Vol102Iss31

Volume 102, Issue 31

February 7, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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NEWS

The McGill Daily Thursday, February 7, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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03 NEWS Campus Crops ravaged by flood Education summit, a foregone conclusion?

Laval students want more choice in student unions SSMU General Assembly postponed

06 COMMENTARY The ubiquity of unpaid internships Montreal: a history of corruption The Readers’ Advocate on the Sex Issue Guantanamo bay and broken promises

09 FEATURES Montreal’s queer drag scene

12 HEALTH&ED Slashing budgets and the future of the arts

Photo Jessie Marchessault | The McGill Daily

Civil rights groups decry new protocol Operating procedures ambiguous, give University too much discretionary power

Polyamoury on acid

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CULTURE

An ape on stage Mozart’s Sister All hail the iTunes visualizer Botkin at LNDMRK

18

EDITORIAL

McGill is still too white

19 COMPENDIUM! Incidents of flashbacks on the rise on campus Fuck This!

Obama adopts University’s protocol University releases statement of values and operating procedures

Lola Duffort The McGill Daily

T

he University’s latest demonstration guidelines do not adequately protect rights of association and assembly, and reflect no substantial changes from the protest protocol that was withdrawn two weeks ago, representatives from prominent national and provincial civil rights groups said this week.

Following the protocol’s hasty withdrawal amid mounting offcampus criticism, the administration released two new documents this Monday. The first, a statement of values, will be based on the protocol’s uncontroversial preamble. The second consists of “operating procedures” defining acceptable forms of protest.

Like its predecessor, the operating procedures defines when a protest will be “deemed to be peaceful” according to the metrics of “intensity, intentionality, duration and location.”

According to Cara Zwibel, a director at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA),

who authored the CCLA’s statement last month denouncing the University’s demonstration protocol, “the same concerns remain.”

“They recognized in the preamble language that some measure of inconvenience is expected, [but] the nuts and bolts of the protocol seem to suggest that really any interference with everyday activities […] might not be tolerated. That problem of not establishing a high enough threshold still exists with the new operating procedures,” Zwibel told The Daily.

For Philippe Robert de Massy, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Ligue des droits et libertés, a prominent provincial human rights group, the operating procedures are too ambiguous, and grant too much discretionary power to the administration to determine whether a protest is acceptable.

“The responsibility is put on protesters to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful of non-participants, but at the same time somebody else gets to determine when the party is over, and according to very subjective criteria,” he told The Daily in French.

The administration will hold

two consultations – one downtown, and one at Macdonald Campus – this month to solicit feedback on the documents. Although the statement of values will be brought before Senate and the Board of Governors (BoG) for final approval, the operating procedures will not be ratified by either body.

Student groups and campus unions also say the new operating procedures are more of the same, and have expressed serious concern that the operating procedures will not go before Senate or the BoG before permanent adoption.

This is “shockingly undemocratic,” said McGill’s teaching union (AGSEM) President Lilian Radovac, who added that, “AGSEM has not had faith in the administration’s consultation process. And given the divorce between that process, and the ultimate means of implementation, it seems we have reason to have even less faith.”

“I wasn’t aware that this was a dictatorship,” McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) President Kevin Whittaker told The Daily in

response to the administration’s decision not to bring the operating procedures to the University’s governing bodies.

MUNACA, which represents the 1,700 non-academic workers at McGill, has a representative on the BoG. The University’s graduate students’ society (PGSS) executive noted some positive changes reflected in the operating procedures following consultations with administration, but believes the document “still [puts] too much power in the hands of McGill security personnel, with little oversight or accountability, and a vague sense of how they should make decisions,” according to their External Affairs Officer, Errol Salamon. “Who will measure the ‘intensity’ and ‘duration’ of actions, and how will they measure these criteria? Can these criteria even be measured?’”

The provisional protocol regulating campus protests, released in February 2011 following a five-day occupation in the James Administration building, will remain in effect until the adoption of both documents.

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NEWS

The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Campus Crops forced to start from square one Reservoir flood destroys years of work Hannah Besseau The McGill Daily

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cGill’s urban gardening initiative Campus Crops is forced to go back to the drawing board after the McTavish reservoir flood on January 28. The group had been working on the garden located behind the McGill School of Environment (MSE) since 2007. A container garden managed by the group is located in the courtyard behind the James building.

The flood badly damaged the James Administration, Wong, and Birks building. The administration reported on Wednesday that the Wong Buildings and the basement of Birks are still closed due to damage, leading to class re-allocations.

As a result of water from the reservoir flooding the group’s main garden behind the MSE, considerable damage has been incurred.

According to the group’s website, the water flow carried bricks from a path connecting campus to University. The bricks were swept in to the garden along with rocks and other materials.

Campus Crops said that it had success with their garden this past year and that they had been working to improve their soil.

“The area had poor quality soil, lots of clay,” explained Carl Dion Laplante, a member of Campus Crops. “Over the years we have been improving the soil; we add compost twice a year, for example. When we closed in November, we added a lot of mulch. We have supplied the soil

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

with a lot of organic matter.”

The damage from the flood, however, destroyed much of these efforts, washing away the group’s work put in to nourishing the topsoil.

“A lot of time and money was lost in one night,” Laplante explained.

The prospects of Campus Crops opening the garden for summer 2013 are uncertain. In the past, the group normally start working on their garden in the spring.

“Normally we have another garden behind the James building, but we were told there is going to be construction on Dr. Penfield this summer and the dust and cement from the construction complicates things. We are not left with very much growing space. ” The group had been working on removing a patch of Japanese knotweed – an invasive species – which has been growing adjacent to their

plot for many years.

The flood washed away a tarp covering the patch of knotweed, and Laplante fears that the invasive plant may now spread to the garden, according to the group’s website.

The group is still in the process of organizing discussions on how to move forward.

“We need to discuss what we can do this summer. We usually have time to develop the soil but

because of the flood, our longterm amendments can’t be put through,” said Laplante. “We might have to take the summer to restore the soil. We might try a temporary container garden, but there are bureaucratic obstacles to this that delay the process. Ultimately we still need to discuss with horticulturalists, McGill ground services, and the MSE director to see what our options are.”

Government will not consider free education at summit McGill principal calls summit on higher education a “farce” Laurent Bastien Corbeil The McGill Daily

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ess than a month before the government’s summit on higher education, Pierre Duchesne, the minister of higher education, reiterated yesterday the Parti Québécois’ opposition to free education. The government would not bar students from broaching the topic at the summit, but it was “obvious” that the government “could not afford free education,” he said.

“If they want to discuss different subjects, such as free education, they can submit documents and studies,” Duchesne told reporters in French. “We even have an internet page where peo-

ple can submit documents.”

The remarks from the minister came days after the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) issued an ultimatum that called for Duschene to recognize free education as a “viable option.”

At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Jérémie Bédard-Wien, a spokesperson for ASSÉ, said that the group was not satisfied with the minister’s announcement and reiterated that the association would withdraw from the summit if free education was not seriously considered as an option.

“If we demonstrate the viability of free education and its social necessity, will the government hear our proposal?” he said in

French. “By excluding ASSÉ, they would exclude a position that is defended by a large portion of those attending the summit.”

“More than half of those attending defend a tuition freeze, a reduction of fees, or free education,” he added.

However, in an interview with The Daily, Éliane Laberge, president of the Federation étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) said it was important for the summit’s actors to “understand that no process is perfect” and that it was up to them to ensure that the conference was as “conclusive and as productive as possible.”

“We have to be there, because if we’re not there, students won’t be heard and their condition won’t be bettered,” Laberge said

in French. “It’s true the government could be more attentive by considering, maybe not free education, but a tuition freeze, which is a position put forward by a number of actors at the summit.”

“We’ll wait before the morning of the summit before deciding whether or not the process is viable,” she added.

Skepticism toward the summit was also expressed this week by members of the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ), an organization that represents the administrations of universities across the province.

McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum told Le Devoir on Wednesday that the conference was a “farce” and was “so choreo-

graphed” as to preclude debate.

“There is one person from the Quebec Council of Employers, but they don’t have a formal voice. And the rectors have to sit and listen to someone telling us how to manage our universities,” she said in French.

“At Sherbrooke University, a teacher from Senegal compared our educational system to the Senegalese system from twenty years ago. What do we think of that?” she added.

According to Munroe-Blum, universities such as McGill and the Université de Montréal should receive more money from the government because of their commitment to research. Tuition should also vary depending on the program of study, she said.

news

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Laval students want to end student union “monopoly” Pro-hike supporters file motion at Quebec superior court Joelle Dahm News Writer

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wo students from Quebec City’s Laval University went to Quebec’s superior court on January 23 to file a constitutional challenge against the Act respecting the accreditation and financing of students’ associations. The Act outlines the rights and duties of student associations in the province.

The plaintiffs are Laurent Proulx who was a leading member of the pro-tuition green square movement during the student strikes, and Miguael Bergeron.

They intend to end what they call the “monopoly on representation” of student societies.

Proulx and Bergeron’s complaint was filed against various aspects of the Act, stating that it violates the freedom of association and freedom of expression guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Act indicates that every student in Quebec is automatically a member of the student association of the institution they attend, unless they take the necessary measures to opt out.

Their motion argues that “it is no more justifiable for the State to force students to join any given association than it would be in forcing hospital patients to join a patients’ association.”

In Quebec, only one student association is allowed per faculty and per department. The plaintiffs want students to have other options if they feel their university’s student association does not represent their political views.

The plaintiffs’ motion cites exam-

Illustration Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

ples from the student strikes of last year.

“These associations directly imposed a particular mode of conduct on their members by, for example, blocking access to classrooms.

They also indirectly imposed a mode of conduct on their members by using their dues for political purposes,” their motion reads.

SSMU executives were unaware of whether there was a way to opt out of the society. According to SSMU President Josh Redel, no one has recently tried to opt out of SSMU. Redel was unsure of the effects that the lawsuit would have at McGill.

For Redel, a scenario in which

students were able to completely opt out of SSMU would be “very unfortunate,” since it would significantly weaken the Society.

According to Redel, were two or more student associations to exist at McGill, the funds for each one would not be sufficient to provide for larger events.

“There is no point in having two services that duplicate each other,” he told The Daily.

While SSMU does not advertise a formal process of leaving the union, it does give students the option to opt out of some of their services.

A spokesperson of Confédération des associations d’étudiants et

étudiantes de l’Université Laval (CADEUL), Laval University’s student union, explained how students could opt-out. “[The students] just have to fill out a form with information about opting out before a certain date. [...] After some period of time, they will get a full reimbursement of the fees,” the spokesperson told The Daily by phone.

As reported by Radio-Canada on January 23, only a few dozen students used this process, escaping CADEUL’s $13 annual fee.

Neither Proulx nor Bergeron have opted out of CADEUL. Alexandre Meterissian, cofounder of Fondation 1625, the

foundation backing the plaintiffs, told The Daily in a phone interview that students should be allowed more choice.

“Many students don’t feel represented by their student associations and they have no time to participate in the assemblies.

Different voices on campus could give them more choice. [...] If students think they get their money’s worth for contributing [in an association like SSMU], they will.”

Foundation 1625 is also behind the class action lawsuit filed last August against 25 educational institutions for having suspended classes during the Winter 2012 semester.

SSMU General Assembly postponed Lack of motions leads to rescheduling Esther Lee and Dana Wray The McGill Daily

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SMU has decided to reschedule the winter 2013 General Assembly (GA) to February 27, due to a lack of student-submitted motions.

With only two motions submitted, SSMU President Josh Redel expressed his concern regarding the efficiency of the GA. “A lot of logistics [go] into a GA,” Redel told The Daily. “From the student perspective, would it be fair to ask students...to come in and sit for just two motions?”

