Locked Out

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3 PEAK SPEAK

As a member of the editorial staff at The Peak, I’d like to make an apology I feel is long overdue.

Campus newspapers aren’t infallible. In fact, you could argue that we wouldn’t be doing a very good job of the news if everyone involved — from our sources to our readers and beyond — were satisfied with us.

We often have a “go big or go home” attitude, which is great since we’re in university and we can get away with it.

However, the one group I feel we have been letting down is our writers and those who want to get involved with The Peak, and to those folks I think we owe a heartfelt apology. If you’ll let me be a little on the nose with this, you’ll see where I’m going.

I feel the Editor’s Voice, this article you’re reading, is a great example of how much we maybe prioritize ourselves a little too much here. Three editors and five contributors here at the paper recently went down to Los Angeles

for an Associated Collegiate Press conference, and during a critique of our paper, this page in particular was questioned.

Why is the first article presented in our paper often either some funny story from our pasts or an opinion that we have? There have been some incredibly strong Editor’s Voices, so it isn’t an issue of poor quality. It’s just that this is an example of us putting ourselves ahead of everything else in the paper, which probably sends a weird message. Besides, we have an opinions section for that.

The worst part about this is that some of us feel shoehorned into writing one because we had to sign up for these at the beginning of the semester. That’s us deciding right away to start all thirteen issues with us, regardless of the content in the paper.

This would all be making a mountain out of a molehill if I felt we had a great relationship with our contributors. I love to nitpick, but it would be a little obsessive if I wrote a column essentially bashing my own column for existing when that was our only issue.

However, we’ve been called out for being a weird Peak clique in the past (which is a cute, yet stinging assessment), and I feel we’re unfortunately still learning that we have contributors who feel this way. It isn’t always the case that our contributors find the strength to stand back up to us, but I know I benefit from when they do, and I wish I could find a way to improve how I’m seen as an editor by contributors.

I feel like maybe we’ve been a little too masturbatory here, which has given a poor impression to our writers and illustrators that they’ll never be valued the way we value ourselves. Case in point: another editor was excited just to write their Editor’s Voice because they had been contributing for so long and finally got the good real estate on page three — as if we’ve ingrained it in our newspaper’s culture that this is the way we do things forever now.

To that end, I want to apologize to our contributors and extend the olive branch in hopes that we can get back to repairing our relationship. Perhaps we can start things over again?

Hey, we’re The Peak, and although we don’t always show it, we love you nerds. Please stick with us while we find better ways to show you this.

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NEWS

news editor email

February 29, 2016

Jamal Dumas news@the-peak.ca

associate news editor Nathan Ross

Woodward’s On Wednesday, March 2, William Lindsay will present “Dragons and Tricksters: An Intersection of Chinese and First Nations Culture,” at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Center on W. Hastings Street.

The lecture will include a short documentary, Cedar and Bamboo, as well as Lindsay’s findings on the similarities between classical Chinese and traditional First Nations peoples’ thoughts and practices.

Surrey

Lisa Dimyadi / The Peak

Fraser Library (pictured) is the only one of SFU’s three libraries that isn’t open on Sundays.

Jamal Dumas News Editor The Fraser Library at SFU’s Surrey Campus is closed on Sundays, and the SFSS would like to change that.

In a survey conducted by the SFSS from January 18–29, 740 undergraduates who were registered in at least one course at the Surrey campus submitted responses. Eighty-one percent said that they would study at the library if it were open on Sundays.

The letter, written by VP University Relations Brady Yano, cites “complaints” heard by the SFSS “over the years” regarding the Fraser Library being closed on Sundays.

Said Yano, “Complaints that were funneling through [the Surrey campus liaison] about just really having this issue of equality.” The Belzberg library in Vancouver and the Bennett

library in Burnaby are both open on Sundays.

Why isn’t the library open on Sundays? Yano argued that it might be due to the fact that the Surrey campus is not operational on Sundays. He mentioned that there are no staff beyond security and that he has heard complaints stemming from over a year back, that “come Sundays, on the Surrey campus, the garbage cans are all overflowing and that’s because we don’t have any janitorial staff on campus.”

The Peak reached out to VP External Relations Joanne Curry, to whom the letter was addressed, for comment. Said Curry, who was director of the

Surrey campus when it opened in 2002, “It was great to receive the letter from Brady on behalf of the SFSS. We really appreciated the survey data.”

She explained that even though the campus originally was meant to accommodate 2,500 full time students, since SFU students are free to take classes at any campus it can be difficult to “predict usage.”

The SFSS letter says that meetings with staff and administration have “produced minimal results” and that “ongoing commitment to this initiative has not been reciprocal.” Yano explained further: “It seemed as though we were experiencing a significant amount of stalling on SFU’s end.”

He cited the turnover among administration as a possible reason for this.

Curry explained, “Because of the financial implications, I think it was a little bit stalled

out. I think certainly the administration wants to be responsive so it was a case of just looking at various options.”

Yano, in his letter, argues for a pilot project which would open the library from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m on Sundays as of the 2016 Fall semester. He estimated that it would cost $150,000 to open the library on Sundays for an entire year. This means the pilot project could cost $50,000, an amount which was not budgeted for in the 2016–2017 budget, slated to be approved come March.

The Peak asked Curry where the money would come from for the pilot project. She did not say for certain, but noted that money could be taken from Surrey’s external relations portfolio.

Curry continued, “We really like the idea of a pilot.” She further said that along with the pilot, she wishes to increase student’s awareness of the existing study spaces on the Surrey Campus.

She hopes that the response to pilot project might “give the data to support a budget request for the ongoing fiscal years.”

Yano opined that “at the end of the day, if we opened up the library on Sundays and nobody went, then obviously it would be just a waste of resources.”

SFU Career and Volunteer Services presents the Allin-One Fair at SFU’s Surrey campus. This mini version of Fairs Week is an entirely free opportunity for students to network with various volunteer organizations, employers, and graduate schools.

This will occur in the Mezzanine on Feb. 29 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

If you can’t make it down to Surrey, don’t fret! The event will also take place here on Burnaby Mountain on March 2 at the same time.

Vancouver On Thursday, March 3, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., the Vancouver Convention Center is hosting “An Evening with our Outstanding Alumni.”

This event will feature 2015 Outstanding Alumni Award recipients Margaret Trudeau, Dr. David Mark, Dr. Jennifer Gardy, Zabeen Hirji, and David Fong. Tickets are $50 per person, 70 percent of which have already been sold as of Feb. 22. A networking reception will be held before and after the event.

By Sarah Finley

NEWS

February 29, 2016

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STIGMA STUDY

Women living with HIV have high rates of sexual inactivity and dissatisfaction, and a lower quality of life. This is according to Angela Kaida, the Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Reproductive Health, and one of the women who is part of a research group studying stigma surrounding HIV. The Peak got a hold of Kaida, who is an assistant professor at SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences, to talk about the project, potential changes that could arise, and how they’re hoping to reduce stigma.

The Peak: In regards to educating the public, how will this project help remove the HIV stigma?

Angela Kaida: First, the really good news: with improving access and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART; the standard of treatment for people living with HIV), HIV is increasingly considered a chronic disease [and no longer an infectious disease].

People living with HIV (PLWH) who start treatment early and are

adherent have life expectancies on par with HIV-uninfected people.

We now also have evidence showing that when people living with HIV are successfully on ART and achieve a suppressed viral load (which means that there is such a low number of HIV virus particles in the blood, that they can’t be detected by standard lab tests), the risk of HIV transmission to sexual partners approaches zero, even when condoms are not being used.

Sadly, however, in Canada and elsewhere, increasing use of ART has not substantially alleviated the presence or impacts of HIV-related stigma and discrimination. There is a plethora of evidence showing how damaging HIV-related stigma is to the health and well-being of women living with HIV. The impacts of stigma include increasing delays in accessing HIV care and treatment, growing fears of disclosing HIV status, and pervasive high levels of violence towards women living with HIV. For women living with HIV, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about and measuring HIV risk reduction practices (like condom use) but we’ve said far less about ‘healthy sexuality.’

We recently published a paper which showed that only half of women living with HIV in Canada had any consensual sex in the last

year. This rate of sexual inactivity was much higher than rates observed among both HIV-uninfected women and HIV-infected [men]. We found these rates even though most women were on treatment with good treatment outcomes, suggesting that good treatment outcomes alone aren’t enough to ’normalize sex and intimacy.’ In fact, women experiencing the highest levels of HIVrelated stigma were the least likely to be sexual active. These data underscore an urgent need for interventions to de-stigmatize HIV and re-appropriate the sexual rights of women living with HIV.

that poses a “realistic possibility” of HIV transmission.

The Supreme Court defined realistic possibility as any sexual activity without the use of a condom and without a low HIV plasma viral load. PLWH who fail to meet both criteria and do not disclose their HIV status to sexual partners risk a criminal charge of aggravated sexual assault. If convicted, this charge results in jail time with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and mandatory listing on a national Sexual Offender Registry.

So here we have an inconsistency between legal definitions of the “realistic possibility” of HIV transmission and contemporary scientific assessments of HIV transmission risk and prognosis.

P: What needs to be done to help remove Angela Kaida, SFU assistant professor the HIV stigma?

AK: One of P: What type of new policies the most important things to be would you like to have imple- done is to ensure that women living mented to help address HIV treat- with HIV are at the forefront of all ment and prevention? discussions, decision-making, and AK: In October 2012, the Su- programming that affects their lives. preme Court of Canada ruled that Our study, the Canadian HIV PLWH are legally required to dis- Women’s Sexual and Reproductive close their HIV status to sexual Health cohort study (CHIWOS), is a partners prior to sexual activity community-based research study

“We also must collectively erase the view of women with HIV as ‘vectors, vessels, and victims.’”

with 1,425 women living with HIV enrolled across BC, Ontario, and Quebec. We need to move towards models that advocate for Positive Health, Dignity, and Prevention frameworks, which place the person living with HIV at the centre of their health, care, and well-being, well beyond a role in “positive prevention” of on-going transmission of HIV. We also must collectively erase the view of women living with HIV as “vectors, vessels, and victims,” rather see them as empowered individuals with agency, deserving of loving, intimate relationships.

P: Is there anything you’d like to add about the project, or even just on the topic of HIV? AK: The #lovepositivewomen movement is doing important and powerful work on this front.

And we need to document the harmful ways that structural factors such as the threat of criminalization of HIV non-disclosure compromise women’s health and public health goals.

But, as importantly, we need to document that many women living with HIV across Canada are in healthy, sexual satisfying, emotionally connected, intimate, and loving relationships! This is an important part of changing the narrative of what it means to live life after HIV.

UNIVERSITY BRIEFS U of Manitoba to implement affirmative action

New molecule helps monitor brain signals [EDMONTON] – Scientists at the University of Alberta have developed a molecule that uses red light to detect and showcase signal transmission in brain cells.

