volume 100 issue 28

Volume 100, Issue 28

January 27, 2011 mcgilldaily.com

THE

McGill THE

DAILY

Knock-offs for 100 years

Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

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THE ART ISSUE

Each year, The Daily features McGill students’ artwork and tries to provide another forum for publishing creative work on campus.

This year, instead of running an Art Supplement we’re publishing the Art Issue, mixing visuals with articles in an attempt to put text and image on equal footing. Including the photography on the cover, we’ve chosen the top twenty or so submissions in order give another outlet for the University’s striking artistic output.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Midnight Kitchen closed indefinitely

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Donation-based collective failed to renew provincial certification, blames SSMU for lack of warning Anna Norris

The McGill Daily

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idnight Kitchen, the McGill collective which provides vegan lunches by donation every weekday, was informed Tuesday that it would have to stop serving food because the collective’s certification under the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec, was no longer valid under changed certification laws.

Midnight Kitchen (MK) administrator Emily Zheng said that the collective “only just came under the permit late last year.”

“Before that, we existed in this space where, because there aren’t any laws for groups like us, nobody really told us that we needed a permit. Last April was when we were told that we would be a liability if we don’t apply for this permit.”

SSMU Vice President of Clubs and Services Anushay Khan said that temporarily closing the kitchen is necessary until the collective acquires a new permit.

“MK could be fined up to $2,000 per day,” Khan said, adding that “SSMU could cover the costs for the fine – but if we were fined, then reapplying for a permit would be even harder.”

“We were recently informed that we had to do [the certification] every single year,” said Khan, citing an inspector’s visit from February 2010, when it was established that ten per cent of the group would have to undergo hygiene and food

Midnight Kitchen may reopen in March. and safety training.

“At that point, that was just one person, but MK’s membership has increased, which means that more people need to be trained, said Khan.

Khan explained that the permit expired January 21, and claims that she emailed MK about renewal in December, and followed up with a second reminder email upon the reopening of school in January.

“There was no progress on the issue because of exams and because it was the beginning of the semester, so it’s understandable, and then they had about two weeks between then and [January] 21 to get a new permit, but that didn’t happen,” she said.

Collective members, however,

claim that they never received the first email.

“SSMU says that they sent us an email about it on the twelfth of December,” said MK member Alex Briggs. “But we never received that one – we’ve gone through the backlogs and that’s not there. So we found out about it as soon as we got back to school. On that day there was one spot left for the February certification test, but we’re a collective...we had to talk about it, and then that one was gone. And now the next one is in March.”

Representatives from MK also objected to the lack of notice they received about having to close operations.

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

“The first time that [SSMU] came to the kitchen to notify us was yesterday [January 25],” said Zheng. “There was a lot of miscommunication, but also the logistics of organizing as a collective – getting everybody trained and finding a way to pay for it – would have taken a really long time. So we really needed that two-month buffer, but we just didn’t know in time.”

Khan has said that MK would need to cover any training costs.

In the meantime, the collective is looking for ways to keep operating. One potential solution is to make the Midnight Kitchen a club operating in the same way as the

SSMU Mini Courses.

“People will have to sign a waiver and their signature will make them a part of the Midnight Kitchen Club,” Briggs explained. “So that way we won’t be serving food to anyone external, we’ll be making it for ourselves. We’ll need to check on the legality of that, but the Mini Courses don’t have a permit, and they cook food in the kitchen for themselves. If that doesn’t work, our second loophole is that we’re going to try to get everyone involved in some part of the process – cooking cleaning, setting up, or something.”

However, Khan pointed out that since most of the Midnight Kitchen’s income is from student fees, that may not be an option.

“We don’t give clubs fees – fees are for student services,” she said.

“So there is a bit of a logistical problem with that, but…I met with MK twice today, we are going to see what we can to, and I will try my best to get it going as soon as possible.”

Organic Campus (OC), a student service that operates a weekly local organic food stand, was also closed indefinitely on Wednesday.

OC acquired all the necessary certification, with ten per cent of their membership undergoing hygiene and food and safety training, but the paperwork was not processed in time for them to get certified.

While they will likely get re-certified before MK, they will also be closed for the foreseeable future.

— With files from Rana Encol

Montreal copy stores busted for photocopying textbooks Thirteen arrested, 2,700 counterfeit textbooks seized in RCMP raids Vicky Tobianah

The McGill Daily

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hirteen copy store owners and employees were arrested at four copy stores in Montreal last Thursday for selling illegally photocopied textbooks. The RCMP seized around 2,700 counterfeit books over the last few weeks.

Investigations started this past fall, when the RCMP received several complaints from university printing presses that Montreal copy centres were photocopying textbooks illegally and selling them at a fraction of the price.

“Many students brought concerns to some legitimate stores and those stores came to us and prompted the investigation,” said RCMP Corporal Luc Thibault.

“We are still investigating and unless someone is charged, we can’t release the names of the copyright stores or of the people arrested,” said Thibault.

If suspects are found guilty, they could be charged with violating the Copyright Act and fined up to one

million dollars or be imprisoned for up to five years.

Third-year McGill social work student Sivan Havusha heard from a friend that Copie 2000 at Stanley and Sherbrooke photocopied textbooks at a low cost. She borrowed two textbooks from friends to get them photocopied.

“I felt bad for doing it, but my textbooks all cost more than $100 each. I felt I could justify it because books are so expensive and I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks,” she said.

She also said that a CBC reporter who interviewed her had mentioned that Copie Nova – a copy store located on Peel and Sherbrooke where McGill students often purchase coursepacks – blew the whistle on its competitor, Copie 2000.

The RCMP confirms that the majority of complaints came from legitimate copy stores. Copie Nova said they had no idea how the investigation got started.

The owner of Copie 2000 has owned the store for 26 years, but said he had no problems until two weeks ago. “We’ve been photocopying textbooks for years with no problem and

Yasmeen Gholmieh | The McGill Daily

Copie 2000 was allegedly reported by competing Copie Nova. then the police came two weeks ago and took everything as evidence.

Before, we never used to check when people asked us to photocopy things.

Now, we have to be very careful and make sure that everything students give us won’t violate any copyright laws,” said the owner.

A representative of McGillQueen’s University Press said they did not hear any complaints about

illegal copying, and that it is a significant loss when stores photocopy books illegally, since course books are a major source of their revenue.

Adrian Edwards, owner of the independent Word bookstore on Milton, said textbook prices are a real problem.

“I’ve been checking prices on books for 25 years and they have been rising steadily beyond the rate

of inflation. When a book is reasonably priced, the price immediately goes up once it is used for a large class,” said Edwards. “Students are being taken advantage of and it’s a real scam.”

McGill Mathematics professor Stephen Drury agreed. “I would like textbooks to be cheaper but unfortunately, they’re not. The real problem is the constant publishing of new editions every year – and I’ve found that the textbooks get even worse with every edition. That’s why I tell my students that any old textbook will do,” said Drury.

This is not the first time copy stores have been busted. In January 2006, the owner of the U Compute store near Concordia University was charged with copyright infringement, punished with a six-month suspension, and required to complete 400 hours of community service.

“People blame the McGill bookstores, but it’s really the publishers who set the high prices. Because of that, illegal photocopying has been going on for years, and periodically the police fine stores just to calm it down, but it always starts again,” said Edwards.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Matthieu Santerre

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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GA abolition discussed SSMU President holds town hall on his motion Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

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esterday, SSMU President Zach Newburgh hosted a town hall forum to discuss his proposal to abolish the General Assembly (GA), and replace it with an Annual General Meeting. The motion, which has prompted criticism over a lack of consultation – as well as the creation of numerous Facebook events – will be debated at the next SSMU Legislative Council on February 3. If Council passes the motion, it will become a referendum question in the online winter referendum period, open to all undergraduate students.

The meeting began with few participants, most of whom were members of the student media, but attendance increased as the meeting progressed, peaking at about forty students. The town hall was organized by Newburgh after articles in both The Daily and Tribune linked him with the motion to abolish the GA. For most of the town hall Newburgh limited the parameters of the town hall to the “strengths and weaknesses” of the current structure of the GA and the “merits of the referendum question” outlined on a blackboard in the room.

When questioned about the positions of SSMU executives on the issue, Newburgh reiterated these guidelines, despite VP External Myriam Zaidi’s post on the Facebook event, which stated that “the current SSMU executive is divided on this question.”

Discussion opened with comments from Engineering Senator Andrew Doyle, who said that there

NEWS BULLETIN AUS postering fine withdrawn One day before proceedings were set to begin, the City of Montreal withdrew its case against the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) over a $2,500 postering fine. AUS is no longer responsible for either the fine itself or any court fees associated with the case.

AUS was charged for violating a city by-law which prohibits public posting in February 2010 after the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS) posted a flyer on the corner of University and Milton promoting their upcoming production of Cabaret.

Dave Marshall, AUS president, said that the courts did not have a “substantial enough case to continue prosecuting.” Marshall also said that, since AUS didn’t put up the poster, they never should have

are “far too few good resolutions that come forward at the GA.” Councillor Zach Margolis noted that any reform will need to go “beyond tinkering and promoting it.”

The accessibility of GAs was another central point of discussion.

“I wouldn’t be comfortable writing legislation,” explained Arts student Lily Schwarzbaum. “Discussion is what makes the student body not so apathetic.”

