vol101issu11

Volume 101, Issue 11

October 13, 2011 mcgilldaily.com

Montreal protests California inmate treatment 5

McGill THE

DAILY

Shut up for 100 years

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

Plus Life-saving viruses 10 Rural medicine 13 Canadian music 18

Want to get involved with The Daily?

Here’s how!

WRITING

Our sections are news, commentary, culture, features, health&education, sports, and science+technolgy

VISUALS

Illustrate, take photos, or design!

AND MORE!

You can also send in your jokes and comics to compendium! or help up copy edit.

Can’t get to a newsstand?

Want access 24/7?

The Daily is online!

1 ½ to 3 ½

ALL INCLUSIVE! Downtown on St-Marc St., near Atwater & Guy Metro stations & Concordia & McGill Universities. Interior swimming pool, squash and sauna in the building.

Interior & exterior parking available.

www. mcgilldaily .com

514-935-4673 Ȉ .cogir.net

McGilYl THE

1 MONTH FREE + A $250 GIFT CARD* ON 4 1/2

/ m .co ds ly

(McGill Student ID# required.)

fie

www.cogir.net

ai

(514) 337-0003

Fill the form on mcgilldaily.com/classifieds Classifieds are FREE for McGill Students!

ld

*Limited promotion on certain units.

Certain conditions apply.

Close to Royal Victoria Hospital & McGill University

Advertise on our website!

il si as

Call (514) 286-9191 www.cogir.net

Indoor pool, sauna & 24h doorman. Near shops & services. Interior & exterior parking available.

cg

1100 Dr. Penfield

1½ to 5 ½ renovated apartments

cl

Close to everywhere!

DAIL

m

3 ½, 4 ½ renovated apartments, all included Indoor pool & 24h doorman Interior & exterior parking available.

Prestige residential building!

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

3

McGill rejects TAs’ demands Graduate student union calls a general meeting to mobilize Michael Lee-Murphy

4.1% Numbers relative to 2007 data

4.5% 4.3%

3.0%

1.5% 11.6%

1.7%

-12.9%

2007

2008 = TA hours

we’re not sure that this training is going to be paid,” he said.

Molly Alexander, a union adviser from AGSEM’s parent union, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, said that the offer rings hollow. “‘We are willing to move on training’ was the wording, but they didn’t

2009 = Undergrad enrolment

come back with any written proposal on it. In negotiations that doesn’t mean a whole lot,” she said. This is the eleventh meeting between AGSEM and the administration since May. According to a member of AGSEM’s bargaining team, Jonathan Mooney, McGill has offered a 1.2 per cent pay

2010

Alyssa Favreau | The McGill Daily

3.1%

Source: AGSEM; McGill Enrolment Services

A

ccording to officials from the union representing McGill’s Teaching Assistants (TAs), the administration has refused most of the union’s demands in current contract negotiations.

While the administration has refused to comment about current collective bargaining, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) says that the administration has balked at the union’s five primary demands.

AGSEM is seeking increased TA hours, paid training for new TAs, the limiting of conference and lab sizes, mandatory meetings with course supervisors, and a three per cent pay increase.

According to the union, McGill administration bargainers, after consultation with Provost Anthony Masi, refused these five primary demands.

“McGill just said ‘no’ flatly to our main demands, with the exception of a very small and vague opening on training,” said the chair of AGSEM’s bargaining committee, Renaud Roussel, at a delegates meeting Wednesday night.

“They’re just willing basically to set up some kind of training...and

stoppage would need a separate vote from that for pressure tactics.

According to TA employment calculations by AGSEM and data from University enrolment numbers, the ratio of increased graduate and undergraduate student enrollment to new TAships has risen to 27 to 1 since 2007.

TA hours relative to student enrolment

The McGill Daily

= Grad enrolment raise that is mandated by the province.

AGSEM officials pointed to a Canadian rate of inflation of 3.1 per cent.

AGSEM has called a general meeting on October 19 to discuss mobilization efforts.

Officials were quick to say a TA strike mandate or any kind of work

Section 109.1 interpretation The McGill administration has twice in recent years called on the anti-scab provision of the Quebec Labour Code as justification for firing striking workers from their other positions on campus.

In the first instance, during a TA strike in 2008, the administration fired all striking TAs from their other positions on campus.

Similarly, during the current MUNACA strike, the administration fired striking workers who were also employed as course lecturers, paying them a 20 per cent indemnity.

Before the next round of bargaining sessions scheduled for October 20 and 21, AGSEM is planning to draft an agreement that would save the nonstriking jobs of workers on strike.

According to Mooney, such an agreement would “lessen the impact of a strike” on the University, and for the administration to refuse it would be “retaliatory.”

Administration cracks down on student note-sharing sites Course instructors advised to put copyright symbol on their materials Daniel Smith

The McGill Daily

T

he emergence of a student-run note-sharing website on campus has provoked the administration to rein in possible copyright infringement of course materials.

An email sent by Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson advised all course instructors to display a copyright symbol on their course materials. The Daily recently obtained the email.

In the message, dated September 23, Mendelson writes, “recent cases of students posting the entire course content from WebCT has raised questions about the possibility of copyright infringement,” and that “persistent infringements will likely lead to disciplinary procedures under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.”

The students – who, according to Mendelson’s email, were “ignorant of the issue” – were notified

that their posting was an infringement of copyright and told to remove the materials, which they subsequently did.

One specific website – wikinotes. ca – is mentioned in the email.

Founded and run by McGill science undergraduates Clarence Leung and Santina Lin, along with a small group of other science students, Wikinotes states on its website that it “strives to provide free and open studentgenerated course content through a publicly-edited wiki.”

Most of the content on Wikinotes currently applies to large U0 and U1 science courses, with six arts courses documented on the site.

In an interview with The Daily, Mendelson said an instructor complained that some of his materials had ended up online.

“If an instructor creates notes and posts that on WebCT, it’s copyrighted material. It’s not permissible to take that and do what you want with it,” he said.

In an email to The Daily, the board of administrators for Wikinotes

wrote that student-generated materials comprised most of the content available on the website, but that instructor-generated materials would be useful to post as well – provided students get permission from the creator of the work.

The members of the board added that the McGill administration had recently told Wikinotes to remove images uploaded from textbooks and links to lecture recordings. Both were removed, though the members of the board wrote that they did not consider links to lecture recordings a violation of copyright, as the recordings are already available on the McGill website. They added that similar content would not be permitted on the site in the future.

Mikkel Paulson, leader of the Pirate Party of Canada, wrote in an email to The Daily that his group “takes the position that all information is power, and must be shaped and channeled to empower the weak and protect them from exploitation by the strong.”

Paulson said the copyright issues with university note-sharing were

more cultural than legal and political.

“Professors have the ability to unilaterally license their course material under Creative Commons or other copyleft licenses, regardless of the administration’s opinions on the matter,” said Paulson.

“Using copyright as a club is particularly hypocritical for academics, given that our present academic culture was built through hundreds of years of free sharing of ideas and information,” he continued.

Chemistry Professor David N. Harpp, who helps run Courses Online, a website established by the McGill Office for Science and Society to freely distribute recorded lectures and presentations, said that he hadn’t paid much attention to Mendelson’s advice to display his copyrights. “I’m not putting any copyright on anything... I haven’t even really looked into it, but [Mendelson’s] probably right to look into it,” he said.

Harpp said he had no problem with students or others posting and using his materials online, but noted differing attitudes through-

Jessica Lukawiecki | The McGill Daily out the University.

“We’re all in a different environment, I’m not sure how I can emphasize to you how different they are.

There may be a culture within a faculty or a department that whatever they put out there, you have to pay for it. My best guess is that my own colleagues in Chemistry would have a similar feeling to my own.”

In regard to enforcing copyrights online, Harpp said, “This is a giant quantum step from a textbook, and, even with a textbook, it would be difficult to do.”

4 News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

McGill cleared of scab labour charges MUNACA and administration head back to negotiating table today Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

M

cGill University was cleared of all allegations of using illegal replacement labour in a decision released by the Commission des Relations du Travail (CRT) on Tuesday.

The CRT report on illegal replacements, dated October 4, was issued after Ministry of Labour inspections at McGill found a number of cases in which workers were believed to be replacing McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) workers.

Ministry investigators were called into the University in late

September after MUNACA received complaints of illegal replacements, and completed inspections accompanied by representatives from the union and McGill.

The CRT ruling named thirteen workers against whom MUNACA filed complaints.

“This was a very strange ruling,” said MUNACA Vice-President (Finance) David Kalant of the CRT decision.

“We’re going to take further legal action on this, we don’t think this is correct. For one thing, it seems to ignore some very clear evidence in the investigator’s report,” Kalant explained.

When the Ministry of Labour released its findings in late

September, McGill disputed every case mentioned by the investigator.

“The Commissioner heard all the evidence on September 29 and took all evidence that was presented, verbally and in writing,” said McGill Vice-President (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa. “In every single case, the Commissioner sided with the University.”

Di Grappa cited cases of workers taking on the duties of employees who are not MUNACA members as an example of the type of complaints on which the CRT ruled.

As for future allegations, Kalant said that the union is “continuing to receive reports” of illegal replacement workers. “If we

think there is enough evidence, yes, we will ask for an investigators to come back and look at more,” he said.

Di Grappa also said that McGill is “looking forward to getting back to the [negotiation] table on Thursday, October 13, after almost two weeks of not being at the table.”

“At the onset of the conciliation process, the conciliator offered a number of dates. McGill said yes to every date that was proposed; the union did not,” Di Grappa explained.

“We are committed to resolving this at the table and finding a solution that’s fair and reflects the realities in which we live,” he said.

In an email to staff and students

Department of Biology affected by MUNACA strike McGill biology professors condemn administration’s conduct Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily

T

hirteen professors from McGill’s biology department have signed a letter condemning the conduct of the McGill administration during the non-academic workers’ strike.

