The Cascade Vol. 21 No. 22

Vol. 21 Issue 22

www.ufvcascade.ca

September 18 to September 24, 2013

Semi-phrastic since 1993

Faculty services gone but not forgotten p. 5

Memoir of a former English major p. 8

2

NEWS News

Science won’t be silenced

As part of a rally across the country, UFV students, staff, and faculty marched for science.

Funds are being cut from science departments and scientists are fed up. Tune into UFV’s participation in the rally, and the state of Canadian scientific research under Harper’s government.

Opinion

SUS website woes

Arts & Life

Paula Funk’s Natural History

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sports & Health

Love on the Court

SUS has launched a new website to some criticism on the availability of its resources and the campiness of its graphics. Jess Wind discusses why the new interface reminds her of Ash’s quest to become a Pokémon master, vest badges and all.

Emily Seitz talks to UFV fine arts advisor Paula Funk about her exhibit currently showing in B building on the Abbotsford campus. Funk’s mixture of natural materials, photography, and personal meaning shed light on the process behind each piece.

Christopher DeMarcus enlists some metaphors as he remembers his first experience with the noble sport of tennis. Read it and recall your own first time … with a racket.

pg. 7

pg. 10

pg. 18

pg. 4

EDITORIAL

Pub math: raising prices, breaking even?

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

Last year I was a strong supporter of AfterMath. I ate there several times a week and praised the food, the specials, the service, the atmosphere, and definitely the cheap beer to anyone who would listen for more than a minute. I wasn’t the only one; the pub was often close to capacity and more than once the specials would sell out within a few hours.

It’s pretty simple math from the outside; students like pubs.

Students liked AfterMath.

Judging from the crowds this week and last, that still appears to be true. But the Student Union Society (SUS), which ultimately runs AfterMath, has made some fundamental changes to the campus pub this year, and I’m not sure I agree with the result.

The UFV student pub has never made a profit, but this is not shocking information.

It’s considered a service rather than a business, and its job is to provide cheap and plentiful food to students. Although it makes a tidy profit on some days, it often operates at a loss.

This is why, like many other student pubs across the country, AfterMath is subsidized by student fees: part of the $30 you pay to SUS every semester is going toward AfterMath to keep it open and serving students.

For the last three years, SUS has endorsed optimistic budgets for the student pub.

In 2010, it was given roughly $22,000. In 2011 it predicted it could break even, and was bud-

geted at $0. Finally, last year it was budgeted at approximately $80,000.

In all three years, the pub ended up costing SUS—and students—over $100,000 by the end of the year.

Last year, the process to siphon extra money into AfterMath was almost painfully public: the budget was tight, the possibility of closing the pub altogether was brought to the table, and money was eventually axed from other locations in the SUS budget to keep the pub open.

To keep fears of pub closure at bay this year, AfterMath was budgeted $130,000 for 20132014 – not an amount to sneeze at, but responsible budgeting considering how much it has consistently cost in the past.

As a cherry on top, new management stepped into AfterMath over the summer, overhauled the menu, and installed a new system for tracking orders, cost, and profit on a daily basis.

All the work that had gone into AfterMath, I assumed, was for one reason and one reason only: to better follow through on its mandate to provide cheap meals and beer to students on campus.

This is why, when I walked into AfterMath for the first time this semester, I was surprised to see that prices rose on practically every menu item over the summer.

The prices changed by three factors: firstly, prices seem to have jumped about a dollar in many cases. Pabst Blue Ribbon, for example, as the least expensive beer, has gone from a flat

$3 to $3.99. Secondly, tax is no longer included in the menu price: 15 per cent tax applies to alcohol and five per cent to food. Thirdly, SUS offers a 10 per cent discount to anyone carrying a U-Pass, but only on food – not alcohol.

It’s this 10 per cent discount that allows SUS to say they’re still subsidizing their food – as SUS president Shane Potter tells me, “When the construction workers from the SUB come over, do you want them to pay subsidized pricing? I want them to pay full price. When administrators, staff, faculty come over – do you want them to pay the student price? I want them to pay full price.”

The logic seems to make sense, but the math doesn’t.

Once you put tax into the mix, students save five per cent on the menu price of any food item, and are still paying an extra five per cent on alcohol menu prices.

If tax and subsidy roughly cancel each other out, that leaves us with the approximate $1 increase to many food items.

Potter says that the majority of these increases are coming as a result of inflation, or improper pricing last year.

“Last year they were literally selling some items at cost or below cost. That’s a problem,” he states. “[W]e need to make sure that the service can continue to exist. We’re not inflating things dramatically.”

But dramatic inflation is in the eye of the beholder: by adding a dollar to the price of a burger, by adding half a dollar to the price of a side of fries, AfterMath has landed itself in

the same price range as Sodexo.

The pub is no longer the cheapest place to eat on campus, but simply comparable – and if students are willing to make the trek to Finnegan’s, they stand to save at least a dollar and a half per pint of beer.

Food prices aside, there are other factors that might help to save AfterMath money over the year: students have filled the managerial positions, and are theoretically more committed to making AfterMath successful. (“The students are running it,” Potter says, “and they care.”) The new system, mentioned earlier, will allow staff to monitor what food sells and in what quantity on a daily basis and tailor the menu to those successes and failures.

No matter where the proposed savings are coming from, I’m forced to question the reasoning behind aiming for savings at all: at the end of the day, AfterMath has been given $130,000 for a reason, and to go from that to a budget of $0 seems like a huge and unsettling jump.

After all, if AfterMath were to break even this year, it would mean a profit for SUS. If the pub manages not to touch any of their allowed deficit fund, SUS will welcome an extra $130,000 into their budget, free to go towards whatever they want.

Serving students cheap food and making a profit are mutually exclusive terms in my mind. And looking at the pub’s history, serving students cheap food and breaking even should also be considered impossible.

UPCOMING EVENTS September 19

September 20

September 22

September 25

Save a life: give blood

EPIC dodgeball tournament

Shri Akhand Path Sahib

Life Link presents Mike Schouten

Canadian Blood Services will be on campus from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the small gym on the Abbotsford campus, allowing students to do their part to save lives. The opportunity is open to everyone, appointments should be pre-booked. Appointments should take at most an hour and you will be rewarded with cookies afterward.

UFV’s student engagement team hosts UFV’s first annual dodgeball tournament. Teams consist of five to seven players and will duke it out in the small gym. Come cheer your fellow students as they pelt each other with rubber balls.

“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” – Patches O’Houlihan.

Sharanjit Sandhra, coordinator at UFV’s Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies, along with UFV students, invite everyone to take part in this holy practice at the Khalsa Diwan Society Sikh Temple in Abbotsford at 10:30 a.m. The event has been prepared with the intent to acknowledge UFVs diverse traditional values.

UFV’s Life Link welcomes Mike Schouten’s “We Need a Law.” As campaign director for weneedaLAW.ca he will be discussing Canada’s lack of abortion law in a respectful and informative manner. Gather in B101 on the Abbotsford campus at 7:30 p.m. to take part in the discussion.

Volume 21 · Issue 22 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-chief dessa@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock Managing editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Business manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online editor emily@ufvcascade.ca Emily Seitz Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy editor katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart News editor jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind Opinion editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts & life editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports editor esau@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Contributors Vivienne Beard, Taylor Breckles, Jennifer Colbourne, Christopher DeMarcus, Jeremy Hannaford, Nathan Hutton, Ashley Mussbacher, Ashley O’Neill, Adam Roper, and Tim Ubels Printed By International Web exPress

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of 75 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature.

Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only.

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed.

The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.

Cover Image: painting by Jason Peters

3

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

After disaster at AfterMath

www.ufvcascade.ca

TAYLOR BRECKLES

Relaunch of the campus pub

CONTRIBUTOR

AfterMath is in the middle of a comeback, begun with the hosting of successful pub nights on September 9 and 12.

The first night U-Join Afterparty acted both as a test run for the reopening, and to spread the word of AfterMath and its possibilities. With over 30 people in attendance, freshly poured beers passing from hand to hand, and music bombarding the small establishment, AfterMath was hopping.

Overall, the evening was a success and roused much anticipation for the re-reopening of AfterMath, this time for good.

Kitchen lead Russel Johnson held high hopes for the restaurant, commenting on the new menu he designed, blending regular items with new surprises.

Along with the new menu, AfterMath has changed its discount system for students, explained SUS president Shane Potter.

AfterMath has reopened with new staff, a new menu, and a new mural.

“All [students] need to do is bring their student card and [they] get ten percent off,” he said.

Elizabeth, a biology major in her fifth year, commented that the prices are fair and the fact that allergy-related items are not an extra charge is a plus,

but she noted that these items should be available on the shortened pub night menu.

Students new to the establishment are also positive about the on campus option.

“It’s good,” said first-year student Kayt about the food, adding, “[They have] gluten-

free options, which is good.”

However, she went on to explain that students are still unaware that AfterMath is open. “[There’s] not enough information out on campus or on the internet,” she said. “No flyers saying what AfterMath is or where AfterMath is.”

Image: Anthony Biondi

Despite many improvements including a fresh menu, new paint—check the back mural for the Duck Hunt duck, a Pokéball, Kirby, and a Dragon Ball—and new staff, AfterMath still has an uphill battle following their reopening.

Press Café offers longer New veterinary administrative hours, better coffee assistant program a reality

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS

JESS WIND

CONTRIBUTOR

THE CASCADE

The line at Tim Hortons is too long. The sole cafeteria barista is busy juggling customers and too many vanilla lattes. So why not head over to The Press Café in the bookstore for a quick cup of joe?

The Press Café is open from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. New weekend hours are Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., making it the only food and beverage service open Sunday on campus. This is great for students who are looking for coffee when Tim Hortons and the cafeteria are closed.

However, there has been widespread confusion among students when they find the café unstaffed. During its open hours at 2:30 on Friday, the separate entrance to The Press Café was locked and students were redirected to the bookstore entrance. Once inside, the café area was empty, with no coffee brewed.

“While the bookstore is open the café register is closed. … To make an order you need to ask an employee in the bookstore area, not in the café,” a bookstore employee explained.

Many of the students who utilize The Press Café and its attached convenience store are residents of Baker House. Nonresident students are drawn to the café during book-buying season or for special events, but most prefer to stick to ser-

UFV’s new continuing studies veterinary administrative assistant program will provide relevant practical training to students looking for office employment.

“It is a 10-month program and its aim is to give our students the knowledge and skills that they need so that they are immediately ready to work in veterinary offices or rescue or humane society organizations.

Anything that requires some level of pet care or health,” Liana Thompson, UFV continuing studies manager explained.

The need for the program became apparent when applicants to local pet hospitals did not posess the skills to be successful in their positions.

“A couple of local veterinarians came to us and said, ‘Listen, one of the gaps that were experiencing in our offices is that we don’t have trained assistants,” Thompson explained, adding that the veterinarians were having to spend time training, when they could have been helping more clients.

“At this point, if somebody else can do the training and our students can arrive on their doorstep for an interview, then they’re job-ready and they can essentially walk into any office or organization that offers these services. It’s a win-win,” Thompson said.

Veterinary assistants are go-

Image: Christopher DeMarcus

Press Cafe is open Sundays. vices that are easier to access while moving between classrooms.

The Press Café is operated by the university independently from the multi-national corporation Sodexo which has the monopoly on food services on campus.

“The Press Café is part of the bookstore, which is a business unit of [UFV] ancillary services. Sodexo reports to ancillary services; we operate independently of each other, but cooperate to provide food services on campus,” bookstore manager and director of ancillary services Cameron Roy explained.

Sodexo sells Starbucks brand coffee in the cafeteria and Tim Hortons brands in G building.

In contrast, the Press offers a higher quality of products than the other food options on campus. They offer organic coffee by local roaster Salt Spring Coffee from Richmond, BC. The space also provides a comfortable study space off the beaten path.

Image: Kami Jo/ flickr

Vet program allows students to work with people and pets. ing to be in higher demand in the coming years, and UFV is excited about providing a program that has a need in the market now and in the future.

“The number of household pets is growing,” Thompson explained. “It’s expected that over the next 10 years that households will have 1.8 pets per household. So the more pets, the more care is required.”

Upon completion of the program, veterinary assistants can expect to make anywhere from $12 to $18 per hour, de-

pending on the office they work in.

As well, UFV is also looking into the development of a veterinary technician program, which would allow individuals working as veterinary assistants to move up in their positions.

“It’s certainly something that’s on our radar, we’re interested in developing it,” Thompson explained. “We’d like somewhere for the students to go after they finish their administrative assistant certificate with us.”

4

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

SCIENCE ON PURPOSE

ASHLEY O’NEILL

Scientists test memory creation and deletion on mice

CONTRIBUTOR

We all have those moments where we hear a certain song and are reminded of some event that happened in our past. Well, now scientists are using this memory stimulus on mice to test how altering the brain chemically can create new memories, remember old ones, and erase unwanted ones.

In their experiment, Norman M. Weinberger, a research professor of neurobiology and behaviour at the University of California Irvine, and his team targeted the cerebral cortex of the rodents, the part of the brain responsible for memory, attention, thought, and consciousness, in hopes of creating sparks of new memories in their test subjects. They played a tone for the rodents while they manipulated the brain cells in the cortex with a chemical called acetylcholine (ACh).

