Vol102Issue14

Volume 102, Issue 14

October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

DAILY Toxic shit since 1911

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

PAGE 19

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NEWS 03 NEWS

SSMU Council decisions on GA motions delayed McGill Senate on asbestos, academic priorities, and more

07 COMMENTARY Fascists in Montreal End unfair rent practices Charity, justice, and religion

10 SCIENCE+TECH Developing a musical interpretation of emotion The challenges of science reporting McGill’s missing interdisciplinary science programs

12 SPORTS Sports for the differently abled Lance Armstrong and athlete idolization

14 CULTURE Spray paint and self-expression Players’ Theatre Company promises music and laughter The trickster figure in contemporary cinema Montreal band leaves the nest An Angel’s Share of whisky

Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

3

Conservatives’ War of 1812 campaign reaches Montreal

McGilliLeaked publishes McGill documents online Principal discusses international students

The McGill Daily

Critics accuse government of glorifying war and distorting details Karel Asha News Writer

T

he Harper government renamed a federal building in Old Montreal on Wednesday, October 10 as part of a $28 million campaign to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812. Located at 400 Place d’Youville, the Édifice des douanes is now officially the Dominique Ducharme Building.

“Mr. Ducharme fought both at the Battle of Beaver Dams in Upper Canada and at the Battle of the Chateauguay, and played an important role in Canada’s development,” Minister of Public Works and Government Services Rona Ambrose stated in a press release.

“The building’s proximity to the Battle of the Chateauguay site gives it special historic significance for the region,” Jacques Gourde, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, said at the October 10 naming ceremony.

According to the government press release, the Battle of Chateauguay was a decisive loss for the Americans, who abandoned their Saint Lawrence campaign.

Pierre Nantel, vice-critic for Canadian Heritage for the New Democratic Party, told La Presse in French that he is “concerned to see new symbols being imposed as new icons of Canada, implying that the symbols which have been built over the years have not been sufficient.”

In an interview with The Daily, Canadian military history expert and Hiram Mills Emeritus Professor Desmond Morton explained that the federal government is not giving the full story on Ducharme. “[Ducharme] was the British Army’s Indian Department agent with the Mohawks who defeated the Americans at Beaver Dams, using the information Laura Secord had brought to Lieutenant Fitzgibbon. As usual in our history, reference to the Mohawks is never part of the Laura Secord story,” said Morton.

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

“The real victors in the War of 1812 weren’t the Upper Canadians [Ontario]; it was the Lower Canadians [Quebec] who provided much of the troops in the early victories,” Morton continued. “The best militia in North America was the militia that had evolved in Lower Canada.”

“Nobody in Ontario ever hears about this. I’m not sure Mr. Harper wants them to, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to recognize that the French Canadians saved them so they could go on being Canadians,” he added.

History Students’ Association (HSA) President Hannah Wood told The Daily, “Canadian history as taught in elementary and secondary schools is highly selective. The War of 1812 was never discussed.”

However, according to Wood, the war was symbolically formative to the Canadian nation. “A fundamental part of popular Canadian identity is the fact we are not American.

Although the War of 1812 may technically have been a British war, Canada has historically identified with Britain over America,” she said.

Wood said she hopes “there is a

concerted effort to represent events such as the War of 1812 accurately, and not idealize them as the government has done in its press releases and television commercials.”

She specified that these views are her own and do not necessarily represent those of HSA constituents.

In an interview with The Daily, Alan Taylor – Pulitzer Prize winner, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and author of The Civil War of 1812 – said, “in Upper Canada at the start of the war, most of the inhabitants were settlers from the United States.

During the first two years of the war most of them sought to avoid any service in the war, on either side, and some of them did join the invaders.”

“By the last year of the war, most of the Upper Canada inhabitants did reluctantly become more active in defending the colony and the war did create a greater sense of Canadian patriotism,” said Taylor.

However, Taylor noted, “Canadian militia played an important role but of lesser importance when compared to the leading roles played by the British

regulars and the First Nation peoples.”

“My dissent from the government position is that it implies that all Canadians immediately rallied to defend the colony [and] that there was already a unified Canada when in fact there were seven distinct colonies,” he said.

Taylor also criticized the Canadian government for glorifying the war. “The government line also misses a golden opportunity to treat the war as a tragedy that persuaded both Americans and the British that they should avoid future wars,” he said. “The 200 years of peace warrant our celebration far more than does the supposed glories of a war full of miseries. At the 1912 centennial commemoration there was much more bi-national cooperation around the message of shared peace.”

“While spending $29 million on TV ads and reenactments, the federal government has gutted the budgets of Parks Canada and the Library and Archives Canada, which strikes me as a misallocation of priorities and resources,” Taylor added.

The politics of charity Field trip to a fake forest

18 COMPENDIUM! Asbestos appears on campus Opinions at the Consultation Fair

19 EDITORIAL The stifled asbestos investigation

AUS to create equity policy Anita Sivabalan News Writer

A

resolution to create an Equity Policy for the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) was passed last Wednesday at the AUS Legislative Council meeting. The resolution was drafted by VP Internal Justin Fletcher and AUS Middle East Studies rep-

resentative Ella Nalepka.

According to Fletcher, the policy aims to foster “a safe space [for students]...in which everyone will feel included and have the ability to participate in AUS events and services.” The policy will also outline principles of anti-oppression and non-discrimination. Fletcher further explained that this policy will establish a framework that the AUS Council can abide by

when planning events and providing services.

The policy will also provide guidelines for how student grievances might be addressed if they feel that the equity policy has been violated.

The resolution mandated that an ad hoc Equity Committee be created in order to formulate the policy. Fletcher explained that the committee will consist

of himself, two AUS councillors, and two members-at-large to be selected through an application procedure. The committee will also carry out a consultation process, which will be open to all AUS members to provide their suggestions and ideas.

Fletcher stated that the committee hopes to have a policy to bring before AUS Council by their November 28 meeting.

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NEWS

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

McGilliLeaked publishes McGill documents online University redaction practices questioned was also responsible for compiling and uploading all documents to the McGilliLeaked website.

“A lot of us have been submitting a lot of ATIs over the last year and a half or so. We had a lot of interesting documents, a lot of interesting security reports…I thought it would be cool if we all had access to all of these documents that we requested,” Bangs told The Daily.

In an email to The Daily, VicePrincipal (External Relations) Olivier Marcil stated that McGill University releases “hundreds of documents” under Quebec’s Act Respecting Access to Documents Held by Public Bodies and the Protection of Personal Information.

“The fact that these documents were released shows that the University is fulfilling its obligation and that the system is working,” said Marcil.

Juan Camilo Velásquez The McGill Daily

M

cGilliLeaked, a website compiling various documents about McGill University – including contracts, security reports, and investments – was launched last week.

Among the documents are the University’s contract with the private security company Securitas and its contract with MIR3, the company in charge of the emergency text alerts for which the University spends a total of $37,220.20 per year.

Students and student journalists from The Daily and the Link obtained the documents from McGill through various Access to Information (ATI) requests.

U3 Economics student Christopher Bangs requested the majority of the documents, and

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or redacted – to conceal confidential information.

“Some of the information [the McGilliLeaked documents] contain was redacted in application of exceptions to disclosure provided in the law, or in order to protect the privacy of individuals,” wrote Marcil.

In response, Bangs claimed that University figures use redactions to “protect [themselves] from the consequences of their decisions made on the job.”

“Members of the Board of Governors are responsible for running this university, and the decisions they make are often public and always important, but the University redacts the names of members in the minutes,” said Bangs. “Their privacy is not at issue here, for there is no right to privacy in this case, and I hope that the University will review its policy on redactions.”

Major work along Avenue des Pins and Avenue du Docteur-Penfield

RUE PRINCE-ARTHUR

T AV ENUE D U D OC

made now shows how few avenues remain to gain access to basic information about this public university.”

In an interview with The Daily, Bangs also mentioned that the University has sent him letters to prevent him from getting access to certain information. “[McGill] can deny requests [in the case of] security issues. McGill has said that my requests at times were repetitive, systematic and just too many documents for them to handle,” he said.

Bangs and McGill had a mediation session over the summer regarding the ATIs of the Independent Student Inquiry, a group formed last year to investigate the events of November 10. According to Bangs, the two parties met with an employee of the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

Marcil also referred to documents which were blacked-out –

We are rehabilitating the water system

Temporary passageway between P2 and P3

Phase 1

P4 entrance Open

However, Bangs said the high volume of ATI requests received

by McGill reflects flaws in the University’s structure.

“The number of Access to Information requests received

by McGill University in the last few years is many times higher than a decade ago. Similarly, the Committee on Student Grievances has seen a huge rise in the number of cases brought by students against the school,” Bangs wrote in an email to The Daily.

“While McGill seems to think that these changes show that the system works, in reality they are indicative of the broad shift in the University…from a collegial, decentralized system with informal, personal conflict resolution methods and more transparency to a system micromanaged by a few people at the top of the hierarchy,” he wrote.

“The fact that so many ATIs are

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Two-way traffic on Docteur-Penfield and McTavish.

Some bus routes will be changed.

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Optional route Av. du Parc to the east, rue Sherbrooke to the south, Ch. de la Côte-des-Neiges to the west Info-travaux: 514 872-3777 ville.montreal.qc.ca/chantiers /Mtl_Circulation

NEWS

5

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Principal discusses international students in Quebec Tuition and underfunding major concerns Juan Camilo Velásquez The McGill Daily

P

rincipal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum addressed a crowd of 425 people last Friday afternoon on the importance of bringing international students to Quebec universities.

The event, hosted by the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, was held at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal. The main event of the afternoon was Munroe-Blum’s speech, entitled “Quebec in the race for global talent.”

The speech was structured around “myths” about international students in Quebec. According to Munroe-Blum, one such myth is the fact that “higher tuition rates would drive talented Quebec and international students away from [Quebec] universities.”

“Studies across the country are crystal-clear: no link exists between the amount of tuition and attendance in universities,” she said.

Munroe-Blum also mentioned that McGill seeks to attract international students for the “cultural and intellectual enrichment of our learning community,” and not for gains from higher tuition.

“Under the Quebec funding system, most of the tuition paid by students from outside Quebec returns to the government…Because of this, each year, McGill gives back around $55 million of its students’ fees,” said Munroe-Blum.

SSMU President Josh Redel, who was present at the conference, told The Daily in an email that although the Principal’s statements were

based on research, there are important caveats to account for.

“While increased tuition may not affect overall attendance in universities, it is quite likely that higher tuition would certainly affect attendance by under-represented groups that might not have the privilege of being able to afford the higher tuition,” wrote Redel.