Other students echoed this sentiment, and the process of writing and submitting referendum questions was repeatedly labeled “opaque.”

Speakers targeted Robert’s Rules, the system that governs GAs and Council meetings, as a key problem.

Doyle pointed out that “too many people who know Robert’s Rules use them to hijack the process.” Numerous students suggested the idea of GAs serving as a forum for debate, with voting moved to an online system.

Advertisement initiatives were another popular topic. VP Finance and Operations Nick Drew asserted that previous executives had failed to spend the entirety of their advertisement budget, resulting in a smaller budget for this year. He also emphasized the increased use of free advertisement through social media.

Notably absent from the vocal audience were student groups who often submit motions, including the Engineering Undergraduate Society and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR).

SPHR members authored the motion that created controversy at the Winter 2010 GA, which called for the creation of a social responsibility committee, and sparked debate about the inclusion of a

been the target of the fine in the first place.

Marshall explained that the City would have had to have found all the individuals who put up the poster, and found evidence that they had put the poster up, in order to fine them.

“The AUTS doesn’t exist as a legal entity, it’s just an informal group of students,” said Marshall.

“It makes it very easy to go after us [the AUS] though, because we are a legal entity.”

Marshall said that this clear distinction between AUTS, who put up the poster, and AUS, would have been his main argument in court against the fine.

Marshall’s other defense challenged the constitutionality of the by-law prohibiting public posting, a law Marshall said was created in the nineties for the benefit of cleanliness. “[The law] severely restricts the ability of groups to express themselves, particularly when the fine for a non-profit company such as us is as steep as it was,” said Marshall.

Marshall entered a not guilty plea on behalf of AUS in May of last

David Huehn | The McGill Daily

SSMU President Zach Newburgh soliciting student feedback on his proposal to abolish the GA. phrase regarding the “unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

SPHR filed a Judicial Board complaint against Newburgh in March 2010. The complaint accused Newburgh of a conflict of interest, as he chaired the GA in his role as Speaker of Council while serving as president of the city-wide Jewish organization Hillel Montreal. The Judicial Board is the mechanism by which students can challenge the conduct of SSMU officials or bodies,

according to the SSMU constitution. Newburgh was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing.

Newburgh was also heavily involved in the Winter 2009 GA, which caused controversy with a motion requesting that SSMU condemn bombings of educational institutions in Gaza. At the time, Newburgh organized the Facebook event, “SSMU: Vote Against the Condemnation of Israel,” and wrote to students that “the GA is not an appropriate forum to express external political issues.”

At Wednesday’s town hall, Newburgh took notes and summarized arguments for speakers as discussion progressed. Drew, another mover of the original resolution, typed minutes, which will be available publicly. “I think a lot of the arguments that were made were rehashing old arguments,” Newburgh said after the event, “but there were at least one or two comments that were very helpful, so I hope to use those comments to strengthen a reform of the GA.”

year. Three months later in July, however, the by-law under which AUS was charged was declared invalid by the Quebec Court of Appeal, who had found it a violation of the Canadian Charter or Rights and Freedoms, for a period of six months.

“I think the justification behind making the law invalid…was to either have them revise the law so that it was less unconstitutional…or [to create] an opportunity during that six months for the City to put up more notice boards, more legal opportunities, for people to post so that they’re not completely restricted,” said Marshall.

“The reason that it was declared invalid for six months is really to force the City with a very strict timeline to revise that law. I haven’t found any indication that the City has actually done that yet,” he said.

of Quebec attorneys to date, the Association of Prosecutors in Criminal and Penal Prosecutions of Quebec (APCPP) voted Saturday in favour of a mandate to strike if the provincial government does not meet their demands.

According to the APCPP, Quebec prosecutors are the lowest paid in the country, receiving thirty per cent less than the national average.

“We’re unhappy because there’s a pay scale that hasn’t really changed in a long time in spite of promises to fix it over the last ten years,” said APCPP spokesperson, J.D. Jerols.

“We’re in a position where we’re losing competent attorneys... They’re going…to Alberta and Ontario and…taking early retirement. ... It’s impossible to hire new attorneys with experience,” he added.

The APCPP claims that without an additional 150 to 200 prosecutors, they are unable to devote sufficient time to each case, creating significant ethical issues. “If it’s your daughter that was sexually assaulted or your wife that was

beaten and robbed or your son who was the victim of fraud then you want to expect the prosecutor to be top quality,” said Jerols.

A group representing Quebec jurors, the Association of Government Jurors, voiced similar concerns and has formed an allegiance with the APCPP. Jerols said the two groups have agreed that neither will settle for a lower salary than the other. There is also a possibility that the two will strike together, which will cause significant delays in the Quebec legal system.

In the event of a strike, all cases not involving a detained individual or a jury will be postponed.

While the Association of Government Jurors has voted in favour of a strike, the APCPP feels differently.

“We would like to avoid a strike,” said Jerols, Unlike jurors, prosecutors are not granted the right to binding arbitration, a process that allows the conflict to be resolved by a neutral party.

—Henry Gass

Quebec prosecutors vote for a strike mandate In the largest recorded meeting

—Emily Meikle

6 News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Students challenge SEM plan

SSMU and PGSS encouraged by new long-term approach to enrolment management October 2010

November

December

January 2011

February

March

October 14

October 26

January 6

February 2

The consultation draft of the SEM plan is distributed to Senators.

Senate representatives from SSMU and PGSS meet with Mendelson, University Registrar Kathleen Massey, and Marketing and Planning Director Howard Tontini.

According to Bishop, Mendelson “requested that we consult more generally with our students to gain an overall perspective regarding the SEM plan.”

Abaki presents a report to SSMU council on the SEM plan. Abaki said, “There were divided views on different aspects of the plan, but it was some good feedback that we got from the councillors.”

Scheduled date for the next PGSS council meeting, where the SEM plan is likely to be discussed.

think it’s something that the government holds dearly, and I hope McGill holds dearly,” he said.

Abaki is commissioning a report to research the escalating needs of international students, and is lobbying both the University and the provincial government to jointly subsidize French courses for international students, although he outlined SSMU contingencies should those attempts at subsidization fail.

“If the University is not interested in providing French courses at a much subsidized price, then we [would] definitely expand the scope of [SSMU] MiniCourses so that more students can access the French course,” he said.

Abaki said he has discussed providing French language services to international students with PGSS in the event that such courses don’t receive government or University subsidies, and PGSS president Alexandra Bishop acknowledged that PGSS may have to re-orient their services to accommodate the growing international student population on campus.

“The SEM focuses on recruiting top quality graduate students. … This may also create a more diverse graduate student body, and as a result we may have to evaluate the services we provide our membership and expand those to meet new demands,” wrote Bishop in an email to The Daily.

Another issue SSMU and PGSS are uniting behind is the draft consultation’s avoidance of the space and resource constraints that would result from the enrolment increases it prescribes.

“I would hope that McGill has planned to allocate more space for graduate student offices and labs, to accommodate the expected increase of students,” said Bishop.

“Space is really a major problem both for undergraduate students and grad students, and of course it’s definitely affecting the quality of education,” said Abaki. “The

University first of all must clearly show that we are capable of handling an increased number of graduate students.”

The last major point of contention for Abaki concerns the new proportion of undergraduate to graduate students that could result from the implementation of the SEM plan – numbers that aren’t empirically referenced in the draft consultation.

“They definitely clearly need to articulate those goals, they definitely need to mention what those percentages are, and what they mean for different faculties,” he said, mentioning that different enrolment proportions could harm accessibility.

According to the draft consultation, McGill will increase graduate student enrolment “according to goals set through the Graduate Capacity Compact Process and will be appropriately balanced with undergraduate enrolments.”

The Graduate Capacity Compact Process (GCCP) was not further described in the SEM plan, nor even mentioned again.

Abaki described the GCCP as “something that’s currently evolving,” and expressed concern that one of the SEM plan’s most significant changes – graduate enrolment – was based on such an unelaborated document.

“That’s problematic. It refers to a document that does not exist, or maybe it’s currently evolving or put together,” said Abaki.

Besides these points of contention, however, there are many features of the SEM plan both Abaki and Bishop support, including efforts to increase student diversity and accessibility for socio-economically disadvantaged students, Aboriginal students, and students with disabilities.

“The SEM also addresses many factors that will lead to a better graduate student experience, such as improving the supervisors-to-graduate student ratio and the quality of

Henry Gass

The McGill Daily

A

s McGill’s new enrolment management plan inches its way towards approval at Senate in March, student representatives are negotiating changes to the plan with the administration.

A draft of the Strategic Enrolment Management (SEM) plan has been in circulation since October, when it was released to Senators. The plan calls for increases in graduate and international student enrolment, as well as the complete deregulation of international tuition and a geographical shift in international recruitment priorities.

“Overall I think they had a lot of good things within the document, but there are a lot of points that need clear elaboration,” said Joshua Abaki, SSMU VP University Affairs.

The plan aims to increase the total international student population from 20 to 22 per cent of the overall student body, or by over 500 students. In a draft of a SSMU submission to the Senate caucus developing the plan, Abaki asks for increased support for International Student Services (ISS) in light of the projected increase in international student enrolment.

The SSMU submission notes that in the last five years the proportion of international students has increased by 18 per cent – or slightly over 1,100 students. Meanwhile, said Abaki, in the last five years ISS have only added one more staff member.