The document details how the strike, which has been in effect since September 1, has affected the department.

T he letter is

signed by a third of McGill’s biology professors, and warns that, as the community enters the midterm season, “logistic problems that we are likely to face may well degenerate into chaos.”

Louis Lefebvre, the department’s program director, presented the letter at a press conference, seated beside representatives from MUNACA, SSMU, and MUNACA’s parent union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada. “We need to not turn our backs on people that are our

friends and colleagues,” he said.

Labs, he said, are “abnormally short or modified,” without lab technicians and “people we rely upon.”

The letter cites troubles with research funding and the increased risk of “epidemics in the McGill Phytotron,” a centre for research in experimental plant biology, which “could cause long term damages to our plant genetics program.”

The letter goes on to say that the professors fear for the “long term and bitter fragmentation of

our social network” and criticizes McGill for seeking an injunction against the strikers.

According to VP (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa, the University sought the injunction because “picketing infringed on the University’s right to remain open.”

When asked about the professors’ letter, Di Grappa wrote in an email to The Daily that the gesture was premature, given that the conciliation process had not been allowed to “bear fruit.”

Can’t hack it?

Write for Culture.

News meetings Thursday 5:30 p.m.

Daily office (Shatner B-24)

on October 12, Di Grappa said that the two-week hiatus on negotiations was “caused by the union’s inability to attend any sessions during that period.”

Later that day, MUNACA issued a statement on its website from President Kevin Whittaker stating that Di Grappa’s statement was false on two counts. “The negotiation schedule was decided on by taking into account the constraints of everyone – not just ours,” the statement read.

“We have made it clear to McGill University on several occasions that we would make ourselves available at any time if they are prepared to discuss any core issues at the heart of this conflict,” it continued.

MUNACA Update According to Kevin Whittaker, president of MUNACA, the recent injunction, which restricts the unions group size, noise level, and proximity to the University, has forced them to “expand our abilities and messages outside of the McGill community.”

According to Whittaker, the union is asking McGill alumni not to donate to the University until the strike is resolved. The announcement preceded McGill’s three days of Homecoming events, which began today.

“If [alumni] wish to do so afterwards, we would encourage them to wait until that time,” he said.

MUNACA has also attempted to put pressure on members of McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) by demonstrating outside their offices this week.

According to a MUNACA press release, the union recieved a “firm commitment” from BoG member Kathy Fazel early yesterday that she will “contact her fellow Board of Governors members and ask that they work for a quick solution to the conflict.” Fazel has been a member-at-large of McGill’s BoG with RBC since February 2008.

MUNACA Vice-President (Finance) David Kalant commented in the press release that “while we are pleased to get a firm commitment from Mme. Fazel, we will make sure that she follows through on her commitment.”

— Michael Lee-Murphy

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

5

Prison hunger strike gains Montreal support California inmates demanding improvement in standards of living Laurent Bastien Corbeil News Writer

A

small group of protesters gathered in front of the American consulate in Montreal on Friday to demonstrate their solidarity with a group of striking prison inmates in California.

The protest, organized by the Montreal Hunger Strike Support Committee, is part of a larger movement that aims to improve inmates’ standard of living.

Inmates across California are undertaking a hunger strike to demand better conditions behind bars. The strike, which began on July 1, was organized by inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison’s security housing unit, where prisoners are kept isolated in windowless, soundproof cells.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 811 inmates are

currently involved in the strike, down from a peak of 4,252 in July. An inmate is considered to be on a hunger strike if they have missed more than nine consecutive meals.

Some activists have likened conditions inside Security Housing Units (SHUs) to torture. Ed Mead, a former inmate at Washington State Penitentiary, described the living conditions in SHUs. “Those prisoners are subjected to total isolation. They have no communication with anyone and they are kept in what is essentially is a dog kennel,” he said.

Mead added that the only way to get out was to “snitch” on other inmates. This practice, known as “debriefing,” is one of the main grievances of the strikers.

Isaac Ontiveros, the communications director of Critical Resistance, an American organization whose goal is the abolishment

of the prison-industrial complex, explained the practice.

“What happens is that prisoners are forced to identity themselves or others as high level gang leaders,” said Ontiveros. “This creates all kinds of problems, it makes so that people end up in the security housing unit for many years, it effects their safety if they return to the general prison population, it effects their parole, and it creates a vicious circle in which prisoners are forced to fabricate information on one another.”

According to Ontiveros, Critical Resistance has blamed “debriefing” for causing the prolonged solitary incarceration of inmates, some for as long as 20 years.

“The health effects of this kind of imprisonment are devastating.

They’re not just devastating to the prisoners themselves, but to their family members as well. It follows people from inside of prison to

their lives outside of prison, if they ever get out,” Ontiveros said.

Ontiveros has also criticized the response from the Pelican Bay administration.

“The administration is creating this culture of intimidation. They identified the leaders of the strike and destroyed their personal items; they also did a variety of disciplinary write-ups against participants,” Ontiveros said.

Others were also threatened with solitary confinement.

For Mead, the hunger strike at Pelican Bay is part of a larger problem. Inmates in security housing units, he said, often have mental health issues.

“Mental health facilities in the United States have been emptied out. Most of [those with mental health issues] find themselves in prisons, and once in prisons, they’re also disruptive, so they end up in the security housing units,” he said.

The reasoning behind the Pelican Bay strike, he said, is obvious.

“Anytime you treat human beings like animals, deprive them of any self worth, you’re going to have those kinds of problems,” Mead said.

With the highest prison population rate in the world and tight budget constraints, correctional facilities in the United States are subject to overcrowding and often lack the means to care for mentally ill inmates.

While the Canadian correctional system has historically differed from the American model, Maria, a spokesperson from the Montreal Hunger Strike Support Committee, claims that this may no longer be the case.

The budget of the Correctional Service of Canada has expanded significantly under the current government. Most of that money, she said, is directed towards the building of new prisons.

“The general gist is to get more people in prison,” she said.

“We’re not talking about charity, we’re talking about justice” Quebec activists take Parc Ex public housing protest into Ville Mont-Royal Jane Gatensby

The McGill Daily

A

long-standing Quebec housing rights group held a large demonstration on Sunday to protest the current state of the province’s public housing system.

Organizers from FRAPRU, or Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain, assembled at the corner of Hutchison and Jean Talon, along with representatives from various other social advocacy groups and members of the public. The group is calling for an additional 50,000 public housing units to be built in the province within the next five years.

The demonstration was the final stop in FRAPRU’s Caravane, a nine-day journey throughout the province, during which the group staged protests in various communities to call federal and provincial leaders to account. The caravan travelled with low-income renters and made stops around the province to show solidarity with people living in substandard housing.

Protesters marched through the streets of Parc Extension, a neighbourhood where over one half of all residents are deemed to be living in low income housing, according to Statistics Canada.

As the procession–which FRAPRU estimated at 800 people – made it’s way towards Boulevard de l‘Acadie, Parc Ex residents stepped out onto the sidewalk to watch and chat with volunteers.

FRAPRU organizers then direct-

ed the group to the hitherto unannounced location of Ville Mont Royal, a secluded enclave. Mont-Royal directly borders Parc Ex – the two are separated by a chain-link fence and hedges, with few points of entry.

As demonstrators made their way down Mont-Royal’s streets, a few residents watched from windows and driveways. The demonstration ended in a Mont-Royal park with a speech from FRAPRU’s chief coordinator François Saillant.

“The government is always telling us that there’s no money,” he said in French, prompting vocal responses from the crowd. “As you can see, the money is here. The problem is, it’s not being shared.”

Stéphan Corriveau participated in the demonstration as a representative of the Fédération des locataires d’habitations à loyer modique du Québec (Federation of Quebec Public Housing Tenants). He associated public housing needs with what he sees as a discrepancy in the distribution of wealth.

“I’m not interested to live in a society where it’s the law of the jungle.

You end up in a society...where there’s a huge level of mistrust between the different communities,” he said.

Corriveau spoke of Ville MontRoyal, where the average house costs $750,000, as being symbolic of the situation.

“I’m doubtful that [Mont-Royal residents] work harder than any people who work in a kitchen, or as a janitor, or a construction worker, or the mother that is raising five

Courtesy of FRAPRU

A nine day caravan to demonstrate the need for public housing finished on Sunday in Montreal. kids in Parc-Extension just across the fence,” he said, adding that “these people deserve just as much life quality as the people who live in Mont-Royal. We’re not talking about charity, we’re talking about justice, and we’re talking about solidarity.”

While on the road with FRAPRU, Grant Latimer described the housing situation in the Val d’Or native community as “a desperate situation.”

“They don’t even have electricity or water,” he said. “This is a reserve that is surrounded by gold mines.”

Elizabeth, a FRAPRU volunteer, spoke of the caravan’s visit to students in Sherbrooke, who she said are living

“in very bad conditions, with a very desperate need for [public] housing.”

Under provincial policy, most university students are ineligible for Quebec public housing.

FRAPRU also voiced concerns that federal funding for public housing, including rent subsidies and renovation payments, will be cut in coming years due to the expiration of funding contracts with provincial and municipal governments.

Alain Roy, who came to the demonstration representing the Association des locataires de Sherbrooke, expressed concern for what he considered to be thou-

sands of people who might lose their homes because of the loss of subsidies. He spoke from his own experiences in Sherbrooke, where many federal subsidy contracts that had benefited low-income renters in co-ops have already run out.

He described how his group has been receiving calls from individuals panicking about sharp rent increases.

“They tell us that they’re completely hopeless, they were paying two or three hundred dollars a month with the subsidies, now they’re paying six,” he told The Daily in French. “They’re just not able to live there anymore.”

6 News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Public concerned about plan to accomodate growing Montreal population Citizens demand adequate protection for the environment Ines De La Cuetara News Writer

I

n a series of public consultations, citizens of the greater Montreal area have raised concerns regarding the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM)’s plan to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of the greater Montreal region.