SSMU Equity Commissioners Justin Koh and Shaina Agbayani

submitted one of the two motions, addressing the importance of the community’s support for the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office. “We decided to draft the motion in support for SEDE because we wanted SSMU to officially recognize the importance of the work that SEDE does in social justice, diversity and equity issues on campus,” Koh told The Daily by email.

Despite McGill’s previously released documents on the Principal’s Taskforce on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement, SEDE still requires a permanent funding structure and support from the university community, Koh said.

When asked about the effect of

the GA’s scheduling delay on his motion, Koh said, “We don’t think the delay will have a big impact on the motion, this support needs to be affirmed for SEDE regardless, we might change some of the wording for the motion depending on the situation.”

The other motion submitted to the GA, which called for support of the Idle No More movement, had previously been submitted at SSMU Legislative Council. It was committed to the GA to be put to vote by the larger student body, as it was deemed to be an external issue.

This year’s GAs have experienced difficulties in generating student attendance: the fall semester’s GA briefly met its quorum of 100

students – with a maximum of half from any faculty or school – before transitioning into a consultative forum as people left. In the case of a consultative forum, motions are sent to a Legislative Council meeting, where councillors take into account the votes of the students.

When asked if students were losing interest in the GA format, Redel was unsure, but agreed that more discussion needed to be held on the actual content of a GA rather than simply the logistics.

Last semester, SSMU offered motion writing workshops in the weeks leading up to the GA. They also offered two workshops specific to the fall GA on the day of the assembly.

Redel said the turnout last semester was “okay,” with about thirty people in attendance at the workshops on the day of the GA. He said that SSMU hoped to continue offering these workshops once a week before the upcoming winter GA. In the past, Redel said, students have submitted half of the motions, while councillors have submitted the other half. “I think there’s a lot of mystery around the GA because people think it has to be political,” Redel said. “I think that we want to better inform students not just about coming to the GA...[but also] helping them figure out how to make different kinds of motions so that we have a good balance of internal and external.”

commentary

The McGill Daily Thursday, February 7, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Raw deal Unpaid internships suck...and other middle-class problems Lucy Cameron Commentary Writer

I

am on the internet, again, looking for work, again. Feeling decidedly underwhelmed by a dearth of employment opportunities and the general banality of my quest, I wonder, as I often do these days, how I will be paying my rent come July and why – WHY – the only positions that are remotely within my reach and field of interest are unpaid internships. How is this a thing?

When did it become normal for companies to ask young people to work for them for free? And when did we start lining up?

A pause. ‘But it isn’t free,’ one might argue. ‘Even if an internship is not compensated monetarily, it is an opportunity to gain knowledge/ experience/hands-on training. It is an investment in your future.’ There was a time when I, too, was of this persuasion. Now I think it is major bullshit, for reasons we will return to momentarily.

On the flip side, one might ask why we should care at all about the ways in which upper-middle-class (probably) white kids elect to spend their summers. A thousand tiny violins for the kids who feel they are being exploited while attempting to ascend the ranks of the white-collar workplace. This is completely valid.

The problems of unpaid interns pale in comparison to just about every

other exploitative practice of their corporate employers. When you consider the physical labour that is outsourced by North American corporations in countries where our iParaphenalia are born, it’s hard to juice tears for the 22-year-old kids stapling spreadsheets to their hands in Midtown office buildings. The fact that a person is even in a position to consider an unpaid internship to butter their resume or garner practical learning experience designates incredible privilege. Nevertheless, these practices of exploitation – local and global, minor and major – are not unrelated.

Even those among us who can’t or won’t entertain the idea of working at an unpaid job should consider the implications of this trend. With the economic downturn, many companies are turning to unpaid interns as a source of free labour.

Paid entry-level positions are being cut in favour of a revolving door of recent graduates willing to work for free as they buttress their portfolios, perhaps in the hopes of being offered a job upon the expiration of their (non)contract or simply to gather ‘experience’ as they wait out the recession. But these sorts of agreements between intern and employer are often ambiguous, indirectly articulated and offer no guarantee of future employment (‘But you said!’). They are contingent on a future that is entirely uncertain.

In many cases, the paid entry-level

positions everyone and their grandmother are fighting for are precisely those that have been eliminated in favor of unsalaried internships.

Equally dubious is the legal status of interns in relation to their employers. Unpaid interns are not classified as employees and do not have the same (read: any, beyond basic civil) rights. No salary means no taxes and hundreds of millions of dollars saved by North American corporations every year. It is as if we are volunteering just to keep the system on its feet.

If unsalaried interns are vulnerable, the majority of unemployed Gen-‘whY me’s are concomitantly disadvantaged by shifting expectations. Individuals who can afford to work for free wind up with a pancake stack of internships on their resume and thus sit ahead of those working doubles at Medieval Times in anticipation of January’s hydro bill.

Of course, there are people who navigate the perilous waters of nodollars jobs and work to make it happen for themselves. Plenty of unpaid interns work multiple jobs in order to finance their more glamorous, intellectually-stimulating day jobs. In many cases a second job can make the dream job feasible, but it adds up to a hell of a lot of hours. Spend all day at the real job, then a swift, Clark Kent phone booth change and off to the job that pays for it. Family time, creative time, leisure time – all of these legitimate personal needs –

suffer as a result.

When did we become accustomed to thinking that this was an acceptable offer? I am not talking about time spent working on projects of passion; I am talking about what we consider and classify as ‘work’ and why it needs to pay the rent. Compensation for labour is a basic necessity and if this sounds like it issues from a sense of entitlement, rightly so. Ross Perlin states it simply in Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy: if a business cannot afford to pay its employees minimum wage, it cannot afford to be in business. When I read that a company is soliciting young, intelligent people to work for them for forty hours a week for the possibility of a high-five and a birthday card, it offends me in more than a ‘my mom thinks I’m special’ kind of way.

If this is the new standard, we have to wonder where it came from and how it has become naturalized in our society. Speaking to serial interns, several phrases recur in the rationalization process. ‘Investing in the future’ is a big one, as is the old culturally-engrained adage ‘paying [one’s] dues.’ Such rationales are entrenched in a conservative ideology that dictates an illusive, infinitely-delayed reward system while dehumanizing the ‘human capital’ at its disposal. The system is psychologically damaging: it makes us feel that we cannot be self-sufficient

until we jump through its hoops. To have your work undervalued, to feel indebted to a company you are working to impress while a sad bag of conciliatory Sun Chips from the vending machine puts you at a net loss for the day – are these really the options?

Well, no. Obviously not. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that I’ve fallen into the same mind trap that dictates this insane logic of dues-paying to a higher authority. I’ve become caught up in the false dichotomy Perlin addresses in Intern Nation: the perception that “the only alternative to high-powered careerism is ‘Do you want fries with that?’” And while Perlin and other voices in the internship debate call for companies to meet minimum wage requirements for their interns, I realize I would never want to work for an organization that was inclined to systematically exploit their lower orders in the first place. Why bend over backwards and forfeit all person-time just to demonstrate my readiness for the white-collar working world I never wanted? My resume doesn’t stack up like pancakes; I can deal with that. Resolve: to refigure my commitments, consider the oxymoronic term ‘business ethics,’ and radically revise my search engine keywords.

Lucy Cameron is a U-whatever English and Philosophy student.

Tell her how wrong she is at lucy. cameron@mail.mcgill.ca.

commentary

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Long live our civic shame Montreal is a cesspool of corruption Kaj Huddart The McGill Daily

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he carnival of corruption that is the administration of Montreal is, by turns, both disgusting and hilarious. While the city is currently undergoing a serious purge of criminal fraudsters at the top level of its bureaucratic and political hierarchy, the problem is much older than one might think. In fact, it’s at least 125 years old. Kristian Gravenor (BA, 1986), the indomitable scribbler of all things Montreal, recently discussed the Boodle Commission of 1888 on his blog, Coolopolis. According to Gravenor, little has changed: like the current Charbonneau Commission, the Boodle Commission was tasked with sniffing out the rotten, collusive deals between the municipal government and construction companies.

Allegations were made that involved the mayor, James McShane, tarnishing his reputation irreparably, and helped him to lose the election of 1893. But that inquiry didn’t solve much. In fact, over the following century, the history of corruption at City Hall becomes even dirtier, culminating in the outrageous, but believable, allegations made every weekday at the Charbonneau Commission.

The 20th century saw the population of the island of Montreal grow from a few hundred thousand in 1900 to 2 million in 1970, after which it started to fall into decay, a state from which it is arguably yet to emerge.

At the risk of oversimplification, I would propose a simple formula: civic growth equals construction, and construction equals graft. For example, in the booming 1950s, when the economy was growing and suburbs both on- and off-island were being thrown up left and right, Mayor Camilien Houde apparently saw “corruption of the city council, police and the press as a fact of life,” according to his biography in the Canadian Encyclopedia, which also mentions that Houde argued against fighting the Nazis, because he admired the nationalism of Mussolini and Vichy France. What a guy! Despite Houde’s fascistic tendencies, and his fatalistic attitude toward corruption, we named the beautiful road that runs over Mount Royal after him, just as we will, apparently, name the street leading to the new superhospital “Arthur Porter Way.” Whatever qualities are required of someone in order to be preserved in Montreal street nomenclature, civic virtue certainly isn’t one of them.

Camillien Houde was followed by Jean Drapeau, the man who fought for the Expo and the Olympics, and who bestowed upon the city much of the shitty infrastructure that we are now demolishing. Drapeau, who spearheaded a commission that examined police corruption under Houde, was elected with popular acclaim in 1954. Ruling the city as

a kind of soft dictatorship, Drapeau promised Montrealers that he would clean up city government, and build them a world-class métropolitain.

He definitely delivered on one of those points, giving the city one of the most well-decorated and costly subway systems this side of the Iron Curtain. (As a side note, Drapeau shared some of the worst tactics of the 20th century’s autocrats: in 1970, he used the excuse of the October Crisis and violent separatist actions to jail his opponent before the election on trumped-up allegations.)

Unfortunately, the long-term problem of systemic government fraud proved intractable, and Drapeau stuck to providing beautiful distractions, famously declaring, “What the masses want are monuments!”

As it turns out, corrupt politicians, construction companies, and the mafia like monuments even more than the “masses” do. In 1970, underdog candidate Montreal won a bid to host the 1976 Olympics against bids from Moscow and Los Angeles. Drapeau personally selected Roger Taillibert, the architect of Paris’ Parc des Princes, to design a stadium unlike the world had ever seen. As one might expect, it was a cash cow for the local mob.

André Pratte, author of the landmark history of the Montreal mob, Mafia Inc., noted the well-established link between the mafia and the delay- and cost-overrun-ridden construction of the stadium and the Olympic Village.

Similarly, Allan Fotheringham wrote in Maclean’s magazine in the late 1990s that Drapeau’s Olympics were a “blueprint for corruption.” Due to the aforementioned overruns, the city finished paying off the cost of the stadium a mere thirty years later, having paid in total a cool $1.5 billion. Aside from serious motocross fans, I doubt anyone would contest the nomination of the Olympic Stadium as the city’s most unloved monument.

The 21st century seems to have brought no significant change to the city’s status as a corrupt metropolis.

Currently, the commission presided over by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau is conducting a wide investigation into the links between government, the construction industry, and the mob. Although it is ongoing, and testimonials from those who have appeared at the commission are often contradictory, the commission has already revealed significant information about how collusion robs the city of its tax revenue.