In terms of international student support, Abaki was also concerned with the recent removal of provincial government subsidies for international students learning French.

“It doesn’t make sense at any level, because if international students are coming here and we want them to settle well in the community, it’s really important that we make it possible for them to be able to learn French. I

January 12

March 26

The SEM plan is scheduled to be discussed at PGSS council, but the debate is postponed due to time constraints. Bishop said, “It has been on the PGSS council agenda for a few months, unfortunately we haven’t had the time to discuss it.”

Scheduled date for the Senate meeting where the finalized SEM plan is scheduled to be presented for approval. The plan would then be in effect until 2016.

supervision provided,” said Bishop.

Abaki also praised McGill’s attempt to finally propose a longterm enrolment plan.

“It’s definitely great that now a long-term plan has been articulated,” said Abaki. “That will definitely – at the institutional level – make it easier for planning, and as well for people to anticipate what’s going to happen and for the University to align its goals appropriately.”

Representatives from both student societies have already met with McGill administrators drafting the SEM plan, and both are also submitting recommendations to the Senate caucus drafting the plan.

Abaki made a presentation on the SEM plan to SSMU Council January 6, and Bishop hopes to discuss the plan with PGSS Council February 2.

“There has been a lot of consultation about this,” said Morton Mendelson, Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning, noting that discussion of the plan at Senate had been delayed from February to March, “because we weren’t able to get all the consultations done that we felt we needed to engage in.”

Specifics regarding enrolment and the deregulation of international tuition, however, remain an issue that Abaki is determined to resolve before SSMU approves the plan.

“They say they want to increase the proportion of graduate students…but they don’t mention the desired proportions,” said Abaki.

“Until we see that – and what it means for different undergraduate populations – we won’t endorse the document.”

When asked for SSMU’s position on the proposed across-the-board deregulation of tuition rates for international students, Abaki said that the rates weren’t mentioned in the submission. He maintained, however, that “we definitely don’t support” the deregulation and said he planned to add this opposition to SSMU’s submission.

“It doesn’t make sense at any level, because if international students are coming here and we want them to settle well in the community, it’s really important that we make it possible for them to be able to learn French.”

Joshua Abaki SSMU VP External Affairs

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Nicole Stradiotto

Grace Brooks

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Lonely Hunter Xuan-An Nguyen

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Rejecting appropriation The Black Students’ Network on the use of their name in the QPIRG opt-out campaign

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e, the Black Students’ Network (BSN), would like to reiterate the sentiments we expressed in Monday’s paper by saying we continue to stand in complete solidarity and support of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill.

QPIRG is an institution that stands against all forms of discrimination on the basis of class, gender, race, sexual, orientation, and dis/ability; thus actively striving to make the McGill community as safe and fair as possible for all students.

The BSN also strives to promote and maintain a safe atmosphere for the McGill community by creating avenues for minority students to excel in both student social and academic life.

Recently, however, we have been appalled by the advertisements propagated by the students/ organization behind the QPIRG opt-out campaign. Their usage of our service’s name on their posters is a complete defamation of character. Their claims that students can use the $7.50 fee obtained by opting out of QPIRG to attend a “Black Students’ Network BBQ” is deplorable.

Firstly, we would like to make clear that we are not at all – in any manner – associated with the optout campaign being implemented against QPIRG.

Secondly, we believe that the students/organization behind this propaganda must be reprimanded for their actions. Not only did we not sign off on their use of our service’s name as an advertisement tactic against an organization that is so important to the McGill community, but also the opt-out campaign did not even contact us to have our name used.

Therefore, they used our service’s name without our permission or knowledge and defamed our organization’s character in the process.

Having not had the common decency to come to us and request permission to use our name, they have, in turn, falsely disseminated information that is neither true nor a correct representation of what the BSN stands for as an organization.

Our organization has not had a barbeque in a number of years.

Furthermore, the image used on the poster to illustrate their propaganda was found by many of our executive members to be extremely discriminatory.

To be so unaware of the stereotypical attachments that food has had within the black community, and the racially discriminatory effects it has had in association with our community, is to be unaware of history.

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Furthermore, for the students/ organization behind this opt-out campaign, to be so unaware of the racially discriminatory effects of their actions hinders the efforts of what QPIRG essentially stands for – which is equality for all regardless of class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and dis/ability. To be so ignorant regarding the effects of their propagation is to be ignorant of the different groups that

the McGill community encompasses.

Thus, we, the Black Students’ Network, will not stand for this.

We once again state that we in no way support the opt-out campaign or the students/organization behind it, nor are we at all pleased with the use of our service’s name without our permission or knowledge to advertise for this completely despicable

Confession of a member of the QPIRG board Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan Hyde Park

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applaud Michael Hunziker’s recent article (“Why the left should opt out of campus PIRGs,” Commentary, January 20).

His rhetorical strategy is smart. In an effort to convince McGill students to opt out, Hunziker contends that even “the left” should opt out of QPIRG. Why? Because he alleges a group within QPIRG supports Hezbollah. And as Hunziker informs us, “There is nothing progressive or ‘left-wing’ about Hezbollah.” Too true, Hunziker, too true.

Evidently, the author knows how to strike lefties at their Achilles heel: undermine their moral superiority on questions of oppression and social justice and you leave them stunned, flat-footed and tongue-tied.

Hunziker shows off more rhetorical prowess with this query: “What is left-wing about advocating for an armed militia that murders civilians?” His answer is that leftists will support Hezbollah

simply due to its “suitably antiWestern bent,” and furthermore “any crimes that it commits can be forgiven on the basis that Western hegemony is the root cause of anything bad that happens in the world.” And Hunziker keeps on going.

In the article’s conclusion, he pronounces that, “until we hear from [the QPIRG leaders] a fullthroated commitment to the right of everyone to live in freedom, equality and peace – Israelis and Americans included – they are not entitled to carry the flag of social justice activism.” In case that wasn’t clear, Hunziker is insinuating that, beyond just supporting Hezbollah, the “leaders” of QPIRG likely oppose freedom, equality, and peace for Americans and Israelis.

Going for the jugular like that is impressive; I feel obliged to give him that much. But next time Hunziker should think twice before embarking on cavalier rants with offensive and outlandish claims about people he doesn’t know. Next time he should ask questions before licentiously speaking on behalf of “left-

ists” or “QPIRG leaders.”

Nonetheless, I do applaud him, because his shameless allegations give me no other choice than to come out with it. As a QPIRG board member, I’d like to finally make the confession conservatives, masked or otherwise, have all been waiting for: QPIRG and Tadamon! in fact… (drum roll) …DON’T support Hezbollah!

Surprised?

It’s true, Tadamon! has campaigned to de-list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. But not because they support Hezbollah, its racism, or its militarism; nor do they advocate raising money in Canada for their military activities (despite what Hunziker would like to imply). If Hunziker cared to do some research, he’d have learned that Tadamon!’s delisting campaign – now defunct – was based in part on the views that the terror list is both diplomatically unhelpful and the source of racial profiling in Canada. Are these beliefs contentious? Yes. Does this mean QPIRG and Tadamon! support Hezbollah or apologize for their crimes?

Nope. Not even close. Suggesting so is libellous and a bold-faced lie to McGill students.

I know, I know – the nuanced difference between on the one hand supporting Hezbollah, and on the other opposing Canada’s diplomatic strategy regarding Hezbollah is probably too tricky for a doctoral student like Hunziker to wrap their head around…

The reality is probably much more sinister. Hunziker’s article shows how campus conservative opportunists are hijacking the very existence of nuanced political thought on the left in order to do what they do best: misrepresent, misrepresent, misrepresent.

Thanks, Hunziker, for illustrating to McGill students how fancy rhetoric can mask mendacious lines of reasoning.

Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan is a U3 Political Science, former VP External of SSMU, and a current member of the QPIRG Board of Directors. The views expressed here are his own.

He can be reached at sebastian. ronderos-morgan@mail.mcgill. ca.

movement against QPIRG, which we believe further defamed our organization’s character, standpoint, and mission statement as a whole.

This statement was issued by the Black Students’ Network of McGill University. You can reach the organization by writing bsnmcgill@ hotmail.com, or by going to their website at ssmu.mcgill.ca/bsn/.

Upset about Midnight Kitchen closing?

Write in! commentary@ mcgilldaily.com letters@ mcgilldaily.com

Erratum In the article “SSMU President looks to end GA” (News, January 20), we incorrectly characterized Zach Newburgh’s proposed reforms. Under his model, students could submit motions for consideration by Council and referendum questions.

The Daily regrets the error.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Tegan MacKay

Nicolas Roy

Li-Anne Sayegh

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Having guts

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A conservative critique of the Prince Arthur Herald Haaris Khan Hyde Park

W

hat is a conservative? It’s a question that bears asking, simply because there’s no clear-cut definition anymore. Not that there ever are clearcut definitions in the realm of politics, but when it starts to get confusing, it’s time to start reflecting.

I’ve never been one to put a label on my own political beliefs, but as I usually vote for the Conservative Party and find myself at odds with liberal points of view more often than not, I find the gravitation

cies – at risk of being branded a supporter of “nihilistic anti-semitic [sic] death cults.” Adding to my confusion was the hit job on QPIRG advocates and the nasty flame wars the articles provoked. I opted out last semester, but this semester I just might stay opted in, because the anti-QPIRG campaign has rubbed me the wrong way. Being provocative is one thing – being thuggish is another.

