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NEWS

173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

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Franco Vaccarino named next U of G president

Michael Long

The University of Guelph has appointed Professor Franco Vaccarino as its eighth president and vice-chancellor. Professor Vaccarino is currently Principal of the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), a satellite campus of the U of T with roughly 10,000 undergraduate students, and is also a Vice-President at the University of Toronto. He will assume his new job on Aug. 15 when Alastair Summerlee retires from the position he has held since 2003.

The appointment was formally announced at the University of Guelph’s 50th Anniversary kick-off celebration on Tuesday, Jan. 21.

Details about the yearlong presidential selection process itself are confidential, so it is difficult to say what the presidential selection

committee liked most about Vaccarino’s application.

When the Ontarion asked Vaccarino about his vision for the future of the school, he declined to discuss detailed plans at such an early stage, but also indicated that his vision holds no immediate plans to shake things up. He intends to do a lot of listening in these first months and years.

“The vision for this institution should be a shared vision,” said Vaccarino. “Building on the U of G’s strengths and further developing and promoting its potential for continued excellence is very important to me.”

Vaccarino arrives at the U of G with a reputation for having significantly expanded the UTSC campus and faculty. At UTSC, he hired dozens of new professors and made substantial infrastructure investments, including the construction

of a new science building, instructional centre, and aquatics facility to be used for the 2015 Pan American Games.

Professor Vaccarino is also proud of the strategic planning process he helped implement during his tenure, saying it “has helped position UTSC as a key intellectual and cultural hub in the eastern Greater Toronto Area.”

After completing his PhD in psychology at McGill University, Vaccarino started his career at UTSC in 1984 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Vaccarino would go on to chair the Department of Psychology at the St. George campus, but prior to that he worked for almost a decade in various executive capacities at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in downtown Toronto. In 2007, he was appointed Principal

of UTSC and Vice-Principal of the University of Toronto (a position that, similar to the University of Guelph, has a five-year term). In 2012, Vaccarino was appointed to a second five-year term.

Despite this career-long commitment to the Toronto campus, Prof.

Vaccarino says he has often admired the University of Guelph from afar.

“Over the years I have followed the wonderful journey of this great university and have become a big fan of the U of G – its culture, teaching, research and strong spirit,” said Vaccarino. “So when this opportunity presented itself, it seemed like the perfect ‘fit’ for me.”

He also says he looks forward to resettling in Guelph.

“I have been to this beautiful city a number of times over the years and that is another thing that enticed us.

My wife, Cosmina, and I are excited

and energized about moving to Guelph in August and look forward to becoming part of this wonderful community.”

Dick Freeborough, Chair of the University of Guelph Board of Directors, said Professor Vaccarino was singled out among all the candidates who applied – from in Canada and abroad – for the “breadth and depth of his character and capacity.”

“Professor Vaccarino has had a distinguished academic career and a proven record in organizational leadership,” said Freeborough. “He is a remarkable scholar and educator as well as an accomplished administrator. He has an entrepreneurial spirit, a powerful sense of community and a profound commitment to societal engagement.

He clearly has what it takes to lead the university in the years to come.”

Student Life does Intercultural Awareness Week

Abhishek Atre

The University of Guelph is celebrating its first ever Intercultural Awareness Week from Jan. 27 to Jan 31. This cultural showcase aims to raise awareness about cultural diversity at the U of G, while creating an atmosphere where students can feel comfortable sharing their cultural diversity and learning about other cultures.

The Office of Intercultural Affairs from Student Life spearheaded the weeklong campaign with input from a committee comprised of staff and students. The week’s events place emphasis on four key aspects of culture: performing arts, foods of the world, visual art, and religion and spirituality.

Candace Stewart and Megan Fillipi, two coordinators of the Intercultural Awareness Week events, have high hopes for the initiative.

Stewart said that the ultimate goal is “for our university community to appreciate the significance and benefits of cultural diversity at the University of

Guelph and in Canada.”

Fillipi added that the team is “excited to celebrate the diversity that exists at the University of Guelph, and to provide a venue for the community to discover, share, and learn about the various cultures represented on our campus.”

The week launched with an event that got students to design a representation of their cultural identity on a T-shirt, and a panel discussion entitled “Co-existing in our Intercultural World,” in the University Centre (UC) Courtyard.

In the following days, students were given a chance learn about various faiths in a “speed dating” game, and attend a cultural exposition that included performances from students of various backgrounds. The events will continue on Thursday Jan. 30 with an Intercultural Food Tasting Event that features cuisine from four different regions in the world: Africa, India, Saudi Arabia and the Southern USA. This event takes place in the Science Complex Atrium and tickets can be bought at the Information Desk on the first floor of the UC.

PHOTO BY ABHISHEK ATRE

Intercultural Awareness Week volunteers, from left to right: Shannon Shum, Hong Lam, Gbolahan “GB” Olarewaju, Shanella Ramkissoon, Dana Plant, and Melanie Vaughan.

On Friday Jan. 31, the week will close with a Cultural Art Display in the UC Courtyard, where arts and crafts from various donors and students from the Studio Art program

will be displayed. Student volunteers will give henna tattoos and write a word of your choice in calligraphy in a different language.

Hospitality Services is also helping

to promote the week. They will offer entrees from various ethnic regions at the Creelman, Prarie and Mom’s Kitchen cafeterias throughout the week.

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NEWS

www.theontarion.com

U of G’s 50 Anniversary Ceremony th

Lincoln Alexander given own day and a new president introduced Lindsay Pinter The University of Guelph marked the beginning of its yearlong 50th anniversary celebrations on Tuesday Jan. 21 with a ceremony in the University Center that included the inauguration

of Lincoln Alexander Day and the surprise introduction of the U of G’s newly appointed eighth president and vice-chancellor, Franco Vaccarino.

The ceremony began with speeches from President Alastair Summerlee and Provost and VicePresident Maureen Mancuso. The audience was then shown a film showcasing the legacy of the school. Former U of G President Bill Winegard, who appeared in

the film, praised the school for its many achievements over the past 50 years.

“You don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been, and this university knows where it’s been,” said Winegard, indicating the theme of the day.

The occasion, moreover, served to mark Jan. 21 as Lincoln Alexander Day at the University of Guelph. The late

PHOTO BY WENDY SHEPHERD

Former University of Guelph President Bill Winegard (left) applauds alongside U of G 1964 alumni Dennis and Pat Mighton (centre) at the university’s 50th anniversary kick-off celebration.

Macdonald Hall to become CME home

Multimillion-dollar renovation to transform residence into offices, classrooms and more Kelsey Coughlin

The oldest residence at the University of Guelph campus is soon to become the new home for the College of Management and Economics (CME). The Board of Governors has agreed to spend up to $10 million on the renovation, which is set to begin this spring.

The new space will have offices for CME faculty and staff, stateof-the-art classrooms, as well as a home the Centre for Business and Social Entrepreneurship, an organization that gives students the opportunity to work with local businesses and develop plans for their own entrepreneurial ventures.

“We are thrilled that this historic building will become the

gateway to business at Guelph,” said Julia Christensen Hughes, the Dean of the College of Management and Economics. She added that, “Macdonald Hall, with its rich history and future potential, is the perfect spot [for the CME].”

Built in 1903, Macdonald Hall is one of the most iconic landmarks on campus and is currently home to 150 female students.

Throughout the years, thousands of students have called this residence home and the transformation will come as a shock to some. However, Christensen Hughes is promising that the transformation will “honour the history and perennial traditions of Macdonald Hall.” It is also hoped that the transformation will help ensure the longevity of the building, which has been showing its age in recent years, having undergone a roof repair and a series of structural upgrades.

University of Guelph student Brittany Manukian welcomes the change, saying that, “in 100

years, its about time Mac underwent a makeover.”

The Macdonald Hall renovation is just one part of the university’s residence strategic plan. The plan includes a major expansion of Lambton Hall as well as the development of single-student spaces among the family residences on College Avenue. Plans are also in the works for a new all-female residence to take the place of Macdonald Hall.

Students currently residing in Macdonald Hall have no need to worry, for the building will remain a residence until renovations are slated to begin in spring.

The university has also offered assurances that its remaining residence buildings will be sufficient to accommodate future students until new residences are constructed over the next few years.

In the mean time, the College of Management and Economics will be launching a fundraising campaign to support the renovation and its $10 million budget.

Honourable Lincoln Alexander was the University of Guelph’s longest serving chancellor, who held the position for 15 years. With the advent of this honorary day, the U of G paid homage to Alexander’s long and successful career as well as his courage and determination in the face of racism. Alexander became Canada’s first black Member of Parliament after serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and later became the first black Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

“If Lincoln was here, he would have shaken every one of your hands today,” said President Summerlee.

That evening, a documentary titled A Linc in Time: The Lincoln Alexander Story was shown in Rozanski Hall. The documentary focused mainly on Alexander’s personal story as a strong-willed man who valued education. “My father taught me service; my mother taught me the value of education,” said Alexander in the film.

The second – or perhaps third

– exceptional moment arrived with the surprise introduction of the U of G’s newly appointed president, Franco Vaccarino. On stage, Vaccarino offered some words to mark the occasion: “The 50th anniversary is about looking towards a bright and vibrant future while also celebrating the great achievements of the past. From the three founding legacy organizations, to the world-renowned comprehensive university that the University of Guelph has become today, there is so much to celebrate and I am thrilled and honoured to be a part of it.”

But the new president was not the only one to heap praise on the school that day. Students who attended the ceremony tended to react with similarly optimistic words for the future.

“This school makes each student feel like they are a part of a community,” said Gaby Nichols, an undergraduate student.

“And that is something I know the school will continue to make a priority during these next 50 years.”

NEWS

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173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

Student club hosts ‘roundtable’ on Line 9

Five different speakers; five different perspectives on the pipeline Michael Long

Guelph was reminded of its preoccupation with the Line 9 pipeline saga on Tuesday, Jan. 21 as five speakers – representing five decidedly unique perspectives – gathered at The Cornerstone to share their take on the contentious issue. The newly accredited club, called Multi-Disciplinary Roundtable (MDRT), hosted the forum and ensured that the venue was filled to capacity.

“Our goal was to get people of opposite views, as much as we could, under the same roof,” said Jeff Cheng, the ‘Chief of Ideas’ at MDRT. The debate centred on Enbridge Pipeline’s 2012 application to the National Energy Board, where the company asked for approval to reverse the flow of Line 9B, an underground pipeline that runs from North Westover (outside of Hamilton) to Montreal. The reversal would

PHOTO BY WENDY SHEPHERD

Dr. Kurt Annen, Professor of Economics at the U of G, argues that preventing pipeline spills is less a technological question than a matter of ensuring sufficiently stiff regulations. allow Enbridge to transport bitumen from Northern Alberta eastward along the line at 20 per cent higher capacity before.

Kate Emond, a socio-economic specialist at the National Energy Board (NEB) spoke first via Skype from Calgary, and though she couldn’t comment on the “merits of the [Enbridge] application,” she did thoroughly review the ins-and-outs of the application process.

Kurt Annen, a Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, was the next to speak.

Annen began by taking a global economic perspective – noting that demand for Albertan oil was bound to increase – and proceeded to reframe the concern over potential spills.

