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News

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

3

Finance students cramped for career options Cyclical market slump shrinks recruiting scope on university campuses Alison Withers The McGill Daily

W

ith markets in crisis, banks are scaling back their hiring worldwide, leaving finance students with fewer career options.

According to David Edwards, director of Career Services at Queen’s School of Business, banks recruiting on campus are posting fewer positions this year.

“In the big picture, all the national banks came back and continued to post the same sort of jobs,” Edwards said. “But some have indicated that they’re hiring for a third less positions this year.”

At Queen’s, as at most Canadian universities, finance students represent the largest percentage of hires within the Faculty of Management.

Many graduates rely on bank recruitment sessions to secure interviews leading to job offers.

McGill students are feeling the crunch as well, as the McGill Finance Ambassadors (MFA), a student-run club which routinely takes finance students on banking tours to big finance centres to help students find jobs, has cancelled its January banking tour to London.

“Banks were laughing at us when we called them to see if we should come by,” said Clovis Couasnon, chairman of MFA. Couasnon cited similar problems at Harvard and Princeton, where their traditional banking tours to Wall Street have also been cancelled.

He added that while banks are still actively publicizing on campus, they won’t necessarily hire as many students.

“It’s part of their image: they don’t want to look like they’re not hiring,” he said. “They’re still doing interviews [with prospective hires] because they’re hoping they’ll meet a genius.”

But according to Marie-José Beaudin, executive director of Career Services for the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill, finance graduates in future years may be scrambling for fewer positions than the 2009-2010 class. As recruiters scheduled this year’s visits to Canadian campuses before the markets crashed, many graduates have already had offers extended.

“I’m more concerned that those

people who are going to be affected are those with internships this summer – and maybe also in a year from now,” said Beaudin.

Yet Linda Gully, director of Bachelor’s of Commerce Career Services at Sauder School of Business at UBC, noticed that students – especially those graduating – were growing concerned.

“Students are realizing that they might have to go to plan B if plan A doesn’t work out,” Gully said.

“They’re looking at alternative ways to enter the finance industry, [but] they’re keeping up their networks.”

But Beaudin remained certain that the current hiring downturn was only part of a market trend.

“This is a cyclical situation. If students change the direction of their lives, it’s because they’re not passionate enough,” she said. “There’s always place at every level for very good students.”

According to Gully, the Canadian banking system has certain safeguards that will protect it from feeling the impact of hiring cuts as intensely as the U.S. “We have a much different, and more solid banking system,” said Gully. “But we’re certainly not going to be immune [to effects from U.S. markets.]”

The big five Canadian banks – CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, TD, and BMO – are likely to maintain a steady level of hiring, even as the economy slows, to meet Canadians’ daily banking needs. But investment banking, much of which occurs in larger banks in Canada, is more likely to take a precipitous fall since it is highly sensitive to the market effects.

Edwards noted, however, that banks will still be cautious with their hiring.

“There hasn’t been the same massive layoffs,” he said. “But they’re playing very conservatively while going forward.”

All three career directors recommended that students continue to develop strong quantitative skills by pursuing further education and certification, and diversifying their interests to open up alternative employment sectors.

Beaudin stressed that passionate students may need to compromise on salary figures or accept working in their second-choice position until things level-out.

“For the students that are graduating right now, it might look very gloomy. But they have to remember that they have lots of assets,” added Beaudin. “This is what employers are looking for, regardless of the timing.”

Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily

Cat lovers in the borough north-east of the Plateau can’t welcome more than three kittens into their homes.

Rosemont borough institutes a three-cat limit Animal shelters say cat population is better controlled by neutering and spaying

Yi Ariel Liu News Writer

I

n an attempt to curb the number of cats on the streets, the borough of Rosemont–La PetitePatrie instigated a new cat-control ordinance which limits households to three cats total, with additional fines imposed on those feeding strays.

Serge Fortin, the communication officer for the borough, explained that officials will go through a home inspection if they receive filed complaints from the neighbours, but will not actively seek out offenders. Those in violation will receive a warning, followed by fines that range from $100, plus $45 in court fees, to $300, plus

$128 in court fees. The by-law follows similar ones instated in the borough of St. Laurent, and neighbourhoods in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Halifax.

Cities overpopulated with cats are unhealthy for both animals and people. Pathogens found in cat feces can cause swollen lymph nodes or muscle pains.

According to Alanna Devine, acting executive director of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Montreal (SPCA), while cats are reaching high numbers in individual households, the city should seek solutions alternative to the ordinance.

“We’re really overwhelmed with cats,” Devine said, suggesting the

sterilization of feral and domestic cats – which is done at no cost during monthly clinics with Steri-Animal.

Organizations like Alley Cat Rescue, based in Maryland, also take this approach, explaining that sterilization will stop reproduction, whereas limiting the number of household pets will not.

Devine explained that killing off the population of cats is not beneficial.

“Mass murder is not the solution,” she said. “In the U.S., some cities have undertaken this method and have found that not only is the method unethical, it is also ineffective; feral cats from other areas eventually replace the dead cats’ territories.”

Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie is northeast of the Plateau-Mont-Royal area.

Alumni Association

The Faculty of Arts presents

in collaboration with INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SERVICES cordially invites all International Students to an

A Maxwell Cummings Lecture

Architecture, Literature, and the Search for Canadian Identity D.M.R. Bentley Professor of English The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario D.M.R. Bentley, Distinguished University Professor and Carl F. Klinck Professor in Canadian Literature at the University of Western Ontario, is founding editor of the scholarly journal Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, now in its fourth decade, and of the associated Canadian Poetry Press editions of Canadian poetry and literary documents. His major publications include The Gay]Grey Moose: Essays on the Ecologies and Mythologies of Canadian Poetry, 1690-1990, Mimic Fires: Accounts of Early Long Poems on Canada, The Confederation Group of Canadian Poets, 1880-1897, and Mnemographia Canadensis: Essays on Memory, Community, and Environment in Canada. Other major scholarly works, including Canadian Architexts: Literature and Architecture in Canada, 1759-2005, have been published on the Canadian Poetry website, a major research resource for the study of Canadian poetry. Dr. Bentley has also been an ardent and eloquent spokesman for humanities research and teaching, and for their synergy, on many university, inter-university, provincial, and federal government committees and councils.

Thursday, November 27, 2008 6:00 pm Reception to follow

It’s

FREE!

FREE admission, FREE skate rental and refreshments!

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26th 2008, 7:30 PM to 10:00 PM at The Atrium, Le 1000 de la Gauchetière Come on out and celebrate the holidays.

Fun times with friends will definitely recharge your batteries!

Stephen Leacock Building, Room 232 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal QC

Hurry and Sign up now! SPOTS ARE LIMITED! REGISTRATION ENDS ON TUESDAY NOV. 25th

For more information, contact the Department of English Tel: (514) 398-6550 Email: brian.trehearne@mcgill.ca

International students MUST REGISTER IN PERSON and present their McGill International Health Insurance (IHI) card at:

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SERVICES (ISS) William and Mary Brown Student Services Bldg., 3600 McTavish St., Suite 3215 Monday – Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Université d’Ottawa

University of Ottawa

When it comes to planning our future, we often think in general terms.

Does being a generalist mean we can keep a broad perspective? Or will becoming a specialist allow us to focus on our talents and strengths?

seektoknow.ca

News

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

5

Ontario enforces severe restrictions on carpooling Proposed legislation would facilitate ridesharing Jeff Bishku-Aykul The McGill Daily

A

web site that organizes carpooling in Ontario has been ordered to pay $11,337 for facilitating a $60 trip from Toronto to Montreal, under a law that could change with new legislation proposed by the Ontario Government.

On November 5 the Ontario Highway Transport Board – a quasijudicial administrative tribunal – ordered PickupPal to pay TrentwayWagar, a subsidiary of inter-city bus company Canada Coach, $8,500 and $2,837 to the Board for “arrang[ing] the transportation of passengers in public vehicles by persons that are not holders of an operating licence.”

The Board decided that the Ontario- and Barbados-based company’s services did not fall under the definition of carpooling – strictly defined as travelling to and from home and work, with the same people each time, inside a municipal boundary, and with payment made no more frequently than weekly – because they provided “intercity service” in which “payment is made for each individual trip,” among other reasons.

Eric Dewhirst, co-founder of PickupPal, believed that while compensation is something that is privately sorted out by those who use his service, it was never the goal of his company to create a black market bus service. “[Trentway-Wagar has] bus routes from Toronto to Montreal. The issue

Nicole Buchanan/ The McGill Daily

An Ontario bus company set up a sting operation which led to fining a web site that arranged carpools. is that if people are riding together they are not taking the bus,” said Dewhirst. “What Trentway-Wagar is trying to do and has done in the past is use the definition of ‘carpool’ to shut down organizations such as ourselves.”

Trentway-Wagar hired a private investigator to arrange a ride through PickupPal, who organized the $60 trip that led to the fine.

PickupPal, which operates in 104

countries, allows people to arrange carpools – like other online bulletin boards such as Craigslist, also mentioned in the ruling as facilitating “illegal commercial ventures” – but does not operate any cars. PickupPal makes money solely by advertising on its web site, dropping the seven per cent commission it charged at its inception.

Dewhirst resented Ontario’s carpool laws, which he claimed are some

of the strictest regulations anywhere in North America and Europe.

“We knew going in that this was the law. Our position was that if someone wants to take us on, then we’re just gonna fight. Because the laws have just got to change,” Dewhirst explained.

These regulations have troubled other Canadian carpooling services, such as Quebec-based Allo Stop, which was ordered to stop organizing shared rides to Ontario in 2000.

Dewhirst said that while he saw the grim fate of carpooling services in the past – five people died in 2000 when an unlicensed bus and minivan operator’s vehicle rolled over after hitting a median on Highway 401 between Montreal and Toronto, prompting Trentway-Wagar to hire private investigators and send out cease-and-desist letters – he felt that using the internet and blogs to publicize PickupPal’s situation could help urge Ontario to reform its carpooling laws.