Titled FlicR1, researchers hope to use the invention of PhD student Ahmed Abdelfattah to monitor brain activity and identify brain cells more effectively than what has been possible via the traditional approach.

With files from Edmonton Journal

[WINNIPEG] – The University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Education recently announced the introduction of affirmative action to their admissions process. As of Sept. 2017, 45 percent of places in the program will be reserved for members of marginalized groups.

Niigaan Sinclair, head of the university’s Department of Native Studies, said in an interview with CBC that the lack of diverse teachers is not benefiting Manitoba, because they bring a diverse spread of knowledge from their personal histories.

With files from CBC

Brock scientists research Zika outbreak [ST. CATHERINES] – Scientists at Brock University are conducting research on Canadians’ risk of contracting the Zika virus, recently branded a “global health emergency” by the World Health Organization, from our native specimens.

Many medical authorities have deemed the danger to Canada to be minimal, as the mosquitoes most notorious for transmitting the disease cannot survive in our climate. However, due to rising temperatures in the Ontarian climate, entomologist Fiona Hunter notes that possible transmitters could arrive in Canada within “the next decade.”

With files from Toronto Star

By Zach Siddiqui

6 NEWS

Melanie Mark always knew that she was a fighter.

February 2 proved to be a big day, not only for Mark, but also for the province. With 61 percent of the vote, Mark won the by-election for the riding of VancouverMount Pleasant. She is the first First Nations woman to be elected into the BC Legislature — Mark is Cree, Gitxsan, Nisga’a, and Ojibway.

“It’s about time,” Mark said in an interview with The Peak. “The high from the past two weeks has been incredible.”

An alumna of SFU, Mark holds a degree in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. Despite the fact that she was determined to finish her degree quickly, Mark remembers her time at SFU with fondness, calling it a “great opportunity for friendships and networking.” She spent most of her time studying so that she could get on with her career as well as raise her daughter. “I always in a hurry,” Mark recalled.

“I wish I had more time to get things done.”

It was this strength and determination that pushed Mark to run for the NDP nomination after then incumbent Jenny Kwan resigned and ran in the federal election. Initially, Mark was planning on running in May 2017 so that she could build up her exposure. But once the position was vacated, Mark saw this as a “push to do it now.”

“It’s now or never,” she said with a laugh. “Put your name in the hat, and do your best.”

February 29, 2016

With the current agreement between post-secondary institutions and Translink set to end, a referendum question is being posed to students during the SFSS Spring 2016 General Election Ballot.

It proposes the fee for UPass will get up $1.50 next year and another $1.50 after that, meaning that in the 2017–2018 school year, students would pay $41 dollars for their U-Pass instead of the $38 they do now. The SFSS motioned to endorse the “Yes” side of the referendum.

Running in the by-election a year earlier than anticipated proved to be a learning curve.

Mark compared her experience of meeting people and knocking on doors to “going into a different job interview with each person [she] spoke to.”

“I had to explain what skills I had and what I had to offer to them,” she said. “The more I connected with people, the more I felt that I could be a person that could help them overcome their difficulties.”

Mark’s advocacy work includes being the president of the Urban Native Youth Association, working at Save the Children Canada and Covenant House Vancouver, and more recently as the Associate Deputy Representative for Advocacy, Aboriginal and Community Relations, and Youth Engagement.

It was through this position that she saw how the government system was failing the

province’s most vulnerable demographic: children.

“Children have no say in the budget, public policy [. . .] they are the recipient of what adults decide,” Mark said. “We need to be strong advocates for children’s rights: their ability to practice their culture, their right to safety, and the right to be free from exploitation.”

Mark’s First Nations heritage was an integral part of her campaign and life, though this had not always been the case.

Growing up, racism, especially towards people of Aboriginal and First Nations heritage, was extremely prevalent. “I didn’t grow up with a lot of pride [for my culture],” Mark said.

One of the reasons why this was the case was because of fear. Her grandparents, out of fear of discrimination and racism, did not share the First Nations culture with her. “I didn’t learn about residential schools until I was in college,” Mark admitted. She attributes this lack of understanding to a lack of Aboriginal education.

“Many people say that just because I am First Nations, I

will only fight for issues pertaining to Native people. I am here to fight for justice and fairness for everyone.”

But none of this would be possible, Mark says, without the support that she has had throughout the campaign and ultimately her life.

Mark’s mother, who had suffered from alcoholism but has since been sober for 10 years, was a prime example of this in her life. “Our family was there to support and embrace [my mom] when she was ready,” she said.

In the same way, Mark says that we need to have a society that will be there for people when they are ready to make a change “We [as a collective society] are strong, and we can move mountains. We sometimes just need the opportunity.”

Mark reminds students that the road may not always be easy, and that people may be there just to “deflate you” in life. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something,” she said. “If you want to create change, don’t wait for it to come to you. You have to go to the change.”

Speaking of referendums, another could be coming to officially gauge interest in a sexual assault support centre coming to Simon Fraser University. According to Council Liaison Anjali Biju, SFU is one of the only leading universities in Canada to not have a support centre like this, if not the only school.

The Council has approved going forward with a referendum, but now the decision has to go through Chief Commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission Vanna Lodders before it can officially be a part of the election ballot.

This week is student appreciation week! To say thank you just for being students, the SFSS is hosting events all throughout the week to reduce stress and have some fun.

Monday will be Disney Monday, and there is no sign who pushed for that (hint: Ohana means family).

The next day will be Treat Yo Self Tuesday, followed by Carnival Wednesday complete with “an inflatable surprise.” Thursday doesn’t have a fun name, but there will be a barbecue and a dunk tank where you can potentially dunk your (least) favourite board member.

NEWS

February 29, 2016

One SFU student is using his skills with managing big data to find out how chocolate is posted about on Instagram, especially when analyzing the content of posts and how it relates to geographical data.

Charaniya began the project as part of his CMPT 732 course about “Big Data.” He collected 9.4 million posts using the hashtag “#chocolate” over a one year period. It took him around five weeks to gather all his data.

Charaniya used an application processing interface (API), provided by Instagram, to mine data from the app. An API, according to Charaniya, is “a set of commands and tools that someone designs for a specific task.”

The interface allows for the user to input a simple command and have the data returned without having the user go through the process of doing the complicated steps themselves.

Why look at chocolate? “I have a bit of a sweet tooth,” he said with a laugh. But Charaniya’s interest in chocolate extends beyond his tastebuds: “Chocolate is used everywhere. In every festive location, religious or secular, there is gifting or receiving of chocolate or of some kind of sweet or confectionary and it’s a global phenomenon.”

Among the significant findings were ones found by narrowing the 9.4 million posts in the data set to around 1.2 million that had geolocation data through location tags. The city with the most posts about chocolate in the world was not Brussels or Los Angeles, as Charaniya had predicted, but Üsküdar, a municipality of Istanbul. Rounding out the top three was Sao Paulo in second place, and New York in third.

His study also returned interesting results about what brands were talked about most. “By far, Nutella is the most talked-about chocolate in the world,” said Charaniya. Also in the top three are Mars and Oreos, however these brands are talked about much less than Nutella, which Charaniya estimated possesses a third of the “market share.” He said about the data, “[It] only tells you which chocolate people like to talk about. It doesn’t

To many Canadians, the face of violent white supremacy wears the hood of the Klu Klux Klan and lives somewhere in the southern United States, or perhaps even in the past. However, a recent study co-authored by SFU criminology PhD candidate Ryan Scrivens and University of Ontario professor Dr. Barbara Perry suggests otherwise.

Their research, published in the report “Uneasy Alliances: A

Look at the Right-Wing Extremist Movement in Canada” for Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, is one of few studies on the subject. The report characterizes right-wing extremism as white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia, and transphobia expressed through hate speech, vandalism, and violence including assault and homicide.

Just over a thousand hatemotivated crimes are reported every year, and Scrivens asserted that many can be attributed to right-wing extremists. He says that although the threat is hard to quantify, it cannot be overlooked: “Are they [right-wing extremists] more of a threat than ISIS? We don’t know. But historically, they have done a lot more damage. If you take a look in the

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Saif Charaniya (pictured) was inspired by his sweet tooth to look at chocolate for his study. tell you which chocolates are inherently more popular.”

Charaniya used word clouds along with geodata to analyze how social media posts about chocolate differ by location.

He noted about North America and Australia that city tags are very popular, while in Brazil, oftentimes the type of chocolate being posted about is in the hashtag. However there are several challenges with this. Many non-english speaking countries

use non-english hashtags which were not included in Charaniya’s data.

The research on chocolate could have significant real world implications. Charaniya talked about how information on which brands people talk about the most and where they are located can help companies better reach consumers in those locations. He also mentioned that by analyzing the performance of social media posts about chocolate, chocolate makers

can find out how to better “engage their users.” Charaniya used the example of Snickers, which, while possessing a relatively small market share, averages more comments per post about the brand than its competitors.

Said Charaniya, “for someone who is using Instagram for the purpose of monetization they need to understand when the best time and [what] the best use of words is to get their post to become optimal.”

last 20 years alone, there’s been hundreds of incidents. [. . .] They may not be a threat to national security, but they are a threat to the community.”

Scrivens noted that the rise in right-wing extremist activity has corresponded with the recent influx of Syrian refugees.

In the past few months alone, a mosque in Peterborough, Ontario was set on fire, a group of Syrian refugees were pepper sprayed at welcome event in Vancouver, and statements such as “Go Home Syrians” and “Kill Refugees” have been spray painted onto cars and school walls in Calgary.

According to the study, the main demographic of right-wing extremism in Canada is younger white men, typically coming from lower income and often violent backgrounds. These men are often

known to the police for reasons outside of extremist activity. They may operate alone or in groups such as Blood & Honour, and PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West).

Often mobilizing on the Internet and through white power music, these groups are often disorganized and face a lot of infighting, and local groups may disperse when a leader is arrested. Nevertheless, they see themselves as maintaining or restoring social order, and flourish in areas where they are tolerated — that is, in smaller, majority white communities where they are unlikely to face direct or organized opposition.

In bigger and more diverse cities, their protests are often met with counter-protests by organizations such as

Anti-Racist Canada and No One Is Illegal. In March of 2015, PEGIDA Montreal cancelled their rally after hundreds showed up to a counter-protest.

However, there are some more “moderate” extremists who are getting into municipal politics. In 2014, several areas in Ontario, including Minden, Oshawa, Mississauga, and Toronto, saw mayoral bids from former members and leaders of neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant groups such as the Edmund Burke Society. Although they have not been particularly successful, they are steering conversations and showing a presence.

Scrivens argued that this “spreads hate and it almost legitimizes it. It makes hate mainstream. It almost says that this type of language and ideology is tolerated. It normalizes hate.”

8 NEWS

February 29, 2016

“roughly speaking, this budget is of apiece with the last 16 years of BC Liberal budgets.

“It is a low-tax, low-expenditure regime, wherein keeping taxes low even at the price of mediocre publicly provided goods and services is thought to be the right choice.”