Basically, corruption occurs at the level of contracts. For example, did you notice the poor quality of Montreal’s water system, say, just over a week ago? Although that has something to do with the age of the city, many much older cities seem to experience fewer water main-related disasters, and fewer of the constant, disruptive repairs Montrealers have grown used to.

Here’s one possible reason this pattern seems to repeat itself: city

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

bureaucrats have been taking bribes and overpaying contractors while essential infrastructure is neglected for lack of funds. For years, aqueductrelated contracts were handed out

by Gilles Suprenant, a city engineer who deliberately inflated the cost of repairs, and gave overpriced contracts to construction firms in return for a significant personal kickback.

According to his own testimony in French, 97 per cent of Surprenant’s contracts were “faked.” Moreover, Surprenant received $437,000 in cash and valuables such as Canadiens tickets from construction entrepreneurs.

Enter a shadowy figure known in municipal politics by the jovial nicknames of “Bagman,” and “Monsieur 3 per cent.” His real name is Bernard Trepanier, and according to the testimony of engineer Michel Lalonde, Mister-three-per-cent went around making sure that the construction companies that won municipal contracts were the ones whose bosses had already agreed to pay back 3 per cent of the contracts’ value in often-illegal donations to Union Montréal, the city’s former ruling party. Bagman made sure that Union Montréal was defrauding citizens to ensure a successful reelection campaign. Eventually, evidence of Trepanier’s wrongdoing – including remarkable testimony from Martin Dumont, whom Trepanier allegedly called to his office to help close a safe that was overstuffed with cash – helped destroy the rotten organization that was Union.

Unfortunately, that was cold comfort to Montrealers. The millions in lost tax revenue are yet to be fully counted, and the “barrel of snakes,” a term used by Gazette columnist Henry Aubin to describe the ongoing revelation of allegations, is yet to be untangled.

For the record, Mayor Applebaum, the replacement for Gérald Tremblay, who was recently pressured to resign, was implicated vaguely by Le Devoir in certain “doubtful transactions” while he was the elected representative for a western borough [Côtedes-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce].

Applebaum responded strongly in support of his own innocence, and no hard facts have come to light as of yet. But I warrant that Montrealers, hardened to years of government crime, aren’t feeling particularly generous at the moment.

How much change can we, as citizens, expect from the Charbonneau Commission? To her credit, the commissioner has worked fiercely and tirelessly in her interrogation of the witnesses, and her report is expected to shine a great deal of light on the sins of municipal government, and send several of the worst offenders to jail.

But as our history shows us, there is a resilient culture of corruption in City Hall, and none of the commissions launched between 1888 and now have been able to resolve the problem.

Those who claim that there is just as great a degree of corruption in other major Canadian municipalities should check their civic pride, and glance

down at the cracked pavement they stand on: Montreal is rotten.

Quebec is a highly political place

by Canadian standards, and as we are embroiled in discussions over the cost of education and what measures should be taken to protect the French language, we owe it to ourselves to reflect on how we can help end the rampant collusion in Montreal’s administration. The public should be more strident in demands for transparency: the Charbonneau Commission would have been launched much sooner had the kind of direct-action tactics used in the student struggle been applied to demanding such a necessary inquiry.

We should also reflect on the appearance of a new political bloc on the municipal scene, Projet Montréal, which is less integrated in the established municipal system, and which has fresh ideas to help rejuvenate our city. And finally, we must resist the sort of ossifying, complacent, plusça-change attitude that comes from observing all of the graft in politics.

Long ago, Mayor Drapeau notoriously assured us that “the Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby.” If we already beat those odds, what’s the problem with ending a 125-year-old culture of corruption?

Kaj Huddart is a U2 History student and Daily Culture editor. He can be reached at kajhuddart@gmail. com. The views expressed here are his own.

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Something positive Praise for The Daily’s sex issue Austin Lloyd Readers’ Advocate

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o it seems I have a problem this week.

Usually what I do in this space, after searching The Daily for things to criticize, is complain about them for 500 words.

The trouble is, I actually thought The Daily did a really good job with last Monday [January 28]’s sex issue. So now I’m stuck in the awkward position of having to either find some trumped-up flaw to kvetch about, or actually try to write something, dare I say it, positive (an area in which, frankly, I lack expertise).

Well, here goes.

For starters, I found the tone of this issue to be incredibly compelling. One of my recurring complaints about The Daily is the fact that articles are frequently written in a way that preaches at the readers, telling them what they should, or should not, do, say or think. As I mentioned in a previous piece “Engaging the Other Side” (Commentary, November 19, page 7), this style of writing generally fails to connect with readers, as it rarely explains why they should come around to the author’s way of thinking.

I’m relatively pleased to say that the sex issue managed to avoid this common pitfall. Take, for instance, Edna Chan’s piece “My Love is Not a Battlefield”

(Sex issue, January 28, page 3).

The author does not bombard the readers with jargon while commanding them to accept polyamoury; rather, they describe the process by which they came to terms with their own polyamoury. By discussing their own doubts about the idea and how they came to understand it, the author successfully compels the readers to do likewise.

In this same vein, the centrefold discussing sexual kinks did an excellent job of presenting the sometimes-taboo topic as a unique expression of one’s sexuality, divorcing the various practices from the idea that it represents abnormality or perversion.

The combination of graphs, statistics, and quotes documenting personal experiences with sexuality demonstrates to readers who might have reservations about this subject just how ubiquitous, and, ultimately healthy, sexual kinks can be.

One way I had predicted this issue might fall short was ignoring the fact that some people are not yet fully comfortable with sexuality, or may be asexual. Admittedly, asexuality was not touched upon, but Megan Masterson’s “The 22-year-old Virgin” (Sex issue, January 28, page 8) addresses the idea that not everyone is, or needs to be, at the same place in terms of personal sexuality.

And there you have it, an

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

issue of The Daily about which I have nothing to complain. Well, strictly speaking, that isn’t entirely true – the article “Out of Africa” (Commentary, January 28, page 8) essentially smugly informs its readers that they are racist because they are less informed about South Africa than the author, while doing nothing to better inform them. But the issue as a whole was easily one of the best this year. By letting authors

address their readers with personal experiences rather than jargon, by bringing an often ignored topic into the mainstream in a userfriendly manner, and by showcasing the fact that not everyone needs to feel exactly the same way about this topic, The Daily was able to effectively communicate with its readers on the subject of sexuality. That said, let’s endeavour to make sure that this issue is not a fortuitous one-off. As we

proceed through the rest of the semester, let’s try to apply the effective aspects of these pieces to the paper as a whole, rather than settling back into the old cycle of controversial mediocrity.

Readers’ Advocate is a twicemonthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily.

You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

Obama’s Gitmo game Four years later, Guantanamo Bay is still open Omar Saadeh The McGill Daily

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emember when Obama promised to shut Gitmo (the Guantanamo Bay detention centre)? Well, he just officially gave up. Yep, the State Department closed down that office entirely.

Despite having the self-adopted motto “Safe, humane, legal, transparent,” Gitmo still holds 166 inmates, of which all but nine are without conviction or charge.

The United States argues that the third Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war, does not apply to Taliban or Al-Qaeda fighters, and only to uniformed soldiers. This claim creates a dis-

tinction between “prisoners of war” and “illegal combatants.”

The prison camp has a record of holding prisoners indefinitely and without charge. Many different torture techniques – including sleep deprivation, beatings (with broken glass, barbed wire, and burning cigarettes), solitary confinement, cold cells, sexual harassment, and forced drug injections – are also allegedly used at the camp. Amnesty International has named Gitmo a human rights scandal on numerous occasions.

Moreover, under new rules passed by the Obama administration in 2012, if a Gitmo detainee loses a first habeas corpus trial, the prisoner no longer has the right to a lawyer.

Just after winning his first pres-

idential election, in 2008, Obama said: “I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that.”

It looked like he would follow through: on his first day in office, January 20, 2009, Obama issued an executive order closing the Guantanamo detention facility.

But it’s February 2013 and the Gitmo is still open.

True, Obama did try to pass a bill through Congress that would close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. But Congress blocked the bill. Obama’s National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor was quick to point the finger: “Obviously Congress has taken a number of steps to prevent the closure of the prison at Guantanamo

Bay, but the President still believes it’s in our national security interest and will keep trying.”

However, Vietor’s accusation hid some of the truth. The same bill also called for the construction of a new, similarly inhumane detention centre on U.S. soil. Dubbed “North Gitmo,” the plan to build the new prison in Illinois was even voted against by Democrats in Congress.

No wonder the bill was turned down. Establishing a Gitmo-style prison on U.S. soil could set a dangerous precedent. If it works so well, why stop at one?

Some supporters of keeping Gitmo open argue that the 166 prisoners left are “too difficult to prosecute, too dangerous to release.”

I can understand the first part

– we don’t want these guys going back to their home countries and ‘terrorist ways’ – but too difficult to prosecute? Why, because they have been tortured, or left for a decade in a cage with no outside communication, and very limited or no access to legal aid? The United States often champions values of justice and humanitarianism– it should do so again.

There were a lot of promises made four years ago, and many more last month. I hope, in Obama’s second term, we do see some of the changes that have been promised.

Omar Saadeh is a Master’s student in Engineering. Omar can be reached at omar.saadeh@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The show must go on Queering Montreal’s drag scene Nathalie O’Neill

“

Gays don’t like drag in general, because of all the associated bitchiness. It’s more of a popular thing with straight people.”

Despite his grievances with Montreal’s mainstream drag scene, Mathieu Jobit (drag queen Chi-Chi Motsu) still enjoys his hobby. “I started doing it to be with my friends,” Jobit explains in French. “I really enjoy preparing for the show, and once you’re on stage, it can really be a blast.”

Jobit first considered trying drag when he noticed how repetitive and predictable his nights out were becoming. He thought drag might be a fun way to

mix things up, but quickly realized that queens were, for the most part, even more superficial than the gay men he encountered in clubs. “People do this so they get compliments. They’re searching for the attention,” says Jobit. “Queens love when you compliment them.”

Historically, drag shows and gay cabarets were sites of radical gender bending and safe havens for gay communities. Gay villages, such as the ones in Montreal and Toronto, were the homes of such underground shows and activities. Today, Montreal’s more mainstream drag scene has

become emblematic of the changing nature of the Village. In the past decade, the Village has become one of the most commercial gay neighbourhoods in the world. There is a fear that popular acclaim and commercial success is drawing performers and audiences away from drag’s more cuttingedge exploration of gender. Nina Arsenault, a famous Canadian transsexual artist, recently commented on how she “doesn’t differentiate between gay people and straight people anymore, [but] between queer people and normative people.” As a new queer alternative begins to root, is the shift

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Mich in the Village’s drag scene a sad ending, or the beginning of something beautiful?

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Antonio Bavaro, aka drag queen Connie Lingua, has been performing as a queen for ten years. “Once you get your own show,” Bavaro explains, “there’s a territorial sense to it.” Bavaro, an Edmonton-to-Montreal transplant, first came onto the scene in the famous Cabaret Café Cleopatra on the lower Main.

Since then, he’s performed at Sky, Drugstore, Mado, and Cocktail. Considering the expansion of the drag scene outside of the Village, Bavaro has branched out to neighbourhoods like Parc Ex, Mile End, and St. Henri for his gigs.

Like Bavaro, Michel Dorion, a drag queen, co-owner, and the artistic director of Bar Le Cocktail, started his career at 18. “When I was young, I used to look like a girl. I didn’t say anything, even though I always got teased,” he tells me in French. His friends took him out to Entrepôt (now the popular Cabaret Mado, named after its famous queen) for his 18th birthday. “The club was announcing an amateur contest that night, and my friends encouraged me to sign up, but I didn’t want to. They signed me up anyway. I was very shy back then, I could barely speak in public. I got home, told my mom I was in a contest and had to dress up as a girl and sing. My mom and stepdad helped me prepare. They made my costume. The first time I performed, I got a thrill from being on stage. I liked people’s reactions, so I developed this craft and continued.”