Bill 118, a “green transportation” amendment to the current law, would allow car owners to drive up to nine passengers between locations once a day, and permit the driver to collect enough money to cover gas costs.

Dewhirst predicted that the law will be amended in four to six months, but regretted that time had to be spent dealing with legal issues. “[Trentway-Wagar] did not understand our model before they took us to court.... We believe that the bus company provides a vital service, so it would’ve been cool if they talked to us first, but they didn’t.”

Bob Nichols, media spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, would not comment on the current law. However, he indicated that it is the intention of Ontario’s government to make it easier to carpool.

“Certainly the government here is committed to environmentally friendly transportation options for people, and that’s why we’re proposing [Bill 118],” he said.

Tenant and landlord groups disagree on rent control’s success Olga Redko The McGill Daily

A

s increasingly colder nights send Montrealers home to warm apartments, a dispute between two rental groups calls into question the very principles of rent control that keep the city’s dwellings affordable.

According to the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ) – an organization that protects Quebec’s renters – about 450,000 renter households in the province spend over 30 per cent of their income on shelter costs, which is the limit for what the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) defines as affordable.

These claims are rejected, however, by the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ), a group that protects landlords.

Hans Brouillette, a media representative for CORPIQ, explained the average income of tenants across Quebec has by and large far outpaced the amount that tenants spend on rent.

“The cities of Montreal, Quebec, Gatineau, and Sherbrooke are all places where tenants earn much more money than the 30 per cent point,” Brouillette said. “Tenants pay much less [in Quebec] than anywhere else in the country.”

While statistics from the 2006 census show that 35.6 per cent of Quebec renter households spend more than the 30 per cent threshold – the second-lowest in Canada and only 0.1 percentage points above lastplace Manitoba – the census data also backs up RCLALQ, listing 448,840 renter households in Quebec spending over that limit.

Another point of contention is whether rent increases are fair. The Régie du logement, the Quebec Rental Board, recommends an average percentage by which a landlord can raise a tenant’s rent yearly, based on what kind of heating system is used. Under the 2008 guidelines, landlords are allowed to increase rent by 0.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent, with adjustments made for property tax increases and major renovations.

CORPIQ stated that rent increases from 2007 to 2008 have been in

accordance with the guidelines set out by the Régie. RCLALQ, however, found that in 2007 the average rent increases in Montreal stood at four per cent, well above the Régie guidelines. This has been seen as a failure on the part of the current provincial government and of the controls set in place by the Régie, as landlords can propose any increase; tenants must know that they can dispute the increase, and if they don’t it is affected automatically.

Brouillette again refused to accept RCLALQ’s numbers, however, explaining that the guidelines created by the Régie do not fully take into account the building-specific costs paid by landlords, including taxes and renovations. Furthermore, he asserted that the numbers drawn up by RCLALQ came from the group’s own survey, which CORPIQ does not find to be reliable.

“All the numbers we have come from the CMHC or from Statistics Canada,” Brouillette said. “According to the CMHC, the average rent increase in 2007 was 2.7 per cent.... We don’t have the numbers for 2008 yet.”

He asserted that when actual

landlords’ expenditures are taken into account, rises in rent are at the level that they should be.

The debate between the two organizations may be moot, however, since the Régie du logement claims not to be influenced by the statistics presented by either group. According to Jean-Pierre LeBlanc, a Régie representative, the organization independently uses Statistics Canada and the CMHC to calculate recommended yearly rental increases, as stated in Quebec law. “[The organizations] may give suggestions and often they have meetings with the rental board where they will ask for what they want,” LeBlanc explained, “but it’s not the Régie who changes the law, it’s the government.

The Régie is there to see that the law is respected by everyone.”

He added that both tenants and landlords have the right to approach the Régie with complaints about apartment leases, since the Régie acts as an independent tribunal that makes final decisions about the legality of rent increases. Furthermore, Brouillette was quick to point out that all tenants in Montreal have the

right to refuse rental increases by their landlords without being evicted. Tenants must fill out a complaint to the Régie and wait on a decision. “[RCLALQ] say[s] that the rent increase is higher than what the Régie recommends, but if it is higher, why don’t tenants just refuse the rent increase asked by their owner?” he said. “Of course they will win if the rent increase is above what it should be.”

Yet many tenants – particularly students new to Montreal – are unaware of their rights to refuse a rental increase; furthermore, it can take a long time for the rental board to hear a case. As such, many tenants simply accept rental increases, even if they are much higher than recommended.

Despite these contested issues, however, LeBlanc seemed certain that the Régie and its current system of issuing rent control recommendations are here to stay.

“The rent control that is presently legally issued by the Régie, I think it would continue,” he said. “For the near future, it’s sure that the Régie is still there.”

RCLALQ could not be reached for comment.

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University of Ottawa

Master’s in public and international afairs Quebec Election Candidate Meet and Greet Wednesday, November 26th 4-6 PM Thomson House Restaurant Come and chat with local candidates in the upcoming elections. All the political parties have been invited to send candidates from the ridings that are close to McGill, as well as youth candidates. Come meet them, and see where they stand on the issues!

Light refreshments will be served.

It starts here.

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Your 2008 card expires when the New Year rings in!

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Elections are December 2

2 EDITORIAL

The Daily’s guide to responsible globetrotting Travellers come home on flights with bags stuffed with souvenirs and heads spinning with memories of beauty and mishaps. But travelling isn’t just about what you take away, it’s also about what you leave behind. Your presence for two weeks in an exotic locale like the Philippines, Zanzibar, or Cartagena can easily contribute to the environmental, social, and financial devastation the international tourism industry is bringing to the developing world. If you take your sunburned head out of the sand, though, your vacation can become a positive force in assuaging global inequalities.

ONE Watch what you waste

Your vacation will leave an environmental footprint on your destination for years to come, but you can reduce the impact.

Western travellers on stretches of beach in the developing world guzzle gallons of bottled water because tap water will make them sick. A disturbing number of bottles ultimately end up in the ocean, leaving beaches devastated by sprawling plastic trash that takes 500 years to decompose. Bottles also pose damage to sea animals, who, thrown off by the buoyancy of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, mistake it for food.

Pack your own MSR Miox water purifier to make tap water safe so you can save on bottles, ensuring the sand on that Thai beach you whiled away three weeks on will be still be white five years from now.

TWO Keep it local

When travelling in the developing world, find out who’s running the restaurants you eat in, the tours you take, the buses you ride on, and the hotels you sleep in. Travelling to the developing world can exacerbate global dynamics of oppression. With developing nations severely in debt, glitzy hotels and five-star resorts are often financed by foreign capital. UN research suggested foreign investors are reaping the majority of tourism profits.

NGOs have popped up around the world in response to the extraction of tourist dollars from the developing world, and you should support them. Friends, a Cambodian NGO, runs restaurants for tourists staffed by street kids training as restaurant managers, cooks, and waiters. Profits from the restaurants are pumped directly back to Friends’s programs for street kids that include AIDS awareness, drug prevention, and transitional homes.

In the developing world, where unemployment rates soar, families make their way by performing jobs in the informal economy. Lacking the capital to start a small business, developing world entrepreneurs try to make ends meet by giving tours, taxiing tourists around, and selling wares. While Frommer’s Guide and Lonely Planet advise against it, trusting informal business people will afford you some of your most memorable travel experiences.

THREE Let go of luxury

In the developing world, luxury channels resources to the rich, making them even more scarce for the poor. According to an October 27 Al Jazeera English report, because of the development of tourist golf resorts in Bali, it has become increasingly difficult for inland villagers to secure water for cooking, bathing, and drinking. Village families walk up to three kilometres to get a single bucket of water. Pumping water from the ground up, Balinese resorts use 3,000 litres of water daily to fill pools, ensure tourists can rinse the salt water out of their hair with a high-pressure nozzle, and water golf course grass.

In Chuck Thompson’s book, Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer, he admits hating travelling to the Caribbean because of the gross wealth inequalities all-inclusive resorts have introduced to the area.

After a resort owner treats himself to an extravagant five-course meal on a man-made island in an inground pool, he and his travel companion see the real side of the Dominican Republic when they cross the island. Seeing corrugated huts in road-side villages puts Thompson off the Caribbean. “Pockets of extravagance in the midst of widespread destitution depress me. If you’re selling me luxury, give me luxury, not a reminder that my comfort comes at the expense of someone else’s poverty,” he writes.

Like everything else, travel is political. So get on the side that helps, not the one that gulps.

4

Choose your own adventure Montreal offers myriad possibilities for the urban explorer

Laura Anderson

M

y haphazard introduction into the wonderful world of urban exploration began with one very rickety staircase. Glancing behind me, I managed to catch the last rays of daylight disappearing into the distance as I descended into an unfamiliar darkness. At first, my immersion into this eerie setting triggered panic.

Threatening to engulf me was the kind of darkness, that as a city girl, I rarely get to experience. Lucky for me, I had up-and-coming urban exploration photographer, Controleman to show me the ropes.

Urban exploration, to a borrow a phrase from Toronto-based zine Infiltration, involves “going places you’re not supposed to go,” a kind of behind-the-scenes-tour of our cit-

ies that can include anything from abandoned factories, to train tunnels, to storm drains, or really any other aspect of a city’s structure that attracts the keen eye or the curious spirit. What makes urban exploration unique from plain old trespassing is the philosophy behind it. Urban exploration is not done with any malicious intent. Most urban explorers abide by a kind of code of ethics, including such tenets as not stealing, vandalizing, or otherwise altering the spaces they explore. As Controleman muses, “If you’re going to get caught… better with a camera than a crowbar.”

Rather than being destructive, the goal is to gain an appreciation of the hidden spaces that surround us and to momentarily depart from the safe, sanitized attractions that represent

the standard forms of entertainment in our society.