ACh is an organic molecule found in many organisms, humans included, and acts as a neurotransmitter which helps us remember stuff. This chemical stimulating the brain’s

Image: Rick Eh?/flickr

Scientists use mice to learn about memory development. nucleus basalis increased the number of brain cells that recognized the specific tone.

The next day, Weinberger and his team tested the mice in hopes of repeating the cognitive recognition they worked on the day before. This time they played many sounds and tones for the mice, as well as the tone they played the day before. The team found the mice did recognize the tone, after observing that respiration in-

creased when the specific tone was played. This shows us that certain memories and feelings can be created and conjured up with the right stimulus in the cortical region of our brains.

Weinberger and his team have been working on the creation of new memories by combining parts of the brain linked to memory formation with ACh. He has high hopes for the implications of their findings.

“Disorders of learning and

memory are a major issue facing many people, and since we’ve found not only a way that the brain makes memories, but how to create new memories with specific content, our hope is that our research will pave the way to prevent or resolve this global issue,” he told EurekAlert! earlier this month.

At the same time as Weinberger’s study was published, a study from the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida published in Biological Psychiatry supports that we can also selectively erase memories caused by methamphetamine.

Neurobiologists observed the behaviour and brainwaves of mice and rats exposed to meth with various stimuli.

Half the rodents were injected with a chemical that aids in the breakdown of actin protein filaments in the brain (treatment group) while the other rodents remained treatment free (control group) to compare results between the two groups.

The control group showed signs of meth-related memories when they were presented with one of the drug-related stimuli, but rodents in the treatment group did not respond to the

stimuli. Mice without the treatment had considerably higher memory loss than the treatment group, but both groups responded the same to food rewards and (slight) electric shock therapy.

Study co-author and neurobiologist at the Scripps Research Institue, Courtney Miller hopes this technique can be refined to help rehabilitation patients recover from drug use by having unwanted and emotionally scarring memories removed.

“We are focused on understanding what makes [drugrelated] memories different,” she said in a press release. “The hope is that our strategies may be applicable to other harmful memories, such as those that perpetuate smoking or PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].”

Between creating memories and deleting unwanted ones in mice, scientists are making big steps in understanding and manipulating the human brain – something Marvel’s Professor Xavier has been doing for years.

UFV participates in nationwide rally to protest science program cuts

ASHLEY MUSSBACHER

CONTRIBUTOR

“I’m not mad, I’m outraged,” was one of the many signs sported by students, faculty, and local activists as they gathered on the green at the Abbotsford campus to protest the federal government’s lack of funding for scientific advances.

The Stand Up for Science rally met in 14 cities across the country, from Yellowstone to Halifax. UFV protestors arrived on the green wearing lab coats and with tape over their mouths.

“The national campaign far surpassed our expectations,” said John Vissers, a local activist from the Fraser Valley. “We are thrilled we can do this in Abbotsford and send a message to Ottawa.”

The message: scientists refuse to be silenced. Eddie Gardner, UFV’s elder-in-residence, attended the rally on September 16 with a traditional Sto:lo drum in hand. He led the protesters through the halls of UFV in a march, drawing attention and curiosity from onlookers.

Dean of Science Lucy Lee said that funding is being cut from primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs).

“At UFV here, we have superb instructors and researchers whose small but significant funding, that supported undergraduate research experiences, have been cut,” she said. “We

Image: Anthony Biondi

Students gathered on the green to protest funding cuts. have less funding than ever and our aging equipment and lack of space is causing the big wait lists in many of our course offerings. Lack of funding has been chronic, and we need the country know that this is unsustainable.”

The Conservative government started stifling science in 2006 when they ended funding for the One Tonne Challenge, a challenge presented to Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by one tonne per

year.

The last two years alone are riddled with funding cuts and facility closures. Space exploration, basic science, and environmental studies are just a few of the departments that have been on the chopping block. Key acts include Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord in 2011, the eliminateion of the Experimental Lakes Area program in 2012, and the XL pipeline approval in 2013.

The decline of scientific sup-

Image: Anthony Biondi

Science rallies occured across Canada, including UFV. port from the government effects all branches of science.

Recently, the agricultural industry has experienced cuts, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries was shut down. Gardner, who was part of a program to save wild salmon from open net feedlots, explained that science is able to find truth and allow people to make better choices toward preservation in the future.

“It’s really important to acknowledge that science, if it’s done the right way, if it’s open and transparent, the right action can save something like the keystone species,” he said.

“Science can reveal and bring out the kind of truth that will allow us as human beings to follow up and do the right thing ... to preserve what needs to be preserved, protect what needs to be protected.”

5

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Funding cuts result in faculty reception elimination JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

Amid funding cuts over the summer, faculty services has undergone a massive transformation.

In the past, the service was utilized by both students and faculty for a variety of tasks, including paper submission, inter-campus deliveries, sessional office allocation, and more. However, administration announced in May that the Abbotsford campus service would be transformed and the Chilliwack campus service would be eliminated.

UFV provost Eric Davis explained that cutting faculty services was in response to lack of funding coming from the government.

“Millions of dollars [are] being cut from budgets across Canada,” he said. “We didn’t cut programs, we didn’t reduce services to students. We did something that was probably overdue in terms of making business sense.”

Davis went on to explain that faculty services was created at a time that pre-dates email and department assistants.

“It’s no longer necessary to have something like faculty services,” he remarked. “It is no longer the best use of your

resources to do that ... It has helped us in terms of balancing budgets and so on. In terms of everyday life, I don’t think there’s a huge difference.”

However, for former faculty services assistant Shelley Chute, it meant changing positions and cities.

“When they did that elimination, they eliminated eight ‘pay group 3’ positions,” she explained. “This was the last ‘pay group 3’ position at the whole institution. It’s not like I had a whole bunch of choices on where I could go.”

Chute went on to describe the work she executed at the Chilliwack campus despite being told she was no longer needed.

“They told me that the services I was providing were redundant ... I worked on faculty course packs, I worked on their exams. I was the word processor for the whole campus,” she explained. “It wasn’t just ordering paper and keeping the photocopiers running.”

Chute has been with UFV for nearly 20 years. During her time with faculty services in Chilliwack she executed extra tasks as a reliable source of information on campus.

“I spent my day putting out fires ... I provided a lot of services that were not really listed in my job description but be-

cause I was there I was able to help,” she said. “Now there’s absolutely no contact person in Chilliwack. There’s nobody that you can just walk up to and ask a question. There’s no information centre.”

While Chute has been in her new position since June, many of the faculty members that relied on her services in Chilliwack didn’t realize she had transferred to Assessment Services in Abbotsford until coming back to work this fall.

“I’m getting a barrage of emails saying, ‘Where are you?

I can’t print my syllabus’ or ‘What office am I in?’ So the gaps are just starting to show up now,” she explained.

Davis noted that as far as he knows, things are functioning well at the Abbotsford campus, despite some minor issues with respect to distributing mail internally.

“The person in charge of the area, Kathy Gowdridge, when I spoke to her recently she was delighted with the reworking of the area and of her responsibilities,” he said. “Kathy is as accessible to the faculty as she was before, so if they have questions she’s always there to help.”

However, it would seem that such is not the case with the Chilliwack campus, which is now without faculty services

Image: Dessa Bayrock

Faculty Services has been eliminated from Chilliwack. entirely.

“The administration saw fit to leave Kathy Gowridge in faculty services in Abbotsford,” Chute remarked. “So why didn’t they leave somebody in faculty services in Chilliwack?

They pared it down, they took away the student assignments, they took away the drop box, but she’s still there and she’s still helping the faculty.”

Registration frustration ASHLEY MUSSBACHER

CONTRIBUTOR

With the tuition deadline right around the corner, the last thing any student wants to worry about is registration complications.

Wait-listed students lucky enough to snag a seat used to go through the process of registering by filling out a permission to register form, getting it signed by the instructor, and then taking it to the registration office in Alumni Hall.

However, Office of the Registrar (OReg) has newly implemented an online process that is completely paperless.

According to their website, the instructor must log into myUFV and enter the student’s ID number to grant him or her access into the course. As handy as this is, the student still needs to go to OReg to make it official, a step of which some students are not aware.

Aleah Weston, a student at UFV, says both she and her instructor were confused about the process when they tried using the online sign-up for the first time.

“He said in 24 hours, I’ll be let into the class. When I signed in later, I still didn’t see anything. By this point it had been 24 hours,” she says.

Weston explains that when

OReg glitches cause grief for students

she emailed the instructor he suggested she pay her tuition, and perhaps then it would register her, but she was skeptical.

“How am I supposed to pay my tuition for this one class that I’m not even registered in?

As far as I knew, it was supposed to show up in myUFV,” she says.

When she went to OReg to sort things out, the staff member knew what the issue was before Weston fully explained the situation. “[She] cut me off in the middle of my sentence, and said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about,’” she says, noting that after a couple clicks the problem was fixed.

Weston concludes by saying that the new system should have been better communicated to prevent students from panicking.

“If there’s a change to how things work, it should be explained better so I’m not sitting there freaking out,” she says. “I want to pay my tuition. I want to get things organized.”

Getting admitted into a class electronically is not the only issue students ran into.

Brandi Watts, another UFV student, claims the new online Interac payment option was not working.

“The link was broken,” she explains, adding that she asked

Image: Anthony Biondi

OReg claims it is unaware of any issues experienced with the new registration system. for help from information and technology services, but was told “nobody else had such complaints as [hers].”

The IT Help Desk does not have any information regarding students’ issues with the registration or payment process.

Eventually Watts was able to sort out the situation and make it into her class, but still feels the issue was dealt with poorly.

“Honestly, [I received] no apologies, no accountability, or anything,” she says.

Despite all the issues students found with registration,

it seems that OReg is unaware.

Deputy registrar Darren Francis had no comment except to say, “I asked our staff and not one complaint about this issue has been received by OReg.”

6

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Oxfam at UFV hosts GROW week KATIE STOBBART

THE CASCADE

“We need to start bringing it back to a local level,” Ashley Aune, co-founder of Oxfam UFV, says.

Food security is the central theme weaving together GROW week, a series of events from September 23 to 26 planned

by Aune and co-founder Laura Rickard.

GROW is part of a globallyfocused campaign by Oxfam that explores the links between gender disparity and how food is produced and distributed.

It’s something Aune and Rickard want students to think about in a local context.

“The connection between food security, women’s rights, and climate change is something that is really tangible for students and can be talked about on a global level as Oxfam does, but it’s also really related to the things we’re doing here,” Rickard explains.

With this in mind, Oxfam UFV started a garden club on campus, taking on the garden around U-House and setting out container gardens along the green to introduce the idea of community gardening. It was harder than they thought.

“Ashley did a lot of the gar-

Image: Anthony Biondi

Barrels of veggies on the green are a small part of Oxfam. dening this summer and found out how much work it is to keep it going; the aphids killed our kale,” Rickard notes. “We’ve lost touch with how challenging being a farmer can be. …

They need more support than we think.”

Aune explains how the experience augmented her understanding of food security.

“Once you actually get your hands in the soil and put that

work into it, you realize the value of paying a little more to support your farmers,” she says. “It’s their livelihoods we’re talking about, and the sweat, time, and energy put into producing our food – we need to start valuing it.”

She adds that the next step on campus was to bring in an educational component.

“That’s where GROW week comes in. As students, we can

make a difference. Something as simple as starting a container garden on your balcony ... support your local farmers.

Demand fair trade products.

Ask where your food is coming from,” Aune says.

The week kicks off on September 23 with a film screening of Food Security: It’s In Your Hands, which talks about food movements in the lower mainland and on Vancouver Island starting at 7 p.m. at AfterMath.

On September 25, students can get a hands-on education with two free workshops put on in partnership with the Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS). The canning workshop from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. is followed by a container vegetable garden workshop from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., both at U-House on the Abbotsford campus.

Though the workshops are free, Oxfam UFV encourages students and faculty to make a small donation if they can. “[LEPS] is doing this free of charge for us, so if we can get a few donations to chip towards them, it would be greatly appreciated,” Aune says.

GROW week wraps up on September 26 in Alumni Hall.

Beginning at 6:30 p.m., Gloria Ceron, an Oxfam partner from

www.ufvcascade.ca

the Salvadorean Women Organization for Peace (ORMUSA) in El Salvador, will speak. Ceron is the coordinator of the local development program at the Organization of Salvadorian Women, which works with poor rural and urban women including maquila workers.

“Oxfam Canada is flying her in for our gender justice summit in Ottawa, then she’ll be flying into Vancouver for a couple days and we’ve managed to secure her for an evening here at UFV,” Aune explains. “It’s huge – we’ve never had the opportunity to have a partner speak firsthand about [her] involvement on the ground.”

Aune and Rickard hope GROW week will be a good introduction for people who aren’t familiar with Oxfam and that the events will not only foster understanding of food security but also spark interest in the group on campus, which currently has about 15 members.