“It’s much easier to go on stage in drag,” Dorion emphasizes. Becoming comfortable on stage was a gradual process for him, as for many other performers. “At first, it helps because you feel like someone else; you can do whatever you want and it doesn’t matter.

Now when I’m on stage, I don’t feel hidden anymore. I don’t feel the makeup anymore: it’s me. I don’t speak like a character. On stage, I forget my costume and makeup.”

Performing drag is, at best, a part-time remunerated hobby for most. Famous Montreal queens like Dorion and Mado La Motte are among the few who make a living from performing, while others struggle to

deal with the financial strain of drag.

“I make most of my costumes,” Dorion explains. “It would cost too much to buy them.” Bavaro considers himself lucky, relying on many vintage finds for his costumes.

Even with the help of such thrifty tricks, performers often end up spending hundreds of dollars annually on their craft. As soon as I saw Dorion’s dressing room, I understood why. He had a wall full of wigs, a shelf full of shoes, a table scattered with makeup, and a large rack bursting with costumes. Most of Dorion’s costumes are carefully sewn with intricate details, with a particular preference for sequins.

Pre-show preparation extends beyond slipping on a dress. As Jobit shows me his extensive equipment – dozens of makeup brushes of various sizes, a few pairs of skyhigh platform shoes, and a luxurious lace coat he received as a gift – he explains the process of going from man to drag queen.

Jobit takes about two hours to do his makeup. With 25 years of performance under his belt, Dorion has cut down this prep time to twenty minutes. Jobit used to remove all of his body hair with an epilator, but now prefers less time-consuming razors. Jobit explains the techniques he’s learned, including how he hides his genitals (testes are pushed up, and the penis is taped towards the back). Jobit tells me his boyfriend doesn’t like drag queens – they’re too over-the-top.

“He makes an exception for me, though,” Jobit explains, “because he thinks I look good as a woman.”

“It takes a while to stand and move like a woman,” Jobit clarifies. “It’s definitely something that has to be learned. When I first started out, I was rubbish.” Dorion also emphasizes this need to tap into an “inner femininity” when performing in drag. “When we do this, we certainly have a stronger feminine side inside of us, and this is a way to externalize it.”

...

Drag’s emulation of a certain feminine ideal was ill-received by some second-wave feminists. In 1979, feminist activist Janice

Raymond wrote in The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male that “all transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.”

Critiques like Raymond’s book, which cite performances of femininity as an invasion and appropriation of women’s bodies, have led to some hesitation on the part of trans* people to be involved with feminism, explains Lucas Crawford, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill’s Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF). Queer theory, which emerged in the 1970s, helped broaden the discussion on drag. While much of “feminist and queer theory overlap, queer theory seeks to problematize society’s prescribed gender behaviours, to an even greater degree’ Crawford explains. Queer theory, for the most part, espouses drag and its surrounding culture as a tool for gender performance and exploration.

Despite drag’s potential for diversity, conceptions of gender remain relatively traditional in the Village. Dorion tells me performers are simply gay men who dress up as women to perform – limiting gender fluidity to a maleto-female performance restricted to the stage.

Dorion has rarely encountered drag kings in his career. “I know one who performs regularly, but that’s all,” Dorion explains. “She’s good, she actually sings and plays around with lyrics, and performs a lot. I wouldn’t hire her here though, we’ve tried that and the audience tells us they don’t understand. They want to see a guy dressed up as a girl. It’s still hard to get [drag kings] accepted.”

Crawford sheds light on the significance of Dorion’s comments. “There’s a certain reassurance to the idea that this is only a show,” says Crawford. “It becomes disrupting to some when it reaches into everyday life and ceases to be just masquerade.”

Drag venues in the village have been drawing crowds other than local gay men for decades now. Dorion explains how “straight people from the suburbs and gays from all over the city” attend Cocktail’s weekend performances. This trend is even more evident at big name venues like Mado. “There used to be more gays than straights,” says Dorion, “but it

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o, r a v a io B ua n g o t n i n L A nie n o C a.k.a

was still pretty much half-half. Now that Mado performs there, the audience has more straight members than gays, because she’s more wellknown.” In fact, in his experience, gay audiences often prove harder to please. Members of the gay community have been seeing drag shows for years and are more difficult to rouse as a group. “Straight people tend to be more receptive,” says Dorion. “They’re amazed; you do anything and they’re enthralled.”

The Village population is changing, reflecting Montrealers’ greater open-mindedness as straight couples and young families flock to the neighbourhood. “Some gays hate the Village now,” Dorion says. “They avoid coming here.”

Dorion has visited drag venues in Paris, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York. In Vegas, he tells me, ticket prices are upward of $45, compared to Montreal shows where ticket prices rarely exceed $10. “I prefer what we do in Montreal,” says Dorion. “It’s more personal, we’re closer to the people.” He ascribes this warmth and communicative approach to the inherently hospitable Quebecois character.

Yet this hospitality has its limits. While the Montreal scene may offer more bang for your buck, it is ridden with prejudices other than a gay/straight binary. Bavaro has noticed racist elements in certain drag queen comedy routines and has been personally trash-talked at Village venues – including Mado and Sky – for being anglophone and Albertan.

Cocktail’s traditional cabaret style and location in the Village tend to attract an older, more conservative audience searching for an entertaining show that isn’t disruptive to their notions of gender. The Village may be lingering in the past, but Montreal drag is changing, Bavaro explains, reaching out to include a wider variety of performers. Crawford describes this growing alternative scene as “queering the practice of drag.” While Bavaro describes mainstream drag happenings such as a recent glitzy ball thrown by Mado as “fake, unacceptable community events,” alternative drag venues strive to encompass diverse manifestations of gender performance.

The emerging alternative drag scene spreading across the city has opened up space for differences and disagreements,

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both personal and political. “We are inherently political,” Bavaro says of queens. Nightime entertainment seekers are flocking to popular new venues such as Mile End’s Royal Phoenix on Bernard. Faggity Ass Fridays, which aims to benefit a sex education program called the Sense project, is a dance party. “Faggity Ass Fridays is a queer dance party by and for the queer community in Montreal,” the event’s Facebook page explains. “It is outside of the village, and it creates space for radical queer performance art, drag, cabaret, music, DJs, and lots of sequins.” Similarly, Radical Queer Semaine, a radical queer and trans* collective, strives to “create opportunity to exchange, entertain, learn, challenge and politicize ourselves, network and organize around current social justice struggles,” according to their page. Crawford, who frequents Faggity and Royal Phoenix, says that unlike the Mile End venues, “Village performances don’t move me or surprise me at the level of ideas of the body and of desires.”

Radical Queer Semaine and Faggity Ass Fridays are good representations of Montreal’s underground queer scene – egalitarian, mobile, temporary, and promoted mainly through word of mouth. Moving away, quite literally, from the business of entertaining, the queer drag scene “incorporates art and thinking with entertainment,” says Crawford.

...

Right after his first musical number, Dorion singles me out in the crowd, pointing his microphone in my direction – “are you straight or are you gay?” he asks – explaining to the audience that he had forgotten to ask me during our interview. I humour him and answer his delicate question as straightforwardly as he’s asked it, while he laughs and retorts: “You never know with young people these days, it’s really become an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

Bavaro agrees that gender and sexuality are more fluid categories than drag queens sometimes depict. “Judith Butler was right,” Bavaro says. “There is definitely a power to performing gender.” Bavaro explains that we can’t completely shut ourselves out from mainstream ideas of gender. “Women

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t, i b o J u eu Mathi i-Chi Mots Ch a . k . a

and gay men are brought up and marketed to in a certain way, in order to correspond to certain gender roles inherent in our culture.” Bavaro himself fears being typecast as a drag queen. “I don’t want that to be everything about me,” he says, mentioning the “intersectionalities of [his] identity.” Bavaro believes Montreal lends itself well to “crossing boundaries of gender.” The city’s alternative drag scene features drag kings as well as queens, and what Bavaro refers to as “transgods and transgodesses.” While the alternative scene distances itself in many ways from popular commercial drag, Bavaro points to a certain “degree of integration, a give-andtake with dominant culture.”

Bavaro performs at HIV/AIDS fundraisers, and Dorion is a member of the Montreal gay pride administrative committee. “We’ll have [activism] as long as not everyone all over the world doesn’t have the same rights and equalities,” states Dorion. “There’s never anything that should be taken for granted.” Ultimately, drag – like any form of art – is a communication tool. An increasing emphasis on mainstream commercial ventures poses a certain threat to the innovative power drag holds. Yet people like Bavaro are guiding the queer movement against the pull of conservative entertainment forces, continuing to challenge and expand existing conceptions of gender and sexuality through playful and political performances. Crawford’s students were enthusiastic about his proposal to put on a drag show. “This was not just a fun performance,” says Crawford, “but permission to play with gender and experiment.”

As the multiple incarnations of drag increase, queer performances spread throughout the city, infiltrating Montreal and seeping into neighbourhood life outside the Village. Along with this geographic spread of queer approaches to drag, gender as experimental performance is also extending into our everyday lives. Gender-bending is no longer restricted to the stage. While Bavaro and Crawford’s world is still a somewhat elusive underground scene, their queering of drag offers an alternative to commercialized mainstream drag, contributing a voice to Montreal’s increasingly diverse dialogue of gender expressions.

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above photos Jessie Marchessault | The McGill Daily all other photos courtesy of the artists

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The McGill Daily Thursday, February 7, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

i2

Bad investments, good investments New cost-cutting measure a U.S. export The predicament

Facing an announcement from the provincial government that Quebec universities have to slash $124 million from their budgets

by April, it is only fair that most of these universities would begin to re-evaluate the way their programs are run. As many students have heard, Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi announced the decision to cut up to 100 Arts undergraduate classes from the curriculum; however, instead of saving money, the decision serves to rearrange teaching staff in the faculty.

But Quebec universities are not the only ones suffering from budget cuts; they appear to be a nationwide trend. Prominent examples are the University of Regina, the University of Guelph, and the University of Toronto, which have also felt the pressure of slashing their budgets. In fact, this is not the first time in recent history that the University of Toronto has implemented budget cuts. In 2010, in order to cope with a projected budget deficit of $35.7 million, U of T tried to close its Comparative Literature program without consulting students and faculty.

The fields from which these

universities are choosing to make cuts demonstrates the strange contradiction that institutions face today between their values and their pockets. In particular, recent strategies seem to pinpoint areas to trim from the university based on economic instead of intrinsic value.

But it seems that recent cost-cutting strategies are not coming from within. In particular, the University of Regina and the University of Guelph are working with Robert C. Dickeson, an American consultant behind the book Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance. In doing so, these universities are effectively allowing the implementation of a U.S.-based cost-cutting strategy within Canadian universities. According to the book’s own description, it “offers a proven stepby-step approach to reallocating resources in tough times,” in light of the “current economic concerns affecting colleges and universities.” ‬‬‬‬The program aims at a re-evaluation of the whole university scheme, from academic departments, to athletics, to parking space, according to a Globe and Mail article writ-

ten on January 4th, entitled “No department is safe as universities employ U.S. cost-cutting strategy.”

These developments have caught the attention of academic staff and raised concerns. The University of Regina’s English department is concerned that, after the evaluations are implemented, it will have fewer staff to teach lectures the following year. The University of Guelph has already assembled a task force to assess the “importance” of each of the university’s services and departments, but it consists of faculty and staff and only two students, one graduate and one undergraduate.