Concerns centre around whether the plan will guarantee an adequate protection of the environment.

The Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement (PMAD) project was proposed in April 2011 in order to accommodate an expected population increase of half a million peo-

ple in the greater Montreal region over the next four years.

The PMAD is currently in the process of being approved by the government of Quebec.

Throughout the month of October, the plan will be discussed in a series of 11 public consultations, enabling citizens and organizations to express their opinions and concerns.

The PMAD aims to improve transportation, rearrange spaces to account for increased living density, and suggests the creation of green and blue belts around the island.

However, citizens have argued that environmental issues are only briefly mentioned in passing, and call for more concrete measures to be taken.

Green and blue belts would

include various corridors for diversity, such as forests, wetlands, agricultural lands, flood plains, and islands.

Annie Tellier, president of the Société de biologie de Montréal, a non-profit science education group, stressed the importance of a greener Montreal, and the creation and preservation of more green spaces in the region.

“Construction is on the rise, and will only increase with time. Natural habitats are constantly being destroyed,” she explained.

Those present at the first consultation, held on September 28, demanded more attention given to the idea of green and blue belts around the island, and called for the creation of an ecological park

to be added the PMAD’s objectives.

The park, known as the Parc Écologique de l’Archipel de Montréal, would extend from the BassesLaurentides to the American border.

Second year CEGEP student at Marianopolis College Leehi Yona was responsible for launching the consultations. In an interview with The Daily, she expressed concern that, without such an ecological park, Quebec may not be able to reach objectives set by the Nagoya Protocol.

The Nagoya Protocol, a supplementary agreement to the 1993 Convention of Biological Diversity, was adopted on October 29, 2010 in Nagoya, Japan. The protocol’s objectives aim to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use

Birthday cupcakes

of biodiversity.

“The PMAD must include a zone that would preserve at least 12 per cent of the territory by 2015,” said Yona at the first consultation meeting.

Like Yona, many citizens believe that the creation of an ecological park would help the realization of this objective.

A representative from the CMM explained that the organization encouraged discussions at the consultations.

“The CMM hopes to work with citizens of the region in order to guarantee that the PMAD may better the lives of everyone over the next twenty years. Suggestions and modifications to the plan will be taken into account,” he stated.

Campus Eye

Photo by Victor Tangermann Principal Heather Munroe-Blum handed out cupcakes in the Shatner Building on October 6 in celebration of James McGill’s birthday. The founder of the University would have been 267 years old.

— Jessica Lukawiecki

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

7

Reform the GA, the time is now Alexander Kunev Hyde Park

M

cGill University is unique in Canada not only because of its place in the rankings or the number of students with different nationalities.

We are also one of only a few campuses that hold a regular General Assembly (GA) each semester where every student can vote on the issues of the day. If it’s so great, then why should we change it? What is behind this ongoing demand to reform the GA? First and foremost, the General Assembly is a direct way for students to influence the direction that the university’s student body is taking and come up with new ideas on how to improve university life. Be it lobbying the university for more courses in a specific area or creating a charity fund it is all in our power, and only limited by our will and imagination. However, as years have passed, the GA came to be seen more as a bureaucratic and foreign body, with students finding it too hard to even write a resolution by themselves. The strict rules have also alienated a big number of voters. Moreover, when any organized group of students could come and vote massively for one of the sides, thereby influencing the motions, this was seen by many as ineffective – more like running into a stone wall than anything constructive. These challenges made it clear

that a reform of this institution was needed for it to be successful.

However, there was a SSMU Council motion from last year presented as a solution to replace the GA with an Annual General Meeting, and the fact that many people came out passionately against it shows clearly that it ran counter to practical sense.

Abolishing an institution, only to replace it with a meeting where financial reports are presented, is not only illogical – it is irresponsible. It directly takes away our democratic freedom of expression.

Last week’s GA came to exemplify some of these problems, despite the best efforts on the part of organizers. Quorum – a meagre 100 people – was lost after the third motion, which obviously begs the question: if we can’t even get 0.4 per cent of the student body to attend the GA, its premise is largely at fault.

Furthermore, many students were not able to attend due to the fact that it started at 4:30 p.m. on a Monday afternoon.

I believe that the format of the GA should be changed, and that the transition to online voting is necessary. We already vote online in SSMU elections, referenda questions, faculty, and even departmental elections, so why not transfer that power to the GA too? Resolutions raised at the GA may sometimes feel too formal – and may seem boring to many – but they often affect each and

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Why we should fight to preserve an institution

every one of us. We should not leave it up to a group of 100 people to decide for 25,000.

Our campus is a host of everyday discussions, held at different forums, town halls, and events.

Seeing the level of openness and erudition displayed at each of these situations makes me proud to be a part of McGill. Every student has an intelligent voice that needs to be heard. If they are not comfortable in expressing it in a certain environment, we shouldn’t label them apathetic.

It is critical that even neutrality

be presented in the debate, as neutral voices balance the status quo. Setting aside a period of three days to a week after the GA to think through the motions, consult the papers, and decide how to vote would help students who don’t follow campus politics. It is also essential to make the GA about more than just the motions, and to create an entertaining and engaging event in whatever way possible.

Let’s not limit our imagination about what the reform could include. Getting rid of some of

the strict rules of the assembly, for one, would encourage dialogue that does not stifle creativity. Now is the time for every student to give suggestions on what they want to see in a future GA. Let’s work on building the future of student democracy at McGill.

Alexander Kunev is a U3 Mechanical Engineering student and a SSMU Councilor for Engineering. Email him with ideas on GA reform at alexander.kunev@ mail.mcgill.ca.

The worst laundry list ever Illustrating an invisible movement One Less God Harmon Moon

onelessgod@mcgilldaily.com

W

hen I table for the Freethought Association at Activities Night or Streetfest, I like to start my spiel with a list of the type of people that the group attracts. Although open to people of other creeds, the group has a primarily non-religious focus, and, so, attracts atheists, agnostics, humanists, rationalists, secularists, freethinkers, and so on and so forth. It’s a laundry list of names with complicated definitions, each of which in themselves represents another laundry list of different schools of thought that may in themselves be yet another laundry

list of different viewpoints and values.

And we haven’t even gotten to the blending and overlap between these groups, with people rarely identifying with just one. All of this held together with spit, string, and a collective scepticism about the existence of God. This is not the kind of list you would want to take to the Laundromat.

Basically, atheism is kind of complicated.

Not that you would think that from the common image of atheists in society. Putting aside the vitriolic (and unendingly amusing) visions of a scourging army of militant atheists out to destroy God, Christmas, and all the cat videos on Youtube, there is a common image in the collective consciousness about the average atheist.

Not to nail it down to a precise character, but what comes to my mind is the image of a smallish, slightly rotund,

pedantic, cranky, balding, bearded scientist with glasses and perhaps a slightly nasal voice, who is likely to fly into a rage at the slightest hint of a religious thought.

Obviously, this is not true. Last I checked, I have a full head of hair.

The fact is, atheists come from pretty much everywhere. With something as large as a god – who theoretically represents, well, everything – there are going to be a wide array of responses to the subject. Some come to atheism rationally. Some come by a gut feeling. There are at least as many ways to leave religion as there are to come to it, and the products of those experiences are wildly different.

So why, then, am I starting a column here at The Daily, purporting to provide an atheist voice after having just proven that it’s impossible to

reduce irreligious thought to one person? Would this be a sign of some sort of the intellectual incoherency inherent to the movement, or am I just really bloody stupid?

Well, of course, everybody has their own opinion on a world without God. That said, those that subscribe to that particular creed often find themselves facing many common issues.

Although starting any concerted action is like herding cats, there has been an atheist community forming in today’s world that often disappears under the radar of people that have other priorities, such as the inexorable glaciers of homework that are constantly threatening to cave in our tiny student skulls. As somebody that has been active in the

atheist community for the past two years, I feel as though I can provide a window of insight onto general trends of the community, including a rough basis of the philosophy and some issues meeting it today.

I cannot pretend to be a representative of the entire atheistagnostic-rationalist-humanist-secularist-free thought movement, but, in my column, I will try my best to be an ambassador of it.

One Less God is a twice-monthly column on atheist communities and philosophy. Harmon Moon is a U2 History student and VP External of the McGill Freethought Association. He can be reached at onelessgod@mcgilldaily.com.

8 Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

READERS’ ADVOCATE

Daily, please don’t drink the corporate Kool-Aid We can’t afford to let the scientific record be dictated by the private sector Niko Block

Readers’ Advocate Columnist

I

n the late 1950s, a drug known as Thalidomide became a staple of the prenatal diet. Initially hailed as the perfect cure for morning sickness, doctors and obstetricians prescribed it to their pregnant clients at the drop of a hat. At one point, it was pushed on my own pregnant grandmother – an Iraqi immigrant to Israel and only 19 years old. She declined. Within three years’ time, it would be pulled off the market, but not before it had caused thousands of birth defects worldwide. Some have referred to the Thalidomide fad as “one of the biggest medical tragedies of all time.”

There has been much discussion lately of the perks and the pitfalls of corporate sponsorship at McGill, and I relate the above story just to emphasize that horrible things do, in fact, happen when we are not careful about who does our science. The story that ran in the September 8 issue of The Daily on the fiasco surrounding McGill Professor Barbara

Sherwin is a case in point. Despite the story’s numerous errata and lack of context, it provides a good window into the authentically baleful effects that corporate money can have on academic research.

For those unfamiliar with the story, I’ll attempt a quick primer: At a conference in the early 1990’s, Sherwin, a psychology professor specializing in hormonal science, met and befriended another medical doctorate named Karen Mittleman.

In 1998, Mittleman asked Sherwin to write an article in her precise area of expertise for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Sherwin didn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity. Mittleman, an employee at the Princeton-based medical communications firm DesignWrite, offered some light editorial assistance on the article, which Sherwin accepted. The extent of Mittleman’s involvement later became the subject of intense scrutiny, and, ultimately, it appears to have been fairly minimal.