“We’re looking for new energy, fresh faces to come in,” Aune says. “We want to bring new life to [Oxfam UFV] ... It’s not just UFV you’re impacting, you’re part of a bigger movement.”

Student Union Building ground finally broken MICHAEL SCOULAR

THE CASCADE

Nearly five years after it was first approved in a student referendum, SUS and UFV administration broke ground on the future site of the Student Union Building last Monday.

The Abbotsford location, between the Envision Athletic Centre and classrooms in D building, had gone undeveloped as funding snags, poorly attended referendums, and SUS management changes came and went.

SUS president Shane Potter, who started in the position in October of last year, took on the building as a project in need of attention, saying in January “the student government at the time didn’t have a realistic idea of a timeline...they gave early timelines. It was a new experience; they didn’t understand how long it would take.”

The building is planned to house current amenities including the AfterMath pub and CIVL radio station as well as a new space for events.

After pegging Fall 2014 as a possible date back in January, Monday’s ceremony placed the end of January 2015 as a completion goal.

Excavators begin working on the long-awaited building.

A ceremonial ground breaking marks the beginning of work.

Shane Potter and Mark Evered with ceremonial dirt.

The building is scheduled to be completed in Winter 2015.

Images by Jess Wind.

7

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

SNAPSHOTS

“May cause cancer” Katie Stobbart

Humanities home a hole in the wall

Rape chants on campus

I trusted you, Canada Post!

On September 3, the UFV administration gave us a humanities room in box D3070. As the ribbon-cutting administrator put it, “The Florentines had a public square, now UFV humanities students have their own public space to debate.”

It wasn’t a public square. It was a closet with a cake in it. A cake that told us, “Home for the Humanities.” We were asked to believe, as the cake commanded: we, valued humanities students, were home.

A fellow student explained the upside: now we can talk politics without pesky science students getting in the way. Fair enough, but I don’t want to research in a bubble—or a beige box—hidden in the bowels of D building.

We don’t need this little space for humanities students. We should be working on spaces that foster dialogue between disciplines, not a cheap trick to boost department egos.

What we need are more workshops for job hunting, writing workshops for academics, and textbooks in the library.

I tried to write this from D3070, but after following the winding path of signs I was greeted by a locked door. The room sat empty at 11:41 a.m.

When I first heard about the FROSH chants going on at St. Mary’s University, I was shocked, but figured it was the East, and things would be different here on our coast. Then I heard about UBC’s Sauder School of Business spreading the same misogynistic chant.

These chants have been spread to new university students for years. Do these students not question the chant, “N is for no consent,” as they yell it? Why are people all of a sudden realizing the message they are perpetuating?

Rape culture.

Rape isn’t new, but the culture surrounding it that afflicts our society is the topic of every other conversation in the media right now.

So like the moral panics of old, these FROSH chants are being highlighted at a time when society is particularly fiery about the topic.

Yes, steps are being taken to shut them down, but if they were free to continue for years before everyone knew, what’s to stop them from staying in FROSH weeks, or worse, evolving into something more damaging?

According to an RCMP report released this week, criminals are shipping guns, grenades, and a truly spectacular amount of drugs into the country.

Using Canada Post.

At first I was shocked, and angry at anyone who has used—nay, abused!—Canada Post by putting illegal items into the mail.

But then I thought about it. Who’s really at fault here? Gangsters, who (after all) are using the system for the purpose it is designed for, or Canada Post, who is obviously opening people’s mail?

Canada Post, I think you owe some criminals an apology – not to mention anyone who has used your service and trusted you with letters, parcels, and a variety of random objects over the years. As I happily put packages into the mail over the last decade, was I naïve to assume that no one would discover their contents but whom they were intended to reach? For shame, Canada Post! What if one day I want to send a friend or relative a rocket launcher; what am I supposed to do?

I can’t fax it. Surely you don’t expect me to Fed-ex it?

Christopher Demarcus

It seems we have an unhealthy fixation on what may cause cancer. We’re always looking for something to blame: deodorant, microwaves, potato chips, cell phones. I once saw a cancer warning on a set of cymbals.

Even being tall might increase your risk, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Two in five Canadians will get cancer in their lifetimes. One in five will die from it.

We can certainly lower the odds by adopting healthier lifestyles; avoid toxins, wear sunscreen, quit smoking. But I do this to make the most out of life, not because I’m freaking out over every ‘may cause cancer’ scare.

Because that’s what it boils down to: a scare. There’s no conclusive evidence you can get cancer from Facebook, or musical instruments, or not brushing your teeth often enough.

Yes, cancer is scary. Death can be scary. But in the end, we all die, and putting out a new cancer scapegoat every week isn’t going to change that.

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

JESS WIND

DESSA BAYROCK

New SUS website, same old user inconvenience JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

This fall, the Student Union Society (SUS) launched its new website and thinned out its old agendas in an attempt to modernize.

The move makes sense, considering the old website was incredibly bare bones – a throwback to website-surfing from decades past, back when pages featured few graphics, simple 12-point Helvetica or Arial or any of those other default fonts, and next to no links for easy site navigation.

It is confusing, then, that the redesign seems to have made the website more scattered and dysfunctional than before.

As someone who regularly frequents the SUS website and needs to pick through the information on it, I can say that it still needs to take some steps in a user-friendly direction.

First of all, it is too busy.

When you first arrive at the page, the combination of bold colours and graphics makes for a visual mess; it takes a few moments to figure out what you’re looking at, then to remember why you came to the website.

Once you’ve gotten past the initial shock, you begin to scroll up and down the page. On the right is a series of badges that Ash

Image: SUS Website

SUS has launched a a new website, creating an even more user unfriendly homepage would have pinned to the inside of his vest on his quest to become a Pokémon master. There’s no harm in video game-esque imagery, but with all the other graphics littering the site, they come off as campy and random rather than unique and intentional.

Now, suppose you want to contact someone in SUS directly. You

would think clicking on the tab at the top, “About SUS: Meet Your SUS Board,” or at the bottom, “Our Team,” would take you to a list of those people with their names and email addresses. Instead, both links take you to an informational page about what SUS is. Lo and behold – a red heading that says “Our Team” and looks like every

other non-clickable heading on the page is, in fact, the link to the list of SUS team members.

Yes, the competent web surfer hunting for this information would be able to find this link buried in the site, but for someone who is new to the site or to SUS, it should be more readily available.

Outside of navigation, the real

pitfall with the redesign (which I can only assume is an easy fix) is the font. The entire site is in stock Arial font and too small for anyone to spend time reading. Even on a 27 inch screen, it is labourintensive to get through any of the text. Someone looking to register a club or learn about the Student Union Building (SUB) has to work through heavy blocks of text in this tiny font. Add to that inconsistent spacing and scattered spelling mistakes that my own OCD can’t handle, and I find myself missing the simpler SUS site from before.

Granted, the site has more useful and relevant information on it, and it seems that SUS is staying on top of updating it regularly (something lacking in the old site). As well, the thinned-out agendas are far less distracting than they used to be.

However, these are small victories.

A functional, dynamic website was a long time in coming, but there are definitely still places SUS can make improvements so their members have the level of access to the society they deserve.

8

OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

So long English major: It wasn’t me, it was you PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE

There’s a point in most fizzling relationships when the magic is gone and everyone is just going through the motions. My relationship with UFV’s English department reached that point in a Fall 2011 class when, like a threadbare superhero plot, everything just became too easy.

It wasn’t the prof. He was great.

It wasn’t the material. I loved that too. Perhaps it was the fact that I scored an A- in the course and knew I didn’t deserve it. Perhaps it was the fact that all of us were scoring grades we didn’t deserve; that the department was convincing us, inch by inch, that we actually did deserve them.

I remember bragging about my ability to ‘shovel.’ My friends and I would swap stories about our papers, laughing about how we’d pulled the wool over a professor’s eyes. We all had similar stories: late nights, unfinished readings, rambling and incoherent essays.

Amazed by the grades we’d receive, we attributed our success to some inconclusive and ambiguous skill we called the ‘bullshit’ factor.

Each of us thought we had mastered an arcane art, that we had navigated a rite of passage for our major. Our pride protected us from the real truth: that we were victims of a system that was (in many senses) exploiting us.

I should not be able to get an A- in an English class without having read most of the text on which the class is built. If I can, the best explanation is that I’m some sort of literary prodigy. But what if (as was true) my friend also gets a good mark without having read much of the text? Is he a prodigy as well? What of our several other friends? What of that girl who sat in back, never talked, and skipped roughly half the semester? How did she even pass?

The other explanation is that we aren’t prodigies, and that we aren’t fooling our professors at all. They see our offerings for exactly what they are, ‘bullshit,’ and yet still we receive As and Bs and are shunted upwards through the degree program. I understand that we want to believe we are uniquely special, that we’ve all found a way to manipulate the system, but if that’s true then we’ve simply created a new system and it’s not the one we paid for. This system sits us down like monkeys at typewriters, gleefully accepts our pages of nonsense for four years, and then hands us our certificate at the end. The problem is that the certificate was never the goal to begin with, since it’s the monkey, not the certificate, which has to apply the learning, get the job, and live the life.

Which begs the question, what was I doing in my English classes?

What was I promised, and what did I gain?

Admittedly, I loved many of my classes. I became a much better writer, and I am still proud of the short stories and plays I wrote under encouragement from my

professors. I loved reading texts, debating them, interpreting them, and writing on them. I have many good memories.

Yet I struggle to understand the methods behind my instruction.

We would read texts that were decades, sometimes centuries old, and were expected to interpret them with only a smattering of historical background and understanding. We would ignore the entire history of scholarship on a text, reinventing the wheel again and again, and were applauded for it.

Perhaps the goal was the journey itself and not a useful end result – dozens of liberal arts apologists speak of the importance of critical thinking development – but even that seems suspect. In a postmodern discipline which does not believe in authoritative answers, indeed can barely even agree upon rules, how is critical thinking truly being encouraged?

One student may write an eloquent interpretation of Shakespeare through an historical Catholic lens; another may reinterpret The Tempest as a communist (anachronisms be hanged) allegory. Both receive the same mark, and neither can be assumed to be less ‘critical’ than the other. Like art, literary criticism has become uncritiqueable – and yet somehow it is still supposed to produce critical thinking in its students.

A few semesters ago a number of friends and I took the same upper-level English class together.

We each attended the class, took occasional notes, participated to a greater or lesser extent, and wrote a large final essay. After finishing the class, we all discovered that, except for one person, we had received the exact same mark on that

final essay: 93 per cent.

The individual who did not receive this mark had written his essay in the four hours before the final class. He received a B. Perhaps I deserved the grade, perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps one of my other friends deserved 93 per cent. Either way, I strongly doubt that we all deserved it. My essay might have been graded on my comprehension and interpretation of the course material, but postmodernism has rendered such judgments subjective and difficult.

Was my grade indicative of my writing then? My paragraph format? My use of adverbs? Suddenly it felt like a sham, like a magic trick; it destroyed my sense of accomplishment.

I could have graduated as an English major. I could have stayed in the program, skipped out on my readings, complained about my workload, and still (honestly) enjoyed it. Yet when you realize that much of the acclamation, the grades, the ease, is not a product of your intelligence, but instead that of a system which encourages mediocrity, it seems dangerous to stay within its ranks.

After all, I don’t need to be told how good I already am, or encouraged in some sort of macabre mythbuilding – a grotesque dance around the truth. In university, I want to be part of a department that makes me better, that challenges me, and fails me when I deserve to fail.

Most of all, I want to be part of a department that calls me on my bullshit.

Have an opinion about something? Share it with us.

Send your comments and questions to editor@ufvcascade.ca

9

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

What do you think of the new Abbotsford-Chilliwack campus connector shuttle?

Feel like sharing your short-andsweet opinion? Keep an eye out for our whiteboard-toting pollsters roaming the halls.

Hindsight: not quite 20/20 NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

You often hear people invoking common sense to sum up or explain away a situation. Simple adages are used to explain away more complex situations, underestimating a situation to the point of misinformation.

Take this headline for example: A new study has been released

by UMass Medical school with findings that suggest American citizens are living “longer and more healthily than ever before,” with

an “increase in average life expectancy during the previous two decades, [and] with quality-adjusted life expectancy also increasing.”

It’s a fairly obvious statement, right? America is among the top ten wealthiest countries in the world. And think of all the advances in medicine nowadays! We have the cure for pretty much everything, so of course people are going to live longer. It’s just common sense.

How would the reaction go if the article reported the opposite? That Americans are living shorter and unhealthier lives than ever before?

You could justify it either way.

Americans eat more fast food than any other country in the world.

Think of the obesity rates, the spike in cancer rates, in diabetes. They eat junk food and have junk health down there – everyone knows that.

Common sense, really.

It’s said that hindsight is 20/20.

It’s a dangerous road to go down; so-called common sense is oversimplified and often contradictory – it’s not something you should rely on.

Consider the typical common sense phrases the tried and supposedly true “folk wisdom” we

tend to fall back on when it comes to relationships. Of course “birds of a feather flock together;” people of similar interests fall into company with each other. But what about the whole “opposites attract” thing? It’s easy to find a couple who were attracted to each other’s unique background.