What is a conservative then? An ex-girlfriend once told me, when I was a young idealistic liberal and she a reserved conservative, that “conservatives have guts.” I don’t think she meant the kind of guts needed to slam negative campaign-

Being provocative is one thing – being thuggish is another

Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

The Moon Treaty is dead.

Discuss.

Timiebi Aganaba Hyde Park

N

ASA’s latest groundbreaking discovery in October 2010 that the moon may be home to water, silver, mercury, and other natural resources has made the satellite a hot topic once again. This discovery means that the moon’s resources could be useful to us on Earth, and our anthropocentric nature gets us excited as soon as we discover that we may be able to “exploit” something.

The “exciting” news came just a few weeks before Ram Jakhu, a professor of space law at McGill, gave a lecture that has had a huge impact on the way I view the dynamic nature and potential of law. Jakhu is one of the few people who argues that the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies – a.k.a. the Moon Agreement – is not a failed treaty, despite that it has only been ratified by 13 countries since its creation in 1979 and that none of those nations are spacefaring. In treaty terms, those statistics mean that the treaty has a negligible effect on actual spaceflight… So far, that is.

I recalled a conversation I had with the director general of a prominent space agency in 2009.

He asked me if his country should

ratify the Moon Agreement. The answer I gave him then was in line with the thinking of the day, and right out of the texts that I’d been exposed to. “The Treaty is a failed treaty, and no major space power has signed it because it calls for the establishment of an international regulatory regime to create and oversee an equitable system to share resources.”

I answered with one sentence and that was it.

The main problem here is the word “share.” Who is going to invest millions to get to the Moon, set up shop, and then “share” the profits? The treaty effectively creates a moratorium on commercial development.

Well, that was me in 2009.

Following the lecture at McGill, I took a close look at the treaty again and wondered, has everyone been reading the same text? This treaty grants rights to use resources in a way that is currently not expressly permitted under general international space law and avoids the need for determination of a legal regime to protect private property rights before the establishment of the envisioned international regime. (In essence, under the Moon Agreement, you can use resources unless it’s internationally prohibited, and prohibition will be difficult without the regulatory regime!).

Even if the regime is established and sharing is required, commentators missed the part that says that the sharing must be “equitable.” What’s the difference between equitable sharing and paying royalties or tax? In all earthly endeavours, if you are going to use natural resources, you have to pay some charge or tax to the people that actually own or control the resources, n’est-ce pas? Well, as no one owns the moon, you pay the tax to an international body! To me, it’s the same thing.

So back to those NASA findings.

The presence of water means that we could potentially have a human base on the moon. A human base means that we could potentially establish operations. As we continue to discover benefits outside our planet, the Moon Agreement is a readymade “suggested” legal framework, which can be used as a foundation to establish an equitable framework in support of the aspirations of signatories. So how can anyone say the moon treaty is dead?

If I were to see that space agency director general again, our conversation about whether his country should sign the Moon Agreement would be a lot, lot longer!

Timiebi Aganaba is a LLM Air and Space Law student. Write her at timiebi.aganaba@mail.mcgill.ca.

toward the “c-word” natural. I consider myself a political conservative, but only if I round up.

So when I heard that there was a new “centre-right” conservative newspaper at McGill in the same vein as the upcoming Sun News channel, I was pretty excited. The overt liberal bias of academia had become suffocating, and I anticipated a real breath of fresh air in the Prince Arthur Herald. A little bit of provocation could really be healthy for intelligent debate.

I started reading it and got a chuckle out of a few jabs at Michael Ignatieff, read an interesting piece about grading at McGill, and an article boosting Alberta’s education system. So far so good... until the wheels started spinning and the Prince Arthur Horror-Machine started spitting out opinion pieces with baseless and downright ignorant attacks on left-wingers and anyone who would dare question Israel. Hey, I didn’t know being a conservative meant agreeing with Israeli settlement poli-

ing and deeply partisan messages down peoples’ throats. Nor the kind of guts needed to promote ethnocentrism and Zionist propaganda in a paper that claims to be “Canada’s premier student news source.”

No, I think the kind of guts she was talking about are the guts that made me shift my views. The kind that are needed to be a stalwart defender of equality, freedom, and opportunity.

The kind that are needed to stick to principles of fairness, justice, responsibility, and prudence. The kind that are needed to be honest, pragmatic, and bold. Conservative values are old and universal. They’re tried, tested, and true. That’s what a conservative is and that’s the kind of media I support.

Haaris Khan is a U2 IDS and Software Engineering student.

He is also a representative to the International Development Studies Students’ Association, but the views expressed here are his own. Write him at haaris.khan@mail.mcgill. ca.

“ QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Apathy isn’t inherent – it’s a product of not having tools to engage on important issues —Tyler Lawson, U1 Arts Senator, at yesterday’s town hall on the future of the General Assembly

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Emma Quail

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Flora Dunster

David Whiteside

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14 Features

The intelligence of the senses T

hink about the visual landscape you live in, the sounds of the city that become your soundtrack as you walk to school, the smells of a crowded house party or a holiday family gathering, the textures of your clothes and skin during the Montreal winter, the learned movements of repeated action, like riding a bike or knitting a scarf.

Our interactions with the world through our senses are internalized into what anthropologists call embodied knowledge. They situate us within the environments, communities, and cultures we live in. The need to address this kind of knowledge in the academic discourse of anthropology – a field grounded in the study of culture and human experience – has been taken up in recent years by a burgeoning project in socio-cultural and media anthropology called sensory ethnography.

This sub-discipline of anthropology has been pioneered largely by the Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard University, directed by anthropologist, professor, and filmmaker Lucien Taylor. In an essay titled Iconophobia, Taylor asserts his view that, “Because we humans express ourselves through images as well as language, and because anthropology constitutes an exploration of the human condition, it seems needlessly delimiting to conceive of the form of anthropology itself as exclusively linguistic.” As stated in the SEL mission statement, by “harnessing perspectives drawn from the human sciences, the arts, and the humanities, the Sensory Ethnography Lab aims to support innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, with original nonfiction media practices that explore the bodily praxis and affective fabric of human existence.”

Anthropologists in this area of study use audio-visual media as their primary method for conducting ethnographic research. This emergent sub-discipline has not, however, been received well by all anthropologists and scholars in the social sciences. Since text reigns in academia and scholarship, sensory ethnography has been rejected as a legitimate medium for anthropology by many in the field. This backlash raises the question of whether film, sound, and photography can be academic.

A

nthropologists are scriveners of culture.

They have traditionally taken up the task of conveying human experience through ethnographic research, the process of collecting information on human societies and cultures and writing about them in detailed, descriptive language. Yet words are often unable to paint a complete picture. Sensory ethnography aims to communicate aspects of human experience that language alone often fails to conjure through the use of audio-visual media.

Predominantly conducted through film, photography, sound or any combination of these mediums, sensory ethnography fuses art and scholarship. Anthropologists look to sensory ethnography as a pedagogical tool that works through showing rather than telling.

Sensory ethnography attempts to rekindle the senses: sight with sound, sound with touch, and so forth, to evoke how experiences are perceived. Film in particular is a medium that allows for this cohesion of the senses. It opens up the possibility for the viewer to experience the reality of what is shown on screen. As the viewer encounters the moving subjects, they

simultaneously see, hear, and interpret. By privileging bodily experiences and embodied knowledge through film, sensory ethnographies can evoke the powerful feelings of being present in a moment.

Additionally, unlike textual ethnographies, which communicate the anthropologist’s interpretation of a cultural event, film allows viewers more freedom to unearth multiple meanings and interpret the content for themselves.

E

thnography has been the focus of social anthropologists since the early to midtwentieth century, when the field first got off the ground. Anthropologists have incorporated audio and visual media in their work for as long as these technologies have been accessible.

Early ethnographic films typically used metacommentary and voice-overs to speak about the ritualistic dances performed by members of “exotic” tribes from faraway lands dressed in elaborate feathered costumes. Ethnographers recorded the practices and rituals of so-called “primitive” societies to preserve “dying” cultures of ancient history. They disseminated information about cultures’ local knowledge and customs from the perspective of a Western anthropologist with the intention of educating an unknowing, curious audience. You have most likely encountered some of these “educational” films in middle school or in high school world history classes.

Anthropology as it was practiced in the 1950s and earlier by European anthropologists has been heavily criticized as racist, expository, and colonialist. Some of the loudest critics of anthropology’s dark history come from within the discipline itself. They have criticized early scholarship for perpetuating colonial power imbalances on multiple counts, as well as for depriving the anthropologists’ subjects (mostly indigenous peoples) the freedom to represent and speak for themselves. Contemporary ethnographic films have very different intentions and values than those of anthropology’s past.

I

n the syllabus of his course “Sensory Ethnography I,” Taylor underlines the new horizons set for contemporary sensory ethnographic work, stressing the importance of sensitivity to the politics of representation: “Media anthropologists concerned to democratize or pluralize their representations, or to enable dialogue across societal lines have previously unimaginable possibilities here – for instance, in permitting the observed to return the gaze of the observers, the interviewee to answer back, reality to hold representation in check.”

With a multiplicity of definitions of what exactly comprises ethnography, the boundaries of sensory ethnography are few and far between. Professor of Anthropology and Music at the University of New Mexico, Steven Feld calls himself an “ethnographer of sound.”

