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The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
3
The future of the McGill student movement Renewal of strike votes to begin as ModPAC challenges constitutionality Henry Gass
The McGill Daily
March 21
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A March 16 email sent from AUS VP Internal Casey McDermott to the Society’s departmental associations asserted that “after consultation with students, departments are free to encourage or discourage participation in protests pertaining to the tuition hikes in Quebec.” Later in her email, McDermott sought “to clarify the difference between a strike and a boycott, as Concordia and other Quebec universities are only acting under the latter.” “Unlike a strike, a boycott can be initiated on an individual basis. I would encourage all associations
McGill students on strike
March 22 March 23
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The departments respond
to inform themselves of the opinions of their constituents, and to represent those opinions accordingly,” read McDermott’s email. The Department of English Student Association (DESA), the largest McGill student association currently on strike with over 1,000 members, claims it has the constitutional authority to hold a strike GA. DESA voted to strike last week, and will hold a GA to continue the strike tonight. Article 2 of its constitution states that DESA “shall have jurisdiction and final authority over all its activities” and that it “shall not be regulated or subordinated by any other constitution or council” other than its own. DESA President Zoe ErwinLongstaff said, “because of those clauses, we were perfectly within our rights to hold the Town Hall and to take this sort of vote.” The Gender, Sexual Diversity, and Feminist Studies Student Association (GSDFSSA), along with the School of Social Work, are the other two McGill student associations still on strike. Both will also have renewal votes this week. GSDFSSA President Molly Swain spoke to concern about the legitimacy of the departmental GAs. “The students of the department [came] to us with a request to hold this General Assembly,
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any at last Thursday’s demonstration promised that the recordbreaking action was “just the beginning” of student resistance to tuition hikes scheduled to begin in September. At McGill, this remains to be seen. Strike activity at McGill last week culminated in nine student associations – representing almost 13,000 students – declaring a strike for the March 22 provincial day of action against tuition hikes. Many of those strikes, however, were held on a limited basis. The morning of March 23, that number dropped by almost 11,000 students. Members of McGill’s Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC) are inquiring into the legitimacy and constitutionality of many of the strike votes held at departmental General Assemblies (GAs) in advance of the March 22 demonstration. Brendan Steven, ModPAC organizer, said the group was inquiring as to whether the SSMU Judicial Board could “clarify the constitutional status of departmental GAs.” A ModPAC press release attrib-
uted to Steven calls Arts departmental strike GAs “illegitimate, unconstitutional shams,” citing the March 13 Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) GA as the legitimate strike vote. The AUS GA voted against a motion declaring an unlimited strike 609 to 495, with 16 abstentions. The press release quotes Article 8.7 of the AUS Constitution: “Departmental Associations shall recognize the supremacy of the AUS Constitution, the AUS General Assembly, By-Laws, and Council.” Steven’s press release added that ModPAC would soon be sending a letter to the administration “calling on them to take action.”
Rebecca Katzman | The McGill Daily and then students overwhelmingly voted to do it. So we are mandated to do it,” said Swain. “We simply exist for our students and our student body. I think that’s all the legitimacy that we need,” she continued.
Quorum legitimacy Steven’s press release also contends that departmental associations have no procedures in their constitutions for GAs. As such, quorums for the GAs “are being invented on a whim.” Erwin-Longstaff said quorum for last week’s DESA GA had been set at 75, roughly 7.5 per cent of their membership, “which is
very high quorum as things go at McGill.” She noted that quorum for the March 13 AUS GA had been 150 students, roughly 2.5 per cent of membership. The Art History and Communications Studies Student Association (AHCSSA) will be holding a strike vote tonight at its “Town Hall,” after discussing other possible voting procedures, including making a ballot box available all day. AHCSSA co-President and former Daily Health & Education editor Joseph Henry said the Town Hall will also serve as a “space for people to discuss how legitimate [the Town Hall] is in terms of representationality.”
Jonathan Mooney elected PGSS President Election period marked by ‘no’ campaigns Jessica Lukawiecki The McGill Daily
T
he Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) election results were announced last Friday night. Jonathan Mooney, who ran uncontested, will be PGSS President for the 2012-13 year. Mooney will be working with Pooja Tyagi, who won the position of VP Finance, and Errol Salamon, who will be the new VP External. Michael Krause will take the position of VP Internal, and Adam Bouchard will hold the position of VP Academic. “What I heard from all the candidates were coherent platforms, people who clearly want to work for the best interest of the PGSS, who have a very good vision for
what’s going to happen next year, and I’m looking forward to working with all of them,” said Mooney. Current PGSS President Roland Nassim explained, “The challenge next year is really not from the executive, but from the membership.” “We’ve been put through a lot of tests this year, from the MUNACA strikes to the [James Administration building] occupations, to the demonstration that happened [on March 22], and I think we do have a divisive membership, and the challenge is to try to bring it back together. In order to do that, they need to make sure that they don’t create challenges on the inside.” When asked about challenges involved with the election process this year, Nassim explained that “we had groups of people that, let’s just put it simply, were
likeminded, on both sides of the campaigns.” “Something we have to deal with next year is trying to put the elections back in a way that they reflect the reality of what’s going on in our membership. I think our members are becoming more politically active, and those are driving some of the elections and some of the candidates, and I think a healthy debate and more freedom to say things should be allowed,” he continued. Nassim was critical of PGSS policy regarding ‘no’ campaigns, which included a vocal campaign opposing Mooney’s election. “Unfortunately there are ‘no’ campaigns, and that’s fine, but if we’re going to run ‘no’ campaigns we should allow the [opposing] candidates to respond,” Nassim said. “I think that luxury was not
provided to many of the candidates that were running this year. They heard there were ‘no’ campaigns running against them, but they couldn’t do anything about it.” “Simply, our rules say you can’t talk during campaign period. So again, archaic rules in 21st century politics don’t work,” Nassim added. When asked about the campaign period, Mooney explained, “I don’t like to see any negative campaigning.” “I think that the candidates ran a very positive, very passionate campaign… Stuff that happens outside of that, I trust the judgement of the elections commissioner; I trust the process we have at PGSS to try to deal with that in the best way possible.” When asked about his plans for next year, Mooney said “it’s going
to be in large part following up on the foundation that [the current executive] laid.” “I’ve been around for three years in the PGSS now, and I think we had a very capable, very competent executive team from last year,” he said. Current VP External Mariève Isabel said she thinks next year’s executive “is going to be very different.” Among challenges for next year’s executive, Isabel listed working with a new constitution, working with the structural changes that have been made in the Society staff, and continuing to mobilize against tuition increases. The Health and Dental Plan Referendum question passed, meaning the Plan will be renewed for the 2012-13 year.
4News
What the FEUQ?
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
The largest student demonstration in the history of North America marched through Montreal carrying a host of messages for observers. Here’s a selection of some of The Daily’s favourites.
...and other notable slogans from March 22
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The AGM of the Daily Publications Society (DPS), publisher of The McGill Daily and Le Délit, will take place on
Wednesday, April 4th in Leacock 26 at 6pm Members of the DPS are cordially invited. The presence of candidates to the Board of Directors is mandatory.
For more information, please contact chair@dailypublications.org
All photos by Hera Chan | The McGill Daily
News
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
5
Anti-tuition hike demonstration 200,000 strong No arrests, injuries, or violence reported Laurent Bastien Corbeil and Lola Duffort The McGill Daily
T
hursday’s anti-tuition hike march, which was the largest student protest in Quebec to date, drew a crowd of over 200,000 peaceful demonstrators. At one point, organizers reported that the march stretched from the intersection of Sherbrooke and St. Denis to its initial meeting point, at Place du Canada on Peel and Rene-Levesque. The Montreal Gazette reported that the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) rerouted trains in order to accommodate an additional 100,000 commuters. Over 500 McGill students attended the march as part of the McGill contingent. Incoming SSMU VP External Robin Reid-Fraser expressed excitement that McGill students turned out for the demonstration. “It’s exciting that an Anglophone university with international students joins this cause,” she said. After gathering at the Roddick Gates at noon, the McGill contingent made its way to Place du
Canada, where it met with other protesters – including CEGEP and university students, professors, and allied social justice organizations, unions, and opposition party representatives from across Quebec. Several Quebec MPs were also present among the demonstrators. Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois attended the demonstration and explained what she believes are favourable alternatives to the provincial government’s upcoming tuition hikes. “Ideally, education should be free, but that’s too difficult right now,” she told The Daily in French. “We suggest the creation of a forum to discuss other ways of financing higher education. We are in the process of selling our natural resources for nothing. If we were to get more royalties from [them], then we could better support our universities.” After a series of speeches by organizers, demonstrators marched north on Peel to Sherbrooke, east to St. Denis, north to Cherrier, east to Berri and then south to Rue de la Commune. The march ended at Place Jacques-Cartier. Charlie Brenchley, a volunteer with the Concordia Student Union,
Francis Loranger for The McGill Daily
Thursday’s anti-tuition hike march was the largest student protest in North America to date. which worked with the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) to provide security and first aid, described the march as going off without a hitch until its end, when demonstrators bottlenecked at Place Jacques-Cartier. It is unclear who blocked the demonstrators from filling out the street south of Place Jacques-Cartier.
However, representatives from FEUQ and the Association pour une solidarite syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) cited disagreements between the two groups over the organization of the protest as the reason for the blockage. FEUQ actively cooperated with the police – they gave them the march’s route ahead of time – which was a major point of contention with ASSÉ.