Do “too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth,” or are “two heads are better than one?”

Is it “nothing ventured, nothing gained” or “better safe than sorry?” Do “good things come to those who wait” or should you “strike while the iron is hot?”

The list continues.

It’s so easy to take a situation and apply this common sense to it once you know that outcome. The real issue with doing so is not that common sense is often wrong, but that people do not learn from their mistakes or the mistakes of others.

Justifying in hindsight or using oversimplified adages does resolve our own internal confusion and fear, but it often misinforms and does not help us understand the nature of any given situation.

So-called common sense is not as sensible as it might seem.

10

FEATURE ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Revisiting the natural world through art: Q&A with Paula Funk

www.ufvcascade.ca

Are Generalizations and Assumptions both photographs?

Yes, they’re both photographs. They were taken at Battery Russell on the coast of Oregon and I think it’s interesting that these two exemplify the flip side of the conversation going on in the other pieces, where these are looking at how the natural world—the mosses and algae—are inflicting themselves on the man-made habitat, where the other pieces are talking about how people are interacting or imposing themselves on the natural world with different results.

And this mixed media piece here, the Residential Sample?

I’ve never really worked in landscape before, so this is my own approach to landscape and maybe a little bit tongue-and-cheek because I used my neighbour’s landscaping as the subject for my landscape painting.

So, I think my consideration here is around how people really seem to have an urge to interact with the natural world and even if they live in a tiny room or an apartment you almost always see some kind of attempt to grow something or to nurture some part of the natural world. Landscaping is just a way we do that in a suburban approach.

image: Emily Seitz

Paula Funke at the gallery reception for Natural History

UFV alumna and fine arts advisor Paula Funk is showcasing her Natural History collection in the Visual Arts Gallery (B136) from September 9 to 20. It is a collection of various art forms, from photography to mixed

“

What I’m trying to capture here [is] the way we [can] see and feel with greater detail the impact of [a] place on our own lives.

Above: Generalization and Assumptions Left: Residential Sample Below: Waldeinsamkeit

”

And this piece, Waldeinsamkeit, shows a 10-year difference in your son?

Yes, that’s my son. He’s five years old on this side and 16 on that side. It came about as I starting thinking about my childhood and the way I spent my time really in very close contact with nature and not in supervised constructs: in the natural world, in the woods, in the forest, either with friends or on my own. And as I’ve raised my own children, I’ve seen that there’s a huge shift in how we allow our children to interact with the natural world; how much unsupervised distance we allow between ourselves and our children and just their own connection to the land or to the forest, and it’s a little bit of a grief piece on my part to see that that has shifted so much for successive generations.

media. On September 12, she hosted a reception in the gallery.

EMILY SEITZ

the cascade

Are you excited about the reception tonight?

I’m very excited. This is a great achievement for me. I’ve never had a solo show and it’s a really nice milestone in my development as an artist.

What made you decide to focus on natural history?

When I was thinking about making a show, I really wanted it to have a strong theme. When I looked at the work I was making at the time and some of the projects that I had in mind, I suddenly started seeing that thread that went through them. People, the natural world, and how the relationships between the two shifted over time with the generations.

A lot of your artwork features wood in some element. Was that a specific choice you made?

Yes. I really like working on wood, especially with the mixed media pieces. I love the tactile sensibility about it; I love the visual that the grain gives. Again, when I was thinking of the show and the threads that I saw in some of my work, I decided actively to move in that direction because I think wood provides that reminder of the natural world and is a natural element.

Savary This piece over here, Respire, is...?

So this is my daughter now. I think it’s really just a little bit of a contemplation. It’s pretty straight up about air quality and what kind of legacy are we leaving our future generations in terms of just very basic environmental concerns.

And what is this sheer part with the mask?

The wood and the paint are done separately and there was a drawn deco kind of thing on tracing paper and it’s gone over top. You get a little hint of what’s underneath. And this part over here, [pointing to the bottom] which I love, is serendipitous; I was playing with paints and layers and I had the blue and the orange down and put the brown over top and it just wasn’t quite working, so I went to get it off and I just wiped it and it looked like a lake and that started to really direct the piece. It became environmental because of the chance mark making that happen that I hadn’t even planned. I could never do it again. This kind of expressionist mark-making can be like that; it’s really chancy and I find that actually the hardest part of the piece is doing that. The really detailed pencil drawing isn’t challenging, really. It’s just a series of motions that have to be done in a really technical manner, but the paint behind it, to have it really tell the kind of story I want it to tell, for the marks to feel fresh and balanced and meaningful is the most anxiety producing about the whole thing.

Respire

Is Savary a textile piece?

Yes, this is a kind of embroidery and I give my dad credit for the woodwork – he did the woodwork for me, but I envisioned the piece and described the wood and he put it together. This, again, is something about interaction with the land and as we become more screen-centric and indoor-focused and stop interaction with land I think we do lose something. I’ve been really fortunate to develop a relationship with a specific piece of land over the last ten or thirteen years, Savary Island, up Desolation Sound off the coast, and I’ve been going there repeatedly.

So that’s what I’m trying to capture here; the way when we first become familiar with a place obviously we see it for what it is, but as we continue to visit that place, we see and feel with greater detail and the impact of that place on our own lives, our minds, our brain chemistry even becomes so much more pronounced. I think it’s really actually about relationship. The repetitive process stitching was, I think, was a nice complement to the repetitive process of revisiting a certain piece of land and allowing it to become something whole.

And the final piece, Study: Found Dead on the Path?

So, I actually did find a little bat and that’s its actual size. I found it on the path and it’s just an interesting kind of observation of mortality and nature, [and] human interception with nature.

Study: Found Dead on the Path

FEATURE ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

11

Back alley barbecue: a drum-pounding event by VASA

Photos by Anthony Biondi and Ashley Mussbacher

ASHLEY MUSSBACHER Contributor

Caution tape cordoned off a small paved area behind C building, where the pungent smell of garbage drifted in from nearby dumpsters. Only a chain-link fence separated this party from the parking lot.

It was the perfect scene for the Visual Arts Students Association (VASA)’s back alley barbecue.

A little after noon, students and faculty spilled into the space to slap some paint onto wide sheets of paper, enjoy the free burgers and hot dogs, mingle, and watch visual music on a TV screen.

DJ Tetsuomi Anzai played some great beats to keep everyone in the moment.

Raffle tickets were sold for a chance to win prizes including a UFV hoodie, a Towne Cinema movie bundle, and gift cards for Wired Monk and iTunes. There

was also a grand prize 50/50 draw. The draws were staggered between activities with the grand prize at the end.

The event also included a scavenger hunt, with 16 well-worded clues to lead you through the Abbotsford campus in search of artwork.

In the final hour of the barbecue, Anzai silenced the music as chairs were arranged into a circle and African-style drums brought out.

Everyone was invited to participate. Visual arts instructor Shelley Stefan led the activity with a West African bass drum.

Hesitantly at first, students took drums and sat in the circle. The covered space soon echoed with uncoordinated rhythms as people familiarized themselves with the instrument, but Stefan called for attention to explain the basic beats.

She demonstrated on her drum, and not long after, the circle began to pick up on the beat. Stefan called this process “locking into” a

rhythm.

As the circle played, passersby from the parking lot came to take a closer look. The drumming was so loud you could feel it. The sight of 10 to 15 people drumming to a singular “heartbeat,” as Stefan called it, was hypnotizing.

At one point, Stefan used the metal railings to create a rainwater effect – then, anything in the immediate area was fair game to tap, shake, or bang on. The beat changed frequently as people lost their timing or stopped to give their sore hands a rest, but the result was an exhilarating and organic sound.

Every so often a student would pull out of the circle and another would take his or her place. When a song ended, the sudden silence was filled with enthusiastic applause.

“It’s just a fun drum circle.” Stefan explains that drumming is not only fun, but a great way to relieve stress.

12

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Album Review

Yoav-Blood Vine

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS Contributor

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

Yoav is back. The South African electro-acoustic singer-songwriter had strong MTV exposure in 2008 with his first album, Charmed and Strange. This was followed by a North American tour with Tori Amos, a second release (A Foolproof Escape Plan), and landing a song on the Sucker Punch soundtrack.

His third release, Blood Vine, has more in common with his excellent first album; it is highly original and combines the two extremes of acoustic folk-blues and electronic dance music.

Most electronic artists use the stock sounds that come in their synthesizers. More elevated musicians dive deeper into their gear – instead of using stock presets, they use the bare-bones programming tools to sculpt their own sounds.

Yoav’s use of samplers and synthesizers is on a higher plane. Most of the ‘electronic’ elements on his records are mashed up samples

Daft Punk using an acoustic guitar instead of a drum machine.

Blood Vine’s sound is innovative, but like all great albums, the songs matter most. Yoav is able to blend gentle and catchy melodic lines, pounding beats, harmonic guitar rhythms, solid song structures, and an as yet unheard electronic style into an intoxicating cocktail of sound. It’s not that Yoav is ahead of his time, so much as he is deeply connected with it; while most mainstream music projects seek to wrap the new in a retro package, Yoav is consistently in touch with the current ways of making music and shaping sound.

The single “Pale Imitation” is featured on YouTube; it’s worth watching. You can quickly understand the themes Blood Vine is reaching for, and the video shows how media lets us connect with memory, and what that might mean for how we live in the everpresent future. As hip as Yoav is, my bet is that Blood Vine will be timeless. “Shiver #7” has a classy, cinematic, James Bond quality.

“Sign of Life” sums up how Yoav is a genre in and of himself, pumping trance-like rhythms fused into a bombastic industrial breakdown with a returning melody straight from the hard drive of a Eurodance music producer.

The album isn’t as happy as you might expect folk-electro sound to be – there’s plenty of blues here.

Through all the technology, at the core Yoav has a bluesman mentality: street smarts searching for big answers to big questions. The lyrics of “Keep Calm Carry On” sum up the big problem of our time: “The devil in the details / the weaver of the dream / will wrap his word around you / but none of it is real.” Ultimately, this album is about the destructive power of illusions and creative power of dreams – our obsession with “Karaoke Superstars.”

Yoav is currently on tour in Europe, but promises to be back our way soon.

and loops he makes from slapping the strings and body of an acoustic

guitar with his hands – he uses the guitar as a synthesizer. Think of

Hate Dept.

New Ghost

Pixies EP-1

Julia Holter Loud City Song

The Naked and Famous In Rolling Waves

New Ghost is the fifth release from industrial rockers Hate Dept. Their previous album, Ditch, was released almost a decade ago. New Ghost feels like a “best of ” compilation of new tracks from the band. The album bounces back and forth in style, from machine funk-like Rob Zombie to gothic tunes in the vein of Sisters of Mercy. There is more melody than scream, but enough of a hard rock edge to get heads banging. Often referred to as a pioneer of the ‘Cold Wave’ genre, Hate Dept. is a rock band at heart. Bulletproof tracks to watch out for are “Disconnector,” “New Son Army,” “Broken Rule,” and “Subordinates.” On the EBM side of the genre is the dance floor-friendly “Hard Times” and trip-hop styled “Amanda Jones.” For those who have never heard of this 20-year-old band, this is a good place to start. New Ghost is heavy, focused, and fully powered.

The record lands somewhere between a crazy house party back in the 1990s and a political rally in the year 2084.

If you want something old and new at the same time, Hate Dept. is your ticket.

Aside from a few stray tracks, EP-1 is the first proper release from the Pixies since their 1991 record Trompe le Monde, and this collection takes the form of a brief four-song EP, ending the band’s nine-year exile as a simple touring nostalgia act. The question then becomes: Will the new music be worthy of the name? Unfortunately for fans of the group’s previous material, EP-1 sounds like a polished, professional rock-group. Aside from the recent departure of bassist Kim Deal, the original lineup is still intact. Frank Black, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering all participated in the recording of EP-1. Longtime Pixies producer Gil Norton sat at the helm. Yet, despite this encouraging lineup, this is not the Pixies. The Pixies died out more than 20 years ago in the last few measures of Trompe le Monde. The songs on EP-1 are essentially outtakes from Frank Black’s solo career played by his longtime friends and bandmates. All traces of humanity have been removed from the lyrics. The music lacks inspiration.

The magic is gone. And the sad part is, the title of the EP suggests more releases in the near future.

One of the most important conditions of music is how we listen to it – stationary or moving, in tranquility or drowned by a dozen voices. Julia Holter’s Loud City Song, which foregrounds a single voice and silence, could seem to thrive only in a sheltered, esoteric setting. “World,” the album’s opening track, alternates surges of Holter’s voice and familiar (from last year’s Ekstasis) tuning runs of horns and strings with repeated stops, a strategy that folds into, rather than disappears with the rest of the album. But it isn’t fragile. On Loud City Song, Holter is still introspective to a degree (a city symphony ... only she can hear), but these songs, structured by the rests, exclamations, disappearing titles, and new patterns of Holter’s voice, are the kind to snake through headphones and change surroundings, rather than being about their images. Holter’s lyrics occasionally repeat from song to song, placing emphasis on the creative expression of walking, and how “I don’t understand”: the motion and confusion of a city let in by the spaces in “World” and “Maxim’s II,” observing contemporary life not by standing outside and judging, but experiencing and repurposing a culture of alienation.