According to Redel, SSMU stands for accessible education for all.

Redel also pointed to ways of helping international students in terms of entrance and language support.

“I think [Quebec] needs to provide better support for international students by cutting down the red tape surrounding the visa and study visa process…[and] provide better language support for international students,” wrote Redel. “I think many students would love to be able to learn French and speak it while they are here, but the province provides no such framework to assist in that endeavour. By providing a better support system for teaching and learning French, more students would be able to become employed and would be way more likely to remain in the province.”

Munroe-Blum gave three recommendations: to increase the number of French courses offered at McGill, to increase the number of international student enrolment to 33 per cent, and to encourage investment in higher education.

This event also marked the first meeting of Munroe-Blum and Minister of Higher Education Pierre Duchesne.

Following the conference session, Munroe-Blum met with members of the student and Montreal press. At the meeting, The Daily

asked about the effect of the Quebec student strike on McGill’s international reputation.

“The international world is used to disruption and I did a lot of interviews with international media back in the spring. At the same time, London was having riots, California was having riots, everywhere you go in the world there were things happening… It is true today that Montreal is one of the safest really cosmopolitan, big cities where students from around the world can come,” responded Munroe-Blum.

The McGill Tribune asked about the portion of international student tuition that goes into the Quebec financial aid system but which students don’t have access to.

“It is a significant portion of the tuition fee they pay [that] they don’t get the benefit of, and McGill doesn’t get the finances to support them. So if you look around McGill right now, you’ll see blue bins all over our campus asking our employees to bring coats because we have students from the South, from developing countries, who are here without winter clothes,” said Munroe-Blum.

“If you’re coming from a background where no one in your family has gone to university before and you don’t have much financial resources, you need more support than free tuition. You actually need full support for all kinds of services…. We are underfunded so we’re making a strong case – I’ll make it to the Minister – that money should stay where the students pay it,” she added.

The Daily also asked about McGill’s ability to finance international marketing considering the state of university funding.

Photo Lindsay Cameron | The McGill Daily

Munroe-Blum pointed to the fact that the University depends on others – like alumni – to pay for marketing.

“Our Hong Kong alumni and our China mainland alumni are very upset that McGill doesn’t advertise

there,” she said. “Queen’s University does, Toronto does, all the American universities do, the Australian universities do, the British universities do, and they are saying, ‘we want our alma mater to be seen in the newspaper and seen on television.’”

OFF-CAMPUS EYE Protesters gather for Global Day of Action Laurent Bastien Corbeil Around 200 demonstrators marched through downtown Montreal last Thursday as part of a Global Day of Action to reclaim education and promote direct democracy. Activists blocked the intersection of St. Denis and Maisonneuve for several minutes.

—Laurent Bastien Corbeil

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NEWS

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Procedural debate delays decisions on SSMU GA motions Councillors divided over online ratification Esther Lee and Dana Wray The McGill Daily

L

ast Thursday, the Legislative Council of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) met for the fourth time this semester to discuss a series of motions presented at the Fall General Assembly (GA) earlier this month.

Instead, councillors found themselves tied up in procedural debate after a report by the Steering Committee found a series of weaknesses in the by-laws of the SSMU constitution.

The Steering Committee’s report detailed several tensions between the role of Council and the constitutional integration of online ratification.

In accordance with article 7.3 in the SSMU By-Law Book 1, motions passed at a GA that have lost quorum – and are thus non-binding and passed as a consultative forum – are then passed to Council by direction of the Steering Committee. The traditional role of Council is to simply “rubber stamp” the motions based on the vote of the consultative forum.

However, as the by-law stands, there is no precedent for the integration of online ratification in the situa-

tion of a vote by consultative forum.

Councillors were divided over the merits of online ratification.

Claire Stewart-Kanigan, newly-elected Arts representative to SSMU, told The Daily, “decisions should be arrived at via discussion and debate, but with online ratification, this process is devalued,” adding that she “fundamentally disapproved” of the process.

VP University Affairs Haley Dinel, on the other hand, saw online ratification as “beneficial to the GA process.”

“I am in fact hopeful that it will lead to a different kind of participation at the GA,” Dinel told The Daily.

The Steering Committee also raised concerns about Council’s mandate to pass external and potentially divisive motions – such as the motion on war with Iran – and held in its report, “the Legislative Council holds no authority to adopt positions on external affairs brought to the General Assembly.”

Several councillors proposed to amend or debate the motions in question to orient them more under SSMU’s mandate and make the motions less externally-based.

President Josh Redel, however, cautioned against Council debating or amending motions presented in a GA, pointing out the “clear distinction between the direct democracy

Arts rep Stewart-Kanigan disapproved of online ratification. of the GA and representative democracy of the council.”

There is a legal precedent in the by-law book to table all motions passed by a consultative forum until the next GA, which would take place in the 2013 winter semester.

Suggestions to follow this precedent were met with strong opposition.

“[These motions] are time-sensitive issues that must be discussed as soon as possible. By the time the next GA rolls around, it may be too late to take a meaningful stance on the issues at hand,” Stewart-Kanigan told The Daily.

VP Internal Michael Szpejda said that it was preferable to fix the con-

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

stitutional loopholes before passing the motions in either Council or in the next GA. The four motions were tabled until the next meeting of Council on November 1 to allow the Steering Committee to make final decisions on the possible amendment of the by-laws.

Senate discusses asbestos research and interdisciplinary registration Principal’s Task Force and five-year strategic academic plan also covered Shrinkhala Dawadi News Writer

M

cGill Senate met last Wednesday for the second time this year. Discussion lingered on the accessibility of interfaculty and interdepartmental course registration, but topics also included university funding, asbestos research at McGill, the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement, and the Open Forum on Free Expression and Peaceful Assembly report.

In her opening statement, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum underlined her concern about government investment in education and the quality of education and student support at the University, stating that she “[didn’t] want to start sounding like a broken record, but we need these resources in a consistent and predictable manner.”

She noted that the new provincial government had been “quite quiet” in interactions with the University, and that a summit would most likely be scheduled for the following spring.

Asbestos research Dean of Medicine David Eidelman spoke briefly about the report pre-

pared by the University’s Research Integrity Officer Abraham Fuks to address allegations of academic misconduct against McGill Professor Emeritus J. Corbett Macdonald, who researched the health effects of asbestos in the 1970s.

Eidelman stated that in releasing the report to the public, he hoped to dispel beliefs that McGill “was in some kind of conspiracy with the asbestos industry.”

Several senators asked why the report did not address larger issues concerning McGill’s relationship to the asbestos industry – namely, the fact that a prominent asbestos exporter sat on the University’s Board of Governors until last year – as well as its research financing practices in general.

Interdisciplinary registration SSMU VP University Affairs Haley Dinel and Arts Senator Max Zidel said that the lack of a university-wide guide on interdepartmental course registration had resulted in the presence of vastly different registration policies, which can make registration difficult and frustrating.

In response, Provost Anthony Masi reiterated that while a strong depth and breadth of learning was a part of the McGill experience, the priority of

registering major and minor students in their departmental courses naturally preceded “latitude enrichment.” He also stated that as a large university, practical concerns would have to factor in policy decisions, though steps were being taken to improve interdepartmental relations.

Masi additionally informed Senate that the University was working with Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson to eliminate low-enrollment courses and programs in order to allocate more time for the teaching of courses that were more in demand. Masi acknowledged that reducing certain courses would not appeal to the entire student body, and once again would involve a tradeoff between specificity and breadth.

During the meeting, the student senators asked whether students’ needs were fully taken into account by faculty policymakers. While the Faculty of Arts has reduced its major credit requirements from 56 to 36 in light of student demand, Senator and Post-Graduate Students’ Society Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney remarked that other majors, especially in the Faculty of Science, still required 76 credits out of a 90-credit program.

Senator and Dean of Science Martin Grant pointed out that the specific nature of science programs

and the necessity of prerequisite courses were the reasons for a highcredit major, especially in honours programs. He also stated that pursuing a Bachelor of Arts and Science was an option for students who wanted a more inter-faculty degree.

According to Masi, the expansion and improvement of interdepartmental course registration is central to McGill’s commitment to maintaining its global reputation as a world leader in education. The Academic Policy Committee will be working with the deans of each faculty to discuss the issue, although no concrete policies have been put in place.

The Task Force In response to the recommendations made by the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement, the administration decided to expand the mandate of the Associate Provost for Policies, Procedures, and Equity to include the promotion and monitoring of diversity at the University. The administration’s official response suggested implementing measures aimed at increasing “the number of individuals from groups now underrepresented in various segments of the McGill community, in particular, visible minori-

ties, Aboriginal groups, women, persons with disabilities, and disadvantaged socioeconomic groups.”

ASAP 2012: Achieving Strategic Academic Priorities Senate endorsed the academic strategies and objectives outlined in the Provost’s five-year strategic academic plan. Like the Task Force, ASAP emphasized the importance of diversifying the University’s staff and faculty. The 81-page document outlined ten central objectives, including: that McGill revise its academic hiring policy, especially concerning tenure-track professors; provide adequate student aid to improve the accessibility of education to “underrepresented population groups”; “ensure innovation in graduate studies”; “develop a culture of ‘best practices’” in its administrative policies; improve opportunities for advancement with its support staff; implement better feedback loops; provide a service to “Quebec, Canada, and the global community”; and “encourage diversity in…ideas among faculty, students, and staff.”

Mooney remarked that the goals outlined in the report were “so broad that they became aphorisms.”

—with files from Lola Duffort

commentary

The McGill Daily Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

7

Your friendly neighbourhood fascist On Golden Dawn’s chapter in Montreal Davide Mastracci The McGill Daily

I

n World War II, the people of Greece faced a fascist threat from invading German and Italian armies. Now, over seventy years later, the threat of fascism comes from within, and it goes by the name Golden Dawn.

Ken Matziorinis, an economics professor at McGill University, has compared the current crisis in Greece to the socioeconomic conditions in Germany during the 1920s which fostered the rise of the Nazis. Like the Nazis, Matziorinis claims Golden Dawn has accumulated support because of these conditions. The increase in support is notable. Recent public opinion polls in Greece have seen Golden Dawn’s support rise to 22 per cent of the populace, a far cry from the irrelevant sideline status it rightfully deserved in prior years.

A great deal of the support for Golden Dawn arises from the fact that the party offers easy answers to the tough questions facing Greece. One of the party’s main policies is the deportation of all illegal immigrants from Greece – with force if needed – as a means of solving the economic crisis.

Yet the party’s disdain often goes beyond illegal immigrants, and scapegoats all immigrants in Greece as the cause of the crisis.