Marc St-Cyr, an inspector with the Services de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), credited FEUQ with helping to keep the protest peaceful. “We had very good cooperation with [them] – from the media too. Most people wanted things to go this way – a lot of people, but no trouble.” —with files from Jordan VentonRublee and Juan Camilo Velásquez
Thousands protest in Ecuador’s capital for “Water, Life, and Dignity of the People” Seble Samuel
The McGill Daily
Q
uito, Ecuador — Over 25,000 people flooded Quito, Ecuador’s capital, on March 22 in the culmination of a two week march that began in the country’s Southern Amazon region and spanned roughly 700 kilometres. The march, translated from Spanish to mean the “Plurinational March for Water, Life, and Dignity of the People,” was led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in collaboration with other indigenous, environmental, student, worker, and women’s groups. The movement was born out of a rejection of the constitutional violations and extractive environmental policies of President Rafael Correa’s national government, which is lead by the Alianza Pais party (“Proud and Sovereign Fatherland Alliance”). Thousands left Ecuador’s Southern Amazonian province of ZamoraChinchipe on March 8 – International Women’s Day – to begin their journey to Quito. They arrived on March 22, World Water Day. The starting point was symbolically chosen to denounce the largescale, open pit copper mining project initiated in Zamora’s Condor Cordillera following a contract signed at the beginning of the month with
the Chinese transnational mining corporation, Ecuacorriente (ECSA). ECSA is an international subsidiary of the Canadian natural mineral resource company, Corriente Resources Inc., based in Vancouver, BC. The project is the largest scale mining development in the Ecuador’s history, and is contracted to last 25 years, with a $1.4-billion investment in the Southern Amazonian region by ECSA within the first five years. Provincial coordinating committees sent roughly 5,000 to 6,000 people from each province to participate in the march, joining the movement as it moved northward from Zamora toward the capital. Together these bodies made 19 demands on issues including labour, environmental justice, and reproductive rights. They declared three of these demands to be nonnegotiable: the elimination of large scale mining, decriminalization of social protest, and the reinstatement of employment of 5,600 public workers who had been laid off in Fall 2011 by a constitutional decree which instituted “mandatory resignation.” On March 22, 20,000 demonstrators travelled the final stretch through Quito, arriving from the south to gather downtown at Parque del Arbolito. Another 5,000 arrived from the north. They carried with them large banners, flags, graffiti,
Luis Herrera for The McGill Daily
700 kilometre march culminates in demonstration on March 22
Over 25,000 people gathered in Ecuador’s capital after marching 700 kilometres in protest. and drums, chanting as they made their way through the city. Though the protesters marched in unity, they represented a wide variety of issues. “I am here because I believe in protest. I believe it is one of the greatest achievements of the people, and I join this struggle for two reasons; because water is a right for all, and because I am against the large scale mining project in Zamora,” said Pablo Torres, a demonstrator from Quito. Another demonstrator, Marco Montagua from Pastaza in the South Eastern Amazon stated, “I am here
in the spirit of solidarity between indigenous peoples and nationalities. Each people, each sector, has their own reason for being here. We, the Sapara Nation, are here to resist oil extraction on our land.” Riot cops and military lined the march and police helicopters flew overhead. While the protest remained mostly peaceful, altercations broke out between riot police, police on horseback, and the demonstrators around 6:00 p.m. The government had banned the contracting of interprovincial buses throughout March, which
constrained the number of protesters present in the demonstration. Despite this, Soledad Vogliano, Natural Resource and Legal worker for CONAIE, explained that the march has already yielded some positive results. “The government has announced that they will begin a process of dialogue to evaluate how the nonnegotiable demands can be implemented,” said Vogliano. “This period will last six months, by the end of which, if there is no action, the organizations involved in the march have announced that there will be uprising.”
6 News
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
Confidential meeting called by the Deputy Provost for follow-up Erin Hudson
The McGill Daily
O
ver Reading Week, SSMU VP Clubs and Services Carol Fraser received a call from Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson concerning a demonstration of vaginal fisting that had occurred as part of Queer McGill’s Rad Sex Week. “He asked me who organized the event and I said, ‘It’s Queer McGill, but I don’t really know anything more than that,’” Fraser told The Daily. Fraser said she was aware of the fisting demonstration, but added that the event “didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me.” The live fisting demonstration is a regular part of Queer McGill’s (QM) Rad Sex Week, an annual event that started three years ago, and occurred the week of February 13. The first event of the week was a workshop called “Take Five: The Pleasures of Fisting” and was presented by Andrea Zanin, a sex blogger and kink historian. The workshop discusses the practice of vaginal fisting and, according to her website, covered anatomy, techniques, and safety tips. The workshop Zanin gave at McGill included a live demonstration. Notice of the live demonstration was included in QM’s publicity of the workshop on Facebook. In an interview with The Daily, Mendelson said that McGill’s Media Relations office learned about the event via Google Alert, a web monitoring service that emails updates on relevant and recent Google search results based on a specified query. “They [Media Relations] are alerted to articles that identify McGill,” he explained. The article identifying McGill in relation to
the live fisting demonstration was published on Vice, a global youth media company. “It involved a student group, so that’s why I heard about it,” he added. According to Fraser, a meeting was set up between Mendelson, QM organizers of Rad Sex Week, SSMU President Maggie Knight, and herself. Mendelson addressed why he set up the meeting. “Sometimes, when I read something in the media, I like to speak to people who were involved just to find out what was going on,” he said. “It’s not unusual for me to follow up on events.” Fraser said that all parties present agreed to keep the content of the meeting confidential, however, she confirmed that part of the discussion touched upon the live fisting demonstration. “I think it was more McGill just wanting to know what happened,” she said. “Last year, the event took place in the SSMU building, this year it took place in Leacock [232], and McGill just wanted to ask organizers some questions.” Although this was the first time the fisting demonstration was held in a McGill administered building, other events during Rad Sex Week have been held in McGilladministered buildings in the past. For the last two years, the fisting demonstration has occurred in the Shatner building. One of the founding coordinators of the first Rad Sex Week in 2009, Adam Wheeler, said consideration of where to hold events – in the Shatner building administered by SSMU or campus buildings administered by McGill – was something he and the other organizers had “kept in mind.” Wheeler highlighted the greater autonomy around room bookings,
security needs, and financial costs available in the Shatner building. “There’s presumably more latitude in what goes on in SSMU, in [Shatner], because [it] is controlled by SSMU, so they may have less constraints on what sort of activities they would deem appropriate,” said Mendelson, regarding the University and SSMU’s response to the live fisting demonstration. “On the other hand, there have been talks that we’ve had in University space that the SSMU has deemed inappropriate for its space, so it works in both directions,” he added, in reference to a 2009 Choose Life event, also hosted in Leacock 232. QM Political Action Coordinator Lindsay Clark said that the week was scheduled to occur in campus buildings due to increased accessibility for booking event space, and to make it easier for students to attend those events. “It was a mixture of consciousness and also just ease of event,” she said. “It partly was conscious that we were having it within the school environment because we feel it is an educational series, that it is important that that be a part of the ‘McGill education,’ but I think it was never fully a conscious choice.” Wheeler did not recall issues with McGill during the week’s first year. Current QM co-administrator Francesca Buxton stated that, since its creation, Rad Sex Week has been a “fairly accepted thing” on campus. Current QM executives involved in organizing Rad Sex Week refused to comment on the confidential meeting with Mendelson. However, Clark spoke to The Daily. “We at Queer McGill feel that Rad Sex Week is very important for education and awareness of sex issues, and we really appreciate the support [the] McGill administration
has given us in allowing us to have these kinds of events in University spaces,” she said. Mendelson said he was unaware of the week’s history of the live fisting demonstration. “Just because something happens at the University doesn’t mean that everyone is fully aware of it,” he said. Fraser spoke to her reaction coming out of the confidential meeting. “There was no conclusion to the conversation, but, no matter what happens, I’m going to continue to support students providing those kinds of services to other students,” she said, describing the live demonstration as “necessary” and an “education.” “It’s really more about the relationship that we have with McGill, keeping things open, and asserting that students can, and should, have those kinds of events for students,” Fraser added, referring to live sex demonstrations. Clark said that three of Rad Sex Week’s events included live demonstrations. “It’s a lot easier to learn something, and learn how to do something in the safest way possible if someone is giving you a full education from what it is that’s happening, and the easiest way to learn a lot of the things that we’ve demonstrated is to see them happen,” she said. She added that live demonstrations could add to de-stigmatizing acts like vaginal fisting, first by holding the demonstration at all and, second, by showing it an open forum like a workshop. Buxton added that “we [QM] think that it’s really important because sex – especially queer or kinky sex – is treated as dirty in the media, and so to create an environment where a lot of the stigma is taken out of it is really important to us.”
Students on strike Photo by Victor Tangermann Music Undergraduate Student Association voted on last Wednesday to go on a one day strike for March 22. Picket lines were reportedly harmonious. —Erin Hudson
Campus Eye
WHAT’S THE HAPS
Vaginal fisting workshop garners attention
Community Integrated Research March 28, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Arts 160 The first event in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Research Week’s inaugural year, this workshop will by held by the CommunityUniversity Research Exchange (CURE), a core project of QPIRG-Concordia. CURE is based on a community-based, social justice research model that views research as a tool of social transformation.
Panel Discussion: The Value of Undergraduates in Research March 30, 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Arts 160 AUS Research Week hosts a panel discussion with Arts professors who will discuss the role of undergraduates in research. The keynote speaker will be Associate Dean Gillian Lane-Mercier, a professor in McGill’s Département de langue et littérature françaises.
Town Hall: Undergraduate Research Experience April 2, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Arts 160 AUS Research Week includes a Town Hall with Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi. Students will be able to share their experiences in undergraduate research and give ideas about how to improve the opportunities available to them.
Canada’s Next Green Journalist Competition Submissions accepted until April 30 Environmental Defence, an environmental action organization, is seeking youth journalists to report on environmental issues and solutions through national journalism competition “Canada’s Next Green Journalist.” Canadian submissions will be eligible to appear in Environmental Defence publications, and win other prizes. Submission formats include stories, photos, and videos. Check (youngreporters.ca) for more information.
Discussion on the Presidential Election and the Fate of Democracy in Contemporary Russia March 21, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Maass 10 The Russian Undergraduate Student Society hosts a discussion with Juliet Johnson, Maria Popova, and Peter Rutland (from Wesleyan University). Panelists will speak about the recent Russian election and its implications on the country’s future, followed by a discussion with Irina Krasnova. Refreshments and snacks will be served.
