that is fully vegetarian and a good source of protein. If you want a vegan alternative, substitute white potatoes for paneer. Make a day of it and go up to Parc-Extension for ingredients, and pick up some extras to freeze for later!

Ingredients • 2 tbsp canola or vegetable oil • 1 tsp cumin seeds • 1/2 tsp tumeric powder • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes • 1 tsp garam masala (Indian spice mix) • 1/2 cup diced red onion k

• 1 package chopped frozen spinach • 1/2 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and diced • 2 tbsp diced tomatoes (canned or fresh) • 1 cup paneer, cubed Directions 1. Microwave the spinach for five minutes until soft, and save the water.

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan, and make sure the bottom of the pan is fully coated.

3. Add the cumin seeds. When they start moving in the oil, add the tumeric and stir.

4. Add the red onion and red pep­ per flakes. Continue stirring.

5. Stir in the spinach, spinach water, ginger, garam masala and tomatoes.

6. Cover and let sit for fifteen

(recipes.oriyaonline.com)

minutes, ensuring there is enough another 10 minutes.

8. Add more garam masala and liquid in the pot. Add a bit of water to make sure nothing sticks to the red pepper flakes depending on your desired level of spice. bottom of the pan.

9. Serve with rice, naan, or pita.

7. Add the paneer and let sit for

*It is possible to substitute 1 tsp of curry powder for garam masala and 1 tsp ground cumin in place of cumin seeds.

J

Curiosity Delivers - mcgilltribune.com

16 O FF CAM PUS

Why you should stay in Montreal for the summer Fro ze n b o o g e rs, fro sty e y e g la s s e s , an d sw eat s ta in s need not be th e o n ly M o n tre a l you know

By Ricky Krietner

Opinion Editor It’s not unusual to hear com­ plaints from McGill students that Montreal in winter is simply “un­ inhabitable.” On a recent jaunt up the mountain, a friend and I looked out over the frozen city and the icy expanse across the river wonder­ ing what early settlers could have been thinking when they set out due north and decided this was a good place to settle down. Anyone who has been inducted recently inducted into the rites of Montreal winter has their own collection of symptoms which demonstrate the folly of these original explorers: frozen boogers, frosty eyeglasses, sweat stains from overheated classrooms, the precious study time eaten up by lacing and unlacing slushy boots upon com­ ing home or going out. These com­ plaints can be heard for the major­ ity of the eight-month semester. Yet when finals end, and those four pre­ cious months of Tam Tams, suntans, and cream sodas in the park begin, most students up and leave, sublet­

ting their apartment or letting it stay vacant, sucking up dollars and, by osmosis, good vibes, until students return at the end of August, ready for a few weeks of good weather before repeating the dreadful cycle all over again.

Riding the train home after my first year at McGill, I remember thinking how stupid I was to have endured Montreal’s notorious winter just to leave as soon as the flowers were starting to sprout and puppies and babies were coming out to play.

It seemed silly to have suffered for so long only to decline the obvious redemption the summer offered. I resolved to stay in Montreal for most of the next summer in order to see what this frozen city would reveal when the snow and ice melted and its famous jo i e d e vivre could really shine through.

Though much of what I did last summer in Montreal can certainly be done elsewhere, the memories I now have of those good times actu­ ally helped me get through this win­ ter. I can’t say they exactly warmed me: the boogers still froze and the

glasses dewed with frost. But the knowledge that this city was capa­ ble of more than just trying to kill me, that the same frozen St. Laurent that made my pant legs dirty and my genitals shrivel could also serve up delicious barbecue during a lively street fair on a hot summer night, made the past few months endur­ able. If you have the chance—and it is yours for the taking—to stay up here for at least one summer before graduation, I highly recommend you do so. Here’s some highlights from the Montreal summer that once was mine and can, more or less, be yours: One night some friends and I hiked over the Cartier Bridge to a free Arcade Fire concert in Longueil.

On the way back we stopped in Jean Drapeau Park and swam in the shal­ lows of the St. Lawrence. We lay upside-down on the rocks with our heads near the water’s edge and admired the reflection of the moun­ tains and the city lights on the river’s surface. We stopped for pizza on the way home and slept with the win­ dows open, and even then it was a

The M ount Royal outlook at sunrise. (Ryan Reisert/McGill Tribune)

bit too hot.

Another night we drank a bottle of wine on a grassy knoll near the Lachine Canal. We then moved to where the water from the canal flows into the river, and sat with our legs dangling over the edge, talking about the books we’d been reading and how they made everything dif­ ferent somehow.

For my birthday we gathered some firewood and a few dozen yeasayers on the mountain for an

all-night campfire. We watched the sun rise over the river and the city began to stir. Our clothes smelled like smoke for weeks afterward.

We established a probably un­ healthy reliance on several ingestible substances, not least of all or­ ange cream soda.

The famous McGill bubble is one not only of space but also of time. Montreal is a city of great pos­ sibilities that are only waiting for May to be revealed.

O D D S & EN D S

HOW TO

Keeping up with your resolutions

Getting dressed

W ith a little h elp fro m m o d e rn s o c ia l p sy c h o lo g y

A c o n tin u a tio n o f “ H o w to sh o w e r”

By Emily Foxen-Craft

Contributor March is mad for many rea­ sons. In addition to college basket­ ball and extreme weather variations, this is the time when many of us suddenly realize there are only a few weeks left in the semester. If you’re anything like the general population, chances are slim that you’ve kept your New Years resolutions. What happened to studying every day, to exercising a few times a week, and to balancing school and fun? Don’t despair. With guidance the past 20 years of research in social psychol­ ogy, you can set more effective goals for yourself and have a better chance of being that person you wanted to be in January.