“Having spills is not necessarily just a technological question,” said Annen. “What I strongly believe is that spills are, to a larger extent, an incentive problem.” And as pipelines are already a heavily regulated industry, he argued, it is not inconceivable that they should be regulated to the extent that spills become economically unviable.

Myeengun Henry, an Aboriginal Traditional Counsellor from Chippewa of the Thames, spoke next, principally about the line’s alleged threat to traditional lands. His presentation was lightest on theory and longest on rhetoric. He led the audience in a drum song, talked of the significance of the Wompum Belt, and spoke of past injustices. But in the end, Henry said, “It was not so much that [Enbridge] wanted to run this pipeline through; my argument was with their failure to live up to their responsibilities to consult First Nations people.”

Shai Burette, an organizer for the Guelph Anti-Pipeline Group, was next to speak. She argued that the 38-year-old pipeline was not fit to handle the increased capacity, that spills

were already common, that the diluted bitumen was more corrosive than regular crude, and that Line 9 would be “complicit in tar sands expansion.” The fact that Enbridge and other research groups dispute these facts is par for the course.

Having spills is not necessarily just a technological question. What I strongly believe is that spills are, to a larger extent, an incentive problem.

- Kurt Annen, Professor of Economics, Univeristy of Guelph

Ben Bradshaw, Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph, was the last to speak.

“If you’re opposed to the tar sands, you know that the weak spot is on pipelines,” said Bradshaw, as he effectively summed up why everyone was there.

And though he spoke against the line, he stressed that all parties must have “the foresight to think about where it is that concessions might make sense to try and build a less oppositional situation.”

MDRT billed the event foremost as a presentation and discussion night, but whatever opportunity there may have been for the speakers to respond to one another directly, or for the audience to participate in a discussion at the end, was regrettably cut short by overlong presentations.

The National Energy Board has until Mar. 19, 2014 to make its decision on whether to approve the reversal of Line 9.

British Conservative Party to endorse min. wage increase Ontario is not alone in mulling an increase to the minimum wage. Lawmakers in Great Britain – from all parties, including the Conservative Party – are backing a change that would increase the minimum wage from £6.31 to £7 ($13 CDN).

Support from Conservatives is somewhat surprising, but analysts suggest that it reflects a growing consensus among Britons that economic recovery must first help low-wage earners who were affected most by the Recession.

Great Britain has only had a minimum wage for fifteen years, and at its inception the Conservative Party opposed the very idea of a minimum wage. Even just a year ago they rejected calls for an increase.

The United States faces a similar economic situation as it too emerges from the Great Recession with unemployment falling as wages continue to stagnate.

President Obama recently spoke in favour of increasing in the minimum wage, but unlike in Great Britain, he is sure to face opposition from the conservative side of the aisle.

Mexico co-opts vigilantes to combat cartels Mexican vigilante groups have accepted an invitation to fight alongside government security forces in the western Michoacan state.

“We are going to dedicate ourselves to regularising our status, having a legal status,” said Estanislao Beltran, a vigilante leader.

The government said the vigilantes would be incorporated into units called Rural Defence Corps. It is also stressing that the units will be “temporary” and will be “under the control of the authorities to co-operate with the troops.”

In the past, vigilantes have been critical of the government for not doing enough to protect locals from the drug cartels (which extort businessmen and farmers), and have even clashed with government troops sent to disarm them.

But the government and the vigilantes have a single adversary in common: the cartel known as the Knight’s Templar, against which some progress is being made.

Mexican officials announced the arrest of the cartel leader Dionicio Loya Plancarte, better known as El Tio (The Uncle), on Jan. 27.

For its part, the Knight’s Templar accuses vigilantes of siding with the New Generation drug cartel.

Compiled by Michael Long

6 Meal Exchanges runs ‘Skip a Meal’ campaign

Annual drive asks students to donate funds from their meal plans

NEWS Alternative Town Hall highlights concerns over PPP www.theontarion.com

Student and faculty groups stoke fire over implications of controversial report

Sameer Chhabra

Alyssa Ottema

The Guelph chapter of Meal Exchange is running its annual ‘Skip a Meal’ campaign from Jan. 27 to 31. The week long drive is designed to raise money and awareness to fight hunger in Guelph. Donations will be forwarded to 19 different local organizations, including the CSA Food Bank, the Guelph Food Bank, and other shelters and community groups that help vulnerable populations.

“Meal Exchange is a national student-founded, youth-driven registered charity organized to address local hunger by mobilizing the talent and passion of students,” states the Meal Exchange website. “Since 1993, our programs have been run in over 100 communities across Canada and generated donations of over $3 million worth of food and funds to address local hunger.”

The Skip a Meal program was first started in 1993 by Meal Exchange’s founder, Rahul Raj, as a way for students to donate money from their meal plans. The local chapters of Meal Exchange, which at the University of Guelph is overseen by the Central Student Association, work with food wholesalers to redistribute food purchased with donations to local organizations.

Meal Exchange first organized as a student run charity in 1996 and has since provided youth volunteers with resources and support to work to increase food security and access to healthy meals. Meal Exchange also runs the annual Trick or Eat food drive at the U of G, which gets students to go door-to-door on Halloween collecting non-perishable items instead of candy for a similar cause.

Meal Exchange partners with Guelph Hospitality to purchase food at wholesale prices. The money raised through the campaign is used to purchase food that local organizations most require.

“Ten dollars feeds a family of four,” explained Vinosha Jegatheeswaran, the Central Coordinator of Meal Exchange Guelph. “We are able to provide staple foods which are normally donated. We then deliver the food to [the charities] at the end of each semester, which are crucial times in the year when money is tight.”

“There are many ways for students to get involved,” added Jegatheeswaran. “We’ll be in the UC courtyard, Creelman Hall, Mountain Cafe, and doing classroom presentations. [Students] can donate money from their meal plans by simply filling out [an online] form.”

On Monday, Jan. 27, the Guelph Student Mobilization Committee (GSMC), in partnership with the Central Student Association (CSA), OPIRG-Guelph, CUPE 1334, and the University of Guelph Faculty Association, hosted the Alternative Town Hall.

This event focused on opposition to the Program Prioritization Process (PPP) conducted by the University of Guelph in 2013.

The event began with two keynote speakers and was followed by a panel discussion that focused on the proposed $32.4 dollars in budget cuts to be enacted over the next three years.

University administrators, led

by President Alastair Summerlee, hosted their own Town Hall on Nov. 29, 2013 in an early attempt to clarify the PPP to a sceptical university community, but the GSMC and others groups remained unconvinced by those assurances.

“We believe that the process and its results are deeply flawed and create an excuse for the university to justify further cuts to the Arts and other ‘less popular’ programs,” states the GSMC website.

The evening began with an address from James Compton, an executive from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who spoke of a recent shift in post-secondary education “from the collegiate to the managerial,” explaining that programs in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences are being excluded because “they don’t garner external funding.”

Next to speak was Kate Lawson, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty

PHOTO BY ALYSSA OTTEMA

James Compton, a professor at Western University and an executive with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, speaks about private corporations’ influence on public universities at the GSMC’s Alternative Town Hall.

Associations, who addressed the governmental drive to “differentiate” universities. Lawson also highlighted the particularly troublesome potential loss of Arts programs in the differentiation process. “The only bad action [in this case], I think, is inaction,” said Lawson. “We need to respond to these local problems [and] local realities.”

The evening concluded with a discussion panel – featuring Dominica McPherson of the CSA, Janice Folk-Dawson of CUPE 1334, Padraic O’Brien of the GSMC, and Bill Cormack of the University of Guelph Faculty Association – followed by a period of audience participation.

Cormack drew attention to the lack of understanding regarding the reasons for conducting the PPP. “The Administration has claimed that the PPP did not assess

quality [of programs] but only cost effectiveness,” said Cormack.

“There is a general understanding on campus, however, that [the PPP] does reflect quality. The other impact [of this], of course, is that the proposed cuts have been directed at [specific] colleges.”

Other speakers expressed incredulity at the demands of the PPP. “[They want] productivity increases,” said Folk-Dawson.

“We’re a maintenance organization. How do we increase productivity? Do we break more things so we can fix them?”

O’Brien declared that this process of differentiation would serve to make “an assembly line of degrees” out of the U of G. “For all intents and purposes,” said O’Brien, “we are witnessing the deterioration of our university.”

When asked how the university

might better serve its mission statement to “to serve society and to enhance the quality of life through scholarship,” the panellists were less than optimistic. “The University of Guelph has a reputation…of being one of Canada’s top comprehensive universities,” said Cormack. “The Faculty Association believes that this is something to cherish, [which is why] the Program Prioritization and budget cuts [are so concerning].” “[The university] should not become a breeding ground for corporate workers,” said FolkDawson. “Everybody needs to say that this system is messed up…We need to stop being faculty, students, and workers, because that just… gives them the means to divide us.

I think that we should all just be advocates for a funded, public postsecondary education system.”

Ambassador Michael Bell speaks on Middle East Winegard Lecturer presents a case against cultural imperialism Ian Gibson On Monday Jan. 27, the 2014 Winegard Visiting Lectureship on “The Situation in the Middle East Today” was held in Rozanski Hall. Michael Bell, seasoned Canadian diplomat and long-time ambassador to the Middle East, gave the talk.

Bell currently co-chairs the Jerusalem Old City Initiative at the University of Windsor, where he is also the Paul Martin (Sr.) Senior Scholar on International Diplomacy. Bell has also worked as High Commissioner to Cyprus, an arms inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, acted as the Canadian

representative to the Palestinians, and spent 16 years as the Canadian ambassador to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, respectively.

His lecture was, as he said at the outset, “not a happy story,” one highlighting the gap between the normative ideals and realistic goals available to the Middle East today.

Bell began by looking at the concept of Orientalism, arguing that our historic memory of the Middle East is built on “defining oneself via the Other.” The fact that Westerners are inclined to see “democracy as a natural course” in the Middle East is a kind of “misplaced idealism” that is also a result of these “imagined identities.” Seeing things as they are, he said, versus seeing them how we want it to be, will result in two different outcomes.

In this fashion, the idea espoused

by those in power in the West, that Arabs “want what we have in the West,” is exaggerated. It is belief stemming from neo-conservatives such as Leo Strauss, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and George Bush - whom Bell called “Platonists.”

Under this assumption, the perceived “Arab backwardness can be redeemed through American imperialism.” Because the Middle East is vital to U.S. interests, “the U.S. will justify using force to help [the Arabs] ‘understand.’” But in reality, argued Bell, American exceptionalism is nothing more than “U.S. arrogance.”

What is more disconcerting is that the cultural imperialism imposed by the Americans in Iraq has not only resulted in fragmentation within the broken structures of society, it has, said Bell, “given rise to Islamic radicalization.”

Many who hold power in the Middle East believe “political Islam is the solution to societal ills,” and that “Sharia Islamic religious law offers an over-riding path to all aspects of human life.”

Bell’s solution to this problem is cultural pluralism – where groups in society co-exist with one another, side by side.

To facilitate this process, Bell advocated supporting the Obama administration’s reconciliation efforts in the Middle East, boosting microfinance programs that allow women to take “control of their own lives,” and supporting multilateral programs that “put individuals first.”

In essence, “we need to uncloud our own narratives,” said Bell, for “we have an obligation to not let problems in the Middle East continue.”