News
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
Changes proposed to tenure requirements
7
Senate discusses the merit of professors’ “service” to McGill Erin Hudson
The McGill Daily
I
n last Wednesday’s Senate meeting, Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures and Equity) Lydia White presented a draft of revisions to the University’s Regulations Relating to the Employment of Academic Staff. White described the current regulations as an “organizational nightmare.” The regulations would mostly apply to tenure track professors. According to White, most of the proposed changes are organizational. However, a proposed change to Section 5.10 of the original regulations was the focus of Senate’s discussion on White’s revision. Section 5.10 stated that for academic staff to be granted tenure, “superior performance” in two of three categories is necessary. A “reasonable performance” in the third category is a minimum requirement. The categories break down into teaching, research (profes-
sional and scholarly activities), and “other contributions to the University and scholarly communities.” White referred to the third category as “service.” To be granted tenure under the revised set of regulations would mean earning a “superior performance” in the categories of teaching and research, and in the category of “service” professors could receive, at minimum, a “reasonable performance.” After the meeting, White spoke to The Daily about the message behind the revision of the section. “It’s more the message we are conveying about our expectations,” she explained.“McGill is a research-intensive, teachingoriented University, and perhaps it’s not sending the right message to say that we would accept less than superior in those two important categories.” Senators raised concerns regarding the section’s revision. In Senate, Medicine senator Edith Zorychta said the revision “devalues the collegial [service].”
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be difficult to get the superior [level],” she said. She added that it could potentially amount to ageism in that context. Several senators agreed with Arts senator John Galaty’s question: “Are we trying to fix something that’s not broken?” White responded in Senate to his question, saying, “This is a consideration.” She said that the number of current academic staff who have “reasonable performance” were “almost certainly lower than 10 per cent of the tenure cohort in each year,” and added that most tenured professors are superior in all three categories. Speaking to The Daily after Senate, White said that the revision does not mean professors applying for tenure would not be expected to do service. “I think it’s unfortunate that what people are interpreting this proposal as meaning that service is going to denigrate – that’s not the intention,” she said. “It’s rather to enhance that we consider ourselves a top University
in research and in teaching, and so why, in that case, shouldn’t we make that the expectation for junior professors?” she continued. Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) VP Academic Lily Han described the revision as “contradictory,” referring to a discussion earlier in the meeting regarding recognizing student extracurricular activities in the admissions process. “I think that if we want to promote students to get involved, and promote volunteerism, promote service to the University, it should be the same with faculty,” she said. The revisions are to be brought back to Senate in April for the body’s approval. White stated she would incorporate the comments made in Senate into the revision process. However, Arts senator Brendan Gillon expressed “misgivings” in Senate that, due to the time of the academic year, adequate reflection on the revision could occur before the next Senate. “I’d like to hear more arguments and more discussion,” he said after the meeting adjourned.
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Zorychta, a Pharmacology professor involved with the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT), said that a group within MAUT had examined the revision and, according to her, had “very serious concerns.” According to the Senate report, White had previously consulted with MAUT, Deans, and Teaching and Learning Services. “It’s a major change and it has ramifications throughout the academic community,” said Zorychta. “It could send the message that since it’s no longer one of the three equally valid factors, it can easily be interpreted, and I think would be interpreted by many people, to mean that [service] is of lesser importance.” Music senator Kyoko Hashimoto explained that, for Music, the category of research means performance, but she noted that many musicians later in their careers are unable to perform due to injuries. She gave the example of tendonitis among pianists. “I’m afraid that if we change in this direction, that means it might
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Commentary
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
8
Myself, one of life’s mosquitoes
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
Why I speak up for atheism
One Less God Harmon Moon
onelessgod@mcgilldaily.com
P
eople don’t ask me why I got into atheist activism. I suppose it’s assumed that, like others I know, I simply “live” atheism, that it’s something I’m passionate about and wish, with a sort of missionary zeal, to spread to the world. There’s nothing wrong with this viewpoint, of course, but it’s not my experience. In my ideal world, my religious views would never come up except as a conversation piece – I could have my beliefs to myself and everyone else could have theirs. And that would be the rule I would live by today, if it
weren’t for an incident in high school that still drives my involvement in the atheist movement. I went to a nominally Anglican private high school, although it had long since abandoned all pretext of being religiously oriented. The one holdover from its less pluralistic days was a bi-weekly chapel session, which was conducted by a chaplain well aware of, and open to, the diversity of beliefs and cultures within the school. Rather than a regular religious instruction, chapel was a time to put on our dress uniforms and watch presentations, either by students fired up by some form of injustice, or somebody more prestigious coming in to speak to us about what they did or knew. The time was mid-September,
2008 – my graduating year. It was our first chapel session of the term, which meant introductions were necessary for new students. We were being graced by a visit from our headmaster, who we usually didn’t see much – he sat beside the chaplain at the front of the building. The chaplain was the first to speak, and he explained the chapel sessions. He explained that he wanted everybody, regardless of their beliefs, to feel safe in this building, despite its Christian focus, particularly, the large cross on the alter. The headmaster stood to speak next. He attempted to echo the chaplain’s sentiment of inclusion, but tried to add a joke: “personally, I find atheists to be the mosquitoes in the under-
brush of life.” There was dead silence, and then an awkward laugh. If he’d said that about any religious groups, there would have been uproar. Yet, he chose atheists, and all he got was an awkward laugh. Some time later, my friends and I managed to get time in chapel to give a presentation on atheism. I won’t pretend it was good, but it was my first foray into publicly defending the movement. The headmaster was absent. He never apologized for his remarks. I don’t mean to portray this incident as symptomatic of malicious oppression atheists undergo, especially in an increasingly secularized world. However, it serves as a poignant reminder that the atheist movement is
still far from respected. Until atheism is accepted as a legitimate alternative point of view, there must be people that are willing to stand up for themselves and their beliefs and demand respect. To this day, I have tried, through education and interaction, to put a positive face onto a movement often lacking one. Someday I’ll be able to go back to keeping my beliefs a private matter; until then, I’m out to prove that, at the very least, this mosquito bites hard.
a thing of the past. Which is fine. It’s not the case that collective decisionmaking is entirely gone. Editors will still have some input on the draft, and the topic and structure of the editorials will remain a consensusbased decision. Plenty of cases of bad syntax and awkward uses of certain words and aphorisms were the result of those screwy negotiations. The text, meant to anchor the publication, often wound up looking like a discombobulated stir-fry. This may seem like more of the same navel-gazing that The Daily is often criticized for, and it is, but it also bears some important lessons for anyone interested in collective decision-making. Bringing the entire board – and any contributors unlucky enough to be in the office at the time – into the discussion fostered an
atmosphere of humour and solidarity. While I’m not concerned that the paper will transform into a totalitarian fiefdom under the iron fists of the Coordinating and Commentary editors, I also want to emphasize that the collective decision-making processes at The Daily are a big part of what makes it so beautiful. At the end of the day, however – and this might be an example of what people talk about when they say that ideals are abandoned with age – I’ve come around to the conclusion that collective decisionmaking isn’t always ideal.
One Less God is a twice-monthly column on atheist communities and philosophy. Harmon Moon is a U2 History student and VP External of the McGill Freethought Association. He can be reached at onelessgod@mcgilldaily.com
The collective burden A new era of editorializing at The Daily Niko Block Readers’ Advocate readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com
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lright Daily, ya did okay. Not spectacular, but pretty good. The News section was run by four of the most energetic and talented editors the paper has seen in recent years. On occasion, their job demanded some skillful diplomacy, but when the time came, they also didn’t hesitate to pull out the heavy artillery. The Sci+Tech, Sports, and Health&Education sections all did well in highlighting issues that are typically off the map. Commentary too often became a platform for unfocused manifestos and collective state-
ments to the press, but it was deece on the whole. Features consistently failed to make a point; they were wellwritten for the most part, but I would have appreciated a bit more political gumption. And...what’s that other section I’m forgetting? Anyway, what I’d really like to talk about here are The Daily’s editorials, which throughout the year were both sensible and gutsy. Occasionally they took on softball issues – like, for instance, their plea that readers adopt some of the 500 puppies rescued from an errant puppy mill in September. But they also stuck it to the man two weeks ago when they revealed that McGill had recently threatened The Daily with a lawsuit for their coverage of the McGillLeaks story. Calling the University out on these tactics of legal bullying takes definite chutzpah.
The editorial board – of which, to be clear, I am no longer a part – recently decided to change the writing process for editorials. For the past six years, at least, the process has been this: at the Monday edboard meeting, a topic is chosen, and an outline hammered out. Someone volunteers to write the draft, and on Wednesday or Friday evening the entire board sits down to collectively edit the thing. Those meetings were prone to go on for as long as two hours – or until everyone’s hunger and exasperation pushed them into total acquiescence. They highlighted and exacerbated the political differences among the editors, but also brought them closer together. Few, if any, publications today are so rigorously democratic, and from here on in, the collective edit will be
The readers’ advocate column written by Niko Block addresses the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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Trying to speak more of the truth, more of the time The importance of student media in 2012 Steve Eldon Kerr Soap Box
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
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he Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), in their “Principles for Ethical Journalism”, state that “journalists have the duty and privilege to seek and report the truth, encourage civic debate to build our communities, and serve the public interest.” An ignorant and aloof media, then, is of no use to us. But that is what we have. In the words of Nick Davies, one of Britain’s finest investigative journalists, “the mass media now operate like a global village idiot, deeply ignorant and easily led.” The mainstream media serves powerful private interests for the profit motive. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the modern, “free” press was created by the 19th century capitalist bourgeoisie, who needed a press for their own revolution against the aristocracy. In fact, the Economist was founded by the free trade AntiCorn Law League in 1943. The profit motive, however, now obfuscates the facts. Driven to publish what sells, the mainstream media focuses on salacious tidbits of apolitical “news” information stripped of any critical content, and ignores the true activities and motives of the powerful. This might not be so bad if we had mainstream alternatives, but we don’t. Over the last twenty years the number of independent Canadian media organizations has drastically shrunk: in 1990, 17.3 per cent of daily newspapers were independently owned, but by 2005, only 1 per cent were. A few large companies such as CTVglobemedia, Rogers, and the CBC, control most of the flow of information to the general public. Today, these companies
decide what is “news,” and, most of the time, define it to mean gossip. But what of the others, the organizations we trust to remain highbrow? Chris Hedges, foreign correspondent for the New York Times for over twenty years, has argued that “a too comfortable relationship exists on the part of major news organizations like the New York Times with the elite.” Instead of doing their own research, the mainstream media rely on Robert Rubin, Citibank, and the heads of Goldman Sachs for their information. Joan Didion called this charade “insider baseball” – I call it a lie. Why has the New York Times, one of the world’s most prestigious newspapers, failed so abysmally to fulfill its task? One answer is that the
mainstream business model is failing. Revenues have dwindled in the age of the Internet, so newsrooms have cut staff, meaning less time is spent factchecking. A study in Britain found that, in 2006, only 12 per cent of newspaper articles in the highbrow papers were the result of real investigative journalism; 80 per cent were re-written wire copy or press releases. Moreover, more people now work in PR than in journalism. That is, more people are paid to disguise the truth than to reveal it. In service of profit the media has stopped fulfilling its purpose. According to the CAJ’s own principles, the mass media is unethical. This is where alternative media comes in. Small, local, and independent media organizations try to make
only as much money as they need. Supported by donations and volunteers, these organizations exist to tell the stories of the people who took on Citibank’s sub-prime mortgages, who were beaten by the police, and whose communities were destroyed by Walmart. They don’t have access to the government or Goldman Sachs, and so have no reason to join in the charade. As academics Michael Boyle and Mike Schmierbach have shown, audiences of alternative media are likelier to be more frequently engaged in protest actions than audiences of mainstream media. The people who make and consume alternative media are the very people who “encourage civic debate to build our communities, and serve the public interest.”