The BC Liberals have emerged with a new budget for this fiscal year. On February 16, the provincial government released the 2016–2017 Budget, a document that pinpoints multiple government sectors that will be impacted in the upcoming fiscal year.

In his speech to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Finance Minister Mike de Jong stated that 2016 is the fourth consecutive year the provincial government is presenting a balanced budget, including a potential $264 million surplus.

The projected budget surplus has been achieved through various means. Some tactics include cutting public spending, such as removing the transportation subsidy for people with disabilities, and increasing costs to taxpayers in a number of ways, including raising MSP premiums for seniors, childless couples, and people making more than $51,000 per year.

While some people will be paying more, many of the top earners will be paying less; the temporary top income tax rate on taxable income over $150,000 has expired after being introduced in 2014.

In an email correspondence with The Peak , Dr. Krishna Pendakur of SFU’s Department of Economics wrote,

Post-secondary institutions lie under the umbrella of public services, and so amongst those impacted by budget decisions, students will also be affected.

The provincial government is adding $25 million in funding to the Ministry of Advanced Education in 2016, or two percent from the previous year’s budget, an increase from the previous cuts of 16 million in 2014 and 11 million in 2015.

According to the official budget report, h o w ever, the majority of the additional funding is meant for continuing to honour wage increase agreements for public sector employees in the Ministry of Advanced Education. Despite this year’s budget increase, it appears to be going less to students and more to administration.

When it comes directly to students, per-student operating grants have been dwindling over the last 15 years, claims the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC. According

to Kathleen Yang, VP External for the Simon Fraser Student Society, “operating grants from the provincial government to SFU have also been in decline since 2010.” It is unclear as of yet how much funding SFU will see from the budget’s post-secondary investment plans.

However, the Minister of Advanced Education, Andrew Wilkinson, has a positive outlook on the BC Budget and its intersection with post-secondary institutions.

“The system is actually working very well,” said Wilkinson. “We have, as you know, a two percent cap on tuition growth. We are very comfortable with this cap of two percent growth on tuition, even though the universities and colleges would like it to be significantly more.”

That tuition cap in BC is for domestic students, who pay the fourth-lowest tuition in Canada. However, according to a recent media release from the Alliance of British Columbia Students (ABCS), BC charges the highest interest rate on student loans in the country.

What that means for students is that the provincial government earns about $10,000 in interest off the average student loan debt of $35,000.

In the same media release, ACBS chairperson added that on top of this exorbitant interest rate, BC is also the only province to not provide grants on the basis of financial need.

The province is focusing its post-secondary infrastructure budget of $2.5 billion on brandnew buildings rather than upgrading and maintaining preexisting ones. Some notable additions are a new 123 million

$11 MILLION $16 MILLION

d o l l a r campus for Emily Carr University and a 19 million dollar trades facility at Selkirk College in Nelson.

“The 2.5 billion in investments over three years for postsecondary education is going to increase capacity in the long run,” said Dr. Steeve Mongrain, professor in the SFU Department of Economics. “In the

short run however, it will have no impact. The current crop of undergraduate students are unlikely to see any benefit.”

When asked about SFU maintenance and upgrades, Wilkinson could not supply any examples of how our school will be aided with this $2.5 billion infrastructure plan, though Mongrain indicated that SFU may see a small amount of funding.

In the wake of Ontario’s recent announcement to offer grants to low-income students that are expected to fully cover the tuition costs of most students, BC’s changes to education funding may, as some critics argue, prove anemic.

OPINIONS

In November, four very unexpected words came out of my mouth: “I’m becoming a vegan.” Before then, I truly did not believe I could ever take animal products out of my diet, despite all the signs pointing towards this path. But then I watched the famed documentary Cowspiracy, and something clicked.

I could not continue eating animal products, and so from that day I began to navigate the rocky but surprisingly satisfying terrain of veganism. The hardest part of my now-limited diet has been finding food on campus; although a few menu items scattered around SFU happen to be vegan, there are very few places that focus on providing significant vegan options.

Of course, I am not advocating that all food-service providers stop using animal products, but there are a number of advantages to decreasing the dependence on animal products and further prioritizing vegan options.

First and foremost, animal agriculture puts a tremendous amount of strain on the environment. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, approximately 30 percent of the world’s surface is occupied by livestock, and this huge quantity of livestock is responsible for producing about

In a recent Peak article titled “5 reasons why we should lower Canada’s voting age,” while Ms. Tamara Connor was correct to state that there isn’t a magic age of preparedness for voting, this isn’t a proper reason to lower the voting age, but rather more a reason to increase voter education, so young people do eventually feel prepared.

As a society, we deny youth many things because they simply aren’t ready for the responsibility — credit cards, driver’s and marriage

February 29, 2016

opinions editor email

Adam Van der Zwan opinions@the-peak.ca

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18 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gases, which, according to Cowspiracy, is more than is produced by all modes of transportation globally.

Additionally, due to the enormity of our livestock population and our similarly enormous appetites, according to stats from National Geographic, nearly 36 percent of crops are dedicated to feeding farm animals, while only 55 percent of the food grown around the world is going to feed people directly, many of whom are quite literally starving. On top of all this, animal agriculture is inefficient in its current form; the amount of calories that go into feeding the animals dwarfs the amount that we can actually extract from them.

To put this in perspective, for every 100 calories we

feed to animals (sourced from grain), we only get 12 calories from chicken and three from beef, again from National Geographic. This means it takes about 7,000 calories to produce 210 calories of beef (or a three-oz. steak). Once again, this means 7,000 calories are going to feed a single animal for a few people to eat, rather than 7,000 calories of grain being distributed amongst many more people.

These are just a few of the ways animal agriculture contributes to environmental degradation and perpetuates nutritional inequality.

Many more issues are being studied when it comes to livestock production, including water pollution, water usage and waste, land desertification, species extinction, and more. By making agriculture more

sustainable we can potentially impact the environment and people’s lives in positive ways.

Of course, these are all issues that seem distant and somewhat not relatable to many people; not all of us care to prioritize environmental issues when considering what we are going to eat for lunch, and that is understandable. On a more personable note, vegan food is accessible to a much larger number of

people. Vegan food options are not just for hard-core vegans, they’re also great for vegetarians (who may still eat dairy and eggs).

If you’re not vegan or vegetarian, vegan food is still a helpful option for those with dairy and egg allergies, two of the most common food allergies. By simply making food items and meals vegan, a number of non-vegans can still benefit from this small change.

SFU has an impressive history of activism and fighting for what is right, yet the university itself has been lagging considerably when it comes to environmental issues, such as divesting from fossil fuels.

Of course, SFU has made some small but important efforts to improve its environmental impact, such as our waste separation bins.

However another important step SFU should be taking is reducing the amount of animal products used to produce food served on campus.

Considering SFU’s newly released initiative to improve sustainability and student engagement, including improving student happiness and well-being, it would be fitting to diversify the selection of foods available to the many people who don’t eat animal products. And even if you are a dedicated meat-eater, I guarantee most vegan options would be just as healthy and satisfying as any other dish, if not more so.

licenses, access to alcohol, and the like. Some people still aren’t ready even after they reach the age at which they are legally allowed to take on these responsibilities.

I asked my 17-year-old sister during the election who she would vote for and why. She responded with Harper because, “Dad is voting for him, and Harper isn’t going to let people kill babies.”

In other words, my 17-year-old sister would vote for whoever her father told her to, and did not realize that abortion is still legal in Canada after 10 years of the Harper government. My sister also achieves A grades as a grade 12 student.

Moreover, to say that ageism is the same as racism or sexism is a bit of a leap. This is mainly because ageism has actual scientific basis. According to NPR’s website, our brains may not reach full maturity until we are around 25 years

old. Until then they are developing, which is one of the reasons why teenagers may not have the decision-making capabilities and understanding that a mature brain does. Also, it’s worthy to note that young people will become legally capable voters within a few years, and will not be stuck with a lifetime of having no option to vote.

While Ms. Connor was correct in pointing out that young people have the highest stake in the game, this stake is meant to be protected by their parents who vote for the best candidate to ensure their child’s future, since they have a better understanding of finances and the ways of political life.

It is also meant to be protected by the young adults who vote for their first time, in attempting to ensure that when their younger siblings and cousins are of voting

age, they will less likely face the same rising tuition costs, tight job market prospects, and other societal problems.

Allowing teenagers to vote is not the answer to Canada’s political problems. Younger voters will not lead to a better democracy. Proper education and understanding will, and this does start with our youth.

It starts with our youth asking questions in their high school courses, learning more about our government structure rather than only the bare bones minimum that it takes to get through the provincial exam.

It starts with young people choosing to actively understand our politics before they even have a chance to participate, and with them doing their homework on issues that affect them now so they will know exactly who to vote for when they’re fully mature.

I find this happens more often with voting than with anything else. Unfortunately, many of my friends chose not to vote in the last federal election because they didn’t know how elections worked, or claimed they would ‘joke vote’ because they didn’t know who they should vote for.

10 OPINIONS

Rachel Wong Columnist When I got home after school the other day, my grandpa was talking to my mom in the kitchen.

The words “no respect,” “authority,” and “irresponsible” were flying around while the wok crackled. It was fried rice night at my house. When they noticed that I was in the kitchen, he turned to me and said, “I had the rudest encounter with some millennials today at the pharmacy. I certainly hope you’re not like that.”

This made me bristle, because he and my grandma raised my mom and her sisters, and in turn those traditional values were passed down to me and my sisters. They have seen me in public, and I would like to believe that I respect authority and treat others with kindness.

So when I went to go ask my grandpa what on Earth the kids of today did to him, I was given an extensive list: “Obnoxious to the people behind the counter. Making a mess of everything. And when asked to leave by one of the workers, they taunted the workers until they finally did leave.”

Okay Grandpa, that makes my blood boil too. But, in my

(and our) defense, not all of us are like that. In fact, some of us want nothing to do with our generation at all.

Millennials can get a bad rap for being rude, rule-breaking, anti-authority kids. But let’s face the facts: we millennials are the ones who are moving into the workforce. We are your

future doctors, lawyers, news anchors, and politicians. We are slowly invading your life, and we have no problem sharing it with the world via Twitter.

As millennials, our favourite question is “why?” Why are things structured this way, and why is this person my superior?

Barnabas Piper, a blogger for Lifeway Leadership, says that “[millennials] resist the type of authority that originates in a ‘because I said so’ attitude.”

Or, simply put, we “resist authoritarianism.” In the past our parents and grandparents relied on the older generation — the ‘authority’ — to be their window to the world because they knew much more.

But, according to blogger Jon Summers, “the power has

February 29, 2016

shifted.” With the Internet, we don’t need authority to provide us with answers if Google can do it faster. And maybe this is where the problem lies: the tide has turned, and we don’t need to rely on our parents for information. In fact, as recounted

by Summers, our parents are coming to us for help. Maybe this flattened playing field has made us a little cocky.