By the time Mittleman contacted Sherwin about collaboration on a second article, things had started to

heat up and Sherwin smartly kept her distance.

The problem was this: DesignWrite had made a secret business deal with a drug company called Wyeth. The idea was essentially that, in exchange for cash, DesignWrite would write articles endorsing Wyeth’s new hormone replacement therapy and launder them into respectability by finding medical professionals willing to take credit for them. Sherwin was privy to none of this.

Following revelations by the Women’s Health Initiative in 2002 that Wyeth’s new drug therapy led to a 41 per cent increase in strokes, a 29 per cent increase in heart attacks, a 22 per cent increase in total cardiovascular disease, a 26 per cent increase in breast cancer, and a doubling of rates of blood clots, the company understandably came under some heat.

In the subsequent class action lawsuit brought against Wyeth by 8,400 women who had received the drug therapy, it became evident that the company had commissioned at least forty scientific articles endorsing the drug treatment. This is where Sherwin

came under fire. According to McGill’s own investigation into Sherwin’s academic conduct, the paper Mittleman had helped edit did not contain any clear endorsement of Wyeth’s drug treatment. The investigation did reprimand her for not noting Mittleman’s contribution to the article, however slight it may have been. (Sherwin claims that Mittleman declined credit).

Nonetheless, the disaster surrounding Wyeth starkly demonstrates the dangers that private interests pose to academic integrity. DesignWrite was quite obviously successful in distorting the medical discourse on hormone replacement therapy – and at tremendous human cost. This story is not a unique one: several other prematurely marketed drugs are currently falling under legal scrutiny, both for their adverse medical repercussions and for the ghostwriting rackets associated with them.

For these reasons, I was completely baffled by the ambivalent confusion of “The oil patch and the ivory tower: a science student explores her mixed feelings about corporate research” (September 19). It was

Real challenges.

Unreal support.

interesting to find out that McGill is host to a research lab bankrolled by Imperial Oil, but the article came to no substantive conclusions whatsoever. It waffled back and forth, never addressed manifest stories of damage wrought at the hands of corporations, and wrapped up with some noble story of a former student’s wind farm project being set out for display when the lab’s patrons came to visit.

The lab in question (the WOW lab – Winners of Wonderment) may not be doing any direct harm to humans or the environment. But it is clearly the sort of PR project that allows companies like Imperial Oil – which has an atrocious record of environmental degradation – to greenwash its image and continue business as usual.

Can The Daily please decline to buy the myth of corporate social responsibility?

The readers’ advocate is a twicemonthly column written by Niko Block addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily.

You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

If you’re a high achiever and want to work with some of the brightest minds in the business, an internship at Ernst & Young can give you all the support you need to help put your skills into practice and grow as a professional. To learn more, visit ey.com/ca/possibilities.

© 2011 Ernst & Young LLP. =jfkl Qgmf_ j]^]jk lg l`] _dgZYd gj_YfarYlagf g^ e]eZ]j Õjek g^ Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. =jfkl Qgmf_ DDH ak Y [da]fl%k]jnaf_ e]eZ]j Õje dg[Yl]\ af ;YfY\Y&

See More | Inspiration

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

9

We need advice, not encouragement A response to Dr. Tamim Al-Barghouti’s talk at last weekend’s Envision Arabia Summit Arezu Riahi Hyde Park

W

hile attending the Envision Arabia Summit the weekend of October 7th to 9th, I was most looking forward to hearing speaker Dr. Tamim Al-Barghouti’s talk entitled “Challenges of Today and Ways to Overcome Them”. Barghouti, a Palestinian poet and political theorist had a lot to say about the political accomplishments of the Arab world, but mentioned virtually nothing of what the title of his talk promised.

With all Barghouti’s claims of the Arab world being ‘innovators not imitators’, it was ironic that his speech lacked innovation. Recurring platitudes, like ‘we must form an alliance in our region’ and ‘the youth are the change’, comprised the majority of his talk . They served to give him the occasional round of applause, but bypassed the overbearing key issues that were begging to be addressed on such a platform.

Barghouti reinforced the fact that Arab citizens are beginning to make a dent in the foundations of ruthless regime control that have defined their countries since colonial times. As he went on to describe, it was not long ago that upwards of 20 million Egyptians created a self-government that lasted 17 days and catalyzed what is now a full blown democratic upheaval. What he failed to conclude from these achievements is that a pat on the back is not what is needed right now for politically aware Arab youth.

But, while these complements are deserved, I think we should move past them and tackle the issues that will confront us. It appears that Western Arabs are stuck in a sort of purgatory – an uneasy limbo between the gran-

Marlise Armstrong for The McGill Daily

Barghouti speaks in Montreal during the Envision Arabia Summit. deur of their accomplishments and the equal vastness of their future hopes. What’s really needed is direction in order to approach the multitude of bright prospects that have become hazy with time.

We all agree that change is possible, and that the initiative has been taken to create it. It has been emphasized that it is the responsibil-

ity of today’s youth to continue that change. However it’s notable that it is up to socio-political influences, like Barghouti, to shift the discourse from ‘lets change things’ to ‘here’s how.’ The older generation must work with the younger, not only by describing possible ideological futures, but also by working cohesively to create a new proactive dia-

logue for social change. Real motivation is rooted in addressing the first step in a future victory: acknowledging what is lacking today.

Unfortunately, Barghouti failed to take this essential leap into realistic terrain. Much like any other struggle, we can only rejoice so much in our accomplishments before becoming willfully deluded about the situation

at hand. The topic of furthering social change in the Arab world needs to be addressed logistically, not like some sort of spirit rally.

I can safely say I have the spirit, Barghouti. Now what do I do with it?

Arezu Riahi is a U1 Philosophy student. She can be reached at arezu.riahi@mail.mcgill.ca

Forget news. Forget culture.

Write us a letter. Send us pitches.

Contribute to commentary.

Come visit us in B-24 Shatner or email commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

10 Features

Lysis to kill How viruses could save your life

Jethro Beattie-Booth Features Writer

he assassins were born in Paris and kept a vacation home in Tijuana.

They left calling cards and spawned countless imitators. Shunned by the West, the killers defected to the Soviet Union and were embraced by the Eastern Bloc. Now, lured by high-priced contracts, they’re back in North America with a long hit list. And they might just save your life.

The assassins, of course, are bacteriophages – viruses that infect and kill bacteria (the word is Greek for “eater of bacteria”). Researchers are working hard to find ways to use these tiny, lethal weapons as therapy against infection. And, with the future of antibiotics looking grim, the 007 of drugs may be just what we need.

As of mid-September, there had been 39 outbreaks of vancomycinresistant Enteroccocus (VRE) in Montreal hospitals in 2011 alone. VRE is a “superbug” that causes blood infections and pneumonia. These bacteria are resistant to commonly used antibiotics and have become extremely common. Hospitals, with their weakened, antibiotic-dependent patients, are prime breeding grounds for these dangerous organisms. In 2006, 16 patients at a hospital in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec died after contracting C. difficile, another superbug.

Researchers are struggling to keep up, but they have proven too slow for the rapid evolution of superbugs. How can we respond to these superbugs as they grow more numerous, and as new antibiotics run out? Oddly, the solution to this crisis may be the same thing that causes everything from the common cold to AIDS: viruses.

Well, one kind of virus in particular. Just as bacteria infect us, bacteriophages infect bacteria. Resembling a space probe landing on the surface of the moon, the kinds of bacteriophages used in therapy plant their feet on the surface of a bacterial cell and inject their genetic information into their victim. The genetic material then hijacks the bacterium’s molecular machinery, turning it into an assembly line for more phages. When the new viruses are assembled and ready, they burst out of the cell, killing the bacterium, and drift off in search of new victims. As grisly as it sounds, bacteriophages can actually overcome bacterial infections in humans that do not respond to traditional antibiotics.

Phage therapy is nothing new. In 1919, only four years after the discovery of bacteriophages, the Montreal-born microbiologist Félix d’Herelle used bacteriophages to successfully treat dysentery in Paris. Over the next fifteen years, phage therapy enjoyed a boom in popularity worldwide and was even marketed by large North American pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly. But this enthusiasm was short-lived: during

T

the 1930s, the effectiveness of phage therapy was brought into question.

In 1933, Margaret Straub and Martha Applebaum, researchers at Columbia University, published an investigation of the products of the three companies offering phage therapy in the US. They found that the products they tested had no phage in them, contained weak phages, or that the presence of phages varied from batch to batch. The following year, the American Medical Association’s Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry cast further doubt on phage therapy in a scathing report. “The lack of standardisation of phage preparations and the lack of criteria for purity and potency made it impossible to compare most of the studies that had been published,” the Council declared.

However, at the time, the world’s understanding of how phages work was very limited. Even though electron microscopy confirmed the details of these viruses’ structures in 1940, the discovery of penicillin and the rise in popularity of antibiotics caused phage therapy to be abandoned in most of the world. Rosemonde Mandeville, president and CEO of Biophage Pharma – a Montreal-based company founded in 1995 – spoke with The Daily about the PR campaign against phages. “It had bad press, mainly because of lobbying [by] pharmaceutical companies that [were] working with antibiotics.”

Although health authorities in the West were turned off of phages, many institutions in Eastern Europe continued to develop the therapy. In the 1920’s, Georgian physician and bacteriologist George Eliava met Felix D’Herelle, just as phage therapy was being born. In 1923, Eliava founded the George Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology, and Virology in Tbilisi, Georgia. The institute soon became the epicenter of phage therapy research and still exists today, treating patients and conducting research on phage therapy.