ARTS & CULTURE

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173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

Julia Dault on art, anti-illusionism, and abstraction

SOFAM kicks off “Visiting Artist & Speaker” series Stacey Aspinall

On Monday, Jan. 27, the School of Fine Arts and Music (SOFAM) presented the first of its “Visiting Artist & Speaker” series of Winter 2014, featuring Julia Dault, a Torontoborn, Brooklyn-based artist. In a small lecture room in Alexander Hall, Dault spoke to a crowd of like-minded people from the local arts community (including artists, professors, and students) about her artistic practice as a sculptor and abstract painter.

Dault’s artistic practice is bolstered by her well-developed critical background: she holds a BA in Art History from McGill University and an MFA from Parsons, and she has also worked as an art critic for the National Post. Dault’s work as a critic informs her work as an artist. She has honed her practice in part through immersing herself in the contemporary art scene, which allowed her to develop a nuanced understanding of art criticism before taking the leap to go public with her own work. As a speaker, Dault was precise and articulate in sharing insights into her own practice.

She admitted to being drawn to a minimalist aesthetic in her sculptural work. Her sculptures consist of sheets of industrial materials, such as Plexiglass and

Formica, which are bent, layered, and curved in semi-cylindrical forms, and then stacked and pinned - sometimes precariously - to the gallery wall in a labourintensive process.

Dault spoke of the idea of “antiillusionism,” a response to a trend in contemporary art that requires the viewer to look outside of the artwork - often to textual sources - to fully grasp the meaning of the work. Dault’s sculptures counter this tendency towards obscurity.

“What would it mean to create a work that was self evident - that contained all the information that you needed to know, in and of itself, in that form, and you wouldn’t have to rely on some sort of external information to derive full meaning?” Dault asked.

Following a strict self-imposed production mandate, Dault adheres to a set of pre-determined rules that regulate how materials can be used. She won’t cut, glue, warp or pre-bend the sheets prior to installation.

The assembly of the pieces happens on-site, within the gallery space. Thus, the integrity of the material is kept intact, yet is also challenged and contested as she physically bends and manipulates materials to create novel forms.

She has sometimes been described as a “performative sculptor” due to the very physical encounter with the tangible object. “It’s me in the space, confronting these materials, and wrangling them into a form, and

tying them and anchoring them in place. Because you can see that: you can see the knots, you can see the tethers, and understand how the form came to be,” said Dault.

Dault also discussed her abstract painting practice, and her experimental use of unconventional tools such as combs, or ad-hoc items as brushes. Her painting, she explained, is a “meditation” on the mark-making practice.

“One of the reasons I use tools is both to kind of expand a gestural vocabulary, and also because a tool, in my mind, allows for a kind of anti-illusionism. If you have a tool, there’s a way to trace what mark was made first, a way to kind of see the choreography of the maker across the surface, and that to me was really important,” said Dault.

Dault looks to the world around her for inspiration. Mundane observations – from titles borrowed from cultural references to found colour combinations can form the inspiration for an abstract painting, and the results are often playful and inventive.

Abstraction, Dault suggested, doesn’t always have to aspire to the sublime, the poetic, or the philosophical; it can draw inspiration from the everyday, and the results can be equally captivating.

Upcoming artist talks include Public Studio (Elle Flanders and Tamira Swatzky) on Feb. 10, Marla Hlady on March 10, the Shenkman Lecture featuring Roberta Smith on March 19, and Sky Glabush on March 24.

PHOTO Courtesy OF ARTIST and Marianne Boesky Gallery New York

Artist: Julia Dault. Title: Untitled 32, 9:45 AM–2:30 PM, October, 22, 2013. Materials: Formica, Plexiglas, Everlast boxing wraps, string.

The Weekly Review: Saving Mr. Banks

3.5 Books-TurnedMusicals out of 4 Sameer Chhabra

COURTESY PHOTO Though it’s been marketed as a film about Australian author P.L. Travers working with Walt Disney Studios in adapting Mary Poppins to the silver screen, Saving Mr. Banks is more a film about letting go and accepting the past.

Let’s get this out of the way first, though. In reality, Walt Disney

was a shrewd business man, whose intellect and work enabled him to create an empire built upon the shoulders of a cartoon mouse.

P. L. Travers was difficult to work with on the best days, and the two of them working together to actually accomplish anything was miraculous on an almost Disneysized magnitude.

The fact that the John Lee Hancock directed feature portrays Tom Hanks’ Walt Disney as a caring man attempting to fulfill a promise he made to his daughters, and not a businessman trying to capitalize on a sure-hit, is an event partly grounded in fiction. That Emma Thompson plays a repressed, closed off, and difficult to work with Travers, is entirely accurate.

A post-credit recording of Travers working with the Sherman Brothers and Don DaGradi reveals that, yes, Travers was actually much worse in real life.

Really, Saving Mr. Banks isn’t about the relationship between the Mary Poppins team and Travers. Certainly, half the film is set in Los Angeles at Walt Disney Studios, but the real meat of the plot takes place in Travers’ childhood home in Australia. Here, the viewers are introduced to her

loving but growingly alcoholic father, her conflicted and struggling mother, and a dark two-year period in the lives of this family.

Played by Colin Farrell, Travers’ father (from whom she chose her pen name), Travers Robert Goff captivates both his daughter and the audience the moment he walks onscreen. The audience is introduced to Goff as he lifts up his child onto his shoulders, preparing his family for a journey from the city to the country side of Allora, Queensland. His actions trouble his wife, but the audience is moved by his daughter’s devotion.

The viewers know the family is falling apart, and that only makes the scenes in Australia that much more difficult to watch. That Travers wants the world to know that her father wasn’t a bad man breaks the hearts of many.

Intercut between the beautiful shots of Los Angeles and the heart-wrenching scenes in Allora are the sequences in a sunny conference room, where Travers discusses the film with composers Richard and Robert Sherman and writer Don DaGradi.

Jason Schwartzman, B. J. Novak, and Bradley Whitford sell themselves well as a creative team

tasked with the very difficult job of invoking creativity in a writer who hates them.

Truth be told, Travers, DaGradi, and both Richard and Robert Sherman are a delight to watch, and once everyone is accustomed to everyone’s presence, the film falls into an effective rhythm of tragedy, reality, and catharsis.

Particular scenes, like the one where the quartet performs a rendition of “Let’s Fly a Kite,” allow the audience some time to recover from the tragic moments in Allora. Unlike Travers, the audience yearns for the sunshine of Los Angeles. Travers sees Disneyland as a fake representation of humanity. The audience just wants time to recover from watching her childhood crumble.

Of course, the film offers an inside look at the struggle often faced between authors and those who wish to adapt their work.

Indeed, much of the disapproval Thompson’s Travers shares with the Mary Poppins creative team are specifically due to a perceived lack of respect for the author’s work.

Granted, most people wouldn’t throw scripts out the window, or redraw most of the completed sketches in a film, or even find fault

with an accurate portrayal of an original character, but the point on adaptation still stands.

Once we publish our work and release it to the public sphere, do our characters remain our own? At what point does something stop being mine, and start being ours? Saving Mr. Banks poses few easy answers to these difficult questions, but strongly argues that authorial intent is irrelevant when something makes everyone happy.

Perhaps that is the best way to interpret Saving Mr. Banks.

Does it really matter that P. L. Travers hated Disney’s Mary Poppins? Does it really matter that Walt Disney was conniving and ruthless? Does it really matter that liberties are taken with history if it makes people happy?

No, it doesn’t.

Ultimately, the work we create is only ours for as long as we hold onto it. Once the public forum grabs hold of the things we love, our experiences are no longer merely ours.

Our experiences become something more than what transcends the barriers of the individual.

Mary Poppins made lots of people very happy. For Walt Disney and Saving Mr. Banks, this is enough.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Guelph Civic Museum hosts Robbie Burns Day A celebration of a Scottish idol Brigitte Grogan On Saturday, Jan. 25, the Guelph Civic Museum transformed into Scotland to honour the wonderful Robbie Burns. Throughout his lifetime, Robbie Burns touched the hearts of many with his beautiful poetry that built a legacy so strong, that it has continued many generations after his passing. Fans young and old gathered at the museum for the opening dances at 1 p.m. and stayed right through to enjoy the festivities into the late afternoon.

In traditional Scottish kilts, the dancers took to stage first to welcome everyone to the day’s events.

The young dancers, from the Mary Ellen Cann School of Highland Dance, left smiles on the crowds faces as they jumped rope to the comforting Scottish tunes that were played throughout the day.

Many different dances were done throughout the day to highlight this beautiful Scottish culture. One dance that left the crowd in awe was the Sword Dance, originally referred to as the dance of warriors, seen as a form of good luck if the sword is left untouched throughout the

dance.

Not only did this day come with many smiles and warm moments, but it also brought new knowledge of the Scottish culture to the attendees of the event.

It was difficult not to be distracted by the redolence of haggis that filled the room as the dancers tapped their feet to the engaging music. While many were weary to try the sheep’s pudding that is famous in Scottish culture, the friendly faces serving the food made one willing to try it and left them satisfied that they had. Placing the haggis on crackers was a nice touch that also brought a familiarity to the taste buds.

It would not have been a celebration of Robbie Burns without the five senses being stimulated by the Scottish culture.

The sounds of bagpipes, presented by the Guelph Pipe Band, filled the entire Museum with the lively music of Scotland. One did not need to be Scottish to appreciate the wonders of this day. Instead, it was important to keep an open mind and a love for Robbie Burns, which was certainly shared by everyone in attendance.

Robbie Burns Day continues to be a celebrated tradition around the world and all fans enjoyed

PHOTO BY PABLO VADONE

Community members ventured to the Guelph Civic Museum to celebrate Scottish culture and Robbie Burns. The photo was captured during a musical performance that featured traditional Scottish instruments. the exceptional food, quality of music, and sense of community in sharing a love for the same breathtaking poetry.

Simply authentic: Diary of a local foodie

Garlic mash shepherd’s pie Emily Jones

This recipe is a tried and true favourite of mine and has been since the very first time it was made. Cold weather calls for comfort food, and to this foodie, nothing is better than a flavourful, rich shepherd’s pie. This dish is often a pub entrée, yet homemade is always so much better. This meal does take a bit of preparation, but it is well worth the wait.

Fresh ingredients are always the starting point for delicious meals. This foodie is particularly choosy when it comes to purchasing meat and animal products, so my first step was to venture out to my local butcher shop (located just a few minutes down the road on foot from my humble abode) from which I purchased my ground beef, which is ground fresh daily. Ground meats that have been sitting in a grocer’s cooler, although on sale, could be growing bacteria as we speak. It is also likely that additives have been added to keep the colour and stop the meat from going bad as quickly

as it does naturally. To avoid this concern, I buy local and fresh from a trusted source.

There are two things that need to be done at the same time to keep the process moving: boiling the potatoes and browning the beef mixture. Begin by cutting up potatoes (preferably red skinned, with skin left on) and adding them into a pot of water with four full cloves of peeled garlic. Then, begin to chop the onion and garlic and cook them with the ground beef in a large skillet or saucepan. Next, fresh herbs such as thyme, sage and parsley are added to suit one’s taste, along with sliced carrots, celery and spinach. Allow all of this goodness to simmer on low with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper.

By this time, the potatoes should be cooked. Check them with a fork – if the fork pierces the potato easily, remove from heat and drain water. Add a splash of milk and butter, a sprinkle of salt, chopped parsley, and minced garlic to the potatoes. Mash until smooth and set aside. It is now time to combine and layer the shepherd’s pie.