The problem is that these organizations are poor, and their means of distribution are all owned by large conglomerates. The threat of extinction is never far away. This is where student media comes in. Student media is alternative because it is distinct from the dominant forms of production, distribution, content, consumption, and aesthetic that characterize the mainstream media. But student media has a ready-made audience and funding base, unlike other forms of alternative media. Easily accessible, student newspapers that tell the stories forgotten by the the Globe and Mail are picked up by tens of thousands of individuals on campuses across the world. Students from a diverse range of backgrounds can read about racism, sexism, and ageism – issues too often ignored by society – and this must continue. It is vital, therefore, that we support our campus media. We must support The Daily and CKUT. We must use the opportunity that student media gives us to critique accepted truths. If you want to read a defense of the status-quo, of mainstream economic thought, or of petty Ottawa in-fighting, then please pick up any mainstream newspaper. But if you want to see what else is out there, use this valuable opportunity to explore the world from different perspectives. In 1988, Professors Delaney Jr. and Lenkowski reported the sad fact that “the typical student is mostly concerned with consumer goods, a career, and sometimes even an education.” Use this space to prove them wrong. Steve Eldon Kerr is a U3 Political Science and English Literature student. He can be reached at steveeldonkerr@gmail.com
Education, happening outside the lecture hall Notes on the English undergraduate town hall Emily Jensen Hyde Park
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walked into the Department of English Student Association (DESA) Town Hall with my allegiance unclaimed and my feelings on the strike quite mixed and muddled. I almost didn’t go at all because I had just come from the gym, with no time to shower, and looked like a sweaty mess. How passionate about this cause do I sound? Just barely passionate enough to momentarily forgo hygiene in support of it, but, after two hours of sitting in an auditorium swathed in denim and sweat, I was a converted striker.
Some could say there is little value in a relatively small group such as DESA deciding to strike. I would point out the potential for larger solidarity to grow out of smaller movements. Change can be affected from the ground up; we do not need to wait for power to trickle its way down to us. I walked in hoping to hear wellarticulated opinions on the strike and its surrounding issues, and I’m glad to say I did. I’m glad someone called out the people for whom activism starts and ends with a fashionably pinned red square. I’m glad people made liberal use of snaps to show support. I’m glad people disagreed. I’m glad people were able to explain the historical context of Quebec, out-of-province, and inter-
national tuition rates, and some of the intricacies of policies regarding federal and provincial university funding, that I, as an American, was completely unaware of. I still couldn’t fully articulate those intricacies if someone asked me, but it’s certainly my responsibility to educate myself about them. And if I’m not going to class this week, then what better time is there to do that than right now? Previous to the town hall, I had a very selfish reason for not fully supporting the strike: I did not wish to forgo the opportunity I currently have to attend the incredible classes I am enrolled in. But I am one of the people for whom the opportunity to attend
those classes has never been challenged. I have never been asked to give up that opportunity; to be asked to do so now is a reminder of just how valuable it is. It is perhaps a necessary step to take to attempt to make that opportunity equally accessible to everyone. However, someone intimated that the strike would have more negative consequences for our GPAs than our government, and it is not ridiculous to suggest that missing class would impact our GPAs. But, quite frankly, my GPA can suck it. My parents are not paying out the nose for a piece of paper that says I have a 4.0. I wouldn’t have chosen McGill if that were the case. In losing the opportunity to
inch closer to that 4.0, aren’t I gaining the opportunity to participate in another type of learning? Isn’t engaging in discussion and standing with my fellow students as valuable a learning experience as taking lecture notes? The ultimate goals of the experience outside the classroom may not be as easy to achieve. If they are, then you have still helped yourself take down one barrier to pursuing a degree. This includes the added bonus of having helped more than yourself.
Emily Jensen is a U3 English Literature student. She can be reached at emily.jensen@mail. mcgill.ca
10 Features
Why you shouldn’t tell American bor
ANDREANNE STEWART PHOTO BY HERA CHAN
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n May 1, 2010, Pascal Abidor was riding an Amtrak train from Montreal to New York. His parents live in Brooklyn, and he was on his way to visit them. The school year at McGill had just ended, and he felt relieved and calm as the train rolled south towards America. At about 11 a.m., the train arrived at the U.S. border and made a rou-
tine stop. A team of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers boarded the train and advanced through each car, questioning passengers. Pascal had made this trip countless times before, so when a customs officer approached him, he didn’t give it a second thought. But Pascal had never met Officer Tulip. After looking over Pascal’s U.S. passport and customs dec-
laration, Officer Tulip asked two simple questions: Where do you live, and why? Pascal answered that he lived in Canada. He lived in Canada because that’s where he was pursuing a PhD in Islamic Studies. Next, she asked him where he had traveled in the previous year, and he answered Jordan and Lebanon. He showed her his French passport (he’s a dual
citizen) with the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” stamp, and the Lebanese stamp with the little cedar tree on top. That didn’t help. Officer Tulip immediately told him to grab his things and follow her to the train’s cafe car. Pascal gathered his luggage, but Officer Tulip carried the bag containing his laptop. At the time, he thought she was just being helpful.
In the cafe car, they were joined by five or six more CBP officers. Pascal sat across from Officer Tulip as she took out his laptop, turned it on, and asked him to enter his password, which he did. As she scrolled through the contents of his computer, Pascal could only see her reaction. Officer Tulip signaled to her colleagues and pointed at something on the screen. She then turned to Pascal
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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rder guards you’re in Islamic Studies The story of one McGill student’s constitutional battle with the U.S. government and demanded an explanation. Pascal was now surrounded by half a dozen suspicious American border police, staring at photos – on his laptop – of Hamas and Hezbollah rallies. Where had he gotten “this stuff,” Officer Tulip asked. Pascal explained that his PhD research is on the Shiites of modern Lebanon. This was not, in her books, a good answer. Finally, the officers told Pascal that he would have to leave the train with them. “Take me off the train, I’ll walk back to Montreal,” Pascal offered. Given what he would go through in the next few hours, Pascal might well have preferred the walk. Instead, he was frisked, he claims, with particular vigor around his genitals. Then he was handcuffed. Pascal winced. As they led him off the train, the officers draped a coat over his bound wrists. They claimed it was to spare him the embarrassment of a perp walk. But as Pascal walked past the train’s windows, he tried to show the passengers that he was cuffed. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and he wanted witnesses. Pascal was then loaded into the back of a van. Oddly, as one of the officers tried to close the van’s side door, it fell clean off. It could have been a moment of levity in a grim situation. But Pascal didn’t dare laugh.
The Detention Cell When they arrived at the Champlain Port of Entry, Pascal was put in a five-by-ten foot cell with cinder block walls and a steel-reinforced door. He was told to wait. He stayed in the cell for about an hour. Officers came in at random intervals to ask him questions. “I thought I was going to throw up,” he said. “I thought I was going to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.” Pascal was then removed from the cell and brought to an interrogation room, complete with florescent lighting and a two-way mirror. He sat across from two CBP officers – Officer Tulip and a man named Officer Sweet – while another officer sat at the end of the table, seemingly in case Pascal got violent. “They thought I was straight-up dangerous,” Pascal said.
Then the real interrogation began, an hour and a half of intensive questioning. Where was he born? Where were his parents born? What religion was he raised with? Had he ever been to a rally in the Middle East? Had he heard any anti-American statements in the Middle East? Had he ever seen an American flag burned? Had he ever been to a mosque? But the questions always came back to the same point – why Islamic Studies? “I want to be an academic – this is just what I happen to be an academic in,” Pascal told them. His answers seemed to fall on deaf ears. The interrogation continued. It was the same questions, over and over. It seemed they were looking for him to make a mistake. They soon fell into a good-cop, bad-cop routine. “He thought I was cool,” Pascal said of Officer Sweet. Officer Tulip, on the other hand, “thought I was the most evil person. She thought I was a movie villain or something.” They claimed Pascal’s dual citizenship made him untraceable. They suggested he was attractive “to both sides.” Pascal was baffled. Both sides of what? Finally, after about three hours in detention, he was released. But there was a catch – the CBP was keeping his laptop and hard drive. Pascal was enraged. While he had been waiting in the cell, Pascal had given some thought to what he would say to the officers once he was free. Now, with his anger compounded by the loss of his computer, Pascal delivered a blistering speech, directed at his arch-nemesis, Officer Tulip. “I ripped into her,” he said. “She just stood there, [then] walked away.” When an FBI agent came up to him and attempted to apologize, Pascal stopped him mid-sentence. “I don’t want to hear your apology,” he told the agent. Before he left, he was given his camera and his two cell phones. There was a scratch on the back of one of the phones, as if someone had tried to open it.