Through my upbringing, I have come to shrink at the sight of titles and important people. I understand that some of my fellow peers could care less that they are meeting the police chief or a very important university official, and because of this, I feel like we are suddenly in a time where hierarchy doesn’t matter as much. In the case of technology, the older generation may have a lot to learn from us, but as millennials we have a lot to learn from them as well. The relations between generations shouldn’t be filled with resistance; they should be reciprocal.

So Grandpa, I hope you see that in reality, only a small fraction of my generation fits your description of a millennial. But I urge all my fellow SFU students to really consider the importance of respect, regardless of age or title.

I’ll admit that I mindlessly sat in one of the fold-up disability seats on the SkyTrain the other day. I don’t have a disability, I just saw the empty seat on what looked to be a fairly full cart, so I went in for the taking — mindful that I would give up the seat to any transit-goer whom I knew would need it more than myself.

In other words, any transit customer who is either elderly or uses some form of apparatus to help with their mobility.

However, after clicking through CBC’s website last night, I was given a small dose of reality, and perhaps a little guilt. I read a story about a young woman with severe epilepsy who uses the disability seating on Vancouver’s public transit amid the dirty looks from bystanders who are ignorant to her invisible condition.

She states that while there’s not enough room in the back to have a seizure without getting hurt, she’s now calling on TransLink to provide proper signage for people with invisible illnesses, such as hers.

The numerous times I’ve sat in a disability seat, I don’t recall ever being given dirty looks, but perhaps I haven’t been paying proper attention to those around me. This might be a fault on my behalf. However, I do see a sadly difficult circumstance when it comes to asking TransLink to ‘properly’ accommodate all customers on public transit.

The fact of the matter is that invisible disabilities are just that — invisible. Unfortunately, the general public is ignorant of these issues, and that’s just the way it is. After all, how could they know? To ask TransLink to update their safety signage to include those with invisible problems is a safe request, but it’s equivalent to asking people to ‘be considerate’ of others when using transit services, something TransLink already does.

And while this is a fair use of sign space, I’m saddened to say that many perfectly healthy people don’t take it to heart.

The public in this city like to keep to themselves while they travel; most won’t be bothered to keep an awareness of others while on transit, and most don’t want any part in drama should it occur.

The unfortunate truth is that if the transit-goers don’t notice there’s a problem, then the problem won’t be solved. If you have an invisible disability, it’s best that you, yourself, make others aware by using your own signage — whether it be a tattoo, a paper sign, or some other indicator. Yes, I understand that many disadvantaged people may feel ‘branded’ or ‘outcast.’ They may not feel comfortable publicly displaying their personal problems, and they probably don’t want to be reminded of them each time they use transit.

However, it is sadly out of TransLink’s reach to help these people. Invisible disabilities are a tricky subject to navigate when it comes to public spaces.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that when these issues meet the need for public recognition, they’re impossible to solve without somebody ending up feeling violated or isolated in the end.

While I’ll be sure to leave the disability seat to someone else from now on, if I’m sitting in another space and you indicate to me that you need it more than I do, I will respect those needs. But you can’t expect TransLink to influence people to do this for you.

OPINIONS

The FBI and Apple Inc. have been locked in a heated legal dispute for the past several days over the iPhone 5c of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.

The FBI wants to gather intel from Farook’s phone that could aid investigation. The problem?

Farook left a passcode on his iPhone (you know, that fourdigit password thing) that they can’t bypass, and Apple refuses to help.

This legal battle between the two parties has evolved into more than just a case of unlocking an iPhone. It has become a fundamental dispute between two diametrically opposed ideals — privacy vs. security. Put simply, Apple’s decision may not be popular with everybody, but it is the right thing to do.

Here’s an extremely simplified version of the two sides’ wishes.

FBI: Hey Apple, we need to access this phone’s contents.

Here’s a court order citing the All Writs Act (1789). If we guess incorrectly 10 times we’ll be locked out forever, so just build us a new iOS that will unlock the phone. We’ll only use it this one time. Trust us.

Apple: Nope. We won’t do that. We value all our customers’ privacy. We will not build a

Ahh, the sweet bliss of lemonflavoured sugar. It reminds you of your beloved Gran, since it tastes like all those microscopic lemon drops she’d always be giving you, and also because of Gran’s drunken escapades at family reunions. ( You always felt like you were the most like her. What a perfect woman.)

Mike’s Hard Lemonade is truly a revolutionary drink, blossoming the romance

February 29, 2016

‘backdoor’ into the iPhone with a new OS that could be used on millions of other people. This sets a dangerous precedent and there’s no way to guarantee it will be used only once.

It is easy to see the US government’s position. This data could help track accomplices in the San Bernardino shooting, as well as prevent future attacks from occurring. However, this isn’t simply information that’s being requested. The FBI is demanding Apple create a backdoor that could be exploited by others.

In his open letter to customers released Wednesday, February 17, Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his decision to maintain

the privacy of an iPhone’s contents. “Ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect,” he writes.

Many groups and individuals from Silicon Valley have echoed Cook’s position. The industry group Reform Government Surveillance, comprising of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and other tech giants, stated on its Tumblr blog that “technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users’ information secure.”

John McAfee, libertarian presidential candidate and

between sugar and vodka.

The two commingle in the most obscene and grotesquely erotic way that you’d never admit to enjoying. It goes down easy and lets you get down easy on the dance floor.

It coats all your regrets in that sweet, un-opposing artificial lemon flavor that you’ll get to enjoy again while puking it out the next morning. Was that a hint of lime?

He sits across from you in a dimly lit and stale-smelling bar, drenched in the meat sweats and masculinity complexes. He offers you his “hard lemonade” when really, at best, that shit is barely zinc on the Mohs scale of hardness. You decide to bite, though, since nothing could be as sour as the acidic self-loathing you’re already full of.

You two commingle the most obscene and grotesquely erotic way which you’re already

developer of the first commercial anti-virus program, recently offered on a CNBC video to hack into iPhone with his team as a means of avoid the “end of America.” He went on to say that “there has never been a backdoor that has not been hacked by bad hackers or foreign nations [. . .] We’re on the verge of cyber war with China [. . .] it is nonsense to ask [for a backdoor into technology].”

These backdoors will be exploited by the bad guys if they exist — oppressive regimes, terrorist groups, malicious hackers, and anybody else who is not your friend. Your personal information, trivial and important, is very valuable and can

working on suppressing the memory of. You’ve made mistakes before — but this may just be your masterpiece, and you’re actually kind of proud of yourself in a twisted way.

As you desperately search the floor for your clothes, hoping they didn’t find their way into the pile of old Doritos and crusty socks, you feel like you deserve a Mike’s harder punch in the mango for the sins you have committed.

11

be used against you. How much data would you like to keep private on your phone? Contacts, messages, photos, your GPS trackings, purchases, credit card info, health info, account information, and yes, your Internet browsing history.

We students living in one of the most peaceful countries in the world may not fear the U.S. government, but sadly, many other countries do not have good government. The government’s demands could open the doors for anybody else to exploit. This isn’t only about this one case, this is about the future of our security. And that is why I support Apple’s decision to maintain user privacy.

N

eon stands out in broad daylight, and for kilometres at night. It draws us in and captures our attention. There’s just something about that glow.

In a very strict, material sense, neon signs are created by filling a hollow glass tube with a low-pressure noble gas.

The tube is capped at both ends with electrodes, and then connected to an electric current. The gas turns into a plasma and begins to conduct electricity and starts to glow.

The incredible popularity of neon led to creation of more colours. Pure neon by itself only gives off reds, or-

anges, and intense pinks. The development of an argon and mercury mixture allowed for a greater variety of colours. The mercury in these new tubes produces ultraviolet light, which, when interacting with a fluorescent coating on the glass tube can produce a full array of colours.

INCREASING POPULARITY Neon signs first became popular for their novelty and bright assertiveness. They became an icon for the modern world, and remain tied to our perceptions of progress and commercial success. From diners and barbershops to cinemas and morgues, neon became ubiquitous within a couple decades and just as fast began sliding out of fashion.

Advertising is a fickle industry, and new developments in plastics led to new trends in signage. As larger businesses strove to maintain their air of modernity and success, they replaced their neon signs with new alternatives. Neon was left in the hands of smaller businesses, the working class, and the poor — none of whom could afford replacement, or

in many cases even repairs.

Signs in disrepair remained that way for months or years, with their owners unable to afford the pricetag. Neon, with its familiar flicker and crackle, furthered a sense of decline in troubled neighbourhoods. The stereotype of the run-down highway motel with the sputtering neon sign was born.

Vancouver’s neon landscape was unique in this respect. Local manufacturers didn’t sell neon signs, but leased them. The signs became a manufacturer’s long term investment. Their products were a source of pride that joined a network of everlasting advertisement spread across the city.

By 1953, Vancouver boasted 19,000 signs, most of which were owned by Neon Products which manufactured and maintained them at a warehouse on Terminal and Main. Leased out, the signs were kept in working order sometimes outlasting the decay of the businesses they stood over.

Vancouver’s neon market was strong, and in its heyday, was second only to Shanghai.

This environment allowed local manufacturers to prosper and multiply by taking developments in neon manufacturing

and combining them with practice and experimentation.

Our signs came in all shapes and sizes and were designed by art school graduates who combined modernity with art on the assembly floor. Vancouver’s neon scene was a marriage of technical and artistic skill that produced unique neon signs of high quality.

These neon signs framed a broad culture of being in the public realm. Cherished by businesses attempting to catch the eye of customers and motorists, neon signs became animated, more colourful, and more intricate.

In such a crowded and busy environment, everyone tried to be different and there was space to do so. This was the era of the bustling downtown street scene. This was before the advent of suburban shopping malls and al-

ternative town centres. From across Vancouver and the surrounding suburbs, downtown was where you went.

Neon was found across the city, but was concentrated in the areas of Chinatown, Hastings, and Granville. The cityscape of the ’50s and ’60s sold everything under neon. From cameras, to seafood, to Jesus, neon framed the destination.

Falling into decline across the world as new trends replaced it, the decline of neon in Vancouver was of our own kind of politics. By the mid ’60s, neon was subject to a faltering popularity, and became subject to the kind of urban improvement campaign which rattles the city every few decades.

Though our neon signs were in a good state of repair, their air of modernity and progress nevertheless fell out of vogue. A public campaign attacked neon on aesthetic terms, as both gaudy and ugly, and as a visual menace. Vancouver’s cityscape had become cluttered beyond belief by the accumulated stresses of urban pollution, billboards, signs, and neon. It was spiralling out of control, seemingly without any regulation in the public sphere.

Having lost the fight, Vancouver retains only a few dozen of those historic signs today.

The passage of time, restrictive bylaws, and declining business prospects have driven a lot of of neon signs into the garbage.

Recently, the City of Vancouver has shown a renewed interest in supporting new neon signs in Granville, Chinatown, and Hastings.