Choosing your goals Choose wisely. Think about why you chose the goals you did in January. A long tradition of research in self-determination theory by Ed Deci and Richard Ryan, Ken Shel­ don, and Richard Koestner shows that we are more likely to succeed if we are motivated to engage in these activities because we personally want to. If you only want to reach your goal to impress your parents or to make a lot of money, you should reconsider and find reasons to pur­ sue it for yourself.

You should also ask yourself if your goals would help you ful­ fill your three basic psychological needs: feeling competent, feeling connected to others, and feeling au­ tonomous.

Approaching your goals Think about how you frame your goal. Are you trying to do something, or not to do something?

Research suggest you are more like­ ly to succeed at the former.

Next, think about how you will go about achieving your goals. One of the main mistakes people make is to set vague goals with unclear plans for achieving them. Say you want to do well in school. What does “doing well” mean to you—getting a 4.0, or just the feeling that you gave your best effort? Setting a specific distant goal for yourself and deciding on a few short-term, proximal goals as stepping stones can help you get to that distant goal.

What happens when things in­ evitably go wrong? Peter Gollwitzer’s research at NYU suggests that if we formulate an “implementation intention,” our chances of reaching our goals increase almost expo­ nentially. Using an implementation intention, you can predict certain obstacles that may occlude your path to goal achievement and plan accordingly—for example, “If I get

too tired to continue studying, then I will drink copious amounts of cof­ fee.” Simple statements are actually shown to make corrective behaviouOr or thoughts almost automatic.

Don’t think about your goals as an all-or-nothing pursuit. Research on dieters at the University of To­ ronto shows that if you cheat slightly on your diet or miss a night of study­ ing, you have not necessarily failed at your goal. Instead, this can be a learning opportunity.

You can do it!

Know that you can achieve your goals. An extensive line of research demonstrates that this confidence leads us to exert more effort, focus our attention more, and be optimis­ tic in the face of obstacles. You can do this by recalling previous experi­ ences when you mastered a similar goal, thinking about role models, and making sure you have achiev­ able short-term goals to boost your feelings of efficacy.

Goal-setting is a great way to examine your priorities and focus on what matters to you. Remember that you’re not in this alone, so seek sup­ port from friends and family to get you through. However, you must be internally motivated. In the immor­ tal words of Yoda, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

By Matt Essert & M ookie Kideckel

News Editor & Managing Editor The Tribune has published a number of articles in the how-to series this year. They have all been very helpful and for that you are wel­ come. One problem, however, with a lot of these articles is that they re­ quire wearing clothes. But, how do you get dressed? Here’s how: First, wake up. While wak­ ing up, make sure you stay true to yourself and commit to your goals.

There’s nothing worse than letting yourself down and with such a dif­ ficult task, you need make sure you remain faithful to your own heart.

For the purposes of this article, you need to make sure you’re not wear­ ing your day clothes while sleeping; That would just be cheating.

Next, get out of bed. It will be difficult to get dressed if you stay in bed all day. At this point, if you were wearing pajamas, you need to take those off. Be careful not to put your clothes on over your pajamas, you’ll overheat during the day and could faint in the middle of that big budget presentation.

If you feel like it, take a shower.

For help on this, see the Tribune’s previous how-to on showering.

Before you try putting on clothes, you should make sure

you’re fueled for the day, so have some breakfast. But before you go to the kitchen, consider putting on some pre-clothes—clothes you wear before you get dressed. Otherwise, feel free to eat your breakfast naked, but this might not be welcoming if it’s cold outside and you don’t have proper insulation.

Once you find your kitchen, which can be a daunting task in it­ self, decide what you want to eat.

Once again, make sure you commit yourself to your decision. .Breakfast is among the three most important meals of the day, so don’t screw it up. Also, for sustainability, use can­ dlelight instead of electric lighting while making your meal.

Once your belly is full, head back to your room or your walk-in closet—wherever you store your clothes. Now you need to decide what to wear. Look out the window and see what other people are wear­ ing. This will help you get a sense of what the temperature is like. You will also see what other people are wearing so you can make sure you don’t wear the same outfit, which would be embarrassing.

Next, throw open your closest doors and put some clothes on. Then take them off because you were wrong in your outfit choice. Put other clothes on and start your day.

A & E S U M M E R P R EV IEW

This summer, don’t miss out on these releases R ight now yo u ’re prob a b ly at a crossroa d s. On the o n e hand, yo u ’re ex cited about the u pcom in g su m m er’s entertainm ent p ossibilities, but on the o th er you ’re w orried that the Tribune w o n ’t b e h ere to gu id e y o u r entertainm ent selectio n p r o cess. U nfortunately th er e’s n othing w e can d o about that, so you ’ll ju st h a ve to k eep an e y e ou t f o r th ese three things.

—Matt Essert

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome

Cowboys and Aliens This summer promises a ton of action-packed blockbust­ ers, and C ow boys and Aliens is sure to be one of them. Al­ though there are a number of exciting movies based on comic books coming out in the next few months (Thor; X-Men: First Class, Captain A m erica: First A venger) and a number of goodlooking sequels {The H angover 2, H arry P otter and the D eathly H allows: Part IT), I’m especial­ ly excited for the July 29 release of C ow boys and Aliens. Not only does it feature a sweet cast

with the hunky Daniel Craig, the smoking Olivia Wilde, the rugged Harrison Ford, and strangely appealing Sam Rock­ well, but it kind of sounds like a movie script that was pitched by a third grader talking about his two favourite things. C ow boys and Aliens will also feature the classic feel-good story of cow­ boys and their Native American enemies teaming up to fight a horde of invading aliens with plans to enslave everyone in sight. With that kind of story, how can you not see it?