As it stands, Golden Dawn thugs act like a gang, patrolling Greek cities and attacking minorities – legal or not – often fatally. In fact, citizens’ complaints are often forwarded to Golden Dawn by law enforcement because of the great

deal of support the party enjoys among the police force.

Yet Golden Dawn supporters do not exclusively live in Greece.

A Golden Dawn chapter, which boasts a membership of over 200 people, has opened in Montreal.

The leader of this chapter, Spiros Macrozonaris, has defended Golden Dawn’s political program through and through. For example, in an interview with the CBC, upon seeing footage of Golden Dawn members engaged in one of their brutal attacks on helpless citizens, Macrozonaris claimed that it was justifiable because the only people being targeted were illegal immigrants.

Still, Macrozonaris claims that Golden Dawn is not racist – despite the fact that the leader of Golden Dawn, Nikos Mihaloliakos, has explicitly stated that it is – and that the Montreal chapter only exists to help fellow Greeks by donating food and medicine. “Fellow Greeks” does not mean all of the people in Greece. Golden Dawn’s support only extends to “ethnic” Greeks, and minorities are excluded from any sort of handout.

At the very least, those in Montreal who wish to aid the Greek people should refrain from doing so through Golden Dawn.

This may require some investigation: Golden Dawn chapters have repeatedly hidden their identity until after donations are made.

Other organizations, such as the Hellenic Community of Greater Montreal, provide an alternative to Golden Dawn, as they ensure that any sort of donated aid will become available to all people, regardless of their ethnicity.

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

President of the Hellenic Community of Greater Montreal, Nicholas Pagonis, claims that Golden Dawn gives the Greek community in Montreal a bad name, and that it has no place in the city. The Greek community in Montreal, and their allies, should take direct action against Golden Dawn to ensure that this is made clear. The eviction of a Golden Dawn chapter from their lodgings by the concerned community in Astoria, Queens, in New York, is an example of what this

sort of action can look like.

Beyond supporting the people of Greece, the most important thing concerned citizens can do is realize that Golden Dawn is not an exclusively Greek phenomenon. While the party may take on different names elsewhere, the sort of rhetoric espoused remains the same.

In fact, the xenophobia and racism made explicit by Golden Dawn, while often barely lurking under the face of North American society, have violently surfaced

in events such as the Wisconsin massacre, when an Army veteran gunned down six at a Sikh temple. North America is not above Golden Dawn-type politics. Unless Canadians can refrain from the unjust demonization of immigrants and minorities, a Canadian Golden Dawn may not be too far away.

Davide Mastracci is a U2 History and Political Science student. He can be reached at davide.mastracci@mail.mcgill.ca.

Let’s take rental action Unfair practices must stop Jimmy Gutman Commentary Writer

Y

ou’ve heard the horror stories. Friends and family are renting somewhere in the Plateau and the pipes break, the toilet won’t flush, or the heating just won’t turn on. You shrug, that sucks.

But Montreal is cold. In the winter, temperatures can drop to below thirty degrees Celsius. This cold and damp weather chills the bones. No one should have to live through the cold without ade-

quate housing.

The majority of McGill students are renters. We sign leases, fill our fridges with food and booze, and hope our exams and essays get good marks. But what happens when something breaks? What happens when the little place you call home becomes uninhabitable?

What happens when the landlord doesn’t answer the call to fix this or that? What happens when the whispering draft chills you to the bone and the thermostat doesn’t seem to work?

Students, like many people

who don’t own much and don’t make much money, are extremely vulnerable. Landlords can take advantage of this. They can try to force students into unfair leases, raise the rent unilaterally, and withhold services. If you don’t know your rights, you’re in trouble. If you know your rights, you’re in for an uphill battle.

To make your landlord do anything, unless you have a good lawyer and money, you need to go to the Régie du logement, the rental board of Quebec. There you file a complaint and hope for

the best. For some people, it takes three years to get a hearing. These delays are denials of justice. When you’re freezing, three months is too long, three years unthinkable.

I’m calling on students to stop being trampled on by unfair landlord practices, and I’m calling on SSMU to start lobbying for an end to the delays. We are tenants and we have rights. These are not just student issues, these are human rights issues.

We need to fight this injustice.

Join me and Project Genesis on Thursday, October 25 at 11 a.m.

at the Régie, 1425 René-Lévesque West to call for justice for those who will be spending the winter in the cold.

If you have any stories, email me. If you have any current problems, I encourage you to go to Project Genesis, talk to legal aid, or go to the Régie du logement.

Tell your SSMU politicians to do something.

Get angry and get active.

Jimmy Gutman is an Arts Senator.

He can be reached at artssenator2@ssmu.mcgill.ca

8

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Love and justice

Reexamining secular notions of charity Vincent Calabrese Commentary Writer

T

wo years ago, only a few days after my arrival in Montreal and before ever stepping foot in a McGill classroom, I sat in a Rad Frosh workshop on anarchism. The presenter was explaining the concept of mutual aid – the reciprocal exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit – which is so central to anarchist social theory.

This principle, he told us, was a far superior one to that of charity, a concept which comes down to us from religious traditions. Charity, at the end of the day, largely serves the purpose of making people feel better about themselves.

The concept of charity which pervades our society today is indeed inferior to the notion of mutual aid.

Charity, as we know it, is tossing a few coins to a beggar because seeing the homeless makes you sad, or it’s a donation made with an eye toward tax deductions.

It has become an item of common sense that ‘charity’ is something done entirely voluntarily, above and beyond anyone’s moral obligations to their fellow members of society. That one could have an obligation – moral or legal – in this domain seems to many a contradiction. For exam-

ple, in a political philosophy text which I was assigned last year, Oxford academic Adam Swift asserted that if you think “that the state can justifiably force people to be charitable to one another, you are guilty of conceptual confusion,” affirming the idea that charity is nothing more than a matter of personal whim.

The reason that charity has become such a weak and anaemic concept is not because it is in itself lacking, but because it has become alienated from its roots in the religious tradition. The word charity is derived from the Latin caritas, which means ‘love.’ And in the Christian tradition from which we have inherited this concept, love is anything but an optional or voluntary matter. It is a life lived in love, for God, and one’s fellows, which in Christianity makes for salvation. Charity is not optional, then, unless damnation seems to be a viable option.

This ethic of theological altruism was a vital part of the early Christian community. In chapter four of the Acts of the Apostles, for example, we read that in the communities led by Jesus’ disciples “no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” Upon joining the community, believers would sell their possessions, and the proceeds were “distributed to

anyone as he had need.” Does this last phrase perhaps ring any bells?

The Christian concept of charity-as-love was in turn informed by the Jewish notion of tzedakah, which is usually translated into English as charity but in fact means ‘righteousness’ or ‘justice.’

Like caritas in Christianity, tzedakah is anything but optional in the Jewish tradition; it is rather the hallmark of a godly people.

The Hebrew Bible displays a keen understanding of the needs of those marginalized by society.

To this end, the Torah institutes a wide range of social programs to help alleviate their condition, among which are a number of agricultural taxes (which allow the hungry to take crops from wealthy landowners), a requirement that interest-free loans be given to the poor, a cancellation of debts every seven years, and a redistribution of land every fifty years.

The notion of interest-free loans has been particularly important in Jewish history, as it led to the creation of an institution known as the gemach (from a Hebrew acronym for ‘deeds of loving-kindness’). In addition to providing loans at 0 per cent interest, their mandate has expanded such that today many gemachim are basically mutual aid societies, where goods (from food to religious articles to

household appliances) and services (everything from wedding planning to guitar lessons) are offered for the welfare and betterment of the community.

Gemachim, which have existed for centuries and still do in many Jewish communities, today embody essentially the same values that my Rad Frosh presenter was advocating. It is through a renewal of this notion of charity – a morally obligatory system of mutual aid, rooted in love for humanity – that the anaemic social practice which was disparaged in the Rad Frosh workshop can be redeemed.

Chapter 15 of the Book of Deuteronomy provides an interesting and profound perspective on the problem of poverty from a religious perspective. The fourth verse declares that “there shall be no needy among you...if only you diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God.” If we really, truly hear the call to love, if we make altruism the guiding principle of our social life, then there is no reason why we cannot eradicate want. We have all the material resources we need; the only resource we lack is the strength of heart. And the Torah recognizes this lack. Although only a few verses earlier it commands the ideal – that there be no needy among us – the 11th verse comes to grips

with the sad reality: “the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, saying: ‘You must surely open your hand unto your poor and needy brother.’”

The struggle to eradicate want thus seems to be an asymptotic one – one that constantly approaches the ideal without ever realizing it.

We know that we have the tools we need to reach the goal, but our struggle must, it seems, be one of constant approach to a goal never quite fulfilled.

Some might view this situation as a cause for despair, but I do not.

For the work we have before us is redemptive. It is the task of transforming ourselves and our world.

Love and justice are not options, are not something we can do to make ourselves feel nice or save money on taxes – certainly not something which we can get off of our consciences with an AUS Charity Week. They are not above and beyond our moral obligations; they are rather our central moral demand. The task we face today is much as it was 2,000 years ago, when the Rabbi Tarfon wrote: “It is not yours to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it.”

Vincent Calabrese is a U3 English and Philosophy student. He can be reached at vincent.calabrese@mail.mcgill.ca.

the literary supplement poetry prose (around 500 words) visual art due november 4 to litsup@mcgilldaily.com

sci+tech

The McGill Daily Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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Illustration Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

Robots, music, emotion, oh my!

Researchers convert emotional experiences to sound Ralph Haddad The McGill Daily

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hen I first met Erin Gee and Mike Winters, their appearances did not fit my preconceived idea of scientific researchers. They were laid back, sipping their coffee; Mike in a Hawaiian chemise and shorts despite the cold weather, and Erin with a feathered earring in one ear and funky eyeglasses.

The whole atmosphere they presented spiked my curiosity. They greeted me as I sat down and gathered my things, getting ready to record.

The two made it clear from the beginning that they were not collaborating on a single project, but instead researching the same field of study from two different perspectives. Gee, a researcher at Concordia pursuing her MFA in Studio Arts, is mostly focused on transferring the emotional aspect of voice into robots. Her work is manifested in the form of interactive installations, which are performances that incorporate singing – both her own and that of other people – with robots. She wants to create sounds, filled with emotions, and have them sung by a robot. To do this, Gee uses sensors that take tiny bodily responses to emotions and maps them into numbers – focusing mainly on what happens in the body

when an emotion is evoked. “The thing is I’m taking these tiny body performances – the machines can read bodies pretty easily – and we’re putting these numbers into a computer and we’re getting computers to amplify them,” explained Gee. Her overall aim is abstract: to find out what a voice is.