One of the bigger bands to explode onto the scene in 2010 was The Naked and Famous, a band hailing from New Zealand. What made them stand apart three years ago was the way they perfected that hauntingly clean, synthesized, upbeat, and youthful indie-pop sound. Also particularly unique was how Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith both share lead vocals. But as I digress about how great that debut album was, the worry was that this follow-up could easily have been just an extension of it. Luckily, that’s not the case.

In fact, there’s quite a bit of exploration to be found on In Rolling Waves.

As the album opens with “A Stillness” it’s evident right away that things have changed, given that the track doesn’t include any detectable synth – it’s backed with true instrumentals. Also, interestingly, while the other tracks do, for the most part, move back into heavy use of synth, the closing track is again almost entirely instrumental.

There are also a number of tracks that are dark and dirtied like “Waltz” and “We Are Leaving,” which permeate a bit of uneasiness. Of course, there are still those standard pop tracks, and they’re hard to resist. It’s this fact that the album is varied that makes these tracks all that much better to the point where “The Mess” is a personal favourite. At just under 56 minutes it’s hard to deny that this has been a statement album.

Christopher DeMarcus

TIM UBELS

mICHAEL SCOULAR

Joe Johnson

13

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Q&A

Casinos

Teenage punk band talks videogame music, immaturity, and new recordings.

MARTIN CASTRO CONTRIBUTOR

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

CHARTS

Anciients Heart of Oak

Shuffle ADAM ROPER CIVL DJ

Needs Rare Earths

Birds of Canada host Adam Roper wants to remind you to kick back and enjoy college. Stay on campus past 6 p.m., say yes when your awkward new roommates proclaim “Toga Party,” and streak whenever possible.

Here are a few jams for late nights of sneaking live goats onto the Baker House roof instead of studying:

April Verch Bright Like Gold

SonReal - “Everywhere We Go”

Babysitter Tape 666 The Courtneys The Courtneys

Suicidal Tendencies 13

Bad Religion True North Open Letters 1-6

Shad & Skratch Bastid The Spring Up

10

Tables, Ladders and Chairs TLC

11

B.A. Johnston Mission Accomplished

12 13 14 15 16

This Hisses Anhedonia Dinosaur Bones Shaky Dream Cellos The Accident We Are The City Violent

Neko Case The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

17

Bertha Cool/ Hemogoblin Bertha Cool/Hemogoblin Split

18

Deltron 3030 City Rising From The Ashes

The music video for one of Vancity’s criminally unknown rappers is a throwback to the colourfully irresponsible childhood your parents had. Further proof denim vests and pink socks will never go out of style.

The Mandates - “I Stayed at the Arcade” I know I did, even when all my friends flaked outta town to go to school. When you grow up living on Vancouver Island in a tent, options for fun are limited. I’m of the opinion that hitting the high score on Turtles In Time is certainly as noble a task as earning your master’s in whatever.

Grand Analog - “Wild Animal Print” Despite the fact that it’s a great Canadian hip-hop jam, “Wild Animal Print” is not something you should wear to a campus party ever. That and uggs. If you own animal print apparel, yoga pants, or uggs, burn them immediately and go buy some real clothes. I mean it.

Behind Night”

Sapphire

-

“Last

Vancity’s Behind Sapphire travels a lot, as should you eventually. If your parents have money, don’t ask for a BMW or a gold chain this Christmas, ask for a round trip ticket to Europe. Believe me, if they can afford to pay your tuition they can certainly afford your modest travel expenses.

Casinos are rapidly becoming a staple in the Abbotsford music scene; if you haven’t heard of them yet, believe me, you will soon. And you’ll be better off for it. Made up of 19-yearold lead singer and rhythm guitarist Kier Christer Junos, 19-year-old lead guitarist and auxiliary vocalist Zachary Keely, 19-year-old bassist and sometimes-vocalist Mitchell Trainor, and 18-year-old Alex Vevers rounding off this musical quartet on drums, Casinos played a killer set at AfterMath last Saturday and afterwards sat down to talk with The Cascade.

Casinos was formerly known as Mech City Busk … what was the reason for the name change?

And where did the name Casinos come from?

Kier: We made Mech City Busk when we were in the eighth [or] ninth grade, maybe even the seventh. And you know, musical styles change, and … we all thought it was a prudent idea to get the name changed. We had been trying [to change the name] since, 2010, probably.

Zachary: It was a metamorphosis, stylistically. As soon as we changed our band name, we changed a little bit as a band; we matured. And so Casinos is the butterfly, while Mech City Busk was the cocoon.

Kier: Casinos came from … I believe it was a band practice? I think we were all talking about Ocean’s 11 or something like that, and I was talking about the Epiphone Casino guitar, and either Mitch or Zach said, “Let’s call ourselves Casinos,” and it was as simple as that. You know, all the other times we actually tried to [come up with] a band name, we failed … we deliberated too much.

Somehow, ironically, we came up with [the name] in seconds.

Zachary: And, it’s also important to note that we’re not called The Casinos, we’re just Casinos.

You’re a self-proclaimed garage-rock band, but it seems your music has a lot of influences. What artists or genres of music do you consider to be your biggest influences?

Zachary: I think we see ourselves as a modern spin on garage-rock. So bands that we listened to [when we were] growing up, bands like The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Last Shadow Puppets…

Kier: Lots of Brit rock.

Zachary: Oasis, obviously.

Kier: It got bigger, though, especially when I started listening to Dananananakroyd, from Glasgow. If you were to listen to them, you could definitely hear some similarities in some of our noise. What’s important to note is that if it wasn’t for videogames, we wouldn’t be in a band right now. I first heard Avenged Sevenfold on the soundtrack for Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and that was very crucial to our sound. And years later when I bought FIFA 10, Dananananakroyd was [on it], we started adopting a heavy amount of stuff from them. Video games are why we’re in a band [laughs].

Where did you guys meet?

When did you start playing together?

Image: Casinos / Facebook

Fun fact: the name Casinos was inspired in part by Oceans 11.

Zachary: We started playing around in the band portable at our elementary school, at St. James Catholic School. The original members were me, Kier, and [Alex] Vevers. And we’ve had a rotating door of guitarists and bassists. I was originally the bass player of the band.

And when did Mitch enter the picture?

Kier: That’s even farther on.

Zachary: That’s way farther on ... Before we were Mech City Busk we played for a while as The Skinnies and that was a three-piece group. I played bass, Kier played guitar and [Alex] Vevers played drums. We all had long hair and listened to The Ramones and stuff like that.

Kier: We didn’t know what we were doing. But it was fun. We had some of the most fun times. I kid you not.

When did you guys start playing together? And when did you decide to start performing?

Zachary: When I flew out of my mom’s womb, I was on a stage.

Kier: Zach was just ready to go.

(Laughter) Kier: It was probably seventh grade ... there was a talent show coming up, and we did a Bedouin Soundclash cover. And we started covering Ramones, so we had a lot of their songs in our repertoire. We tried to go for old-school punk-rock stuff. It was fun.

So it was a talent show?

Kier: It was a talent show, yeah.

We were absolutely terrible. I cringe whenever I think of it. I don’t think of it.

Well, we all have to start somewhere.

Kier: That is true.

What’s your creative set-up, in terms of the songwriting process?

Kier: A lot of the songs, I actually wrote the structure for. I also write all the lyrics for the songs. I always bring a full song structure to the table, and I play it through to the guys, then we make changes according to what we think would be better. I never want to keep things too simple ...

I always want to have something that’s a little challenging to play.

It might not be rhythms all the time, because we always play in 4/4, sometimes it’s the speed. I’d say Zach probably has the hardest parts to play, and Alex as well.

Zach still has trouble with them sometimes, and I don’t blame him. I ask a lot of him sometimes, but through Casinos, Zach has be-

come a really good guitarist.

Generally, what are your songs about?

Kier: The songs that we have in our repertoire so far, they span over a very long time, probably from as far back as 2008. And what we get from writing a bunch of songs, sporadically, is a variety of unfocused topics. I’ll admit it was pretty immature at first, things like young love, struggling and overcoming. Now, I feel like there’s merit to that kind of topic, because I enjoy writing about struggling with and overcoming a problem. I’m trying to stay away from the young love songs now. I guess it’s expected of you to write something like that when you’re still in the probing grounds of musicianship, and it was just what we felt. Now I like to write about moments ... and spans of time, and being wiser.

Casinos released The Motionless Heron EP a while back, which was really quite good. Is there a full-length record in the making?

Zachary: Yeah, we’re actually in talks about that right now. We’ve thought about it, and we’re thinking probably in the next year we should have something, whether it’s a full-length record or another EP, we’re not sure yet. We have some friends in Abbotsford that have studios.

What has been your biggest challenge as a band, and how have you been able to overcome it?

Zachary: Finding time to practice is a very large challenge. Especially given the fact that we’re all university students.

And is it still a challenge, or have you been able to overcome it?

Zachary: It’s still a challenge, but we’ve become more economic with our time. I think we’ve gotten a lot better with our time management skills. So when we have a really focused 45 minutes, it pays off when we play live shows.

Kier: Tonight, for example, we practiced for less than an hour before our set. Everyone knows the song structures, but that’s how we’ve been working for a while.

The day of the show, everyone will come over in the afternoon ... we’ll practice, have sushi, go to the show after we pack all our equipment up. It’s as easy as that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

14

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Review

Riddick MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

The worst thing about Riddick isn’t that it is merely bad, but that it demonstrates that director David Twohy’s previous, unexpectedly great film, A Perfect Getaway, is likely an anomaly rather than a sign of better things to come.

Riddick is the third in a “why is this three movies and counting?” sci-fi series focusing on Vin Diesel’s voice, sunglasses, and alien heritage that has mostly shown the ambition of asking if it can be

almost half as good as the generation-ago movies it mostly takes from.

Pitch Black was Flight of the Phoenix with a segue into Alien, The Chronicles of Riddick an average SyFy original production with God of War overtones, and Riddick splits the difference, slotting the Furyan one in with mercenaries and the same orange-burnished dust planet look of the series’ opening scenes.

Everyone is always putting knives to each other’s throats in these movies, and to this Twohy (who has also written the series)

adds military-jock comic book dialogue, monotonous and deadening over two hours, like Aliens slowed to a crawl. It has time for lengthy scenes where Vin Diesel trains a dog, builds up immunity to a venom, is interrogated, barters, repairs a vehicle, and is teased about his family history. Twohy can’t say too much on the last one, considering there are plans to drag this out into at least one more movie, but perhaps the real question is what the point of this movie is in the first place.

Not a commissioned sequel, a piece of genre hackwork begrudg-

ingly taken on as a necessary job, much has been made of the “freedom” and “independence” of the making of this film. Vin Diesel produced, not a Hollywood exec, and Twohy financed Riddick like an independent movie. The other recent example of this kind of story was the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas, but there the case could be made that there was something hubristic, different, and unwatered-down about what was being done.

Twohy opens Riddick with a would-be virtuoso dialogue-less stretch of sun-beaten survival, but it’s more like watching someone else play a video game prologue (Twohy prefers mostly overhead action shots and roving, digital scopes of terrain), and looks pale and lifeless next to John Carter, let alone the great items Twohy seems to want to “explore.” Better to leave the Homeric plot cycle as just another pseudo-great framework sometimes evoked by flailing writers, like Don Draper reading Dante or, to circle back, Riddick pulling a Richard Dawkins on the Bible (it was just as embarassingly superficial when Twohy did the same thing thirteen years ago).

The problem with the sci-fi/fantasy universe isn’t just its boring sameness, its misogyny, its underlying misunderstanding of heroic solution, but its willful immaturity – Twohy, like numerous other directors, has reached a point where he has already made the movie that calls back to his childhood. A bunch of guys, survival, heroism, etc. From here, do they expand upon the same themes, grow into newer ones, rework them as they

continue to revise and create? No, the action sequel rejects change, emphasizes endless coming-ofage through violence, and repeats itself. Unlike television series, a movie series rarely even allows for the effect of seeing an actor, if not their material, grow and change with the role—they are replaced, or must stay the same—vibrant, sarcastic.

The best sequel is a bad sequel.

Either one so willfully idiosyncratic and against expectation it cannot result in future ones, at least when executives are deciding (Superman Returns, Spider-man 3), or one that follows the old rule of diminishing returns, forcing a director to make something different. The latter happened to Twohy – The Chronicles of Riddick did poorly, and this is the only reason the new one is called “independent” in the trades.

Twohy next made A Perfect Getaway, an unmarketable (by Hollywood standards), lean movie. It’s a 90-minute thriller with elements of Hitchcock and Lost, but far more than a combination of smaller inspirations. One of the most stunning elements it pulls off is casting as its villains not aliens or dark killers but would-be social climbers, people who’d trade anything for the power to produce their own expensive entertainment in the form of a financed life. Even if that doesn’t sound great, in the hands of Twohy it’s but one piece of a great B-movie, where his occasional tinkering with images is in sync with the only good idea he’s had so far.

dential scenes suffer from poor acting, with roles whose purpose seemed to be to fit in some major names. President Nixon (John Cusack) is particularly poor – not many people would have realized who he played without it being explicitly mentioned.

However, Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman) was good, and most of these scenes do have a fun element to them (the only thing stranger than seeing Robin Williams as a wizened Eisenhower was probably seeing him as the bad guy in Insomnia). This weaker point of the movie is passable at worst, not detracting from the main content and message while at least barely do-

ing its job showing the changes the White House went through.

Due to the nature of the film, scenes often take place years apart.

Usually this would lead to confusion for viewers, however the team behind The Butler prevents this problem with some effective solutions. Scenes are given effects to make them look like they were actually shot on proper vintage cameras, for example, with significant blooming and warmer tones in earlier scenes (a lot like an ‘oldfashioned’ Instagram filter) without going overboard and drawing attention away from the movie itself.

Aging effects are also particu-

larly effective not only in make-up but also in the subtle ways characters speak, giving viewers more visual and audible clues that time has passed.

All in all, Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a worthy movie. Gut-wrenching emotional scenes are offset by tender and fun family moments.

Though at times didactic, The Butler benefits from an excellent cast and always remains gripping, offering viewers a valuable perspective of American civil rights history and celebrating how far the country has come.

Film Review

The Butler BLAKE MCGUIRE THE CASCADE

The Butler follows the life of a house servant who worked in the White House through eight presidents and over 34 years. The film is inspired by the real-life story of Eugene Allen, though many dramatic liberties are taken with his personal life. As it summarizes the civil rights movement in the late 20th century, there is a didactic feel throughout the movie, but it is also celebratory in nature and maintains a good entertainment level for its audience.

The movie opens with a young Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) working in a cotton field with his parents. After seeing his mother raped and his father shot by one of the plantation owners, the caretaker takes Cecil into the house as a servant.

After some years, Cecil decides to leave the plantation and finds himself serving in an upscale hotel after a period of wandering. He is eventually hired at the White House to serve the president. At this point in the film, Cecil’s wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) feels distanced from him and becomes an alcoholic.

His older son Louis (Daniel Oyelowo) becomes a civil rights activist, working his way into many major events in the civil rights movement. This creates a divide between the father and son, as Ce-

cil feels that being a hard worker would make life better, and Louis believes he needs to fight for his rights. This leads to Cecil thinking his son is a trouble-making criminal and Louis believing his father is a conformist.

Cecil is an interesting character, often instructed to ‘disappear’ into the room. This poses a challenge for Whitaker to portray thoughts and feelings without speaking or acting out (a challenge he rises to gracefully). Winfrey meets a similar challenge, except she needs to disappear into the role so as not to distract from the film with her reputation. This is all compounded by Lee Daniels’ ‘less is more’ philosophy and the end result is a story told with more emotion than dialogue.

Much of the movie’s appeal stems from strong imagery and the emotional impact of the violence following the civil rights movement, giving the audience a taste of what protestors experienced.

Cecil’s home life also contributed to the drama, as his distance from his son exemplifies the generational divide. These intense scenes are offset by fun parties with Cecil and his friends as well as tender moments with his family. The two extremes were balanced well and add to the entertainment value of the film.

Apparently all the White House scenes actually happened, but unfortunately these are lower points in the movie. Many of the presi-

15

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Cascade Arcade

Dine & Dash

Saints Row IV

Zaika Image:

Image: Dessa Bayrock / The Cascade

Zaika’s buffet is colourful, delicious, affordable, and nearby.

JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

When I was a teenager, some games seemed impossible without cheat codes. The Grand Theft Auto games in particular were nearly impossible without cheats – having to buy all your weapons and armour back every time you died during a mission was not fun!

In general, games have become progressively easier, but they have continued to include cheats. In the last few years, the line between normal gameplay and playing with cheats melded together has decreased the challenge for gamers. Saints Row IV is a prime example.

Several innovations have made games easier in the past decade: health recovery in Halo and Call of Duty, no resource losses after death (most evident in Grand Theft Auto IV), even accompanying CPU characters who take out enemies alongside you.

Games have become easier, but some have still retained their sense of fun. Of course, there are games like Dark Souls which are extremely challenging, but overall the challenge has weakened.

And when you have no challenge, you need to be distracted by either strong narrative or a gameplay aspect that masks that lack with intense and entertaining visuals.

While the first two Saints Row

games were mockeries of the GTA series with over-the-top dialogue and profanity, they still presented the player with challenging and engaging gameplay. The third game was able to replace challenge with hilarity by letting the player simply drop-kick people out of their cars or beat them down with certain large sexual objects. But after the story was finished, the game became cumbersome. You could unlock unlimited ammo and extreme resistance to damage – you became a god. And it took all the fun out of it for me.

We’ve always wanted to be a god in the video game world. Allpowerful, unable to die, with limitless weapons… the works. This is where cheats have come in.

But after a while, most of us will get bored of the power and want to return to the challenge. Saints Row IV is so easy, I have no idea what the cheats could offer that you can’t already get in the game.

Once I increased my power to jump over 100 feet in the air and then started to fly, I realized the game was incredibly boring.

Sure, it was fun for a bit. But eventually I felt I was completing missions just for the sake of completing them rather than to enjoy them. When you can defeat all your enemies simply by running up and smashing them into the ground with super strength, what’s the point of using a gun, or any other weapon?

Saints Row IV has you taking on alien beings instead of gangs, fighting in a virtual reality simulation of Steel Port, and you must hack in to rescue your friends from a Matrix-style coma. While that sounds absurdly awesome, it wears off fast. This is an issue that quickly-made sequels have. Due to the publisher shift after THQ’s bankruptcy, Deep Silver produced a game so similar to the third it’s laughable.

Steel Port is exactly the same and the number of weapons has decreased. Instead of a new game, it feels like a large but lacking expansion pack. The story is entertaining and humorous but doesn’t hide the single main fault of the game: Why use a car when you can jump over a highway? Why use a weapon when you can freeze or stomp on enemies? Why use a gun when you can break them with your melee attacks?

The idea of overpowering has been a subject in gaming for years in terms of weapons, kits, or spells in online combat. But when the player is overpowered in general gameplay, a line must be drawn.

When you need to play against the progress of the game to make it challenging, you are playing the wrong game.

Suite 10-33555 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford Price range: $8-$15 Mon–Sat: 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Sun: noon – 9 a.m.

Lunch buffet: 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

daily If you’re trying to stick close to campus while grabbing a bite to eat, options seem to be sadly limited. Would you like fries? Would you like another Tim Horton’s bagel? Would you like fries?

Luckily for me, this week I discovered a veritable font of flavour at Zaika, an Indian food buffet and restaurant hiding near Five Corners in Abbotsford. It’s a little more of a jaunt out than if you were going to, say, Finnegan’s, but it’s still close enough to eat your fill over an hour’s lunch break between classes and still get back to campus in time to find parking.

Finding an Indian buffet relatively close to campus seemed too good to be true, and I warily approached. “Have no fear!” it seemed to say as I drew closer and spied a sandwich board advertising the lunch special. “Can I offer you butter chicken and naan for only $7.99? Will that assuage your doubts?”

Yes, Zaika, it will. As a frugal student, your promise to deliver lunch at under $10 will go a long way.

I had my mind set on the special, but only until the waiter greeted my lunchmates and I and asked if we were interested in the buffet.

Buffet?

It was a hard choice, but quickly made when we spied the hot and pristine buffet table standing to our right like a siren. Our waiter casually mentioned that the buffet was $12, including tax and naan made fresh to order, and the deal was done. There were no regrets.

The buffet was as delicious as it was beautiful. It boasted two meat dishes, four vegetarian, two kinds of rice, samosas and other sides, sauces, chutney, and a sweet almond pudding desert. The colours of the meals were gorgeous, ranging from deep orange to sweet green and hitting all the autumn tones in the middle. The food was hot and fresh, and the waiter carried baskets of fresh naan to us as promised. All of us went back for second heaping plates of butter chicken and paneer, which I had never tried before but now highly recommend – Zaika, you had me at “freshly-pressed cheese”!

Although I was expecting a casual lunch, the atmosphere was almost intimidatingly classy with high artsy chandeliers and dark wood tables and matching chairs.

Despite my nervousness and the sudden awareness that I was wearing a hoodie and jeans, the waiter made us feel right at home without judging my typical student outfit.

True to its claims, Zaika truly is a taste of India in the heart of Abbotsford. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I’m sure you’ll find yourself in need of a decent, hearty, non-judgemental meal at some point in the semester – and Zaika should be first on the list to fulfill that desire.

Book Review

Batman: Noir by Brian Azzarello, illus. Eduardo Risso

JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

“As I pulled on my gloves, I knew before the night was over, they’d be soaked ... in blood!”

After reading that line, I had a single clear thought: Batman: Noir is one of the best graphic novels I have added to my collection in a very long time.

That statement may seem bold, but after reading through this compilation of stories and viewing Eduardo Risso’s beautiful artwork, it isn’t exaggeration.

I usually don’t recommend compilation graphic novels, especially when the content has been collected from other comics separated over several years.

Broken City, the major space holder of the book, was published

back in 2003 while Knight of Vengeance was part of the Flashpoint Event / DC Reboot in 2011. Along with a short story about Victor Zsasz, ironically titled Scars, and a collection of single Wednesday comics, I felt that I should hate it just on principle.

But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, and with each turn of the page, I realized all I was going to do was love it even more. So for those of you who already have the comics in question, this review is similar to the purpose of the novel: to celebrate Risso’s art.

While the stories were written

by Brian Azzarello, a highly acclaimed comic writer, Batman: Noir is all about Eduardo Risso’s artwork. His attention to the details of the characters is amazing to study.

The refurbishing and touch-ups to

the original outlines are extremely crisp, and add fantastic resolution. After having studied identical panels from the original Broken City, the lack of colour just seems right. The hard edges really give a more brutal tone to the panels and add a darker mood than that of the coloured panels.

One of the most impressive feats in the artwork is how Risso addresses liquids. Sometimes comic artists will cheap out, and use red for blood in some cases, but Risso keeps within the guidelines and does it amazingly well. Rain also looks just plain awesome in the panels. Batman is constantly drenched in it and it adds to the rugged pissed-off demeanor of the character.

Something that seems so odd about the novel is that the dia-

logue really makes sense in a noir setting. Batman’s lack of emotion as he brutally tortures Killer Croc to uncover more information and his constant degrading comments about the city he has sworn to protect—or the fact that he will never truly succeed—are unique, and feel so right for the character.

Even when he is comparing his case to a steak he is grilling, it just oozes with noir tonnage. Broken City is already an amazing story despite its simplistic plot line. It borrows much from Frank Millar’s The Dark Knight Returns but still stands out on its own. Knight of Vengeance doesn’t share exactly the same feeling as Broken City in terms of its overall content, but it still feels familiar. The idea of a parallel universe Batman who is instead Thomas Wayne is an awe-

some story and possibly one of the few good things that came out of the infamous 1952 reboot. Thomas Wayne’s brutal conviction and willingness to kill his enemies displays a side of Batman that many fans have secretly wanted for some time.

Batman: Noir is a great book and an example of how simply changing the colour scheme can alter the look and feel of the story. Eduardo Risso’s art is incredible, from the rain-soaked architecture of Gotham to the broken and beaten Batman. It is an expensive purchase, as the deluxe edition is the main book out there, but if you are a big Batman fan, you’ll really want to read this!

16

ARTS & LIFE

CROSSWORD

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Open sesame!

ACROSS 4. To retrieve pickles or jam, you must first open the jar by doing this. (7) 6. Leaving yourself open, possibly to attack. (10) 7. For this, you will require a passcode or a key … or a paper clip. (6) 8. The fly often does this inadvertently. (6) 9. Direct, blunt. (10)

DOWN 1. Straighten out. (6) 2. Many citrus fruits are opened this way, as well as bananas. (4) 3. A way to describe something which has been left open. (4) 5. Cut in half or in sections to reveal the inside. (5) 7. A method used to open something knotted closed. (5) 8. The process by which you would release a clasp. (6)

by KATIE STOBBART

LAST WEEK’S Answer Key Across 1. CROSSWORD 4. HAMMOCK 6. HOTTUB 8. MEDITATE 9. WRITE 11. SUNSET Down 2. WALK 3. CHAT 5. CANDLES 7. GARDENING 9. WINE 10. MUSIC

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Sumas Sibyl Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18:

Gemini: May 21 - June 21:

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22:

Mars is aroused. You may want to avoid him.

Where has the Great Root Bear gone? Where!? You must find him! Follow the dulcet sounds of the tuba…

It’s true. You will be a successful rockstar/actor/writer! Quit school. There are a ton of job opportunities in those fields!

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20:

Cancer: June 22 - July 22:

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21:

No, you’re right. Blackboard has it out for you.

You don’t need to believe in vampires. Vampires believe in you.

Knock, knock. DON’T ask who’s there.

Aries: March 21 - April 19:

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22:

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21:

Your lucky lotto is 20 34 28 9 16 45. Or was that 21 35 29 10 17 46? Something like that. Or not. Probably not.