Urban exploration is no new phenomenon – as long as city infrastructure has existed there have been people exploring it. However, the hobby has seen a recent explosion over the last two decades. The growth of the Internet has allowed these groups and individuals to meet online and exchange everything from photographs to tips. One of the biggest forums, Urban Exploration Resource boasts over 26,000 members.

Prior to our meeting, I had become acquainted with Controleman’s stunning photography, which documents the underground (in same cases literally) world of Montreal. To my surprise, I found myself meeting someone my age, a student of photogra-

phy at UQAM, by his own claim still only on the verge of his professional career. “If we keep it to the dictionary definition, I’d have to be paid [for urban exploration to be considered professional] so it’s still just for fun,” he explains.

Urban exploration as a hobby by definition relies on a certain level of secrecy in order to be sustainable. It is for this reason that explorers adopt fake names, and many shy away from the media spotlight or are even resentful toward it. Although not inherently harmful, many aspects of urban exploration are against the law, meaning that those who practice it place high value on anonymity.

Publicity can make it harder for urban explorers to do what they love most – gain access to Montreal’s most off-

limit spaces. Public attention could have the undesired effect of closing doors indefinitely. “More people are doing it, getting caught. It makes a difference,” Controleman admits.

Urban exploration is about leaving spaces as you found them, preserving the experience for future explorers to experience what you have.

Media attention presents an obstacle to this goal.

You can understand my surprise then, when within half an hour of meeting one of Montreal’s resident expert explorers, I was offered a tour of one of the city’s most frequented urban exploration spots, the abandoned O’Keefe brewery. Once inside, we maneuvered through the dark basement passageway, navigating using only the light of a small pocket

5

Courtesy of Controleman

flashlight, and eventually re-emerged into a day-lit space, one of the abandoned factory’s main rooms. My beginner’s nervousness largely subsided as we proceeded to move through an array of corridors, stairways, and other grand rooms. It was soon replaced with an unmistakable sense of awe. The experience was indescribably surreal. I couldn’t get over the fact that not so long before, the building had been teeming with life, and had now simply been left to rot. Apart from large pieces of equipment there were offices left more or less intact, an assortment of papers scattered on desk, just as they had been years ago before their abandonment.

I quickly came to understand the appeal that abandoned spaces held for photographers, but I asked

myself, “is the reward worth the risk?” Clearly, urban exploration carries with it potential for danger. “Use your head. If you don’t feel safe, don’t do it. Always be cautious,” advises Controleman.

In the exploration of environments that in many cases are not intended for human activity, the reward of the experience is earned with a certain risk factor: abandoned buildings often have unsafe floors, entrapment hazards, and contain dangerous chemicals. Sure enough, during the O’Keefe venture, my makeshift tour guide pointed to a rather large pile of sponge-like material sitting in the middle of the room, “See that? That’s asbestos.” Oh, good.

Apart from debatably getting the black lung, I had to dodge a number

of missing steps, broken glass, and other hazards. The level of danger would presumably increase with more challenging, less user-friendly exploration locations. Urban exploration is kind of akin to those chooseyour-own adventure books that were around when we were kids – the type of experience you obtain is totally up to you. The adventure itself is an elaborate game of risk-and-reward.

There is a lesson for all city-dwellers to be taken from the principals of urban exploration. Far from being a series of dull, grid-like buildings, our urban environment presents all who possess curiosity for their surroundings – and a penchant for adventure – with an undiscovered world of possibility. All you need to do is take a closer look.

6

Life under fluorescent lights

T

hirty years ago, being a student leader came with an added perk – an apartment on the fourth floor of the Shatner building.

SSMU executives spent their days on campus and in offices on the ground floor; late at night, they climbed the narrow staircase to the residence level. There are several legends of late night deals going down in the proverbial back room, and it’s rumoured that the apartments were converted into office space in the late seventies after the SSMU president crossed a boundary that struck a personal chord with the principal.

It is distressing that a student would ever consider the opportunity to spend most of his time in one place a benefit, especially when that place was the Shatner building – a concrete block, built in the form of a nuclear fallout shelter. Nevertheless, Daily editors and SSMU execs still spend at least 30 hours a week within the building’s walls, in addition to the time spent doing normal things on campus, like going to class.

Even for students not bound to campus offices, staying at school until midnight or even 2:45 in the morning (when the Schulich library closes) is a common occurrence. Given the disproportionate amount of time students spend at school, I decided to see how much more effort it would take to spend one entire school week on McGill’s downtown campus: from 9 a.m. on Monday through to 9 p.m. on Friday. I set only a few rules – I would not leave McGill property, I would follow all of the University’s building regulations, and I would sleep in a different location each of the four nights.

I arrived Monday morning with a backpack full of books and clothing, and a bag of snacks to get me through the week. I wouldn’t be able to leave campus to grab food, so I smuggled in a

Will Vanderbilt bears the effects of 108 consecutive hours on campus Photos by Chase Moser / The McGill Daily

box of granola, some instant oatmeal, and some Hershey’s kisses for tough times. I dropped everything off in the Daily’s office – storing things there is a fringe benefit of editor-ship – and began my adventure.

McGill building regulations stipulate that all normal academic areas close at 11 p.m., but afterward, students in almost every faculty have access to some kind of 24-hour study space. An Arts student ID card beeps into two study rooms on the south side of Leacock, as well as the Ferrier building’s after-hours computer lab and lounge, while a Science card lets students into the entire Burnside complex. Engineers have access to the McConnell and Trottier buildings. Throughout the week, I relied on my Arts & Science ID card and those of a few friends, to gain access to some of these buildings.

Falling into even a half-decent sleep in any public space at McGill is nearly impossible. During my four nights on campus, the constant threat of being woken by a guard, porter, or fellow student kept me from feeling any sense of security. That prospect instilled a sense of fear, so great that I chose to force myself to stay awake and read rather than face the prospect of being apprehended by a guard and told to go home. In addition, people stayed awake nearly every night doing actual work until at least 3 a.m., and sometimes until four or five in the morning. Intentionally falling asleep while classmates were studying felt wrong: if they were awake and still working, shouldn’t I be as well? Instead of trying to sleep, I kept myself awake with coffee and school assignments, waiting anxiously for my peers to go home so that I could nap in peace.

Once alone, I faced another set of problems.

None of the spaces, including faculty lounges

and study areas, have accessible light switches.

Where there is furniture, it feels as though it was designed to keep students awake, with thin padding and hard, tall backs. In the Burnside basement, chairs can be arranged into a bed-like shapes, but the heat is set at unbearably high levels. Combined, these factors severely limited my ability to get any good sleep.

But catching a few hours here and there seemed to be just enough to get me through the first two nights. I’d spend two hours in the Leacock study rooms, get creeped out by the eerie solitude, move to the Arts lounge on the second floor of Ferrier. At seven o’clock, when most of McGill’s buildings open, I’d walk across an eerily deserted lower campus to the Shatner building, which has tons of dimly-lit couch space available during normal school hours, and no McGill security guards to wake me up.

Later in the week, I grew much more comfortable with my lack of private space. I managed to sleep for four straight hours on Wednesday night, which was the longest single period of rest I experienced all week. But by Friday, I was on an incredibly short rope – I couldn’t think straight, and staying alert in class was a chore. I was unshaven, smelly, and out of chocolate. My walk home felt surreal, and once there, I fell immediately into the deep, dark abyss of my bed. I slept until four the next afternoon.

It is possible to live on campus. But I wouldn’t recommend it. The University changes when the sun goes down. The frenetic daily activity vanishes, and along with it, the need to make random conversation, or say hi to a stranger. Even when people are around, you’re only aware of a pervasive loneliness. There is no contact – only a feeling of being alone.

7

TROTTIER Who has access: Engineering and Computer Science students Seating: Many couches on the first two floors, and swivel chairs in the upstairs computer labs Light: Flourescent bulbs As one of the newer buildings on campus, Trottier is the only place you can go late at night without soviet-bloc architecture. Unfortunately, that also means it has floor-to-ceiling windows. Large, cushy couches dot the first two floors, but the nearby windows and long, lit-up walking path with 24-hour security patrol take any plans for sleeping there long-term off the table. Upstairs, computers line the walls, and engineers and Computer Science students have been known to spend hours grueling away at lines of code. Legend has it that a few weekends every year, a massive group of melanin challenged youths gather upon the labs for a massive gaming rave.

BURNSIDE Who has access: Science Students Seating: Moveable couch sets, and classroom-like swivel chairs.

Light: A mix of yellow spotlights and white fluorescent units

FERRIER

Burnside is a mecca for dreary-eyed science students who need a place to study late into the night. Massive computer labs are open all hours, with quasi-free printing, and those who get bored can ride the elevator up and down the 13 floors. When you’re tired of that, there are a bunch of couch segments, which can be arranged into a shape that resembles a bed. Failing that, head to one of the faculty lounges on the upper floors (accessible only with a door combination). I ended up here two of my four nights, because it’s a hold steady at three in the morning when you’re tired and need a place to lay.

Who has access: Arts Students, B.A&Sc. students Seating: A table, and some large leather chairs Light: White fluorescent bulbs At the very end of a winding hallway on the second floor of the Ferrier building is an awkwardly-shaped room designated as the “Arts Lounge.” It has a microwave, a few vending machines, and a blue-and-gold-checkered floor. Oh, and a giant wall of windows onto the hallway. I got two hours of shut-eye here one night, but couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if a security guard walked down the hallway on his rounds. Also, there’s a light switch in the far corner.... I only found it on my way out of the building at 7 a.m. There’s a huge 24-hour computer lab on the third floor, as well.

LEACOCK Who has access: Arts Students, B.A.&Sc. students Seating: Two bunker-like study rooms with tall chairs and cushy benches Light: Bright white flourescent bulbs, and too many of them While the Leacock building is full of studying nooks, two large gates are closed at 11 p.m.-, and the only spots left are in the glass-walled, bright coloured rooms on the ground floor. The far, green room has some soft dinerstyle booths to sit at, but otherwise, the seating is hard, plastic, and uncomfortably tall. I started my first night there, but moved on around 2 a.m., distracted by another student who refused to stop working, and go home.