This is problematic as it is not representative of the student population of almost 22,000, a fact that concerns the student body, according to The Canon, the University of Guelph’s online campus-wide message board.

One of the biggest concerns, in the midst of all these discussions on budget cuts, is that Arts courses are going to get the worst of it. ‬‬

An economic perspective

When asked about the proposed cost-cutting plan, Rohan Dutta, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at

McGill, assured me that when dealing with these imposed budget cuts, while some sort of cost-cutting has to happen, exactly how it does happen is up to the university. He outlined the ideal method of dealing with cuts: “What you would like to do is to meet this reduction in budget, but you’d like to do it in a way that satisfies whatever goals the university has.”

This involves two steps. First, an institution has to identify what its goals are; second, it has to see how it will go about achieving them in view of the cuts. These fixed goals could be ensuring a particular degree of enrolment, or investing a certain amount in departments that guarantee the most enrolment. Maybe a university is concerned with its historical identity, or ensuring that the learning environment is also a safe one. “Given these goals, the big question is how much do you cut from each of these units? […]

[From] a standard microeconomics approach[…]you want to make sure that … when you’ve finally reached the end of the cost-cutting plan, the department should give you the same return [as it did before],” Dutta says.

In Dutta’s view, whatever strategy anyone comes up with, someone’s going to end up complaining when the dust settles. “We’re not in a scenario where we have this utopian option…. Given that, the proposed cost-cutting seems better to me than implementing some adhoc measure of, say, a thousand dollars off every unit, but can this proposal be made better? My answer would be yes.”

The solution is simple; you need information about each department, focusing on its pros and cons. If a university were to implement a general blanket cut, for example, it would be ignoring this information. “Enrolment, for instance, is telling you which department undergrads are interested in. If you ignore that information, presumably what you are looking at is a situation where undergrads would probably choose a different university,” Dutta explains.

The first step is figuring out the values of each department, in order to incorporate that information into the decisions that go along with cost cutting.

Dutta was ambivalent about the degree to which Arts classes

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Text: Ralph Haddad | Illustration: Amina Batyreva

at universities across the country would bear the brunt of this strategy, saying that “it’s all conditional on the goal of the university. If the arts are a deep part of the stated goal of the university, then it will not necessarily be the case that they’ll be hurt.” What will most probably happen, in this case, is a reallocating of the resources within the faculty.

The problem that exists at the forefront of this cutting strategy is the notion of ranking departments based on their values, and what each one uniquely offers the learning experience at the university, “Once you fix this notion of ranking, then the cost-cutting method is the best way to do it.

So the real problem is how do we agree on [what] McGill or any other Canadian university stands for? How do we attach value to the different things?”

On the issue of Manfredi’s announcement, Dutta insists that the backlash was to be expected.

“Can you imagine a scenario where there [would] not be an uproar?

The real question is that, of all the things that would create uproar, is this a good one? It’s very possible that to figure that out actually

requires…this thing [to pan] out over three or four years.”

A humanities perspective

Mary DeCoste, an associate professor of Italian Studies at the University of Guelph, one of the more outspoken members of Guelph’s College of Arts, acknowledges that her program may be vulnerable, and sees many flaws in the proposed strategy. “We haven’t been sold on the effectiveness of this process,” she asserted in an interview with the Globe and Mail.

Vancouver Island University (VIU) is also implementing a similar program, dubbed the “Summative Program Assessment Process.”

According to the resulting report published in 2012, around 130 VIU programs were evaluated, and the future prospects did not look good for the fine arts and performing arts.

The report cites that, among other things, it will suspend a Bachelor of Arts (BA) program in Music (while a two-year diploma in Music will be maintained). Furthermore, a BA Minor in Theatre will be cancelled and lumped together into a broader BA in Visual Arts.

Concerns over Arts classes are also shared by the McGill

community, as is the reality that universities are shifting their gazes toward more profitable departments. Michelle Hartman, an associate professor of Arabic Literature in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill, admitted in an interview with The Daily that “we’ve seen the priorities of the University in the way funding gets allocated, and in the attitude toward different faculties on the part of the upper administration over time.” The universities’ rhetoric, she went on to say, is very much tied to placing value on how much money is connected to certain spaces in the university. Universities have an idea that if a department or unit is more profitable than another, then it is more valuable, “... which isn’t the traditional way we as a society viewed the role of a university or higher education.”

In terms of funding allocated to the professors themselves, Hartman declares that there is very little money granted to Arts professors in the university for research, “and decreasingly so.” The funding instead comes from external sources, primarily from the Social Science and

Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which has, unfortunately, also re-organized its internal allocation of funds as well. “We see less funding for […] projects that might be typically thought of as humanities,” Hartman states, classifying them as “less incomegenerating projects.”

On the subject of the U.S.based cost-cutting strategy, and the “program prioritization” it propagates, Hartman thinks of what the administration and faculty think education does, and what they value in education. To her, the kind of learning experience that offers critical thinking, ways of looking at the world, and exposure in particular to rigorous intellectual ideas, are the ones that can’t be quantified in monetary terms. “To go through departments and stack them up by how much they generate money (among other things) is antithetical to the kinds of processes that we’re trying to encourage and teach at the university […]

I can’t really understand a system that lines it up by money, and cuts things, and we’ve seen that happen around the world.”

When asked about the security of her own position teaching a rela-

tively small seminar class (Politics and Poetics in Arabic Literature), as well as other professors in similar positions, in view of Manfredi’s announcements, Hartman repliued, “The enterprise of working with 100 students a semester in one class is very different from working with thritry, and while I understand that many people see that working with thirty students is a very privileged position, […] it all depends on the way you want to teach, and what you want to teach.” She can spend more time with her students, for example, when she gives out writing assignments, giving each student their own personal feedback. “... I can’t do that in a class of 100 students. I could train a graduate student […] but that’s different than [doing it] myself [with] the experience I have coming out of literary studies,” she said.

The sad thing is that, after being a tenured professor for fifteen years, and teaching at McGill since 2002, Hartman admits that literary studies was seen as more valuable in the past than today, “I see [it] being valued less and less… in the…new ways we see governments and universities talk about restructuring education.”

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Sex and a vee Emery Saur All that Naked Business

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itting in a living room on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by the weekend ruckus of people delightfully tripping on acid. Initially my cup of tea sat next to a cardboard cutout of Dwight Schrute. Now it sits next to a bong and a pile of National Geographic magazines.

Shoshana* is originally from France, and now studies at Concordia. She recently married her wife, Mila,* who studies in London. Shoshana’s boyfriend, Jack, studies in Italy.

Shoshana is beautiful, comfortable, and open; very naturally sensual and calm. Her demeanour and the projections from the big-bulb holiday lights in the corner rendered me nervous and skirting. I felt like a pre-pubescent blob sitting next to her, like an object devoid of sexual allure, because she had so much of it.

In a world that likes to categorize, her situation is what would be referred to as a “vee,” as neither Shoshana’s wife nor her boyfriend are romantically involved with one another. Her wife dates men, and her boyfriend is exclusive to her. I met with her and her friend Celia* in a mutual friend’s apartment, as people wandered in and out around us.

Shoshana started at the beginning. “I’ve always gone out with guys, and I’ve always been only interested in guys, but this one girl[...] I’m really in love with her.”

Before Mila was her wife, she was Shoshana’s best friend. They were inseparable for three years, and then, “after a while we were kissing and stuff, and we were like ‘oh this is funny,’ and then, ‘hey, we actually like kissing,’ and then ‘hey, we actually like each other.’” After that, their main topic of conversation was how in love they were.

They married, fairly spontaneously, in the Cinque Terre on a boat, after the waters turned international. Only a few friends, including Jack, were present. “Basically we just went out to sea, went swimming, saw the sun was setting,[and then] got married.

We were on vacation so I guess [Jack] just went with it,” said Mila.

Marriage was never a concept to which Shoshana ascribed much value. She grew up thinking marriage was for papers, or for insurance if someone died. But her marriage to Mila feels different. “The fact that we’re married is just a funny story, but the fact that we’re married didn’t change anything at all, it didn’t make us more unified, or less. I married her because I feel

like I’ll be in love with her forever.”

They’re coming up on the trip now; Celia notes the bright flower streamers attached from the wainscoting above a bedroom door to the opposite wall, painting splotches in the dark room.

Shoshana keeps reaching back to grab the radiator behind her, running her fingers over the flower decal covered in silver paint.

She can’t parallel the discussion of either relationship, because for her they exist on separate planes, and she doesn’t have relationship rules, because she feels like they make themselves.

When Shoshauna meets people, she sees it in terms of what they can bring into each other’s lives, and this translates over into her romantic connections. Jack brings her peace and quiet, while Mila makes her feel like a part of a whole. “It’s a really different world inside, like with her and with him I’m just a different person as well.”

“With Jack I clearly know what it is. When I left to Canada, he said ‘I’ll wait for you,’ and I just left thinking we’ll see what happens. At the time, he had said, ‘find yourself, it makes sense; it would just make me kind of sad if you thought [it wasn’t] enough to just be with me.’”

Shoshana doesn’t want to date other people, because when people ‘date’ they’re creating something together, but she does think it would be enriching if they allowed themselves to have outside relations.

“Sometimes I see a person, and I just want to have sex with this person. I don’t want to have a relationship with them, I just want to share something with this person and I know it’s go[ing] be a good experience.”

Shoshauna says that she’s often asked about the ability to love more than one person.

Common are notions of ‘the relationship’ as something that exists only in the realm of exclusivity, as if it cannot exist or be true if something else exists or is true.

The common assumption is that this love, this truth, is a sort of finite commodity.

Jealousy, for her, is seen as more of a natural oscillation of insecurity. She would get jealous if Jack had sex with someone else, but only because she would worry that her skill would be compared to the skill of the new partner. She says that no one ‘is’ someone’s, but that people can easily feel like they’re not unique or ‘not enough,’ and that someone else is better.

But she gets the love from both sides, so she thinks she shouldn’t have any jealousy. And Jack has never said anything about it. She thinks Mila worries sometimes,

Illustration Catherine Polcz

though, about not being her paramount. “She’s kind of scared that she’s not going to be the ultimate one, but she is. She will always be.”

I’m more comfortable now, and Shoshana is pointing out the stacked lines built by the tower of National Geographics, and running her eyes and fingers over the different thicknesses. She starts to stroke at a grey and black crinkle, alone amongst the golden ones. I reach forward and pull it out; it’s a woman’s butt: The Daily’s sex issue. She’s surprised by the butt, and stops talking.

Her friend Celia* moves from the chair full of streamers to the arm of the couch, and says, “I believe that it’s possible to have connections with more than two different people in different ways [...] but

I don’t think people take seriously this thing with Mila. They’re like ‘oh you’re just two stupid best friends who love each other.’”

Shoshana agrees, but she says it doesn’t upset her. “I think they just can’t fathom it, [...] they don’t think of it as like, I’m married to a guy. [...] It’s not held to the same standard, definitely. People imagine that if two girls are getting married like, oh they’re best friends, and we are best friends, but that’s not why we got married. If we were just best friends we’d only get a best friends certificate, or something. It’s something I’m pretty frank about. And I’m really, really proud of it, because I love her so much.”

She thinks that the word marriage, disregarding the parties involved, carries a traditionalist connotation, and even though people’s

relationships may not play out on this stage, marriage as a union is coloured by it’s previous historical roles. And the general conceptions that people bear, regardless of their intention, still show this. “I’m happy that we can say we can marry two women; we just don’t know how to say it. And it’s good, because it’s not like it [was before].”