That night, he had trouble sleeping, as he would have for the next week or so. The next morning, he sat down and wrote eleven single-spaced pages detailing exactly what had happened to him. The day after that, he began making phone calls to state senators and advocacy organizations in the hope of finding someone who would help him. Lots of them were interested in his case, including Anthony Weiner, the former New York Congressman. Finally, Pascal settled on the ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the oldest and largest civil liberties organization in the United States. Free speech cases are its bread and butter. And they told Pascal that his right to free speech, protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution, had been violated. Two days after his first phone call with the ACLU, Pascal was in downtown Manhattan, sitting in a meeting with a team of lawyers. The first thing they did was to write a letter to the CBP demanding that they return Pascal’s laptop. The day after the letter was sent, Pascal got a call from the CBP asking him where they should overnight his belongings. But at this point, the damage was done. When the laptop arrived in the mail, the seam between the keyboard and the outer case that led to the internal hard drive appeared to have widened. The warranty seal on his external hard drive had been broken open, too. The government had already searched, and, they later conceded, made copies of Pascal’s electronic life. Pascal and the ACLU were incensed. His laptop contained intimate personal information: chat logs with his girlfriend, university transcripts, his tax returns. The problem was, everything Homeland Security had done was completely by the book.
Taking Legal Action
The Policy
After being released from detention, Pascal hitched a ride on the next bus with an open seat that came through the checkpoint. He arrived in New York at midnight.
In August 2009, the Department of Homeland Security enacted a policy that allows for the search and seizure of electronic devices at the border without reasonable sus-
picion. Under the policy, the DHS can detain any electronic device indefinitely, and copy and share the information it contains. Between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, more than 6,500 people had their electronic devices searched at U.S. border stops. It was under this policy that Pascal’s laptop and hard drive were searched and detained. Upon the enactment of the policy, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano stated that, “keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States. The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers, while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders.” The policy makes a point of specifying that, “at no point during a border search of electronic devices is it necessary to ask the traveler for consent to search.” This struck the ACLU as deeply unconstitutional. So they and Pascal decided to sue Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, to challenge the constitutionality of the policy. In September 2010, they filed their “complaint” against Napolitano, the legal document that kicks off a lawsuit. The ACLU argued that the DHS policy violates the First and Fourth Amendments, which guarantee free speech and protection against unreasonable search and seizure respectively. The U.S. government tried to get the case thrown out, arguing that while Pascal’s story was true, the government’s actions had not broken any laws. On the question of the Fourth Amendment, the government effectively said that just about any kind of search is legal at the border, in the name of national sovereignty. “Searches made at the border, pursuant to the long standing right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border,” the government wrote in its Motion to
Dismiss, the legal maneuver for getting a case thrown out. With regard to the First Amendment, the Motion to Dismiss stated that, “an otherwise valid search under the Fourth Amendment, does not violate the First Amendment rights of an individual – even a completely innocent individual – simply because the search uncovers expressive material.” In other words, a border search is a border search is a border search. And it’s true that all travelers are subject to a routine search at the border, whether or not there’s suspicion of wrongdoing. But while the U.S. government argues that the search of laptops should be considered a part of these routine searches, the ACLU says these searches are more invasive and therefore must be held to a higher standard. “It is different to go through someone’s shoes and contact solution, than to go through all the documents on their computer,” said Catherine Crump, one of Pascal’s ACLU lawyers. Last July, Pascal and his ACLU lawyers went to a courtroom in Brooklyn to argue against throwing out their case. The judge has still not come to a decision. Meanwhile, the DHS policy remains on the books. Laptops and cell phones continue to be detained and searched without reasonable suspicion at the U.S. border. Pascal, for his part, hasn’t had a normal border-crossing since that May 1 morning. “Now, every time I cross the border, I get harassed,” he said. In December 2010, he was crossing the border with his father. The border guards began interrogating him in unusual ways. “They refused to believe my dad was my dad,” he said. “If you saw my dad, you could not believe we were not related.” The guards then searched the car top to bottom, and made the Abidors wait at the checkpoint for two hours. “This is about lowering the threshold of what is acceptable to us,” Pascal said of his treatment at the hands of the CBP. “You can’t have rights and then selectively apply them.”
BY hera chan, francis loranger, and nicolas QuiAzua
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
#MANIF22MARS
12 Photo Essay
Science+Technology
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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Snapshots of science Languages, video games, and green chem
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here’s a lot of research going on at McGill – some of it is cool in a “that’s what they had on that episode of Star-Trek” way. Other projects are logical expansions of their respective fields – still others are new looks at old ideas that yield novel results. I followed up with a handful of professors after they spoke at the winter edition of Soup and Science – a public event where professors give short talks and then eat lunch with students. Here are a few projects that really stood out. — Compiled by David Benrimoh
Parlez-vous français? Second languages are good for our brains Debra Titone, associate professor of Psychology, is studying bilingual language processing, in both neural (anatomical) and cognitive (mental) contexts. She also studies bilingual formulaic (also known as idiomatic) processing – that is, how our brains handle manners of speech and sayings across multiple languages, as well as how language breaks down as a result of neurological impairments. Idioms are a big part of what makes language diverse and useful. Understanding them is an important part of knowing a language. I mean, wouldn’t it be annoying if people sunk down in their seat every time you asked them to lower their voice? But Titone’s real interest lies in understanding the benefits of bilingualism, of which there appear to be many – including forestalling the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Her work is unique in her field because she compares bilingual individuals to each other in terms of their different language abilities, instead of bilingual individuals to monolingual controls. In this way, she attempts to understand the mechanisms of bilingualism by comparing apples to apples; that is, finding and learning from the similarities and differences between people. She believes this work will shed light on neuroplasticity and the mechanism by which experience can “change the fabric of the brain”. She says the next big thing in her field is the overturning of the old linguistic notion that language is innate and is simply “turned on” by experience, and replacing it with a model wherein language is something shaped and dependent on experience and usage. And all this because some people can understand both “fries” and “frites” – another example of how interesting science lies at the heart of most of our everyday experiences.
A man who studies video games for a living Clark Verbrugge from the School of Computer Science has two foci in his research: compiler optimization for concurrency, and computer game analysis. He studies video game narratives, trying to figure out how to make sure a game can handle player actions and that it can react accordingly (anyone who has played the delightful but bug-ridden Fallout: New Vegas will know how annoying it is when this doesn’t happen). His lab currently looks at games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (which is now officially homework for those who haven’t played it), trying to see how they can make it so that no player actions can result in a broken game (for example, to avoid situations where, if a player neglects to pick up an item, they don’t get irreversibly stuck later on). Videogames apparently have a lot to teach us about good programming – and, honestly, it’s such a cool project it requires no further justification. Verbrugge also studies compiler optimization and concurrent programming; that is, making it easier to get multiple programs to run together at the same time on multiple processors. He says that writing concurrent programs is hard, and there is often a trade-off between being efficient and getting correct results – for example, when you have music playing and you are typing your term paper at the same time on your dual or quad core computer, your computer actually accomplishes this rather inefficiently. To solve this, he is working on language design, trying to create a situation where some or most of the work is done for the programmer to ensure that both efficiency and accuracy are maximized. In the future, he sees the current trend of ever-shrinking devices continuing, allowing more and more distributed processing. Now here’s my logic: if we have more processing power, and those processors can run well concurrently, then they will start working like a human brain – which is essentially the world’s best multicore parallel processor – and then, well, let’s just say the next time your computer says “Hello World”, it just might mean it.
All illustrations by Oles Chepesiuk | The McGill Daily
The holy grail: green chemistry C.J. Li works on improving and innovating green chemistry, a branch of chemistry that aims to improve efficiency, decrease waste, and reduce the ecological footprint of chemical processes. Since virtually all consumer products are or contain something that is the result of industrial chemical processes, Li believes that making chemistry greener and less wasteful can have a positive impact on our resources and energy use, strengthen the economy, and help save the environment – the kind of change we usually only dare to believe in when we read science fiction. But this is a reality: Li has already designed a more efficient process by which the precursors of biodegradable plastics can be made from CO2 and alkene in water. The amount of CO2 we’ve pumped into the atmosphere is so large that converting CO2 into chemical products will not affect the atmospheric CO2 levels much. However, converting waste CO2 into biodegradable plastics and chemicals, all using efficient and environmentally friendly green chemistry, will definitely help to conserve our resources and reduce waste – one of the necessary goals of chemistry in this century.
Sports
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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Not for the faint of heart Red Bull Crashed Ice pushes the world’s toughest skaters to their limits
Edna Chan | The McGill Daily
Annie Shiel
The McGill Daily
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ce cross downhill: four athletes skating down a steep, obstacleridden ice course, going as fast as they possibly can without tripping or falling over their competitors. In the minute or so it takes to complete the course, anything can happen. To say that the atmosphere at the ice cross world championships was adrenaline-charged would be an understatement. The ice cross downhill season starts in December and culminates in March with Red Bull Crashed Ice, the world’s championship event. This past weekend, about 100,000 spectators gathered in Quebec City to watch 170 men and 127 women with backgrounds in hockey, skiing, bobsledding, and mountain biking com-
pete for the title of world champion. This year’s track was not for the faint of heart: at 575 metres long, it included flights of stairs and sharp 180-degree turns, after which the athletes had to stop and start again. McGill student and ice cross downhill athlete Corey Taber said the track was “super fun, but way harder than it looks.” Athlete Jodran Fuder agreed. “It was fast, and probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. According to Christian Papillon, sports director of the Championship and a former ice cross skater, the minute it takes to race through the course is exhausting. “It seems like it’s nothing just thinking about it, but if you can try once to just run as fast as you can, jumping down stairs and running uphill for one minute, full energy, you will understand,” he said.