10

The places you go when you don’t got the dough Revisiting travel memories to understand why we record what we do Suzie Philippot

T

imes are tough right now. I was considering going into Travel Cuts to see if I could find a good deal on a last minute vacation over the upcoming break, but then I realized the only deal I could make was to cut travel out of my economic recession budget altogether. After feeling sorry for myself at the sheer irony of the neon sign glaring above me, I suddenly smelled the sunscreen in my SPF 15 moisturizer and was instantly transported back to Australia, 1991. “That’s some consolation,” I thought to myself.

Thankfully, I have an all-inclusive trip I know I can always book with no cancellation fee, to a nice little outof-the-way place called memory lane.

Oh, the places I have been…

There are not that many places I’ve been, really – but as an only child, I’ve been lucky to be a frequent carry-on traveller with my retired dad, and mom. The biggest jaunt we’ve been on was when I was four, and we made a six-month trip around the South Pacific, through New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, and Hawaii.

There was snorkeling with fish bigger than I, between islands off Indonesia that don’t exist anymore due to the tsunami. There were the

frequent trips I made onto stages to perform whether I was invited or not, generally in some sort of costume that involved a coconut bra. And then there was one interesting episode that involved me escaping the clutches of a large, Fijian daycare supervisor named Kitty, to run to the local bar where my parents were playing bingo and send them over two surprise beers, charged to our account. I was a precocious child.

I’ve tagged along on bus trips where I’ve strolled through beer parlors and red light districts with a party that has the average age of 45.

For some reason, trips with my dad always include vineyards and graveyards, so I’ve tasted my fair share of Merlot and seen my fill of mausoleums. All in all, you could say my trip down memory lane is a nice stroll on the sunny side-street of a retirement community, coloured with piquant moments of intrigue and retrospectively reckless acts, like my father holding me out the window of a rented car to feed a granola bar to a wild kangaroo.

But, marsupial encounters aside, nowadays when I wander into my recollections of adventures past, with my fourth year university stu-

dent self-consciousness, I can’t help but question my memories in relation to the travels I took. How do the details of what I recall from a trip shape my representation of that place when I talk about it now?

Why is what we remember important? And if I were the one writing the travel program/book/blog, how would my experiences shape those of someone else watching or reading my story?

It is true that travel stories are going to be inevitably biased. When I asked my mom about our trip through the South Pacific, she said she remembers that when we went to an ANZAC Day celebration in Australia, we ended up sitting in a section that was informally segregated between aboriginal and European Australians, and that we hadn’t even registered the difference. An aboriginal family and our family had shared picnics and played games all day, and my mom said when she finally saw how segregated the area had been, she was glad she had had the chance to change it.

I didn’t register details like that when I was four, and there are a lot of things that all people can miss out on when they relate their travel memo-

ries. When a cousin was recently gushing about all of the extreme sports and surfing he got to do in New Zealand over the past year, all I could do was smile and nod when I thought about my own memories of the place. Somehow, my four-yearold brain only recorded two things: wind and sheep. Neither of us had experienced the place in the way that someone who once lived there might have.

But the difference in perspectives – listening to others’ experiences, comparing them to your own, and keeping those in mind to contrast your own experience if you get to travel there someday – is what makes the exchange of those stories so valuable. I’m feeling optimistic about this fact, especially right now, especially in contrast to my pessimistic bank statement.

So, while I can’t take a trip and make memories for myself at this point, I do value being able to read the anecdotes of travelogue writers like Bill Bryson, or watch a guy dance badly all around the world, like Matt of “Where the Hell is Matt?” fame (wherethehellismatt.com),

or listen to Franz Wisner, a man who got dumped on his wedding day and decided to take a two-year, 53-country honeymoon with his brother instead, as told in Honeymoon with My Brother. And then I could always read my own travel journal from the Euro Trip I took after graduating high school – if I can get around the intricately generic descriptions of European men and my overuse of the word “fab.”

Aaron Vansintjan / The McGill Daily

Totally bilingue: French immersion outside the classroom Madeline Coleman

M

y well-meaning anglophone parents enrolled me in a French immersion elementary school where my classmates and I mastered the art of not speaking French. Hapless teachers told us we could only speak English if we wanted to ask how to say something en français. Big mistake.

“Comment est-ce qu’on dit ‘can I go to the washroom?’”

“Comment est-ce qu’on dit ‘the answer is 24?’”

Our teacher would sigh and tell us comment on le dit. We would nod, say, “d’accord,” then resume our conversation in English.

I never thought I’d move to Quebec.

Imagine my shock when I came to my senses behind the counter of a Second Cup in Montreal and found myself struggling to explain the contents of a brioche to a disdainful Swiss tourist – en franglais, bien sur.

I was born and raised in Vancouver.

My move to Montreal was executed to the tune of well-wishers reassuring me I “wouldn’t even need to speak French at all.” “It’s okay, because I’m almost fluent anyway,” I replied again and again.

Nine months and an insular residence experience later, I was being

force-fed my words in the form of stale café pastries. Determined to live in Montreal year-round, I had ventured out to find myself a job. I was looking for work in a coffee shop.

Describing beverages and reading numbers off the cash display – how hard could it be?

The one and only interview I secured with my (entirely in English) CV was at the Second Cup by Place des Arts downtown. It was a disaster.

My resolve dissolved like biscotti into lukewarm coffee the second the manager decided to conduct the interview in French. In a state of anxiety so acute as to provoke an out-of-body experience, I watched my brainless body stumble through French like it had never spoken it in its life.

By the end of it, an enormous smile was pasted to the front of my flushed face. I looked mildly hysterical. The manager leaned forward and fixed me with a pitying look.

“To be honest, your French is really not very good.” He gestured towards the employees chatting behind the counter. “Some of the people who work here don’t even speak English.

And I don’t think you’d be able to work in a francophone environment.”

I nodded dumbly, mortified, already resigning myself to telemarketer

work. Instead of delivering the final coup de grâce, however, the manager took pity on me. “There’s another Second Cup in Phillips Square, a few blocks west of here. It’s more English.

I’ll ask the manager if he needs someone.”

To my astonishment, I was hired at the Phillips Square location two weeks later. My hysterical interview smile must have made me seem friendly instead of panicked.

Customer service managers find it hard to resist smiling young girls.

Every anglo asshole complaining about immigrants not speaking English should be sentenced to a week working at a coffee shop in Quebec.

It’s the perfect place for a good humbling. Despite the manager’s insistence that I wouldn’t be able to work at his café, I was brought back there for my training. My coworkers were mostly friendly and tolerant, aside from a glaring Quebecoise or two. I had never worked in a café before, and had no idea what I was doing. I sentence any xenophobeto do exactly what I had to: complete their first week of training during Jazz Fest.

Jazz Fest goes down at Place des Arts.

Where was I working? Place des Arts.

Trial by fire.

The line consistently snaked out

the door, and I was the wrench in the gears of the counter operations.

I never went to Second Cup before working there, so I didn’t know the menu at all, nevermind in French.

I could barely make head or tail of the Quebecois accent. Yelling over the din, I asked customers to repeat themselves again and again and again, then gave them the wrong orders anyway.

“Il y a quoi dans ce gateau?”

“Pardon?”

“IL Y A QUOI DANS CE GATEAU?” “Uhhh…pardon?”

“LE GATEAU!” “[clears throat, clearly still not understanding] Uhhh...”

Post-Jazz Fest, it got better, as it always does. I took up permanent residence at the Phillips Square location, which was indeed more “English.” The traditional geographical divide in Montreal – anglo West and franco East – does still exist in a way. However, we did get enough French-speaking customers that my ego was constantly being battered, or at least slightly bruised.

To be honest, those first months were tough. I was living in a shitty apartment and still recovering from a break-up that had dragged my selfesteem down to levels not seen since

early adolescence. I was vulnerable as hell and still eating humble pie almost every time I worked a shift.

In retrospect, I had it easy. My coworkers were patient. The rent got paid. Most people in Montreal speak at least a little English, so I did have that to fall back on if the French completely eluded me. While I did, admittedly, feel a little sorry for myself, what I really took away from that summer was a greater empathy for those who have it a lot harder. If a Canadian with some knowledge of French struggles, how is it for someone coming from another continent?

A year and half later, I have a new job and can’t imagine not speaking French every day. I am definitely not fluent, but I’m working on that. My boyfriend is pure laine Quebecois, and we moved in together in July.

We speak a kind of pidgin, flowing smoothly in and out of languages mid-thought – Frenglish at its best.

I baby-talk our cat in French and whisper “hostie” when I’m frustrated.

We flip between the CBC and RadioCanada and irritably tell each other to wash “la fucking vaiselle.” It’s beautiful.

And when he says “Je t’aime,” I always understand the first time ‘round.

12

High in the Arctic To the Coronation Gulf by canoe Stephen Davis

12 Commentary

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

Yet more on Obamadness, bushmeat, St. Henri, and monster trucks

Letters You’re not fooling anyone Re: “Previewing Obamadness” | Commentary | Nov. 17 Oh please. You, the obviously hard-core Republican-wannabe that you are, moved to Canada to escape a Democratic infiltration of your beloved red, white, and blue United States of America? You moved to Canada to escape that “commie, pinko, lefty” Barack Obama and his wily, idealistic, Democratic Party?

You moved to Canada to escape to the epitome of what the Republicans are afraid of: some socialist, pushover, make-love-not-war nation?

I think, quite frankly, that you are lying through your teeth. Republicans do not migrate north to escape liberalism.

I also am of the opinion that the human race, collectively, is rather afraid of Anne Coulter, and though she may construe stories that keep Fox News talking for months, I don’t think anyone, in their right mind or not, would call her their “main woman,” unless that was immediately followed by an “April Fools.”