Shoshana leans back, and reaches for the radiator again. “For me, because [marriage] is not one thing, so long as you love the person, the people, you’re with; then that’s what matters.” *names have been changed All that Naked Business is a column on sex. Emery can be reached at allthatnakedbusiness@mcgilldaily.com

culture

The McGill Daily Thursday, February 7, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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WHAT’S THE HAPS

Bar des Arts: Bar des Africa Arts Lounge Thursday February 7 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Free The regular Bar des Arts crew will feature the African Studies Students’ Association and Daraja, an African field studies student group which supports grassroots projects in East Africa. Purchase a few Ugandan curios and enjoy some grilled cheese and one-dollar Ephémère as you contemplate Edward Said.

Anarchist Cabaret: Desire, Eroticism and Anarchy Bar l’Alizée 900 Ontario East Friday February 8 7:00 p.m.

Pay-what-you-can Photo Laurent Bastien Corbeil | The McGill Daily

Kafka’s Ape: A report to the corporation Adaptation questions how human we really are Lindsey Kendrick-Koch The McGill Daily

I

n Kafka’s Ape, director Guy Sprung of Montreal’s Infinithéâtre conjures the legendary and highly cynical story A Report to an Academy of playwright Franz Kafka. In his modified version of the short story, Sprung plunges into Kafka’s chilling world at the Infinithéâtre, which is located at the Bain St. Michel in Mile End. In the original narrative, the ape, namely Red Peter, recounts his evolutionary journey from his cruel capture in the wilderness to the loss of his autonomy and finally his adaptation to the human way of life.

While Sprung preserves a fair amount of Kafka’s original text, he changes Red Peter’s profession after he evolves into a human being. In the Kafka original, he is displayed as a variety-show curiosity working as an able-bodied musician in the Music Hall, whereas Sprung’s modern-day version casts him as a mercenary soldier for a private company called Graywater as well as, of course, the star of a reality show called Combat Missions. Changes aside, the theme of the inhumane abuse of the ape and his disturbingly ironic “evolutionary fast-forwarding” from ape-hood to humanity remains a constant. Kafka’s condemnation of the monstrous treatment of humans by fellow humans and the decadence of warfare still comes through. Relevant a century ago

in the World War I era, and several centuries ago when Europeans ruthlessly captured and enslaved ‘exotic’ indigenous peoples and brought them back home to display, it can be argued that this depiction of inhumanity is still relevant today with the ongoing War on Terror.

Sprung cunningly depicts humanity at its disturbingly warlike “height of civilization.” Instead of addressing the traditional academy Kafka had in mind, Red Peter speaks to an audience of Graywater company shareholders. This company – of which Red Peter is proud to say he has become a “full-fledged employee” – is a deliberate parody of the reallife Blackwater (now coincidently renamed ‘Academi’) corporation, a private United States Military company deployed in the Middle East and Africa. The company is known for its involvement in an infamous 2007 shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians.

Spring is crafting a modern world of dystopia, “our own Hell.” Red Peter himself inadvertently outlines what he views as the pinnacle of human achievements as he says, “I had mastered the finer points of civilization: How most quickly and most effectively to kill another human being.”

Sprung aims to convey the frightening nature of human brutality and the evolution of war.

He has a particular focus on the last decade or so, during which he feels that human cruelty has been perfected into a highly efficient, increasingly lethal, and profit-driv-

en military industry.

Kafka’s Ape highlights certain ironies that may come too hardhitting. The plotline is accompanied by video advertisements crudely depicting the intense militarism of Graywater or the so-called “peace” and “security” industry. The company’s slogans: “Live free or die” and “Make a killing – invest in Graywater,” illustrate Sprung’s marked lack of subtlety. Sprung can be accredited readily with a sharp directedness.

Noteworthy is his eerie juxtaposition of a Graywater combat promotional video with a recording of a musical piece by Mozart.

Beyond the theme of human violence, Sprung highlights how Red Peter’s tale is also a story of an identity lost. This theme clearly shines through in Kafka’s narrative, Sprung notes, as Kafka was a secularized Jew who had lost his culture and religious identity in the sea of the European diaspora.

The play, told through an overarching monologue style, makes it easy to understand these personal sentiments, particularly Red Peter’s sense of loss. His initial resentment toward his brutal capture and distaste for human life is obvious. We sympathize with his desire to imitate humans and become a “civilized North American” through the false promise of freedom. Though he denies any thorough allegiance to humanity, he’s fallen into a delusion, possessing a crazed enthusiasm for his new role as a

combat instructor for the corporation, so much so that he has trouble recalling his previous life as an ape.

The ape protagonist, played by Howard Rosenstein, gives the audience a tangible sense of Red Peter’s mental struggle. We see this from his comical, idiosyncratic pronunciation of the English language to his commentary on the peculiar habits of human engagement. The same can be said for his expert portrayal of animalistic, ape-like mannerisms. Red Peter’s wife, an ape that “unfortunately never learned Human Being Speak,” is practically forgotten in the performance, and plays little more than the role of a prop. Sprung says the wife’s ‘less evolved’ nature provides an important contrast to Red Peter. She goes through the transformation of an ape into a circus creature animal spectacle donning by gaudy makeup and dress.

It becomes difficult to shake the unnerving feeling this play gives, which is at the core of so much dystopian literature. In a satirical story of an ape torn from the arcadia of jungle freedom and forced to endure a chilling descent into the depths of human corruption – which he honestly believes to be its zenith – it brings up question of we should find what is presented humourous.

Kafka’s Ape is playing at Infinithéâtre at Bain St. Michel until February 17 and is $20 for students and $25 for regular admission.

The Anarchist Writers Bloc is having a cabaret and book launch for Le jardin des rêves, an erotic novel by their own Bruno Massé.

The cabaret is open-mic, billed as a carnival-esque derision of power and celebration of poetic outbursts.

En Route To Heavy MTL: Ogenix, Projekt F, D.O.T. and Truth or Scare Katacombs 1635 St. Laurent February 7 8:30 p.m. $12 advance, $15 at the door Grab a black t-shirt, throw some horns, and let your inner headbanger take control for a night, as six judges score these amusingly-named local bands. See who will get one step closer to a spot on the stage at the Heavy MTL 2013 festival.

Tchukon and DJ Andy Couchman PHI Centre 407 St. Pierre February 9 8:00 p.m. $16.25 advance, $21.25 at the door Normally we wouldn’t suggest such a highpriced show, but this one’s unique: Tchukon is a legendary local four-piece electro funk outfit that played the city’s stages in 1980s. In celebration of Black History Month 2013, frontman Slim Williams has, for the first time in 23 years reunited the band – for one night only.

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culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Synth-pop salutation Mozart’s Sister says “Hello” Joanna Schacter The McGill Daily

P

erhaps it’s fitting that a first EP entitled Hello begins with a song named for its creator. “Mozart’s Sister,” the first number off this four-track EP is named after its soulful singer, and kicks off a fittingly honest, personal collection of four tracks.

“I’ll never be more than number two.../but at least two’s better than three,” she sings, bubbly and self-deprecating. Mozart’s Sister, then, is the embodiment of greatness in the shadow of those larger, but not necessarily more superior, than yourself.

“I think the name [I chose] comes from wanting to find my own path, knowing I was a bit of an underdog, feeling [like] an outsider that was struggling to be heard in my creative collaborations.,” explained Caila Thompson-Hannat, the voice of the one-woman pop production.

“I had played in a lot of bands.

I was constantly frustrated at hearing things in my head and not being able to manifest them through verbal communication with other band members,” she said, when asked about how she started this project.

“So I bought a computer, something I had been somewhat opposed to at the time, and learned how to use it to craft songs.”

That investment certainly did not diminish the quality of Hello.

“Don’t Leave It To Me” is vociferously melancholy. “Can’t we always be together?” is the album’s crooning plea. Every phrase

hangs heavy, resonating with the strength of the tone behind it.

The lack of fireworks, coupled with honest-to-goodness vocal ability, is what sets Mozart’s Sister apart. Sincerity and humility are recurring undercurrents. More than anything, they’re refreshing: “I moved to Montreal almost six years ago. I always wanted to live in Montreal. I remember visiting here when I was a teen and thinking it was the raddest place ever.

I’m originally from the West Coast.

Though I love Montreal, I am a proud West Coast Hippy Bitch.”

Said Thompson-Hannat: “When I started Mozart’s Sister I wanted music people could dance to. So I hope people want to dance to it.”

“Contentedness” presents further verification of this songstress’ ability (not that the first two tracks leave you needing proof ). While her voice is lovely to take in, it’s also significant and expressive. “I’ve been slowing down,” is the languid opener here, slowly sliding through in to “questions spinning on a spinning wheel.” Smooth lyricism and a voice that can handle it make for audible bliss. “Hey friend, hey there,” is spoken softly between two lines, interrupting quiet synths and drawing attention back to the strongest parts of Hello: voice and feeling.

“I picked the name Hello because I like how many ways you can say it,” she says, sincere as ever. “Everyone says it […] and it can mean many different things.

I wrote these songs a while ago.

They sound different to me now, just as the way you say hello to a

Courtesy of Katie Jung

friend sounds differently than if you say it to a lover, or to an exlover. Since these songs were written, I’ve had four different apartments, three boyfriends, and made a group of friends I think I would like to die beside. Much has changed, but the songs are the same. It’s seeing the same things through the infinite lens of a changing life. Hello said many different ways. Forever.”

Synth pop sparkle and a catchy, “I got news for ya baby,” gets a twist in “Single Status.” Quiet and low-

key, the anthem of careless acceptance and nonchalance is accompanied by cheeky whistling and spoken with finality; “hello/I can’t come to the phone right now/I’m busy.”

“I’d call this record a digital lo-fi record. I like that things sound ‘digital.’ I think it’s cool.

I made everything using ‘lite’ plugins, and guitars and keyboards plugged straight into the computer. It’s an extremely expressive EP; it runs the gamut emotionally. Whenever I try to make an even-keel record, I feel

like I’m cheating, so often I go high and low. Mozart’s Sister is your friend, she understands you.

Buy her record and then we can all hang out, ya know?”

The only complaint: while four is a respectable number of tracks for an EP, for a first record by such an intriguing, capable artist, four might not be enough to get to know her as much as we would have liked.

“P.S.,” she adds. “Everyone is adventurous when it comes to music, it is connective tissue between interior and exterior experiences.”

Worshipping the iTunes visualizer Escapism pixelated Elena Dugan Archiving the Arcane

S

cience fiction is often derided as the land of the nerds, as the province of those who feel so isolated from society that they have to create a land of their own where they reign supreme. Look at the universe of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, with its colony of mentally enhanced humans preparing to one day descend on a lesser colony of brawny politickers as the ruling class, once the latter realizes they need the genius of the former, of course. It is not uncommon

to suggest that much of what pushes people towards escapist genres like science-fiction and fantasy is a frustration with the mechanics of the world in front of them, with the seemingly unfair way that power and recognition are distributed, with the way that their system of meaning seems out of sync with everyone else’s. So some choose to engulf themselves in fantastical and futuristic systems of meaning, parallel universes with brave new scientific civilizations where the geeks and nerds of the world get their due. Fantasy literature is regarded (at least by its greatest defenders) as the heir to the world’s mythological traditions, to the legends, quests, and heroes that through their phenom-

enological antiquity can masquerade as Truth. Conversely, this argument goes, science fiction is a pure fabrication, an evaluative reaction to modern society, built on the very non-mystical foundations of mathematics, physics, and technology.

It is nothing new to be inspired by that which is man-made – great works of art, literature, and music have long been lauded as expressions of truth, divinity, and life. But can we only be inspired by that which is born out of artistic or religious inspiration? Can only the ineffable humanities be a potent source of capital-T Truth? Is the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) necessarily excluded? Does the fact that some-

thing is physically deconstructable, that we can see its nuts and bolts and break it down to a series of ones and zeroes, does that make anything we find to be an emergent property of it a false imposition?