When recalling his forays into fusing anthropology and sound after studying ethnomusicology, he writes: “I abandoned the usual framework (e.g., ‘The Music of the Bongo-Bongo: An Ethnomusicological Analysis of their Song Texts’) and rudely called my project by a deliberate counter term: an ethnography of sound, or, an ethnography of sound as a symbol system. I wanted to study ways sound and sounding link environment, language, and musical experience and expression.” Since then, his work has ranged from recording and studying

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

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Megan Galeucia and Ariel Appel explore the movement to bring human experience into academia

the bird calls of the Bosavi rainforest region of Papua New Guinea, to the ringing of bells and other ambient sounds of cities across the world in a compilation called The Time of Bells.

Feld explores the connections between sound, history, and cultural experience through his aural compilations, however his privileging of aural media over the written word does not preclude text altogether from his work. The same holds true for other sensory ethnographers. It is not their intention to stage an artistic coup of the field through these projects, but instead to advocate for a co-existence of these contributions as valuable and necessary for the anthropological discourse of human experience.

Ethnographic film often uses long takes to evoke what Taylor deems “a tempo faithful to the rhythms of real life.” This style has been adopted by a multitude of filmmakers including Taylor himself and his wife Ilisa Barbash, who collaborated on their recent film Sweetgrass, released in 2009. The film follows sheep herders leading the last flock of sheep through the Beartooth mountains of Montana for summer pasture. With the exception of a few snippets of dialogue, language is largely absent. There are no interviews, narration, intertitles, subtitles, or profiles, as are conventionally provided in documentary film. Instead, the directors ask their viewers to observe and experience the journey of the sheep herders and the stillness of the landscape through the long shots of quiet pastures, big sky, and the movement of flocks trampling through forest brush and grazing on expansive fields. With only one monologue of a herder lamenting the hardships of the journey, the film offers viewers nothing but the experience of the herders (and the sheep) themselves, from which they are free to interpret or extrapolate what they will.

In contrast, conventional ethnographic texts are comprised of the words and interpretations of a single person: the anthropologist. Film, though still very much contrived by the filmmaker, provides more freedom for the viewers to interpret what they see and hear for themselves, opening up the possibility for multiple meanings of whatever is conveyed on screen to co-exist. Some ethnographic films, such as Forest of Bliss (1986) by Robert Gardner, offer the viewer no background information whatsoever. These choices are intentional. Voiceovers or captions about the cremation and funeral rituals conveyed on screen are absent; the only background information given is the name of the city – Benares, India – stated in a caption at the start of the film. Viewers will most likely not possess the factual background knowledge to understand the particularities of the film’s content – an oft-voiced danger of sensory ethnography – but the hope is that they come away with a rich understanding of lived experiences of being there.

Such styles of film making, with minimal editing, translation, or captions, can “reflect an ambiguity of meaning that is at the heart of human experience itself,” Taylor suggests.

This is why anthropologists are so drawn to it.

McGill anthropology professor Lisa Stevenson, a former student of Taylor’s, teaches a 400level anthropology seminar on sensory ethnography. Through this course she strives to imbue in students the value of other media for anthropology. “Film, in particular,” Stevenson

stated, “can provide access to an everyday mode of knowing that is at once visual and tactile and which allows us to get about in the world, to navigate our everyday world without needing to, or even being able to, formulate how it is that we get about – in speech.”

I

t seems as though the bleeding of audiovisual media into anthropological discourse has been more widely received in recent years, as universities such as McGill and several others throughout Europe – particularly in the U.K. – are offering courses in the practical vein of Taylor’s at Harvard. At McGill, Stevenson’s course centres around discussions about films and soundscapes screened in class, readings, and the process of making a sensory ethnography itself – the culminating assignment at the end of the semester. Over the two semesters that the course has been taught, projects have ranged from films, installations, photographic displays, and soundscapes.

Students who have taken this course agree that working in film, sound and photography is a rare treat in the McGill arts faculty. Our friend (and a Daily staff member) Anna Leocha, who also took this course, was enthusiastic about “the sheer novelty and excitement of doing a creative project as opposed to writing a paper.”

The challenge of this course is both academic and creative, but ultimately invaluable for many students’ further pursuits in academia, across all disciplines.

Anna continued, “I have returned to the themes that we discussed in sensory ethnography in so many of my other classes because you can study or think of anything as ethnographies. And when you do that you start seeing mini-cultures everywhere and that’s really exciting. You can expand and explode that idea and it can play into so many different departments and studies, and I think it’s something that anyone can relate to. These are ideas that people in any faculty can think about.”

The use of imagery and sound in anthropology is an attempt to stray from the confining limitations of language when conveying something as ambiguous and sensorial as human experience. This has led many anthropologists, scholars and artists alike to wonder if there can be a place for the non-verbal in academia, or if sensory ethnography will always fall under the nebulous category of “art.”

Academia often excludes non-linguistic media such as film, photography, or sound on the grounds that they are not recognized academic formats in and of themselves; they do not adhere to strict rules of grammar nor do they necessarily employ the approved tools of study that yield accountable data, such as surveys of customs and kinship systems. But as the significance of embodied knowledge and lived experience increases in the discipline of anthropology and other social sciences, perhaps the academic world can make a little more room for media that best represent this data, encouraging alternative methods of communication to join language with equal credibility.

We asked Stevenson what film offers anthropology. She invoked the words of 1920s Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov: “Cinema isn’t I see, it’s I fly,” and this, she continued, “I think, is a statement that coincides with the best ethnographic practice. What is it to fly with a film, to fly with a companion in the field, rather than to meticulously decode each statement they make?”

Stills from films produced by students in Lisa Stevenson’s class on sensory ethnography. Clockwise from top-right: Kali Stull, Ming Lin, Anna Leocha, Ariel Appel, Anna Leocha, and Ming Lin

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Dominic Popowich

Flora Dunster

Health&Education

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Toward a quality of lives The challenge societal stigmas pose for HIV treatment Gabe Maldoff

Health&Education

T

he 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna last summer marked a critical moment in the global fight against the pandemic. Coinciding with the United Nations deadline to achieve universal access to HIV care, early and effective treatment was touted as a functional way to slow and even stop the spread of HIV and AIDS given the current difficulty in developing efficient vaccination.

A strategy known as “Seek and Treat,” pioneered at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, aims to seek out individuals with a high risk of becoming HIV-positive, and begins aggressive and early use of antiretroviral treatment, as opposed to the earlier method of only treating individuals once they display symptoms of AIDS. This was facilitated by the development of new anti-retroviral drugs in the last five years that act on several parts of the virus and on different phases in its growth cycle, preventing patients from forming resistances – as occurred with the older drugs.

With early anti-retroviral treatment, not only is the quality of life of the patient improved, but his or her viral load is dramatically reduced. Notably, this means that the chance of infecting others is also lessened. For every ten-fold reduction in the viral load of a population, an analysis of trends in BC found that the number of new HIV cases declined by 14 per cent.

For treatment to actively prevent the spread of HIV, however, those who are infected must know their status and have access to early treatment. In Canada, it is estimated that a quarter of people living with HIV have not been tested, and only about half of those who tested are receiving treatment, according to the Globe and Mail. While “Seek and Treat” aims to reduce this number by targeting high-risk populations through aggressive testing campaigns, the focus is slowly shifting to promoting testing in the general population, rather than just

Tom Acker | The McGill Daily

New research hopes to change problematic conceptions of HIV-positive people. those deemed high risk.

Loutfy explained that stigma exists in two forms: symbolic stigma, the fear that people will associate one’s condition with the old stereotypes of HIV as a result of reckless sexual practices or drug use, and internalized stigma, when one begins to believe and internalize these stereotypes.

The experience of either stigma can lead one to avoid getting tested. “If people don’t get tested, they end up getting care later in the progression of the disease,” said Loutfy.

The World Health Organization’s guidelines advise that treatment should begin when CD4 counts – the measure of HIV’s progress in destroying immune system cells – dip below 350 parts/microlitre.

Normal levels are 600-1200, with treatment ideally beginning at 500.

Despite this Loutfy has found that many Canadians are not receiving treatment until their counts are below 200. At this level, the virus is already considered to have progressed to AIDS, and treatment success rates are much lower.

The problem, as Loutfy sees it, has not only to do with stereotypes in the general public, but also with problems within the medical system.

“HIV-patients are very likely to receive stigma in their treatment, particularly in clinics outside the major downtown centres.”

For example, “many clinics will treat Hepatitis patients but will refuse to treat HIV-positive patients, or quarantine them if

they do, even though the risks are the same,” Loutfy said. A 2010 paper by Loutfy exploring the perception of stigma in HIV-positive women found a correlation between reports of experiencing high levels of stigma with negative encounters with a health care professional. There is a worry that many HIV-positive patients could be driven to avoid the regular monitoring needed to ensure successful treatment.

Stigma becomes even more entrenched when it comes to issues of family planning. “When properly treated,” Loutfy explained, “the chances of HIV transmission from a mother to her child [prior to and after childbirth], or from one sexual partner to another, has been reduced to well below

one per cent.” However, “there are only five fertility clinics in Canada – four in Ontario, one in Alberta – that offer full fertility services to women infected with HIV. The majority of Canadians with HIV have no access to fertility services.”

Royal Orr, co-founder of Highlands Hope of Tanzania, a McGill-affiliated umbrella group that supports the work of nurses in HIV clinics in one of the country’s most effected regions, has also worked with this issue.