Use a glass baking dish,

preferably one with a lid, distribute the meat and veggie layer on the bottom of the dish, followed by a can of corn and then topped with the garlic mashed potatoes.

Place the dish in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes at a temperature of 350 degrees to allow the flavours to work into one another and the aroma of the meal float through you home. Remove the lid and use a basting brush to lightly brush a little bit of milk onto the top of the mashed potatoes to allow it to brown. Place the dish back in to the oven uncovered for 10 minutes. Then remove, let stand, and spoon into bowls for eating. This meal is melt in your mouth delicious and is guaranteed to please.

Shopping list -Red skinned new potatoes -Garlic -Onion -Can of corn -Fresh spinach -Carrots -Celery -Thyme -Sage -Parsley -Milk -Butter

ARTS & CULTURE

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings Band visits Guelph and draws memories similar to friends gathering around a kitchen table Kavya Yoganathan Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are undoubtedly one of Canada’s many musical gems. Tom Wilson, Stephen Fearing, and Colin Linden, the three exceptional musicians who comprise the band, are not only well known in Canada for their unique sound, but are also well-known throughout North America.

Having performed ubiquitously since their founding in Hamilton, Ontario in 1996, they effortlessly exude the classic sounds of folk, rock, alternative, and country, while still managing to keep their sound fresh and new.

Their show at the River Run Centre on Friday, Jan. 24, artfully transported the audience back in time, to the days when family and friends would gather around kitchen tables to sing songs and reminisce about the ‘old days.’ True to the band’s style, they mesmerized the audience with a sensational show filled with exhilarating performances on the guitar, bass, and harmonica. The night was not only filled with music, but with stories about life, love, and hope.

The band ended the outstanding night by sharing simple words of wisdom - “I am not talking to you as individuals, I’m talking to us as a country. We have a responsibility to the rest of the world, to reach out and make this a better planet for children all over, not just in our cities, but all over the globe. And we have the power to do that, so open

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PHOTO BY WENDY SHEPHERD

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings came to Guelph for a stop on their tour Friday Jan. 24 at the River Run Centre. These talented musicians have been working together for almost two decades, and left the audience with an important issue to think about. up your hearts, I promise you that you can and will change a life,” said Lee Harvey Osmond.

After leaving Guelph with some insightful words, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings continued

their tour for their new album South, which was released on Jan. 14, 2013.

The Overview: Game of Thrones

Winter is coming Stephen Banic

This is “The Overview,” the Ontarion’s new TV column, here to answer the question of which shows on television best deserve your late nights on Netflix, midstudy breaks, or simple lounge days.

This week’s overview: Game of Thrones. You would do best to remember these three words when trying to decide which series to watch next. This HBO exclusive has been taking the world by storm ever since its debut in 2011. At only three seasons consisting of 30 episodes all together, this show has acquired a cult following as shown by a reported average of five million viewers per episode in the past season.

The show is based on George R.R Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire, and unlike most bookto-screen adaptations, the show does not deviate far from its source.

The setting is a fantastical-medieval world consisting of two continents, Westeros and Essos. The show primarily takes place in Westeros, where King Robert Baratheon rules.

Due to his kingdom being so geographically vast, the King relies on other high lords and their families to govern areas far from his capital city. The show revolves around these noble families, as they war with each other due to their own ambitions, motivations, and loyalties. Some wish for the Baratheons to remain the royal family on

top the throne of Westeros, while others wish to manipulate and fight their way to the top.

While the nobles play their game of thrones, more sinister events begin to unfold in the wintery wild north of the continent.

An ancient race of immortals known as The Others, or, the White Walkers, are rumoured to be coming out of a 1000 year hibernation. This is bad because the last time The Others emerged, they nearly wiped out the entire human population of Westeros, so everyone is really hoping this is not happening at all. The only way to know for sure is to start watching.

The quality of Game of Thrones is amazing. The Wall Street Journal estimated that every episode in season one worked on a budget of approximately $10 million dollars, and that this budget was raised 15 per cent for season two.

This high budget allows the show to film in six different countries, providing a wide range of beautiful settings in order to captivate the audience.

The first-season’s cast is led by none other than Sean Bean (who many will recognize as Boromir from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings) who plays Ned Stark.

Two other faces you might recognize are Lena Headey (who played Queen Gorgo in 300) playing Cersei Lannister, and Mark Addy (from A Knights Tale) playing Robert Baratheon. The star of the show, however, is Emmyaward winning Peter Dinklage, who plays the dwarf, Tyrion

Lannister. In a world where so much is decided by physical force and power, Dinklage’s character shows the audience that the sharpest and deadliest weapon a man or woman can wield is not a sword but in fact his own knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence - an idea that any university student can truly appreciate.

It should be noted that this show contains a lot of explicit content. Decapitations, mutilations, blood, sexual content, and coarse language is what you can expect to see in every episode, so maybe it’s not the best thing to watch while younger siblings or cousins are strolling around. The violence of the show is really demonstrated through the fact that it has no fear in killing off members of the main cast, providing some of television’s biggest twists and jaw-dropping moments that this warning will not even prepare you for.

Game of Thrones is definitely Overview approved. If you haven’t started watching the series, there is no time like the present. The slogan of the show claims that “Winter is coming” for Westeros. Here in Ontario, however, winter has come in full force, and the time to snuggle up at home and watch TV is here.

So go grab a snack (and perhaps a stress ball or something to take out your frustrations on) and let this show blow your mind and break your heart at the same time. Trust me, you do not want to be around mom’s china set during certain scenes.

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Grassroots + Art + Guelph: Kazoo!

Jessica Avolio Kazoo! (exclamation mark included) is a collective of Guelph-based musicians, multi-disciplinary artists, and community organizers. This music series and annual festival was set up in June 2006 with “the desire to create a space for innovative new music, and make connections between diverse audiences and artists,” explained Brad McInerney, founder of Kazoo!.

After a string of packed house shows between 2005 and 2006, the crowds grew too large for their basements, and as a result they began to host shows in more traditional venues. Alongside this plan, they founded a quarterly zine, titled Kazine, which featured creative writing, photography, visual arts and politics, all based out of Guelph. This zine provided the inspiration to continue to present different mediums of art alongside live music.

Their mandate emphasizes accessibility by keeping ticket prices affordable, offering all-ages events, and amplifying voices from the margins.

In addition, the collaboration between musicians and artists at Kazoo! creates a place

where innovative new music and art strengthens communities and brings people together. Their mission is to “promote the role of independent music and art in Guelph by forming broad coalitions with musicians, artists and like-minded community arts organizations.”

McInerney said that Kazoo! “has fit into the creative fabric of this city in different ways at different times.” Earlier focus was on their year-round series of shows, but they found that as the Guelph music scene began to change, it felt best to step back and focus on Kazoo!

Fest. Their aim for this festival is to create something truly interdisciplinary and draw connections between different mediums and communities, to fill “a void in programming by integrating music and art in unique ways,” explained McInerney.

Throughout their seven years of experience, the team behind Kazoo! has also collaborated with many different organizations in the community, including Ed Video, Silence, Fortnight Music, the Festival of Moving Media, and others.

“In a way, Kazoo! Fest acts as a platform to bring together these groups of inspiring

people who are all contributing different things to the Guelph arts community,” McInerney added.

They are currently working on the 7th annual Kazoo! Fest, happening from April 9 to 14 this year. Attendees should expect some big changes, as festival organizers are expanding their core programming collective and forming a Board of Directors. “It’s part of a process of opening things up and re-imagining our role in Guelph,” said McInerney. He stated that this years festival will be the most ambitious to date, with hopes to draw connections between different communities through new initiatives.

When asked where he sees Kazoo! in the future, McInerney stated that “five years ago [he] wouldn’t have been able to predict that Kazoo! would have evolved and changed in the ways it has.” As of yet, they have hosted over 170 shows, presented over 400 bands, and organized 6 annual festivals. “We’re hoping to set the groundwork for Kazoo! to be around for the foreseeable future,” McInerney said, as some of their most recent changes have a longer-term vision in mind.

ARTS & CULTURE

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK: LONERISM

STYLE PICK OF THE WEEK: DENIM SHIRTS

COURTESY PHOTO

ARTS & CULTURE

Lonerism is the second album released by Australian psychedelicrock band Tame Impala in 2012. Comparisons to music from the freespirited 60s are inevitable (the lead vocalist sounds eerily like John Lennon), but their trippy psychedelic sound is updated with synth elements as well as a pop sensibility. As counterculture icon Timothy Leary said in 1967, “Tune in, turn on and drop out” to this lush and immersive album.

JAZZ IN THE BULLRING

PHOTO COURTESY OF PETITEPANOPLY.COM

Denim shirts have been around forever and are continuing to hold a strong stance on the style front. They look great on everyone and are a staple for casual attire. Feel free to make them unique by stylizing them with a studded or jeweled collar, or leave them plain and simple. No matter how they are worn, they are a must have for all seasons.

PHOTO BY WENDY SHEPHERD

Threefold Standard, a local jazz trio, performs at The Bullring on Friday, Jan. 24, as part of the Bullring Jazz Series. Threefold Standard is: Guy Johnson on upright bass, Ryan Turner on drums and Ann Westbere on alto saxophone. The Bullring Jazz series will be happening every Friday from 2 to 4 p.m.

SPORTS & HEALTH The “Low Ridin’ Lager” lands in Canada Sweden’s Pistonhead Kustom Lager brings a youthful and cultured beer to Southern Ontario Andrew Donovan The interview started with the most traditional of salutations between a Brit and a Canadian – a conversation about the weather. On the other end of my Skype video call was Ben Steadman, Brand Manager for Pistonhead beer.

“I heard it was bloody cold in Canada this morning!” Steadman exclaimed. I sipped my Tim Horton’s coffee, and he, a tea from a mug with the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour artwork on it.

“Minus 15 without the wind chill. That’s Canada for ya,” I told him.

Behind Steadman was the logo for Pistonhead: a Calavera-inspired skull with a flame trailing it, a black spade logo dead centre on the skull’s forehead, and yellow gears for eyes.

The logo perfectly summarizes the image Pinstonhead is going for, and with their recent launch

in Canada, it was Steadman’s aim to promote something new, exciting, and youthful.

The beer was originally launched in Sweden and has since planted deep roots in the United Kingdom. “[Pistonhead] is also available in Australia, Canada, and is about to launch in Florida in the next little while too…it’s a rock and roll brand. It’s funky, it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s all those things, and we’re looking at countries that can understand all those things quite quickly,” said Steadman The funky and hip attributes of Pistonhead, brewed in the Brutal Brewing Company, were incepted as a counter-culture to the drab breweries the Pistonhead team had been exposed to.

“We went to this beer festival to look at all the brands and it was just loads of people in grey suits talking boring rubbish, and it was uninspiring, so we said, ‘why don’t we set up something that brings the fun back to brewing and making beer and enjoying it, and giving it some attitude?’”

Steadman explained.

From there, Pistonhead created what they call a ‘Kustom Kulture’ to summarize their

grab-all target-audience, which is described as, “Art, cars, bikes, boards, music, haircuts, clothes, and tattoos that define youth culture. Hot Rods, Lowriders, ape hangers, shovelheads, chicano, rock, metal and Calavera and alternative culture. Kustomized for the laid-back hot-rodder and all other good people.”