You’ve been lied to. You have no parents. You sprang fully formed from Zeus’s forehead.

Save the trains! Save the skyscrapers! The looters are coming!

Taurus: April 20 - May 20:

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept22:

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19:

You were meant to start the first UFV Babysitters Club. Ho nanana yeah!

Work on your active learning.

Take all your lecture notes jogging on the spot.

You either will live for the applause… or you’ll die from the applause. Hmm. You might want to avoid performances.

17

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Haute Stuff

Taking a leaf from Macklemore: the thrift shop SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

Last week, I went thrift shopping. I have become a very recent thrift-shop cruiser, and I have a specific way of going about it.

Thrift shopping is very different from shopping elsewhere; here you can’t look for anything specific, but for anything that fits or that you can make fit. It sounds like a beggars can’t be choosers situation, and in a way it is – but in another way it isn’t.

I hit up the skirt section first, and tried on a good armful of them.

One fit nicely and was in great condition, so I put that in my basket. Then came the fated moment where I thought I’d briefly check out the shoes.

I hit a goldmine. I am size 11, and either this place just recently got a whole box of shoes from a woman with size 11 feet, or women with feet my size never shop at this particular thrift shop. But I was in heaven. There were beautiful winter boots in great condition, some boot-cut, some knee-high; there was a gorgeous assortment of heels – vintage tweed, little red suede ... Heaven. I ended up buying six pairs of shoes, four of which were winter boots.

They couldn’t have been worn for more than a year, and with a bit of buffing and polishing they look fantastic. A couple of them are Jessica, a couple Predictions, one is from Reitmans, and one from Ann Marino. Cheapest was $2.50, most expensive was $6. Icing on the cake: the brown knee-high winter

Psych Talk

boots match my skirt perfectly.

Don’t get me wrong. Thrift shopping is no walk in the park.

But when you browse frequently enough, jackpots like mine come along. The key to thrift shopping is to not look for anything in particular. Things will get very frustrating very quickly if you need a very specific white unstained blouse to match your skirt, etc, etc. But, if for the past few months you’ve been picking through various thrift shops around town, chances are you’ve already found a white blouse that fits and matches your skirt.

Things tend to fall into place.

Yes, you’ll probably need to head to a new clothes shop to get some staples in fashion now and then.

But buy a $3.50 skirt once a week (or 6 pairs of shoes!) like I did for

a few months, and your wardrobe will be well fleshed out with quirky, interesting things that you wouldn’t have thought to buy if you were shopping.

And for me, that’s the key. I have a hard time picking out clothes that I think will look good on me, and I have exactly zero style sense.

Shopping at the Bibles for Missions is easy – only a few things fit, and if I like something, then there we go! With few options comes more willingness to try something new, to think outside the box.

It’s like a bookstore. With a huge selection, you tend to just end up in the same sections and genres time and time again. But if a bookstore only has three books to pick from, each from a genre you’ve never read – well, you’re going to try something new, aren’t you?

I’ve also learned to make things work. Things will more than likely not fit perfectly, but there is one foolproof way to work with what you’ve got: the belt. Sweater, shirt, or dress a bit too baggy? Put a belt on and boom: figure-hugging and no longer ill-fitting. Skirts can move up and down your waist depending on length and size. I’ve even worn a long, flowy skirt as a dress, with a belt round my waist.

So keep browsing. Your wardrobe will flesh out beautifully.

Vintage is definitely in, and there are loads of grandparents’ clothing. Try on new things, even if you think it’ll never work. If it looks like it might fit you, try it on!

And, for the ladies with size 11 feet out there ... Don’t bother going to the shoe section. Sorry.

Discussions below the belt

Failing to measure up: Masturbation education Facebook blues VIOLET HART

JENNIFER COLBOURNE CONTRIBUTOR

The Science Does Facebook cause depression? A lot of studies have been investigating this question, and new research from Stony Brook University indicates that yes indeed, Facebook is associated with depression and in a whole new way: through negative comparison on the social media site.

In the study, 268 university students were given a survey, then a follow-up survey three weeks later.

Controlling for general social comparison, it was found that there was a positive association between Facebook social comparison and rumination (compulsive negative brooding) leading to depression.

“Some evidence suggests that individuals tend to self-disclose more positive information about themselves on Facebook compared with ‘real life’ . . . and individuals who spend more time on Facebook are more likely to agree that others are ‘happier’ and have “better lives,’” explained researchers Feinstein et al. in “Negative Social Comparison on Facebook and Depressive Symptoms: Rumination as a Mechanism.”

“As such, given that rumination involves passive and repetitive focus on one’s distress, social comparison may provide ample opportunity to mull over causes and consequences of perceived inferiority.”

Though this new evidence is adding to a body of work supporting the connection between Facebook and depression, there is also a lot of evidence to the contrary. For instance, one recent study this January from Australian Catholic University in Brisbane found evidence supporting the positive effects of Facebook connectedness, finding that “Facebook connectedness had a moderate, positive relationship with subjective well-being; as well as negative relationships with both depression and anxiety” (“Faceto-face or Facebook,” Grieve et al., 2013).

Most of the work done on Facebook so far is largely correlational, and both studies insist that more research needs to be done before anything concrete can be determined. Yet both groups of researchers found a distinct difference between the Facebook social world and the ‘real’ social world, indicating that Facebook has a unique role in human life and a rich field for new research.

You, me, and UFV So… is Facebook good or bad for you?

Facebook research findings have been consistently mixed from the beginning. Really, whether or not Facebook as a whole is negative or positive is just too large of a question to tackle. It’s not like asking whether or not corn syrup is bad for you. It’s like asking if having food from a grocery superstore is bad for you. There may be some differences in quality (more variety at a big shop, but perhaps better food and better service at a small local grocer), but the overall question is unanswerable.

It’s pretty obvious, with almost everyone using Facebook (19 million Canadians, 74% of whom use it daily) and seeing that there has been no raging epidemic of depression and suicide since its founding in 2004, that whatever effect Facebook has is specific and/or subtle, or we would have seen it by now.

But it’s important to investigate Facebook’s various effects in all their details and complexity with so many people’s lives entangled with it.

What it comes down to is how you use Facebook. If you’re negatively comparing yourself constantly to other people, that’s probably not going to have good consequences, as this study shows.

However, if Facebook is a positive tool for you (i.e., a way for you to feel connected, keep in touch, and share news), then it’s hard to say it’s a problem, either.

Like anything, it’s what you make of it.

THE CASCADE

When John Kellogg invented corn flakes, he had more in mind than an iconic breakfast cereal.

Kellogg was passionate about the prevention of masturbation (which yes, he apparently thought whole grains could remedy), blaming masturbation for a host of problems from tuberculosis, epilepsy, paralysis, and poor vision to insanity.

In his book Plain Facts for Old and Young, Kellogg recommended “binding the hands” of small children or “covering the organs with a cage” to keep them from masturbating. He also promoted circumcision “without administering an anæsthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment.” But though circumcision certainly does impair sexual function, it is unlikely that it reduces masturbation any more than cornflakes. Apparently, Kellogg also recommended burning the female clitoris with carbolic acid – certainly effective, though unbelievably cruel.

The puritan prudery of the Victorian era is unmatched, and perhaps Kellogg’s moral zeal should not be surprising. However, masturbation before then was

Image: Wikicommons

John Kellogg epitomized puritan prudery.

long condemned by the Catholic church as a serious sin, along with homosexuality and the use of contraceptives, because it is non-procreative sex; surprisingly, though, there is no direct condemnation of masturbation in the Bible (“Thou shalt not jack off” got missed somehow).

Still, from time immemorial humans have been masturbating, from the Ancient Greek women with their olisbos (leather dildos) to modern people with their fleshlights and vibrators. It’s a natural and healthy behaviour, especially for young people not ready for sex but starting to explore their sexuality. Getting to know your own

body intimately is part of learning and a safe outlet. It’s also awfully handy (pardon the pun) when single or frustrated.

Can you masturbate too much?

Actually, yes. Like all things in life, moderation is important.

Over-masturbation and porn addiction—a very new problem, due to the advent of internet pornography—can have unfortunate consequences. Addicts report numerous adverse symptoms, from physiological damage from friction to loss of interest in real sex and depression.

Does this mean you shouldn’t masturbate or look at porn? No. But it does mean, as with anything, not to go overboard.

At the end of the day, masturbation is not an ideal replacement for intercourse. Research shows that while frequent intercourse increases health and happiness, frequent masturbation does not –of course, because human touch and attachment is one of the most beautiful things in existence (thank you, oxytocin). There are a million love songs out there to attest to the power of love and sex. But if you’re not ready, or intercourse is not a current option for you, masturbation is not a bad second. So feel confident and show yourself a good time. Love thyself.

SummitLearningCentre.ca Serving K-12 & Adult Students

Free High School Courses Prerequisites for Post Secondary Upgrade your Mark on a Prerequisite BC Certified Teachers & Courses

Call Now! 604-820-3333

ible Flex ule. d Sche nytime! ta

Star

1-866-881-1984 Call Now!

18

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Two questions for training camp TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

Where does Burke fit in?

After losing his job with the Toronto Maple Leafs this past winter, Brian Burke got used to life behind the scenes, working as a part-time scout for the Anaheim Ducks for a few months.

Then on September 5, Brian Burke stepped back into the spotlight as the new president of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames.

Burke will act as a perfect counterpart for Flames general manager Jay Feaster in his new role with the team. Whether or not you have issues with the way he does business, Burke has proven time and again that he can restock a floundering organization with young talent and make the team competitive again. Feaster has struggled to do so over the past several seasons, and Burke’s experience in these dead-end circumstances will no doubt help the team’s rebuild process.

As long as the team’s top brass,

which now includes Feaster, Burke, John Weisbrod, and Ken King, can avoid a power struggle amongst themselves, the team can rest assured their executives will get the job done. With the Flames organization’s potential struggles on the ice this season, the last thing it needs is trouble in an overcrowded front office.

At the end of the day, Burke has spent a lot of time in the league, much of it as a high-level executive, and should bring experience and leadership to a young Flames group lacking both.

Now that Kiprusoff has retired, where does that leave the Flames netminding?

No one can deny the important role Mikka Kiprusoff played during Calgary’s dominant years in the Western Conference – he was a workhorse goaltender who dressed for a mind-boggling 514 games for the Flames between 2005 and 2012. At the same time however, his continued presence in the locker room represented everything that was wrong with the Flames over the past several years. Recent incon-

sistent play and a sorry posting of .882 save percentage during the shortened 2013 season signalled the end of the Finnish netminder’s time with the Flames. Maybe the camel’s back was already broken, but Kiprusoff’s poor play and unwillingness to accept a trade gave the organization grounds for implosion.

And with that, the Calgary Flames have a contest in net during training camp for the first time in recent memory.

With no obvious frontrunner to fill Kiprusoff’s position, the Flames have signed five professional goaltenders, all of whom have a shot at the starting position. This battle to see which goaltender distinguishes himself may be the most intriguing on-ice component of the Flames training camp this year, and the battle between Joey MacDonald, Karri Ramo, Reto Berra, and prospects Laurent Brossoit and Joni Ortio could mean difficult decisions for the Flames brass going into October.

Image: Leon Switzer/Flickr

Brian Burke doesn’t mess around.

When life gives you lemons…pour yourself a drink ASHLEY MUSSBACHER CONTRIBUTOR

Everyone’s heard the advice, “drink eight glasses of water per day.” Now, I don’t know about you, but unless I’m on a treadmill I hardly finish half that amount. The taste of water is just plain boring. Unlike coffee, it’s hard to want it. So how do you make your water more appealing without breaking the bank, and without adding a sugary flavouring? I’ll give you a hint: it’s yellow, it’s sour, and it stings if you get it in the eyes.

It’s lemon juice.

Believe it or not, slicing a lemon into quarters, squeezing one section into a glass, and drinking it down with either cold or warm water is not only cheap and tasty, but has significant health benefits. According to a health article on EMR Labs by Ann Heustad, R.N., lemon juice helps with the digestive system and boosts the immune system.

She says in her article, “There are basic lifestyle habits that are important to incorporate into your daily life, and this is certainly one of them.”

Now, I know you might be thinking that this week it’s lemon water, next week it’ll be Tabasco in coffee. The nice thing about drinking lemon and water is that it’s inexpensive. In fact, it’s one of the few recipes that costs more when you make it at home compared to ordering it at a restaurant. A lemon usually costs around 50 cents. UFV’s AfterMath serves water for free. If

5 great health benefits of lemon water: • Vitamin C helps boost the immune system • Potassium stimulates brain and nerve function • Minerals promote clear skin • Acidic juices help balance the body’s pH levels • Improves iron absorption in the body

Image:Ashley Mussbacher

Lemon massacres happen everyday. Seven in 10 Americans have admitted to dissecting a lemon in cold blood. you ask the server for a slice of lemon on the side, they provide it without charge. Total win for the nutrient-deprived student.

As for the health benefits, I’ve been drinking lemon in my water for a little over two weeks now and have noticed a significant change in my energy levels.

I’ve even considered replacing my morning coffee with warm lemon water (crazy, I know).