Jason Lee in M e m p h is B e a t, (blogs.commercialappeal.com)

Memphis Beat

Olivia Wilde and Daniel Craig, (celebritywonder.ugo.com)

With M ad M en on hiatus until March 2012, you’ll need something to entertain your­ self during all your free time this summer. Though summer television can often be disap­ pointing, M em phis B eat is what you might call “easy-watch­ ing” programming. This crime drama rarely gets too intense, and most of the storylines fea­ ture fun subplots that make the

Music is difficult to predict too far in advance, but Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi’s new album, Rome, is something you should keep in mind this summer.

Danger Mouse is well known for both his solo work and his Gnarls Barkley collaboration with Cee-Lo Green, but he’s an all-around great producer and song­ writer whose also worked with acts like Gorillaz and Beck. Less is known about Italian composer Daniele Luppi, except that he has a sweet mustache and has ap­ parently produced some good stuff. Two tracks from the album are already available for listening online— “Two Against One,” featuring Jack White and “Black,” featuring Norah Jones—and both sound great. If you take the past success of Danger Mouse, the alluring Italian-ness of Luppi, and these two tracks as an indica­ tion of what’s to come from this album, get excited for it to drop on May 17.

show attractive. Jason'Lee stars as good ol’ country detective Dwight Hendricks, who plays the Memphis Blues in his spare time. After a solid 10 episodes in the first season, the second season will start on June 14 and will hopefully deliver the same appealing mixture of headscratching cases and entertain­ ing hijinks.

Danger M ouse and Daniele Luppi. (indiehearts.com)

FILM

Babes in skimpy attire fight for freedom Z a c k S n y d e r’s Sucker Punch: h ig h on im a g in a tio n , low on ju s t a b o u t e v e ry th in g e lse .

By Emma Hambly

Contributor Sucker Punch is the kind of movie that will satisfy only the most hardcore action-fantasy film buffs, and alienate almost all others. The film was written, directed, and pro­ duced by Zack Snyder, who is best known for directing such graphic novel hits as 300 and Watchmen.

Sucker P unch seems to be headed the way of W atchmen—panned en masse but lauded by a devoted few.

The major flaw of Sucker Punch is its plot. The storyline attempts to go the way of an In ception- or Shutter Islan d-type psychological thriller, but instead it’s a weak ex­ cuse for Snyder’s action sequences.

We are introduced to our heroine, the bleached-blonde beauty Baby Doll (Emily Browning) in a long, dialogue-less sequence in which we learn that her villainous stepfa­ ther has committed her to an insane asylum. This situation doesn’t last long, as she quickly escapes to a dif­ ferent mental realm—a mob-owned brothel where she is to be sold off in less than a week. Baby Doll be­

Baby Doll and her gang o f girls mobilize in Zack Snyder’s escapist fantasy. (koolcampus:wordpress.com)

friends four other doomed girls with equally quirky nicknames, and they form an escape plan. This is where it gets tricky. Baby Doll develops some kind of superpower that mani­ fests in the form of an entrancing dance. While Baby Doll dances, she imagines fighting for her life in a

fantasy realm, and her gang is able to retrieve the items they need to es­ cape.

These fantasy sequences are the strength of the film. Snyder al­ most effortlessly blends Japanese, medieval, science fiction, and First World War influences in physics-

obliterating fight scenes. Baby Doll is assisted by her gaggle of girls, all impossible beauties decked out in telescopic false eyelashes and cor­ sets. They do battle with giant samu­ rais, dragons, and alien robots. One thing is certain: Snyder is nothing if not imaginative. The art direction,

cinematography, and choreography work seamlessly to provide thrilling action, and are bolstered by a pow­ erful soundtrack, including work by Browning herself.

Sucker Punch is worth a watch for the select few who are excited by the idea of First World War-era clockwork robot zombie soldiers, among other mixed-and-matched villains. The visuals effects are impressive but may seem scatter­ brained and overwhelming to the casual viewer. Beyond that, there is only a convoluted yet predictable plot, underdeveloped characters, and flat, sparse dialogue. The actors do a fine job considering the scrip thighlights are Browning as Baby Doll and Oscar Isaac as the scoun­ drel Blue.

Snyder’s latest work is by no means a masterpiece. But his imagi­ nation and uncompromising creative force hold great promise for a more ' well-rounded fantasy film down the line. In a world where the tried-andtrue formula seems to dominate at the box office, originality certainly can’t go unappreciated.

C uriosity Delivers - m cgilltribune.com

1 8 -----------------------------C D Review

M U S IC

The Evolution of Braids C a lg a ry b an d fin is h e s fin a l leg o f N o rth A m e ric a n to u r

By Alexander Hamilton

Contributor Fresh from the release of their first LP, Native Speaker, Braids is just finishing up the final leg of a North American tour. With a hand­ ful of shows scheduled over the next week in Canada and the U.S., Braids is set to play the tour’s final gig on Friday at La Salla Rosa in Montreal.

They will be opening for experi­ mental songwriter Toro Y Moi, with Maryland-based electro-pop outfit Adventure.

“We’re going to be touring a lot this year,” says Katie Lee, the band’s keyboardist, vocalist, and McGill student. (Three of the band’s four members attended McGill.) “We’re going to Europe two times, once in May and once in June and July, and then we’re doing a headlining North American tour from September on­ wards.”

Despite plans to tour in Austra­ lia and Japan in the near future, the possibility of a second album is also on the band’s mind. Braids’s first album garnered positive reviews across the board. Compared favour­ ably to F eels-era Animal Collective and early Broken Social Scene re­

cords, Braids has recently gained a following in indie circles. The antic­ ipation for a second LP is high, and when it comes to plans for the future, Braids has a lot on their plate.

“Hopefully during the breaks when we’re back in Montreal, [we’ll start] writing some new material, and then, hopefully early next year start writing a new album.”

In the meantime, she says that they might release a 7-inch with their Canadian label later this year.