With the beer already being sold in downtown Toronto indie-styled college bars, such as SneakyDee’s, the Bovine Sex Club, and the Magpie Taproom, Steadman does admit the lager’s marketing does lend itself towards the younger, under-40 crowd; however, this beer is really marketed for anyone who wants to have fun.

“I want to do loads of stuff!” exclaimed Steadman. “With all the crazy shit you guys get up to over there like extreme skiing and snowboarding…that’s going to be something I’d love to do.”

I certainly can’t help but think that Pistonhead will one day be donned on the helmets of extreme athletes and rock stars’ guitars alike, as the image portrayed by the brand’s logo, and its lively ambassador, is nothing short of exuberant, if not a wee bit eccentric. But therein lies

COURTESY PHOTO

Calavara-inspired artwork, indie rockers, tattoos, and general bad-assery are the mark of Ontario’s newest brew, Pistonhead Kustom Lager. the draw for consumers.

On Jan. 13, the company’s Twitter account announced the launch of the lager at the Beer Store in Ontario.

The kick-off for the brand stayed true to their punk-rock persona, as they toured alongside the Canadian “rock and roll 4 piece” band hailing from Ottawa and Toronto, the Balconies.

Pistonhead features a slew of different brews; including a “crude oil liqueuer” that claims hints of licorice and chili – but for

now, Canadians will only be privy to the Kustom Lager.

The brand may be international, but with their aspirations to tour with local musicians, it comes off as more of a local brew, which will give those drinking it a sense of community and uniqueness with their flavour.

As the weekend fast approaches, if you have inkling to break with the conventional lager script that breaches tradition and history, this “full bodied lager with a bite” might be the different you’re looking for.

Macdonald Stewart Art Centre

PHOTOS BY WE Sameer Chhabra

Thursday evening’s opening receptions focused on three artists.

Above, is the work of Ron Shuebrook’s Drawings.

Students, fans, and critics braved frigid temperatures and icy driving conditions to experience three new exhibitions at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (MSAC) on Jan. 23, 2014. Featuring pieces from Monica Tap, Ron Shuebrook, and Baroque-era artist Claude Lorrain, the opening reception drew in an audience of 100 people, including members of the local community, students from the University of Guelph, and colleagues, family, and friends of both Tap and Shuebrook.

Held in the sprawling atrium, inner galleries, and two floors of the MSAC, visitors were greeted with a relaxed atmosphere as they took in each piece.

Lorrain’s Ink and Light: The Etchings of Claude Lorrain featured a collection of 40 prints drawn from a selection of his works found within The Brink Collection. Renowned for his interpretation of the French and English landscape, yet relatively ignored by contemporary collectors and art historians, Lorrain’s work is now considered one of the most important contributions to the establishment of 17th and 18th century aesthetics in England.

Having given rise to English pictorialism in art and landscape architecture, Lorrain’s work has influenced schools of thought that have

reached through the 19th and 20th centuries.

With gratitude to Andrew and Helen Brink for gifting the collection to MSAC, Lorrain’s exhibit will be on display until Mar. 30, 2014.

Tap’s Monica Tap: the pace of days, was specially curated for the MSAC, and features 16 pieces from her expansive collection, including the pace of days pieces and the One-second Hudson series.

Tap traveled through the landscape of Santiago de Compostela for 36 days, creating 72 paintings in pairs to commemorate the trip.

These 36 pairs comprise the pace of days collection.

Utilizing individual frames from a series of QuickTime videos captured through windshields and windows along the Hudson River, the One-Second Hudson series is Tap’s interpretation of the landscape she witnessed.

“I live in Toronto and work in Guelph, so I commute and I have a lot of time to think about the landscape,” explained Tap. “I’ve travelled across the country a few times and it becomes clear pretty quickly that the experience of the landscape is mediated by a windshield or a screen unless you’re a hard-core camper or hiker. I was trying to use the canvas to collapse centuries onto one canvas.”

Curated by MSAC’s acting director Dawn Owen, the Tap exhibition will be on display

Community members and friends gathered to share in a common love of artistic beauty. Above, Ron Shuebrook’s Drawings.

Paintings of landscapes by Monica Tap.

A piece featured in the third exhibition opening on Thursday Jan.23 by Claude Lorrain, called Ink and Light: The Etchings of Claude Lorrain.

e hosts three gallery openings

ENDY SHEPHERD until April 6, 2014.

Shuebrook’s Ron Shuebrook: Drawings is a collection of the Guelph-based artist’s intricate monochromatic drawings utilizing charcoal on rag paper. Featuring 22 drawings, Shuebrook’s exhibit is matched by a concurrent exhibition entitled Ron Shuebrook: Paintings, on display at the Boarding House Gallery in downtown Guelph from Feb. 1 to Mar. 8.

“The Shuebrook exhibition is part of a fivevenue national tour, produced and circulated by the Thames Art Gallery (Chatham-Kent).

The MSAC is the second venue on the tour,” explained Owen. “We received special funding support from the Guelph Community Foundation through the Musagetes Fund, which helped us to present the Shuebrook exhibition at MSAC.” Curated by John Kissick, the director of the School of Fine art and Music (SOFAM) at the University of Guelph, Shuebrook’s exhibit at MSAC will be on display until April 27, 2014.

“The Shuebrook and Tap exhibitions, like most exhibition projects, were created over long periods of time,” explained Owen. “As a gallery that is committed to contemporary art practice, we work with artists on exhibitions that include new and recent examples of their art, which are planned in 3 year cycles, giving the artists the opportunity to make new work.”

Though much of Tap’s work is featured at the MSAC, this is her first large-scale exhibition held in Guelph. “[Tap’s] work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions since the late 90s,” said Owen. “The Tap exhibition features a series of vibrant new paintings, as well as selected works from the last 15 years. Tap is a SOFAM faculty artist (Associate Professor of Painting) at the University of Guelph.”

Both Shuebrook and Tap were present at the reception, and gave brief speeches to commemorate the event. They were also available to answer questions throughout the evening.

The MSAC is excited to be featuring the works of all three artists, and encourages all students at the university to experience the creations of the three seminal artists.

“At the gallery, we strive to create a narrative among our exhibitions, so that visitors can have a cohesive experience and move in a logical way from exhibition to exhibition,” explained Owen. “[We encourage] gallery goers to find their own narrative and understanding of the art works.

In addition to the three exhibitions, the MSAC will be holding artists talks and walkabout tours delivered by both Shuebrook and Tap. Shuebrook will be holding a tour at the MSAC on Feb. 11 at noon, while Tap will be holding her tour on Jan. 28 at 6 p.m.

Ron Shuebrook was also present for the opening of his exhibition Drawings, here he is saying a few words to those who came to support his work.

Insightful viewership continued all throughout the evening.

Monica Tap was present at the opening reception for her exhibition entitled the pace of days.

SPORTS & HEALTH

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Behind the flag: Hayley Wickenheiser

Wickenheiser named Canadian flag bearer for 2014 Olympics Stephanie Coratti

Hayley Wickenheiser has been given the incredible honour of carrying the Canadian flag into the 2014 Sochi Opening Ceremony. However, “given” is about as misleading as it gets. The Shaunavon, Saskatchewan native has most definitely earned this honour. Recognized as one of the most dominant female hockey players in the world, very few realize just how much Wickenheiser truly embodies what the Great White North is all about.

One thing that really puts the honour into perspective is the fact that Wickenheiser will be entering her fifth Olympic games as a member of the Canadian Women’s Hockey team, and her sixth Olympic games in general.

Perspective enters when you realize this three-time Olympic gold medalist, who also sports a silver medal from Nagano in 1998, has (likely) been an Olympian as long as you’ve been alive.

Named to the Canadian Women’s National Team when she was just 15-years-old, Wickenheiser is no stranger to pressure, or success. Wickenheiser’s first Olympic games were in 1998, followed with gold medals in 2002, 2006, and 2010. In 2000, Wickenheiser participated in the Summer Games in Sydney as a member of Team Canada’s Softball team, a testimonial to her natural athleticism.

Beyond her play on the ice (and on the field), Wickenheiser not only upholds the expectations Canada has on its athletes, but also holds the attitude necessary to fulfill those expectations.

Listed on Sports Illustrated Top 20 “Toughest Athletes in the World” in 2008, Wickenheiser knows the struggle and commitment it takes to be an Olympic champion and successful athlete. In addition to strength, Wickenheiser was also on the Globe and Mail’s “Power 50” influencers in sport, and the QMI Agency named her one of their top 10 “Greatest Female Athletes in the History of Sports.”

I don’t think anyone has doubts about number 22’s resume, but there is one very important accomplishment still left to be

noted. In 2011, Wickenheiser was awarded one of Canada’s highest honours when she was appointed to the Order of Canada “for her achievements as an athlete and for her contributions to the growth of women’s hockey.”

On Feb. 7, Wickenheiser will join the ranks of great female athletes such as: speed skater Clara Hughes who carried the flag into the Vancouver Games in 2010; Joannie Rochette who closed out the

ceremonies that year; and Danielle Goyette, another women’s hockey player - with each having carried the flag into the Winter Olympic Games.

Wickenheiser knows true strength, ultimate success, and above all else, what it means to represent your country on the world’s biggest stage. Upon being awarded the honour of being Team Canada’s flag bearer, Wickenheiser was quick to recognize what it was really all

about; “It is about carrying the hopes and dreams of nearly 35 million Canadians to Sochi.”

As an entire country puts it’s hopes and dreams into Team Canada, there is no better person to have shoulder the load. Hayley Wickenheiser, one of the most distinguished athletes in her sport, and most successful Canadian Olympic athletes, is the face of Team Canada for Sochi 2014 – and it looks to be the face of success.

PHOTO COURTESY OF VANCITYALLIE.COM

Gold medalist, Order of Canada, and now Olympic flag bearer, Hayley Wickenheiser celebrates a gold for the red and white; something Canucks hope to see plenty of in Sochi.

“Every Other Day” diet = “every other” diet Could 2014’s first breakout weight loss plan be an old idea in a new suit?

Eric Green The new year has begun much the same as every other year since baby Jesus was circumcised – with people swearing vengeance on their own imperfections and vowing to finally grab the reins of life and better themselves. As always, the month of January is rife with selfmade, seldom-kept promises, and physical improvement is first and foremost on the list.

Enter the “Every Other Day” diet, this year’s first big dietary regimen, developed by Dr. Krista Varady, Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The “Every Other Day” diet, which is a slight variation on the popular existing idea of intermittent fasting, is a system in which the practitioner eats whatever they choose one day, and then reduces their caloric intake to 25 per cent the following day.

Following experimentation using lab mice, researchers closely

monitored voluntary human subjects, and results provided evidence that those who chose to reduce their calories to 25 per cent every other day did not consume 175 per cent of their daily calories the next day.

In fact, on average, they only consumed 110 per cent of their normal caloric intake, and therefore the participants succeeded in reducing their overall food intake.

Combined with further endorsement from fitness and nutrition professionals – like Ontario’s own John Berardi, who purports that fasting regimes like the “Every Other Day” diet are not only effective but also easier to adhere to than more traditional, calorie restricting diets –it seems that this approach may be a viable method for those looking to shed holiday pounds.