Surprisingly, very little research from Eastern Europe is being used in Western bacteriophage research. Although this may seem counterproductive, science cannot always transcend various linguistic, political, and societal borders. The lack of comparably strict guidelines in the testing of medical treatments in Eastern Europe may be the largest stumbling block when it comes to international scientific collaboration. “A lot of people [were] interested in phage therapy,” says Mandeville, “but phage therapy was used without the strict regulations that we have here in North America.”

While phage therapy attracted a large following in the former Soviet Union, only a small number of scientists in the West continued to test its effectiveness, and then only in treating animal infections. But, in these experiments, phage therapy often proved to be not only effective, but even more effective than antibiotics. Over the past thirty years, phage therapy has been tested on several different animals, and has been successful in treating numerous bacterial infections. One study found that phages pro-

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

bacterial strains to be targeted at once, also making it more difficult for the bacteria to develop resistance. “There is very little resistance that develops because we use a cocktail,” says Mandeville. “If we use a cocktail, we are covering all the bases.”

(Still, a 2010 paper in the journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology warns of cocktails “efficiency is unlikely to reach 100%”).

Supporters of phage therapy were concerned at first that the use of cocktails would make it difficult for phage therapy to be approved by the FDA, which tends to prefer “one-size-fits-all” treatments. Surprisingly, this has not proved to be the case: in 2008, the first phage therapy product approved by the FDA for clinical trial in the US was a cocktail containing eight different phages for patients with ulcers.

Cocktails work because no two viral strains are created alike and, while bacteriophages are viruses, they are incredibly specific. They are only able to infect one species of bacteria, leaving our own cells untouched. And while some adverse reactions to the treatment have been produced by poorly purified specimens, the problem has been mostly eradictated by more careful sample preparation.

In addition to this, phage therapy may actually be safer than the antibiotics we have trusted for so long. Our bodies are ecosystems of microorganisms. There are actually more bacterial cells than human cells in our bodies

and a large portion of these bacteria are beneficial, helping us digest our food and synthesize essential vitamins. Unlike bacteriophages, antibiotics kill all bacteria – both good and bad – leaving us open to opportunistic infections.

“There are no risks if you do your homework,” says Mandeville. “If you work well and you follow the guidelines of the FDA or Health Canada, if you prepare phages that are well characterized, have no toxins and no pyrogens in them and you are very sure that they are stable… you won’t have a problem.”

Currently, there are no authorized phage therapy treatments available to the public in North America, but companies like Biophage Pharma are pushing to begin clinical trials and get their products out to the public.

Mandeville says she hopes to have a product on the market in five years’ time. “The phages against MRSA and Pseudomonas are ready. We have well characterized phages and we are looking for the right partner. We do have some people that are interested, so we hope to get them on the market very soon.”

Even now, North Americans can easily receive phage therapy if they’re willing to travel. The Phage Therapy Center, recently bought by the American company Phage International, operates in Tbilisi, Georgia and Tijuana, Mexico and offers phage therapy to international patients. A clinic in Wroclaw, Poland is also licensed

to conduct experimental phage therapy in cases where other treatments have failed.

And one doctor in France uses phages purchased in Georgia to treat severe infections. (It’s worth noting that the quality of treatment in these places may not meet Canadian standards.)

The effect of phage therapy may go far beyond battling antibiotic resistance. Phage therapy could, in theory, offer a cheaper, more efficient method of dealing with common infections, especially in developing countries. For example, trials have been conducted in Bangladesh to see how phages fare at treating diarrhea in infants.

“One of the big killers of children is dysentery. In under-developed countries, this is the big factor,” says Mandeville. “We have the phages that can at least prevent or decontaminate and they’re not using them.”

This raises an interesting question: if phage therapy becomes a common alternative to antibiotics, what would it mean for drug companies? Since new strains of bacteriophages are constantly emerging in the environment, would it be possible for major pharmaceutical companies to hold a monopoly over phage therapies like they do over antibiotics?

Right now, we don’t have any way of knowing. But one thing remains certain: we are currently losing the battle against superbugs, and phage therapy is an option we cannot ignore.

Illustrations by Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

tected mice from vancomycin-resistant Enteroccocus (VRE). Another study showed phages saving guinea pigs from a potentially fatal C. difficile infection.

These successes in animal treatment provided solid evidence, and allowed for a renewed interest in phage therapy. In 2006, the FDA approved a food spray – used to kill Listeria monocytogenes, a common food contaminate – that contained six different phages.

Now, ninety years after the height of the phage vogue, the list of antibioticresistant bacteria is growing progressively longer, at an ever more rapid rate. At the same time, the search for new antibiotics is getting more frantic, but less fruitful. It seems like the time of phage therapy has finally come.

“Especially now that a large number of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, this could be a very good alternative,” says Mandeville.

Although bacteria can still evolve to develop resistance to bacteriophages, phages are also dynamic and able to evolve to overcome their victims’ defenses. Laboratory experiments have shown that, as bacteria develop resistance, new phages often rapidly emerge that are able to infect them.

In addition, a mixture of different phages with different characteristics, called a “cocktail,” is often used in treatments. This allows a number of harmful

11

12 Art Essay

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

This Is What Queer Looks Like Olivia Messer

Health&Education

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

13

Witnessing a trauma patient in a rural hospital A student’s first-hand account of the treatment of a car accident victim in India

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Shaurya Taran

Health&Education Writer This is the second part of a continuing series of Taran’s Health&Ed essays.

I

n my third week shadowing doctors at the KV Hospital, a small medical facility in rural India, I witness my first trauma patient. I am standing in the operating room, having just finished observing a series of minor procedures, when an alarm begins to ring. Simultaneously, a large red light begins to flash in the emergency bay, signifying the arrival of an ambulance. A quarter of a minute later, the doors of the adjacent emergency room are thrown open by a pair of nurses, and a patient is wheeled in on a stretcher. Both nurses are shouting. “Get Doctor S!” cries one of them. “Page Doctor M!” cries the other. But there is no need: the two doctors are already standing at the doorway, having hurried over as soon as they heard the alarm.

“Give me the details,” orders Doctor S. The nurse on his right immediately fills him in: “Male, age twenty-two, victim of a violent car accident.” At these words, I shift my attention to the patient, who is mumbling incoherently and turning left and right on the stretcher, as if bothered by an itch in his back.

“He was brought over by an ambulance from the GH Hospital,” continues the nurse.

“He suffered his accident three days ago. At GH, his shattered leg was bandaged, and he was given morphine for his pain.”

This information causes Doctor M. to colour up. “And why didn’t he receive more extensive treatment?” he asks, visibly angry.

“The doctors there didn’t have a bed for him,” replies the nurse.

Later, I learned that the young man – I’ll call him Prakash – had spent three days in a hallway of the GH Hospital. He had sustained multiple fractures in his left leg, and required medical attention immediately. However, overcrowding had forced him and several other desperate patients into a makeshift ward – which was nothing more than an empty hallway on an upper floor – where they lay waiting to receive care. Some patients were nursing open wounds, others were coughing into old rags, and still others were bleeding into bandages fashioned out of torn linens.

Prakash had been administered morphine six hours after his accident. His left leg, which was entirely shattered in the accident, had been bandaged eight hours later.

And then he had been instructed to wait – For what? for whom? For more painkillers? For a nurse? A doctor? He wasn’t told.

And, now, he lies on a stretcher two feet away from me. His eyes

dart from person to person in a distracted sort of way, and his movements seem involuntary – it is as if that itch in his back has finally crossed over the threshold of pain. His breathing is irregular, stopping abruptly, then picking up again. “Connect him to an IV,” orders Doctor M, turning to a nurse. “Put him on oxygen. Hook him up to a cardiac monitor.”

But I barely register Doctor M.’s instructions; my attention is fixed on Prakash, who is now clawing at the oxygen mask placed over his mouth. The nurse tightens the mask’s straps to keep it in place, but Prakash succeeds in prying it off. Suddenly he is thrashing in his bed like a fish plucked out of water, screaming and flailing his three good limbs. His upper body lurches up, and falls back down with a thump, which prompts a nurse to rush forward to subdue him.

“Give him an injection of sedative. And for God’s sake, why isn’t he connected to a catheter? Can’t you people do anything without being told?” cries Doctor S. exasperatedly.

A nurse hurries out to grab a syringe of sedative, while another pulls down the patient’s trousers to connect the catheter, a clear bag with tubing used to collect a patient’s urine. She lubricates one end of the tubing and attempts to pass it through Prakash’s urethra, but at that moment he lets out another scream, and she is forced to quickly withdraw the tubing.

“Try again,” orders Doctor S. She attempts the procedure a second time, but Prakash screams louder.

Suddenly, he begins to convulse. His whole body is vibrating.

His three good limbs are flopping at his sides. He makes no sound; his suffering is restricted to the flopping of limbs and the twitching of neck muscles.

“Where’s the sedative?” shouts Doctor S. “Didn’t I order it a minute ago?” A nurse quickly brings over a syringe filled with clear liquid and administers it through a vein in Prakash’s arm. “Good,” says Doctor S. “He’ll quiet down soon.”

The two doctors move closer to the patient, obscuring my view of him.

I move around for a better look. I am now standing over Prakash’s right shoulder, staring directly into his eyes. The oxygen mask is still secured over his mouth – I can hear the air rushing through it over the hum and whir of machines and the movements of the two doctors.

Prakash’s neck is still twitching, and his eyes are still swiveling in their sockets. We make eye contact several times, but he barely registers my presence; I am merely another person privy to his anguish – perhaps a nurse, perhaps a doctor, perhaps one of those cleaning boys who wipe blood and antiseptic off the emergency room floors.

Prakash’s movements have slowed. His eyes no longer dart restlessly from person to person. His limbs no longer flop at his sides. A

nurse loosens the straps of the oxygen mask, and Prakash doesn’t protest. He has resigned himself to the people around him. For the next two minutes his condition remains stable. Then he starts to twitch again. He begins to claw at the oxygen mask on his face, attempting to remove it. Failing twice, he gives up.