Since it is not April, and since there are so many inconsistencies in your very intriguing letter, I am forced to be of the opinion that this is just some weird Poli Sci project you are working on. Well congratulations, you got a response. Good luck on that when your whole assignment is based on an analogy to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Jordan Graham U0 Arts & Science

Feminism cheapened Re: “You can write, but you can’t think” | Commentary | Nov. 13 Any who have followed the letters written in response to The Daily’s recent article on “Meatogyny” may have spotted the bit of hate mail Mr. Kreitner dedicated to me. In it, he attacks my use of honour killings of Indian women in some of the most thoroughly vegetarian societies in the world as a counter-example to Iacurti’s hypothesis that meat eating is tied up with maleness and by that extension with misogyny. Kreitner informs me that examples from other cultures are off limits and are a product of my inability to think.

It is baffling to me that one could speak of feminism, a global struggle, in such parochial terms. It’s as though

he believes there exists some cognitive barrier between here and “the East” (where those mystical easterners live), and where there are no real women suffering under patriarchal society. To claim that an assertion regarding the fundamental nature of misogyny cannot be challenged using examples from other cultures is an undisguised appeal to ethnocentrism, a sentiment for which one ought to have no sympathy.

The real ugliness behind the arguments of both Kreitner and Iacurti is that they believe that there is “something sadistic in [male] nature, that…manifests itself in racism, environmental decay, war and class structure.” To say that environmentalism falls under feminist theory is to say that maleness is pollution. To conflate distinct issues with the word “meatogyny” is to cheapen the successes of feminism.

They don’t realize that in promoting the notion that social evils are a result of maleness, they help to lock a new generation of women into the same stereotypes of fragility, victimization, and Victorian helplessness that help to keep them subservient. Freedom includes freedom to do wrong, and one cannot advocate equality while curtailing our understanding of women to the good and angelic, as we would children.

sage to deliver to international students” (though he never says what the “message” is) and implies that he and the other students were forced to listen to it because they were not Canadian citizens.

The teacher who organized the event stated to me that the police officer never took his gun out, but Cahyadi goes so far as to label a presentation about policing in Montreal (and can even the most progressive society do away with policing completely?) as “militarism.”

Normally, when students are unhappy with some aspect of our curriculum, they come to speak with me, and I try to address their concerns. Cahyadi ignored this route and chose instead to air his personal complaint in a public forum. In doing so, he misrepresents both the nature of the activity he describes and the pedagogical integrity of the Special Intensive English program.

Santiago Perez U2 Sociology

Monday’s article “Bushmeat brings disease from African jungles” expressed an extremely poor understanding of the epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases.

In the recent past, we as a global community have encountered the emergence of many infectious diseases, including: Avian flu, Legionnaire’s disease, Lyme disease, HIV/ AIDS, Ebola virus, human “mad cow disease,” the Nipah virus, West Nile fever, and SARS. In their article, “Risk factors for human disease emergence,” authors Taylor et al. report that 75 per cent of such diseases are zoonotic – that is they were diseases found in animals (birds, cows, mice, etc.) and have adapted to cause infection in human hosts. The expansion of the habitat of the anopheles mosquito (malaria vector) due to climate change or ticks carrying Lyme disease for example, represents a far greater threat to human populations than the trade of “African bushmeat.”

Not only was the “science” reported in the article unsupported, but also communicated no understanding of the complex historical, cultural, economic, and political realities that lead to the spread of the HIV virus from central Africa to North America, and the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. By failing to discuss this history, the article served only to perpetuate harmful notions of “Africans” as inhumane killers and consumers of wildlife. Attributing the emergence of the HIV epidemic to the hunting and consumption of “bushmeat” is

You should’ve come to me before The Daily Re: “Intensive English classes should be gun-free” | Commentary | Nov. 17 As the Program Coordinator for McGill University’s Special Intensive English program, I was shocked by the lurid headline “Intensive English classes should b e gun-free,” as well as by the accompanying contents of Mr. Andri Cahyadi’s Hyde Park of November 17. Cahyadi turns an activity where a Montreal police officer comes to speak about his job to students learning English into a threatening presentation about 9-mm guns.

Our program invites many guest speakers from various professions and walks of life. These have included city councillor and human rights activist Warren Allmand, environmentalists, film-makers, representatives from various cultural communities in Montreal, and professional Irish story tellers. We are trying to expose our students to the diversity of Montreal life and culture. One afternoon actvity did indeed include a police officer who spoke about the different levels of policing Quebec and what his job involves.

While Cahyadi admits that many students were interested in the presentation and asked questions, he goes on to call the presentation an “intimidating and unnecessary mes-

Kevin Callahan Program Coordinator – Special Intensive English

Waterman, quit perpetuating harmful “African” notions!

Re: “Bushmeat brings disease from African jungles” | Sci+Tech | Nov. 17

reductionism at its worst.

International trade, migration, and travel are characteristics of today’s globalized world. With this comes increased human interaction and the potential for the spread of infectious diseases – however, it would be more accurate to describe fear and ignorance as drivers of diseases such as HIV/AIDS than the “bushmeat trade” out of the so-called “African jungle.” As far as I can tell, this article achieved nothing but to encourage of such fear and ignorance.

Jamie Lundine U3 African Studies & Honours Geography Director, McGill Global AIDS Coalition

Aditi says hi to Sarah!

Re: “Vice’s wisdom on the working class”; “Please stop laughing” | Commentary | Oct. 27; Nov. 20 Hi Sarah! I’m glad you appreciated my writing enough to shit on it multiple times. Keeping with the theme of my apparent naïveté, you have responded to my article (twice!) with just as ignorant an approach as the one you have accused me of perpetrating.

Being a student who has made the choice to live in St. Henri, I would think it likely that you admire its varied cultural amenities – I am surprised by your disdain for my willingness to point them out. As well, I felt I made a concerted effort to include at least a glimpse of the area’s roots and recent history in my piece. With this in mind, you must acknowledge that “Bursting the Bubble” is a series written for McGill students who are alien to Montreal’s geography and cultural context.

What I felt was an outsider’s objective description of a specific manifestation of the gentrification process, you have narrowly typified as “fetishizing poverty.” What’s more, had I written the same thing about a non-working-class neighbourhood, I’ll bet you wouldn’t have flipped two shits.

That Vice quote didn’t make me look like quite the dumb hipster you would insist I am. Your stereotyping is just as dangerous as the mode of thoughtless objectification of history, economy, and social history you are attempting to criticize. Rather than offering a valid piece of insight, you proceeded to “cobble together [80] words” in a thinly-veiled attempt at a clever insult. Nothing more than a cheap shot.

Thanks for the counter-productive criticism, fellow Urban Systems student! Maybe I’ll see you “on your fixie” as I continue on my supposedly ceaseless quest to track the growth of “the Creative Class” in St. Henri.

Aditi Ohri U1 Women’s Studies and Urban Systems

Dude, I was monsterly disappointed Re: “Appetite for destruction” | Commentary | Nov. 10 I’d like to respectfully disagree with some of Ian Beattie’s points on Monster Spectacular. There are some important things that people should know: 1. It is excruciatingly loud. Imagine someone chain-sawing your head open for three and a half hours and you’ll get the idea.

2. Not enough stuff was destroyed, at least in 2007. Maybe it was better this year, I don’t know. But I didn’t go this year because last year, they only blew up one trailer. They kept asking “Voulez-vous de la destruction?” but they never delivered even though we always said “OUI.” 3. The first part is woefully boring. It’s souped-up tractors racing against each other. Tractor racing is not a spectator sport.

4. I know you said Megasaurus was disappointing, but you needed to emphasize it more: Megasaurus is a HUGE let down. They promise you a fire-breathing demon with a fearsome wrath and endless bloodthirst, and you get a robotic doofus that lacks basic motor skills.

I really wanted to love Monster Spectacular, and I’m open to going to another monster truck rally in another city, but I found Montreal’s Monster Spectacular sorely disappointing.

Sean Wood U1 Humanistic Studies

Information for Manosij Re: “Clarification for Charles” | Commentary | Nov. 20 I shouldn’t speak on behalf of Charles Mostoller in response to Manosij Majumdar, but I guess I’ll do it anyway.

It could easily be argued that India has colonized the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands off of Bengal. He may have also been refering to the case of scheduled tribes on the Indian mainland. Whether they are being colonized outright seems a little more ambiguous than the case of the Andamanese, but there is no ambiguity in regards to the exploitation of their land.

Brian Webber U3 Linguistics A lot more letters were received for this issue than could be printed.

They’ll appear in our last issue of the semester, which comes out next Monday. Send your letters to letters@ mcgilldaily.com, and keep them to 300 words. The Daily does not print letters that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful.

Commentary

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

Will McGill lead or follow?

Reflections on this year’s Beatty lecture Hilary Best

HYDE PARK

I

t’s hard to look into the eyes of one of the today’s greatest environmental leaders and hear, “All we have to do to ruin the planet is to keep doing exactly what we’re doing today. Just keep releasing greenhouse gases at the current rates, continue impoverishing ecosystems, and in the latter part of this century, this will be a ruined planet.”

While Dr. James Gustav Speth, Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies at Yale University, certainly offered a sobering reality during his visit to McGill on October 24, this year’s Beatty lecturer was far from demoralizing. Indeed, one month later, he is still inspiring members of the McGill community to push for change.

In Speth’s view, the environmental movement has been prisoner of the wider system for too long.

“Under Reagan, the world turned but we kept doing what we had been doing. We didn’t get political. We didn’t go into communities and organize. We stayed in our environmental silo,” Speth said.

Speth emphasized the need for a paradigm shift, suggesting that academic institutions may be one

groundswell of support. But he shared students’ doubts that universities are leading the charge.

“I’m sitting at the end of ten years as Dean, feeling like I’ve pretty much failed. We’ve tripled the size of the school, increased the number of faculty by 50 per cent, and built a new building, but did we come up with a way of structuring the curriculum that really deals with these basic interdisciplinary issues?”

With the formidable challenges clearly laid out by a veritable environmental prophet, what is a student to do? Speth’s advice was clear: “get very political.” Advocating for a massive unification of citizens concerned about democracy, social justice, and environmental concerns, he is spending his last year as Dean challenging the status quo.