That being said, the “Every Other Day” diet doesn’t come free from any risks. First and foremost on that list is misinformation. Without proper research, embarking on any kind of diet or fitness regime can be dangerous. If one does not fully understand what it is that they’re doing, how can they understand the new risks and heightened stresses they’re placing upon their bodies?

Amanda Green, a graduate of the Institute of Holistic Nutrition in Mississauga, a dietary specialist and an overall health-nut, believes that this is indeed the biggest risk inherent to fasting plans like this.

“Having not read the actual book,” Green said, “my biggest concern would be that there might be inadequate emphasis placed on the necessary intake of nutrient dense foods. Combined with the increased stress on the metabolism,” she continued, “… if people were to attempt this lifestyle unprepared, they could not only find it hard to adhere to but also risk their personal health.”

In the end, like anything else, weight loss and long-term physical improvement only really requires three things: lifestyle change, commitment, and hard work. No matter the diet flavour of the month, the individual is always their own best friend and worst enemy, and we would all do well to keep that in mind before embarking on any kind of diet period, we most definitely need to do our homework before spending our hard earned money on the newest glamorized variation of the same old weight-loss testament we hear year in and year out.

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www.theontarion.com

Top 10: Worst Olympic uniforms ever Andrew Donovan When Ralph Lauren unveiled their Olympic uniforms for Team USA’s debut at the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Olympics, it briefly made me forget that Canada’s uniforms were more reminiscent of a Petro Canada employee’s uniform than Olympic athletic attire. Social media blew up with contrasting opinions on the divisive uniforms, but in all the online scuffles, I found opportunity. I present to you the 10 worst uniforms in Olympic history. I’d suggest you take out your phone or laptop and follow along with the list; some of these bad boys are downright appalling.

10. USA – Sochi 2014 – the “Ugly Christmas Sweater” If you had a grandma who loved to quilt, was slowly going senile, and was a gun-totting, God-fearing, thoroughbred American badass, this is what she’d make you as a Christmas present. Modest is not a word in the ‘Murican dictionary.

9. USA/Russia tandem – Lake Placid 1980 – “Cold War” Okay, who the **** wrote this script? This tandem made the list for two reasons: First and foremost, the uniforms were horrendous. The USA had on white cowboy hats and suede brown jackets; they looked like Toy Story’s Woody, but retrofitted for the Arctic. Russia had on mink coats and hats and looked like miniature Chewbaccas. Secondly, event organizers

stuck Yugoslavia, of all countries, right smack-dab between the Cold War rivals. For those not up to snuff on their Cold War history, Yugoslavia was decimated by war and broke into six countries in the 1980s part in parcel to the Communism versus Capitalism debate happening in the region at the time. Uniforms alone, this tandem might have not made the list, but politics and poor event planning earned them the ninth spot.

8. Hungary – Beijing 2008 – “Flower Power” The Hungarian men, with their thick moustaches and barreled chests, proudly sported crisp white suits, light pink oxfords, and a red tie; they looked classy.

The women however, were in white dresses and coats that were littered with red flower designs.

It honestly looked like they were bleeding out and belonged on the front cover of a Dexter DVD. 7. Russia – London 2012 – “Tribal” Remember when it was cool for people to tattoo tribal symbols from distant Samoan and Maori cultures on their body? Neither do I. But Russia does. They took the tribal design, painted it red, and called it a day.

6. New Zealand – Beijing 2008 – “The Dude” Doing their best to imitate Jeff Bridges’ “The Dude” from the Big Lebowski, the Kiwi’s came out in the finest of bowling-inspired attires. Sorry, mates, those uni’s are a gutter ball.

5. Australia – Squaw Valley 1960 – “Cool Runnings” Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, let’s lace up, it’s Aussie ice hockey time! I really wanted to be impressed with the Aussies, I did, but their one and only hockey team lost 18-1 and 15-1 to the Czechs and Americans. Their yellow on green and black attire screamed Jamaican bobsled team, though in all fairness, 1960 was long before we’d become familiar with Cool Runnings.

4. USA – London 2012 – the “Western” If you switched out the red, white, and blue, and replaced it with purple and white, you’d have every stereotype of Western you’d ever heard in high school. America’s athletes looked more like store mannequins than athletes.

3. Australia – Barcelona 1992 – the “Steve Irwin” Sometimes it is cliché in a good way to play off cultural stereotypes, but when you look like an American tourist in a Hawaiian shirt on a safari in the heart of African wilderness, you look… well… outrageous.

2. Spain – Beijing 2008 – “Ketchup & Mustard” Do you remember being in gym class in grade school and the teacher made half the class pick a yellow pinnie and the other half pick red?

That’s what Spain did in an exaggerated fashion (literally) in Beijing.

As they paraded down the track

Gryphons sports recap - Jan. 23 to 27 Andrew Donovan Track and Field Guelph’s men’s and women’s track and field teams were back in their usual form at McGill this past weekend. The women won the team competition outright, while the men fell to York in what ended up being a tight battle.

Ross Proudfoot won the 1500 and 3000 metre events. The Sudbury, Ontario native broke the record in both events, putting up a time of 3 minutes and 44.08 seconds and 8 minutes and 2.78 seconds respectively. Proudfoot was also named Gryphons athlete of the week.

As Canada’s premier school for track and field, the U of G had 13 athletes automatically qualify for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) tournament.

Women’s hockey With #3 rank in the CIS, the Gryphons women’s hockey team notched their eighth straight win, beating the Toronto Varsity Blues 3-1 to move to 17-3-0 on the season. The win bumps Guelph to first in the OUA. Cara Sayles wasted no time putting the Gryphons on the board, scoring two minutes into the first period,

while Averi Nooren scored at 10:32 to put the Gryphons up two.

Jessica Pinkerton, Guelph’s leading scorer with 28 points including 15 goals (top in the OUA), was in her usual form, netting Guelph’s third and final goal of the game.

At the time of publication, Guelph will have four games left on the season, including a marquee match-up versus the Queen’s Gaels, 3rd in the OUA, on Feb. 1 at the Gryphon Centre.

Men’s volleyball The subpar season for the Gryphons men’s volleyball team continued on Saturday Jan. 25, as they were swept by the McMaster Marauders in straight sets, 25-13, 25-23, 25-16, and drop to 5-11 on the season.

Guelph’s libero Eric Wagner was recognized as player of the game, and Patrick Strzalkowski led the Gryphons with six kills and eight points.

Women’s volleyball It was a battle among the top teams in the OUA West division as the Marauders visited the topranked Gryphons on Saturday night. Unfortunately for the red, black, and gold, the Marauders proved too tough to beat, and

SPORTS & HEALTH

Guelph lost 3-1 to fall to 12-5 on the season.

Continuing the theme of dominant play by Gryphons liberos, Kristen Almhjell was named player of the game for Guelph. Madison DeDecker accumulated 15 kills, and Alicia Combe-Dingwall and Rebecca Breau tallied 15 and 13 each as well.

Guelph has a bye this week, and then plays on Feb. 7 and 8 at home to Windsor and Western to close the season before playoffs.

Men & women’s basketball The women moved to 6-10 on the season as they upset the heavily favoured 13-3 Golden Hawks by two in a nail biter 66-64 final. Katherine MacTavish, Gryphons female athlete of the week, had the game of her life as she posted an incredible careerhigh in points with 34, including eight rebounds, two steals, and a block. MacTavish also went 14-14 from the free throw line.

The men rallied off the grit showed by the women and managed an 84-81 win over Laurier to move to 5-11 on the season.

Taylor Boers led all Guelph scorers with 16 points on the night, while Zach Angus was particularly effective in the game’s back stretch, sinking 15 on the night, including six rebounds.

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There’s absolutely no mistaking the quilted, ugly Christmas sweater madness that Ralph Lauren created for the U.S. Olympic team. Like’m or hate’m, you can’t knock the originality. and into the stadium, it looked like mustard and ketchup blanketing a concrete hotdog.

1. Japan – Sydney 2000 – “Captain Rainbow” This list is full of “WTF?” outfits, but this one might take the cake.

Athletes donned capes fashioned with the stripes of the rainbow, or perhaps, the colours of the colourwheel – I don’t know. They are

horrendous and, if there were no flag-bearer and no explanation for why these people were congregating en masse in rainbow capes, you’d think it was a scene from the Toronto Pride Parade.

Honourable mentions: Japan’s “flower orgy” (Athens, 2004), Italy’s “stewardesses” (Barcelona, 1992), Estonia’s “Marty McFly” (London, 2012).

LIFE

Inside Farming: Part II Ontario beef: what does it mean to you?

Elliot Armstrong, Member of CanACT To me, Ontario beef means a safe, nutritious product that is produced from an innovative and environmentally conscious farmer. When you shop for beef, do you look for Ontario beef?

I think you should, because Ontario beef is sustainable, local, safe and a quality product.

Sustainability in agriculture is sometimes a hard term to describe. I like to describe sustainability as a constant improvement to better the environment and society. Beef farming fits this bill perfectly.

Beef production starts with a cow and her calf. These animals are raised on pastures, which are great for land that might not be suitable for crop production, such as hilly land and land near waterways. When this type of land is put into a pasture system, erosion of land is greatly reduced. Cattle, over their lifetime, produce a lot

of manure. Some may argue that a large amount of manure is bad for the environment, but I look at it differently. Manure is an excellent natural fertilizer. In Ontario, there are regulations that dictate when, where, and how much manure can be applied to land.

These regulations apply to all farmers and ensure that we do not harm the environment that we farm.

Another great thing about Ontario beef is that it’s from Ontario. Most of the cattle fed in Ontario are fed in the Southwestern part of the province.

This reduces the carbon footprint of our industry. The locality of Ontario beef also helps to provide a fresh product to you, the consumer.

Food safety is paramount to both the consumer and producer.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspects beef in Ontario, and all of Canada. The CFIA does inspections at the processing level to ensure that our food is free from bacteria, like E. coli, and free from any antibiotic residues.

The quality of Ontario beef

173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

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Sustainability in agriculture is becoming a top priority to many consumers, and local Ontario beef is a sustainable, safe and high-quality product. is second to none. There are a number of beef brands in Ontario to offer you a consistent eating experience. The Ontario Corn Fed Beef (OCFB) program is one such program. Launched in 2001, OCFB has been offering consumers a high quality product for competitive prices. Any farmer in Ontario can participate in the

brand, but they must follow a set of rules and guidelines that pertain to feeding and management strategies. These rules ensure that the beef marketed under the brand is tender, juicy, and flavourful. OCFB can be found at a number of food retailers, so the next time you’re at the grocery store, take a look at the beef

counter and buy some Ontario beef.

Ontario Beef: what does it mean to you? I hope you would agree with me that Ontario produces some of the best beef in the world. And remember - just because it is winter doesn’t mean you can’t BBQ some steaks for dinner tonight.

You’ve probably seen this on Pinterest

How to end up with a summer job that you don’t hate Alyssa Ottema

I bet you think it’s too early to look for a job for the summer.

A couple of years ago, I would have absolutely agreed with you – and that’s why, a couple of years ago, I spent my summers hating my job at a mall with no view of the outside world. It turns out that you can end up doing something you love – or, at the very least, don’t hate with every bone in your body – if you put a bit of thought and effort into it.

Below is a compilation of tips from Pinterest to help you be the best interview any interviewer has ever had.