Although the second album is still far away, the band is excited about a few new tracks they’ve been work­ ing on.

“There’s a new song we wrote called ‘In Kind,”’ Lee says. “It’s not on the album. It’s a very fun song to play. It’s fresh, it’s different, and there’s a section where I can bob my head up and down for three minutes.

We usually play that song last, so if you come to the show you’ll prob­ ably recognize it.”

On Native Speaker, Braids channels a dreamy post-rock vibe.

With most tracks running over five minutes in length, the mood evoked by the album reflects the band’s long and patient songwriting process.

Their method seems to be more or­

Wiz Khalifa: Rolling Papers

Braids stands in the spotlight o f Canadian music, (alarmpress.com)

ganic then planned.

“Someone comes up with an idea, either that’s a riff or a lyrical idea, and it ends up sounding like a big ball of sound,” Lee says. “Then we rip it apart and refine it some more.”

While the group started off as a live band, they’ve since taken a different direction. For the second album, Braids will aim to challenge themselves in a variety of ways. “[Our influences] are much different than they were on Native Speaker,” Lee says. “Right now we’re getting really into the whole minimal techno scene. A lot of our newer stuff is more reflective of that.” She cites British producer

Gold Panda as an example of one of the influences the band is currently exploring.

With all of their recent action, it’s easy to see why Braids has been labelled an “up-and-coming” band.

The group’s musical evolution is obviously driven by a deep-seated desire to be challenged and engaged.

This orientation is reflected in their music and in the intensity they bring to live shows that will make them a memorable part of the Canadian in­ dependent scene.

B raids p la y La Sala R ossa with Toro y M oi on April 8 at 8 p.m . Tick­ ets start at $13.50.

FILM

Rebels with a cause A lg e ria n d ire c to r ta c k le s re v o lu tio n s in th e M id d le E a st w ith Outside the Law

By Lea Choukroun______________

Contributor As a wave of revolutions sweep the Middle East, Rachid Bouchareb’s O utside The Law arrives in North America at an important time.

The film relates the traumatic expe­ rience of the movement for Algerian colonial independence, anchoring its viewers in both French and Algerian settings.

O utside the Law is the tale of three Algerian brothers and their mother, set in the midst of the Alge­ rian Revolution in 1950. The bloody rebellion against French colonial forces has chased the three broth­ ers from their land, separating them from their mother. One brother, Ab­ delkader, leads the movement for Algerian independence from Paris.

The next, Said, makes money in dingy Parisian boxing clubs. The third brother, Messaoud, is engaged fighting French forces in Indochina.

Their diverse destinies are inextrica­ bly tied around the love they share for their mother.

The historical context of the film is secondary to the story of the

family. According to Bouchareb, the movie is meant to be understood as a North African western. He em­ phasizes the artistic and cinemato­ graphic dimensions over the politi­ cal statement, aspiring to the cine­ matic stylings of a Sergio Leone.

Generally fast paced and clean cut, the director uses mainly American­ ized techniques that stray from the stereotypical independent political movie.

Political and historical contro­ versy aside, however, O utside the Law is somewhat tacky. The film is very Manichean and the style it as­ pires to just doesn’t work in a North African context.

Jamel Debbouze, who plays Said, is famous for his one-man comedy skits in France, but is hardly credible as a heart-wrenching Alge­ rian kid. Not completely involved in the revolution, Said is interested in business and boxing and serves as the family intellectual—which is somewhat difficult to believe. How­ ever, Roshdy Zem and Sami Bouajila (Abdelkader and Messaoud, re­ spectively) more effectively portray characters with depth and dexterity.

Since receiving unanimous ac­ claim for his Kush & O range J u ice mixtape in 2009, Wiz Khalifa has quickly gone from underground no­ toriety to mainstream recognition.

This first major label album (though officially his third overall) marks his grand entrance to the growing Top 40 pop/hip-hop genre. His breakout hit, “Black and Yellow,” and other strong singles, including “On ly Level,” “Roll Up,” and “No Sleep,” are party anthems of surprising sim­ plicity. The hooks and melodies use a unique mixture of half-rapping and half-singing with lyrical shal­ lowness that’s consistent with any other mainstream, weekend-friend­ ly track. We’ve heard it all before: a rapper blows his cash, drinks his champagne, smokes more than Cheech and Chong, and knows your girl better than you do. Yet his at­ titude is friendly and his delivery harmless. Perhaps those are the only two qualities that spare him from some otherwise deserved compari­ sons to Soulja Boy. As catchy as all the songs are, they’re disposable insofar as any one of them could have been scrapped from the project without affecting the overall feel of album. Rapping deep just isn’t Wiz’s style, and he might not even be capable of doing it convincingly if he tried. For Wiz, rapping in platitudes sounds much more sincere than attempting to be deep. R olling P apers is a catchy pop album, but that’s about it.

—N icholas P etrillo

The three brothers gear up for battle, (damonwise.blogspot.com)

Ultimately, the film takes a very critical stance toward French colo­ nialism and portrays Frenchmen in Algeria much like the German Ge­ stapo. This has provoked controver­ sy among French conservatives who see the film as a distortion of history.

However, at the press conference given at the Cannes film festival, the director and actors stressed that the focus should be on artistic per­

formances rather than on the exact historical facts that may or may not relate to what happened in the heat of a revolution for independence.

While the director re-entered the debate about his cinematograph­ ic intentions, the film crew did not seem entirely dissatisfied with the controversy, as it gave O utside the Law some much-needed publicity going into summer movie season.