Winters clarified the main difference between their work, stating that “Erin’s more on the artistic side, I’m more on the engineering side.” His work, as a McGill master’s student at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology, is in the field of effective display, which basically conveys human emotion through sound, or “non-speech audio.”

His work revolves around taking abstract emotional data and turning it into quantitative data that can be recorded, charted out as a point in emotional “space” and mapped to a certain sound.

“That’s my work,” he said, “choosing the sound, basing it on psychological principles.”

I’m sure few people consider mapping emotions into numbers or sounds, but for Gee, that’s the exciting part of the whole area of research, “What I find really fascinating about this field is you take something incredibly personal like an emotion and you see a text file of numbers.”

The stories of how they started out are surprisingly different for

two people examining the same unique field. Gee came by it in a stroke of luck, when, after her musical performance (which included robots) at the Marx Institute, in Sydney – part of the University of Western Australia – Professor Vaughan Macefield approached her, told her about his research, and asked her to make art with it. She was not the least bit hesitant; how could she reject such an offer? “He [came] up to me and [said he works] in micro-neurography, where he sticks needles into nerves and picks up the electrical fluctuations related to neural activity.” She recalls being bluntly asked, “What can you do with it?” She didn’t know, but still accepted. “Luckily, I had a few months to think about it and we came up with something incredibly simple – just turn the numbers into music.” The robots are the eventual manifestation of this work, relaying emotion through sound.

Winters, on the other hand, a physicist at the start of his research in 2010, was already experimenting with sound as a medium to convey different data.

He says his work with emotion began this past summer, after he and his colleague were given a grant to begin working on this project. He worked with a company that already had the technology to detect emotions through their physical manifestations in real time, but they wanted an audio interface for the emotions detect-

ed. That’s where Winters came in, with what he hopes will be a longterm project: “I’ll be doing it for my master’s thesis, and also next year if I’m lucky.”

When I asked about the implications of their respective research in the long run, Gee was not surprised. “Most people who have interviewed me are like ‘This is amazing!’ or ‘This is awesome!

Show me how I can go to this performance – I really want to go! But what’s the practical use of this?’ and I’m like ‘Really?’” Gee hopes there will be practical uses, but explained what she perceived her role to be: “The best example that I can think of…is that in fashion there’s the haute couture runway show where designers are free to express themselves and do the crazy stuff.

I consider the scientific application of what I’m developing currently would be [the analog of] what hits the racks, what people would buy, how this affects you in everyday life. But I’m not engaged with that right now, I’m just going to focus on making the first iteration.”

Winters, on the other hand, is “making something that can be sold,” something that concerns human interactions and being able to convey the information provided by emotions to other people as directly and quickly as possible. One of these practical uses is therapy, which he explains rather enthusiastically: “Take people who have autism,

for instance – who have emotions but don’t have the facilities to be able to convey those emotions to another person. You, as the parent, or the therapist, would have wearable technology like an earpiece which allows you to listen into a data stream that’s happening inside this person and for you to immediately understand that this person is afraid or disgusted or angry.”

As a non-scientist, I found this research interesting in that it has implications not only for the scientific community, but society as a whole. The two researchers represented two different sides of the same story, combining science and the arts in one field of research.

When asked about the coexistence of these two facets in our modern capitalist society, Gee asserted that it is not so much that science is overvalued; it is just that people want a finished product, they want an end, and they want a pill that can make their lives better. To her, science is a form of art, and scientists are artists in their own right. Gee put it best, stating, “It’s really exciting that artists are able to collaborate with scientists, because they have these different priorities, these different historical backgrounds and interests to provide people the things that are inspiring and challenging.”

It’s projects like those of Gee and Winters that will start a wave of collaboration between these oftenpolarized fields.

sci+tech

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The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

From quarks to quirk A critical look at science journalism Anqi Zhang and Shannon Palus The McGill Daily

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ournalism has the ability to uncover, to elucidate, and to share a variety of viewpoints and truths. As Daily writers, we think that sharing viewpoints that are not often heard, or that often get drowned out or outright silenced, is of particular importance. And as science students, we are particularly interested in writing and reading about research. We’re charmed by the goings-on inside cells, by the workings of subatomic particles, by the way that the sky lights up all on its own when we’re far, far away from the city. We think that rational, calculated measurements of the world have the ability to deepen our understanding of it, and of ourselves. And (most importantly), we think that all of the nitpicky facts and specialized questions that research handles are inextricably tied to the lives we lead, and have a vast influence on the society we inhabit.

There is one thing about the impact of science that we know for certain: it’s messy, it’s nuanced, it’s hard to pin down. That’s why accurate, sensible, and accessible science journalism is important, because it sure is easy to lose yourself – either as a reporter or a consumer – in a narrative that reduces the multitude of information available to something far less than the sum of their parts.

As consumers, our access to

the latest research is often reduced to science that is ‘quirky’ and ‘fun.’

Stories about animals that have funny eyes, dinosaurs having sex – that sort of thing.

Don’t get us wrong: we don’t hate fun. We can’t stop listening to Taylor Swift’s “22” on repeat at the moment.

But when ‘quirky’ has a monopoly on the market, it’s undermining. And it is a market, now more than ever a quick scramble to shake ducats out of the couch cushions as the smoke from the dying embers of print media starts to fill the living room. And fun shouldn’t be confused with sensationalism – though sensationalism sure does shake out more ducats.

Take the Popular Science feature from the September 2012 issue – an issue with a car on the cover – entitled “Labs that go BOOM.” Feminist blog Jezebel published on October 18 an article headlined “Turns out, baby blood might be the actual fountain of youth.” Even Scientific American, which calls itself “the leading source and authority for science, technology information, and policy for a general audience,” has fallen to the temptation of dramatic headlines at times.

Sensationalist titles from past issues include: “Is Your Child Gay?” and “Microbes Manipulate Your Mind.”

And when big breakthroughs are made and reported on, we are given two choices: we can choose to consume the version published in Science or Nature, filled with graphs and acronyms most of the population are not equipped to decipher, or the

version published in popular media, the version that glosses over facts and tries to lure us in with “Marijuana fights cancer” or asserts that eating an omelette is more dangerous than having a smoke. But what we want is the in-between: the factual but accessible narrative, devoid of complex statistics but also of overreaching headlines and sensational language.

This is, we know, a tall order. As current and former editors of this section, we know how hard it is to tease out truths, and incorporate them into narratives that are truly engaging, and equally truth-y. (And it turned out that Jonah Lehrer, the poster boy of spinning beautiful narratives, was making things up in order to do it.) It is hard when you’re filling a pitch quota to not go for the low-hanging fruit. But it’s frustrating for us to see the field devolving into an entity that is far from all that we feel it should be. It shows when we interview people: we have to convince sources that we’re not going to mangle their words; we have to explain that, yes, we are just as invested in not printing things that are not true about your lab as you are. It shows when we tell our science friends what we do – like maybe we’re out to take what they love and print a caricature of it in the newspaper.

So: be friendly to your neighbourhood science journalist. If you’re a scientist, make an effort to engage; if you’re a reader, don’t roll your eyes at all of us just because you read something you dislike on Gawker (we probably dislike it too!).

Illustration Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

And if you’re a writer, never, ever skimp on the facts to churn things out faster. (If you’re a freelancer – well, sometimes you have to take a paycheck where you can get it.)

Here is what we like: We like David Eagleman, explaining how the brain spins for us a seamless illusion of an imperfect reality. We like Alan Lightman’s prose, Richard Feynman (yeah, the sexist guy!) for his stories about puttering around Los Alamos, and Rebecca Skloot for uncovering

the truth about HeLa cells. We like the days and years that come between publications, the second-guesses, the trials and errors, the outtakes.

Science is a beautiful, messy endeavour. Science writing, when done right, can help advance our society in the concerted human effort to understand our world. Science journalism connects us to a continual quest for knowledge, and in that endeavour, its reach can be incredibly wide – but it also has far to fall.

Getting biophysical Why doesn’t McGill have a biophysics program?

S. Azam Mahmood Synapses and Systems

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cience is traditionally divided into chemistry, biology, and physics; these form the very core, roots, and essence of not just the word ‘science,’ but the very idea it encompasses. Today, however, it’s interestingly rare to find these underpinnings of scientific research standing discretely.

The fascinating thing about science is its flexibility, its ability to allow one of its subsets to pair with something seemingly unrelated.

Take the study of the brain, for example. If one were to guess, one would likely be satisfied with linking it to compartments of biology such as physiology, anatomy, and neuroscience, and then moving on.

But that’s simply not true. A conclusive study of the brain cannot be done without biochemistry, biophysics, biomathematics, and just

about bio-anything.

Take virus particles as another example – or the inner workings of the cell. We know unfortunately little about these questions, which one would normally classify under molecular biology. And one wouldn’t be wrong in saying so, just grossly incomplete. It’s almost a crime if biochemistry and biophysics are not incorporated into many aspects of molecular biology. To understand the intricacies of the inner workings of proteins, cells, viruses, and all other things small, biology needs to breed with its counterparts to come to a reasonable conclusion.

It’s this fusion of science (both within its own subdivisions as well as with other areas of study) that leads McGill to have interdisciplinary programs. The birth of cognitive science (a mass combination of neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, computer science, and linguistics) as a major at McGill is indicative of this.

But I am an undergraduate. And I’m writing for a student publication.

Therefore, I must have something to

complain about. And I do: McGill has ignored a core interdisciplinary field.

I stepped into McGill in 2011, unsure of what I wanted to major in. My primary interest lay in physics, but I began to notice how I was becoming increasingly drawn to aspects of molecular biology and neuroscience. I thought of ways to connect the fields I was interested in. I spoke to professors, I read, and I watched videos on YouTube in search of information and ideas.

Everything pointed in the same direction: biophysics. It took me a while to understand exactly what it was and why it was so important in biology. But once I had its many purposes and goals imprinted in my mind, I set my mind on it.

And so I went to speak to an advisor. But I was quickly disappointed: “What do you mean McGill doesn’t offer a degree in biophysics?”

I just…didn’t get it. McGill, world-renowned for life sciences, hosting some of the best labs and facilities for research in biophysics, didn’t offer a biophysics major. It

made absolutely no sense.

“You can always do the major in physiology and physics,” I was told. I made it a point to check the requirements of the major, to get an idea of what it offered. But to me, the fact that it was named “physiology and physics” indicated that it treated the two subjects as entirely different entities. And it did. After perusing the required courses, I saw it as a poorly-designed alternative for students who wanted to study biophysics. For example, the bridge between biology and physics is laden with biochemistry. This major outline didn’t have a single biochemistry requirement. Essentially, the closest thing to biophysics at McGill has very little biology, very little physics, and absolutely no biophysics.