The iTunes visualizer turns the music you listen to into a quasi-galactic landscape of moving and morphing balls of light. It is the cyber-equivalent of a lava lamp. A science-oriented friend of mine asserts that because it resembles both the movement of molecules and planets, encapsulates a truth about the universe – that random action is really not so random after all, and that different microscopic and macroscopic phenomena differ only in scale and not in inher-

ent essence. This friend finds it to be a potent source of meaning, and something worth contemplating and reflecting upon. It is, of course, a computer program, randomly responding to musical frequencies. But is it impossible to make these synthetic creations into reflections of or channels for the experience of living beings like ourselves? Are the worlds we create for ourselves devoid of meaning, just by virtue of the fact that we are conscious of their craftsmanship?

Elena Dugan writes about religion and myth in the modern world.

You can contact her at arcane@ mcgilldaily.com.

culture

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Photos Laurent Bastien Corbeil | The McGill Daily

Kindred spirits The immersive world of Jason Botkin Charlotte O'Neill Culture Writer

W

alking into Jason Botkin’s exhibit, All Kin, I feel as if I’m walking into a different world altogether. Three-dimensional mythical figures populate every wall and even the ceiling, completely transforming the space into their own territory. To add to the already enchanting environment, music booms from the speakers at the entrance of the gallery, playing catchy lounge-like tunes, endowing the space with a relaxed, contemporary vibe. Projected animations, based on the fabulous creatures inside, reflect onto the buildings surrounding the gallery, expanding the atmosphere even more. All Kin is largely composed of these haunting yet beautiful creatures, made of intricately silkscreened wood.

The most extravagant and eyecatching piece is a wall entirely covered by a monster’s face with an open mouth, which leads into a dark and mysterious room.

Cautious yet intrigued, many of the exhibit attendees tentatively venture into the mouth of the

beast. Inside, the room glows and dark marks adorn the walls, while at the back of the room is a closet-like space where drinks are being served. Botkin is clearly very attuned to detail in his use of space. Looking out of the entranceway from inside the dark room, a completely different monster stares back with illuminated eyes. This one glows in the dark, an even more ominous and menacing creature.

Botkin’s talents, however, are not strictly limited to these overwhelming, larger-than-life compositions. Closer to the DJ booth are 24 smaller pieces, each shaped like a portrait of a different masklike face. With their eccentric mixture of colours and patterns, these pieces are immediately visually pleasing. But viewed through the provided 3D glasses, each mask morphs into a completely different face as colours, or layers, from the complex 15-colour silk-screening process are taken away. I learn from Botkin that this unique 3D illusion was discovered serendipitously, and that even now he does not always know in advance what the final effect will be.

Botkin’s work may mimic some aspects of street art, yet it

often exceeds all but the very best examples of the genre. His values, too, are similar: Botkin holds dear the notion of being free to produce what you want with no bounds. It’s about communication through art and exceeding the limits of the traditional gallery experience. Botkin said that the main purpose of All Kin, like much of his work, was to question identities and masks. Using Facebook as an example, Botkin elaborates his belief that today, so much of what he sees is a mask, or a chosen identity, that people decide to show to the world. His work is intended to look through those masks and portray the spiritual being within. On a metaphysical level, his work explores the reincarnation of the soul.

In addition to creating his own marvelous works of art, Botkin founded EN MASSE, a project that he developed to give local talent in Montreal a chance to work in a gallery space and exhibit their art in a more sophisticated environment.

His goal is to expose artists from a more underground perspective to the indoor art experience. With Montreal’s struggling art market, not many are given the chance to be supported financially in making

their art. EN MASSE addresses this issue through a collective vision and has helped give attention to many non-traditional artists.

Botkin is also associated with LNDMRK, a company whose primary mandate is to bring international artists to Canada in order to collaborate with them and expose them to the scene in Montreal.

Likewise, LNDMRK exposes local artists to the international art world. The company is unique in that it does not simply depend on a gallery space, but instead works within the Montreal community in an extroverted manner to secure jobs for individual artists. Its goal is to successfully build up attention for street artisits in Montreal and establish a market for it.

From experiencing All Kin first hand, I realize that Botkin’s work is difficult to classify. It sits on the increasingly blurry border between art and entertainment. Each piece is so clearly directed to thrill and excite its viewers and to test the limits of space and design. Even the way the exhibit is constructed plays into the idea of an experience, instead of the simple commodification of framed art. To my horror, I am told that eventually this wonderful and magical world will dis-

appear. The monster entranceway will have to be deconstructed and dissolve into meaningless pieces of wood. As Botkin tells me, with no remorse, everything but the smaller portraits will be taken apart and thrown away, never to be given life again. As Botkin sees it, his work is meant to be seen and to be experienced, not to be stored forever. The pieces are so carefully moulded to the space where they are exhibited, that it is impossible to preserve them. They are simply meant to inspire and amuse, then be put to rest. Drawing inspiration for his art from old renaissance paintings, Mexican muralists, metaphysical paintings and even Egyptian hieroglyphics, Botkin’s art is a psychedelic compound of diverse influences.

While he isn’t interested in storing his art, or selling it on a broad scale, he supports himself through the sale of smaller, less personally important pieces. Instead his goal is much larger: he wants to leave an unforgettable impression on the viewer that will make his message linger in their minds long after the exhibition is destroyed.

All Kin runs from January 29 to March 29 in the LNDMRK space at Project Beaumont (550 Beaumont).

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EDITORIAL

volume 102 number 31

This institution is still too white

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

Queen Arsem-O’Malley

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com

coordinating news editor

Juan Camilo Velásquez news editors

Laurent Bastien Corbeil Lola Duffort Farid Rener Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

commentary editors

Jacqueline Brandon Steve Eldon Kerr culture editors

Kaj Huddart Hillary Pasternak features editor

Christina Colizza science+technology editor

Anqi Zhang

health&education editor

Ralph Haddad sports editor

Evan Dent

multimedia editor

Kate McGillivray photo editor

Hera Chan illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva design&production editors

Edna Chan Rebecca Katzman

copy editor

Nicole Leonard web editor

Tom Acker le délit

Nicolas Quiazua

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Hera Chan contributors Hannah Besseau, Lucy Cameron, Joelle Dahm, Elena Dugan, Lindsey KendrickKoch, Esther Lee, Austin Lloyd, Jessie Marchessault, Charlotte O’Neill, Nathalie O’Neill, Catherine Polcz, Omar Saadeh, Emery Saur, Joanna Schacter, Dana Wray

In 2011, 14.2 per cent of McGill University staff self-identified as visible minorities and 23.7 per cent as ethnic minorities. Currently, there is one person of colour amongst the 25 senior administrators at the University. The Principal’s Taskforce on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement released a report in 2011 that asserted the University demonstrated “an extreme lack of diversity of faculty; lack of awareness [and] commitment to diversity as more than a catch phrase; [and a] lack of understanding opportunities and benefits of diversity.”

McGill exists in a society characterized by racism built into its very structures and institutions, which the University not only fails to actively combat, but perpetuates through its hiring and promotion practices, as well as it curriculum, campus culture, and student life.

In its self-report forms for staff and faculty, for example, the University does not allow individuals to identify as belonging to more than one minority group, and thus fails to incorporate people with different backgrounds and perhaps less privilege. One of McGill’s largest flaws is its failure to recognize the relation between race and opportunity inherent in society, and the lack of attempts to remedy this.

The denial of opportunity for people of colour at the University results in their severe under-representation among the ranks of academics, staff, and the senior administration.

The institutional culture of post-secondary institutions has been proven by a study published Museus et al. in the Review of Higher Education to directly affect the experiences and outcomes of students of colour, and thus it is crucial that McGill addresses its structural problems of racism.

The tangible influence of structural racism can result in students of colour feeling isolated and under-served during their time at university. The lack of visible ethnic minorities in positions of leadership and guidance means that

students may lack mentors that can relate to their experience as a person of colour, or the established social infrastructure they may rely on for support. Moreover, the lack of diversity among faculty members affects the content of curricula, which is mostly focused in traditional Western thought, as evidenced by the history of a lack of support for programs such as African and Indigenous studies. The inability to connect with the curricular content, and the tacit erasure of racialized identities and narratives within the classroom means students of colour may feel disenfranchised, and classrooms and conferences become subtly hostile and unsafe spaces.

Although the University created the Joint Board-Senate Committee on Equity and the Social Equity Diversity Education (SEDE) office, there have not been any efforts to substantially address the issue. Many of the recommendations coming from the subcommittees are not acted upon, and the University has yet to fully commit its finances to equity education through SEDE. It is not enough to pay lip service to racial equality, and then sweep a resource like the Principal’s Taskforce on Diversity under the rug and refuse to constructively engage with its implications and recommendations in a sustained manner. Continuous and conscientious monitoring is necessary to identify and reform the subtle operations entrenched in McGill’s institutional culture that reproduce racial inequalities.

The administration must pursue an explicit top-down anti-racist agenda that confronts hiring policies, career advancement and curriculum reform, and strive to change institutional culture at the level of its staff, as well as address the subjective experience of discrimination among students of colour.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata In the February 4 issue, page 5, the photograph was incorrectly attributed to Robert Smith. The photograph should have been credited to Lindsay Cameron. The Daily regrets the error.

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lies, half-truths, and fuuuuuuuuuuuck

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Incidents of “visceral flashbacks” on the rise among fourth-year students WalkSafe, MROs, Fendelson weigh in on epidemic Heaven Sent The Twice-a-Weekly

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n Saturday, WalkSafe McGall responded to a call from a panicked fourthyear student who was suffering from “intense, visceral” flashbacks to his time spent in the MiltonParc area. The episode began as the student saw a discarded Frosh cup, a sickly shade of flourescent green. “Thehorrorthehorror the hooooorrooorrr,” he was reported to scream.

WalkSafe reported that the student’s flashbacks were more than visual. “He said that he could taste the warm Boreale in his mouth, could feel the next morning hangover, could feel the August sun beating on his shoulders” as he raved into the night. He also reportedly heard the McGall fight song “multiple times,” but eye witnesses at the scene heard only the echoes of a house party happening three blocks away, mixed in with his shouts.

This incident is one of many reported this month, as recently divulged in a McGall MRO. “This time of year is especially difficult for students, especially those close to graduating who have to relive the trauma of their first years in the Milton-Parc area over and over again in what should be a simple commute home. Also, please don’t pee in the alleys,” reported McGall’s PR Mascot, Sweetie Boy-Sweet.

One student reported excrucriating migraines as she witnessed a group of first-years, decked in puke-suits, partaking in their first Carnival. Huddled in a ball on the ground, she attempted to warn these students, but her babbling was mostly incoherent. This reporter’s best attempt to transcribe these mutterings would look like: “ohgodpleaseno, stop, this is too much, so cold, the beer, the beer, the puke running down my chin, onto-my-suit.

Ohgod.” The group, reportedly on the Carnival team For Whom the Balls Toll, merely dismissed these

“haters” and moved onto their next event.

Many students are wondering how they can avoid such visceral reactions. “So, do we, like cut up on Pins and skip it altogether? How far north do I have to go? Just getting to the 80 [bus] at Pins might be difficult,” said fourth-year student Bo Plankton.

“I mean, BDP is right there. Oh. BDP. The cups, the balls, going everywhere, a person crouching under you to pick up the balls, no room no room no room anywhere. It is only a Tuesday.

Packed like sardines...”