He begins to shudder, and his eyes begin to quiver. The doctors are muttering to themselves, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

Suddenly, in one clean motion, Prakash swipes the oxygen mask off his face. He turns over to his right side, and vomits over the floor. A jet of vomit hits my feet before I am able to avoid it. Then Prakash turns over on his back.

He looks straight into my eyes, as if to apologize, holding my gaze as steadily as his condition will allow.

His eyes flicker and close. He passes out of consciousness.

Hands are pulling me away – hands of nurses, of doctors. I am barely conscious of them; how can I be? I have just witnessed a patient’s agony play out in front of me, a task that no amount of selfpreparation could have rendered any easier. To see a casualty firsthand – to be drawn in by the sight of his mangled limb, and by the sounds of his pain – is not an incident that can be easily shrugged off. And what makes it all the more difficult is that you can only stand and watch, unable to do anything but look on in stunned silence.

14 Photo Essay

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

OCCUPY WALL STREET

Camille Chabrol

Culture

15

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Sacred messages, secular stage Hassidic performance causes controversy at the Rialto theater...or maybe not Angus Sharpe Culture Writer

L

ast week my laptop died.

Amongst thousands of lost photos, songs, essays, and other detritus, was the first draft of this piece. I felt obliged to inform its subject and apologize that the article would be late. His response was as follows, “Dear Angus: Everything has a reason. You lost the story because there must have been some divine issue with it. Must be meant to be redone.”

Simultaneously optimistic, controversial, courteous, egotistical, and ever-sensitive to the divine order of things, these twenty-six words say much of what I learned about Rabbi Chaim Yehudah Gruber during the following evening...

Controversy is the buzzword here. It’s 8 p.m. on Parc, and the Rialto Theatre has just opened its doors for a one night show, to a most unusual crowd. To be precise, we’re on the corner of Bernard, an important detail considering that tonight, location is everything.

Broadly, because we’re in outer Outremont, home to Canada’s largest Hasidic Jewish community, and, specifically, because the Rialto is a public, “secular” venue.

Host, sole-performer of “Redemption is Here,” and general budding social unifier, Rabbi Gruber is the catalyst for this rare blend. An aspiring teacher, renowned in local synagogues, he is the mastermind behind this “multi-media event.”

While he circulates affably amongst a sparse crowd, giving interviews and conscientiously attending to the needs of what are more party guests than audience members, it is difficult to discern quite what he has in store. The stage is bare save for a lectern standing front and centre and a cloaked prop to one side.

My background research has unearthed little beyond the Rabbipenned press release, in which he tags himself “Outremont’s most controversial Hasidic Rabbi” and gives a teaser of his story. Victim of an uncensored library copy of Maimonides, Rabbi Gruber accidentally began teaching that the Messiah’s return will bring all monotheisms under Judaism because, in some way or another, Christianity and Islam have both spread the word of the Torah. This idea, at odds with the insular and

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily focused Hasidic way, thrusted the Rabbi into a negative, controversial limelight and caused his excommunication. This ban was lifted, but not before both his reputation and teachings were indelibly colored by the experience.

All of this was manifested in the event, the public crowd, and this oh-so-attractive murmur of controversy. Proof of how central the latter has become to this evening lies in the demographic of those in attendance. The journalistic presence outweighs all else, so much so that the enforced Hasidic dress code appears to have included mandatory notepad and pen. One industrious freelancer stops me, “Apparently there’s going to be a fight!”

Michaela Di Caesare, Communications Director at the Rialto, is more moderate, “It’s a very interesting social experiment...

Everyday coming into work it just feels like the communities are so separate.”

It’s easy to see. The single early-bird Hasidim sits stoically in the middle of the room, his isolation broken only for a brief word with the fight-mongering journo. “So many people are curious about these worlds colliding,” enthuses Di Caesare.

A late pack of Hasidim enter and head to a restricted upper-tier as we settle into a powerpoint presentation about the Hebrew alphabet.

“I’ll be on in a moment!” comes a shout from the back, as it rapidly becomes clear this is one of the least theatrical events the Rialto has seen. Indeed, the Hasidim in the upper wings soon begin photographing the secular folk down below, illuminated generously by ever-shining house lights.

The audience adopts this peculiar irreverence, both Hasidim upstairs and public down below waiving the norms of their meeting space, the theatre. A journalist to whom the Rabbi gave a lengthy interview throws her head back in

laughter at a private conversation; a camera-clad Hasidim moves downstairs and perches on my left, panning slowly across us, the wildlife.

Despite the Rabbi’s optimistic endeavour, Outremont’s social walls seem like they are unfortunately being reinforced rather than broken down, and it is not about to improve. During an explanation of his excommunication there is a sudden influx of near twenty Hasidim at the door. Huddled together, they appear like underagers who have snuck into the local bar. Some posture and strut about, others, more timid, dare not break the threshold. Their intentions are more ambiguous. Have they turned up this late to see the show? Or is the much-touted controversy materializing? Regardless, their presence rouses the already restless atmosphere.

Looking to placate, the Rabbi takes questions from the floor, which boiled down to “Why have

you gone public with an Hasidic affair?” A further shift in mood suggests this is the crux, and likely the grievance, of our newest members.

His responses, focused on a commitment to honesty and love, are fragmented by the need to firefight bubbling tensions in the upper tier.

“Can I call for calm?” The plea sends heads scanning the Rialto, searching for just what is going on. The cloud of confusion thickens when two cops and a paramedic emerge from the Hasidic throng at the door.

Rabbi Gruber concedes a timeout.

As it turns out, he will not return to the stage.

Pressure from the theatre manager and the police bring an end to proceedings. Whilst they talk at length with an ever-smiling Rabbi, the Hasidim continue to discuss amongst themselves, moving freely around the theatre – they do seem hostile. One approaches me with hand outstretched but retracts the offer when his “Shalom” is met by my “Hello.”

“Why have you come to see this man?” he probes, but leaves before hearing an answer.

Mindful to honour our interview, the Rabbi ensures I am not ejected with everyone else, before sitting down with a surprising opener, “I hope you enjoyed it!”

Despite everything he is still the party host. “I think it’s great! I just got a call from a big rabbi in the community who was here, and he loved it.” As he denies any penchant for controversy, his commitment to “love and comfort” gains integrity by a faithful insistence that no Hasidim was hostile. “I’m going to say no... I’m just going to say it was a misunderstanding...and they wanted to come back!” But why choose this theatre in the first place? “It was chosen for me by these series of coincidences.” And where was it all going? I asked. “To wonderful places... I was going into a divine conversation and explaining how the Lord is everywhere.”

Make no mistake; on matters of divine intervention and faith in his God, the Rabbi is his own honest and resolute arbiter. His role in the community, however, hangs on a jury we do not understand. But for Rabbi Gruber, it was thumbs up from the one judge that really matters, “The almighty must have intervened because he knew it was going to be...really good.”

Incidentally, if you’re reading this, deem it divinely sanctioned.

16 Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

BBQ Laurier dies... And goes to heaven?

Brendan Lewis tastes Gordon Ramsay’s rotisserie takeover hard economic times of the past few years more generally) was to blame. Though the details are vague, somehow the third generation of LaPorte’s found it harder to return the senescent institution to its former position of prestige in the wake of a dwindling clientele.

These uncertain circumstances of Laurier BBQs untimely demise might explain the incredulous, even defiant, sentiments that boiled to the surface when it was slated to become Laurier Gordon Ramsay. Comments on the CBC’s August 10th article heralding the restaurant’s re-opening were by and large dismissive, with more than a few taking umbrage to Ramsay’s notorious on-camera persona: “No, not ever, even if it was free I would not support this guy. He does not respect other people.”

Or: “Sorry, too overwhelmed by his nasty personality to even consider dining at one of his restaurants.”

Another, seemed to contrast the restaurants past with Ramsay’s present: “I wouldn’t give this guy a dime…there are many other fine dining options in Montreal. And it is not the Laurier BBQ anymore – no nostalgia points.”

Personal digs aside, I was curious to see what mark Ramsay’s overhaul left on

the place. Paying a visit to Laurier Gordon Ramsay presents the diner with some interesting juxtapositions. The decor in many ways follows the template of casual dining: rows of table-cloth free booths, a large flat screen television for hockey nights, and all this arranged around the focal point: rich and satisfying comfort food.

But the simplicity and familiarity of setting are matched by a very evident attention to detail, from the Corinthian leather padded benches to the complementary jar of made-from-scratch pickles beside the expansive – though not prohibitively so – wine list at each table. The sheer number of forays that Head Chef Guillermo Russo makes into the dining area,

patiently listening to the comments and critiques of his guests, underscores the restaurant’s emphasis on hospitality and the hand-crafted.

Russo, a McGill alum, explained the mission of the new rotisserie to me: “Our model hasn’t really changed, so the essence is that we’re still remaining true to what Laurier was, and all that Ramsay is bringing to the table is the name, and the respect.” He continued, “I always listen to the customers…my job as head chef, especially being from Montreal, I’m in the dining hall, and I keep a constant dialogue with them.” When asked if the restaurant’s new incarnation has

changed its DNA, Russo stressed that there was no fundamental overhaul: “The only thing I’m doing is sourcing really good ingredients and making it local however possible.”

Certainly, it took more than grain-fed, Quebec-raised organic chicken to make Laurier Gordon Ramsay, but the ease with which I could sit with a few friends and fill my belly without emptying my wallet made me wonder if the answer to the cosmic question could be that simple. Maybe Chef Russo’s charming smile and trucker hat will make a believer out of you.

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

S

ome might say I live in an enviable location. Prime real estate, in fact. And the reason for this high property value lies not in my sparsely-furnished one-bedroom shithole in the basement of a crumbling building. No, the reason is more spiritual and lies right across the street.