1) Research the company and the position Nothing looks worse than walking into an interview without any idea what you’re interviewing for. It’s also a good idea to learn about your interviewer, so that you can ask them specific questions about their job.

2) Update your resume Chances are, you currently still use the resume you made in

careers class in the tenth grade.

If you don’t have much work experience and need to include your high school job at McDonald’s, tailor the description of your duties to fit the description of the job you’re applying for.

For instance, “flipped burgers and burned myself repeatedly with fry grease” can become “provided excellent service to customers of all ages” and “interacted with management to create a better dining experience for all.”

3) Prepare for certain questions Often, interviews centre around questions like “How has your experience prepared you for this job?” “What is your greatest weakness?” and “Why do you want this job?” Being prepared in advance for these questions will make you look like a superstar when you can whip out an eloquent gem like, “I am working on rambling less when I’m nervous – how am I doing?”

4) Ask questions in return Every interview inevitably ends with the phrase, “Do you have any questions for me?”

Subsequently, the interviewee nervously wracks their brain for something better than “how much will I get paid?” Preparing a few questions in advance

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It’s important to have a strategy for summer job-hunting, and to keep some key ideas in the back of your mind when preparing for a job interview.

– like “Where do you see the company going in the next few years?” or “What does someone need to do to be successful in this position?” or “What is your favourite part of working for this company?” – will, once again, make you look like a superstar.

5) Dress the part Dress for whatever job you are attempting to get. Even if you’re applying for a job at a gym, don’t wear sweatpants. Just don’t.

6) Send a thank-you note This probably seems out-dated to most, but it is actually still

proper etiquette to send a handwritten thank-you note after an interview. It is also acceptable to send a thank-you email (even from your phone in the parking lot right after you leave), but you should still send a formal paper version within one week of the interview.

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OPINION

www.theontarion.com

The quality of education is important

What you give is what you get Carleigh Cathcart

My education is important to me, and it is, or should be, to all students - not just because it’s a huge investment of money and time, or because it’s an extreme source of stress. It matters because I need a good-paying, stimulating job, and because I want to have a degree at the end of my title. My education is most important to me because it is what I am relying on to achieve my dream.

To get where I want to be in my life, I need this education. So do you. Among the many issues we have with the way university is run, whether it be the state of our athletic facilities or who is chosen to be the next Vice President (and those things certainly are important), what should matter the most is the quality of the education we seek. Frankly, it is something I am growing concerned with.

Increasingly, it seems as if the objective of the courses we are mandated to take do not to teach or enlighten us, but they “weed” us out, “trick” us, or purposely lead us to failure. Now, before you start protesting this stance and arguing about all the slackers and the invalidity of the whole “our youth should never feel like failures” controversy, hear me out.

I do not think that we should

Making a map to getting to your dream Sarah Stafford Where do you see yourself in five years? Does anyone in university really know? We all have overall dreams that we wish to achieve, but sometimes we don’t have all the steps completely planned out.

Being in your last year of university is the first time that there is no definitive next step as to how

make passing easy, or that we all deserve a ribbon just for participation. It frustrates me to think that it is virtually impossible for an elementary teacher to fail a student, or that high school pupils have many opportunities to be coddled until all other options have been exhausted.

But there is a significant gap between making passing easy and taking every effort to ensure that failure is likely. Allow me to explain.

In a particular course of mine, the tutorial questions are worded in such a way that it deliberately confuses the students. The wording is misleading and vague, and that is a problem because these questions are supplements that are supposed to be helping students grasp difficult concepts that are still new. Now, the role of examinations is to evaluate the student’s understanding and application of the concept taught. That is exactly their purpose. But the teaching is not intended to be equivalent to the testing.

It is impossible for students to apply concepts when the information they’ve been given isn’t easy to understand. The teachinglearning stage is the most critical stage of any education, because without full understanding, application of concepts simply cannot happen. I honestly cannot understand why an educator would actively seek to confuse students when they could instead reach out to be thorough, and

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While students have a responsibility to invest time and effort into their education, professors also should aim to enlighten students, not mislead them through ineffective teaching methods. provide examples and questions that allow students to use new knowledge, make connections, and confirm their understanding.

Basically, it all comes down to this: why are we trying to trick our students? Is it because our professors are uncomfortable with taking the effort to ensure their lectures are of good quality? Do they find great pleasure in deliberately making irrelevant evaluations and thus deterring many from pursuing the subject further? Are they afraid to

infuse the bright minds of today with the knowledge and power to progress such knowledge even further in the future? I certainly hope not, because that would defeat the very purpose of higher-level education. Sadly, however, I think that is the case with some.

Not all of my generation is the technology-obsessed, egocentric, unmotivated bunch we are perceived to be. Though many are, those of us who seek deeper fulfillment and achievement

possess an unprecedented drive to do more for the world. We can’t do that without the help of our educators, the ones we rely on to deliver to us the information and comprehension needed for progression and change. Our education isn’t just what we make it; it’s what our educators offer to us. What we do with it is up to us - but please, give us something to work with.

Knowledge is power. Professors, you have the ability to provide us with both.

The next step: the future to get to your dream. From elementary school you went to high school, and from there, there were three options: university, college, or going out to find work. Those of us attending the University of Guelph picked university as our choice, and the major we thought that would get us closer to our dreams, although some of us even realized that we were working towards the wrong things and switched our dreams completely.

At the end of your university career, you need to figure

out what your future employers want on your resume, and then attempt to make the right decisions to please them. We definitely have the drive and passion for our dreams - that’s why we are here pulling all nighters and why we eat “just after this last chapter.”

We all want our dreams more than anything and have to find our own paths to them, whether the next step is grad school, internships, or taking a year off from school to make some money. We will get there on some sort of path in

an unknown amount of time, but try telling that to family when you go home to visit. It is a hard concept to know your steps, and that is why we can only tell them our dream and our hopes to get to the end result.

University has taught us all the power of drive and endurance.

Wherever your next step takes you, keep in mind the endurance and the fight you put up to get that degree, and shift your sights to your dream. It may be a while, but as long as you keep up

the fight, you can get there. Let’s not measure by time, how many steps, or even what step we take; instead, let’s keep up the drive.

Drive and passion will not be the only aspect in getting our dream jobs, but it is what keeps us going and gets us to learn the other necessary things that the job requires. Drive and passion push us to figure out the next step. People should be asking you how much you want to get to your overall dream, not what your next step is.

OPINION

173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

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Student reps uninformed of political platforms

Adult discussion or children at play?

Laila S. Zarrabi Yan Since coming to university, my knowledge of the political realm has plummeted. I stopped watching the news, reading the paper, and Air Farce stopped its regular programming. While I don’t say this with pride, I have managed to improve in terms of international politics, thanks to programs like The Daily Show and Mock the Week. But, frankly, I should be doing my duty as a citizen to be informed about what’s going on in our own country. As such, I decided to take advantage of last week’s Clubs Days to go around to the different student representatives of our country’s political parties to learn about the national parties and the state of our nation.

While I asked many questions

of the four parties (Conservative, NDP, Liberal, and Green), there were three questions that became the focus of my inquiry: 1. What is the current platform of your party?

2. What do you like about the party/why did you join?

3. What parts of the party do you not like/are dissatisfied with?

The advocates’ responses to these questions were, for the most part, disappointing.

The representatives for the Liberal and Green parties could not give me substantial information on what their parties’ platforms are. The Liberal group was unable to answer because their leader has yet to announce one. All that they knew for sure was that they wish to improve the pension plan and our international reputation as peace keepers, and that they want to legalize marijuana.

Some interesting points, yes, but not enough information to

convince someone to join their group. In comparison, however, they seemed substantially better informed than the Green party representatives. When asked about their platform, instead of talking about it, they simply showed me a bulletin board of four points (including legalize marijuana and having a fairer democracy). The bulletin about fair democracy did catch my interest, but when I asked about what was meant by a “fairer democracy,” they could not tell me. They seemed to have absolutely no idea about the party’s policies whatsoever.

This brings me to absurdity of the answers to my second question. Seeing as these students did not seem to know anything about the party they were representing, one naturally comes to wonder why they are even there in the first place. Simply put, they said they had joined because they care about the environment, and this is the Green party. The

only thing potentially sadder than this answer came from the responses by the Conservative and Liberal representatives.

Both students attributed their political affiliations to parental influences. The Conservative member outright admitted that he could very well had joined the Liberals or the NDP if his parents had leaned that way politically. Looking at these people, I could not help but wonder which was sadder: to blindly follow a rulebook because it’s a family tradition or because it has a pretty picture on the cover?

That afternoon was a letdown of political conversation.

All party representatives simply could not impress.

When it came to my questionings, half of the groups showed inadequate understandings of their own party. Half, again, didn’t seem to have viable reasons that could convince anyone to join their cause.

Honestly, the only person who

was able to provide a decent answer to all three questions was the student at the NDP booth. While not the greatest of speakers, at least he was able to express knowledge of what his party represented and its intentions.

If I were to choose a party based on this exercise alone, the NDP would have won my vote, hands down. Luckily, however, I am not one to follow a group without thought. So it will have to take research to truly see which party, if any, is right for me. Though, one thing I have learned from this is that one truly can’t learn much of our nation’s politics from the squabbles of the political youth.

The views represented in the opinion section do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ontarion or its staff.

HBO’s Girls: a new way to view creative independence

A graphic representation of an age demographic Emily Jones

The pilot of Girls, which aired in 2012, started with the blunt force storyline of Hannah, played by writer and creator Lena Dunham, who was forced into living an independent lifestyle after graduating from college and working an unpaid internship. This was the perfect way to connect with the age demographic targeted to empathetically watch Girls. The twenty-some-year-old characters are all uniquely crafted to depict a version of women in their twenties in the ever-changing modern society.

Dunham, who studied creative writing in college, was able to develop a new spirited way of addressing what it is really like being a woman - or better yet, a human - in the twenty-first century. The focus of Girls isn’t on the glitzy and glamorous life of people who are doing well for themselves financially in New York City - not to diminish fellow female based series produced by HBO in the past, such as Sex in the City, which taught lessons of life, loss and love, as well - rather, Girls is a raw and spectacular view of the less-than-perfect reality that is striking appeal with twenty-somethings everywhere.

The plot is a seemingly random expulsion of the unconscious of a twenty-something. Dunham

expertly bursts open the envelope that has held the televisionviewing public for decades. With a new way of connecting with an audience, she has done so in the most elevated, yet at the same time base, of manners. Each character is uniquely struggling in one way or another, or more often, in multiple ways.

Dunham’s character, Hannah, who the show focuses most on, encounters the troubling (or what appears to be troubling) realization that being educated and finding work isn’t as easy as many altered media outlets have been purporting. Girls has given twenty-something women a new cast to connect to: Hannah, a person trying to find her place in the world as an English major; Marnie, a heartbroken art history major who is in-between jobs and struggling to come to terms with what she really wants; Jessa, a damaged, free-spirited being who pretends she doesn’t need love or approval, but secretly wants it more than anything; and, Shoshanna, a girl who is wrapped up in her own world which is bubbly and childish, yet is yearning for experience and dabbling in worlds foreign to her own.

Each of these girls is different, quirky and unlike the other.

This show has shown the public that friendship is a different form of family, and that the people who love you help you get through hard times. Friends

are there to not only revel in your successes, but to pick you up when you’re down or tell you how it is when you are seriously messing things up.