“I’ve been surprised when speaking to Canadian audiences by how negatively they react when they hear we are helping people with HIV to safely have babies,” Orr said. “At the base of this reaction is the presumption that if you have HIV, you’re toxic and you’re expected to swear off being a sexual and reproductive being.”

Orr worked extensively in the early years of AIDS in Tanzania, combating the stigma preventing people from getting tested.

“Those were the years of ACT UP,” a reference to the direct action AIDS-advocacy group founded in the U.S. in the late 1980s. “There was a lot of anger and we believed change could only happen if we stood up against the institutions that were failing to deliver proper services.”

But now, as institutions have begun to respond and HIV has become more manageable, he sees that the strategies for fighting stigma are changing. “What we see now is a slow, patient, nose to the grind approach of tireless, fearless advocates within the system.”

The problem seems to be one of education. “People don’t know that sex and reproduction can be safe if you have HIV and properly treat it,” explained Orr. He mentioned that it is an especially tricky pronouncement to make for the medical profession, because of the worry of leading to more risky behaviour.

At this, he recalled that on his first experience meeting an HIVpositive family in Tanzania planning to have children, he was initially taken aback. “But then, I thought,” he says enthusiastically, “Of course!

Why shouldn’t these people have a family if they want?”

healthandeducation@mcgilldaily.com There for your pedagogical and medical needs

18Health&Education

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Can’t understand, can’t imagine What’s at stake when photographing atrocities in the third world?

Health&Education Writer

I

n December of 2008, I returned from a study abroad program in Nairobi, Kenya.

Like many of my fellow North American students visiting Africa for the first time, I had embarked on the trip armed with an ample amount of naivetĂŠ, excitement, and certain expectations (informed and imagined) of what my experience would entail.

Indeed, of the many “Other� places in the world, Africa has perhaps been most often projected as that “Other�. Since colonial times, the continent and its people have been constructed and positioned as decidedly exotic in our Western imagination.

Contemporary Africa has become iconized by images of disease, famine, war, and conflict, which have served to reinforce its “exoticization� as the inverse to a North American lifestyle. Whether envisioned as permanently primordial for the sake of foreign control, or pictured as the “dark continent� in dire need of aid and assistance, Africa’s alterity has ultimately become its own attraction.

Sparing the descent into a tired diatribe on the legacy of colonial history and the imperative need for cultural sensitivity when visiting these “Other� places, I would like to explore an issue which was raised during my

time in Kenya and which remains a source of conversation and conflict: the role of photography in representations of the Other, and in particular, what Susan Sontag has termed the “iconography of suffering.�

In addition to being armed with lofty ideas and images of Africa inspired by National Geographic covers, my fellow students and I were endowed with a particular gift of modernity: the digital camera.

Together we debated the implications of appropriate picture-taking.

In capturing images of Africa, we were adamant in our commitment to “cultural sensitivity� and fervent in our desire to avoid any measure of ethnocentrism or exploitative tourism. Snapping mantelpiece shots of kissing giraffes was acceptable, but we were collectively mortified when one of our peers dared to ask if she could take pictures of babies at an orphanage for children with HIV. People’s lives, we agreed, were not material for our photo albums.

However, quickly these grandiose commitments fell to the wayside in our growing desire to snap photographs of everything and everyone we saw. We became inexplicably compelled to capture images that mirrored the Kenya we had constructed in our minds. Far worse than our desire to capture the African landscape of our imagination was the desire to capture the Africans of our imagination.

Spurred by the quest for authen-

ticity, we sought to create what we believed to be a true representation of Africa – images of human suffering.

In Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag writes that, “Being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience, the cumulative offering by more than a century and a half’s worth of those professional, specialized tourists known as journalists.� Photojournalism is a field fraught with irreconcilable tensions between aesthetic pursuits, truthful documentation,

such photographs of trauma come from areas that we might identify as the “developing world,� a phenomenon Sontag identifies as exhibiting “exotic� – meaning colonized – subjects. The photographic representation of atrocity creates an imagined proximity between the spectator and those who are suffering. As spectators, we have become conditioned to rely on these images’ evocation of shock, shame and sympathy. Through the “iconography of suffering,� a type of voyeurism is engendered.

Whether we are faraway spectators, or behind the camera ourselves, the act of representation further exoticizes the human experience and in doing so, reinforces the space between us and the Other.

Emblematic of these questions is the story of Kevin Carter, a South African photographer whose 1993 image of a starving Sudanese toddler being stalked by a vulture won acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize.

Carter’s photo was met with over-

whelming reader responses and queries regarding the fate of the young girl. Had she made it to safety? Had Carter helped her? Or had she been left to her fate, immortalized on film?

A few months after being awarded the prize, Carter took his own life, citing “vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain‌of starving or wounded children.â€? His death left a mark on the field of photojournalism and brought a new set of questions and challenges to the meaning of the image in our modern context, and especially, what it means to capture the image of human suffering. The discourse surrounding the “iconography of sufferingâ€? are all too often obscured by the harsh criticisms wagered against the individuals who choose to engage with this medium. We must not shy away from confronting our attraction to the image, and the meanings and implications of the images themselves.

and the obligation of human conscience. War photographers frequently come under harsh criticism for their choices to enter conflict or disaster zones for the purposes of documentation and with refusal to interfere. Indeed, it has become nearly platitudinous to argue that photojournalism is inherently exploitative in privileging art and the pursuit of the image over human experience.

The overwhelming majority of

Homemade harvest Do Provigo one better and make your own granola Dine with Dash Thomas Dashwood dinewithdash@mcgilldaily.com

A

t first, making granola seems completely irrational. But then you realize that every box of cereal bought at the grocery store is really just daylight robbery (except when you are buying Cinnamon Toast Crunch – this is a fair purchase).

This granola allows you to add what you want and leave out what you don’t, and will certainly keep you going all morning – just like how Lucky Charms won’t. It makes a great snack, too.

Variations: t)POFZ DIPQQFE IB[FMOVUT dried apricots, cardamom t.BQMF TZSVQ XBMOVUT PS pecans, raisins or dried cherries, cinnamon t)POFZ PS NBQMF TZSVQ TVOflower seeds, dried cranberries,

prunes or dried apples, nutmeg t#SPXO TVHBS GMBLFE BMNPOET shredded coconut, banana chips, chocolate chips or chunks t#SPXO TVHBS TBMUFE QFBOVUT chocolate chips or chunks t#SPXO TVHBS TISFEEFE DPDPnut, dried pineapple or papaya, white chocolate chips t'PS B IFBMUI LJDL BEE GMBY hemp seed, sesame seeds

Granola Ingredients: Ÿ cup vegetable oil 1 egg white ½ tsp salt 1 to 2 tsp ground spice (cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice) ½ cup sweetener (brown sugar, honey, maple syrup or white sugar in a pinch) 4 cups oats (any type but instant oatmeal will work) Up to 2 cups nuts or seeds, chopped or whole Up to 1 cup dried fruit and anything else you care to add (see below for suggestions)

Method: Whisk oil, egg white, salt, spices (if using) and sweetener in a large bowl. Add oats, mix thoroughly and then mix in any seeds, or nuts. Don’t add the dried fruit yet.

Spread evenly on a baking sheet. First cover the sheet with foil or parchment paper if you want an easier clean up.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 325 degrees. After fifteen minutes, pull it out of the oven and stir before putting it back in. Be careful, as granola can burn very quickly.

Once cooked, remove from oven and cool. Now you can break it up and add dried fruit, chocolate or more nuts and seeds.

This can be stored in an airtight container for over a month.

Illustrations by Nicole Stradiotto | The McGill Daily

Talia Gordon

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

19

Emily Clare

Anna Foran

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

20

Why your life is bohemian Opera McGill takes on La Bohème The McGill Daily

T

here’s something about Puccini’s La Bohème. “It’s the best thing there is,” explains Nicholas Cage’s character in Moonstruck. An opera about the romantic misadventures of starving Parisian artists, Bohème lacks the opulence and epic scope traditionally associated with the genre’s late 19th century golden age.

Yet it has consistently been one of the top three most performed operas in North America, and according to Opera McGill director Patrick Hansen, it’s probably the most beloved: “I think a lot of people would say Bohème is the numero uno,” he told The Daily in an interview. The opera’s production value more than makes up for its subject matter’s dearth of decadence: with a cast made up of 100 students and one dog, it’s the biggest and most expensive of the 15 operas the company has mounted over the past four years.

Hansen has no problem accounting for Bohème’s perennial appeal.

“I think the thing that really makes it powerful is that it’s a story about young people – very passionate artists, musicians, painters, philosophers…students, basically.” Fans of the Broadway show Rent, he pointed out, will notice that the musical lifted its basic plotline, characters’ names, and whole swaths of music from Puccini’s piece. “It’s just an opera about passion and love and being youthful, and it hits older

people, it hits middle-aged people, its hits young people the same way.

You know, it’s the bohemian lifestyle,” he said.

But Philippe Sly, who plays the painter Marcello for the first half of the production’s run, thinks that university-aged viewers will feel a special affinity with the storyline.

“Just as a student, as a young person, someone who’s trying to find their own individuality, to define it…I can really relate to my character in a kind of profound way,” he said.