You see, my church is Romados, and there doesn’t pass a single Sunday that I fail to join my congregation in bowing their heads to the deity of Montreal Rotisserie. As with any proper faith, Montreal’s many parishioners of poulet may receive communion in many fine houses of worship. For 75 years, though, there was another altar in Outremont that never fell short of poultry pilgrims, many of whom felt as passionately about the institution as I do for my personal basilica.

So, it’s easy for me to understand the public’s outrage at the announcement last spring that this beloved chicken chapel’s days were numbered, and that television chef and restauranteur Gordon Ramsay was gentrification’s reaper du jour (see the Daily’s March 5 article, “Hell’s Chicken”).

The LaPorte family opened Laurier BBQ in 1936, and it grew into one of Montreal’s pre-eminent rotisserie destinations, at one point boasting up to one thousand customers per day. Laurier made “regulars” out of a great many Outremont natives, and remains entrenched in the nostalgia of many Montrealers to this day.

Despite these wistful yearnings, somewhere along the line the restaurant ceased to be the hotspot it once was. Turnover fell, and, with fewer diners passing through, Laurier’s balance books were presumably creeping towards the red.

Maybe the steady march of gentrification and development sounded its death knells, forcing it to compete with swankier, more upscale eateries. Or maybe a decline in expendable income among its aging customer-base (and the

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

17

The show must go on Start up theatre company ventures Into the Woods for its debut Jayda Fogel

The McGill Daily

T

here is nothing quite like the scent of a theatre, or the rush of energy, excitement, and terror that comes with being backstage before the curtain rises. You frantically run through your lines, and pray to every deity known to man that you won’t break, whilst desperately trying not to ruin your stage-makeup. Being involved in theatre is about trust, and whether you’re in the cast or crew you connect with a group of people so intimately – so completely – that even the wasp nest roiling around in your stomach will ease the moment you look across that brightly lit stage and lock gazes with them. You become a family, working tirelessly to create a beautiful, transitory moment – a period of time outside the normal

flow, where the power of imagination and stage magic combine for a few brief hours of captivation. Then, it’s over before you know it, like waking up from a dream.

Montreal Theatre Music began as dream, a dream that founders Jonathan Keijser and Laura Oundjian have invested much energy over the past year to achieve.

Aiming at bridging the gap between amateur and professional theatre, they have worked at nurturing and creating a “professional environment,” says MTM’s publicist Kate Mcgillivray. She continues, “everyone from our director to the set designers has someone to turn to for guidance.” Fostering a mentoring program in the wider Montreal arts community was only one step in preparing their actors and crew for both the upcoming production of Into the Woods, as well as for a future career in the arts.

Relations with the professional community aren’t the only thing MTM have been busy fostering – they’ve also put an emphasis on media relations. Mcgillivray described “educational workshops, off-campus press outlets, and radio stations” as some of the means the company has used to spread the word about MTM, in the hope of creating a diverse audience.

They’ve also gotten internet savvy in their efforts, creating a Vimeo account with videos highlighting the characters of Prince Charming, Jack and Little Red as actors Ryan Peters, June Joshua Lam, and Elizabeth Conway respectively gush in character about their, um, quirks.

The choice of Into the Woods for the companies debut was a bold one.

Stephen Sondheim did many things with this beautiful piece of work, but creating a happy-go-lucky fairytale was not one of them. Instead, Into the Woods is the ultimate turn-

about, where the happy endings of our favourite fairy tale characters go abruptly and horribly amuck.

Exploring the consequences of wishes and quests, Into the Woods forces us to re-examine our ambitions, and “pay attention to what (and who) we are willing to sacrifice to achieve them” says Lam. The show plays especially close to home for MTM, whose string of bad-luck in the weeks before their opening almost forced them to cancel. Forced to leave their original venue of Moyse Hall due to the MUNACA strike, they scrambled to find a new site for their production. “We were told we wouldn’t be able to use Moyse two and a half weeks ago,” described Mcgillivray.

Conway added, “most theatres were booked solid. We had a few days during which we weren’t sure [about] D.B. Clarke [the Concordia theatre now housing the production].” But the cast and crew rallied, having

emergency meetings and throwing ideas back and forth for funding and fundraising, and determined that their show would go on.

MTM has prevailed in a situation that has many theatre groups and theatre associations throwing up their hands, or signing petitions begging the administration and strikers to consider them when they are sitting at the bargaining table.. “Moving to D.B. Clarke, MTM has truly become a community theatre by moving out of the McGill bubble.

Despite it all, they’ve faced tough odds and tough decisions, staying true to their ‘Into the Woods tunnel vision,’” explained Mcgillivray. It seems like this production may be poised for a fairy tale run after all.

MTM’s production of Into The Woods will run from October 13 to 15, 19 to 21 at the D. B. Clarke Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve.

Ultrasounds show that Beyonce’s unborn baby writes for culture.

You should too, cuz we’re

Irreplaceable.

Tuesdays 5:30 in Shatner B-24. Email us at culture@mcgilldaily.com Art Essay

Roxana Parsa

18 Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

O Canadian Music Laura Linden investigates our home and native land’s global musical impact

A

widespread and steadily increasing international awareness permeates today’s global music scene. The accessibility and constant circulation of emerging musical talent, facilitated by the mindboggling powers of media and the interweb, has enabled artists to showcase their sounds much more freely. What’s more, it has awarded music lovers the chance to sample an obscene amount of fresh international music from the comfort of their respective time zones. Considering the constantly fluctuating parameters of global network of musical exchange, it’s hard not to ask the following, sometimes ambiguous, question: Where does Canada stand on the current international music docket?

It goes without saying that Canada boasts a vast array of homegrown musical talent.

Artists hailing from all over the country and experimenting with a wide range of musical genres, infuse it with the potential for musical greatness. In recent years, an international audience has indeed been exposed to the musical prowess of several Canadian artists – and they like what they hear.

Native Montreal band The Arcade Fire are one example currently on everyone’s mind.

They’ve become an international music sensation, earning the coveted “Album of the Year” award at the 2011 Grammy’s, as well as the “Best International Album” at this year’s Brit Awards for their most recent album, The Suburbs.

The album’s hauntingly dynamic sound dominated this year’s Canadian, American, and British music charts and their international exposure was further bolstered by the release of their short film Scenes from the Suburbs, directed

by Spike Jonze, at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival. The Arcade Fire invited Montrealers to share in this success with an enormous free concert in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles on September 22, courtesy of the 10th annual POP Montreal music festival. An approximated 80 to 100 thousand dedicated Arcade Fire fans were happy to attend.

Despite some people’s misguided beliefs, Canadian music is not by any means limited to the Arcade Fire. In recent years, several other Canadian artists have spurred similarly impressive national and international followings.

Singer-songwriter Dallas Green, a former member of the internationally acclaimed post-hardcore band Alexisonfire

who is currently working on his solo indie-folk project City and Colour, has garnered cult-like followings from Canada to Australia.

Green’s ethereal vocals and hardhitting acoustics, manifested in his newest album Little Hell, have captured the hearts of many, and place him firmly within the ranks of internationally celebrated Canadian indie artists.

Similarly, Albertan duo Tegan and Sara, Nova Scotia native Feist, and Ontarian trio Bedouin Soundclash have all forged places for themselves within the vein of Canadian indie-folk music, and their international followings are growing steadily.

The recent explosion of other progressive, and perhaps more experimental, genres of music such as electro, glitch, and dubstep – which have flourished online – has brought an entire fleet of music producers, DJs and artists out of their proverbial Canadian bat caves and into the international music consciousness. Torontonian producer Joel Zimmerman, also known as the internationally celebrated Deadmau5, has become a dance music phenomenon praised for his pioneering manipulation of music-making software. DeadMau5 earned the “Dance Recording of the Year” Juno Award for his 2009 Album For Lack of a Better Name as well as a Grammy nomination for “Best Remixed Recording.” In March of 2010, he earned three International Dance Music Awards including “Best Artist” and “Best American DJ.” Zimmerman’s most recent international achievements include a sold out show at London’s Earls Court, a world-famous, 17,000 capacity venue. The show was monumental for Canadian electro, considering the venue has never hosted an electronic headliner before.

Deadmau5 continues to take the dance music world by storm, shining a light on the thriving realm of self-produced Canadian music. Such prospering Canadian musical acts include Montreal electro-funk duo Chromeo, who have been working crowds into bouts of frenzied dancing since 2004. The release of their second album Fancy Footwork in 2009 created an international hubbub, prompting a two-year world tour where they performed at legendary festivals such as Coachella and Lollapalooza in America, Glastonbury and Reading in the UK, and Fujirock in Japan.

Similarly, Montreal DJ Alain Macklovitch, better known as A-Trak (Chromeo’s David Macklovtich’s younger brother), has punctured the international DJ scene with his remix work. A-Trak won his first

Lindsay Cameron | The McGill Daily

Régine Chassagne performs during The Arcade Fire’s free concert on September 22. of five DJ World Championship titles in 1997 at the ripe age of 15, making him the youngest and first Canadian champion of the competition. As Macklovitch continues to tear up his turntables, his collaborations with musical sensations such as Kanye West and CyHi Da Prynce put him on a prestigious international pedestal.

Evidently, Canada has already left an indelible mark on the international music scene, and continues to turn out new and promising talent with every passing year. However, there is an

extensive list of Canadian Artists who are yet to be recognized internationally. Within Canada, music festivals such as the World Electronic Music Festival and POP Montreal help endorse our nations musicians. Additionally, the creation of online blogs such as weirdcanada.com are dedicated to the propagation of Canadian music and contribute to its international exposure. Yet, there is still much to be done. Up-and-coming artists ranging from an interminable list of genres such as R&B crooner

the Weeknd, bass heavy dubstep duo Zeds Dead and indie-rock sensations Mother Mother, show Canada’s potential for more presence on the international music stage. Canadians should therefore endeavor to support their local music scenes. What could be more rewarding than watching talented fellow Canadians reap the fruits of their musical labor and gain international recognition for their craft? After all, there is nothing as satisfying as being able to exclaim: “Oh, that band?