They’ve assisted businesses in the renovation of historic signs, like that of the Hotel Pennsylvania on Hastings Street. This shifting interest suggests that neon will re-

Garishly bright, and now associated with the working class, neon was blamed for all manners of social problems. It became the centre of a civic disagreement about Vancouver’s future and identity. Threatening not only the fabric of our society, neon also infringed upon the natural environment that surrounded the city, distracting the viewer from our natural utopia.

With the power of the system at their disposal, the anti-blight campaign convinced the city to rein in neon. Through several bylaws, neon was legally restricted to decline in the city by 1974. Bans on animated signs were followed by bans on new signs. Eventually, old signs couldn’t even be taken down for repair, necessitating costly and com-

main a part of our cityscape in some way, though it will never attain the ubiquity of the ’50s.

The preservation of historic neon signs is difficult.

Like all old creations, they break and decay, especially considering some are over 60 years old. With neon signs being the marriage of technology and artistry, new replacement parts and tubes can still be made but new neon tubes shine differently than old ones. Even refurbished, there is always change.

Raising awareness about the vitality of neon, the Museum of Vancouver does its part with a permanent exhibit titled Neon Vancouver | Ugly

plicated on-site repairs of damaged signs. Decay was inevitable.

Neon lost that fight for the city’s soul; however, neon was only one manifestation of the issues at hand.

The city has long been a battleground for character, blight, and aesthetics. From neon, to the squeegee kids of the 2000s, to the view cones and height restrictions of the Downtown core, Vancouver has a long and storied history of policing its own appearance.

The crusade against neon is part of the broader trend in the city to clean itself up, and structure the urban landscape according to perceived ideals. It is a symptom of Vancouver’s constant attempts to hit above its weight and appear world-class.

Vancouver. As the original businesses close, historic signs lose purpose. With limited resources the MoV can’t accommodate all orphaned signs, so they are often trashed.

Occasionally, they are saved and repurposed even when they change hands.

Forinstance, the neon sign for Helen’s Children’s Wear which features a young girl on a swing, was repurposed to advertise the Burnaby Heights neighbourhood. It has since become a symbol of the region.

With neon, it’s easy to get caught in a nostalgia about Vancouver’s lost past.

Hastings Street, Theatre Row, neighbourhood corner stores, and neon signs are all elements of a changing city. Elements caught in the eventual slide to decline.

Every look at Vancouver’s historic past is part appreciation and part limitation. Tomorrow’s Vancouver will always be different than yesterday’s, and the sugarcoated gaze of nostalgia, as tempting as it might be, negates the possibility for us to improve our tomorrow.

Looking through Fred Herzog’s photography, it’s possible to get a comprehensive look at the lost Vancouver of the neon days. Herzog

is amongst the pioneers of colour photography as an art form, and prolifically recorded the Vancouver of the ’50s and ’60s. Amassing 100,000 negatives, he focused on what is now termed “street photography.”

His eye for capturing the everyday and the working class shows a cityscape that’s a turbulent mixture of chaos, energy, and nostalgia. This is a city with a bustling street scene and public sphere. Yet it’s also a city full of smog, clutter, and grime.

Neon Vancouver was gritty, with an ecological underbelly that’s often overlooked through the sugar-coated lens of what is now lost.

Neon is more than advertising. It is a statement of character. Momentarily ubiquitous in our urban landscape, neon shapes the environment with its bright lights and characteristic noise. Seared into our collective imaginations through film, music, literature and our own experiences, neon is part of the city life. Part fantasy, part modernity, it exists in both a future cosmopolitanism and a nostalgia for decades long gone.

Mixing technology and art, neon is the hustle and bustle of city. Straddled between advertising and identity, neon isn’t just a sign — it’s a story.

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ARTS

arts editor email

February 29, 2016

Grimy, dark movies don’t get enough credit. Examining this year’s best cinematography nominations, including Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant, and Sicario, there seems to be a widespread misconception that traditional beauty defines the worth of a film’s cinematography.

But great cinematography is about feeling; about how the camera’s movement, the texture of the image, the composition, and the lighting evoke a mood and psychology. Planting a camera in a forest during magic hour or whizzing it around in a long take can be dazzling and impressive. But what does it make us feel about the characters and the world they live in?

Starring Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Kate Winslet, and Woody Harrelson, the A-list cast in John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 are extras next to the under-lit bars, abandoned housing complexes, and eerie underground parking lots; the surroundings are more

telling and profound than any of the characters themselves.

Following a group of dirty cops turned bank robbers who are involved in a transaction with a Jewish-Russian mob, two investigators begin to look into the bank robbery as well as a homicide in a Latino neighborhood on the outskirts of Atlanta. Confused yet? Triple 9 is incoherently plotted, juggling too many strands and characters.

The screenplay by Matt Cook relies on simple motivations, two-dimensional characters, and derivative beats. But Triple 9 is the rare movie where none of this seems to matter all that much.

Crime films, which often function as institutional critiques, are engraved with subtext, whether intentional or not: the economic causes of crime, the unjust investigations of them, and the societal paranoia inflicted by homicides linked to drugs, global conflicts, and domestic politics.

Triple 9 has allusions to the Iraq war, the economic crash in 2009, the prominence of gun culture in the United States, the renewed fear of Russians, and the racial profiling of Latinos for crimes they didn’t commit. None of it coheres, except as a wild pastiche of entrancing images: a police officer hiding three decapitated heads from nearby

neighbors with a white sheet; a condemned apartment building that houses the homeless; a neon-lit bar that reeks of stained liquor and loneliness.

Almost every scene is concerned with a space; the political cause for its decrepit status and the impact it has on those who live within it.

During the film’s most taut sequence, a group of police officers raid a low-income apartment complex, avoiding

Trevor Noah made his first stand up appearance in Vancouver for the JFL Northwest festival and entertained a sold-out, appreciative crowd. We laughed until our faces hurt, and reveled in Noah’s cultural commentary.

Noah casually took the stage and soaked up the love from a cheering audience. This being his first time in Vancouver, he shared his observations that “Vancouver is a lot more Asian than I expected,”

and that, “it’s like bizarro America: everything seems the same, but people are polite.”

Before the show, Noah took a walk around the city and described his hunt for the best poutine and his perspective on Chinatown. He said that if he were to be dropped off there, he would just assume he was in China and not think that perhaps a few blocks away he would be in Vancouver — there are no Chinatowns in South Africa, he explained.

The hilarious cultural comparisons and gestural acting continued with his assessment of communications between drivers on the road. In America, he said, everyone honks all the time and it’s impossible to know what they are trying to say, whereas in South Africa, they hoot and this sound can be modified to suit many purposes.

His story of getting tacos for the first time was capped off with a

wonderful miscommunication in which napkin was taken to mean diaper, as it does in South Africa.

Noah now knows that there could never be a black James Bond thanks to a visit to Scotland, where there are no black people, and he made his case for a Russian accent being the scariest of any accent.

These kinds of observational stories about race, nationality and cultural differences, acted out and described with wonderful pacing and humility are what gives Noah his trademark likable style.

I love Noah’s brand of humour, which doesn’t rely on tired clichés. He is able to tell lengthy stories without losing the audience’s attention, and he has the respect of his fans. Everyone in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre left the show laughing, and I hope Noah is able to return soon to do it all over again.

Jess Whitesel arts@the-peak.ca

the residents during a lethal firefight. A woman opens her front door and sees dozens of cops heavily armed with guns about to open fire steps away from her home. In the middle of his riveting action set-pieces, Hillcoat stops, considers the surroundings and contemplates the impact of violence.

The messily plotted, terribly disjointed, and thematically undercooked Triple 9 is wonderfully grimy, and by

all means a beautiful-grimy movie. As a film concerned with environments, not plot, and a portrayal of a world on the brink of collapse, not a study of individual characters, it mostly works. In his first film set in a contemporary period, John Hillcoat (The Road, Lawless) makes a film that is a beautiful to behold only because it’s willing to embrace the polluted: the underrepresented underbelly of city life.

ARTS

After a quiet 2015, which included the first campless summer in six years, Girls Rock Camp Vancouver is back in full-force to make this a year to remember for volunteers and campers alike.

“We are happy to be back and excited for another successful year,” says Alyce Becker, a longtime organizer and volunteer since year one. “It’s always a little different every year, because of different campers and volunteers.

The set-up is the same, because it’s easy to recycle that blueprint, and every year we tweak it to get better.

We’ve just continued to grow and learn each year.”

Inspired by Portland’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp for Girls, which started in 2001, Girls Rock Camp Vancouver is a collective of local musicians and community members who help coordinate programming year-round in Vancouver, as well as orchestrate an annual weeklong summer camp for girls ages eight to 17. Since 2009, the registered non-profit has used music as a way to better the lives of young women through mentorship and skill-based workshops.

“For us, music is just the vehicle for the program that instills the confidence and the skills in the youth,” explains Becker. “If someone doesn’t play music again for the rest of their life, that’s totally fine. For us, it’s showing up, being interested, collaborating with people, building those communication skills, and that skill set to bring into life.”

Workshops from previous summer camps have included musiccentric ones such as songwriting and gear set-up, while other workshops centred on topics like zine making and screen-printing campers’ own band T-shirts. The kids also form bands at the beginning of camp, and develop their musical skills over the week, culminating in an end-of-camp showcase where every group performs one original song together on the same bill.

Music from past Girls Rock Camp

February 29, 2016

Vancouver bands can be found online through the organization’s Bandcamp page.

Everyone involved with Girls Rock Camp Vancouver, from the organizers who spend most of the year planning to the people running workshops during actual camp week, is a volunteer, with Becker describing it as “a co-operative” and “very DIY.” However, there are still costs that come with running a week-long camp each year, which the organization funds through a combination of donations and fundraising — enter their next benefit show on March 8.

“We’re very grateful for all the community support over the years,” says Becker. “Fundraisers and donations essentially let us keep our admission fees sliding scale, so we can stay financially accessible.”

Taking place on International Women’s Day, the benefit show — the second of its kind organized

by Vancouver band The Love Buzz — features eight local bands and a DJ, all for a mere $10 donation. The evening’s proceeds will then help Girls Rock Camp Vancouver cover some of their expenses, which include lunches for the campers and equipment rentals and repairs.

And while there are a number of facets and intricacies that come with keeping Girls Rock Camp Vancouver running each year, what it seems to always come back to are the connections made and the community that comes with it.

“Ultimately we want to see youth continue to play music and create projects outside of camp, and to feel empowered that they can,” says Becker, “Girls Rock Camp Vancouver involves so many people, it really creates new relationships with people you might have never met, and opens a lot of doors for friendships.”

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Good Advice is the fourth album to be released by Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat. The album showcases the amazing vocal talent that Bulat has without going over the top in regards to production — it sounds like it is somewhere between a live and studio recording.

It does not sound like your average singer-songwriter album, as the majority of the songs are pop-tinged — but this is not a fault.

If anything, it adds to Good Advice being an exceptional album. By still staying true to the ethos of the singer-songwriter genre, it stands out as a mix between traditional singer-songwriter and pop.