La Bohème is an opera entirely about ordinary people trying to navigate ordinary relationships, and a weak rapport between actors can make the entire thing fall flat. This cast has no such problem. From the very first scene, the actors portraying the motley crew of beatniks play off each other with sketch-comedy timing and an irresistibly youthful sense of fun. Hansen explained that his primary focus as a professor has been to help the actors physically embody their characters; for the male actors, this involved developing more exaggerated and polished versions of their day-to-day student selves. “We could have placed this in the McGill ghetto. It would have been easy,” Hansen laughed.

Instead, he and conductor Julian Wachner took a more traditional route, taking their cue from Puccini’s own inspiration – Henri Murger’s La Vie de Bohème (1851), a collection of linked vignettes set in Paris’s Latin Quarter in the 1840s.

Their decision not to modernize

the setting only throws the continuity between then and now into sharper relief. “These people on the stage are just like you, except from a century ago,” Hansen explained.

But there is, of course, one major difference: the people onstage are jawdroppingly talented. Elias Berberian, who plays Rodolfo, has a voice that is booming and velvety-smooth, skipping sweetly over the notes with perfect pitch; Sly’s sonorous verbrato is no shabbier. Moments when the four male leads harmonize could melt even the most stubborn opera-phobe.

Moon-faced Véronique Coutu plays tragic, tubercular Mimi with a sweetness that is at first kind of cloying, but well-matched to lines like, “I’m happy and I love lilies and roses.” She comes into her own as the agonies of love and illness begin to take their toll – the weight of her desperation is palpable.

Hiather Darnel-Kadonaga hits the nail on the head as Musetta, the squealing coquette with a heart of gold. You can hardly blame Hansen for boasting that this is the easiest production he’s ever directed, “because the cast is so talented.”

Hansen and Sly agree that this is the ideal show for first-time operagoers to dip their toes in the water.

“It’s almost made for ADHD folks,” Hansen said. “Seriously, it moves so quickly – there’s not a wasted moment.” “Very tight knit,” Sly added.

His director agreed: “Exactly. It goes from one great moment to another great moment to another great moment.” The two only have one final warning: newcomers might just get hooked.

Stacey Wilson | The McGill Daily

Allison Friedman

Everyday memory

Through photography and film, Greg Staats explores the loss of Mohawk culture Anna Geisler

Culture Writer

O

ne’s first impression upon viewing Greg Staats’s exhibition of photography and video at Articule is that of acrid nostalgia mingled with cleanliness and order. The Ohsweken-born artist, now living in Toronto, displays a range of works that reflect on the situation of First Nations peoples in Canada.

Evenly laid out on white walls, black and white photographs feature old vans parked in driveways, what’s left of two cut-down trees in a backyard dominated by bricks and dust, a wooden chair against a wall, the Château Laurier, a bare tree captured from two different angles with branches stretching toward – all the directions of the earth, all portraying a stark encoun-

ter between nature and the modern urban landscape.

Artist Julie Tremblay talked about the motives of Staats’ work.

The chair in one of the photographs, for example, was “one of a set of eight of his grandmother’s chairs, which symbolizes the welcoming of guests to celebrate the native ceremonies.” Other photographs of seemingly useless objects within a natural background “show the importance placed by Natives in reserves on objects – old mattresses, for example – that would have been abandoned by the Occidental world,” explained Tremblay.

On the west corner of the wall, a video of black and white images plays on a small black television.

These images – sometimes static, sometimes flashing – jitter to the background of the many sounds of nature. A clear loss for the Mohawk language and culture is expressed

in these intricate and contradictory works, all the while establishing a connection with natural sounds and images.

This Sunday afternoon, the gallery was empty except for Skye, a current member of Articule.

Although she was not willing to share her opinion on Staats’s work, Skye gave her personal insight regarding the standing of First Nations artists in the art world.

“It’s definitely difficult for Native American artists to make a name for themselves,” she said. “First of all, you can’t just become an artist, as a Native American. You come with the title; you can’t be an artist like a white artist is. Just like a black artist or a South Asian artist, you come with the name and you’re expected to produce a certain type of art.”

Yet, the situation of Native artists remains hopeful. Tremblay explained, “Native art is defi-

nitely a growing field. Up to the eighties, the practice of any cultural action on the part of the Natives had been forbidden. Now there are numerous collections of Native art, and official grants dedicated solely to First Nations artists. The art world remains dominated by the Occidental but there is great improvement in the development of the standing of Native artists.”

Staats proves to be an example of this: his Native heritage is featured strongly in his work, intertwined with his religious background and the loss of his culture. “He focuses on joining together urban spaces and the Native culture in search of his identity,” said Tremblay.

“Coming from a Christian Mohawk family, he struggled with identifying himself as a Native American due primarily to his family’s loss of the Mohawk culture and lan-

guage with the introduction of the Indian Act, and to being viewed as an ‘inauthentic Indian’ by the nonChristian native families.”

Native artists have surely made a name for themselves among the many current Canadian artists of varying styles and backgrounds.

However, their art remains simultaneously strengthened and confined by their roots. Staats’s struggle in finding his identity among the many layers of ancestral practices and cultural history and his present situation as a Christian Mohawk, is transformed into art that can be appreciated by the broader art world. His exhibition expresses the struggle between the past, the present, and the loss of Mohawk culture somewhere along the way.

Greg Staats is at Articule, 262 Fairmount O., until February 20.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

21

Escaping your average musical AUTS offers up the unexpected in its production of Kiss of the Spider Woman John Watson

The McGill Daily

P

utting on only a single bigbudget production each year, the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS) lacks the reputation for staging raw and provocative art enjoyed by other theatre companies at McGill. Over the years, AUTS’s annual performances have been extravagant, playful, and prominent: its past four seasons have all featured popular Broadway musicals, including Joe Mastroff’s Cabaret and Howard Ashmen’s Little Shop of Horrors. Considering AUTS’s reputation for covering theatre’s mainstream, it’s no surprise that so many members of the McGill community are scratching their heads and asking, “Kiss of the what, now?”

Without breaking their streak of providing quality musical theatre, AUTS has stepped out of their comfort zone with their production of Kiss of the Spider Woman — a musical about prison life, seasoned with burlesque dance and lavish Hollywood reenactments.

Set in conflict-torn Argentina, Kiss is the story of cellmates Molina (Dane Stewart) – a gay window dresser who was imprisoned for displaying homosexual desires toward a minor – and Valentin (Ryan Peters), a Marxist revolutionary. The show focuses on the relationship between the flamboy-

ant and optimistic Molina and the emotionally hardened Valentin as they find ways to escape from their small prison cell through fiction and fantasy. Despite the tortures of prison life, Molina and Valentin are able to find refuge through Aurora (Zara Jestadt), a beautiful movie star whose doppelganger is the terrifying Spider Woman, who brings death to those she kisses.

Put quite simply, Kiss doesn’t share the escapist qualities that are generally expected from musical theatre. As director Renée Hodgins puts it, “This is no Guys and Dolls”.

Rather, Kiss is a grisly yet tender celebration of the arts’ ability to effectively move people through even the most difficult situations. To quote Hodgins in her director’s notes: “Kiss of the Spider Woman is a story about humanity that does not get told often enough. It is humankind at its best, at its worst, and all the complicated places in between.”

Production-wise, Kiss is practically flawless. Hodgins does a wonderful job of creating a world that is both sinister and fantastical, alternating between the play’s grim prison cell setting and the grand, embellished spectacle of Aurora’s film sequences.

Stewart acts as the audience’s guide through both his characters’ lived and imagined realities, and plays off the other cast members effortlessly.

Peters provides a strong counterpoint to Stewart’s more subtle and delicate performance.

Peters is also an exceptionally

Ada Sonnenfeld for The McGill Daily

strong singer who seems a natural fit for musical theatre; his performance of the song “The Day After That” actually gave me goosebumps. Jestadt, graceful in her portrayal of Aurora, serves as a muchneeded counterpoint to the show’s darker content. The only thing that I couldn’t fully wrap my head around was the decision to project bits of live action onto a screen at the back of the stage. Rather than enhancing the action, this added bit of technological glamour served

Top 10 as of January 24, 2011

CKUT 90.3 FM is a campuscommunity station that represents the student population of McGill as well as the community of Montreal.

CKUT (91.7 on cable) is a volunteerrun station that sends out a booming 5,700-watt signal to the greater Montreal area, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Artist/Album/Label 1. Syl Johnson – Complete Mythology (Numero Group) 2. Braids – Native Speaker (Flemish Eye)* 3. Various – The Sound of Siam: Left Field Look Thing, Jazz & Molar in Thailand 64-65 (Soundway) 4. Les Momies de Palerme – Brulez Ce Coeur (Musique Fragile)* 5. Mary Halvorson 5tet – Saturn Sings (Firehouse 12) 6. Wooden Wand – Death Set (Young God) 7. Sun Araw – Off Duty/Boattrip (Woodsist) 8. Bardo Pond – Bardo Pond (Fire) 9. On Ensemble – Ume in the Middle (Turtlefield)* 10. Afrocubism – Afrocubism (Nonesuch)

CKUT’s mandate is to provide an essential service to those in the Montreal community whose needs are not met by mainstream commercial radio. CKUT functions not only as an alternative to the status quo but as a viable community resource. CKUT serves as a training ground for the community and student populations, and in doing so provides an essential educational and informational service to the greater Montreal community.