Additionally, the only available course at McGill actually designed with the intention of giving an introduction to biophysics was introduced in the winter of 2012.

I understand that McGill is a public institution that’s undergoing innumerable financial setbacks. And I under-

stand that this just places red tape around the process of introducing new programs. But with global rankings taking a variety of programs into account, the lack of such programs can harm the reputation McGill seeks to maintain. Additionally, not offering undergraduates a major in a field that is so important, research-wise, at McGill, verges on ridiculous.

With more-than-capable professors conducting research in biophysics under different departments (namely anatomy, physics, and physiology), a faculty of biochemistry (a field that overlaps greatly with biophysics), and a world-renowned program in cell and molecular biology, it’s high time McGill looked into making biophysics – a relatively new field that is taking the world of science by storm – accessible to the future scientists it seeks to train.

Synapses and Systems is a biweekly column. S. Azam Mahmood can be reached at synapses@mcgill daily.com.

sports

The McGill Daily Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Wide, wide world of sports Examining oft-ignored sports for the differently abled Anqi Zhang The McGill Daily

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ews outlets devoted entire sections of their websites to the London 2012 Olympics; the Paralympics got considerably less press. This is just one example, but often sports for individuals with different abilities are featured less prominently in media and thus fade from public consciousness. Yet there is a diverse range of athletic events available for individuals with different abilities: sports that extend beyond wheelchair basketball and five-on-five soccer. Below are some examples, many of which have been incorporated into both the summer and winter Paralympics.

Beep Baseball Some telephone parts and an old-fashioned baseball: that’s all it took for Charlie Fairbanks to invent the first Beep baseball in 1964. Beep baseball, a far more challenging version of baseball for the visually impaired than the heavily padded and tiptoeing previous versions. Beep baseball is a thrilling combination of speed, athletic fumbling, and an urgently beeping baseball. In the game, the pitcher, catcher, and batter are in it together; the pitcher tries to aim the ball directly where the batter

can hit it, and should the batter succeed in hitting the ball, the umpire pushes a button, activating a horn at either first or third base. The batter runs, and six fielders try to smother the incessantly beeping ball before the batter reaches their base. Defense is crucial and challenging – we have the Doppler effect to blame for that – but there are those who specialize in it, bringing to the sport a combination of courage and technique. An enthralling spectator sport, beep baseball offers an alternate version of a classic.

Hand Cycling Powered by arms instead of legs, many hand cycles are tricyclic, with two coasting rear wheels and a steerable front wheel. This general structure aids stability and allows seated, lying, or kneeling positions. ‘Off road’ handcycles, on the other hand, have two front wheels and a single back wheel. This, along with a high gear ratio range, allows them to brave steep slopes and facilitate handcycle ‘mountain biking.’ At the Paralympics, handcycling events include relays and time trials, and races are held on the road rather than in the velodrome.

Goalball Invented in 1946 in an attempt to rehabilitate veterans who had

lost their sight in World War II, goalball is now a Paralympic sport played on a volleyball-sized court, with goals at either end spanning the entire back-line. Teams consist of six members, but play is threeon-three; there are three positions (center, left wing, and right wing), but team members often switch positions with substitutes during play to confuse the opposition.

Tactile markings on the ground allow players to orient themselves by feeling with their hands and feet while they ‘throw’ a 1.25 kilogram ball across the court (rolling it in a bowling-type motion).

The ball, with bells inside, can be tracked as it travels across the court, and team members work in a concerted effort to keep it from passing the goal line. At expert levels, such as at Nationals and at the Paralympics, shots sometimes exceed sixty kilometres per hour, making defense difficult. Time limits and specialized rules further make this sport unique – the defense has only ten seconds to relinquish the ball after they first touch it, for example, and on a penalty shot, the penalized player must defend the net alone.

Boccia A descendant of Greek ball tossing games, and similar to Bocce ball, Boccia was officially recognized as a Paralympic sport in

1984. It is strategically similar to lawn bowling, but is played indoors in wheelchairs, with the objective being to propel leather balls by almost any means necessary.

Techniques include kicking, throwing, or using an assistive device to knock a white target ball called the jack, along a long and narrow field of play. Each competitor has six leather balls, and receives one point at the end for each ball closer to the jack than their opponents’ balls. Played individually, in pairs, and in teams, Boccia is a distinctive sport with a rich history.

Sledge Hockey Originating in Sweden in the 1960s, sledge hockey is quickly gaining popularity throughout the world as a version of hockey for amputees and paraplegics.

The rules for this game are the same as for ice hockey, with six players on the ice at a time for each team, including the goalie.

The only distinction is that players sit on an often-personalized sledge, a narrow platform with skate blades attached. Players propel themselves using specialized hockey sticks with picks on one end and blades – for handling of the puck – on the other.

Goalies may have an additional pick at the base of their stick, and can use an additional stick with a blade or trapper glove. Currently

played by 15 countries, sledge hockey has been a part of the winter Paralympics since 1994.

Usually it is played by all-male teams, but at the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Games a provision was approved to allow female players onto the roster.

Sitski With shock absorption systems and adjustable parts, sitskis are as much engineering feats as they are sports equipment. Sitskis are exactly what they sound like: skis that allow a skier with different abilities to ride in a seated position. The rules of the skiing are unchanged, but the particular sitski used can make a large difference in speed and experience.

There are both monoskis and bi-skis, with one and two blades respectively, and both offer distinct advantages. Bi-skis, for example, offer more balance and a wider base. Turning and navigation require leaning and dragging of hands and short poles through the snow; upper-body strength and balance are integral to this winter Paralympics sport. Introduced at the 1984 Paralympics, sitskiing joined other ski events such as the slalom and giant slalom, opening up opportunities for differently abled skiers beyond the visually impaired and amputees.

sports

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The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Story over substance Fallen sports idols and the risks of athlete glorification Evan Dent The McGill Daily

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ance Armstrong, perhaps the most revered athlete of the 2000s, is still one of the most famous athletes in the world.

In 1996, Armstrong was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer, which rapidly spread to his lungs, abdomen, and brain, forcing him to retire from his burgeoning cycling career. His doctor, upon diagnosis, gave him a less than 40 per cent chance to live. After extensive chemotherapy and surgery, Armstrong was eventually cured and, remarkably, returned to cycling better than he had ever been prior to his illness. Starting in 1999, he won seven straight Tour de France races, cycling’s most prestigious event, and generally dominated men’s cycling.

Armstrong’s incredible success was inspiring to many battling through their own illnesses, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (who could forget those yellow Livestrong bracelets?) has raised more than $470 million for cancer research and support since its creation in 1997.

Simply put, Armstrong was an idol, a poster boy for cancer survivors, athletic excellence, and

celebrity philanthropy alike.

When blood doping and performance enhancing drug (PED) allegations emerged against Armstrong in 2004, it was as though the cloud had finally caught up with his silver lining of a career. Armstrong has been accused of using PEDs – such as steroids or testosterone – and chemically altering his blood supply since he returned from his illness. Armstrong continued to test negatively for PEDs during his career, and was never caught blood doping, protecting his legacy while he was competing.

Since his 2011 retirement, though, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has brought forward charges that Armstrong used PEDs and altered his blood supply. On August 23, Armstrong, while not admitting guilt, gave up his legal battle against the USADA, stripping him of his seven Tour de France titles and banning him from most sanctioned cycling events. Since then, Radioshack and Nike have dropped Armstrong as a sponsor, both claiming they could not have Armstrong represent them based on the evidence produced by the USADA. Strangely enough, in the days that followed Armstrong’s dropping of the case, donations to

Armstrong’s charity increased by 30 per cent. Armstrong wasn’t losing support because of the charges; his supporters were rallying behind him. The arguments in his favour took several forms: that everyone else was cheating at the same time (many of Armstrong’s main competitors have been caught and suspended from cycling for PED usage), that the charges weren’t ever put through an official court of law (Armstrong gave up that process), and that Armstrong’s return from cancer makes his usage more excusable, among others.

As the allegations have become more and more specific, and as the evidence piles up against him, advertisers who might otherwise have used Armstrong’s image have continued to balk at the prospect.

Many Lance Armstrong supporters, however, are hanging tough, ever faithful to their idol. Armstrong’s story, for them, transcends the specific – they are willing to excuse the allegations for a number of reasons, but mostly because they want to believe in a story as great as his. In the face of a narrative this powerful, details of indiscretions can be ignored or forgiven.

For anyone familiar with the public’s typical treatment of athletes caught doping, this seems inconsistent. Barry Bonds, base-

ball’s all-time leader in home runs, spent the last years of his career being virulently booed by opposing fans for his use of PEDs. The same occurred with suspected cheaters Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Other players caught using steroids in any sport during the last 15 years have been similarly vilified. But Armstrong has escaped this sort of widespread repudiation because his inspiring story has made him, to many, an idol without reproach.

It’s a dangerous concept: that a sports idol’s achievements, that their myth, should be held above who they are and what they’ve done. Fans easily grow starryeyed over the inspirational figure, while losing sight of the inherently flawed person. The same thing happened to Joe Paterno. After being fired from his position as head coach of the Penn State football team following reports that he had failed to notify authorities of a report he’d received stating that Jerry Sandusky was raping a child in a Penn State athletic facility, Penn State students flooded the streets of Happy Valley, Pennsylvania in protest. Paterno, a father figure to the entire university, beloved equally by faculty, students, and athletes, took a spectacular fall from grace. The

confusion, rage, and sadness that swept the Penn State campus as a result of his horrible mistake are representative of the cognitive dissonance experienced by all fans whose idols let them down.

Athletes are easily made into idols; their achievements on the field or court are achievements that more than 99 per cent of the world cannot match. Many fans spend their childhoods dreaming of having their fame, their success, their superhuman ability. They want to be swept up in a narrative that reassures their belief in the fundamental purity of sport – that hard work is rewarded, that determination can overcome nearly anything, and that our athletes and our sports represent the best of us, the best of our ability and character as humans. It’s a comforting narrative, but it masks an ugly truth.

When thinking about athletes, what we need more than anything is a reality check. Their success in their sport does not excuse or erase their behaviour in life.

This is not to suggest we all turn cynical and repudiate our athletes, constantly questioning their success. It is just a reminder: there are no heroes, no idols without fault, and sports are perhaps the last place where people needlessly cling to them.

culture

The McGill Daily Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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Writing on the walls Graffiti workshop aims to help indigenous youth find expression Victoria Lessard The McGill Daily

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raffiti is slowly evolving in the public eye, portrayed less now as a frightening act of vandalism then a legitimate and nuanced artistic medium. The ever-changing imagery of a wall of graffiti acts as a public forum for political, social, and personal expression. The streets of Montreal serve as an impromptu exhibition space, free from being subject to an institutionalized preconception of what art should look like.