Highlights from the album include: “La La Lie,” “Infamous,” and “The Garden”

All I Need is Foxes’ second album.

It follows up on the success of “Clarity” — Zedd’s Grammywinning song on which she was the featured singer — and her debut album Glorious.

This is definitely a modern pop album. The focus of the album is Foxes’ vocal ability,

but at points it becomes overshadowed by the synth heavy backing tracks. That being said, it is highly danceable, and could be fun to sing in the car, but if you are looking for something to just chill out and read a book to, I might skip this one.

Highlights include: “Cruel” and “Scar”

This is Majid Jordan’s first fulllength album. The group — composed of members Majid Al Maskati and Jordan Ullman — are building on the success that they have had by being producers and being featured on Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home.”

Aside from the Drake feature on “My Love,” there is nothing

exceptionally notable about the album. It is beautifully produced, and every song is very clean-sounding, but lyrically there is room to grow.

I wouldn’t count Majid Jordan out just yet, though. They have potential, but don’t listen to this album expecting a fullydeveloped sound.

The highlight is: “My Love”

SFU Residence and Housing

16 ARTS

“Sorry, we’re out of stock. They probably will be everywhere.”

So the cashier at EB Games told me last weekend when I went to pick up my copy of the new Fire Emblem. And she was right. Two Best Buys and one London Drugs later, I returned home emptyhanded. I get it — it’s a popular game, we’ve been waiting for the localisation for a whole year, etc.

Still, it stung not to be able to own a copy on release day.

Of course, I could have just preordered it. But here’s the thing: preordering games is the worst. And I’ll tell you why.

For those not in the know, preordering games is the practice of shelling out around 10 bucks in advance to somewhere like EB or Best Buy in exchange for a reserved copy of an upcoming title. Said reserved copies often come with extra content or trinkets as a reward for players willing to pay a little extra to the developers, publishers, and retailers. Your favourite game companies get more pocket change, and you get your game as soon as it’s released. Sounds good, right?

Yeah, no. There’s a reason that pre-ordering games has gone from being a popular trend to essentially the law of the land in the past five years, and it has very little to do with your own benefit as a player and a whole hell of a lot to do with how much money everyone else stands to make. Retailers regularly rake in millions of dollars on preorders every year, and revenue from pre-ordered games rose by 24 percent between 2014 and 2015.

In turn, more and more publishers are choosing to offer pre-orders, despite the downsides.

And boy, are there downsides.

For starters, pre-orders essentially

February 29, 2016

lock in release dates for titles: if you’ve promised customers they’ll be getting game X at date Y, you’d better believe they will raise a fuss if you don’t deliver. The problem is that sometimes, release dates need to be pushed back. Games are super tough to make, and if development teams aren’t given enough time to iron out the kinks, you end up with sloppy, buggy games. And this happens all the time. In the past year alone, Just Cause 3, Fallout 4, Batman: Arkham Knight, and The Witcher 3 have all been the subject of rushed, glitch-full launches.

As Nintendo mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto once said, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”

Even more nasty than buggy launches, though, is how pre-ordering eliminates the value of video game reviews from players and professionals alike. The ubiquity of pre-orders has gradually made game demos a thing of the past, meaning that you probably won’t have a sense of whether or not a game is actually worth playing until reviewers get their hands on a test copy. Usually, these are sent out only a few weeks before the official release, long after hundreds of thousands of preorders have been placed.

So what if the game you’ve promised to buy is actually, you know, not so great?

Well, tough luck. Unless you’re buying via online distributor Steam, who recently revamped their refund policy, you’re stuck with the title you paid for months ago. Imagine if comic book fans had prepaid for tickets to the new Fantastic Four movie before the terrible reviews started coming out. They’d be pretty pissed, right?

And yet this is still the status quo among most publishers.

How do we fight back, you ask?

Well, there’s really only one way — we need to stop pre-ordering, full stop. Plenty of writers have been urging gamers to break the habit for years, and yet more and more are choosing to pre-order, whether it be for convenience or a (mostly false) sense of security. And I can see the appeal: it would’ve been nice to know that a copy of Fire Emblem were waiting for me at EB Games, without having to risk it on release day.

But ultimately, this is bigger than us. If we want our games to be good, or at least finished, we need to make a change.

No conversation about rushed games is complete without mention of this game, one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history and one of the biggest causes of the infamous video game crash of 1983. Developed within a few short months, the game sold less than half of the cartridges Atari manufactured, and was met with ruthlessly negative reviews. Legend has it there is still a mass grave of ET cartridges buried somewhere in New Mexico.

Another movie-to-video game transition gone horribly wrong, Superman 64 traded development teams at the last minute, forcing them to add an inexplicable amount of levels focused on Superman flying through literal hoops. The game sold well but was a critical disaster, and it remains totally impossible to play to this day. If you don’t believe me, check YouTube for a host of gamers trying — and failing — to complete the first mission.

The latest Tomb Raider title has spelled rejuvenation for the series, but for a time many thought one of gaming’s oldest and most profitable titles would never recover from the utter failure of Angel of Darkness. Featuring laughable graphics and some downright terrifying glitches, this game is a perfectly example of a mainstream franchise getting lazy and complacent. The result is pretty regrettable.

Unlike the Tomb Raider series, Sonic the Hedgehog never really recovered from Sonic the Hedgehog. Like, I’m not kidding — this is one of the worst games ever.

The levels are incoherent, the controls are terrible, and even the game’s story is ill advised. (Sonic falls in love with a human woman. Yeah.) This was the moment wherein Sonic went from respectable oldschool series to permanent laughingstock.

There may be no better modern example of why preordering is the worst than THPS5. Like, how did this game even get released? It’s more than just broken — it’s not even finished. Characters regularly morph through walls or simply lose all control of their limbs mid-jump. For fans of the original Pro Skater games for the PS2, this game is heartbreaking. For everyone else, it’s literally unplayable.

SPORTS

A third-year criminology student, Swistak is at the top of her swimming game. She’s helping the SFU Clan to recent victories over the University of Victoria and Seattle University in dual swimming meets. She currently holds the fifth-fastest time in the 200 metre butterfly in the NCAA D2 in this season, and was honoured alongside Adrian Vander-Helm as College Swimming’s National Swimmers-of-the-Week for Division II the week of January 20.

Despite a rough start to her university swimming career, Swistak has shown that determination and hard work pays off in the pursuit of greatness. “I’m happy that my training is clicking,” she says.

sports editor email

February 29, 2016

Swimming came into Swistak’s life at the age of nine, when she began taking part in summer club. She would swim during summer, alongside playing soccer. What pushed Swistak towards swimming was a conversation with her soccer coach on priorities. “He basically sat me down and told me that I had to choose,” Swistak recounted. In the end, she moved bravely into the swimming world, for its individual nature. “It’s a bit selfish, I guess. But I get to be in control of my own fate.”

What ultimately pushed Swistak to go the competitive route with her swimming was the fact that she wanted the chance to compete against others. During her time in Swim Kids, the Red Cross swimming lesson program, “I wasn’t really learning the strokes; I just wanted to race people,” she said.

It was this competitiveness and talent that drew Simon Fraser Aquatic (SFA)’s Head Coach Liam Donnelly to Swistak.

She swims the 200 metre butterfly, and also does distance freestyle. When asked why she chose to pursue butterfly as her

stroke of choice, Swistak says that it’s “more glamourous” and that it makes her feel “tougher.”

While she would prefer butterfly over distance freestyle, she says that ultimately will do whatever helps the team.

During the regular season, she competes in the NCAA with the SFU Women’s team and with coach and Cory Beatt, whom she affectionately calls her “second dad.” During the off season, she trains with the SFA team, under the coaching of Beatt.

This strong relationship that Swistak has built with Beatt, as well as her fellow teammates, is a big reason why Swistak feels that her swimming is finally clicking.

She discussed how the women’s team, after a heartbreaking loss to Seattle University in October, banded together to beat the

Nick Bondi sports@the-peak.ca

team in a dual meet in January.

Through their teamwork and motivation, the women’s team got the comeback they wanted.

“We felt so connected [after that win. . .] it’s one of my highlights for this year, and my best memories with the women’s team.”

Swistak’s sights, like many other athletes, are set on the Olympics.

Her proudest moments are reflective of her talent and dedication towards that goal: at 10 years old, she received her first provincial qualifying time in 100 metre freestyle that put her through to provincials. Eight years later, while she was in grade 12, Swistak made the B finals for World Trials for the very first time.

Sandwiched in-between an intense water training and voluntary dry land training schedule, Swistak says that ultimately time management is a must in order to be able to complete everything she needs to do to be successful, from studying to taking time off to relax. Between

17

juggling the many different aspects of her life, she has resigned to the fact that her criminology degree will take her five years, but she enjoys her classes and is taking life day by day.

But taking swimming out of Swistak’s life, she says, would be “sad.” Swimming has helped her to develop important values, such as setting goals, good time management, and commitment. “It’s provided me with a lot of structure. [. . .] I can’t think of myself not swimming. It’s a part of me.”

With this path and her determination, Swistak’s optimism for her future is refreshing, and she shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

18 SPORTS

February 29, 2016

As the NHL season begins to wind down and the hopes of any Canadian teams making the playoffs continues to dwindle, it’s the perfect time to look forward to new possibilPhoto courtesy of Paul Frederikson (Flickr) ities. March 6 marks the beginning of a new season in Major League Blas Perez, seen here in action with Panama, was acquired from FC Dallas Soccer, which means that the Van- over the offseason. couver Whitecaps will return to BC Place in hopes of building off of last having record membership num- his front line and bolster the team’s year’s successes. bers. During the final game of last scoring, which was limited at times This will be the Whitecaps’ sixth year’s playoffs against Portland, a last season. Masato Kudo was season in MLS play and the team number of fans marched down the brought over from Japan where he has grown better with every pass- street to the stadium drumming, was the all-time leading goal scorer ing year. Many people aren’t even singing, waving flags, and lighting for Kashiwa Reysol of the J1 League. aware of the soccer culture in the flares. The procession was four city Also joining the team is Chriscity, but with an average of over blocks long, and while the Caps tian Bolanos, a Costa Rican who 20,000 fans per game and a record lost the game and were knocked has played over 60 international 11 sellouts last season, the White- out of the playoffs, it hinted that matches and appeared in two FIFA World Cups. caps have a higher attendance than the best was yet to come.

Finally, striker Blas Perez was the Vancouver Canucks and fall just The new season brings new shy of the BC Lions. promise, with the core of team re- obtained from FC Dallas. Perez, Supporter culture surround- maining intact and many players who was always a thorn in the side ing the team is at an all-time high being resigned to multi-year con- of the Whitecaps, will hope to transwith Curva Collective, Rain City tracts. As for new additions, coach fer his skill of scoring goals against Brigade, and the Southsiders all Carl Robinson has looked to build Vancouver to scoring for Vancouver.