F o llo w us on T w it t e r @ m c g ill_ trib u n e

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H O CK EY

Maurice Richard sets Quebec ablaze C h a rle s Fo ran d e lv e s in to th e R o ck e t’s role w ith in th e N H L an d Q u e b e c ’s Q u ie t R e v o lu tio n

By Ricky Kreitner

Opinion Editor Rare is the athlete whose cul­ tural impact transcends the sport he or she plays. Charles Foran, the au­ thor of a new book on Maurice Rich­ ard for the Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians series, says his subject fits this select category. In the same sense that Jackie Robinson didn’t set out to break any racial divides but only to play baseball, Richard didn’t intend to become the spokesman for an emerging Quebec nationalism; all he wanted to do was play hock­ ey. But Richard soon came to mean much more to his fans. “The expres­ sion of his gift and indomitable will come to be viewed as a simulacrum of a people’s own impatience and potential,” Foran writes. “Of their very souls, even.”

Richard was bom in 1921 in a very different Quebec from the one in which he died 79 years later.

Highly rural, Catholic, and politi­ cally silent, French Canadians—as they then permitted themselves to be called—were depicted as con­ tent to be ruled by English-speaking Westmount overlords and regressive Catholic priests, and to let moder­ nity pass them by.

Rising quickly from the Mon­ treal municipal leagues to the rela­

tively new National Hockey League (its offices then located in down­ town Montreal), Richard was signed by the Habs, the Anglophone own­ ers of which were then looking for a new French Canadian star to bring in bigger hometown crowds. His prow­ ess on the ice was immediately evi­ dent and Richard’s mostly English teammates called him “the Rocket.”

He established himself as the most talented player in the league, scor­ ing 50 goals in as many games dur­ ing the 1944-1945 season—the first time that ever happened, and the only until 1980.

As the Habs began to rack up Stanley Cups and established a spe­ cifically French Canadian way of playing hockey—fast and furious (in Richard’s case, a bit too furious)— the team’s biggest star began to feel burdened by the expectations of his increasingly politicized fans.

As Foran notes, Richard’s notori­ ously violent playing style enabled many French Canadians to satisfy their revenge fantasies vicariously through his fists. Richard, often de­ picted as a simpleton, wasn’t dumb, but neither was he fully aware of the political storm brewing around him.

As always, he just wanted to play hockey.

“For his entire life, he is big­ ger than himself,” Foran noted in a

recent interview. “This regular guy has to negotiate throughout his en­ tire life these expectations and hopes for him that are not only outside his own sense of himself as a man, but sometimes even outside of his un­ derstanding.”

An on-ice incident in 1955 that culminated in Richard breaking a stick over a ref’s face and his sub­ sequent suspension for the remain­ der of the season eventually led to a riot on St. Catherine Street. Rich­ ard’s French Canadian fans felt the suspension was unwarranted and the player was being unfairly treated— “just another emotional, self-indul­ gent French Canadian,” as Foran writes—by a wholly Anglophone league establishment.

The famous Quebec journal­ ist André Laurendeau wrote at the time, “French-Canadian nationalism seems to have taken refuge in hock­ ey.” Indeed, what came to be known as the Richard Riot was considered by some the awakening of the Que­ bec people to the injustices they had for centuries suffered under the dual yoke of Anglo domination and anti-modem Catholic political hege­ mony in the province itself. Richard became an accidental hero of the modernizing forces which would eventually emerge as the leaders of the Quiet Revolution.

Foran argues that there is a certain “Zelig element” in the Rich­ ard story, referring to the Woody Allen character who stumbles into important historical scenes and ac­ cidentally changes their outcomes.

It didn’t take long for Quebecers to ditch Richard when they realized he was more representative of the old, acquiescent French Canada than of the new, empowered Quebec.

The central question of the book is what role Richard played in that transition, despite his awareness of that role or lack thereof.

“Of what exactly was he even a symbol?” Foran writes. “Of quiet defiance and steady resistance, of an incremental awakening of an entire people? Or, less happily, of the ulti­ mate ‘small’ French Canadian being played for a sucker by church and state, the accidental company man shilling for interests that weren’t re­ ally his own and that didn’t deserve the imprimatur of his dignity and ferocity?”

Ultimately, Foran argues, he was all of these things. It’s this dramatic complexity that drew Foran—a novelist and journalist, not a sportswriter but a big sports fan— to the Maurice Richard story. Sports in general, Foran believes, are great narratives because they display ten­ dencies latent in the culture they

(charlesforan.com)

come from.

“I’m a big believer in sports as a vital expression of populist views, yearnings, and dreams,” he says.

“Sport is an arena of drama.”

Foran’s book—coming in at just over 150 pages, it’s more of an essay than a book, and can easily be read in an afternoon—will satisfy the curiosity of both the sports fan and the general reader interested in Quebec history. Foran’s eloquent storytelling and deft employment of historical context make it both infor­ mative and enjoyable, an excellent introduction to Richard, to hockey, to Quebec, and to the relation of sports to politics, culture, and soci­ ety in general.

T I I I lll) M A N IN Swag, swagger, sw aggest: the Fab Five

The term “swagger” is thrown around so much these days that it’s starting to lose value. If you saw a dog wearing a gold chain, you might think to yourself, “Man, that dog’s got some swag!” But does it really?

Probably not. It might look cool, but the G’d up mutt does not portray the true meaning of the word. Last week, while watching the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the Fab Five, I learned the real significance of the term.

The film details a group of five freshmen at the University of Michi­ gan who vaulted into the national spotlight in 1991. It chronicles the Fab Five’s attempt to capture the college basketball national cham­ pionship while also detailing their off-court cultural impact. The group began as one of the best recruiting classes to ever come out of high school, but were never able to get over the hump as they lost in two

consecutive National Championship finals. The quintet’s lasting legacy, however, was how they revolution­ ized the college basketball land­ scape by being the first team to bring a hip-hop attitude to the hardwood.

Their identity was defined as pio­ neering the style of baggy shorts, black socks, and most importantly, exuding swagger.