On Thursday, October 18, the Indigenous Student Alliance (ISA) of McGill hosted a graffiti workshop with special guest artist Vincent Dumoulin. Held in collaboration with the Intertribal Youth Centre, the event took place in the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal.

Jessica Barudin, the president of the ISA, helped to organize the event in support of the group’s mandate: “with the Indigenous Student Alliance, what we’d like to provide is a network for selfidentifying Indigenous people and also…a means to connect students and allies among the community.

Our mandate is unity, bringing students together, but also empowerment of the students to reconnect with traditional ways of knowing.”

The workshop was aimed at Indigenous youth; unfortunately, attendance was low. The event began slowly, with the coordinators encouraging people hanging out around the centre to participate. Dumoulin wasn’t fazed, and began explaining that graffiti is often misperceived to be exclusive to youth culture, when it is really an all-ages, inclusive medium. In a follow-up interview with The Daily over email, Dumoulin spoke about

this inclusivity: “[Graffiti] has given a chance for anyone on the planet to express themselves. It can be used to express political statements to the masses. It generates huge amounts of fear from large segments of the population who think it is gangrelated. It is seen in such different ways by everyone in society. […] I also feel graffiti is unique in its way to allow for so many various styles to evolve and continually produces new forms of genuinely legitimate public arts with original, deep, and thought provoking messages.”

Dumoulin’s and Barudin’s enthusiasm for the workshop soon brought smiles to the initially shy participants.

Dumoulin explained various styles of graffiti, tasking everyone to make their names in a beginner’s style.

Moving from budding artist to artist, each person was encouraged to express their own creative freedom, as Dumoulin demonstrated with a few strokes of a pencil.

Dumoulin’s attraction to graffiti was partly because of the creative freedom and inclusivity it offered. He explained, “when I discovered a subculture that honoured and rewarded delinquency, allowing anyone to rise to levels of fame and peer recognition that would take much longer in any other field. I had struggled with conforming to the protocols and discipline required by other activities in my life [such as] organized sports, music classes, et cetera.

In graffiti, one can achieve success and gain the attention of others quickly with very limited risk of getting caught, [and] at a very low cost, since we provided the supplies through the five-finger discount. Dedicated internet sites and books that were not as plentiful or simply not existent at the time I was painting are providing new adepts with unlimited

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

amounts of exposure, inspiration, and information.”

As each participant continued their graffiti piece, creative risks began to get bolder, and Dumoulin greeted each new idea with, “Keeping it fresh!” Paint splatters surrounded one name, a heartdotted ‘I’ on another, and glaring skulls peered out of one fiery name.

At the end of the event, Barudin viewed the low youth turnout as an example of why future collaborations between the Intertribal Youth Centre and the ISA are so important. “I think [graffiti is] very inviting for youth,” Barudin said, “because there’s so much expression to it, but I think that it’s open to everyone, and [today was] such a good example of [how] youth can be very reluctant [to participate], and that comes a lot from

maybe lack of confidence. That’s just precisely what these type of workshops are hoping to foster, to build that confidence in youth, and just feeling comfortable with other Indigenous people, and other people in the community.”

Dumoulin also emphasized the continued importance of planning and participating in youth-oriented events. The artist will continue to collaborate with the ISA, holding future graffiti workshops. “[The ISA] wishes to promote the empowerment of at-risk First Nations youths and other First Nations youths in general,” Dumoulin said.

“The movement we are building has seen some success from Vancouver to Africa, and hip hop is an amazing way to connect with the youth via something that resonates deeply with many of them. The nature of

hip hop itself…allows for a maximum amount of flexibility and we are able to integrate key values of First Nations traditions and values in the dynamics of the workshops [such as] interacting in circles, talking pieces, et cetera. This happens through the implementation of research into the youth’s various traditions and cultures in the workshops themselves.”

Graffiti art offers an attractive alternative form of expression.

Hopefully, workshops between the ISA and the Intertribal Youth Centre will continue to help empower First Nations youth.

Removed from the heavy inequities and problematic aspects of the traditional space of the gallery or museum, graffiti enables political and creative voices to find expression.

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The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Enjoying the Company Players’ Theatre modernizes Sondheim’s classic Nathalie O'Neill The McGill Daily

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elving into New York City marriage, Players’ Theatre’s Company, the second play of the season, questions the pitfalls of being simply “company.” The musical follows bachelor Robert as he visits his closest friends, all of them married couples, leading the audience through an exploration of love and relationships in modern times.

Based on a book by George Furth, Company first appeared as eleven one-act plays. This original form shines through in the play’s structure, consisting of multiple vignettes, each featuring a different couple. The play begins with Robert’s 35th birthday party, and unfolds around Robert’s quest to understand himself in relation to his married friends. Company’s short segments effectively provide a window into Robert’s mind as encounters with various married couples shape his perception of the institution and its meaning.

Stephen Sondheim, in a style evocative of his subsequent work such as edgy classic Sweeney Todd, provides swelling music and lyrics, giving the play a certain lightness that helps offset the heavy tone.

Although it explores deep emotional issues of loneliness and commitment, Company maintains a humourous

Photo Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

tone throughout, often propped up by Sondheim’s sarcastic verse.

Director Ben Harris’ Company takes Sondheim’s message to the next level as he endows his production with a charming sassiness. Performances are speckled with smirks and winks, drawing in the audience with playful self-recognition. Harris acknowledges this intention, noting that “sassy” was “one of my key words for this production.” The musical nature of

the play, with its jazzy song and dance numbers, which include tap dancing and elaborate group choreographies, provides the cast with multiple avenues to express Sondheim’s tonguein-cheek humour. Harris notes that Company is unlike most musicals, where the focus tends to be on the songs. “The scenes in this play are really half-dialogue and half-song,” he explains, with each aspect enhancing the other.

Harris stresses the historical context of Company’s original debut in 1970 when the cabaret was the popular musical style.

At a time when most playgoers attended the theatre as a distraction, Company, challenging the traditionally simple portrayal of love and marriage, forced them to confront delicate matters at the heart of their personal lives.

Harris’ Company lives up to this

original intention, presenting questions about romantic relationships that audience members are, for the most part, left to answer for themselves.

The vignette form is key to the appeal of Company, and Harris carries out his role creatively, with each vignette performed in a distinct manner. The actors all have their own particular stage presence, a variety that greatly contributes to the fleshing out of the characters. The choice of Robert as the main character endows Company with a greater focus on the male experience of marriage.

Harris’ production seems to shift the focus slightly to the wives as the female characters take on hidden depth. The female characters tend to steal the spotlight through their edgy performances: while the male characters speak openly about their relationships, the women of Company hint at underlying problems with sarcasm and body language.

Although Harris admits that he considers this production “cheesy,” its exploration of selfrealization as a first and essential step to finding love, an issue that transcends marriage, makes Harris’ Company charming and universally relevant.

Company will be shown on October 21, 24 to 27 at Players’ Theatre in SSMU. Tickets are $6 for students.

A private joke The trickster and the Joker Elena Dugan Archiving the Arcane

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spend a lot of my time on the mechanics of mythology, which is my way of excusing myself for reading Harry Potter when I should be studying the Qur’an. I’m a Religious Studies student at McGill, with a long history of listening to my friends and family from Brooklyn try to story-top each other. (“Yeah, I’m Jerry Seinfeld’s cousin. We’re, like, really close.”) There’s something so fundamental about trying to construct a worldview, and then convince other people that it’s absolutely true. Your best bet is to make the story so compelling that whether the facts align or not becomes immaterial.

Today, we use the word myth as a synonym for false, which is something that makes my Religious Studies professors

squeal in agony (try to picture that for fun). Mythology is an attempt to capture truth, to express a construction of the cosmos, one that is necessarily culturally conditioned. In contemporary times, mythology has been relocated.

Meaning is no longer found in the traditional mythological tales of bards, prophets, and princesses.

It is found in the courageous hobbits of the Shire, the curious ethics of Dexter, and in mythology’s most obvious heir, superheroes (and supervillains).

Let’s take a look at arguably the most infamous character in film over the last ten years, Heath Ledger’s Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Why was the Joker such a big deal? Granted, Heath Ledger was tremendous, but why was he so universally fascinating, the subject of Halloween costumes and terrible impressions for years to come? Look at it from a comparative mythological perspective. Let’s call the Joker a

‘trickster,’ a pretty easy jump, based on his name. The trickster is a mythic character, present especially in the mythologies of Africa and the Native Americas. He (sometimes she) is the supreme con-artist, manifest as a sexual deviant; a comedian, vainglorious, or completely lacking in morals.

In all manifestations he is, and here I am quoting The Dark Knight, an “agent of chaos.”

The Joker cannot be confined to his human personage. He keeps changing his backstory, for one, and has mutilated and painted his face to further distance his role in Gotham from his human self. He is not driven by greed (“It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message”), by sex, nor by the desire for power.

There is no negotiating with him, for there is nothing he wants. As Alfred explains to Bruce Wayne, “Some men, Mr. Wayne, just want to watch the world burn.” The Joker brings the “White Knight” into the darkness; he makes Batman compro-

mise his morality in order to operate within the realm of chaos that the Joker has created in Gotham, thus becoming an Orwellian Big Brother rather than a protector of the peace.

And as is often the case in trickster myths, he achieves some sort of victory. As a friend of mine pointed out, The Dark Knight is one of the only superhero movies in which the villain achieves what he wants. The Joker embodied and created chaos, and Gotham is forever affected.

While the trickster figure often only operates in mythic time, and is not conceived as a living figure, his role in mythology is as a disruptor to black-and-white conceptions of the cosmos. He mocks the established order, and even the idea that there could be an order at all, and introduces irony and absurdity where once existed truth and sacredness.

He explains the presence of suffering and injustice. Think of how the Joker mocked not only Gotham, but also the audience’s approach to

superheroes. We are used to endowing heroes with every human and superhuman positive quality we can think of. The Joker in The Dark Knight made us question this. He is a force of chaos not only in the world of Gotham, but also in our own conception of mythology and heroism.

We, as a culture, have invented a new dualism in the world of superheroes and supervillains, one that Nolan seems to imply is untenable, and an insufficient reflection of the world as we know it. But this, of course, is no new revelation. The existence of the trickster in mythologies worldwide seems to imply we’ve been rediscovering this fact since the dawn of time.

Try the works of Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, and Carl Jung for more on the trickster archetype.