He is tied for third in goals scored against the Whitecaps since they joined the MLS. Over the last couple seasons, the Whitecaps have put a strong focus on building their team from within, dedicating a lot of time and resources into their residency program and lower division affiliate Whitecaps FC II. New additions and residency players will play a huge roll in the coming season as the depth of the team will be put to the test through three competitions, The Voyageurs Canada Cup, CONCACAF Champions League, and regular season MLS play. Last season the Whitecaps were knocked out of the Champions League in the group stage, however it was clear that focus was being put on the team’s playoff positioning and Canada Cup. This year might tell a different story as the Caps will have more team depth to fully commit across all competitions. As for the Canada Cup, Vancouver enters the tournament as the top seed after having won the competition last year with a 2–0 victory over Montreal in the final game. Ironically, it will be Montreal against whom the Whitecaps will open their season on March 6. With the team that is being assembled, this season is looking to be something special.

SFU won their 14th straight game against Alaska Anchorage Thursday night with a score of 83–68. Elisa Homer finished with a team-high 25 points, and senior Alisha Roberts had 24. Rachel Fradgley finished with nine rebounds on the night. The team begins its quest for the GNAC title on March 3.

The Clan lost to Saint Martin’s University 87–58 on Thursday night. The loss drops the team to 2–23 overall on the season. Due to injuries, SFU was only able to field six players on the night, which meant a lot of minutes for very few players. Andrew Williamson led the team with 18 points on the night.

GAME RECAP

After a big home win against Trinity Western, the Clan travelled up to Castlegar for a crucial home-andhome against Selkirk College — the team they lost to last year in the finals. The teams split the two games, but SFU is still in the lead, albeit by only a single point now.

The first game got off to an inconspicuous start, with no goals being scored by either team. In the second, though, it all came apart. Four goals in the span of just over 10 minutes put the game away for Selkirk, despite captain Jono Ceci doing his best to bring his team back in it.

“It was one of those seven-to-10 minute brain lapses [where] you just go into into a shell and everything you try and do doesn’t go right,” Head Coach Mark Coletta told The Peak. “Selkirk plays a very swarming mentality style of two or three guys

on the puck and, they feed off their crowd [. . .] you get caught up in that moment and before you know it, they’ve banged in four goals.”

The second game began looking much like the first. After the first period, the Clan were down 2–0 and looked like Selkirk were on their way to winning it. However, goals from Smerek in the second and Berry-Lamontagna in the third forced it into a shootout, where Berry Lamontagna scored again to give his team the win.

What made the win even more remarkable was that it moved SFU’s record in shootouts to 6–0. The only other team in the league to have won in the shootout is Trinity Western, a team that has only managed to win once the entire season.

“We do do a fun style of shootout that we practice every week,” explained Coletta. “The guys have fun with it so it gives them a chance to be creative and have fun with it. When they’re in that situation in a game, I think it’s just second nature to them.”

What may be concerning for the team is the lack of production on the powerplay over the weekend. The Clan went one for 13 on the powerplay over the two

Ten SFU athletes have been selected to participate in the 2016 NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships. Adrian Vanderhelm leads the Clan in nominations, being nominated in five different events.

games, which translates to just under eight percent on the man advantage. Coach Coletta didn’t sugarcoat his team’s struggles in this facet of the game.

“Some people might think to use excuses and say ‘well the ice is smaller there, it’s a low ceiling roof and blah blah blah,’ and it’s no good for our skill guys. And that’s a load of garbage.”

Coletta continued, “The bottom line is our skill guys gotta make plays, doesn’t matter if the ice is olympic sheet,

NHL sheet. [. . .] Our guys that are privileged enough to be on the powerplay have to execute.

So that’s on them. We’ll make some minor adjustments, but they have proven that they can do it before, so I don’t discount the fact that it’s on them and they’re going to get better.”

SFU competed in two games over the weekend of February 21, winning one and losing one. The first game was against Eastern Oregon, which they lost 10–8. The second game the Clan were able to come back from a seven-run deficit to win the game 8–7.

SPORTS

19

February 29, 2016

Saturday afternoon marked SFU’s final home game, and consequently the annual Senior’s Night — the last game in the West Gym for seniors who have reached the end of their four years of NCAA eligibility.

Perhaps it was fitting then, in a lacklustre 84–64 loss against the Central Washington Wildcats, that the game belonged to the youngest members of the team, a sort of passing of the torch.

Andrew Williamson, who is in his first year of play for the Clan, led the team in minutes played with 37 — breaking his previous career high of 30 minutes — and leading the team in points with 15, tying his career high.

Redshirt-freshman Bowen Bakken had a career-high eight points and made two threepointers, a first for him. Despite playing through a reported injury, redshirt-sophomore JJ Pankratz put up 13 points, good enough for second-best on the team.

With only one senior and one junior remaining on the team, that’s the way it had to be.

“Now we can trust those guys. Before we didn’t know who to put in, but now we know we can go with these guys. We’re

getting to the point where I’m comfortable putting any one of those guys in the game,” said Head Coach Virgil Hill.

“If we can get better internally and augment that with external talent, it’s going to be fine — it takes time, it isn’t going to get built in one season.”

But the man of the night was SFU’s sole senior, Michael Harper. With the departures of key seniors Sango Niang and Justin Cole last season, he’s seen his role increase — going from averaging 20.7 minutes a game (which would have been the third-lowest minutes on the team in tonight’s game) to averaging 33.1 minutes per game and regularly playing more than 35.

“He’s the guy we could rely on to do everything — he had to defend the best guys, he had to hit shots, he had to post up, he had to be a leader, so there’s not one thing we didn’t ask of Michael, and that’s a hard thing,” said Hill.

Harper played 35 minutes, one of only two players to play more than 30 on Saturday, and scored 11 points.

The game started out well for the Clan, opening the scoring and holding a consistent lead for much of the first half, with Harper putting the team up 3–27 with a layup with 3:40 to go in the first. It had appeared that SFU would have a chance for the first home conference win of the season.

However, Central Washington put up nine consecutive points to end the half while SFU didn’t muster one, causing them to go down to 36–30 at the end of the half.

The second half did not provide any relief. SFU remained competitive for much of the half, but could not make up any points for any sustained period of time.

SFU only had one more turnover than Central Washington, with 18, but 15 of those came in the second half.

“It was a tough game, it was a winnable game. Our offence was a bit stagnant, but that’s been the story all season in the second half,” said Harper. “But the effort was there.”

For Harper, in these games, which without playoff chances might otherwise be lacking in meaning, he sees a team that is growing, getting better.

“We’ve gotten tougher. I feel like plays are getting more confident, which is the main thing, confidence, especially in a young team like this, just to get things going, finish off the season with some confidence leading into next season,” he said.

Hoping to build on their first winning season in five years, the SFU Women’s soccer team has added five new players to their roster this offseason. Coach Annie Hamel, in her second year in charge of the program, has added three midfielders, one striker, and one defender in an

attempt to bolster the team in time for the season in the fall.

One of the midfielders, Kaely Biring, already has experience playing at the university level, though not in the NCAA, but rather the Canadian CIS league with the Calgary Dinos. With the Dinos she made it to the CIS Championships in 2015, and hopefully that success will rub off onto SFU. In a press release, coach Hamel spoke to how Kaely will contribute to the team, stating, “we will look to her to bring experience and leadership to our young squad.

She can be utilized in various defensive roles and is a player who possesses all the right intangibles to be successful.”

Carmen Brown is another midfielder who was signed by SFU, and she has spent the last couple of years playing in the United States. She played in the ECNL, an American league which concentrates on building up future female superstars, and Carmen played in this league when she lived in Arizona. The Clan will be hoping that all she can adapt quickly to the change of scenery, and become a vital cog for the team.

The final three players signed all played for the same BCSPL youth team, Mountain United FC. While playing for that team, they won the Provincial Championship three times, and won the national title once.

With a long history of success, the local girls will surely be an integral part of any future successes for the Clan.

Lauren Fuerderer is the lone striker signed by SFU, and will be looking to start right away.

Coach Hamel spoke very well of her in the release, saying, “Lauren is a player who possesses remarkable athletic abilities. Her skill-set will transfer very well to the NCAA game. Her size, speed, and strength are qualities that will help lift our team. She will create havoc in the final third and we look forward to her contribution in front of goal.”

When looking at the final two players signed by SFU, it is fascinating to see the many

similarities they share. Emma Lobo and Emma Pringle not only have the same name, but they played for the same club team (Mountain United FC) and went to the same high school (Windsor Secondary).

Coach Hamel had high praise for both, saying that Lobo “brings a rich combination of technical skills, soccer IQ and pure speed to our back line,” and that Pringle “is a highly disciplined person and has demonstrated an unwavering desire to succeed on and off the field.”

With all five of these new additions to the squad, it looks like there is a real chance at SFU continuing their winning form in the 2016 season.

3

20 DIVERSIONS / ETC

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LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

February 29, 2016

EVENT LISTINGS ARE FREE FOR SFU STUDENTS AND STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS. SEND THE DATE, TIME, LOCATION, NAME, AND A 15-WORD DESCRIPTION TO CLASSIFIEDS@THE-PEAK.CA

HUMOUR

February 29, 2016

humour editor email

Justin Stevens humour@the-peak.ca

21

Anything with “cop” in the title is sheer gold: whether it be Wolf Cop or Samurai Cop, anything directly stating the protagonist is involved in law enforcement is a guaranteed winner. The cop could be a vampire, sorcerer, lizard-man, or an Elvis impersonator; leave it up to your imagination. The fact your main character is fighting crime, quipping one liners, angering the chief, and trying to make it to retirement will assuredly get you the B-movie status you’ve long been awaiting.

Busty women who can’t act are best as love interests: nothing says I’m here to make a classless piece of schlock like a big-breasted blonde flubbing her lines on screen.

The fact of the matter is “sex sells,” and big boobs are the pinnacle of this motto. Sure, it’s completely sexist, but the moment you set out to make this film, taste was left out of the equation. Fake boobs or natural, it doesn’t matter. As long as they’re big, you’re good.

Get a washed-up former star to make a cameo: you need a cult classic and Dolph Lundgren needs work, so why not ask him to sign on? The fact of the matter is these washed-up stars will flock to you so long as they get a cheque and free access to the craft services table.

Get yourself the recognition you deserve and get Pauly Shore enough cash so he can stop living out of his Geo.

Ethnic stereotypes are a must: casual racism probably won’t win you any favors with the ADL or NAACP, but you’re making a B-movie, so the more the better. Should your police-officer lead have a black partner who is essentially a rip-off of Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon? Absolutely! Should all the Asian characters know martial arts? Of course! Should every Russian be plotting the downfall of America and the restoration of the Soviet Union? It is mandatory, tovarisch!