This mission resonated strongly with students.

“It was really cool to see someone who is in such a position of privilege speaking about pushing boundaries, someone who still has faith in the connection between action and results,” said U2 Environment student Jonathan Glencross.

“Starting Monday we can all affect change, what are we going to do?

What radical changes need to happen? How do we move these structures? How do we make change and encourage active participation in that

change?” Glencross said, adding that Speth’s presence has revitalized his commitment to sustainable change at McGill. “[Campus sustainability is] a unique opportunity for administrative and student collaboration.

It’s time to foster better exchanges between these groups and give McGill a chance to shine.”

U3 IDS and Environment student Maxime LeMoyne agreed.

“It felt good to hear someone of Dean Speth’s standing say out loud – and to an important part of the McGill intelligentsia – that presentday capitalism needs to be fundamentally reshaped. His arguments very much paralleled what we come to conclude in our courses, but that seldom make it out of the classroom,” LeMoyne said.

In his Beatty address, Speth quoted an unlikely bedfellow, Milton Friedman, who said, “only a crisis produces real change.” If the current financial turmoil is any indication, the world may finally be ready to heed Speth’s call to action. The real question is: will this University lead or follow?

Hilary is a U3 Honours Geography student and can be reach at hilary. best@mail.mcgill.ca. The original version of this article appeared at blogs.mcgill.ca/mse.

13

This December, pool your resources In October, PickupPal, an online carpool matchmaking service, was fined over $11,000 for facilitating rides between Montreal and Toronto – intruding on individuals’ ability to seek alternative methods of transport.

The Ontario Highway Transport Board called the charge, claiming the company operates illegally as a taxi service, after TrentwayWagar Inc., a subgroup of Coach Canada, filed a complaint against the service for violating carpooling codes.

Ontario law requires that any person or service providing transportation to strangers have proper licence and insurance, and comply with safety regulations, and further stipulates that carpools only carry passengers from home to work, do not cross municipal boundaries, and that passengers always ride with the same people.

Since then, Ontario has proposed a bill that would undo these provisions, legalizing rideshare services.

This change is long overdue, and we urge the Ontario government to see it through. The previous provisions are outrageous for restricting such a banal yet vital personal liberty and prioritizing the activities of large transport corporations like chartered bus companies.

This is not, however, an issue of two competing groups. Rather, it’s about ensuring that environmentally-friendly and cost-effective travel choices are widely available – something the government should be encouraging, not complicating.

Often, ridesharing services fill up a car that otherwise might have taken a lone driver to and from a destination, and web sites should be able to facilitate this without breaking the law. And with prices well below that of a cost of a bus, ridesharing provides travel opportunities to those who might otherwise be unable to travel.

Consider ridesharing when you make plans to leave Montreal next month – especially because driving alone is the least fuel efficient way to travel and because Greyhound recently doubled its prices to some U.S. destinations.

Check the classifieds and Craigslist for rideshares, and push for your right to arrange your own travel.

Editorial

PGSS stabbed us in the back while we were drunk on Obama Ted Sprague

HYDE PARK

O

n the night of November 4, a large number of graduate students gathered at the Thomson House to witness the most historic moment in their life: a U.S. President who is not only the first African American, but also the first to mobilize millions of people and give them hope in the world filled with turbulence. That night, the myth that Americans are apathetic and deserving of the disasters brought about by the Bush administration was swept into the dust bin of history.

Amidst all the joy, the next day the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) approved a tuition fee increase proposed by the administration.

A wise man once said to me that it is easier to stab someone when their hands are up in the air in celebration and that is exactly what PGSS did: increase graduate student tuition fees when we were all still drunk in celebration.

Now, PGSS will say they’re not increasing tuition fees, only the ancillary or student service fee. Let us not be fooled by this petty word-

ing designed to soften the blow of an increasingly expensive education. Whatever you want to call this fee – a banana fee, a gorilla fee – students still need to pay it. To break this “newsspeak,” I am going to refer all these fees to what it actually is: tuition.

The tuition fee increase amounts to $10 per semester. While this seems small and inconsequential, it has a far-reaching effect and sets a bad precedent.

The justification for this increase is that it is needed to increase student services. I am all for better services and better quality of education.

However, the logic of the following question and answer, “Do you want a better education? If you do, then you have to pay more” succumbs to the idea that education and all its services is a commodity available only to those who can afford it. Once PGSS agrees that students need to pay for increased service, then there is nothing to stop them to agree that students need to pay more for better education – more qualified teachers, smaller classrooms, etc.

We all understand that education costs money and that McGill is chronically underfunded. However, instead of calling the government to

invest more in the education system, the administration chooses to unload this burden onto students. Thus, in approving the increase, PGSS Council and execs help the administration lift these underfunding boulders onto the backs of the graduate students they claim to represent.

By rejecting this proposal, PGSS could have sent a message to the University and the government that they have to invest more in the education system. But by accepting this increase, PGSS sent a different message: it’s okay if you underfund the education system because we’ll help you increase tuition fees.

This is also true for The Daily and SSMU, who shamefully endorsed the $10 tuition fee increase in the coming referendum. They are playing into the hands of the administration and their actions undermine the whole concept of accessible education.

The Obama-moment will come to McGill when thousands of students will mobilize and shake all these organizations to their core, replacing it with leadership worthy of its name.

This may happen sooner than later.

Ted Sprague is Master’s II Chemistry student. He can be reached at ted_sprague@yahoo.com.

Sally Lin / The McGill Daily

Instead of rejecting the $10 increase, PGSS pulled out the knives.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

14

Blood and belonging Photo courtesy of Mongrel Media

Swedish-American director Tomas Alfredson considers what happens when boy meets vampire Simon Lewsen The McGill Daily

T

omas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In is concerned, first and foremost, with friendship – its idiosyncrasies, its unpredictability, and its capacity for endurance. Oskar and Eli meet for the first time outside of their apartment building in rural, snow-covered Sweden. Oskar is an effeminate, 12-year-old introvert who keeps a grisly collection of newspaper cut-outs and fantasizes about brutalizing his schoolyard tormentors. Eli is also 12. Unlike Oskar, however, she has been 12 “for a very long time.” While Oskar lives out his sadistic fantasies through private role-playing sessions, Eli exercises a more literal hunger for blood on the necks and veins of her fellow townspeople. Oskar’s life is confined to his cramped apartment, his school, and his hermiticism; Eli, on the other hand, endures a sad, nomadic loneliness.

Through its extensive festival run, Let the Right One In has already become something of an art-house

hit. It won big awards at the Tribeca and Edinburgh film festivals, garnering a remarkable degree of critical attention along the way. The film is coming into mainstream circulation at a point where it’s almost impossible to say anything new about it.

Much has already been made of the work’s striking cinematography.

For instance, Village Voice reviewer Elena Oumano commented on “the audacious sound design – the silence of snow broken by faint sounds of a child breathing or eyelashes fluttering.” Slant Magazine’s Andrew Schenker has already noted that Oskar is depicted through an ingenious combination of intense closeups and panoramic, empty long shots, which together create a sense of alienation coupled with claustrophobia. I would add that the film uses space in markedly innovative ways.

Alfredson offers repeated snapshots of the key landmarks in Oskar’s environment: the schoolyard, the local café, the apartment complex, and the woods outside of it. Here, the camera does more than simple scenesetting work: it maps the boundaries of Oskar’s world. The brief scenes

in which the film ventures out of its anxieties are brought more fully to tight locale (I counted three of them) light in Robert Rodriquez’s 1996 cult come with a short-lived but powerful film From Dusk Till Dawn in which sense of relief. The implications here an intrepid George Clooney finds are clear: Oskar is fenced in with his himself at the mercy of a brutal vamown alienation. Alfredson refuses to piress played by Salma Hayek. Before making a meal out of Clooney, Hayek let the viewer forget this.

Eye Magazine’s Jason Anderson tells him what his future undead life has commented on on the film’s complex While Alfredson typically treatment of gender and sexuality. Of portrays violence with a measure course, this observaof lyricism, he isn’t afraid to tion probably applies, revert to out-and-out of camp in varying degrees, to every single vampire story. However, while these themes are staples of the vampire narrative, they are will consist of. “You’ll be my slave,” nevertheless treated differently by she says. “You’ll live for me.” “No different texts. According to cultural thanks,” Clooney responds. “I’ve critic Christopher Craft, the male already got a wife.”

While Dracula and Dusk Till characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula are haunted by a pervasive fear of Dawn instill the vampire narrative aggressive female sexuality, embod- with a measure of gender antagoied in the figure of the seductive, nism, Let the Right One In offers a penetrative, and subtly androgynous refreshingly earnest portrait of prewoman vampire. Vampire slaying, in adolescent companionship. The film Dracula, becomes a way of punish- reminds me of So Yong Kim’s beauing sexual deviance and re-asserting tiful debut feature In Between Days male dominance. These chauvinistic (2006), which offers an unhurried,

“

sensitive portrayal of two pre-teen Korean immigrants growing up in a lonely Toronto suburb. Both Kim and Alfredson depict friendships that are born out of simple alienation but nevertheless become fuller, more complex, and more symbiotic in time. Oskar and Eli’s friendship is remarkable for its tenderness and its reciprocity. Moreover, knowing Eli enables Oskar to get to know himself.

Not only does he discover self-assurance, he also becomes more aware of his body – his physical strength, his mortality, and his maturing sexuality.

Of course, Let the Right One In isn’t just a coming-of-age story with magic realist overtones. It’s intended for horror buffs and it offers its fair share of gore. While Alfredson typically portrays violence with a measure of lyricism, he isn’t afraid to revert to out-and-out camp when the film requires it. Nevertheless, while these scenes leave an obvious impression, they don’t for a second overshadow the work’s humanism or its complicated sentimentality.

Let the Right One In is now playing at AMC (2312 Ste. Catherine O).