Canadians Kyle Croxall and Fannie Desforges took the world championship titles in the men’s and women’s races, respectively. Croxall won the world championship for the season after finishing in second place in an exciting race, giving him 3000 points for the season. The men’s competition is comprised of four events with athletes from all over the world and events taking place in Europe as well as Canada. The women’s competition is not yet as extensive as the men’s competition. Quebec City is the only event that features a women’s race. Desforges won the race at Quebec City and, on the strength of winning the only race, was named the world champion, but there is no season or points system like that of the men’s league. The annual championship began in Quebec in 2006, but
women weren’t a part of the event until 2009. Since then, they’ve been a force to be reckoned with. According to Fuder, “[The women] are just as crazy [as the men], if not crazier… I know the sport is evolving and more women are getting involved, and it’s a great thing to see.” The women who participate in Crashed Ice can only be described as tough. As one Red Bull Crashed Ice press release states, the sport is “not for ice princesses.” “It’s true,” said athlete Marquise Brisebois, who placed third in the women’s championship on Saturday. “You can’t be on the track and fear something. If you do, you’re going to fall, or do something to injure yourself.” “You have to throw it out there and go for it,” she continued. “If you don’t go for it, you’ll be last…. You can’t be a princess while you’re out there because there are three other people
that want to get in front of you.” Brisebois comes from a bobsled background, which, according to Papillon, gives her a powerful edge in the competition. “She’s really powerful because she had to push a bobsled with the team really, really quick, and so I’d say that’ll probably help her,” he said. For Brisebois, the big challenge in the competition was stamina. “It’s exhausting,” she said. “Your thighs burn, your quads are just on fire. When you’re at the end you just want to push more and you feel like you don’t have any stamina left.” Most importantly, she said, “you can’t stop,” because if anything’s true in this sport, it’s that “it’s not finished until you cross the finish line.”
For photos and video from the event, look at the article on mcgilldaily.com.
Sports
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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Lululemon rides the trends How the athletic clothing company rose to prominence Maggie Rebalski
The McGill Daily
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ummer is finally on the horizon, and, feeling slightly selfconscious about my librarytanned (aka snow-white) legs, I decided to buy a new pair of running shorts to motivate my beach-season workout regime. Now, there are several well-known stores where I could have searched for a simple pair of workout shorts: Adidas, Nike, Under Armour – even The Gap or Old Navy have athletic clothing sections. However, I ended up at Lululemon Athletica, the store where I seem to buy the majority of my sports clothing. Among all these other competing brands, Chip Wilson, the creator of Lululemon Athletica, seems to have created a wildly successful clothing company. Some might say they are attracted to the brand because of Lululemon’s dedication to sustainability, or due to the durability and quality of the clothing. However, there are many similar athletic clothing companies. What makes Lululemon so special to consumers? Essentially, Wilson’s success with Lululemon comes down to one thing: timing. He caught on to the yoga craze in 1998, right as it was becoming popular in North America. In doing so, he managed to create an accessible commercialized brand, while still using parts of the ancient tradition of yoga. The brand remains dedicated to a list of inspirational
guides to healthy living dubbed the “Lululemon manifesto.” Luckily for Wilson, the healthyliving aspect of the tradition of yoga correlated perfectly with a newfound importance being placed on protecting the environment. In 2006, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth famously spurred a newfound international public awareness of environmental issues. At the same time, the yoga trend in North America exploded, and Lululemon Athletica rapidly expanded. The result? A mere ten years after the first store opened in Vancouver, BC, Lululemon has become a multi-million dollar company with 78 stores operating in four different countries. Wilson came up with the idea for Lululemon in 1998 while participating in a yoga class in Vancouver. He became passionate about his practice, and started a yoga studio that doubled as a design studio for the brand. In 2000, the first Lululemon Athletica store opened in Kitsilano, a small beach community in Vancouver. On the Lululemon website, Wilson recalls his original idea of the store as “a community hub where people could learn and discuss the physical aspects of healthy living from yoga and diet to running and cycling as well as the mental aspects of living a powerful life of possibilities.” He is definitely a dreamer; I’ll give him that. Coming from Vancouver, I remember going to a Lululemon Boxing Day sale with my mom in the winter of 2004. She has practiced yoga for over twenty years, and supported
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily Lululemon since its beginning stages. The sale was held in the basement of the flagship Kitsilano store, with one makeshift communal change room and clothes being sold out of boxes. Although Lululemon was not fully established yet, the community feeling Wilson wanted to facilitate was definitely noticeable. Walking into the Lululemon on Ste. Catherine in Montreal, I felt like I could have been back at the Kistilano branch. Every Lululemon store I go to has the same friendly sales associates, the same interior design and display, even the same smell (is it possible to pump the scent of the BC
forest and ocean into all their stores across Canada?). From Victoria and Vancouver to Montreal and Toronto, Lululemon stores always generate the same familiar feeling for me. This similarity between stores provides, for me, a link between the stores, creating a more communal atmosphere. In this way, Wilson seems to have achieved his goal of creating a community center for healthy living. Lululemon has expanded their business past just clothing. All stores hold events and give yoga classes, and all sales associates are trained to promote and embody an active lifestyle. Originally just a yoga-clothing outfit-
ter, Lululemon has now expanded to selling running and dance apparel. The company’s success has allowed Wilson to consolidate his brand to embody one unified lifestyle, a lifestyle that has become popularized and commercialized in North American society. Wilson had the ingenuity to catch on to a trend right before it exploded, and has been riding that wave ever since. In fact, Lulelemon has made him the tenth richest Canadian in the world. The company’s advice is to “dance, sing, floss, and travel,” and I might just be convinced that they’re on to something.
The first goal Montreal’s MLS debut raises questions along with jubilation Sports, eh Sam Gregory
sportseh@mcgilldaily.com
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012 was always going to be a memorable year for soccer in Montreal, with the introduction of the Montreal Impact to Major League Soccer (MLS), the premier soccer league in Canada and the United States. However, as with any expansion team, the excitement surrounding the team has been matched with a long list of concerns. The Impact made some major steps to setting aside these concerns during their home opener on St. Patrick’s Day against Chicago. In front of a record crowd for a professional soccer game in Montreal – announced to be 58,912 – the Impact pulled off a 1-1 draw with the visiting Chicago Fire. The Impact were playing at the Olympic
Stadium as a result of construction delays to their future home – Stade Saputo – which will not be completed until mid-June. The cavernous Olympic Stadium, initially built to house the now defunct Montreal Expos, is certainly not the best soccer venue. The fans are far away from the pitch, the vast roof dampens the atmosphere, and the playing surface itself is far from ideal. There were also concerns that the stadium issues would lower attendance to the game. The team itself also met scrutiny, as it was considered by many to not have enough offensive capability to compete in the league. However, none of these factors seemed to matter when the fans nearly blew off the roof after captain Davy Arnaud scored the club’s first goal in MLS history. As fans of any expansion franchise in MLS will say, that first goal is a special moment. Toronto had to wait until their fifth franchise game to score, whereas Vancouver’s came
in the first fifteen minutes. In both cases, though, the scorers of these goals have gone down in club history. Davy Arnaud’s name will now play a similarly important role in the Montreal Impact’s history. The goal itself was fairly impressive, and managed to dissuade some of the early concerns that the team has no firepower. After fifty-five minutes of frustration for the Impact, Gambian-born winger Sanna Nyassi played in a ball from the right hand side, which was met by the head of Arnaud as he guided it into the far corner of the net, past the outstretched arms of Chicago keeper. In that moment – and the pandemonium that followed – the worries leading up to the game and season seemed to be thrown aside. Arnaud immediately started sprinting toward the Impact supporters. Before he could reach the stands, he was mobbed by a group of equally excited teammates,
delighted at the breakthrough. Supporters – who had, in some cases, waited years for this moment– were exchanging hugs, jumping around without abandon and grinning giddily. The scene was absolutely infectious, especially amongst the supporters of the Montreal Ultras, an official group of intense soccer fans. They even set off fire works and flares in the crowd with delirious excitement. The concern that the location of Olympic Stadium would take away from the atmosphere was certainly gone, as the fans energized the stadium in a way that had not been done in recent memory. The worry of poor ticket sales was answered earlier by the announced attendance of nearly 60,000. This first goal may also spur a good number of them to show up again and again as the season progresses. Most important was the mere fact that the Impact managed to score a goal, despite the critiques of the
team that head coach Jesse Marsch had assembled. The fairytale story was cut short by Chicago’s response in the 71st minute. Although Montreal came close to scoring several times in the last ten minutes, they were forced to settle for the 1-1 final. At the end of the match the supporters greeted the draw as a moral victory, giving their players a standing ovation upon the final whistle. As the Impact’s season continues they will still have to deal with the stadium problems and with competing week to week in the MLS. However, they will be able to tackle them with the encouragement of one absolutely incredible moment that will forever have a place in Montreal Impact folklore. Sam Gregory is U0 Arts student. He hopes the Blue Jays can return to their early nineties glory. He can be reached at sportseh@mcgilldaily.com.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
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Off the beaten (Red)path O
h, finals season. That tortuous time of year is almost upon us once again. The weather is getting warmer, and all your heart yearns for is to drink a beer or share a pitcher of sangria on a terrace in the sun. Yet, somehow, you find yourself sitting inside McLennan, Redpath, and every other library on campus with every other student attending McGill. Studying at a McGill library during finals season is reminiscent of the world depicted in a nature documentary on the Discovery channel. It’s survival of the fittest – racing to get a spot near some form of natural light, so you don’t completely forget what the sun looks like, hiding much-needed caffeine or sustenance from the seemingly eagle-eyed security guards, and shooting challenging death-glares at the person who seems to think that the fifth floor is an appropriate place to rehash their night out – where they were “sooo fucking wasted” – with twelve of their closest friends sitting nearby. For your sanity, and for my own, during this wondrous and blissful season, I trekked around Montreal in search of alternate libraries to study in, and managed to find some pretty magical spots. The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art’s Media Center is one of those special places. When I walked into the museum, I was directed by a smiling desk attendant to the main flight of stairs. After reaching the exhibition floor, you have to continue your upward climb to the Media Center – as I ascended, I felt as though I was discovering a secret passageway, or being given a glimpse into the inside life of the institution. This feeling only grew when I reached the study space. The Media Center is a small library, filled with shelves of art books (a tip for art history students, especially those taking contemporary art classes – if you’ve started a research paper late, and all the good books are gone from the library, you’re likely to find some good sources here – not that that’s ever happened to me), and wide, wooden desks, perfect for spreading out your study materials. The space feels warm and friendly, and the huge skylights directly over the desks let you stare out at the sky and try to guess what new heights the temperature has reached now.