They’re Canadian, eh!”

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

volume 101 number 11

Editorial

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

Joan Moses

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Henry Gass news editors

Queen Arsem-O’Malley Erin Hudson Jessica Lukawiecki features editor

Eric Andrew-Gee commentary&compendium! editors

Zachary Lewsen Olivia Messer culture editors

Christina Colizza Fabien Maltais-Bayda

science+technology editor

Jenny Lu

health&education editor

Melanie Kim sports editor

Andra Cernavskis photo editor

Victor Tangermann

Building a stronger social safety net Last Saturday, a coalition of 138 Canadian activist groups – known as le Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) – held a demonstration in Montreal demanding increased government investment in social housing.

Despite the over 100,000 social housing units in Quebec, 160,000 people in Quebec still have serious housing needs, according to FRAPRU, and they predict these needs will only swell in coming years if the underfunding of public housing is not addressed. Low income housing comprises the majority of social housing units in Quebec, and many buildings are in need of maintenance and renovation after decades of neglect.

It also appears that the necessary funding to repair crumbling units and fill in for receding federal funding will not be coming from the provincial government. For years, FRAPRU have asked the government to fund the construction of 50,000 new units over five years, but the provincial government has yet to fulfill this request.

A 2007 UN Special Report on Adequate Housing revealed that Canada has one of the smallest social housing sectors among developed countries. The provincial government is not only failing to maintain an inadequate program, it is cutting deeper into a vital lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers.

A shortfall in funding for public housing is but one of a series of recent provincial budget cuts that threaten the social safety net that has supported Quebeckers for decades. In September, Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government announced plans to cut $800 million in spending in order to eliminate its deficit by 2014. Since March, the government has cut $466 million in health care. The education sector has already seen $110 million in cuts, with a further $180 million expected by next March.

Quebec is facing a severe fiscal deficit, but the programs that support the least fortunate among us should not be the first to get cut. These cuts threaten the basic needs of hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers.

As members of the Montreal community, we should speak out in defense of these fundamental rights and pressure the government to seek alternates means of eliminating its deficit. This Saturday, thousands of people will join similar demonstrations around the world for the Occupy Montreal rally in Victoria Square, many protesting the provincial government’s severe austerity measures. If you care about government cuts to already insufficient social services, join them, and help turn around an alarming trend in the government’s abandonment of its constituents.

illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva production&design editors

Alyssa Favreau Rebecca Katzman copy editor

Peter Shyba web editor

Shannon Palus le délit

Anabel Cossette Civitella rec@delitfrancais.com cover design

Amina Batyreva Contributors Marlise Armstrong, Laurent Bastien Corbeil, Jethro Beattie-Booth, Lindsay Cameron, Niko Block, Ines De La Cuetara, Jayda Fogel, Jane Gatensby, Alex Kunev, Michael Lee-Murphy, Brendan Lewis, Laura Linden, Harmon Moon, Roxana Parsa, Angus Sharpe, Daniel Smith, Shaurya Taran, Chloe Thimonier

The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit organization whose membership includes all McGill undergraduates and most graduate students.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

Collaborate beyond the classroom Last fall, McGill students in a biology study group started a website to share class notes among themselves online. A year later, that effort has grown into Wikinotes.ca – a University-wide note-sharing site. Its concept and software are similar to Wikipedia’s: anyone can generate and edit content. McGill courses have pages that contain information about the class – such as past exams, old homework assignments, tips on whether it’s worthwhile to shell out for the textbook, links to lectures that professors have made available, and links to other resources. Wikinotes is still in its infancy – but it’s already faced a wrist-slap from the admin: an email was sent out to all profs and course lecturers notifying them to be aware of potential copyright issues and keep control of their course materials. Because information won’t be erased from year to year, it has the potential to be more comprehensive than WebCT. The ideology behind the website is that information should be accessible, and open. This site is part of a growing trend – other universities are openly embracing the idea of accessible information and collaboration. MIT has had an extensive OpenCourseWare site since 2003, with over 200 classes with pages like those on Wikinotes, and encourages both enrolled students and the public to take advantage of its resources. (MIT’s OCW site is not a wiki, but it does feature feedback buttons on course pages, and links to student study groups.) Many other universities have similar sites. McGill should be moving in this more open direction, and Wikinotes presents a step in that process.

Furthermore, Wikinotes encourages healthy collaboration between students, and between students and professors. This can help build a supportive academic community, and may foster the kind of cooperative learning environment that can seem to be lacking in McGill’s competitive atmosphere.

Although they may be a complement to, rather than a replacement for, active participation in the classroom setting, course websites are a good resource both for students and the public. McGill should let – and help – Wikinotes.ca operate. And so can you: visit their website for course notes, and information on how to edit pages. If you’d like to start a page for a course that you don’t see listed, email them at admin@wikinotes.com. The site will only be at strong as we make it.

phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

Boris Shedov Letty Matteo Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard

advertising & general manager

sales representative ad layout & design

dps board of directors

Marie Catherine Ducharme, Joseph Henry, Tyler Lawson, Sheehan Moore, Joan Moses, Aaron Vansintjan (chair [at] dailypublications.org), Debbie Wang

The Daily is proud to be a founding member of the Canadian University Press.

All contents © 2011 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

Errata In “What Goes into the 30%?” (News, page 5, October 6), it was stated that the 1.2 per cent wage increase offered to MUNACA by the McGill administration is the minimum amount mandated by the government. 1.2 per cent is in fact the maximum covered by the government; anything above this figure would have to come out of the University’s funds. The Daily regrets the error.

19

Compendium!

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 13, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lies, half-truths, and sass.

The cuddle crisis

Cutout George Clooney with a Puppy

Recent developments in the sexual strike from VPs (Sass and Sodomy) Salvador Dalliance and Simone de Boudoir The McGill Daily

A

s our sexual strike shimmies into week three, it also enters a whole new season. Some call it fall, but, as we all know, it can more accurately be deemed cuddle season.

It’s the time of year when couples in matching chunky knits cozy up to each other cupping steaming mugs of hot chocolate – not to mention each other’s genitals – typically coming away from such encounters with a white foam, of one kind or another, on the upper lip. The Mile End is crawling with these precious pairings, smugly holding hands and feeding each other freshly baked bagels as they stroll down St. Viateur. You can almost picture these assholes hanging out under their flannel blankets, keeping warm in the

most pleasurably fricative of ways.

Obviously this sexually tempting season is trying the tenacity of us strikers. But we will not be seduced into the amalgamation of human warmth, no matter how low the mercury drops. Luckily, we have a few strategies to ensure that our morale stays high even if the temperature doesn’t.

1

Heated body pillows: Obviously the only reason to have another human in your bed is to generate body heat, but they can easily be replaced by this comfy cushion.

Getting the chance to silk screen James Franco’s face – or the face of any hottie you fancy – is just an added bonus.

2

Bedside bottle of whiskey + moleskine note book: Being alone gives us the chance to get all “depressive literary” between the sheets. The bottle of whiskey will really help

20

unlock your inner Bukowski.

3

A long, thick... stack of coursepacks: Turn your sexual frustration into academic success. Theses readings should keep you satisfied all night long.

4 5

A solid set of Friends DVDs: Because lovers come and go, but your friends? They’ll be there for you.

Dildo.

Armed with these weapons we single soldiers will be able to fight off even the worst cases of the rainy day blues, without relying on reinforcements. In the end, we’re actually really grateful to cuddle season for testing our willpower and motivation. In the words of our girl Xtina, “thanks for making [us] fighter[s].”

FUCK THE FILMING

F Laura Moncion for The McGill Daily

MIDTERMZ!!!!!!!

MINUS 150

Do you have the new facebook yet?

EVEN

Kathy Dunderdale is still Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador

EVEN

Absolutely no NFLD election coverage in The Globe and Mail Thanksgiving’s over, but Halloween’s soon!

MUNACA’s injunction ends soon!

TOTAL

Think you’re funny?

MINUS 35 PLUS 50 PLUS 22 MINUS 113

How’s your life been lately? Email compendium@mcgilldaily.com, I’d love to hear from you!

compendium@ mcgilldaily.com

uck this fucking bullshit film set which stopped me from getting into McLennan on Saturday night. Every route to the library from the middle of campus was closed to allow the crew to set up floodlights and shoot night scenes, and every entrance to the library from McTavish was, naturally, closed because of the ongoing construction.

How much did Summit Entertainment pay you, McGill, to shut down a large chunk of downtown campus for an entire fucking weekend during the middle of the fucking term? How much are you paying Securitas to laugh at me and other students when we ask our own security if we can even get into our own fucking library? I have papers to research and problem sets to finish, you fuckers, this is fucking ridiculous.

FUCK THE NBA

F

uck David Stern. Fuck the NBA. Fuck the owners and the player’s union; fuck everybody except the refs. The first two weeks of the season have officially been cancelled and resolution is not even on the horizon. Not cool. I don’t care about hockey, I don’t care about football, and I certainly don’t give a shit about the Brewers versus the fucking Tigers. I just want to see tall people jump over each other and balls being bounced.

There are so many storylines that left us with cliffhangers last season. Can Kobe will his way to a 6th ring? Are a mere two superstars enough to lift the Knicks above mediocrity? Will Blake Griffin finally dunk so hard that the rim retires, demoralized, and we’ll be forced to play with just a net? Will Derrick Rose continue to score and pass, despite the fact he didn’t score high enough to pass the SATS? These questions demand fucking answers! Lebron “Talented” James and Dwayne “Very Good at Basketball” Wade haven’t even won a championship yet! I need closure, game, I need closure. Please don’t make me watch white people hit pucks on ice-skates.

Fuck This! is an occasional anonymous rant column, and the barrel’s been a bit dry lately. Please send your diatribes to fuckthis@ mcgilldaily.com!!!