Psychologist and VP of Student Life Mortono Joaquin Fendelson claimed to have some tips for students, available during his “many meetings with student groups this semester.” Fendelson has spread the following tips: “Never, ever, ever, go into New Rez. You might remember the floor seven party you went to with promises of free pizza but all that was there was five guys playing beer

pong, and the stickiest floors you had ever felt. You might remember eating yet another pasta in your to-go box in the cafeteria. It is highly suggested you stay away.”

“Similarly, Upper Rez is a place that shall not be named. Similarly, you might not want to go to the Greater Toronto Area [GTA] to prevent further flashbacks. Too many people you know from Rez are there. Think of it – Scarborough.

Now run away from that place.”

Fendelson also states that despite these warnings, one should be able to look upon first year with “Fond Memories (TM).”

“Frosh is a wonderful event that brings people together on campus, much like a giant fruit salad, or not protesting, ever (but, if you have to, please form an orderly queue, and orderly is defined by this new document). I mean, not that McGall’s campus needs to be much more together. It is truly the happiest place on Earth, a wonderland, and Frosh and first-year is an intergral part of this Eden we have cre-

ated on Earth. Also, please don’t yell swear words or pee in the alleys or drink outside Lower Field.

There are fines for that.”

While filing this story, the original reporter was unable to finish, as he was given a tip about another incident occurring at Tokyo Nightclub on a Thursday night. Upon seeing the Marlin hanging over the queue, he went into an immediate fugue state.

His recorder, turned over to this reporter, reveals these quotes: “I am the Marlin. The Marlin is I. Where am I going? Where have I been? This is where I’ve been, inside the Marlin, like Jonah. I am Jonah. What is my test?” And he was gone. He has not been seen in days, though reports have placed him at various Mile End locales, trying to “shed his skin, or former identity, like a snake.”

WalkSafe, in wake of these incidents, has pledged extra support for students, while also advising them to take the Metro or something.

FUCK THIS! F F

uck probably not getting into McGill since the only thing they care about is high school transcripts!

uck icy roads and time difference.

Fuck Tim Hortons bagels and Valentine’s Day. But Fuck Yeah all the discounted chocolate on the 15th and FUCK YEAH the 76 per cent.

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uck job applications. Fuck social media. Fuck job applications incorporated within social media. Fuck the mind numbingly boring yet excruciating minutes spent agonizing about my fucking LinkedIn profile and whether my Twitter handle is ‘creative’ and ‘witty’ enough for the company I want to work at.

My ego is already so, so bruised from the number of rejections it has been battered with and the only way I can apply for a job with you is to “like” your Facebook page?

So you can see and judge my Facebook profile that I’ve actively kept as anonymous as possible? What the fuck do my stupid status updates and Mexican wrestler Halloween costumes have anything to do with your fucking publishing company?

I HAVE A DEGREE FROM MCGILL FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Just hire me already, please?

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uck this newspaper. Fuck these slow-ass editors who chat and giggle and have the dub-step version of Happy Birthday on repeat and put off their editing. Didn’t they learn in fucking elementary school that you have to eat your vegetables before you get dessert? And SERIOUSLY fuck staying in this office until 3 a.m. every Wednesday and Friday and shitty grades and flu galore and failed relationships and never getting to do anything fun. But most of all, fuck the fact that I need to leave this hell-hole in April, with only my Happy Birthday dub-step to remind me of happy times.

F

uck the fucking salt on fucking McTavish that turns your fucking shoes white and ruins your favourite pair of jeans.

Fuck the cutting of Arts classes that makes me regret being an Arts freshman at this fine beacon on top of the hill.

Fuck immigration, fuck passports, bring back John Lennon.

Fuck the new world order.

Fuck splitting headaches and alcoholinduced heartburn and hangovers.

Fuck people who have no idea you exist who turn your world into Dante’s inferno and a Jean-Paul Sartre-induced existential crisis.

Or a fucking series of crises.

Fuck white people who live in a vacuum and think racism is a myth and that Arab people still ride camels to school.

Fuck This Poetry Special Two: Party Pants I’m here and I just wanna dance.

Don’t put my hands inside your pants.

You’re hot and all, but not tonight.

I told you no; this isn’t right.

But I was wrong, and you did not.

You weren’t the gentleman I thought.

You looked at me and held my hands, And tried to get them in your pants.

I know you’re drunk, and so am I, And I don’t want to say goodbye, But you’re just making this so hard By thinking this is in your cards.

Then, tried to take me to your place, In hopes of getting past first base.

Well, none of these attempts succeeded.

Which was when you finally conceded.

And no, I’m not being a tease When I don’t get down on my knees.

I’m not leading you on at all When we make out against the wall.

I understand, you had to try.

And you could be a decent guy.

I’m not scarred, I’ll be alright.

Maybe we’ll meet another night.

I made my boundaries very clear; I’m not as drunk as I appear.

I refused to be your lover, Told you to go find another.

So guys, if you are reading this And this sounds like a girl you’ve kissed, Or if this sounds like your good friend, Who’s also tired of this trend,

I’m not offended, and not mad.

I don’t think what you’re doing’s bad.

But for me, on this occasion, It’d take a lot more than persuasion.

To you, I strongly recommend Bringing this bullshit to an end.

You refused to let me be, Which I took to mean that you agree To all my rules and stipulations When it comes to our relations.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, February 7, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

compendium!

Obama adopts University protest protocol Leaked documents justify extra-judicial murder; Obama “overjoyed” Euan EK The Twice-a-Weekly

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he United States of America has adopted McGall University’s protest protocol in order to “more easily carry out extrajudicial killings.”

According to a leaked document obtained by The Twice-aWeekly, the Obama administration adopted the protocol in order to “obscure” the legal framework surrounding the killing of “American citizens and the Other.”

The document, dated March 2012, shows that Obama adopted McGall University’s Provisional Protest Protocol – released in February 2012 following a highlytechnical and musical raid of McGall administration offices by daring bandits – because it felt the document “laid out in clearest terms the legal imprecision which characterizes application of the law in the contemporary world order.”

The document also deals specifically with the issue of when and how the president can order the killing of a U.S. citizen, concluding that “activities which continue beyond the normal operating hours of the Nation” can be met with “the full force of the United States military... and all of the guns in here, baby.”

Citing the McGall protocol at several points, the document says that an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may

determine if someone “deserves” to live, depending on whether or not the target has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is no evidence suggesting that the target has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently,” “deserves,” or “activities.”

In a key passage in the document – which is unsigned – it argues that, regarding “human beings on planet Earth [...] the law and other paperwork will not immunize them from a lethal operation.”

This so-called “death-clause” is widely believed to have been adopted following talks held between Obama and McGall University VicePrincipal (Counting and Adding Up) Mantony C. Assi. Obama was said to be “inspired” by the “utter audacity” of Assi’s work on McGall’s provisional protocol, which included clauses prohibiting protests that “implied threats to persons” or “impede[d] the conduct of University activities.”

“Neither of those clauses had ever appeared in a legal document before,” said Obama. “But then they were put there, and stayed there. I have to say I was very inspired by Assi’s work.”

“Following the successful adoption of rules like that at a public institution of higher learning in a place frequented by people who can reasonably be expected to know better,” said Obama, “I feel it is safe to assume not enough people care and so I will get away with this egre-

gious abuse of power.”

The document does not specify the “minimum legal requirements” for launching a killing spree, insisting that “all murder” would be constitutionally justified as long as the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict,” as defined by Assi in 2012.

Assi famously defined “armed conflict” as “those activities that contain the potential for implied disagreements.”

The paper justifies the exclusion of the courts by arguing that “judicial enforcement of such orders would require the court to supervise the president and his national security advisers” and so be “incompatible with the Obama administration’s aims and goals.”

The document also provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of the wider international legal framework that was inaugurated by McGall’s provisional protest protocol, and that the U.S. believes supports its controversial drones policy.

Principally, the document shows that the U.S. now believes the words “implications, imply, and implied” are now interchangeable with “think, thought, and perhaps,” and, further, that the word “different” has now “been successfully replaced with the word ‘threat,’ as was planned in the 2001 White Paper, ‘What to do about the Other.’”

The leaking of the document, with its dense legal argument justifying the targeted killings of U.S.

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to communicate one’s thoughts, beliefs and opinions, and to comment on select issues, including the right to criticize nonnormative elements of society at large, and University Radicals (TM).

Freedom of association and freedom of peaceful assembly mean the right to form international development charities, and participate in their activities by selling samosas, and to engage in meetings and demonstrations free from the threat of having your preconceptions and received wisdom challenged.

At the same time, these rights are subject to limits established by extra-judicial powers and by the efficacy of campus security.

In particular, there is a need to safeguard other core institutional objectives, including the acquisition of private funds from wealthy donors and access to board meetings by corporate dudes. Consumers of the McGall University Education (TM) must be able to carry out their normal activities without undue interference, and in an environment protected by “good guys with guns.”

McGall University is committed to upholding these values and these rights at any cost.

that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority: the claimed power to declare anyone a threat and kill them, far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement. What was that damn University thinking?”

Draft statement of values concerning freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly

Operating procedures regarding demonstrations, protests, and occupations on McGall University campuses cGall University brings together consumers from across the world in a high-pressure environment designed to inculcate obedience toward authority and tradition. McGall is a place for monologues and autocratic grandstanding, both inside and outside the classroom. The University values a limited variety of opinions, and as a matter of principle discounts the lived experiences of its members, encouraging self-censorship and groupthink in accordance with the University’s motto: “Different, but not too different.”

Tolerance is required for the meaningful expression of dissent, hence it is unsurprising that the administration reserves extrajudicial powers in order to prevent inconvenience that may arise from the means by which opinions may be expressed. We also decline to apologize for the deliberately vague syntax of our documents.

Members of the University community and its investors have the right of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of peaceful assembly, which are defined as follows: Freedom of expression means the right

Illustration Amino Acid | The Twice-a-Weekly

citizens, is certain to escalate the arguments that have been swirling around the issue.

Speaking to the New York Times, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project, denounced the memorandum as “a profoundly disturbing document,” adding: “It’s hard to believe

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hese operating procedures provide the framework for determining when attention or intervention may or may not prove necessary in the case of demonstrations, protests, occupations, and actions that contravene internal policies or prohibit investment opportunities. In general, tolerance is expected for the expression of dissent, and for a certain degree of inconvenience arising from the means by which dissenting opinions may be expressed. At all times, decisions will be sensitive to context and will reflect the exercise of extreme extra-judicial authority by those in charge.

These operating procedures explain how the University will manage, order, regulate, and structure the possible field of action of students.

Demonstrations, assemblies, and protests are deemed to be peaceful if they involve no use of bodily limbs, vocal chords, or, in the case of internet protest, the capslock key, and if their intensity, intentionality, duration, and location are such that, given the circumstances surrounding them, they: Allow the University to reproduce and replicate the disciplined environment nec-

essary for the reproduction of social norms and currently-accepted truth-values; permit the conduct of University activities, such as counting and adding up, or of meetings and events which have been arranged for Paris, Berlin, or Rio de Janeiro; allow members of the University to enact their assigned role as required for the perpetual reformation of Western ontological values; occur in spaces or rooms that are generally called “caves in the desert” or “the bottom of the sea”; avoid unreasonable risks to University property or assets.

Demonstrations that do not substantially interfere with communication or access to both the mental and physical space of the campus are an acceptable form of dissent.

Intensity, intentionality, duration, and location will be assessed when, and if, we feel like it.

We will hold two Consultation Fairs: at McDonald’s (TM) Campus (February 30) and on the downtown campus (February 31), where members of the community are invited to share their views. More details about the time and location of these events will be shared with you on those dates.