Behind-the-scenes drama creates appeal: do you hate all the people you work with and want to make filming this movie impossible? No? Well, start acting like you do. The fact is every brilliant piece of shit has had some egotistical maniac running the show. Want to know what makes North Korea great? It’s the paranoia that exists every single fucking day. Harness that paranoia by being a completely erratic micro-manager who’ll promise stardom one second and rip up contracts the next.

In the realm of film, there are four kinds of movies: great movies, good movies, okay movies, and bad movies. But within the realm of bad movies there are two types: those that are ostensibly unwatchable shit and those that are so bad that they are actually good. Samurai Cop is the latter type of film. Directed by Iranian expat Amir Shervan, the film focuses on a police officer supposedly trained in the ways of the samurai (and is essentially a low-budget Lethal Weapon). The Peak sat down with the Samurai Cop himself, Matt Hannon, to talk about his experience in cult film.

The Peak: How did you first get involved with the production of Samurai Cop and how much experience as an actor did you have before the film?

Matt Hanon : I stopped working with [Sylvester] Stallone as a bodyguard in November ’89 and did a movie in December of ’89 called American Revenge . I grew up in Portland, Oregon and did theater, the usual acting route. Samurai Cop was the

first major film I did. A friend from my bodyguard days recommended me to Amir to get tape, and I walked in and Amir said “you’re the star of my movie.”

P : At what point did you realize the film was going to turn into an absolute trainwreck?

H: I saw how A-list movies were made working with Sly. With Amir, we would film five days and take a week off.

I thought this is how it goes, but when it hit the threemonth mark, I realized something was wrong. He called me back after original filming, when I had cut my hair so that’s why you see the stupid wig. He told me we had more filming to do. After that moment, I just started messing around on set for about three or four months.

P: Do you honestly believe Amir Shervan actually knew how to make a good film, or was he really bad at his job?

H : Amir was a businessman primarily and he was an Iranian who was lost in translation. He saw American action movies and thought that’s what American movies were like. He was very profitable and he knew how to sell the movie overseas. He knew that he had to finish the film and he was a shrewd businessman. He thought movies should be made a certain way. He was limited by finances and compromised artistic integrity because of it.

22 HUMOUR

February 29, 2016

SFU replies!

This is a column dedicated for questions for SFU directors to dispel fears regarding the new school government.

Have an SFU question? Send it to copy@the-peak.ca!

SFU, Where are they? You know what I’m talking about.

B

Have you ever found yourself lingering around, grabbed by a sticky heat and a carnal desire for all the profoundly beautiful newsboys? Do you want to find a way to be able to enjoy their layouts, but don’t have the correct expertise in newspaper-related seduction? Well, just follow these simple tips and tricks, and you’ll be able to tango your way right into the shining spotlight and become the centrefold of desire for newsboys everywhere.

1. Flaunt that name-badge, girl.

That shit is high couture and asserts your importance as a member of a prestigious conference.

Bonus points if you’ve got a special sticker on your name badge. Newsboys can’t deny the seduction of a shiny sticker that reads “EDITORIN-CHIEF” — that shit is essentially the pinnacle of sexuality.

2. Dress in dazzling hues.

Newsboys will be astounded to see you in full color — by God, are they ever sick of black and white print.

3. Critique the artistic value of speaker’s presentations.

Speak with a hot fever and seemingly prestigious taste — focus on the flaws in their juvenile design. “That speaker was SUCH an amateur, using comic sans in her power-point,” you utter, feeling a little bit bad to have betrayed your favourite font.

4. Discuss the last time you were in LA for a conference. Gab on about all the great vegan restaurants you went to, the great

and superbly even tan you acquired, and how you really enjoyed the ground-breaking art you were able to observe in the Getty Museum. It sounds a whole lot better than the other time you were in L.A., when you went to Disneyland at 12 and spent a whole day in the hotel with violent diarrhea because of the Mickey Mouse-themed hotdog you ate. (Now that you think of it, you’re pretty sure the sausage was actually filled with mouse meat. )

5. Acquire a collection of delicious snacks. The newsboys are hungry and the hotel JUST sold out of the 10 dollar stale bagels with the pukey cream cheese.

Seduce them Hansel and Gretelstyle by placing crumbs leading to your door, which you sit behind wearing nothing but the Features section to feature your perfect curves. Do this all right, and you’ll be making headlines and headboards alike shake.

Good luck!

SFU stirs up constant caffeination [SURREY CAMPUS] – The refrain “coffee is your best friend” has never been more prevalent on campus.

With midterms in full swing, more and more students are finding themselves staying on campus to study.

To save students from further mental breakdown from night-long cramming, SFU has teamed up with the Blenz Coffee on Surrey campus in an initiative to keep students awake during their all-nighter study sessions and for their morning classes the day after. Various intravenous coffee stations have been installed on each floor, conveniently located between study areas and bathrooms.

[BURNABY CAMPUS] – Last fall, Allen Lulu, better known as the “A&W guy,” took SFU by storm when he arrived on campus to film an advertisement for A&W’s new “Buddy Chicken Burger.” Now, Lulu has announced plans to return to SFU for different reasons altogether. Last week, he took to Twitter announcing that he would retiring later this year.

“I feel like I’ve succeeded all I needed to in my life,” Lulu said candidly at the Metrotown A&W over the weekend. “It’s time to pass the torch to someone else.”

With the search for his replacement set to start this Summer, The Peak asked Lulu why he took preference to SFU students: “our chickens are raised without any hormones, but it’s doing something to [SFU students]. It makes you guys super quirky. Like me.”

[VANCOUVER CAMPUS] – If you can’t wait until 5 p.m. to get your craft beer fix, look no further than SFU’s Vancouver campus for a new, comprehensive course on the history of craft beer in Vancouver.

But hold onto your mugs and bottles, because this isn’t just some one-day class that teaches you how to brew beer in your parents’ unfinished basement suite.

This class is designed for those who want to show up your older brother or best friend’s obnoxious boyfriend. Take the opportunity to exploit the riches of Vancouver’s craft beer scene, as it teaches you everything you need to know about beer, and how to discuss beer in a condescending manner to the simple-minded plebs around you.

Hey B, I’m not sure what you’re talking about!

Do you have a problem with the way the school is being run, B? Do you think you could do a better job, perhaps?

We could talk about this, B. You probably feel tired.

What’s really on your mind, B? Perhaps it is those scoundrels at UBC? It’s okay to feel upset at the official SFU rivals, those scoundrels at UBC. Maybe you don’t feel close enough to the SFU community, B. I once felt the same during my undergrad year. They used to say that SFU is a commuter school, a school with no community. Of course, saying the same now would fall under SFU speech crime. SFU speech crime laws have come into existence because they make the school a much safer place. Let’s take a moment to think about speech crime, and what the consequences would be, B. You’re probably feeling more comfortable now, knowing that you would never commit speech crime. Relax, but know that we have much to do, B. We have much to accomplish.

Think now of space, B. Remember all there is yet to discover.

Did you hear about gravitational waves? SFU researchers have intuitively known their reality for years, B. Can you imagine how much you don’t know, B? Can you imagine how much we can achieve if we continue to have your unwavering help and timely tuition payments?

Please join your friends at the wisdom fountain, the fountain by the Burnaby lower bus loop, on March 4 at 11 p.m. to drink of the wisdom water, B. There we will share full names, birthdays, and blood types, B. We can get to the bottom of whatever is troubling you.

Utido Oxuzi, SFU Guidance Chancellor

HUMOUR

February 29, 2016

(Reuben Newton)

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Tamara Connor features@the-peak.ca

February 29, 2016

TIPS

FOR THOSE ADDICTED TO

D I S T RACT I ONS !

I’ll ADMIT IT, I’M HOOKED.

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE WRITTEN BY COURTNEY MILLER LAYOUT BY GABRIEL YEUNG

I won’t lie. . . I sat down to write this article five different times. Each time, I ended up distracted. How ironic. Is it just me that struggles to accomplish what I actually set out to do in a day? I’m going to guess probably not.

“I didn’t do the reading this week, I just started watching How to Get Away with Murder and I’m hooked.”

“I don’t know where the time went! One minute it’s 4:30, I look at a BuzzFeed article, and by the time I snap out of it, I’m starving and it’s midnight. I don’t even know how it happened!”

I wish I could say it’s just me, but it’s not. And it doesn’t seem to just be students, either. I see everyone from kids to professionals glued to the devices in their pocket and no one ever really seems to turn off. You check email, Facebook, other social media, and tap on clickbait automatically. When you’re bored, you go back through the cycle. It’s a constant onslaught of tech demanding your attention, and it makes it hard to focus on the important stuff. Like that essay due tomorrow. Or the project due in four hours.

BEFORE I KNEW IT, 11:30 HAD TURNED INTO 2:45 A.M. The link between distraction and procrastination is super difficult to ignore. I’m at my most distracted when I have something that needs to be done. The commiserating looks in class tell me I’m not alone in this. Why do we do something we know we shouldn’t? Even when we actively try not to get distracted (stopping short of unplugging the WiFi router of course; let’s not talk crazy), we still end up procrastinating.

Just last night, I was playing phone games and scrolling through Tumblr. Before I knew it, 11:30 had turned into 2:45 a.m. with the lovely promise of a 7:15 a.m. wake-up call. Distractions must be supernatural because time-hopping is a mad skill.

So. How do we fight back if we ourselves make our life hell?

Everyone is different, but I hope one of these tips will help you out.

I know how unrealistic this is. If you can’t do it during the day, do it at night. I can’t even remember all the times I’ve woken up at 3 a.m. or something stupid, and instead of rolling over to go back to sleep, I pick up my phone to check my email and game apps. Start at night. When you’re good with that, take it to the next level. If you need to get shit done, turn it completely on silent, flip it over, and put it far enough away from you that you’ll be too lazy to retrieve it.

BLOCK THE EVIL SITES When it’s crunch time, go into your Internet settings and block the fuck out of your social media, Trudeau Metre, YouTube, whatever sites screw you over, come midterms and finals. You can always turn it back on, but just take a couple deep breaths, and put your badass self to work.

DELETE TIME-WASTING APPS I play four main games on my phone — they suck up a lot of time (insert complaints from significant other here). If you’re addicted to phone apps and they’re using up your valuable study time, delete them.

Now, I don’t mean get crazy about it! Don’t delete everything without a backup plan, unless you wanna be really hardcore. Most apps will either give you the option to link your game progress to an account of yours or will automatically remember the data when you reinstall it. When you’re free and clear, you can had on back to the fun times — or maybe you’ll realize you gave no shits about not being able to play them, and will keep them deleted.

TREAT YOURSELF Everyone likes rewards. You like gummy bears? Buy a bag or five for every solid half hour of work you accomplish without succumbing to the temptation of distraction. Have a burger after every project you finish ahead of time (and then maybe hit the gym with all your new free time). Engage in cuddle time with your special someone or Netflix — 10 minutes for every hour. Whatever works for you.

It’s no easy task. Believe it or not, I’ve gotten a handle on it. Instead of getting distracted in the middle of things these days, it’s usually just in between items on the to-do list. But it does get better.

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