This is Elena Dugan’s first column about religion and myth in the modern world. You can contact her at arcane@mcgilldaily.com.

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CULTURE HAPS

Upward migration The rise of Goose Hut Christopher Webster The McGill Daily

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or music lovers in the Montreal area, separating the exceptional acts from the mediocre can be a difficult task. With so many different groups trying to make themselves heard in such an artistically diverse climate, some may find it hard to sift through the muck and pick out the gems. Luckily for me and anyone who reads this (keep doing your thing), I’ve had the pleasure of both listening to and interviewing Goose Hut, a band that indie lovers should definitely keep their eyes on.

Goose Hut is the brainchild of Harris Shper, with fellow members Evan Shper and Rowan CornellBrown. Harris Shper is a Montreal musician with a passion for creating tunes with a distinct dichotomy in mind. “Whenever I write music with sad lyrics, it’s always to a happy tune, and the opposite way too,” says Shper, looking every bit the part of a burgeoning Montreal musician with a big curly mohawk, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other. “I think the most important element in any music I know is the songwriting. There are endless ways to create music, but at the end of the day, we just like to make sure that the songs come across, and are nice to listen to.”

If their involvement and reception in recent festivals is any indicator, listeners are finding that Goose Hut’s music is very nice indeed.

Playing at both NXNE in Toronto and POP Montreal this year led to sterling reviews from attend-

n exhaustingly entertaining comedy drama, The Angel’s Share is a story of young offenders discovering second chances in the world of whisky. It comes as no surprise that the film was recently awarded the Jury Prize at this year Cannes Film Festival and has a shockingly high 93 per cent rating on popular critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The pairing of director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty produces a story that is a perfect balance of social realism and pure wit, a story of redemption, surprises, and seemingly improbable miracles.

The Angel’s Share is about Robbie, a Glaswegian hoodlum and petty offender, who is seeking to

4015 St. Laurent Mondays and Tuesdays 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Free

Ever y Monday and Tuesday, couples get free admission at Cinema L’Amour. These aren’t the five minute clips you’re accustomed to on your damn porn websites – Cinema L’Amour offers full-length porn films, complete with laughable dialogue, feeble plot lines, and insane parodies of your favourite T V shows and movies (Sex and the City, the XXX version is playing this week). Come on. You know you want to see that.

Comedy Nest 2313 Ste. Catherine Wednesdays 8:30 p.m. $5.00 Courtesy of Goose Hut

ees. One blogger went so far as to declare that the group is “talented enough to make certain other Montreal natives extremely nervous that they may be outdone in their pursuit for another Grammy,” and another stating “I can’t imagine anyone disliking Goose Hut.” Yet Shper sees no distinction between playing for one type of crowd versus another. “Whether or not you’re playing to industry folks, you still have to just play like you’re playing to a crowd of people who just want to see it and be there.”

Despite the accolades, the history of Goose Hut is a short and simple one. “It started last summer, and it was just me writing music in my bedroom, basically,” says Shper.

“I used to play music with other bands, but I wanted to do something on my own, and then the live show kind of built itself around the songs that I had made there.”

These live performances, however, are markedly different from the recorded material: “Our live sets are definitely more energetic than a lot of the recorded stuff, which is more lo-fi, bedroom stuff, but with the live set we try to have a big party.”

The group put out a four-track EP in April titled “Throw It At Your Dads House,” made available online with a pick-your-price mode of purchase, and material for a full-length album is accumulating behind the scenes. “Probably next year [is when] we’ll do the full-length – we

might do another EP before that.

We’ve been touring most of the summer so we’re just getting back into writing more tunes and stuff.”

These include songs such as “Bad Time,” with lazy summer synth hooks that get catchier every time you listen to them, and the title track of the EP, “Money Money Love Love,” which sounds like the next infectious indie tune to back up an Apple commercial.

These guys know what they’re doing, and it’s about time Montreal music aficionados catch on.

Goose Hut has an upcoming CultMTL Halloween show on October 31 at the Royal Phoenix, and if you like what you’ve read or heard, I strongly encourage including it as an addition to your busy Halloween lineup.

A witty story of struggle, friendship, and million-dollar whisky Kira Walz Culture Writer

Cinema L’Amour

Open Mic Night

The Angel’s Share

A

culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

escape the self-perpetuating cycle of problems that his life has become.

Having narrowly avoided a long prison sentence, Robbie struggles as he faces mandatory community service while having to deal with the birth of his newborn son. Low on cash but rich with conflict, Robbie is unable to provide the better life for his girlfriend and their child that he so desperately seeks. However, his prospects begin to rapidly change upon his introduction to the benevolent and tireless community service leader, Harry. Fortunately, the film bucks the conservative tradition of films about troubled young men and their disciplined mentors with a surprisingly novel denouement: Harry takes Robbie on a trip to a whisky distillery, imbuing in Robbie a mature appreciation for the spirit that illuminates the path to a new life. A friendship of

solidarity and trust quickly grows between Robbie and his four young co-offenders as they embark on a journey of new beginnings.

The film left me gripped by the tantalizing fear of the impending unknown fate of the characters that I so quickly became partial to. Indeed, I was not alone, for it seemed the entire audience became a collective whole, with synchronized reactions to the film; we all clung to the unknown, but hopefully fortunate, future of the characters. This story of friendship and second chances won over the audience, and certainly me as well. I was enthralled with the heart-wrenching harmony of great directing and cinematography. It’s rare to see a film that renders the hearts of its viewers so enamoured and effusive.

Aside from the well-timed oneliners, Scottish humour, and beauti-

ful landscape, the cinematography exceeded expectations, helping to contextualize the raging reviews and rapidly spreading ratings. Ken Loach mastered the use of colour, artificial and natural lighting, and digital grain. For avid film, photography, and visual arts die-hards this is an orgasmic visual experience.

The Angel’s Share is fundamentally an exploration of what one would do to have a second chance.

The film takes a well-worn genre and weaves a new narrative through humour and a plot line – without revealing too much – involving an expensive whisky, a daring ploy, and kilts. Yes, kilts. Upon leaving the theatre, I was convinced that the film has the power to win anyone over, including the most critical pessimists. After all, who wouldn’t love a story of friendship, struggle, and million-dollar whisky?

Open mic stand up comedy is unadulterated Schadenfreude at five bucks a head, with comic after comic baring their souls in five-minute sets.

When a joke tanks, you hear crickets, and even hisses from the half-drunk table of suits near the front.

When the timing is right and the material is funny, the room comes alive, surprised and delighted.

Cheaper than a movie, better than therapy, and an excellent date night choice.

Dave Gossage Duo October 22 Hurley’s Irish Pub 1225 Crescent 9:30 p.m.

Free

David Gossage is a veteran local musician who plays a lively set of celtic folk. A multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for the flute, Gossage has a long history in the city’s celtic, folk, and jazz scenes. Stop by this unpretentious pub for a night of free music and good ale.

Contested Site: Archives and the City October 22 to November 16 FOFA Gallery 1515 Ste. Catherine 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Free

Contested Site: Archives and the City discusses the often-overlooked role that research plays in the production of artwork.

The exhibiion attempts to dispel the myth of the f lash of creative inspiration. Additionally, the show highlights and examines the potentially problematic aspects to the academia and institutions involved in the art world. The vernissage is on November 1.

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The McGill Daily | Monday, October 22, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Untying the pink ribbon Cinema Politica presents Pink Ribbons, Inc. Kaj Huddart The McGill Daily

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ith its compulsory cheerfulness, vague objective of “research funding,” and myriad corporate ties, I have always regarded the “Run for the Cure” events with a slight twinge of unease. When my mom was diagnosed, I learned that she shared my discomfort with the rah-rah juggernaut of modern breast cancer culture.

After that, I felt less guilty for not wanting to participate in a movement that seemed to create a collective illusion of empowerment, rather than tackling the root causes of an epidemic that takes the lives of 5,000 Canadian women every year.

As it turns out, my mom and I weren’t alone. Screened on October 18 as part of Cinema Politica’s weekly documentary program at McGill, Léa Pool’s 2011 documentary, Pink Ribbons, Inc., expertly deconstructs the “Run for the Cure” culture. Based on Queen’s University professor Samantha King’s book Pink Ribbons Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, Pool’s film interviews a wide variety of women, from stage-four cancer patients to feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich, illuminating the underside of the flashy annual events.

The film seeks not to criticize the thousands of participants in “Run for the Cure” events across North America, but rather to bring to light

serious problems with the movement that anyone who cares about breast cancer should know about.

First, there is the chilling effect of corporate sponsorships.

When sponsors of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) include companies whose products are associated with the development of cancer, including cosmetic corporations, car and gasoline companies, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, how can the public be sure that research funding is being effectively used? Unsurprisingly, KFC’s tie-in commercial was particularly crass, featuring actors holding buckets of fried chicken, declaring, “for my mom,” and “for my wife,” before promising as a corporation to donate fifty cents to the cause “for every pink bucket of Grilled or Original Recipe.”

Obesity is a risk factor associated with a wide variety of cancers, including cancer of the breast.

According to King and Pool, despite the fact that the rate of breast cancer among North American women has increased to one in eight from one in twenty-two earlier in the 20th century, there is precious little concrete information available to the public on the causes of the disease.

Only 15 per cent of the money raised for breast cancer goes to prevention research, and only 5 per cent is channeled towards investigating environmental causes. The film reveals that Avon, a cosmetics company that has championed the cause, sells multiple products that contain chemicals associated with the

Illustration Jacqueline Brandon | The McGill Daily

development of breast cancer.

Even more sinister is the development of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the documentary, BCAM was invented during the 1980s by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that holds the patent for Tamoxifen, now the world’s most common drug in the treatment of breast cancer. AstraZeneca also produces Atrazine, the most popular herbicide in the United States. Although the research is contradictory, Atrazine has been associated with the development

of breast cancer in certain rats, and is a disruptor of the mammal endocrine system, which regulates hormones.

As Pink Ribbons, Inc. demonstrates, these kinds of dubious relationships are intrinsic in the mainstream breast cancer movement. Pool’s muckraking doc also raises problems with the portrayal of the disease as a middle-class, white affliction, while little research exists on minority demographics. It exposes the lack of global coordination in breast cancer studies, which cre-

ates overlaps and gaps in muchneeded research. Illuminated with the pithy commentary of veteran feminist author and cancer survivor Ehrenreich, the film is a well-coordinated effort that offers a nuanced critique. Credit must be given to King and Pool for courageously tackling a subject many might avoid for fear of backlash from well-intentioned but poorly-informed critics.

For more information on the politics of breast cancer, check out bcaction.org.