Simply put, the Fab Five were hard as !$?%. Rose, Webber, and Jackson all hailed from the mean streets of Detroit, while Howard grew up on the South Side of Chi­ cago. N.W.A. was blasted in their locker room and the squad talked an inordinate amount of trash on the court. Moreover, the team had an “us against the world” mentality, and the media portrayed them as everything that was wrong with college basket­ ball. Their swagger was as much a product of their cockiness—the five freshmen were an intimidating bunch that jawed with their opponents and each other—as their backgrounds.

The 30 for 30 series has pro­ duced a number of solid documen­ taries, but none have come close to

this production. There was never a dull moment and, watching with five of my fellow hoops junkies, we were taken on an emotional roller coaster ride. ESPN does an incred­ ible job incorporating raw footage, recent interviews, and a soundtrack that syncs well with the on-screen action. We all cracked huge smiles when we saw Juwan Howard thuggin’ out in the locker room after a big win, and felt a pain in our hearts when witnessing a defeated, lifeless Chris Webber sulking in the tunnel after calling “the timeout.”

A large reason for tilt success. of this film was the fascinating story it portrayed. Can you imagine com­ ing out of high school and starting for a powerhouse Division-I basket­ ball school with four guys your own age who would soon become broth­ ers to you? It’s something that many of us can only dream of and attempt to recreate on the intramural floors of the McGill gym. The sense of brotherhood among these freshmen was unparalleled and something we may never see again. In the days of one-and-done college players, it’s

rare for a group of studs to stick to­ gether for more than one season.

Critics have argued that the Fab Five were not the first team to bring this attitude and style to the hardwood. The Georgetown Hoyas, led by Patrick Ewing in the 1980s, and the 1990-1991 UNLV squad led by Larry Johnson each brought a similar mentality to the basketball court. However, the Fab Five’s leg­ acy is better remembered for a few reasons. First, the media was given extensive access to the group which led to the formation of a cult fol­ lowing. Second, the Michigan stars embraced their roles as rockstars to a much greater degree. Georgetown and UNLV laid the foundation, but C-Webb and co. truly brought swag­ ger to the forefront of American bas­ ketball.

Swag is not-someone in bottle service pouring liquor down a fresh­ man’s throat. Swag is when you trailblaze a style in the national spot­ light. Swag is when you stick to­ gether with your brothers in the face of adversity. The Fab Five defined swagger.

As we were glued to the TV watching the documentary, one of my friends was in the living room attempting to write an essay that was due the next day at 2:30 p.m.

“Where are you at in it?” I asked him. “Oh, you know, just getting started,” he replied. In debating whether he would partake in watch­ ing the movie, we both looked at each other and understood what had to be done. The essay could wait. He had a much more important lesson to learn.

As this is the fin a l TMI I have the p r iv ileg e o f w riting, I ’d like to thank the Tribune f o r a llow in g m e to v o ic e m y opinion in this sp a ce f o r all th ese y ea rs and I ’d like to thank you, the reader, f o r taking the tim e to lis­ ten to what I had to say. F or an yon e w ho is p a ssion a te about sports, I en ­ co u ra g e yo u to rea ch out to the Tri­ bune and start w riting. It w as o n e o f the b est d ecisio n s I m ade at M cGill and I h op e yo u ca n g e t the sa m e en ­ jo ym en t ou t o f it that I did.

—Jo n R ubenstcin

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

21 IN T E R V IE W — M A T H IEU D A R C H E

Montreal’s son conies home D a rc h e b e c o m e s the first R e d m a n N H L e r in 50 ye a rs

By Walker

Kitchens

Sports Editor Mathieu Darche is the first McGill alumnus to play in the NHL in the past 50 years. In 2000, Darche’s final season at McGill, he led the CIS in scoring. Since then he‘s played professional hockey at both the AHL and the NHL level.

Despite leading five different AHL teams in goals, Darche was never given much playing time in the NHL until last year. He has played on the Montreal Canadiens since January 2010 and is having one of the best seasons of his career with 24 points in 56 games. The Tribune recently sat down with Darche to discuss his unique path to the NHL. After a decade of playing profes­ sional hockey, how do you look back at your time at McGill?

I’ve been quite few places but that’s where it started—I had so much fun playing here, you know, you meet great friends and great coaches so it’s always a place you cherish.

Very few NHL players make it out

of the CIS. How were you able to succeed as a professional hockey player coming from the CIS? It was an adjustment, but for my first three years pro I was lucky enough to have good coaches in the AHL that gave me a chance right away to have [an important] role in­ stead of burying me right away on the fourth line. They let me play so I was able to catch up with the lack of games I had playing in university (the CIS schedule is half the length of the NCAA and other minor leagues).

It took a long time but there are dif­ ferent paths to the NHL. But the bot­ tom line is I’m there now.

How does it feel to finally play for your hometown Habs?

Like every kid growing up [around Montreal], I grew up idoliz­ ing this team. It’s a nice reward later on in my career after all the years I spent going up and down—more often in the AHL [than the NHL].

But it’s great being back in the NHL on my hometown team [that] I grew up idolizing.

How did it feel to lead five dif­ ferent AHL teams in scoring but

never be given long periods of playing time in the NHL until the last couple years?

It’s always disappointing to not get called up, but every year I saw guys going up and making a career in the NHL and was like “I know I can play with them-.” I played against those guys and I have noth­ ing to envy. I just stuck with it and luckily it worked for me.

Why do you think you’re having your best season at the age of 34?

Better late than never. I always try and improve every year. Even now at 3 4 ,1 still try to improve. You watch and learn over the years from the players you’ve played with, and you get a few things from different guys and you try and bring that to your game to improve.

What do you plan on doing when your hockey career comes to an end?

I hope I still have a few years left ... but I'd like to stay in hockey in some sort of management capac­ ity. I don’t know if I want to coach but I’d like to stay involved in the game one way br another.