The Westmount Public Library is another magical study space. While I unwittingly walked about a million blocks to reach it from the Vendome metro station, more intrepid travellers will have the common sense to take the bus and can conveniently reach it from the McGill Ghetto. (Note to self for future reference: Google Maps distances are deceptively different from real distances.) The Westmount Public Library is the epitome of what I’ve always imagined a majestic old library to look like – there are beautiful high, arched windows, tables to study at, lit by lamps with green glass shades, and big, comfortable armchairs scattered around everywhere. For those of you who can’t study with a single decibel of sound, there is, in fact, a Reading Room. And it has a beautiful grand fireplace. You will never be able to study anywhere else. While the beauty of the historic building, commissioned in 1897 by Queen Victoria and completed in 1899, is enough of a draw, the best part of the library is all of its hidden study spots. There are armchairs and desks stashed away everywhere – including a wooden bench set into a wall, tucked away on the second floor. The Robert-Bourassa library is also a great spot. Located in Outremont, the cheerful and quiet space makes it worth the metro ride and short walk. (Successful use of Google Maps this time.) The bright library has plenty of study spots, with wooden chairs and big, polished desks placed in all the nooks and crannies in between book shelves. There are also little armchairs nestled away, for those who would rather have a calm afternoon with a good book to take a relaxing break from the madness of term paper and exam season. There is an abundance of riotously-coloured abstract paintings on the wall, which help to create a mood-elevating atmosphere, far removed from the sometimes dreary gloom of poorlylit libraries. The most distinctive part of this library is the small art gallery attached to it, which shows artworks on loan from a local gallery. Finally, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) is a student’s dream. When I first arrived, I felt as though I was seeing a mirage of a study haven before me, and if I questioned it, it would all go away. Thankfully, I had not fallen down a rabbit hole, or through any looking-glass, and
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
Victoria Lessard studies up on Montreal’s local libraries
BAnQ was real. The main library is attached to the Berri-UQAM metro station, making it very easy to travel to (and I will definitely be utilizing this come winter semester next year), and there’s a Java U right next door for a quick coffee fix. With four levels, as well as a main floor and a basement, there are endless study spots to choose from. The building is glass, so natural light streams in, negating the need for those horrifying fluorescent lights often found in public buildings. The best floors are four and one – the fourth floor contains the music and video collection, and even holds records in a separate room. There are multitudes of sleek and comfortable armchairs to sit in, and most of the computers have massive headphones attached to them, so people can lis-
ten to music and watch videos. This makes the floor one of the quietest to study on. The first floor showcases a small exhibit among the bookshelves – right now, costumes from the Belle Époque era are on display, and they’re all made out of brown and white construction paper. Once you get past the bustling main floor, the BAnQ is a gem of a library. So the next time you find yourself clutching your Tim Horton’s coffee cup between your knees when the security guard walks by and counting the number of times the person sitting next to you coughs in one minute, think of a magical study space you can flee to – then take a deep breath, pack up your twenty-pound backpack, and leave the McGill libraries in the dust behind you.
We’re takin’ off, folks! And someone has big, fancy shoes to fill. Run to be a Culture editor! email culture@mcgilldaily.com
The MAC Media Center (185 Ste. Catherine Ouest) is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The Westmount Public Library (457 Sherbrooke) is open Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Bibliothèque Henri Bourassa (41 Saint Just) is open Monday to Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (475 Maisonneuve Est) is open Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
17
Hip hop beats and tasty treats
V
ersailles. Buckingham. Nouveau. There are now three great palaces that humanity may celebrate. Or so it would seem given the excited clamour that greeted me whenever I asked someone about Nouveau Palais in Mile End. However, this “palace” is not characterized by a meeting of rococo excess and 17th century self-indulgence. Nor does it have a lot in common with those traditional grand bastions of antiquated protocol and closeted xenophobia. Nouveau Palais falls somewhere on the more unassuming side of things. In short, there is very little that is palatial about Nouveau Palais at all. Standard-issue paper placemats sit on aging laminate tables. Lifeless watercolours are the only interruption to the otherwise blank expression of the sparsely populated walls. For reasons unknown, a taxidermied fox occupies a place of pride on a raised shelf in the corner, his unblinking eyes surveying his kingdom of young diners and abundant wood paneling with magisterial poise. Here, a quirky simplicity reigns supreme, and the first impression is that of a cozy, but perhaps unprofitable, cafe in a motorway
service station. The king and queen of Nouveau Palais are Jacques and Gita. A few years ago, they took over this 1930s diner and transformed it into a Mile End mecca. What once served as a stop-off for late night-poutine is now one of the more lively watering holes in this part of Montreal. While the decor may have remained, the new owners have reinvented the Palais with a stripped-down menu and a throng of buoyant patrons. Following in the footsteps of other great music-making princes such as “The Artist Formerly Known As” and “Paul,” next in line to the throne (I know this whole palace trope became tedious quite a while ago) is local rapper Cadence Weapon. Every Thursday, Cadence provides Nouveau Palais with the soundtrack to its “Eat to the Beat” night. The concept is simple: there is food and there is music. Simultaneously. Fortunately, the laid-back hip-hop on offer makes the task of eating the Palais’ simple dishes to tempo much easier than it would be at drum n’ bass night at Le Belmont. The night runs from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., and maintains a full room served by a cheery staff. At around 11:30, a green midnight
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
Daniel Gocke exposes Nouveau Palais’s Thursday night secret weapon
menu card lands on our table. I ask Cadence what his recommendation would be, to which the response is immediate: “Burger. Everytime.” For those of you who doubt a man who manages to pull off a pink and lime green striped shirt while maintaining some semblance of cool, then there are other food options to consider, including some pretty mean looking perogies. One of my party did have some minor complaints to
Montreal’s lost and found Victoria Lessard visits the ghosts of neighbourhoods past
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tepping into the air-conditioned Centre d’histoire de Montréal on a shockingly hot afternoon – for which I was totally overdressed, having a deep mistrust of weather predictions ever since the snow-in-July incident in my hometown of Calgary in 2000– I was looking forward to cooling off and learning about Montreal’s urban history. I attended the “Lost Neighbourhoods” exhibition expecting to leave the exhibition knowing more about three neighbourhoods that live on only in the memories of their former residents. What I did not expect, however, was to be presented with a very apt metaphor for the tumultuous and politically charged atmosphere currently hanging over our city’s streets. “Lost Neighbourhoods” is an interactive multimedia exhibition about three distinct districts in Montreal that were razed between 1950 to 1970 in order to make room for various public projects. Fiftyfour former residents of Faubourg à m’lasse (now Maison-Radio Canada, near the Jacques Cartier Bridge), the Red Light district (lower St. Laurent above René-Lévesque), and Goose Village (now a parking lot near Griffintown) were interviewed about their experiences growing up in these communities. The exhibition also included the voices of numerous historians, urban planners, architecture experts, and aca-
demics. The question of whether modernity should trump cultural heritage runs throughout the show, asking the viewer to carefully consider whether a government is justified in steam-rolling over its citizens in the name of “progress” or “the common good”. The very first room you walk into introduces the disappearance of these three neighbourhoods through an emotionally-compelling video of former residents recalling the trauma of seeing their homes and communities destroyed. Robert Petrelli, recalling the experience of going back to the area after the houses had been torn down, described the sight as “a city after a nuclear attack... [The] only sound was stray dogs howling.” This chilling image is enhanced by the set and backdrop where the video is played – a wall looks as though it has been destroyed by a wrecking ball, and the film is playing on an ancient television surrounded by worn chairs of all different shapes and sizes. The latter half of the exhibition debates the questions surrounding this sensitive time period in Montreal’s history. Should these districts have been sacrificed to make way for the vision Jean Drapeau, the mayor of the city from around 1954 to 1986, held for the “city of the future”? One can’t argue with the fact that Drapeau helped to shape today’s bustling
downtown metropolis – part of his legacy is the inauguration of the metro in 1966. However, he destroyed areas without a thought for the residents living within them, or for the cultural heritage they contained. Drapeau viewed these areas as “slums,” and, while a former resident agrees that “it was poverty in all its glory,” urban planning experts feel Drapeau’s use of the term “slums” has to be questioned. The derogatory word carries heavy connotations, and stands in the way of improvements to the affected areas. After walking through the rest of the exhibit - which included entertaining and touching reconstructions of Faubourg à m’lasse, the Red Light District, and Goose Village - I entered the final area of the show, which drove home the relevance of this historical exhibition to Montreal’s current political climate. There were lifesize cut-outs of shadow figures holding protest signs, with slogans such as “We remember, We still fight”, “My neighbourhood, My life”, and, most appropriately, “We have duties.” While the exhibition encourages people to become more involved and active in campaigning for their community rights and cultural heritage, it also speaks to a larger metaphor that is engulfing Montreal – the growing importance of speaking up for your community, and your rights as an active member of that community.
make about what he felt was a salad seasoned with perhaps a little too much zeal, but ordering one of these at 11:30 p.m. was never going to be the most sensible choice for a dining experience. My mac and cheese on the other hand was one of the better decisions I made that week. So it should be pretty clear that the Palais doesn’t quite live up to its name. Nevertheless, it is a place loved by a loyal host of regulars, and with
good reason too. If it is banquets and tuxedoed service staff that you’re after, prepare to be disappointed. If you’re more at home in a relaxed but animated setting, with good homey food and more-than-affordable drink prices, then the Palais holds its own. It might not be a palace, but it is a great late-night staple, and in the steadfast dedication to its traditional roots, the Palais has kept the most important stuff intact.
Frying ‘bout my generation On Unfit to Print
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ack in 1999, when Britney Spears first tied up her schoolgirl top and attached those pink puffs to her pigtails for the “Baby One More Time” video, she did more than just provide fodder for millions of pubescent wet dreams. With the first words of the song - the low, growly, creaky, sexy “Oh baby baby,” - Britney may have launched the vocal trend that has become the hallmark of our generation, vocal fry. In linguistic terms, it means lowering your voice, often at the end of a sentence, until the pitch is so low that the sound cracks or rattles. Imagine a bored young woman sarcastically saying the words: “super interestaaannnng.” Alternately, just youtube a video of Zooey Deschanel talking and listen to the way she pushes her pitch down to its lowest, creakiest potential. It can sound – depending on the user – bored, sexy, nonchalant, authoritative, or downright idiotic. Socio-linguists have noticed. Vocal fry has become so com-
mon among North American high school and college students, particularly among young women, that a slew of papers and studies have been published trying to explain the trend. At McGill, where we float in a sea of subtle dialects and accents drawn from around the continent and world, vocal fry is the great equalizer – men and women from all over do it. And they do it a lot. So what does fry sound like and why do we do it? Next Tuesday on Unfit To Print, The Daily’s one and only radio show and podcast, Timothy Lem-Smith and Kate McGillivray will investigate. Whether you drawl, mumble, uptalk, or rasp, tune in to CKUT at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, or check out the podcast at mcgilldaily.com. —Compiled by Kate McGillivray
Unfit to Print is The Daily’s biweekly radio show on CKUT 90.3 FM. It’s available via iTunes podcast and at wwww.mcgilldaily.com.