*Canadian content

A new day is dawning mcgilldaily.com/culture

mainly as an unwanted distraction.

Hodgins attributed her interest in Kiss, despite the risks involved in staging a lesser known musical, to its substantive themes and potential relevance to the McGill community. Indeed, Kiss’s themes are provocative and pertinent – from issues surrounding political incarceration to sexuality – but it also addresses the perennial question of whether theatre should be a venue for escapism or a platform for social and political discus-

sion. Kiss demonstrates however that the two needn’t be mutually exclusive. Ultimately, the production impresses not only through its accomplished direction and stunning performances, but through its ability to deal with difficult questions and challenge our expectations for musical theatre.

Kiss of the Spider Woman runs from January 27 to 29 in Moyse Hall, at 7:30 p.m. Go to autsmcgill. com for tickets.

Mince Somewhere in between ferrying her youngest to hockey practice and discovering that there was no mincemeat to be found for love nor money within a five-mile radius of the health centre, Margaret found herself writing a letter in her head.

She did not realize how far along with the letter her mind had got until stuck at a zebra crossing on Holywell Road, when it was already planned out to the second paragraph.

Dear Shel, it ran. I am sorry I couldn’t make it, last time we arranged to meet. The car got a puncture and I spent four hours on the hard shoulder eating Werther’s Originals and listening to Gregorian chants, because that was all dad had in the glove compartment.

The file of nursery children had made it to the other side, and she pushed down on the pedal. She turned into the ice rink parking lot and sat in silence, composing.

It would almost be better if we had stopped talking then. All your phonecalls since have been so painfully inane.

Her son heaved his hockey kit into the trunk without speaking, and sat in the back seat during all three grocery store stops.

“I don’t see why we have to have bolognese anyway, it’s not even Laurie’s favourite.”

“But he asked for it.”

Anyway, phonecalls aside, the spare room will be ready for Thursday. We’ll have bolognese, like you asked, if you remember asking. Ten years, eh?

All my love, Maggie.

— Naomi Endicott

Inkwell

22

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lorraine Chuen

Nicole Stradiotto

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

editorial 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

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Mai Anh Tran-Ho rec@delitfrancais.com Contributors

Timiebi Aganaba, Ariel Appel, the Black Students’ Network, Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Christina Colizza, Thomas Dashwood, Allison Friedman, Megan Galeucia, Anna Geisler, Yasmeen Gholmieh, Talia Gordon, Erin Hale, David Huehn, Haaris Khan, Gabe Maldoff, John Lapsley, Fabien Maltais-Bayda, Anna Norris, Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan, Ada Sonnenfeld, Nicole Stradiotto, Vicky Tobianah, John Watson, Stacey Wilson

EDITORIAL

One step forward, two steps back The Conservatives celebrated their fifth year in power this weekend. Thoughout this time, the Harper government has consistently demonstrated a lack of respect or support for the arts in Canada.

In 2007, the Tories increased the Canada Council for the Arts’ budget from $151 million to $183 million. Despite that initial top-up, the Harper government has since cut deeply – to the tune of $45 million – from arts and culture funding, specifically targeting money allocated for travel costs and foreign exhibitions. These and other changes have put the presence of Canadian art abroad in a precarious position, making Canadian artists more vulnerable to market forces and political constraints.

Programs for artists exhibiting or touring outside of Canada – PromArt and Trade Routes – lost $13.7 million in August 2008, when PromArt was cancelled entirely. The government argued that its funding was going to groups and individuals that “were [not] the best choices to be representing [Canadians] internationally,” according to Anne Howland, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who cited the band Holy Fuck! as one such recipient.

The axe also fell on funding to initiatives such as the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund ($1.5 million), the Canadian Memory Fund (which digitizes federal agencies’ archives for online access; $11.7 million), the Book Publishing Industry Development Program ($1 million), and the Northern Distribution Program (distributor of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network; $2.1 million), among others.

The Conservatives’ dealings with the art community have demonstrated a near-complete lack of dialogue between government and artists. Beyond cuts, unpopular reallocations and ill-conceived plans have been the hallmarks of Harper’s culture policy. The Tories injected $100 million into cultural events in 2009 – but the recipients were, by and large, corporately funded festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Calgary Stampede.

Additionally, the money was distributed not by the Canada Council – whose decision-making bodies are made up of artists – but Industry Canada.

Quebec in particular has been hard hit by the cuts. Fifteen of the $45-million total in cuts came from Quebec’s share of arts funding and the reductions were met with large protests in Montreal. According to Le Devoir, “many think the Conservatives lost their sought-after majority in the 2008 elections because of Quebeckers’ reaction to the cuts.”

In the shadow of American culture, Canadian art – both English and French – struggles to gain a profile abroad. In Quebec, the difficulty is that much greater: French-language artists in North America face enormous obstacles in gaining recognition for their work, at home and abroad. In both cases, competing with widely exported American cultural production – backed by private U.S. capital – demands government intervention. The forces of the free market cannot, and should not, sustain Canadian art.

We need to remember that arts are not simply commodities – and that they need support. With a federal election looming, remember Harper’s record on art. Most of the damage may have already been done, but he must be held accountable.

Art issue contributors

Grace Brooks, Lorraine Chuen, Emily Clare, Flora Dunster, Anna Foran, Tegan MacKay, Xuan-An Nguyen, Dominic Popowich, Emma Quail, Nicolas Roy, Matthieu Santerre, Li-Anne Sayegh, Nicole Stradiotto, David Whiteside

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EDITORIAL

Happy QPIRGday!

This month, marks the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill’s thirtieth anniversary of research, education, and activism on issues of social justice and the environment. However, QPIRG’s position as it celebrates its birthday is not as solid as its longevity might suggest. In recent months an opt-out campaign has once again been launched by a handful of individuals on campus seeking to get students to opt out of the $3.75 they pay each semester to support QPIRG. While some members of this campaign have taken aim at the controversial groups QPIRG supports – such as Tadamon!

– they have also deceptively touted it as a way to save money or to buy a sandwich, without justification or admission of political motivation.

These kinds of tactics are both petty and divisive. Campus debate is a healthy and vital part of any student community, and groups seeking to inhibit this by removing those who would disagree with them only serve to undermine our campus’s collegial political climate. There are many clubs on campus whose politics we may not support, but whose existence we should.

It’s important that we come together as a community of students who support each other, even if we don’t always agree. QPIRG offers many students a place on campus where they feel they can be heard; whether or not we agree with their positions, it is our responsibility as a student body to make sure our peers have a place in which to express those views.

Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

volume 100 number 28

23

Compendium!

“

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lies, half-truths, and QPIRG

24

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

[PIRG-free Canada] is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the [universities] would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom [education] is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

—As transcribed from Ted Kennedy by Mémène Sansfaçon

Tunisian Revolution seems to be going well

PLUS 100

Egypt revolts!

PLUS 125 PLUS 7

Beautiful snow yesterday Zach Newburgh goes Glenn Beck @ town hall

MINUS 12

SSSSSSSSSSSMU president continues quest to stifle direct democracy

MINUS 75 MINUS 100

MK FUCKING CLOSED!!!!!!

UNCONFIRMED

And Organic Campus????

QPIRG opt‐out campaign mercifully almost over

EVEN

It’s been real

EVEN PLUS 45

TOTAL

PLUS 224

LAST WEEK’S TOTAL Help me be accurate: compendium@mcgilldaily.com.

WRITE OR DRAW FOR COMPENDIUM! compendium@mcgilldaily.com Erasmus Abrahamson | The McGill Daily

Mémène Sansfaçon | The McGill Daily

W

Straight White Male speaks out!

O Lemoncoin | The McGill Daily

Fuck you, conservative naysaying McGillians and misinformation!

kay, so I’m at my wit’s end with all of this “equality in the classroom” bullshit. Why should I have to wait to talk on the stupid speakers list in my feminist politics class, when what I have to say is not only more important than what everyone else has, but also much more intelligent? If we’re all equal now, including women, why shouldn’t I just get called on whenever I raise my hand to speak? Everyone else can wait their turn, because the males in this class are clearly underrepresented and outnumbered. It’s not fair that I don’t get to comment on every thing that gets said, because by the time I’m called on, I can’t remember what I was going to contradict or disprove. This system is limiting my success in the classroom, and disadvantaging everyone by keeping my brilliance from their ears.

e need a real debate. QPIRG does not hate JEWS. This is blatant misinformation. An organization that helps fringe groups gives some money to groups with radical roots. The point of campus life is that we encourage everyone to have diverse and interesting ideas.

We don’t have to agree with them.

But we do support their right to say them. That’s why SSMU gives contributions to fringe groups like... eh...

CONSERVATIVE McGILL. You have run a campaign of misinformation.

1) If you can find me a sandwich on campus for $3.75, I’ll be overjoyed.

2) You’ll probably latch onto that bit of the argument, ignoring any sensible forum for good debate. 3) QPIRG provides invaluable resources for groups that are integral to soooo many people on campus. Fine, you might not like Midnight Kitchen, Rad Frosh may not be relevant to you, Queer McGill may seem like a fringe group but they’re FANTASTIC SERVICES THAT WILL BE HURT

BY YOUR ACTIONS. So I’m going to argue with you on your level. IF YOU VOTE AGAINST QPIRG, YOU HATE THE GAY COMMUNITY. Write fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com with your non-hateful rants about shit that blows.