It was, as usual, a great year in sports.

On the home front, the Redbirds won the national baseball champi­ onships, the Redmen hockey team made it all the way to the final, and the Martlet hockey team went un­ defeated in CIS competition to win another National Championship.

On the professional side of things, the Decision happened, which, whether or not you agreed with it, or wanted to blow your brains out after listening to months of media coverage rehashing it, has already had huge implications for the direction of the NBA—for example, the ‘Melo drama in New York.

In football, we saw the resur­ gence of TitleTown, as Aaron Rod­ gers eradicated Green Bay’s memo­ ries of a certain retired(?) QB.

Tiger Woods returned to the public eye, and turned terrible at golf. The Giants won the pennant for the first time since 1954. Even better, and (perhaps) more impor­ tantly, cricket-dijven diplomacy erupted between India and Pakistan as the two countries’ prime ministers watched their teams’ 2011 World Cup semifinal match side-by-side.

Some narratives were a little more melancholy. The indomnitable UConn women’s team lost, twice—dispelling my childish belief in the invincible. The dark spectre of headshots and resulting concussions looms a little larger over both the NFL and the NHL. But if one thing was consistent­ ly great it was you, the fans. Thanks for reading. We love you. ‘Til next time—Adieu.

A n d t h a t ’s a w ra p : W in te r s p o r t s re p o rt c a r d s REDMEhf HDCtfEy What used to be an anomaly is now the norm: the McGill Redmen are perennial Nation­ al Championship contenders. The 2010-2011 season was a historic one for the Redmen hock­ ey team as McGill qualified for its fifth National Championship in six years and played in the national title game for the first time in the pro­ gram’s history. McGill also set a school record with 38 wins and led the CIS with an average of 5.08 goals per game.

CIS MVP Alexandre Picard-Hooper and linemates Francis Verreault-Paul and Andrew Wright once again led the Redmen offence.

What allowed McGill to put together thé highest goals-for total in all of CIS hockey this year was the secondary scoring of players like Maxime Langlier-Parent, a vital contributor in McGill’s long postseason run. Stellar defence from a corps led by captain Evan Vossen and strong goaltending from Hubert Morin were also key

elements in a near perfect mixture for first-year Head Coach Kelly Nobes. McGill defeated Western for a second straight Queen’s Cup title before dispatching St. FX and Alberta en route to the national final.

This season will go down in history—at least until next year, when the strong core returns for another shot at the University Cup. While the Redmen ultimately fell in the champion­ ship game to the top-ranked University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds, optimism abounds for McGill as they are well positioned to take an­ other run at the cup. Expectations are high as the Redmen have their sights set on the top prize.

R ecord: 24-2-2 M V P: Alexandre Picard-Hooper P layer to W atch: Ryan McKieman —Adam Sadinsky (Holly Stewart / M cGill Tribune)

M ARTLETS HQCKE«3 The Martlets hockey team captured its third CIS National Championship title in four years, won its sixth consecutive Quebec University Women’s Hockey Championships, and named four players to the All-Canadian team'at the CIS Women’s Hockey Championships Awards Gala.

Somehow, however, the 2011 Varsity Team of the Year still isn’t getting the appreciation it de­ serves.

The team was ranked second going into the season behind last year’s National Champi­ ons, the University of Alberta Pandas, the only team besides McGill to win a national title since 2005. After going undefeated in regular season play and running roughshod through the QSSF playoffs, McGill’s first game at nationals was against the Pandas. The Martlets got revenge with a 4-2 victory. The team carried on in the same controlling fashion, beating Queen’s 3-1 and cruising to the title with a 5-2 win against St. Francis Xavier.

Throughout the season, Cathy Chartrand

—R eb ecca B abcock

(Maxime Sawicki / M cGill Tribune)

REDMEU BA SKETBALL When McGill brought in Head Coach David DeAveiro to lead the men’s basketball team, it was hoped that he would recreate the consistent success that he found at the Univer­ sity of Ottawa. The combination of a new coach and an exciting young core contributed to a sea­ son that surpassed expectations for most Red­ men basketball fans.

Led by sophomore point guard Olivier Bouchard and national development program graduate/freshman shooting guard Simon Bibeau, the Redmen were in the thick of the play­ off racé all season. Their 10-6 record was a two game improvement over last year’s. The loss of Matthew Thornhill looked like it would be a big hole in the lineup but Bibeau stepped in admi­ rably, averaging 13.6 points per game and often taking over contests when his team needed him most. Bouchard, last year’s QUBL recruit of the year, led the team with an average of 14.1 points per game. He and Bibeau developed excellent

was a consistent force for McGill. The fourthyear defender scored eight goals, had 21 as­ sists, was named an All-Canadian, and was rewarded with the award for Female Athlete of the Year at the McGill intercollegiate sports award gala. Two Martlets to watch out for are Katia Clément-Heydra and Leslie Oles. Both in their first year, they added to McGill's already considerable offensive firepower. All-Canadian Clément-Heydra played consistently throughout the season. She scored 11 times in the regular season. Oles stepped up to help her team on their road to nationals with six assists and one goal.

Five Martlets won’t be returning for the team next year, so a few new faces will need to step up and continue the team’s tradition of ex­ cellence.

Record: 20-0-0 M V P: Cathy Chartrand P layers to W atch: Katia Clément-Heydra and Leslie Oles

chemistry as the season went along and dazzled supporters and opponents on numerous occa­ sions. McGill once again qualified for the play­ offs but fell for the second consecutive year to the Laval Rouge-et-Or. McGill’s Achilles heel showed in close games against league leaders Laval and Concordia, losing four games against the big two by five points or less.