Coffee causes a crash-and-burn

effect in the early afternoon, whereas if I swap it out for my new favourite beverage, I’m energized until late evening.

According to one health blog (Reboot with Joe), lemon juice “relieves symptoms such as heartburn, belching, and bloating.”

The blog suggests drinking an eight-ounce cup of water with the juice of one whole lemon on an empty stomach if you are experiencing any of the above

symptoms. “While lemon juice itself is acidic,” the blog claims, “it’s actually one of the most alkaline foods available.”

Another interesting effect I’ve noticed is clearer skin. Chocolate is usually a suspect when random pimples break out. It’s nice to know lemon water will clear up the spotty mess on my face after I’ve indulged.

Medical Daily also mentions that since lemon is an antiseptic,

it detoxes the body. However, it also claims that organic lemons should be used. I’ve been using non-organic. I don’t know what that means for me, and I’m not sure whether Aftermath uses organic lemons.

But there you have it. A budget-friendly, beneficial alternative to boring water. Happy drinking.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

19

SPORTS & HEALTH

UFV kicked to the curb: Canada West basketball sees age not ability in establishing two-tier conference PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE

There’s a storm coming, and it’s been coming for months.

In early June, while most students were absorbed in the beautiful dream of tennis, sorbet, and summer romance, or (more likely) working their tails off, Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) was just wrapping up its annual general meeting in fine democratic style. One of this year’s big issues was the future of Canada West, which, having recently added the Grant MacEwan Griffins, will have 17 universities competing in one division by 2014-2015.

Obviously, 17 universities stretched over the entirety of western Canada creates significant logistical and financial challenges for each university and for Canada West itself. Most agreed that a two-division system was needed, yet how to divvy up those 17 teams?

As unfairly as possible, of course.

Actually, that’s a little disingenuous. Not all the universities compete in every sport, and therefore some Canada West divisions will have only 13 or 14 teams instead of 17. For example, UFV fields CIS soccer and basketball teams, yet its volleyball teams play in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). In most sports (such as men’s and women’s soccer) the new divisions will follow geographic lines and hold comparable numbers of teams. It’s only

the new basketball divisions that seem to have been constructed around an entirely different set of concerns — keeping those scruffy new universities (like UFV) far away from the old boys’ club (schools like the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, UBC, and UVic).

According to a June CIS press release, the 2014-2015 men’s and women’s basketball Canada West conference will have two divisions, one with 11 teams and one with 6. The former will consist of every team that was in the conference before 2005, while the latter will consist of all the ‘new’ CIS teams: Thompson Rivers University, UFV, UBC-O, UNBC, Mount Royal University, and the fledgling Grant MacEwan University. The split makes no geographic sense (UVic will face both the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg), and will force each team in the second division to play each other four times to complete the 20 game schedule.

Let me guess, the Toronto vote was 11-6? Actually, that would have been impossible, since four of the newer teams weren’t even allowed to vote because of their status as provisional members.

While nobody is calling it a “tiered” system, the intent is obvious. Canada West basketball has returned to pre-2005 form, relegating everyone else to a secondary league which, while it will continue to grow and mature, is not a suitable placement for an elite program like UFV’s. Perhaps the folks in Toronto didn’t remember, but in

2011-2012 UFV men’s basketball finished fourth in Canada. The women are becoming a regular in the CIS final eight, and all signs point to better things to come. If the new divisions were tiered by any measure other than age, money, and size, UFV would be an obvious inclusion, but apparently that’s too much to ask.

Thankfully, there’s a storm coming. Let’s hope it’s strong enough to wash away this crap schedule.

Chocolate: the treat you really should be eating VIVIENNE BEARD CONTRIBUTOR

I remember the first time someone told me chocolate was good for me. As a chocolate lover, I liked the idea that such a delectable treat could ever be classified as ‘healthy.’ Not easily convinced, I sought to gather a bit more information into the raw facts about chocolate before I took this statement as truth.

After some investigation, I was blown away by the amount of research that has already been done into the truth about this well-known spice called cocoa. I quickly discovered that it isn’t the chocolate itself that presents our bodies with an array of health benefits, but the key ingredient cocoa. Cocoa is what gives chocolate its rich and distinct flavour, making businesses like Purdy’s and Lindor Chocolates multi-million dollar companies today. We all know that cocoa makes our taste buds go wild, but who would have thought it makes the rest of our bodies just as happy?

Cocoa is an immensely rich

Image: Renée S. Suen/Flickr

Cocoa is a rich source of plant compounds called flavanols. source of plant compounds called flavanols. Many studies show these flavanols are directly related to helping protect the heart from cardiovascular disease. Flavanols not only make our hearts happy in this way, but they also aid in lowering blood pressure and increasing blood flow to the heart. In the Neth-

erlands, a study was conducted where researchers analyzed the diets of 470 people over a 15year period. To my delight and to cocoa’s, the study showed that those who consumed flavanolrich cocoa diets were half as likely to die from cardiovascular disease as those with little or no cocoa in their diets.

Researchers in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology found that flavanol-rich cocoa boosted blood flow to the brain.

Why would you want more blood flowing in your brain, you ask? Increased blood flow to the brain means less mental and physical fatigue: definitely a necessity after a long day of studying.

Healthy for our hearts and tantalizing for our taste buds, cocoa has already made its way onto an unlikely, yet pleasing pedestal. However, for chocolate to still provide these beneficial flavanols, it’s important to look for chocolate containing 70 per cent cocoa or higher. If not, the added fat and sugar in the chocolate will steal away any benefits given by the flavanols.

Does all this new knowledge on cocoa mean we can eat chocolate all day long? Alas, that is not the case. Moderation is important when eating any food and sadly, chocolate is no exception. A daily one inch square of 70 per cent chocolate is enough to keep our hearts, brains, and taste buds happily satisfied. Not a fan of dark chocolate? For a

sweet indulgence try making a Mexican hot chocolate. All you need is one-and-a-half tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, one tablespoon of sugar (try using cane sugar – it’s delicious!), a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and a small pinch of ground cloves. Add these ingredients to a mug of hot water (about eight ounces) and sit back as your body enjoys the benefits of flavanols. For those of you without a sweet tooth, cocoa works well in savory dishes as well. Just as cocoa complements the sweetness of sugar in chocolate, it also pairs beautifully with sweet vegetables like carrots or sweet potatoes.

When making a sauce or glaze for these vegetables, add in a spoonful of unsweetened cocoa.

Remember, the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa; the more cocoa, the more heart- and brain- loving flavanols. The more flavanols, the more our hearts, minds, and 40-year-old selves will thank us.

20

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Cascades beat UBC for first time in CIS history, end 27-game unbeaten streak

www.ufvcascade.ca

NATHAN HUTTON

Timeline

contributor

On September 8, the men’s soccer team traveled to Point Grey to take on the mightiest of opponents, the dreaded UBC Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds entered the game as the top-ranked CIS team in the country, having gone 27 games without a single loss. In contrast, the Cascades were barely a blip on the national radar last year with a 5-5-4 season. It was the perfect scenario for fans wanting an underdog story.

Early in the game the incredibly potent Thunderbird offence swarmed the Cascades net, but the strong defence anchored by keeper Mark Village held firm, not giving the Thunderbirds offence an inch. The Cascades had lost an earlier weekend match against the Trinity Western Spartans and were eager to take an aggressive attitude into the game against the T-birds.

In many ways the match was historic. The UBC men had not lost a game since November 2011. To put things in perspective, the last time the Thunderbirds lost a game, the United States was still actively involved in the Iraq war and Kim Jong-il was still alive and doing his thing. The dominance of the UBC squad over the past two years was rewarded with top national ranking and, in 2012, a CIS national title. Consequently, it was easy to assume the Cascades would fall for the 15th consecutive time to their Point Grey opponents.

As the game progressed the Cascades did everything they could to deter the UBC attack.

While it was only thanks to the timely presence of a few crossbars that the game remained

September 17, 2011 – Occupy Wall Street begins in Zucotti Park, New York.

November 6, 2011 – UBC men’s soccer loses a game January 13, 2012 – The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground in the Mediterranean.

July 15, 2012 – K-Pop artist Psy releases the music video for his single, “Gangnam Style.”

Connor MacMillan played a key role for the Cascades in a close, well-fought game. scoreless, it was an effort by the men’s team that many in attendance called the best in their eight-year history.

Apart from Village, the Cascades were anchored by their man of the match Connor MacMillan, who was credited with an astounding 30 tackles in the first half alone. Not only was MacMillan key in taking the ball from UBC players, but he also stood strong and blocked many other shots that the Thunderbirds tried to send past Village.

However it wasn’t until late in the second half with only three minutes left that MacMillan would make his biggest mark on the game. The Cascades had been applying constant pressure on Thunderbirds keeper Ante Boskovic when the ball somehow jetted out towards

MacMillan who fired a line drive shot towards the left side of the net. By the time Boskovic saw it, it was too late.

The UFV players, no doubt sensing the historic nature of the goal, celebrated in front of the Thunderbirds net. With dwindling time on the clock, the Cascade men were cautious and deliberate with their play, protecting the ball and shutting down their offence. Coach Alan Errington was just as nervous as his players, clearly aware of what a victory such as this would mean for his squad.

As the final whistle blew the Cascade men realized what they had just accomplished, achieving what no team had done in almost two years. The players rejoiced and congratulated one another, pure joy on the faces of men who, just for that tiny sliv-

Image: Wilson Wong/UBC Thunderbirds

er of a moment, could feel and act like kids again. In the days following the game, the Cascade men were able to observe clear evidence of their victory as UBC fell from number one in the rankings to number four.

Coach Errington had some comments about the game in an interview a couple of days later.

“On the day we were the better team,” he said. When questioned about the preparation for the UBC match he offered “I’m not asking the players to do anything they’re not capable of. What we do is we go out and play and enjoy the way we do it – we don’t want to defend the whole time.” Coach Errington continued, “[We] don’t try and score, that’s not the object of the game, [we] just play and defend and wait for the time. The opportunities will come.”

September 5, 2012 – Russian President Vladimir Putin leads a migration of endanger Siberian cranes while flying a motorized glider.

March 13, 2013 – Argentinean cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is elected as pope number 266.

May 13, 2013 – The Toronto Maple Leafs fall 5-4 to the Boston Bruins in game 7 after recovering from a 3-1 series deficit.

July 27, 2013 – New species of dwarf lemur discovered in Madagascar September 8. 2013 – UFV men’s soccer defeats UBC 1-0.

Like playing tennis for the very first time CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS CONTRIBUTOR

Sex articles are popular nowadays. It’s the stuff drugstore magazines are made of. But I’m not about to entertain you with anecdotes of my new batterypowered lover. I’m going to tell you about how I lost my virginity to tennis. And yes, it did hurt.

No, I didn’t fall on the racket and end up leaving the emergency room with an awkward story and a comical x-ray photo.

I’m remembering back to the first time I played the game.

My coach explained it as a game that was complex, like chess. I didn’t see how something that was like Pong could be like chess, but I believed him.

It was like golf. I wanted to play because it was something rich people did. My boss and his friends played. Their kids played. They spent a lot of time talking about the politics of matches and the thrill of winning. It seemed like a good place to build up some business contacts and fit in. And hey, I al-

Image: Christopher DeMarcus

Editor’s Note: Don’t tell Chris, but that’s actually a badminton racket. ready had a pair of tennis shoes.

My first problem: the only sport I was good at was football. The main goal as a lineman in football is to be big. Being big lets you master gravity in two ways: stop people or knock them over. Football works on the principle of short and massive power. Snap. Boom. Repeat.

In tennis, gravity isn’t something you master – it’s something you dance with. Flexibility and endurance are the key attributes of each player. My

box-truck frame, balanced poorly on my teacup ankles, did not agree with tennis; we weren’t physically compatible.

Tennis tends to be an upperclass sport like golf, and also like golf, its method is fluid – highly reliant on a class form totally unnatural to me. My body was built to topple and catch things, not to send them back from whence they came.

I needed a math degree to understand where the ball was going. I never got past playing

against my only opponent: a concrete wall. Like a puzzle in quantum mechanics, the ball never went the way it was supposed to go. My body chased after it like a desperate Pacman-shaped bulldog. I could never catch it in time. It was a lot harder than Pong. I expected my first time with tennis to be euphoric. Maybe I was doing it wrong?

I thought if I decided to go all the way, take those first simple steps onto the green court, it would be an entrance into the world of tennis clubs and white polo shirts.

It turns out, like most sports, to enjoy tennis you need to have a knack for it – along with a lot of practice. Some people fall in love with tennis. For some, it doesn’t hurt. For me, tennis wasn’t a sport I could play. It was a complex set of problems coupled with a heart attack, bouncing around in a green and white square of death.

Like sex, tennis looked a lot more romantic on TV.

SCORES SOCCER MEN’S

Sept 12 UFV vs. Winnipeg L 0-1 Sept 14 UFV vs. MRU W 2-0 WOMEN’S

Sept 13 UFV vs UBC T 1-1 Sept 14 UFV vs TWU L 1-2

GOLF Sept 16 Tournament Two Men’s First (564) Women’s First (309)