Compendium!
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
Lies, half-truths, and fuck yeah, 200,000 red squares!!
Heather Munroe-Blum Samosas Milton Avenue Revolutionary Press
Winner 3
Winner 1
200,000 red squares A few white squares
FINAL SHOW DOWN Winner 2
18
Writing papers Winner 4
McGill Memes
Mad Men’s back
A HAIKU!!!!
Welcome to The Daily’s McGill-based pop culture and current-events March Madness bracket. The series will run all month! Email compendium@mcgilldaily.com or tweet at @mcgilldaily with your picks or if you think you have better match-up ideas. All contestants subject to our comedic whims.
Solidarity! That march was so fucking huge! For real, fuck la hausse!
200,000 red squares vs. a few white squares Yeah, that’s fucking right, 200,000 students took to the streets to protest tuition hikes. You know why? Tuition hikes suck. However, there were a few dipshits protesting with white squares. Guess what, there were way more protesters with red squares than those with white squares. For the time being, red squares beat out the few white squares who weren’t too busy crossing student picket lines and reading Milton Friedman.
THESE CROSSWORD SQUARES ARE RED! The Crossword Fairies The McGill Daily
Across 1. Confusion 5. Stop-motion replacement technology 8. Forger 13. Battery contents 14. Dog-eared 15. ___-visual department 16. Female equivalent of a raja 17. Should have put a ring __ 18. Prepare to be knighted 19. “Wish you were here” medium 22. Black 23. Son of a son 24. Choir section 27. Crock 29. Recedes 33. Absurd 34. Evening coffee order 36. Bucharest money 37. Happy ending places? 40. In-flight info, for short 41. Squirrel abodes 42. “Gladiator” setting 43. Count (on) 45. Special ___ (top secret) 46. Got up 47. I, to Claudius 49. Arch type 50. Resistance to new ideas 58. Nametag word
59. Link, to Pierre 60. Air 61. Bar, at the bar 62. Masseur’s target 63. Diva’s solo 64. Near-Eastern ships 65. Member of Cong. 66. Cuts off
28. Ontario Colleges Application Services 30. Robert Johnson genre 31. Capitale de la Suisse 32. __ B. Anthony 34. Abstruse 35. Like some jeans 38. Horse caretaker 39. Monopoly avenue 44. Chicken Down 46. Secret ___ Man 1. Kind of seal 48. Gross school lunches 2. Amazonian superfruit!!!1 3. Last mineral in the alphabet 49. Ancient Greek theater 50. Lean-to 4. Versions 51. Netting 5. Female rabbit 52. A chorus line 6. Film crew member 53. Sorts 7. ___ the Wild 54. Cat’s lives 8. Seat of the princely Sakti 55. 100 cents State 9. Seat of the princely Delaware 56. Barber’s motion 57. Caribbean and six others County, IN 10. Fancy 11. Bleacher feature 12. Grasp 14. All-dressed, with “the” 20. Illiterate 21. Ravi Shankar’s instrument 24. Kitchen counter? 25. Related maternally 26. Twangy, as a voice 27. Great Fire of London diarist Samuel
The McGill Daily | Monday, March 26, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
volume 101 number 39
editorial
EDITORIAL
Stop the SPVM’s abuse of power
3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com
Earlier this year, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) shot and killed a homeless man at a downtown metro station. But, the death of Farshad Mohammadi is only one of many examples of police violence in Montreal. Since 1987, the SPVM has wrongfully killed more than sixty people and has regularly deployed harmful weapons such as tear gas and flash bangs on protestors. The SPVM’s violent tactics were even noted in a 2005 United Nations Human Rights Committee report. Systemic abuse of police power in Montreal is a grave problem that must not be ignored. While the mental and physical health services available within our community for survivors of police brutality are valuable, the problem is one of prevention – the Quebec government must take concrete steps to stop police brutality. One proposal, by Security Minister Robert Dutil, is Bill 46, which would establish a civilian oversight bureau responsible for investigating incidents in which police conduct leads to death or injury. However, in its current form, Bill 46, if implemented, would be insufficient in preventing police misconduct. First, it is inadequate because the bureau would only work alongside the current system of police inquiries. Under the existing system, one police force investigates another accused of involvement in a violent incident. This system does not encourage impartiality: between 1999 and 2011, 339 investigations into police conduct led to only three indictments. In other provinces, such as Ontario, police investigations are carried out without police involvement. Another problem in this system is that police brutality often occurs in marginalized communities, whose members are typically reluctant to cooperate with police investigations. These communities seem to have good reason to not cooperate with police. According to the SPVM’s own statistics, approximately 30 per cent of young black men in the Montreal North borough were subject to police identity checks between 2006 and 2007, while only a mere five to six per cent of young white men were. Furthermore, the proposed civilian oversight bureau will only investigate police violence. Other forms of police abuse, like racial profiling – a common practice of the SPVM – will not fall under the purview of the proposed bureau. This year, we have seen the SPVM continue to regularly abuse its power and commit acts of police brutality. We must stop these abuses, and the first step to doing that is to independently and thoroughly investigate every instance of police brutality and misconduct.
coordinating editor
Joan Moses
coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor
Henry Gass news editors
Queen Arsem-O’Malley Erin Hudson Jessica Lukawiecki features editor
Eric Andrew-Gee commentary&compendium! editor
Zachary Lewsen culture editors
Christina Colizza Fabien Maltais-Bayda
science+technology editor
Shannon Palus
health&education editor
Peter Shyba sports editor
Andra Cernavskis photo editor
Victor Tangermann illustrations editor
Amina Batyreva production&design editors
Alyssa Favreau Rebecca Katzman copy editor
James Farr web editor
Jane Gatensby le délit
Anabel Cossette Civitella rec@delitfrancais.com cover design
Nicolas Quiazua Contributors Niko Block, Jacqueline Brandon, Edna Chan, Hera Chan, Oles Chepesiuk, Laurent Bastien Corbeil, Evan Dent, Lola Duffort, Sam Gregory, Emily Jensen, Steve Eldon Kerr, Msija Klapper, Victoria Lessard, Kate McGillivray, Harmon Moon, Maggie Rebalski, Seble Samuel, Nastasha Sartore, Annie Shiel, Andreanne Stewart, Juan Camilo Velasquez
The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit organization whose membership includes all McGill undergraduates and most graduate students.
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Boris Shedov Letty Matteo Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard
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Anabel Cossette Civitella, Marie Catherine Ducharme, Alyssa Favreau, Joseph Henry, Olivia Messer, Sheehan Moore, Joan Moses, Farid Muttalib, Mai Anh Tran-Ho, Aaron Vansintjan (chair [at] dailypublications.org)
The Daily is proud to be a founding member of the Canadian University Press. All contents © 2012 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff. Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec. ISSN 1192-4608.
Errata In the article “The Visions of Robert Lindblad,” (Features, pages 8-9, March 19), it was incorrectly stated that Robert Lindblad was once a black belt in karate. It was also incorrectly stated that psychics other than Lindblad predicted that Samuel Maynard, a missing child, had died. Further, in the final paragraph, the photos referred to as “black and white” were in fact in colour. The Daily regrets the errors.
19
on
You’re a sharp young thing, a little bored in class, and eager to spread your fledgling journalistic wings. What to do? Why, become an editor at The McGill Daily, of course! And lucky you,
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
the staff of
THE MCGILL DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD
will elect the rest of the 2012/2013
We’re still looking to fill a few of our positions!
Because we hope you’re interested in joining the non-hierarchical team, here’s a quick intro guide on how to become a Daily editor, how the election process works, and how to get in touch with us.
The Basics Unlike most student newspapers, our editors are elected by Daily staffers rather than hired by a committee. And to run for an editorial position or to vote in the election, you must be Daily staff.
To be Daily staff, you must have written six articles, taken six photos, drawn six graphics, written two features, come in for three production nights, or some combination thereof. Even if you’re not staff yet, you’ve still got time before the election – email an editor to get involved.
THE POSITIONS COORDINATING EDITOR
COMMENTARY&COMPENDIUM EDITOR
UNFIT TO PRINT EDITOR
COMMENTARY&COMPENDIUM EDITOR
*
PRODUCTION&DESIGN EDITOR
COPY EDITOR
*
ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR
PRODUCTION&DESIGN EDITOR
*
CULTURE EDITOR
WEB EDITOR
CULTURE EDITOR
PHOTO EDITOR
*
NEWS EDITOR
FEATURES EDITOR
NEWS EDITOR
SCI+TECH EDITOR
NEWS EDITOR
SPORTS EDITOR
* These are the positions that still need filling CANDIDATE STATEMENT
CANDIDATE RUNDOWN
ELECTIONS
APRIL
APRIL
APRIL
11:59 p.m. Submit a one-page statement to coordinating @mcgilldaily.com
*
For more information on individual positions, visit mcgilldaily.com/aboutus to send the current editors an email. You can also stop by The Daily’s office, located in Shatner B-24, any time.
HEALTH&ED EDITOR
COORDINATING NEWS EDITOR
8
Twenty editors share equal voting rights on editorials, and work together to produce two newspapers per week. Each editor recieves a small monthly honorarium.
10 6:00 p.m.
All staffers who would like to vote in the election must attend the rundown
12
6:00 p.m.
Candidates will interview in front of all voters at the election
DATE & DEADLINES The Daily requires all candidates to submit a one-page application. It can be anything you want: your qualifications, why you’d be good for the job, or even a page of photos or artwork. Email your application to coordinating@mcgilldaily.com by 11:59 p.m. on April 8. The candidate rundown takes place April 10 at 6:00 p.m., and the election takes place April 12 at 6:00 p.m.
MORE INFO This is intended only as a brief introduction – to learn more, swing by our office (Shatner B-24), or visit our web site.