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

15

Musical fusion in full sail Flotilla blends eclectic influences from their corner of the Plateau Amelia Shonbek The McGill Daily

I

f there’s ever been a band that was truly the product of its surroundings, Montreal-based Flotilla is it.

The indie rock group originated in a tiny corner of the Plateau where, in 2004, roommates Veronica Charnley and Geof Holbrook happened to be living.

The story goes like this: Charnley, a singer and guitarist, and Holbrook, a classically trained pianist studying composition at McGill, wanted to start a band. So they grabbed Éveline Grégoire-Rousseau, a harpist from down the street, and Mark Nicol, a drummer who lived upstairs, and Flotilla was born. “We all inhabited this very small area and just rehearsed in each other’s houses,” Holbrook remembers. Though Nicol has since been replaced by drummer Benoit Monière (who, consequently, lives a few blocks from Grégoire-Rousseau), and Charnley and Holbrook now divide their time between Montreal and New York, the band’s roots still continue to influence their music. “I don’t think I would have written the same kind of music had I not been living in Montreal,” Charnley says.

The kind of music that Charnley and the band have created defies quick categorization. Though their first album, 2006’s Disaster Poetry, is clearly in line with the indie aesthetic, the band’s newer work is stylistically broader, something that Holbrook attributes to a creative process that has evolved and become more organic. “When we went into the studio this time, we had the songs in various states of completion, and we had three weeks to record, so it was really more of a cre-

ative time. We were finishing writing the songs and arranging them in the studio, and it became really spontaneous. A lot of interesting things were happening.”

The band members’ variety of backgrounds also contributes to their unique sound. Grégoire-Rousseau is a McGill-trained classical harpist, Holbrook is working toward a doctorate in avant-garde composition, and Charnley studied jazz vocals in university before going on to complete an MA in creative writing.

While Monière has the least formal training of the group, “He has this great instinct for music,” Charnley says. For Holbrook, the band’s classical influences enable much of their originality. “It becomes very easy to be creative, because you’ve learned how to think about music in a very broad way,” he notes.

It’s interesting to observe how the band has brought these influences into music also inspired by groups like Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear. “It’s pretty obvious that a classical harp is an unusual thing to hear and see onstage,” Charnley says, and she’s right. But the harp makes for a nice compliment to the other instruments’ volume and force, making the music more lush and complex.

It seems that the band is starting to hit its stride. They’ll be on Exclaim magazine’s list of Artists to Watch in 2009, and their latest album will be released in the spring, followed by a substantial tour. It’s safe to say that Charnley and Holbrook are excited about the journey that lies in front of the band. “If you look flotilla up in the dictionary it’ll tell you that a flotilla is a group of ships that are moving together, or travelling together,” Holbrook notes. “I think that’s a good way to think about what we’re doing as musicians.” Here’s to hoping their voyage is a long one.

Flotilla plays November 28 at Casa del Popolo. For more information, visit myspace.com/flotillamontreal.

There’s no Daily this Thursday.

Don’t miss us too much.

Look for our last issue of the semester next Monday, December 1.

Camille Holden for The McGill Daily

Hot dogs in your bento box Shié Kasai’s search for contemporary Canadian cuisine yields surprising results Camille Holden Culture Writer

I

f you’re an international student in Montreal, you’ve probably been paid a visit by your parents at some point. What did you do? You read them some Leonard Cohen, went to a hockey game, showed them that there’s more to Canadian music than Celine Dion, and probably had to endure their ridicule when you unknowingly uttered the ubiquitous “eh.” If your parents happen to be gourmets, you were surely faced with the daunting task of taking them to eat some “Canadian food.”

If you actually put your mind to it, you can come up with a few authentically Canadian specialties – poutine, smoked meat, Nanaimo bars, beaver tails, and the Caesar.

But does this really constitute a culinary culture?

Some people would say that Canadian food is really just imported from elsewhere. Yet the origins of even the most “traditional” or “national” foods are contested everywhere – apparently some people argue that the pizza originated in China as the green onion pancake and was brought to Italy by Marco Polo.

So perhaps a culinary culture would be better defined by the food most associated with and most appreciated in a given culture, rather than by an elusive “authenticity.” This definition allows newer nations, who

haven’t necessarily had the time to develop a historically anchored culinary culture, to define one for themselves in combination with existing traditions.

Perhaps I am just saying this to justify taking my parents out for some good old all-Canadian shish taouk. But at least I have artist Shié Kasai on my side. Last week at the Montréal Arts Interculturels (3680, Jeanne-Mance), Kasai displayed her artwork in an exhibit called “Survival Japanese Cooking.”

tation.” Using her background as a visual artist who enjoys working with sculpture, and as a Japanese immigrant, Kasai has created a multi-media representation of what she calls “concept sushi.” “I think this cross-cultural cooking happens in my kitchen on a daily basis and maybe in yours too,” Kasai explains.

“This probably also applies to many other immigrants who have to cook with substitutes for many different reasons – convenience and/or necessity.”

“

If you put your mind to it, you can come up with a few authentically Canadian specialties. But does this really constitute a culinary culture?

Why “survival,” you might wonder.

Kasai explains that her project originated in the Netherlands in 2006, during her residency with a Canadian artist, Yvette Poorter. “[Poorter] built a shed flavoured with a theme of Canadian wild forest in her backyard; she described it a sort of a camping site,” says Kasai. “[But] what would I do at a campsite? I’d probably have to eat. I’d have to look for something to eat and prepare it myself. It challenges your surviving skills. This is why there’s a word ‘survival’ in the project title.”

Kasai defines her project as “a site-specific performance/installation project, which ends up as a cross-cultural culinary experimen-

Kasai based her concept sushi on a survey she did of Montrealers’ tastes, asking them questions about their eating habits, favourite restaurants, and favourite local ingredients.

Using this information, she created “Canadian sushi” with ingredients such as hot dogs, asparagus, and samosa dough replacing the traditional Japanese fish, rice, and seaweed.

Only one question is left: what on earth does this taste like, eh?

If you feel the urge to test these culinary concepts, check out the recipes in Shie Kasai’s Survival Japanese Cookbook, available for free download at shiekasai.com.

16 Culture Lifestyles of the smug and self-conscious

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

The McGill English department presents The Importance of Being Earnest Sara Duplancic The McGill Daily

T

here is something in the name Oscar Wilde that seems to inspire absolute confidence.

That something is the cutting social insight that he, with brilliant and dramatic wit, presents upon the stage – particularly in his last and arguably most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Coupled with an experienced and passionate director, Myrna Wyatt Selkirk, and talented actors, the production of Wilde’s masterpiece currently playing at McGill’s Moyse Hall leaves its audience enormously – and earnestly – entertained.

The wicked wit of Wilde possesses a remarkable duality. The Importance of Being Earnest unfolds as a lively and fun comedy, one of the qualities that initially drew Selkirk to it, while simultaneously hitting many of society’s faults hard on the head. While Wilde was particularly disgusted by the superficiality and constraints of his own late nineteenth century society, the dialogue he uses to expose the questionable morality of those holding status in high regard is, unfortunately, still very relevant today.

Jack “Ernest” Worthing, played

by Nicolae Rusan, and Algernon “Bunbury” Moncrieff, played by Brian Beckett, both create alternate identities to gain freedom from their constrained roles in society. While Jack, who is from the country, poses

as his own “brother Ernest” in the city, he falls in love with the cosmopolitan socialite Gwendolyn Fairfax, who is nearly inseparable from her boisterous and even more pretentious mother, Lady Bracknell. When Algernon, Gwendolyn’s cousin and Jack’s city friend, discovers Ernest’s true identity, he goes to the country in the guise of “Jack’s brother Ernest” to investigate what Jack’s true life is like. There he finds Cecily Cardew, Jack’s beautiful, young ward, and they quickly take a liking to each other.

When Gwendolyn comes to the country in search of Ernest, however, both men’s guises begin to unravel.

“I found it interesting during the rehearsal process to discover how physically bold the show wanted to be,” says Selkirk. Beckett, in the role of Algernon, is brilliantly skilled at using this bold physicality to its full comedic potential, remaining remarkably believable within the world of the play while receiving a great laugh with even the slightest gesture. When Rusan as Ernest joins him on stage he’s quite a contrast to the fluid Algernon, being more brittle and the most constrained character physically throughout the play. “This was a very purposeful choice,” explains Selkirk. “In many ways, Jack is the other, the outsider, the person trying to fit in.” Rusan carries out this interpretation very well.

Of uncertain origin, Jack manages to exist within this highly smug, upperclass society, but he retains a degree of self-consciousness. This is evident, Selkirk says, in “the terrible amount

of time he spends getting dressed, for example.”

Joy Ross-Jones does an excellent job portraying the lively Cecily, and when the curtain lifts on her in the second act, the beautiful picture revealed makes us realize that she is in fact Algernon’s real partner in crime, not Jack. Ross-Jones matches Beckett’s presence and whimsical desire to shape her character like an author creates a character in a book.

This underlying motif of inventiveness and artistry is beautifully reflected in the set and costumes alike. The costumes are wonderfully detailed and decadent, and the set frames the stage in such a way that a painting emerges with each pause in movement.

Jessica B. Hill is flawless as the sophisticated, pretentious, and utterly superficial Gwendolyn, and Elana Dunkelman has a magnificent ability to coolly command the entire stage as the even more artificial, pompous, and hilarious Lady Bracknell. All characters in Wilde’s play have a hand in producing the comedy, including the butlers and the fidgety Reverend Chasuble played by Fraser Dickson.

With great direction, performances, production, and playwriting, this production of The Importance of Being Earnest is a feast for the eyes, ears, and mind.

The Importance of Being Earnest is being performed from November 27 to 29 in Moyse Hall in the Arts Building. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $5 for students and seniors, and $10 for adults.

Razvan Oprisor for The McGill Daily

Joy Ross-Jones as Cecily Cardrew, falling for “Jack’s brother Ernest” with grace and charm.