Dunham’s Girls may have taken an alternative route to becoming one of the best known and most talked about series on television, and it may continually spark controversy in the media for being shocking, too graphic or uncensored. But, the truth is - it’s real.

These characters may not fit the mold that has been made for women to fit into in the twentyfirst century, and the show isn’t clean and proper, but it is real.

Life isn’t perfect. Graduating from college or university doesn’t mean that a job is magically going to appear, and life isn’t easy. The portrayal of life as a twenty-some-year-old in Girls may be shocking to the public, but it is uncanny, and at the same time empowering to know that someone actually understands what it is like to be twenty-something and not be where one had dreamt of being.

Mental illness, confidence and self perception issues, sex, the appropriation of the human body, drugs, addiction, family, friendships, job losses and gains, change – these are all issues Dunham has tackled so far, in different ways, through different characters.

The progression of the series depicts the trials and tribulations of people trying to make a living, trying to make a name

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Lena Dunham’s show Girls is a bold, entertaining and occasionally controversial look at the personal struggles of twenty-something girls as they attempt to navigate life, work and relationships in the 21st-century. for themselves, while simultaneously dealing with the issues that are real and affecting twentysomethings everywhere. This show isn’t just for entertainment, but it is to wake people

up, hoping they will look around and realize everyone is struggling with something. While some people are better at hiding it then others, the truth doesn’t need to be hidden.

EDITORIAL

State of the (Student) Union

On Tuesday, Jan. 28, President Obama made his annual State of the Union address in front of the United States House of Congress. He vowed to use his executive authority to act unilaterally should Congressional Republicans continue to stonewall his agenda. House Republicans have successfully forced Obama to scale down his ambitions for 2014, and they will drive him to use more politically risky methods of getting things done by continuing to oppose him in Congress.

Often, blame for America’s climate of partisan gridlock is laid on the Tea Party Republicans who infiltrated the GOP’s ranks in 2010 with their off-brand, caustic conservatism. Its members loathe any concession to the Obama administration, and their influence within the party has helped force blunders like the most recent government shutdown.

Incidentally, just one day after the State of the Union address, the Central Student Association (CSA) ran its Annual General Meeting (AGM) – perhaps the Association’s nearest equivalent to a State of the Union address. As with the State of the Union address, the political climate surrounding the AGM is by far more interesting spectacle: For here, too, the Guelph Student Mobilization Committee (GSMC) appears to be doing to the CSA what the Tea Party has done to the Republican Party. In a similar fashion the CSA, if it is not more prudent with its affiliations, risks compromising its ability to enact meaningful change.

The GSMC is a left-leaning

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173.4 • Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014

group inspired by the Quebec Student Strike, which formed in 2012. The group campaigns for free post-secondary education, resists university austerity measures, and “stands in solidarity with students all over the world that are struggling towards the same goal,” according to the ‘Basis of Unity’ document available on the GSMC website.

For the past two semesters, the GSMC has been pouring resources into a high-profile publicity campaign against the Program Prioritization Process (PPP). Their most recent event was the Alternative Town Hall, which offered a forum for students, faculty and staff to voice opposition to the proposed budget cuts, despite the fact that little is known about how the much PPP valuations will count when the time comes to enact cuts. The poster the GSMC used to advertise the meeting featured a chainsaw emblazoned with the letters “PPP.” To be clear, the problem here is not the GSMC. The group has just as much right to mobilize as the Tea Party, and students are better served by having them around. The problem is the extent to which the GSMC has been invited to cosy up to the CSA, a far larger institution that has many of the same mandates as the GSMC, but in theory has a greater obligation to work toward realistic goals.

January’s CSA Board of Director’s meeting demonstrated just how close the relationship between the two groups has become. Each member of the CSA Executive in attendance spoke in favour of a motion to endorse the GSMC’s anti-PPP “Pay More, Get Less” campaign,

The Ontarion Inc. University Centre Room 264 University of Guelph N1G 2W1 ontarion@uoguelph.ca Phone: 519-824-4120 General: x58265 Editorial: x58250 Advertising: x58267 Accounts: x53534 Editorial Staff: Editor-in-Chief Jessica Avolio News Editor Michael Long Arts & Culture Editor Emily Jones Sports & Health Editor Andrew Donovan Associate Editor Stacey Aspinall Copy Editor Alyssa Ottema

PHOTO COURTESY OF GSMC and at least two members of the CSA Executive – Julia Forster, the Academic and University Affairs Commissioner, and Dominca McPherson, the External Affairs Commissioner – said they regularly attend GSMC meetings. The motion to endorse the campaign passed 16-9, due in part to their influence.

The CSA is understandably attracted to the way the GSMC has so effectively been able to mobilize student support, lay the groundwork for its own campaigns, and present a strong face to the administration. But in supporting the GSMC so intimately, and by allowing the group to manoeuvre its way into the CSA agenda, Guelph’s student union is binding itself to an organization that does not

have the same responsibilities and obligations as its own: a group that can afford to rankle precisely because it has nothing to lose. The CSA, however, must preserve a commitment to making thoughtful concessions on behalf of the student population. Like the Republican Party, they will do no good service to anyone by taking uncompromising positions on important issues.

Have a question, comment or complaint? Send us a letter to the editor at ontarion@uoguelph.ca.

Deadline is Monday at 4 p.m., 300 word max.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR RE: Anti-Abortion bus ads infringe on rights (Jan. 23, 2014 - Editorial) Recognizing the fundamental role that open discourse plays in a healthy democracy, Canada enshrined freedom of expression in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as one of the Fundamental Freedoms.

The Supreme Court of Canada sets high standards when weighing whether to restrict freedom of expression. So too should newspapers, who are called upon to preserve and protect access to forums where people can voice opinions, even unpopular ones.

For the Ontarion to suggest that Guelph’s public transit provider ban pro-life ads, particularly under such flimsy pretexts, is

shocking. What’s worse, the authors seem not to recognize how much of a step backwards their proposal represents.

Censoring unpopular opinions under the guise of protecting people from harm has historically been used to oppress those without power, including religious minorities, women, people of colour, and the LGBT community. Such examples teach us that when voices are silenced, we are all diminished.

Greg Beneteau Former features editor of the Ontarion Student Newspaper (2007-2008)

Production Staff: Photo & Graphics Editor Wendy Shepherd Ad Designer Justin Thomson Layout Director Stephanie Lefebvre Office Staff: Business manager Lorrie Taylor Ad manager Al Ladha Office Coordinator Vanessa Tignanelli Circulation Director Sal Moran Web Editor Alexander Roibas Board of Directors President Heather Luz Treasurer Alex Lefebvre Chairperson Michael Bohdanowicz Directors Bronek Szulc Harrison Jordan Sohrab Rahmaty Anthony Jehn Melissa Yan Patrick Sutherland Contributors Abhishek Atre Stephen Banic Sameer Chhabra Stephanie Coratti Kelsey Coughlin Ian Gibson

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Eric Green Bridgitte Grogan Alyssa Ottema Lindsay Pinter Pablo Vadone Kavya Yoganathan

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The Ontarion is a non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors.

Since the Ontarion undertakes the publishing of student work, the opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Ontarion Board of Directors. The Ontarion reserves the right to edit or refuse all material deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise unfit for publication as determined by the Editor-in-Chief. Material of any form appearing in this newspaper is copyrighted 2011 and cannot be reprinted without the approval of the Editor-in-Chief. The Ontarion retains the right of first publication on all material. In the event that an advertiser is not satisfied with an advertisement in the newspaper, they must notify the Ontarion within four working days of publication. The Ontarion will not be held responsible for advertising mistakes beyond the cost of advertisement. The Ontarion is printed by the Guelph Mercury.

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CLASSIFIEDS

Discover Vet School at OVC! Lectures and labs Thursday evenings in March in veterinary neurology, parasitology, wildlife medicine and more. Open to anyone interested in animal health.

More details at www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/globalvets/discover-vet-school Better Bagel Nutrition Study at the University of Guelph is looking for participants >40yrs old.

Financial compensation. bagel@uoguelph.ca or 519-824-4120x58081

COMMUNITY LISTINGS

Olivia Chow, widow of Jack Layton, appearing at The eBar, Thursday January 30, 7 pm. Olivia’s biography My Journey touches on her immigrant experience, family violence, mental illness, and her own bad decision making as a young woman.

Across 1- Gyro meat 5- Impulse 9- Polite address 13- Suit to ___ 14- Simmons rival 16- Writer Sarah ___ Jewett 17- Pledge 18- At ___ for words 19- Granny 20- Dagger of yore 21- Purse 22- Hired killer 24- Comrade in arms 26- Work with acid 27- Color anew 29- Azure 33- Actress Witherspoon 34- Boxer Oscar ___ Hoya 35- Ivy League school 36- Swiss river 37- Alvin of dance 38- By way of 39- Small combo 41- Put down 42- Campaign tactic 44- Agreeable 46- Bridge declaration

FUN PAGE 47- Greek vowels 48- Playthings 49- Reduce 52- Deity 53- Nintendo rival 57- “Hard ___!” (sailor’s yell) 58- Teheran native 60- Diary of ___ Housewife 61- Small brook 62- Senator Specter 63- Enclose 64- Unwilling to listen 65- Freelancer’s encl.

66- Blows it Down 1- Neighbor of Cambodia 2- ___ all-time high 3- Dole (out) 4- Decapitates 5- In working order 6- Cooperative race 7- Alcoholic drink 8- Aliens, for short 9- Each month 10- Composer Khachaturian 11- Editor Wintour 12- Intend

15- Smokers receptacle 23- Hosp. section 25- Caustic stuff 26- Caught congers 27- Give guns again 28- Causing goose bumps 29- Whoopi’s role in “The Color Purple” 30- Gutter site 31- Assumed name 32- Approach 33- Pro ___ 34- Clock faces 37- Republic in S Europe 40- Ego 42- Bond, for one 43- Rubdown 45- Devoured 46- Halogen element 48- Musical sounds 49- Hog fat 50- Writer Wiesel 51- Actress Ward 52- Festive occasion 54- Chieftain, usually in Africa 55- Teri of “Tootsie” 56- Tacks on 59- Monopoly quartet: Abbr.;

Friday Afternoon Jazz Series at the Bullring features Episteme! Jan 31, 2-4, free!

February 1, Guelph Organic Conference Q & A with Bruce Louire and Rick Smith, Authors of Toxin Toxout: Getting harmful chemicals out of our bodies and our world. Free event. First 50 attendees receive a free book!

February 12 - DECREASING HEADACHES program begins at 7:30 pm. Learn drug-free strategies to decrease tension and migraine headaches. Details at www.uoguelph.ca/~ksomers.

Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Eating Disorders Coalition 11th annual Faces of Recovery event.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014, 7- 9 pm, Best Western Royal Brock Hotel and Conference Centre as part of Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS February 7. GRAND PRIZE: headlining spot at the College Royal Ball. Interested bands contact kgahnsmi@uoguelph.ca. You may be the next big talent on Guelph’s campus!

SUBMIT your completed crossword by no later than Monday, February 3rd at 4pm for a chance to win TWO FREE BOB’S DOGS!

Last Week's Solution Congratulations to this week's crossword winner: James Bullard.

Stop by the Ontarion office to pick up your prize!