Singing in the artificial rain Biodôme offers Richard Purdy’s trOmbe Victoria Lessard The McGill Daily

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he Montreal Biodôme is in the last two weeks of exhibiting the fruits of its first artist in residence project.

Canadian artist Richard Purdy has set up trOmbe, an art installation in its temporary exhibition space. However, “art installation” fails to adequately describe this surreal experience.

When contemplating a visit to the Biodôme, an “ecosystem recreation” (basically an indoor zoo) fashioned out of the city’s Olympic velodrome, the possibility of encountering a contemporary art piece isn’t typically what comes

to mind. After an entertaining trip for some much-needed childhood nostalgia in my first year at McGill, I hadn’t returned to the space. The seemingly incongruous combination of visual artwork amidst the permanent ecosystem displays was too intriguing to pass up. With the tagline “With all your senses awakened, come and experience nature differently,” I felt compelled to see the installation for myself.

Upon arrival, I realized that my attempt to be clever and avoid the crowds by coming to the space in the morning was a big mistake.

Hordes of excited school children swarmed the Biodôme, amped up on adrenaline, the excitement of a field trip, and the sweetness of a life free from midterms, exhaus-

tion, and cynicism. While they screamed in excitement over each glimpse of an animal they managed to catch, I ventured forth in search of the installation. trOmbe, at the end of the permanent displays, is an interesting experiment in the potential of an interactive art space. There is a large reflective pool of water, and fir trees and fake birds are hung from the ceiling above. Used to the “look and never touch” gallery mentality, the towels and benches around the installation were surprising – until I was informed by a helpful guide that people are supposed to take off their shoes and walk around in the pool. To enter the piece, I had first to pass through a sheet

of rain (with the help of a provided umbrella). Flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder played, adding to the sensation of being in an alternate world. I had the strange sense that I was part of a storm, as my feet touched the freezing water, and I looked at the forest in the pool’s reflection. Every time I moved, ripples of water disrupted the image.

It was a pretty cool experience, and a unique idea. Installations that ask the viewer to participate are inherently more compelling than those in which you’re required, by the presence of a museum guard, to maintain a respectful distance.

However, I found it difficult to be fully immersed in trOmbe. A huge school group walked through the

temporary exhibition space as they entered the permanent installations – many of them shouting, pointing, and chattering loudly about why there was a person standing in the middle of a pool of water at the Biodôme (which is a valid question, in all fairness).

Glancing up at the trees hung above, the illusion was disrupted.

I hopped out of the pool, dried off my feet, and headed toward the exit. While the idea of the installation would be better served in a more cordoned-off area, perhaps the disruption of illusion is intended – at some point, you have to leave the surreal and return to the real life whirlwind of midterms, copious amounts of coffee, and late nights.

compendium!

The McGill Daily Monday, October 22, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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lies, half-truths, and be sure to take everything below seriously

Asbestos appears on campus University takes absolutely no responsibility for carcinogen’s appearance OM Chomski The Twice-a-Weekly

T

he McGall community was shocked by the early arrival of snow on campus last week, which led hundreds of students to drop everything and frolic, forgetting their midterm stress and its accompanying existential dread.

As it turned out, that snow was asbestos. Upon seeing lower campus covered with what appeared to be a thick white snow, students in the McLennan/Brutalist library complex flooded through all exits, absolutely disregarding well-marked and conscientiously placed construction signs. One construction worker, jackhammering, looked appalled at such flagrant disrespect.

U13 International Destruction Studies major Bradley “the King of Toronto and the McGill Ghetto” Brinks described the pandemonium to The Twice-a-Weekly. “It was fucking sick as hell…I would even say epic...almost as good as Kyoto Thursdays or some shit like that… until, after a few hours, someone realized that this stuff had a texture that was virtually nothing like snow…like, it wasn’t even cold…”

The presence of the carcinogen on campus is being regarded as “somewhat spooky” by Vice Principal (Mysterious Events & Elderberry Harvesting) John “da

poltergeist” Mansville. “An internal investigation is absolutely pending.

We probably might not really know what may have happened here, if indeed something happened here, for quite some time yet, but you can bet your boots we’ll know kinda-precisely the goings on of last week eventually.”

To others, there was no question as to the origin of the white matter. “This is, unequivocally, Karma, bro” said first year Master of Lululemon Studies student Samantha Jo-Anne as she solemnly held Birthing Foal pose. “McGill’s sacral chakra is WAY off centre.”

Tensions were running especially high at the Faculty of Bad Medicine.

“We literally JUST got this fantastic news that one of our most notorious researchers on asbestos actually was not a bad guy at all, like he could not be more chill, and now this…I mean, what the hell? Why is this University always so knee-deep in an extremely carcongenic carcinogen?”

The outrage went all the way to the top. In a confidential exchange, exclusive to The Twicea-Weekly, Dean of Biohazardous Waste Davis Cry-dleman asked McGill’s Board of Coveters how to deal with the national bad press associated with the presence of asbestos on campus.

“What can we do to get the media off our ass?” queried Cry-dleman.

“Another conference!” shouted the BoC in unison amidst cries

Illustration Karla Marx | The Whatever

of “DENY! DENY! DENY!” from the gallery.

For now, everything is back to normal on campus, and most have forgotten about the incident. Representatives from the most reputable national asbestos

organizations have donated millions of dollars for the cleanup efforts, and, according to sources, the already cash-strapped administration could not be happier.

“What they’re doing, it’s just peachy keen” said Principal Heatha

Mama-Boom, wistfully looking out of a James Administration window at the asbestos-covered Engineering building, her degree in epidemiology reflected on her double-sealed, environmentally friendly, windows.

Consultation fair masks University’s exploitation Liberals thrilled by sound of own voices Karlos Marx The Twice-a-Weekly

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ast Tuesday, October 16, Redpoop Hall was filled with McGall’s most inane phonies, who wished to hold conversations about what kind of conversations to have conversations about. This expression of complete paralysis is called the Consultation Fair.

The institution was originally devised because of the logical necessity of including “consultation” in the portfolio of the Deputy Purveyor of Student Purchases and Receipts. The stated goal of the fair is to “create a positive environment in which administrators and students could run through fields of flowers and eat cheese and bread in loving harmony.”

Previously, the administrators’

plans had been stymied by student radicals who took the opportunity to confront high-ranking University officials and proverbially “wipe-the-floor” with them and their phony bullshit.

In a phone interview, Provost Manthony Assi declined to comment on how he got intellectually trashed by a bunch of snot-nosed brats, but did say that “[he] would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those darn meddling kids.”

Because of administrative fears of a repeat catastrophe, the venue was changed from home turf in the Shatner Building to Redpoop Hall, and the only administrator present was Andrew Kopstapolice.

Student Mandy Liberalismo, U3 Moderate Studies, said that she is skeptical of the biting critiques of the Consultation Fair offered by campus Marxists, such as that

“it was all a sham” or that “it was only to present a human face on a structure of exploitation that cares only for consuming the blood of the youth and the workers.”

“When I saw that they [the administration’s lackeys] wrote down what I said on that big sheet of paper and then hung it on the wall underneath one of the forty portraits of white men, it was really obvious that they were listening,” Liberalismo told the Twice-a-Weekly. “I like and trust them as people.”

Campus communists were seen outside the hall smoking cigarettes and handing out liberated cookies in solidarity with all those trapped inside.

Karlos Marx is a Known Student Radical, writer of radical manifestos, and founder of several cigarette-sharing communes.

Photo W.J.P. Smith | The Twice-a-Weekly

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Last week, the McGill community learned that an internal report prepared

by Dr. Abraham Fuks, the Research Integrity Officer at McGill, found no evidence of misconduct on the part of retired McGill researcher John Corbett Macdonald and his corporate-sponsored research on asbestos.

The mineral, naturally abundant in Quebec, has increasingly gained a reputation as one of the most dangerous industrial materials in existence. Now known to be a cause of numerous types of cancers, including mesothelioma, nations across the world have begun banning the product’s import. Until recently, however, Canada still exported asbestos to countries with few, or nonexistent, safety standards using research like McGill’s, which emphasized the relative safety of certain types of the mineral.

A CBC documentary that aired last year raised questions about Macdonald’s private funding, citing evidence that the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association had indirectly given over $1.1 million to the University to be used for research between 1966 and 1974. Amidst public outcry, including a letter from public health officials across Canada and the preeminent asbestos expert Dr. David Egilman of Brown University, McGill’s Dean of Medicine David Eidelman called for an inquiry in April 2012.

Unfortunately, the McGill report, released Wednesday to the Board of Governors, Senate, and general public, is nothing more than an attempt by the University to whitewash the role it played in promoting the mineral. The paramount issue in this internal investigation (a type of navel-gazing McGill has proven wont to do on other controversial issues) is that it failed to contact those who initially protested McGill’s involvement. It is difficult to imagine how a fair inquiry could have been conducted without any input from the main critics.

Moreover, the University does not address the fact that Macdonald’s research was based on data that even McGill seems incapable of finding – information that was most likely fabricated. The notion that this lack of crucial information is “no basis to presume that the analyses...are flawed” defies all reason and logic.

Instead of trying to defend its reputation, McGill should have used the report as an opportunity to apologize for its obvious ties to the industry. For decades, it allowed its name to be used to market a product responsible for the death of millions of people worldwide. Macdonald was not a researcher; he was a lobbyist. The fact that the University does not find fraudulent corporate-sponsored research problematic is worrisome indeed.

When pressed on the larger issues at stake with public-private partnerships, the administration stated that more discussion could take place at a conference at some point in the future. This tactic of deferral, of shirking accountability, allows McGill to continue producing harmful research in places throughout our university. Perhaps McGill has technically updated its research policies since, but this does not mean that it has changed the nature of profit-oriented research with destructive effects. Research supporting the weapons and mining industries are only two examples. It is not about rules or technicalities; it is about the larger social and environmental consequences of profitable research. It’s about the abuse of the McGill name – where a prestigious university’s reputation was used to legitimize exporting a deadly substance.

McGill has effectively stifled the possibility an independent, external investigation. We will never know the true extent of Macdonald’s fraud. What we do know, however, is that the repercussions of privatized research at McGill are a pressing reality that must be dealt with.

cover design Amina Batyreva and Hera Chan contributors Karel Asha, Vincent Calabrese, Lindsay Cameron, Shrinkhala Dawadi, Elena Dugan, Jimmy Gutman, Ralph Haddad, Esther Lee, S. Azam Mahmood, Davide Mastracci, Nathalie O’Neill, Shannon Palus, Anita Sivabalan, Victor Tangermann, Kira Walz, Christopher Webster, Dana Wray

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