Tibet

Lu Hou

EXP

SURE

The Daily wants to print your art. Submit to photos@mcgilldaily.com

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

17

Loneliness loves company Casiotone For The Painfully Alone aims for the universal and unglamourous Nicholas Cameron Culture Writer

O

wen Ashworth steps before a bevy of wires, snyth machines, and a keyboard.

With a few adjustments, the 31-yearold Chicago resident, who performs under the moniker of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone (CTFPA) takes a deep breath and begins his first song.

It has been seven years, three albums, 14 EPs, splits, and singles, two compilations, and a barrage of extracurricular appearances on soundtracks and compilations since Ashworth started his creative endeavor – yet he still manages to keep things from getting stale.

Long before many of us could even contemplate rummaging around to find old Casio machines and synthesizers, Ashworth used them to establish himself as a talented, creative lo-fi musician.

Ashworth is conscientious about making sure that his musical endeavors in CTFPA go beyond his own specific experience. His music is not autobiographical in nature but rather reflects scenarios, situations, and moods of which any one could relate too. His lyrics are quaint, coy, earnest, somewhat sarcastic, but honest overall.

“Every song happens a little differently,” says Ashworth. “Maybe that’s why a lot of my songs feel so openended and somewhat conclusionfree. I love the feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s exciting and kind of scary.”

Ashworth is extremely grateful

CULTURE BRIEF Christmas Choral Imagine silvery snow sweeping across the streets of Montreal, past the Christmas tree down McGill College, caught in the hair of a young girl clad in red humming a familiar tune. “… wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas…”

Somehow the holiday spirit has already descended on us in the form of shining lights suspended on trees along the sidewalk, transcendent wind chills, and extravagant sales in warm bright windows. A quick flip through the calendar shows

to his fan base, acknowledging that although his music is derived from his own experience and feelings, he is respectful of the audience’s opinion and understands that his music appeals to more people than just him. “I try really hard not to write anything that is about the experience of being the dude from Casiotone,” he says. “Songs about touring or songwriting just don’t seem interesting to me. I would rather write about things that feel more universal and plain and unglamorous.”

Ashworth has incorporated this ideology of respect for the listener into his performances. After three songs at a recent performance, he politely took up asking the audience to yell out suggestions for what to play. “I know people come to shows wanting to hear certain songs that they really like, and I consider it my job to play those songs whenever I can.” When an audience member shouted out for Ashworth to play “CTFPA In A Yellow Shirt,” he created an alternative version of the song, despite not having the proper equipment needed to perform the original.

He has even posted a message on his web site, asking for people to send their names, request for songs, and the cities they’ll be in ahead of time.

“This will give me a chance to practice the requested song a couple of times first,” he explains.

Ashworth’s craft is highlighted by his earnest approach to musicianship, his impressive and creative compositions, and his frank, to-thepoint, heart-felt lyrics. He is modest,

that Christmas is still a month away and that we all have to get through that treacherous week of finals first. Some of us, however, just can’t wait.

On November 30, the McGill Choral Society will be performing the Great Mass of Mozart in C minor and seasonal music (a sing-along!) at L’Église St-Enfant Jésus (5037-5039 St-Dominique). The choir has been practicing since September.

So come out for a Sunday afternoon at church with a date or with family and friends, and listen to the beautiful harmonies of Mozart blend into a rich final overtone – oh the suspense of that hanging note! – and then join in with those familiar lines of Christmas carols. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults, and the music begins at 3 p.m.

– Ariel Liu

polite, and is constantly thankful to those who have chosen to listen to and identify with his music. “There are some people who probably really like my songs and are stoked to hear me play,” he says, “and there are probably plenty of other people who are going out just because it’s a thing to do and they figure there will probably some cute people hanging out there.”

Ashworth’s style emphasizes and highlights the lyrics he is projecting. Many of his cover songs, such as

“Graceland” by Paul Simon (which previously, to me, sounded like it could have been plucked out of the soundtrack for Deliverance) project the lyrics in a new light – one that Ashworth has mastered. He is able to turn almost any song into a sincere projection of his emotional state while not shedding the foundations of the original.

CTFPA will likely keep going for quite some time. With the announcement of material for a new album beginning next month, Ashworth

seems primed to keep producing, creating, and touring. Luckily, he hasn’t grown weary of the process yet. “It helps that I just really enjoy travelling and being a tourist and stuff. I enjoy the momentum.... I like having the opportunity just to talk to – or at – people, and also surprise people with new songs and new arrangements.”

For more information on Casiotone For The Painfully Alone visit Ctfpa.org or myspace.com/casiotone_for_the_painfully_alone.

Compendium!

The McGill Daily, Monday, November 24, 2008

19

Lies, Half-truths, & Pounds of tongue

A quiet moment of gratitude and self-reflection Larry Spector The McGill Daily

I

for one would like to issue our Chancellor: Pound, Dick, ID # 748902 wishes of gratitude. Ever since that fateful day when the highest office was tarnished and violated, I have been an aimless soul wandering the deserts of despair. Like everyone else, that unspeakable act has been wearing the treads in my mind thin as I recreate that moment over and over: The act, the statement, changed everything. In outcry the masses rose; no one can wash off their feelings of violation or undo their institutions feathering. You can feel the anger, confusion, and disgust swirling around. The clock strikes and with all their force the people come crashing down carrying the brute anger of a hurt and violated citizenry.

Emotions drive a reactionary and infantile response, but they remind themselves it is for a just cause: just think about what he did. The people chant: “Fire him! Boot his ass on the street!” They are cleansing themselves of this hate. The people are trying to erase a memory that cannot be rubbed off or fired away.

They are attacking the shallow surface of a problem that has much deeper roots. The wound itches, begging to be scratched, but scratching won’t get rid of it. The problem

is systemic. It is not the problem of one person but a society composed of people like him.

His act is representative of the institutions that he embodies. This is what horrifies us, but we choose to shove it further under the rug. “It is him, not us! Fire him! Eliminate him!”

Then the man appears from behind the curtain, and we all hold our breath. I can feel my brain begging for another breath, but my body won’t listen. I can only listen to the words coming out of his mouth. They are the feeble, broken words of a once proud man.

The audience watches as he dances around. No meaningful apology.

No explanation. No acceptance of guilt or path charted forward. He displays no understanding of the greater harm inflicted on that fateful day.

There is no collective sigh of relief.

If anything, the tension increases as the outrage builds. But I don’t get it.

I do not understand what is happening. Then the urge hits me. I want to run up to the nearest microphone and scream: “Come on, it’s just one fucking blowjob.”

It wasn’t that I was outraged over what little Bill and little Monica did. In fact, I don’t even consider it an issue, but Americans did. Nor, in my mind, is it comparable to Pound’s comments. But Americans were outraged and emotional. Some of them probably feel it was on the same scale. It is not the acts, but the hurt and the

evoked juvenile responses that resonate between these two high-profile slips of the tongue.

I thank Mr. Pound for helping me understand the outrageous mob mentality that engulfs discourse.

I now see the emotional sleight of hand that can move a discussion

revolving around an infectious problem to one centred on punishment.

How a moment that could be used for self-reflection and leverage to create change is instead squandered as people climb up onto their high horse to espouse reactionary and insular sentiments. Ironically, these are just

what progressives claim to fight.

Who knew that aboriginal racism would evoke the same small-minded response by McGillians as a blow job did for Americans? Who knew that we would let aboriginal racism infect and transform us into the hungry masses instead of the citizenry for change?

Sterling Street appears every Monday. Send your worries to margot.nossal@gmail.com.

Good puns Arnie Foreman

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Across 1. Big wine holder 4. Free energy (alt. sp.)

8. Honour 14. “I” problem 15. Condo, e.g.

16. Weight watcher 17. Chinese currency 19. Attraction 20. Cuts 21. Pessimist’s blood type?

23. Makes aquatints 25. Acquire 26. Boozehound 28. Dead people?

33. Bed board 37. “Fantasy Island” prop 39. Scalawag 40. Old scientist?

44. Freeze 45. “So me!”

46. Fishing, perhaps 47. Develops, dentally 50. “Losing My Religion” rock group 52. “... there is no angel but Love”: Shakespeare 54. Group of seven 59. Brick layer who just got out of jail?

64. Green 65. Ruled 66. Film container 68. Ex-pat

69. “Once a time...”

70. “48 ” 71. Periodic breathing 72. Why I dropped out of my political theory course?

73. #13

38. “ alive!”

41. Disposable things 42. Communal 43. Bottom of the barrel 48. Gets around 49. “ boom bah!”

51. Brain membrane (s.)

53. Place holder 55. de deux 56. Church donation 57. “ Heartbeat” (Amy Grant hit) 58. Breviloquent 59. Why the dog ran away?

60. Cakewalk 61. “ Brockovich” 62. Halftime lead, e.g.

63. Auto parts giant 67. “ any drop to drink:” Coleridge

Down 1. Puns are bad, but poetry is 2. Bond, for one 3. Bartender’s supply 4. Pretenses 5. Setting for TV’s Newhart 6. Kind of lettuce 7. Con game 8. Slowly, to a conductor 9. Coriander 10. Old Irish 11. Woman’s tool case 12. Creep Solution to “Musical Misdemeanors” 13. Certain surgeon’s “patient” M O A S O R A C H S C U D 18. Dash abbr.

B A B E L A N A I H O M O 22. Ring bearer?

E L B E A R C A D E F I R E 24. Aria, e.g.

P R O F S L U R S 27. Big Conference I S L E O F M A N S U L L Y A T A X Y N E T T R E A D 29. Forum wear R N A U S E N E T 30. Auspices B A R E N A K E D L A D I E S 31. Con B R A T R I V I A 32. “La Scala di ” (Rossini opera) S P A C L I M B T S A R S 33. Ejectorate F A N E S P A R I P A S S U S O U L A R O M A 34. Shoestring C O U P T H E K I L L E R S 35. On the safe side, at sea S E T I N O R E O E L S E 36. Drawn tight R E E L

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