The Redmen have to be excited about thenprospects in 2011-2012, as the entire roster will return with the exception of fifth-year forward Michael White. Another year of experience for Bouchard, Bibeau, and the rest of the squad should only help. Expect the Redmen to chal­ lenge for the QUBL title next season.

R ecord: 10-6 M V P: Olivier Bouchard P layer to W atch: Simon Bibeau —Adam Sadinsky (Alice Walker / M cG ill Tribune)

MARTLETS VObUEySAbb The 2011 Martlet Volleyball season was a disappointing one. Despite flashes of brilliance throughout the season, the squad was unable to take advantage of two chances to make the CIS Cham­ pionship tournament and ended the season with six consecutive losses, finishing with an overall record of 21-22.

The Martlets finished third in the Quebec Uni­ versity Women’s Volleyball League with a 10-10 conference record. Since Laval hosted the CIS Championships, Quebec received three berths rather than the usual two, and only one Quebec team missed out on nationals. McGill’s first chance to qualify came in the conference semifinal series against the second-seeded Montreal Carabins. McGill lost the best of three series in two games, but still had a chance to qualify for nationals by defeating the last-place Sherbrooke Vert-et-Or for third place. In the regular season, McGill had a perfect 4-0 record against Sherbrooke and entered the series as heavy favourites. Despite their regular season success, the Martlets were swept, losing both games in five sets.

While the season came to a disappointing fin­

\y+J

ish, there were still many positive performances.

Fifth-year Kelsey Irwin earned a spot on the allCanadian second-team and first QUVL all-star team.

Irwin was second in Quebec with 4.16 points and 3.37 kills per game, fourth in province with 0.87 blocks per game and sixth in hitting percentage (.260). Sophomore Daphnée-Maude André-Morin was named libero of the year in Quebec. She missed four games during the season but still finished first in the conference with 247 total digs and 4.05 digs per game. Finally, Marcela Mansure earned a spot on the second Quebec all-star team after she led the league with 708 assists.

2011 should prove to be a learning experience for the Martlets. They’re a young squad that should be much improved next season as they look to learn from their mistakes and qualify for the CIS Cham­ pionship in 2012.

R ecord: 10-10 M V P: Kelsey Irwin P layer to W atch: Daphnée-Maude André-Morin —Walker K itchens

(Sophie Silkes / M cG ill Tribune)

MARTbETS BASlfETBAbb Throughout the year the Martlets had a bad habit of letting themselves fall behind early in games only to rely on extraordinary clutch play to pull out victories. They finally ran out of magic in the first round of the playoffs against a Laval Rouge-et-Or team that, despite an abysmal start, was dangerous in the second half of the season.

McGill came into the 2010-11 season return­ ing all but three players from 2009-10’s QUBL playoff runner-up team and had accordingly high expectations.

Third-year forward Anneth Him-Lazarenko led the QUBL in scoring (15.6 points per game), was second in rebounds (8.6 per game), and led the league in field goal percentage (.541). She was named QUBL player of the year and earned a place on the first team All-Canadian, the only Martlet to do so in 14 years.

In the frontcourt, Helene Bibeau and HimLazarenko will be bolstered by the development of freshmen Valerie L’Ecuyer and Roya Assadi, who were among the all-too-few who performed well in the team’s playoff loss.

Sophomore guards Marie-Eve Martin and Françoise Charest, alongside Master’s student

(Alice Walker / M cG ill Tribune)

REDMEtJ SWiMMItJS With mostly second and third place overall team finishes throughout the season, the Redmen swimmers had an overall standard year collectively. The team finished 11th out of 19 teams at the CIS championships in late Febru­ ary to cap off a steady season that left the team with room for improvement next year. However since swimming is more individually-based it would be less useful to think of the team’s overall mediocre record and instead remember some of the spectacular individual performanc­ es by the Redmen swimmers.

Without a doubt, last year’s Quebec swim­ mer of the year, Steven Bielby had another stellar season. A hurricane of swimming talent and ability, Bielby won golds in the 200m and 400m individual medleys while breaking the Quebec conference and McGill record with a time of two minutes, 0.24 seconds for his 200m swim. These wins automatically earn him an

invitation to swim for Canada in August at the 2011 FISU Summer Games in Shenzhen, China. In his third trip to the CIS Champion­ ships, Bielby added to his medal collection, now totaling nine medals (six gold, one silver, and two bronze). At the CIS Championship, Matthew Khatchadourian also reached the finals of his event, the 50m breaststroke, and finished eighth overall.

Unsurprisingly, Bielby was named this year’s MVP of Redmen swimming. If Bielby can produce another great year and the rest of the Redmen can step up to anywhere close to his level, the swimming team has a bright fu­ ture next year.

MVP: Steven Bielby Swimmer to Watch: Pierre-Alexandre Renaud —Matt Essert (Adam Scotti / M cGill Tribune)

Natalie Larocque, shouldered the scoring load all season long in the backcourt. The team’s clutch reputation was mainly built off of Martin’s heroics from three-point range.

This is a difficult team to evaluate, because despite their regular season dominance, they failed to show up when it counted the most.

Still, the most successful season in Martlet basketball history shouldn’t be discounted because of 40 mistake-riddled minutes. Another year’s ex­ perience will afford one of McGill’s better teams an opportunity to win the QUBL playoffs and ad­ vance to nationals.

No Martlet will graduate this semester, and next year the team will enjoy the services of former Laval captain Eve Marquis-Poulin, who was a redshirt transfer this season. With a long offseason to think about what went wrong in the playoffs, this is a team that should be primed for a huge year.

Record: 13-3 Co-M VPs: Marie-Eve Martin and Anneth HimLazarenko P layer to W atch: Valerie L’Ecuyer —Sam H unter

O R IF Y O U D O N â&#x20AC;&#x2122;T S T A Y H E R E . . .

BY H O L L Y S T E W A R T